ainsley

| author | she / her | 8teen |

[batcxves]

masterlist !

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🦇 batcxves 

about the author - hi, my name is ainsley (she/her) and i'm 18 years old :) ! i love batman and writing so i created this account to join those two passions to create something neat that others can enjoy

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REPUTATION -

battinson x f!reader / ongoing series:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 (part one) / 8 (part two) / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson fic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: alcohol, mention of bruises and cuts

a/n: writers block has been real. also I am so hyperfixated on the absolute DILF of a man, doctor stephen strange, which is making it so hard to write bruce. god be with me, and as always, enjoy.

taglist (?!): @darling-imobsessed

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN -

Billionaire Bruce Wayne was now, for the second time, standing in her mess of an apartment. His humble way of blending into the scene as if he lived in the same sort of conditions only made her feel more nervous about his being there. She was pouring a glass of wine as he sat in her small living room, hands tucked between his closed knees as he looked around at the bare walls and the scuffed floors.

As she entered into the room, the stagnant atmosphere became a tad less airy. He held up his hand to stop her as she tried to hand him the second glass of wine that she had poured for him. “No, thank you.” He shook his head slightly, and her frown must have been just as physical as it was mental because within an instant, he added, “I don’t drink.”

“Well, I’m not going to dump it back into the bottle,” She poured part of his glass into her own, filling it a bit more. “Just a little bit. It won’t hurt you, Mr. Wayne. A man such as yourself should take a load off once in a while.” She smiled cheerfully as he accepted the drink, though he sat it off to the side rather than sipping on it.

She hadn’t opened the wine in over a year; it was a gift from Commissioner Gordon as a sort of thank-you for agreeing to cooperate with the GPD on some cases if they needed her to. She wasn’t much of a drinker herself, hardly had time for any guilty pleasures or vices with such a crime-ridden city as Gotham. And what with keeping the Bat off of her ass and out of the big house, it seemed that in the times that she needed a drink the most, she had too much responsibility to have one. So one could only assume the outcome of adding together finely aged wine and a stressed-out woman on an unwilling tolerance break.

They talked about everything. Everything. God, there wasn’t a subject she thought they hadn’t hit on. Perhaps she was just talkative when she had a glass and a half of wine, or perhaps she was finally relaxing after what felt like a billion years of not doing so. And Mr. Wayne, well, she had never found him to be more charismatic. After he had allowed himself the partial glass of wine, he seemed a lot more comfortable and dare she say, happier. He smiled, he laughed, he joked. An entirely different side of him emerged—charming, witty, and funny. This was the side of him that society would have expected of him had his parents not tragically passed away—this was the most eligible bachelor that the city spoke of.

She almost hated it.

She hated how unlike himself he seemed to be. They say that alcohol brings out the realness of a person, but in front of her now was a more superficial persona than that of which appeared on the televisions. It only deepened the curiosity that was nagging at her chest—hiding something, hiding something, hiding something. Bruce Wayne was hiding something. It seemed to be the only thought on her mind, despite the murders and the stabbings and the shootings. Bruce Wayne was hiding something. And she needed to figure it out.

“You certainly know how to play a role.” The laughter had died down a few minutes prior, and being unable to bear his joyfulness any longer, she decided that it was time to go in on him. Making her way into the kitchen for more wine, she felt his eyes on her, intense and questioning. She heard the chair beneath him creak and could only surmise that he had intended to follow her into the kitchen.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” His reply is like a dagger with a jagged edge; he should have known that she’d be onto him, for it wasn’t stupidity that she had earned a PhD in. She spun around to face him, wine glass in hand. It wasn’t just the wine that she was drinking in as she took in the image of him leaning against the very kitchen table that he had laid upon half naked and injured not-so-long-ago.

“God, you are so hiding something.”

In a stroke of confidence, she stalked over to him, crossing the kitchen, and closing the space between them with a solid three strides. Placing a slightly shaking hand on his chest, she looped two fingers in between the buttons of his shirt and pulled downwards. The expensive material of his shirt split with ease before her eyes, buttons popping open one by one. Much to her expectance, fresh bruises and cuts mingled with the ones that were fading and becoming more yellow. His chest could have passed for an abstract painting; blotches of yellowed greens speckled like flowers upon the vast expanse of his broad shoulders, purples, reds, and blues exploding like fireworks in a dark night sky trickled down his stomach to the beginning of his hips and pelvis. She allowed the bruises to speak the words that she dared not say, and the room fell silent in the loudness of their calling.

Hazy in the stupor the wine had held her captive in, she traced a gentle fingertip from dip of his neck, over to his collarbone, and downwards, paying careful attention to touching each and every one of his bruises, scars, and cuts. She could have stayed there for hours, for the rest of her life, for the rest of eternity, tracing each and every inch of his past, manifest upon the canvas of his skin. She felt his watchful eyes on her.

“You are entering dangerous territory, Doctor.” His words were soft, but there was a firmness about them, a seriousness. His shoulders shrugged off what remnants of his shirt still remained on his body, his left hand found its place under her chin and forced her face upward in one swift motion, his right hand cupping the back of her neck to hold her firmly in place, fingers inching into the roots of her hair. “You don’t want to ask questions that you can’t handle the answers to.”

“I am going to find out.” It was a promise, not a threat. She watched a small smirk grow on his lips, almost as if he were challenging her; daring her to try. “You a druggie? A drug runner? Gang member? Gang leader, maybe? That would be kind of hot, actually.”

Before the laugh forming in her throat could reach her lips, he spun their bodies, forcing her back against the surface of the table that he was leaning against a second ago. He hovered over her, face stern, lips pressed in a thin, unamused line. His voice was hardly above a whisper when he finally spoke, and the hand that he had behind her neck now held the back of her head as he had attempted to shield her from hitting the table too hard. “Do you truly think so lowly of me?”

“What do you expect me to think, Mr. Wayne?” Her hands were lying flat against the table as she looked up into his eyes in the dim light. “Billionaires with clean money don’t typically look like they get hit by a damn car every other night.” There was a pause between the two as the weight of the words dispersed into the air. “I could help you, Mr. Wayne, if you’ve got yourself into trouble.” Her hand found its way to his cheek, thumb stroking his skin gently.

“No, Y/N,” His demeanor was much calmer now, much more composed. “No, I don’t need that. I don’t want that.”

“Then what do you want?” She tilted her head beneath him to meet his gaze properly, the hand that was resting on his cheek urging him to meet her eyes. The uncertain look in his eyes questioned her intentions, prompted her further. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” Her eyes were darting back and forth between his, trying to find even an ounce of reciprocation behind his emotionless pupils. “I want to be so much more than you are willing to offer, hell, I doubt you’re even emotionally capable of providing what I need. But that’s okay. Just tell me what you can give me, and I’ll take it.”

His silence was anything but encouraging to her. Here she was, pouring out her heart to a man that she was almost certain would never let her in. She was well aware that she could possibly be running circles around Bruce Wayne for the rest of her life. And at the moment, in this instance, with her hand upon his cheek and his fingers kneading gently in her hair, a life of running in circles around him sounded like the only life she would ever want.

“Will you dance with me?”

The question caught her by surprise. He offered a gentle nod to a record player—outdated, dusty, and never used—that sat across the kitchen on a long-forgotten shelf. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if it worked, let alone if she could figure out how to properly use it. Nevertheless, her heart was pounding at the sweetness and purity of the offer, and who was she to refuse? The century-old saying nagged at her in the back of her mind: beggars can’t be choosers.

She gave him a swift nod, and he carefully lifted her laying body back to its standing position, following her over to the record player. She smoothed a hand over its surface, instantly clapping her hands to submerge the collected dust into the air. She had hardly a selection of records, and by ‘hardly’, a more truthful statement was ‘none’. She had simply what had come with the player, which she had inherited from her mother long ago. She wasn’t even sure what the record was. She remembered, vaguely, in happier days as a child, when her parents would sway and spin each other around to soft music as she watched from the top of the staircase. She was shocked to find that the player started up with hardly any trouble.

“I don’t know how to dance.” She warned, feeling his presence disappear from behind her. As she turns her head to the side, she finds him sipping on the glass of wine she had given him much more fervently now, though his ‘fervent’ drinking seemed to her to be much more like regular sipping.

The record slowly came to life with a few cracks in the sound; a light, static-y blanket of white noise accompanied the flourishing music as Billy Joel’s “Vienna” began to fill the void of silence in her flat. Music had never been played in her apartment, and a small pang of melancholy nostalgia filled her lungs as she remembered her parents; the childish memories of her first impressions of what love was meant to look like were being dusted off and slowly revealed in their glory as the music drifted slowly through each crevice of the open space.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized that he was behind her once again, patiently waiting for her attention. As she turned her body towards him, he placed one hand on her side, just above her hip, tilting his head to properly look her in the eyes as he fumbled with her other hand, intertwining his fingers with hers. She hesitantly placed her hand in the crevice where his neck met his shoulder, thumb caressing his cold, pale skin. Eyelids heavy, she shuffled a step closer to him, weary smile spreading across her face as she realized his serious expression, even in a time in which seriousness was the last emotion one should feel.

“Do you ever smile?” She muttered just above the volume of the music; head tilted lazily upward to make sure she could capture every vision of his face that she could.

“No,” He quipped slyly, a small smirk forming nonchalantly at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t smile, and I don’t laugh either. And, please, don’t ask if I sleep or eat.” His smile grew wider with every word, and he hung his head with a small chuckle.

She replied with a grin of her own, moving her hand up his neck to bring his head back up. They were shuffling around in the foyer, chest to chest, and she slung her arm around the back of his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder to bring their bodies even closer together. She could feel the beating of his heart against her chest, and his body guiding hers felt to her like a ship rocking gently on the sea—if she closed her eyes and thought hard enough, she could almost pretend that they did this all the time. They spun together in a slow, loose circle, feet moving synchronously to the song. She was breathing him in, and she hoped he couldn’t tell—but it was almost impossible not to bury her nose in the dip of his collarbone and inhale, filling every inch of space in her lungs that her body could allow. The hand that rested on her side slowly found its way to the vast space in the middle of her back, palm flat against the curve of her spine. His fingers drew gentle patterns into her clothed skin and held her close, as though he kept his hand there as a security measure, to ensure that she wouldn’t slip away from his fingertips.

She was humming along to the melody as an instrumental break interrupted the words. His hand was gliding gently up and down her back as she began to wonder just how often it was that Bruce Wayne got to endure anything as romantically intimate as a slow dance—and she began to realize that perhaps a dance to him was worth a million kisses; the way he held her seemed to be, in every way, much more telling of his feelings than any peck on the lips. He held her as close to his chest as humanly possible, he held her as though it would be his last time touching a woman—a person—at all, he held her as though they had danced that very dance to that very song a billion times before. He held her as if he cared about her. He held her as though he loved her.

She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of believing such a cruel joke. Even as he parted from her for just a moment, leading her hand upwards to spin her body around in a circle and bring her back to him, she couldn’t allow herself to believe that his feelings were more than anything miniscule. Even as the end of the song neared and he spun her again, this time dipping her body as the music faded away, she wouldn’t allow herself to even think that the pair of them would be in love in that timeline, in that universe, in that instance. Even as her heart pounded in her chest at the proximity of their faces, inches apart, she could hardly admit to herself her own feelings.

It was as though she could envision fireworks exploding behind the silhouette of him. She swore, to God and to Heaven and Hell and to the ends of the Earth, that she had never beheld a more beautiful sight. His eyes, a bright blue, but dark and wavering in the dim light of the foyer gazing at her with unadulterated admiration. His hair, messy and unkept, shirt ripped and opened, tucked into his pants by a single corner. As he stood upwards, straightening his posture, his eyes never left hers. They stood, silent and unmoving, hearts beating as one. She could feel her face moving closer to his and understood that she had no control over it. Millimeter by millimeter, she was closing the space between their lips. Their noses touched, and he retracted himself, hesitant but firm, an inch or so. Her hand gripped the back of his neck like a vice, unwilling to allow him to slip away again.

“It’s okay,” The words eased from her lips in the gentlest of whispers, afraid that anything too abrupt, even the sounding of words, might scare him away, like a fearful deer approaching an open hand.

Their noses pressed together, gently and slowly, as she cautiously ventured across the line of boundary that he had so forcefully drawn nights prior. Her thumb rubbed comforting circles into the back of his neck and her lips parted, praying that she could mask her inexperience.

“Please let me kiss you, Bruce.”

It was impossible to miss the instantaneous change in his demeanor. The way his name, his true name rolled off of her lips, hesitant, gentle, yet confident and sweet like honey. His resolve was melted, complete molten ash under her fiery-hot fingertips, utterly at her disposure. He didn’t say yes, didn’t nod, didn’t give her an answer at all. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about it too much, to psych himself out of it. He wanted her too much.

The instant that their lips brushed one another was like fireworks exploding in a dark summer’s night sky. Deafening and powerful, though it began as just a hesitant brushing of their lips against one another. It took less than a second for him to pull her in, eliminating all space between the two of them. He stumbled backwards, his back leaning against the island bar separating the kitchen from the foyer.

When she pulled away, her fingertips curled into the roots of the back of his hair, she was in a daze. His kiss was a million times more intoxicating than all the wine she had consumed. His gaze into her eyes was deep, and a tinge fearful. He was trying desperately to hide it, but she wouldn’t have ever missed it. As curious as she was of it, she could only think about the taste of wine on his lips, and the somehow familiar smell of his cologne, which made her think of long, dark nights out in the city with the Bat.

The Batman.

God, could she go a fucking instant without him on her mind? With the billionaire in front of her, having just kissed him after pining over the moment for days, dreaming of it both in night and day, her mind wondered where the masked man was in that instant. She had to physically shake the thoughts of the vigilante out of her head, but she could barely get control of the flashbacks of her kiss with him. The way he held her in his gloved hands, the way his jaw worked his lips against hers, all of it clouded her mind.

“I have to go,” His thumb swiped along her jaw as he frowned apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

All she could do was nod, feeling speechless and weak in the knees at the reality of it all. Her heart was pounding in her chest as he slipped past her, the feeling of his hands lingering painfully on her body like a first-degree burn. The sun had long set, the lighting in her flat barely sufficing to properly see. Her elbows rested on the kitchen island as she hung her head, hearing the door shut behind her. Had she done something wrong? The familiar feeling of dreadful insecurity filled her stomach, as heavy as lead. She couldn’t tell if her heart was fluttering with bliss or palpitating with aching pain. She lifted her head to gaze out the slightly gapped blinds at the glistening light of the moon. Much to her dismay, the clouds from the passing rain had enveloped the moon in their darkened blankets, floating slowly through the dark canvas of the sky. Where the moon had once shone, instead shone a weak, off-yellow oval, a dark symbol carved into its center.

Tonight, like most nights, the Bat Signal replaced the moon. Tonight, like most nights, the Batman replaced the majority of her thoughts.

[batcxves]

hi! wondering if you have a masterlist??? thank uu

just made one! it's my pinned post :))

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: littlebitofsexualtension

a/n: feeling like this chapter is a bit longer than usual, which you guys deserve since it’s been a hot minute since I uploaded. upon request, I will try to get together a masterlist for this story, but please be patient because I am so bad at being on tumblr. thanks everyone & enjoy :)

. . .

CHAPTER TWELVE -

She felt that he was forcing a coat onto her, but it wasn’t the one that she had arrived in. It was darker than hers, black. And it was twice her size. She opened her mouth to refute his attempt at chivalry, but the nervous twitch in his jaw stopped her. She allowed him to ease his large coat onto her, arm by arm. She thanked him quietly, stomach turning as his hand lingered on the bicep of her arm for a moment too long. He remained coatless, but when he stepped out into the rain, he opened an umbrella and held it right outside the doorway, inviting her to walk underneath it. She quickly obliged, deciding not to argue since he was being rained on more by the second.

He led her down the pathway to a classic looking black car, and the sight had her heart pounding. She knew that he had money, more money than she would ever know what to do with, but as she saw his home, saw his beautiful car, she couldn’t help but to feel belittled by his possessions. She, too, had money, enough to get by and then some, but apart from her public appearances, she never felt the desire to buy herself expensive objects. She never felt the desire to live larger than she felt. And in her mind, she was still a rugged student, sleepless and determined, trying to make ends meet. Perhaps a part of her reasoning was her guilt. The idea that the money she had earned from cases was not truly hers; guilt that the attention she received was not truly for her, but for the man behind the mask that every cop had come to loathe. Every good cop, at least.

She shook the thoughts away as Mr. Wayne opened the passenger side door for her. She climbed in with ease, with grace, as if she had been practicing for the moment her entire life. Everything about being in that expensive of a car felt wrong, especially when the car belonged to Prince of Gotham, Bruce Wayne. The car had a black interior, just the same as the exterior, and it was rather plain. It smelled exactly like him, or perhaps that was the coat she was wearing. His coat. She was in a daze.

“It’s beautiful.” She said the words in a slow exhale, drowning in his scent. He gave her a small, lopsided smile, and though it was gone in an instant, it didn’t go unnoticed by any means. He didn’t reply verbally, just started up the car and smiled again, and more this time, as she gasped when the engine roared to life. He reached behind her head and grasped the headrest of her seat while he crooned his body to back out of his long drive.

And God, the way he looks, jawline sharp, eyes dark, lips pressed into a firm line as he concentrates… she could just imagine the veins in his hand that gripped the seat, imagine the knuckles and the long, slender fingers. “Um, Mr. Wayne,” She was attempting to distract herself from her wandering mind. The rain was tapping incessantly against the roof of his car, and the noise of the windshield wipers going back and forth was the only sound as she tried to string together an utterance of small talk. Her eyes landed on the hand that gripped the steering wheel. She couldn’t escape her attraction to him. Fuck.

“I’ve told you,” He eased to a stop and pressed a button on his rearview mirror, and the big, black iron gates that sat outside the manor slowly swung open. “It’s Bruce. Please.” She shook her head quickly; none of that felt right. She saw him as astronomically beyond her, the Prince of Gotham and she were not on a first-name basis. Not only that, but she felt as though a first-name basis created a false reality in her head. A reality in which they were more than what they truly were.

“Mr. Wayne.” She affirmed. She leaned back against the headrest and eased her eyes closed; she hadn’t felt so at peace with her eyes closed in weeks. She could fall asleep, right then and there, within the safety of a man that she hardly even knew. Something about him, about his eyes, his smell, his rough, but soft voice… something, no, everything about him was screaming to her, telling her that she knew every bit of him before she had even spoken a word to him at the banquet that wretched night. Though she knew next to nothing about him, about his story, about his whereabouts, she trusted him, completely and wholly. With her eyes closed, she could feel the bumps in the road as he drove smoothly, navigating the streets of Gotham with ease, though she was positive he hadn’t really ever gone out in them, let alone drive himself through them. Still, it seemed that he knew the city better than the back of his own hand. God, his hands.

She allowed, for just a fraction of a second, her mind to wander to a deeper depth, her eyebrows knitting together as she clenched her eyes shut in imagining. She pictured his suit, dark and classic and sleek, and his cufflinks, engraved with a W for his surname. She imagined him discarding his suit jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, loosening his tie. His forearms bare, he was adorned with many bruises and scars, but God did she love that about him. The mystery of him; a puzzle for her to piece together. She gripped at the leather of the seat, gently, as to not wrinkle it, but more so that he would not notice it.

Never in her life had she touched a man, nor a woman, nor any person at all, let alone have a person touch her. She was a virgin, but not tied to it by any religious or personal moral means. The same way that she had never shared a kiss with anyone, she was simply a busy woman. Studying, excelling in her field, and working to make ends meet while she strived towards her degree, how would she ever find time to let a man lay her? But as virginal and perhaps even pure as she may be, one thing was becoming increasingly harder to ignore, and it was in that moment that the realization came to her: she wanted nothing more than for Bruce Wayne to jump each and every one of her inexperienced bones. From the very moment she had ripped his shirt open as he bled onto her kitchen table, she had wanted him to take every ounce of her being and keep it.

Noticing the tenseness of her figure in the passenger seat, he came to a slow stop on the side of the road. “Are you alright, Y/N?” God, she couldn’t handle him saying her name right now.

“Carsick.” Was all she could manage, and the half of it was true—she hated being in the passenger seat of a car, it seemed to make her feel queasy without fail every time.

“Would you like to drive instead?” His voice was quiet, gentle, though the proposition was perhaps the most intense thing he had ever said to her. Her? Drive his beloved, beautiful car?

“Mr. Wayne!” She gasped and her eyes opened at once. “Are you crazy?” Though the idea seemed much more appealing to her; perhaps driving was the cure to her wandering mind, focus on the road could ease her brain. Her eyes wandered down to the gear shifter—it was a manual transmission. “I couldn’t, it’s stick—”

“Please,” He laughed. “If I can do it, surely you can, too. You have a PhD after all,” He commented, and his hand reached out, hesitantly, nonetheless, to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. Her cheeks were burning at the intimacy of it all—the offer to drive his father’s car, the sudden touch to her face… was it possible that she was not the only one feeling such an intense emotion in her chest?

He got out of the car almost immediately after he retracted his hand from her face, perhaps feeling embarrassed about his actions. Her door was opened for her in an instant, and his hand was pulling her outwards by her forearm. Her eyes read unwavering uncertainty as he peered into them, and he smiled reassuringly. “Empty streets today.” He commented lowly, “We’ll go slowly.”

The look in his eyes, the tone of his voice, and his lingering grip on her arm had her mind running in circles around him, swallowing hard as she made her way to the driver’s side. As she slipped inside, the first thing that she noticed was that the seat seemed to be back extremely far. Was it possible that she had never really realized how tall he was? She shook the thought away as she fumbled her hand underneath and around the seat, trying to find the lever to adjust her position. “Here,” He offered, and he leaned towards the driver’s side, reaching in between her shins to pull a lever underneath the seat to pull her closer to the wheel. His elbow brushed against the lower end of her thigh, almost her knee, as he assisted her in adjusting her seat, and absolutely nothing about the situation was helping her to ease her nerves as she had previously thought it would. As he pulled his hand away from under her seat, he lingered in the position for just an instant too long, palm of his hand brushing fully against her thigh as he rushed to back away.

She placed her hand onto the gear shifter, though her thoughts were not exactly composed enough to be operating a vehicle, let alone one of the plethora of vehicles owned by Bruce Wayne. She noticed that he had not buckled his seatbelt, and that was somewhat alarming to her, though she appreciated the trust that he had in her to successfully operate the car without crashing. Slowly and gently, he eased his hand on top of her own, his stiff body turned completely towards her as he tried to surmise whether or not she was comfortable with his hand on hers.

Meanwhile, she felt as though her entire being was vibrating with a frequency of energy otherwise unobtainable by humankind without the aid of powerful, powerful drugs. Her stomach was fluttering in ways she couldn’t possibly begin to understand, and she wondered if there was any way that he could feel the heat coursing through her pulsing veins.

Like any other words he ever said, his directions were quiet yet firm, and gruff. He was muttering—he had a muttering problem—but with each direction, he tightened his grip on her hand a bit more and guided her hand through the gears. Rain poured against the windshield and the car held an eerie silence as the only sound ringing out was that of the gears shifting.  His instructions were simply a murmur in her ear; she would learn absolutely nothing over the pounding of her heart and the rushing of blood in her ears.

His hand was freezing, and she would have almost minded if it were not for the heat radiating off of her warming him up quickly. His hand wasn’t exactly loose on hers, but it wasn’t squeezing her either. A gentle touch, as she expected nothing less from him, yet firm movements emerged when appropriate. Her heart stopped beating for a fraction of an instant as she felt his thumb swipe across the back of her hand, moving from the bottom of her finger, across her knuckle, and stopping in the middle of the back of her palm. A warm shudder was creeping up her spine and her arm erupted in goosebumps. It took every ounce of concentration in her being to focus on the road and not crash his beloved father’s car. Mind fogged, she hadn’t even realized that she had passed her apartment complex.

“Slow down, darling,” He reminded her in a hushed voice. And there it was again. Darling. She pressed on the brake a bit harder than she had intended to, feeling a bit queasy at the name. He couldn’t help but to chuckle as she muttered an embarrassed apology, pulling a U-turn in an empty parking lot to finally finish the escapade by pulling his car up to the curb of the dingy-looking building. “You should find a new place.” His gaze wasn’t fixed on her as he spoke, but rather on a pair of men that stood in the dimly-lit alleyway, looking a little too intrigued with the car that the two of them sat in.

“Ha,” She laughed dryly, “If I wanted a hero, I would have called the Bat.” The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them, and the pair met each other’s gazes, both a little wide-eyed. “The Batman,” She corrected the nickname quietly, removing her seatbelt and fidgeting with her hands in her lap.

“The Batman?” He tilted his head inquisitively. “The sworn enemy of a cop, your hero?” An amused smile played at his lips as he leaned to meet her adverted eyes.

“Not my hero.” She clenched her jaw and turned to meet his eyes, trying her best to keep a serious face, though she could feel her cheeks burning slightly. “And I’m not a cop.”

“Can I come up?” He suddenly asked, and each member of the pair seemed equally relieved to have changed the subject.

“I told you, you shouldn’t see me anymore.” Her voice was firm, though a fluttering sensation erupted in her stomach at his words.

He laughed, a real, genuine laugh, completely unphased by the entirety of the situation. The stabbing, the threats against his life, it all seemed to be insignificant to him. Yet another piece of the puzzle, she noted; his inexplicable apathy towards endangering himself. She was unravelling him, she knew she was, and little by little she was determined to piece him together. He was hiding something, something big. Bigger than her and her girlish curiosity, she was sure. Amid being targeted by a man aliased the Riddler, it appeared more and more evident to her that the biggest riddle of all sat beside her in the car, asking her permission to come into her apartment. Again. After a pause of silence that felt like an eternity, a knowing smirk grew on his lips, indicating a knowledge far beyond her.

“I’m not afraid of a man in a mask.”

[batcxves]

Please, this is such a good story create a masterlist so it can be reblogged easily.

thank you!!! I will work on it! :))

[batcxves]

love your profile pic 💕

thanks :)) <3

[batcxves]

updates coming soon!

hi all, thanks for the continuous support. I just completed my finals today and will be dealing with some graduation stuff, so updates (as you may have noticed) will be a bit slower. thanks :))

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: murder stuff, some daddy issues, kind of angsty, this slow burn is agonizingly slow I know but we will get there I promise

a/n: I am sorry for the wait, but I have been working really hard on this I promise! we will see some intense bruce x reader very very soon and that is not a threat, it’s a promise :)))))) enjoy !!

. . .

CHAPTER ELEVEN -

She couldn’t remember when it had started to drizzle; her adrenaline was keeping the entirety of her body from feeling the world around her. All she could think about was the knife in the envelope that she had now clutched so tightly that it was beginning to rip. It wasn’t particularly cold out, but it wasn’t very warm either. The sky was overcast and grey with a few rays of bleak sunlight pushing through the blanket of clouds in the sky. Her long brown overcoat was starting to make her sweat, but she didn’t care.

All she could think about was Mr. Wayne.

The Riddler had stabbed him the night prior. She wondered what Mr. Wayne had really been doing near her side of town that night. But it was unimportant. He had fallen right into the palm of the man who wanted her dead, and therefore, wanted everyone she cared about dead. Any fool could tell that she and the billionaire had a sort of connection; he had helped save her life for God’s sake. If he hadn’t been there to catch her when she tumbled off of the stage at the banquet, she would have most definitely suffered severe head trauma on top of her gunshot wound. Her shooting was the perfect crime, but he had kept her head from hitting the ground.

She was running through the streets of Gotham, eyes set on the Wayne Manor atop the hill that overlooked the city. She had to tell him the truth. He needed to stay away from her; stay away from everyone. He was in danger. She could possibly handle the burden of the mayor’s death lying in her hands, but not him. Not Mr. Wayne. Anyone but Mr. Wayne. The hill to the manor was steep, and her legs were burning with the desperate wish of stopping. But she couldn’t. She was running as fast as she could, though in the back of her mind she knew him to be in no immediate danger. The danger, for the most part, had passed. He suffered the stabbing the night prior. He was fine, almost unfazed, even. She wondered what he was hiding behind all of the toned muscle on his bones and jagged scars on his skin.

She ran straight into the large doors of the manor and pounded on the door with every ounce of her body screaming desperation. Perhaps a part of her was just tired of hiding. Perhaps a part of her was just tired of hiding from him. She needed to tell him. Everything. Somebody had to know. The thoughts, the images, the guilt… it was all eating at her like a parasite that had no cure. She knew it to be unfair to place her guilt unto him, but she couldn’t help it any longer. She needed the release. She needed to be free from the poison of all the secrecy built up behind her weary eyes.

It wasn’t very long until she found herself looking into the soft, friendly eyes of a gentleman that she didn’t recognize. She had almost believed herself to be at the wrong house, until she realized that it was the Wayne family’s butler. She had only heard of him, had never seen him. He seemed to be the complete opposite of everything Wayne. Gentle, gray eyes and a warm, comforting aura about him, he seemed as if he wouldn’t be so much as within a fifty-foot radius of Mr. Wayne.

“Doctor L/N?” He greeted her with an astounding amount of confusion in his voice, and for good reason. No one visited the Wayne Manor. It was an unspoken rule of sorts. She was surprised there was an answer to the door at all.

The way he knew her name made her falter. The words died on her tongue, and it seemed that all she could do was gape with an open mouth at the gentleman. “Mr. Wayne,” She finally managed, “I need to speak with him, sir, it’s very, very urgent.” She didn’t need to emphasize the word very to allow him the knowledge of the importance of the matter; the speed and panic in her voice spoke the volumes that accentuation of words could not.

“I’m afraid he’s not in.” The butler frowned deeply and the disappointed look on his face told her all that she needed to know: he was in, he just wasn’t in.

“Why not,” Her voice broke then, wavered as she felt a wave of strong emotion come over her. She was about to vomit all of the words that she had been holding back for weeks, all of the secrets and the lies, and the poor butler was about to bear witness to it. Her breaking point was nearing. She had never wanted anyone to die, anyone to get hurt, especially not him. “Please,”

“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and resumed the original professional state he had previously exuded, and just as his hand moved towards the large door’s handle, she saw a tall, dark figure approaching in the hallway behind him.

“Alfred,” Mr. Wayne’s raspy, tired-sounding voice floated through the air between the hallway and the doorway. As he came into view, he tilted his head to see past the butler. “Doctor?”

“Mr. Wayne, please, I need to talk to you.” She noticed the dark circles under his eyes were much more prominent than usual; perhaps he had just woken up. He looked at the butler, Alfred, and gave him half a nod, and that was enough. He moved his body, granting access to the manor. He took her coat instantly, and she could tell that he had been serving the Waynes for years. She politely thanked him, though part of her wanted to keep the coat on in the stagnant, cold air of the manor.

Everything about it screamed Mr. Wayne. It was dark, the large windows drawn shut with large, fancy-looking blackout curtains. Hell, it would have been completely dark if it hadn’t been for the dim lighting of an ancient-looking chandelier that hung quite a few feet above them. The entire place had a cold, dry air to it. It wasn’t comforting, not in the slightest, but she felt much more comfortable inside than outside in the drizzling rain. She quickly ran her fingers through her wet hair as she followed Mr. Wayne through the hallway that he had emerged from. He had the slightest limp, and she never would have missed it, grimacing as she thought of the story behind it. Her eyes were watching his hips as he walked in front of her, swiftly, of course, because nothing about Mr. Wayne was slow-paced. Except maybe his emotions.

It wasn’t until the pair of them had entered what appeared to be the library, that the adrenaline had worn off. Taking in a deep, ragged breath, everything came out all at once: “Mr. Wayne, you’re in danger and it’s all my fault, and it is such a long story but all you need to know is that the mayor was killed and that might be my fault too and the man who shot me is behind all of this. He wants you hurt, wants everybody I know hurt and it’s all because he knows that I am working with—mmph—”

His hand was covering her mouth before she could have even registered the fact that he was moving towards her. His eyes were telling her everything that she needed to know; he was calm. He didn’t appear to give half of the damn she thought he would, and something about that had an ache growing in her heart. He didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend the severity of it, she was sure.

“Shh,” He shushed her lowly, cupping her cheek with his hand as soon as he was sure that she was done rambling. “One thing at a time, darling.”

If he were any other man, she would have slapped the shit out of him. Darling. The way the word came off of his tongue was so rough, so foreign, but felt so right, nevertheless. She almost hated the way that he made her feel small; the hot shot doctor of criminology brought to her knees by the brooding man with money. But at that moment in time, she found herself nodding into the palm that was holding her jaw, agreeing to take everything nice and slow for him.

In an instant she had herself collected, though his hand on her jaw was threatening to pull her apart. She shrugged him off and moved past him, nearly ripping the envelope in half with the speed and force at which she was trying to open it. She dumped the note out onto a table that had been propped against a bookshelf, the knife clanging against the surface of it in the dim light. “This,” She said slowly, “Look familiar?” She inched closer to him, bringing the blade down towards his hip, simulating the action of him being stabbed. “I don’t know a quarter of anything about you, Mr. Wayne, but I know that this knife was in your body last night. Conveniently, it has been gifted to me, God bless, by the man who killed the mayor bright and early this lovely morning.” The blank look in his eyes as she spoke was egging her on; she was determined to learn something, anything about the man before her. “I don’t know what you were doing last night, Mr. Wayne, but you’ve gotten yourself into something that is much bigger than you know, and now you have made yourself into a target.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Doctor, I’m sorry.” His response was dry, and he tilted his head back, easing it in each direction to crack his neck. He took a step forward to examine the note that lie on the table, inching himself closer to her. He was hovering behind her, she could feel his eyes raking across her bad shoulder, could smell him. God, there was something so familiar about him. “It looks like you’re the one who’s made yourself into a target, Doctor.” Her fist clenched and she willed herself not to turn around and snap at him, because her nose would certainly touch him, he was that close. She was almost uncomfortable at the proximity of their bodies, and the fact that she had begged him to kiss her the night prior wasn’t any aid to her. He had resumed his professionality, or perhaps it wasn’t professionality to him at all. Perhaps he always had that arid, awkwardly silent presence about him. Unspeaking, unwavering, and uninterested, everything about him was almost bland. His eyes, on the other hand, his story, his scars… there was something more to the front he put up. There had to be.

“Inadvertently, Mr. Wayne,” She paused to side-step away from him, unable to stand his closeness to her any longer. “Your… relationship… to me,” She paused again, physically cringing at her choice of words as his eyebrows lifted suddenly upwards. “You’ve made yourself a target.” She concluded, turning away from him with a sour look on her face, frustrated. She ran her hand over an expensive but old looking armchair that sat against one of the large bookshelves. It looked awfully dusty in the dim lighting, and she allowed herself to wonder if he ever put it to use.

“It was my father’s,” He must have noticed her thoughtfulness as he approached her from behind once again. He ran his hand against the bookshelf it sat against, quickly clapping his hands together to rid them of the dust that he had collected. “He was a doctor, too.”

“Dr. Thomas Wayne,” She quickly nodded, looking over her shoulder at him. “An actual doctor of medicine.” She didn’t miss the slight upward twitch of his lips and prided herself on it. “It’s beautiful.” She whispered. “And impressive.” She took a step back, feeling the space between them growing smaller. She tilted her head upwards and looked in awe at the hundreds of books that filled the bookshelves. All for naught, she thought, he has no one to read them.

“Alfred reads the books, don’t worry.” He had read her mind. “When he finds the time. If you ever want to borrow one, you may.”

Her heart warmed. He was so sweet when he tried to be, though how hard he had to try to effectively be sweet was beyond her. He shifted awkwardly behind her, putting his hands in his pockets. She knew that everything in her was itching to be back on task, grill him some more over his whereabouts during his stabbing, but she found tremendous peace in participating in the arbitrary conversation.

“My father was a cop.” She felt the need to reciprocate the talk of parents, though she never talked about her parents. “In a faraway city.”

“Is that why you’re a cop?” He asked, and for a moment, she met his eyes and chuckled.

“I’m not a cop, Mr. Wayne. I don’t work for a police department.” She tilted her head, mimicking his actions as he crooned his neck to look at the temporary badge that Gordon had given her to go into the mayor’s house. She plucked it off instantly, feeling nervous. “That’s different.”

“Then why do you do what you do?” It was a much heavier question than he could have ever known, she thought.

Her father was a cop in a faraway city. Just not a very good one. He was a dirty cop; he was involved in the very drug ring that he was meant to be busting, and the instant that they suspected he was no longer on their side, they ordered her mother to be killed. Her father was quickly found out and he was in jail no longer than a month before he was murdered by another inmate.

“Just trying to do some good.” She replied after a few moments, thinking about her mother. She was young, hardly old enough to any better about her mother or father, and so instead of feeling a heavy ache in her heart where the love of her parents was meant to be, she felt only emptiness.

Some good she was doing. What was she now? An investigator that owed her success to a vigilante. A liar whose hands were covered in the blood of the mayor. A puppet of a deranged murderer looking for his piece of justice. She was hardly any better than her father.

She saw his eyes flicker for the slightest moment and realized that he probably knew exactly what she felt. But they were not the same. His father was a hero, and hers was the villain.

“Mr. Wayne?” Her voice was quiet, and she sighed. His eyes met hers attentively and a chill ran down her spine. A wave of déjà vu washed over her mind, and she rubbed her weary eyes as images of the Bat flashed in her mind. Their eyes were strikingly similar, tired and worn-down, yet still strong and cold as ice. She chalked it up to her exhaustion. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had a good night’s sleep. She had only ever seen the Bat in the darkness, anyways. “How is your stomach?”

“I’m sorry?” His lips parted and his eyes darted back and forth, and she nearly laughed out loud at how animated his thinking process was.

“Your stab wound. God, Mr. Wayne, are you really that desensitized to it?” Her eyebrows came together in a frustrated state of confusion. “I just can’t figure you out.”

He didn’t reply, and she took that as an opportunity to gather her things. The air had grown a bit colder, and her hair had become frizzy after air-drying from the rain in the stagnant air of the manor. She was a doctor, after all, and she could tell when she had overstayed her welcome. She saw his lips open, and then close again, as though he wanted to say something and then decided against it. She hurriedly tried to gather her paper and folder from the table when she felt him suddenly grab her wrist. As she struggled in his grasp in an attempt to keep the Riddler’s note from him, he easily overpowered her with one arm and plucked the paper out of her grasp. She struggled to get it back from him. “That’s confidential.”

“This is from the mayor’s house?” He looked at her with the same concerned face that he had worn at the banquet when he had caught her. The look gave her shivers; he could be so concerningly serious looking at times. She didn’t reply, and he took her silence as a confirmation to his question. “This is about me,” He narrowed his eyes as he read it again. He shook his head. “He’s targeting people close to you. But why?” She tried again to snatch the paper out of his hands and tore a piece of it off in her attempt.

“Mr. Wayne.” She said again, much more sternly this time. He digressed and returned her the paper, flashing her stone-cold eyes with lips pressed in a firm line. “I’ll be leaving now, Mr. Wayne. I just…” She trailed off, remembering the panic that had ripped through her the instant that she realized the purpose of the knife. She adverted her gaze and chewed on the inside of her lip. “Please don’t stop by anymore. Thank you, for everything. Everything.” She emphasized the word, hoping that he understood that she wasn’t shrugging him off. Business was business, and if there was anyone that would understand such a concept, she assumed it to be Bruce Wayne.

Without another word, she rushed to the door of the library and heaved it open. She mimicked Mr. Wayne’s movements from when he had originally led her there and found her way back to the entryway of the manor. As she tried the knob of the door and pulled it towards her, it didn’t budge.

“Please, let me drive you.” Mr. Wayne’s voice came from behind her, his large hand holding the door shut as she tried to open it. “You’ll catch a cold. It’s pouring.” He removed his hand and allowed her to see for herself; the door came creaking open and large raindrops found her immediately, splashing onto the stone sidewalk and into the manor, gathering at their shoes. She could already imagine it now: if she would walk home in such conditions, be seen with matted hair and running makeup after being shot, the media would eat her alive. Drug use, mental illness, anything negative that they could think of, they’d apply to her. They were in the business of bullshit, after all. And Mr. Wayne, as much as she would rather part from him in order to keep him safe, was her only option.

“Mr. Wayne, please,” She shook her head, wanting nothing more than to not be a burden to him.

“I’m insisting.” 

[batcxves]

girllll !! when we getting the next chapter of reputation ?? i’ve been checking everyday this week !! hopefully you continue i love it so far (: 🖤

aww this is so sweet and I'M SORRY IVE BEEN WORKING ON SOME JUICY JUICY THINGS DONT YOU WORRY THE WAIT IS GOING TO BE WORTH IT

edit:::: tomorrow at 10 am I am releasing the next chapter !!!

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: a murder scene, a shocking realization

a/n: oh just you wait until this all ties together

. . .

CHAPTER TEN -

“Dr. F/N L/N.” She flashed the badge that Gordon had given her, which granted her access to the crime scene, as well as anything that she needed in the police department. A line of sturdy looking men quickly parted to allow her into the mayor’s townhouse, moving back immediately as she passed them to avoid the media catching sight of anything they didn’t need to.

Taking slow, careful steps through the entryway of the home, her stomach was churning. Never before had she felt so sick over a case. Her heart was thudding in her chest as she looked from wall to wall; the words no more lies were spray-painted over and over again on what was once the beautifully wallpapered house of the mayor. She made her way through the swarm of police officers and into the mayor’s office, where he sat at his desk, eyes cold and empty. His hand was placed carefully onto the surface of the desk, where the note that was addressed to her lie. She snapped on a pair of gloves quietly, afraid to disturb the eerie silence of death that had left a stagnant air in the room. She used her index and middle fingers to drag the envelope out from under his hand, careful to not move his body. The large manilla folder was heavy, looking rather thick towards the bottom.

She couldn’t help the ragged gasp that tore through her chest and out her mouth as she realized the blood on the envelope as she grasped it. She pulled her hand away, shaking it as if she could get it off. The envelope dropped back to the desk with a thud, and she drew a shaky breath as she flexed her shaking hand. His blood was on her hands. Literally. The irony of it was enough to erupt a hysterical laugh from her chest, but she caught it in her throat, not allowing it to pass her lips. She took the envelope once more from the desk and made away with it, moving across the house to a more secluded room to read it in peace. It hadn’t been dusted for fingerprints, but she knew that the Riddler wouldn’t be that stupid. She didn’t care, anyways. She needed to be the one to find him—to kill him. He couldn’t live, not with the information that he had.

She couldn’t remember the exact moment that realized she would have to kill him, because the thought had been lingering in the back of her mind the entire time. Perpetrators like the Riddler were simply squealing pigs. Eager to be heard, eager to be recognized; doing anything to get their piece into the mix. If he were to be apprehended by police, she’d be done. She wouldn’t let that happen. The thought of it alone had her heart pacing, had her feeling grimy with guilt. She made quick work of opening the envelope, and similarly to the first note, as well as the door of the mayor’s house, the Riddler’s emblem shone in red ink under the envelope’s flap.

One by one, the pigs’ houses fell.

Of straw, of sticks, of bricks as well,

The wolf will bring all of the pigs to hell.

Not exactly a riddle, she noted, but puzzling nonetheless. She reached into the bottom of the envelope to take out the rather bulky item within. A large plastic bag was wrapped around the object, and when she tugged on the end to unravel it, the sound of metal clanging onto the tiled floor had her reeling upwards to guard the door from any unwanted guests who may have heard. When she determined that the coast was clear, she shifted to examine the object that the Riddler had gifted her. Her heart sank as the morning sunlight gleaming through a window caught the shiny metal of a blade. Short and wide around the handle, the knife’s blade was stained with old, dried blood. She felt as though her stomach would upturn as she bent over to pick it up. She turned it over in her hand for only a moment before she could bear it no longer and quickly stuffed it back inside the envelope, hurrying out of the room and back into the swarm of police.

She needed to get out of there; it was becoming hard to think, hard to breathe. The Bat was right. It was too personal. She had tried to get involved against her better judgment, and now the mayor of Gotham was dead in his home office. She needed to go home and pack her things, leave and get rid of the weapon that was now in her possession—

“Doctor!” Gordon’s voice sounded through the house as he called out to her. The room fell eerily silent as it seemed that everyone’s attention turned towards the woman whom the mystery letter was addressed. “Where are you going?” He was quieter now as he approached her.

She felt on edge, felt as though she couldn’t tell him that the Riddler had gifted her the very weapon he had used to kill the mayor. Her fingerprints were on it now, and she had contaminated the evidence. Her stomach was in tight knots, and her chest was heaving.

“Relax, kid,” He grabbed her shoulder and began to steer her through the crowd, coincidentally taking her to the same secluded room that she had just left. “Breathe, kid. What’s the matter?” The way he was addressing her had her heart panging with a sadness that she could only describe as nostalgic. The concern in his eyes eased her pounding heart. “I know, you got yourself into something here, and it’s scary, I know…” “He gave me the knife.” She suddenly blurted out, cutting him off. Her fist was clutching the envelope with such force that it was beginning to crumple under her fingers. He tilted his head, raising an eyebrow in confusion. “The knife, the one the mayor was killed with, he left it to me and I didn’t know, I touched it without my gloves and I—”

“Doctor, relax.” He held his hands up to silence her. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“What?” Fear was running through her veins, and for a split second she thought he was no longer on her side, no longer a resource, no longer a friend. “What do you mean—”

“Kid, stop.” He said it in a gentle tone, almost as if he were trying to comfort her in her very obviously erratic state. “It was a mistake to ask you to come, I think.” He placed a comforting hand on her arm and squeezed, and she winced slightly as a short-lived, but sharp pain erupted from her shoulder. He apologized quickly, moving a step away from her. “I don’t know who, Doctor, but I think someone you may care about is in trouble.” He gestured to the envelope that she held, “Because the mayor was shot.”

[batcxves]

thanks for the support !!

hey everyone, I just hit 100 followers !!! omg thank you all so much for the support on reputation. I appreciate all of you so much, and you all inspire me <333

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: death, reader’s declining mental health

a/n: kind of a filler chapter to move things along. as always, enjoy :)

. . .

CHAPTER NINE -

She began the tedious work of picking up the pictures that she had carelessly discarded onto the floor. How confusing he was to her, Bruce Wayne, to show up in the dead of night to be nursed to health, though he did not need it. It had to have meant something more, of that, she was positive.

As she was lying in her bed, sleepless and unmoving, her mind was racing. Time seemed to be playing in double the normal speed. Never before in the entirety of her life had she experienced such an eventful couple of weeks. She shifted, and a pain erupted from her shoulder, feeling more irritated now that Mr. Wayne had touched it. She found the pain to be so much less of just that: pain, as each time she moved and felt that dull sting, images of his eyes flashed in the background of her brain. She remembered how the Bat had touched her shoulder the same way, and she began to wonder about him. The pair were so painfully alike. Stubborn and composed, and somehow aggressive and gentle at the same time, it pained her to think of how she found herself drawn to the one and would rather steer clear of the other.

The bumpy, business-like relationship she shared with the Bat clashed significantly in her mind with the fast-paced, uphill relationship she believed herself to be forming with Mr. Wayne. The Bat, whom she had grown close to, but not particularly fond of, was the prideful, stubborn thorn in her side that she hated to admit had been her greatest help in the entirety of her career. However, the guilt she felt from working with him was a bitter poison that never left her bloodstream. Until her dying day, she would know that everything she had made herself out to be was fraudulent. She wasn’t a cop, wasn’t a hero. She was a fraud.

But when Mr. Wayne was lying on her table, she had felt more like a cop than she had in years. The truth in her mouth was a bitter taste, and with each thought racing through her brain, she knew that after this entire ordeal with the Riddler was over, so was she. Her days of conspiring with the vigilante would have to come to an end. She wouldn’t be able to breathe, with his armored boot pressed against her chest. She was simply an extension of him, and she was tired of being less than what she had always aspired to be. Pack up, perhaps, and move cities. Inhabit another crime-ridden city. Make a real difference. A truthful difference.

She wondered if Mr. Wayne would try to stop her.

The sun was soon going to be rising outside her window, and she knew that she wouldn’t sleep until later that night. She would just have to make the most of the day with the little bedrest she had gotten. A peek of the yellowed light of the Signal through the slight opening of her curtain had her propping herself up on her elbows, uncertain that what she was seeing was real. Surely Bat hadn’t come to his senses so quickly. It was extremely uncharacteristic of him, to swallow his pride and work with her as she had suggested the night prior.

Something had to be wrong.

She scrambled out of her bed instantly, rushing to her television. Anxiety was ripping through her entrails like a bullet, leaving what felt like a gaping hole in her stomach. At once, she turned on her TV, which was always set to the local news station. She didn’t watch anything else. The running caption along the bottom had her stomach reeling.

GOTHAM CITY MAYOR FOUND DEAD.

Images were flashing across the expanse of the screen, depicting the police conducting an investigation outside of the mayor’s large townhouse, and though all she could hear was her heart pumping and her blood rushing, one singular sentence caught the attention of her ears.

“If anyone has any information pertaining to the meaning of this symbol, they are to contact Gotham PD immediately.”            The image was burned into her mind, had been ever since she had seen it for the first time. The television displayed the late mayor’s front door, with the very image of the question mark that had appeared on the letter that the Riddler had left her. If her stomach hadn’t been empty, she would have been sick then and there. Underneath the symbol, the Riddler had painted the words in large, capital letters: no more lies.

The sound of paper sliding through the bottom of her front door had her feeling nauseous. A rhythmic knock rang out from her door, taunting and terrifying. She shot upwards so quickly that the chair she had been sitting on was pushed an inch backwards, threatening to tip over. Her shoulder was stinging as she stretched downwards to grab her handgun in the place that she had discarded it earlier in the morning. She wouldn’t grant him any mercy, not now that a real life had been taken by his hands. She didn’t try to hide her pounding footsteps as she bolted to the door, and when she threw it open, ready to fire, the barrel of her gun was met with the cheek of Mr. Gordon.

“Christ, Y/N!” He shouted, hand shooting upwards to disarm her. He was silent for a moment, his eyes scanning her. “God, you look like hell.”

He was right. She hadn’t taken the time to properly look at herself in the mirror in days. Dark, circular bags weighed down what used to be her doe-like eyes, and they lacked their usual shine. She had a hollow look to her: pale and ghostly. She had been wearing the same clothes for days. “What the hell do you want, Gordon?” She didn’t mean to sound so rude, but she was on edge.

“I was leaving you that note, I wanted to see how you were.” He gestured to the paper that was lying behind her on the floor. “I reckon you’ve heard the news?” She nodded solemnly, flexing her jaw as she met his weary eyes. He slowly handed her gun back to her, pressing his hand against hers endearingly. “I am by no means asking you to come back to work with us, Doctor, but…” He trailed off, looking distressed. “The perp left a note at the scene. It’s addressed to you. I think it’s the person that shot you.”

Her blood ran cold. She was praying that they hadn’t opened it, hadn’t seen whatever demeaning contents could have possibly been stuffed within the envelope. She rubbed her temple with the butt of her gun with a shaky sigh. She could tell from his eyes, from his mannerisms that she was an object of pure pity to him. He had already felt bad asking her to come back, but that was before he had seen the reality and extent of her rugged state.

“Look, Doctor, God knows that we have different means of solving crimes, but if you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of trouble, I can help you—” He moved his head downwards to try to meet her eyes once again as she stared blankly into the floor.

“No,” She waved her hand to silence him. “There’s no need, Commissioner. Truly, I appreciate it.” He didn’t look very convinced, but he nodded nonetheless.

“Listen, the entire PD is at your disposal. You need anything, you give the word. Got it?” He extended a hand to place it on her shoulder but quickly realized that he couldn’t do so due to her injury. He opted to grab her hand instead, shaking it firmly. “Please, take an hour to take care of yourself and then come to the scene. I want you to look over some things. Say the word and I’ll send two officers to escort you.”

She nodded firmly and thanked him quietly. He dismissed himself after a short moment of holding a concerned gaze with her, and then nodded as he left. Truly, she appreciated all that he had offered her, but he had no clue of the extent that he was offering. She closed the door and leaned her back against it with a sigh. She caught fragments of the news in her ears and stalked over to the television, bringing a closed fist down forcefully on the top of it. The television went black, and the sounds stopped, a short frequency of static coming through before it fell silent.

She decided that a shower was the best place to start. Her wound needed cleaned and redressed; it had been a few days since she had even given the courtesy of looking at it. She hated to acknowledge it, hated to acknowledge any of the situation, but now she had been granted no other choice. As she stripped in the full-length mirror on the back of her bathroom door, she could hardly stand to look at herself. The commissioner was right: she looked like hell, and then some. Heavy, dark eyes were accompanied by large dark circles, and her split, pale lips looked completely dry and torn up from all the anxious chewing. She didn’t care much to study her shoulder as she removed the bandages, but she could tell in her peripherals that it was nothing pretty. Her hair was messy and tangled, and her skin was a deathly pale color as she had not had the energy nor the time to properly treat herself to any nutritional food. If disheveled, rugged, and unhinged had a personification, it was most certainly her. She took a moment to grieve the intelligent, accomplished, beautiful woman that she was two weeks ago, before she ever had to worry about being shot, or kissing stupid men, or anybody dying.

Her shower was short-lived, just long enough to wash her body and hair, and apply a handful’s worth of conditioner in an attempt to save her hair from the inevitable damage it would undergo from trying to brush it out. The feeling of the warm water against her skin was almost uncomfortable to her, as she felt that it weighed her down. She hated the feeling of the water trickling down into her wound and hated even more the feeling of it hitting directly onto it. She cleaned only as much as she could bear, as she didn’t have half the self-discipline it took to clean it fully.

As she ran her fingers through her soaked strands of hair, pushing it back to clear the way for her eyes, her mind wandered again to Mr. Wayne. She ran a gentle hand over her shoulder as images of his face, his jaw, his eyes, his lips danced behind her closed eyes. She ghosted his movements from the dead of the morning, but when her fingers touched the wound, it only hurt. It didn’t send the jolt of electricity running through her like his touch had. The two of them painfully alike, strong and reclusive, she had found a strangely strong connection to him, and she found sanctuary in the things she loved about him and hated about herself. She found herself wanting to come apart in his hands, let the mask of untouchable, unwavering strength fall into the palm of his hands for just a single moment, just a single night.

She shook her head and turned her shower abruptly cold, a practice that she hated, but took part in almost religiously. Her breathing was ragged in the freezing cold water, but she stayed in until she could control her deep breaths once again. The ritual was an assurance to her; an affirmation that she was, and always would be, in charge of her body. She had done it all through college and found it to be even more helpful to her when she needed to regain touch with her humanity, her sanity. In her line of work, it was apparent to her that her humanity was the most important part of her. She hadn’t had to indulge in the practice recently, but her rampant thoughts of all the troublesome men in her life were beginning to drive her crazy. Where was her focus? The woman who had been determined enough, passionate enough to strive for a PhD, where was she? When she looked in the mirror once again, dripping wet in cold water and shivering, she saw only a fraction of the woman she had used to be. She was changing; the old, younger, more naïve junior detective growing weathered underneath the hardened shell of the “new-and-improved” F/N L/N, PhD.

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: TENSION LOTS OF TENSION, hurting one another (but it’s sexy I promise)

a/n: THE SECOND PART. I HAD to make you guys wait because this part is just too good. ENJOY OMGMGMGMGMMG IM SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO READ THIS

. . .

CHAPTER 8 (part 2/2) -

previously: He rolled up the sleeves of his now-broken white shirt. “I’ve been thinking about you.” He said it quietly, and if the room hadn’t been eerily silent, she would have missed it. “I needed to see you.”

“Getting stabbed was a hell of a way to accomplish that,” She remarked, crossing her arms as he lowered his gaze to the floor, and suddenly, she became very conscious of the scattered images of her on the floor. “Now that you’re great and dandy, please see yourself out,” She exclaimed quickly, nervously, filling the space between the pair of them to tug on his arm, leading him towards the door. “Now.”

.

This piqued his interest. He shifted his body, grabbing her wrist to release her grasp on his bicep. “You have made a hell of a name for yourself,” He pinned her wrist onto the kitchen counter, holding one arm behind her back as he forced her body into the counter, towering over her with dark, gleaming eyes. The position had her heart pounding, but his gentleness even in his most aggressive moments told her that despite what she had thought, he wasn’t posing any danger to her. “Who are you, Y/N?” Her name rolled so softly off of his tongue, so quietly, that she almost forgot that his words were meant to be somewhat of a threatening presence to her. She watched in silence as his jaw flexed, waiting for the courage to spring alive in her so that she could meet his eyes.

His free hand suddenly grabbed her neck, directly under her chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “What are you hiding behind those pretty eyes?” She was desperately fighting the blush that was threateningly creeping up the back of her neck as he used his thumb to quickly caress her windpipe, the pad of his thumb rough against the soft skin of her neck.

“You’re one to talk,” She finally managed, gathering the courage to swipe her free hand’s index finger across one of the more prominent scars of his chest. “Look like you’ve been beaten with a bat.” His expression held steady, unfaltering, though his eyes now told a different story. She could see a hint of the vulnerability, the fear of being known, being found out. She knew that look; she knew that feeling. Not wanting to go there just yet, she mused him, “You let every girl you meet play nurse with you, Mr. Wayne?” Her fingertips traced lightly to his waist, where she pressed two fingers lightly into the bandaged wound, feeling his grip on her arm tighten as he took the opportunity to pin her other hand behind her as well, lip curling as he tried to suppress a groan of pain.

“No,” he said it quickly, much too quickly, and he knew it. “And let’s not forget who granted the favor first.” His hand found her shoulder and he quickly pressed his thumb into it as she did to him, stopping the instant that her mouth opened to let out a pained noise, feeling rather dizzy.

She was quickly beginning to believe that Mr. Wayne wasn’t nearly as inexperienced as she had made him out to be, as alienated and awkward as he was. Suddenly, she was feeling very small, very fragile under his thumb as he stared into her eyes. Having only kissed the Bat, albeit against her will, she was finding herself to be increasingly willing to give herself to his every ounce of being. The gentleness of his aggression, the feeling of his rough hands against the bare skin of her wrists, the softness of his eyes against the hard expression of his face, the very scent of him, alluring and just as dark as him, of rain in the woods and cologne that was probably worth more than the very kitchen counter he had her pressed against; every bit of him had all of the logic in her mind fading into radio static, white noise playing behind her eyes as she could contemplate him, and only him. Feeling as though she was melting into a puddle under his grasp, she could feel her head-strong prideful need to reject him fading.

“Kiss me,” She whispered, freeing her right hand from his grasp after a short struggle to caress the side of his face with her palm.

Never before had he wanted to hear anything so badly. From the instance that he first laid eyes on her, he knew that she would destroy him. Piece by piece, little by little, he would give himself away to her, and her to him. He wanted her, but not in the way that other men did. Even if she was solely focused on her work, just as he was, he had kept a close eye on her, and a close eye on the men that surrounded her. The way they looked at her, as if she didn’t belong in her position of power, as if she were a challenge to them, a challenge of a woman to put in her place. The thought alone had his blood boiling. He wanted her in every way possible, sexually, of course, but that wasn’t what he really wanted. He wanted her in the way that would bring the both of them comfort, bring both of them peace from the dark, withered lives they both lived. In a way, he had found a tranquility in her, a calmness that he could find nowhere else. And finally, finally, after two years of watching, she was offering herself to him.

“I can’t,” He muttered. Because then you’ll know. He wanted to scream it, paint it on each and every wall in her apartment. It would ruin everything. “I want to.” He admitted it, quietly, of course, because never would he ever possess the ability to say what he wanted, what he truly wanted, loudly and without regret.

She was an observant, intelligent girl, he knew that. She had made a career for herself on that basis. He had been reckless, too impatient, and had taken what was not his to have. If he had just waited, just stuck it out a bit longer, he could have exactly what he had wanted for so long, could have had it the right way. He was a man of fierce discipline, of extreme self-control, yet he had allowed her to have him come undone, in the very suit that had been made to hide him. She’d know him in an instant, the true him; know his lips, his jaw, his taste.

“Please,” She pleaded with him, eyebrows knitting together. She had him falling apart then and there, in that instant that she was not only asking him to do what he had longed to but pleading with him. Begging him. It was beginning to occur to him that his want, his need for her was much stronger than his need to keep himself a secret.

“I can’t.” He repeated his words, turning his head away from her as he released her from his grasp and backed away.

“I understand,” She replied quickly, though she did not. Had she done something wrong? Had she misled herself? Her heart felt heavy in her chest as he gave her a quick, polite nod and made his way to the door to disappear into the darkness, from which she had stupidly believed herself to have pulled him out of.

[batcxves]

HI I JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU I LOVE YOUR BATMAN STORY SO MUCH AND YOU ARE AWESOME ❤️❤️❤️❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

I appreciate you so much :) thank you !!!!

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: stab wound, t e n s i o n

a/n: A TWO-PART CHAPTER !!!! I got so lost in this particular chapter that I wrote literally so much that it would be so crazy to be an entire chapter in itself. enjoy !!!!

. . .

CHAPTER EIGHT (part 1/2) -

“You’re a doctor,” He explained himself quietly with a grimace, and a nervous, boiling wave of anger washed over her.

“Of criminology, Mr. Wayne.” She was seething, but now was not the time.

Y/N quickly ushered the injured Bruce Wayne into her apartment, casting away her handgun at once. She pulled out the chair to her kitchen table and hoped that he didn’t see the images atop of it as she slid her hand across the surface, the pictures scattering to her floor to make room for him. She was muttering to herself, cursing him for placing the life of the beloved Prince of Gotham into her inexperienced hands. As he laid down onto her table, groaning in pain, her hand quickly moved to her pocket to dial for 911.

“No!” He bolted upwards instantly and gripped her wrist with a force that she never could have imagined him to have just by the look of him. She could see the pain in his facial expression, in the twitching of his eyelids, in the curl of his top lip. “No police.” His words were firm, though he spoke through gritted teeth with a weary voice.

“Mr. Wayne, what if you die?” She exclaimed, throwing her hands out in a gesture that exerted the searing emphasis of her words, though he had already felt the sting with each one as they had come out. His grip wasn’t budging, and time wasn’t multiplying, so she quickly dropped the subject, opting not to fight with him as he bled out on her kitchen table.

Luckily, for the both of them, her extensive education had allowed her multiple courses in traumatic injuries, as it wasn’t uncommon for a detective to have to perform medical work to some sort of extent in the field. Her knowledge was wearily fading in the very edges of her brain, but the way his face contorted in pain with each miniscule moment was quite the motivator to rejog her memory.

He had been clutching his lower stomach on the right side, about where his hip bone was. Thankfully, she didn’t have any reason to believe that any major organs or arteries were punctured, so death wasn’t as adamant as she had previously believed. However, blood loss was still very real, and very happening. He wore a white button-down shirt, and about half of it was stained a crimson red. She grasped in between the buttons in the middle of his shirt and tore it apart, splitting the shirt as a few of the buttons bounced to the floor. For only a moment, they met each other’s eyes, both equally uncomfortable by the intimacy of the action.

Her hands faltered as her eyes took in more of him than she had ever imagined seeing. His dress shirt was hanging loosely on his arms, chest exposed in the darkness of her kitchen. Her flat was dimly lit by the moonlight coming in through the barely opened blinds, and though she could see, it wasn’t enough. She made quick work of turning on the overhead kitchen light, and an exasperated sigh left his lips as he turned his head to the side, eyes closed. She mumbled a confused apology, making a quick mental note of his strange sensitivity to the light.

In the light, she could study all of him in the entirety of his glory. Glory, she thought, was a bit of an overstatement. For a billionaire who had worked not a day in his life for his money, he was scarred and bruised the same as a poor man who ran the streets for a few bucks. She clenched her jaw as she studied his exposed skin, brows knit together in concern. She tried not to make her stare obvious, but she was failing, wonders of his whereabouts riddling her mind. “Mr. Wayne—"

“Bruce,” He corrected swiftly, eyes opening to meet her own as she worked to pull down the waist of his pants to make access to his wound as quick and easy as possible. She turned away, searching for something, anything, to press against his wound in an attempt to stop his bleeding. She ignored his correction, leaving him on the table momentarily to grab anything that could be of use to her—a warm, damp hand towel, the biggest bandages she could find, and a bottle of whiskey from her cupboard. With shaking hands, she sloppily poured him a shot and returned to him. She whispered a hushed warning into the side of his face as he eased the drink to his lips, and he took it with a hint of a grimace. She pressed the towel to the area near his hip, free hand pressing down firmly on his shoulder to keep him from moving too much. Her efforts were mostly for naught, as she was not nearly as strong or as large as he, though she could tell he was trying his hardest to keep himself contained. The pressure she was asserting into his body was causing a dull pain in her shoulder, and so she quickly pulled away from him to see how it looked.

The stab wasn’t too deep, and in her opinion, from the look of his body, he had endured much worse plenty of other times. He probably wouldn’t even need stitches. She began to wonder why he had come to her. She knew he wasn’t stupid. He could afford the best education in the world if he so wished. He was an intelligent man. He knew she wasn’t a medical doctor. Everybody knew that.

“Why are you here?” She asked darkly, deeply suspicious of him now. She took the bottle of whiskey, and upon determining that he wasn’t planning on answering, she dumped a tiny bit of it into his stab wound. It needed cleaned anyways.

He bolted upwards instantly, crying out in pain. It didn’t matter how much pain anyone endured, the feeling of alcohol in a wound was a bitch. “Why,” she repeated, “Did you come here, Mr. Wayne?” He was staring at her with a twitch in his eye, clearly shocked by her sudden hostility. “I’m not stupid. And I know damn well that you’re well in your own mind to know that I’m not stupid.” She took a step back from him, leaning against her kitchen counter as she left him to his own devices, holding the towel against his own wound now. Her body appeared to be relaxed, though her blood was pumping with the edge of distrust. Still, he remained silent, and she clenched her jaw in frustration. “Fine, let’s start from the beginning then. How did you get stabbed?”            “In the wrong part of town.” Was all he said, his expression refusing to give away any information that he didn’t intend to. He held an alarming amount of eye contact, more than she had ever seen from him before. He discarded the towel and leaned back onto his elbows, fumbling with the bandages. He ripped one open and stared blankly at the contents. He turned it around in his fingers to show her the bandage, which was pink and decorated in small flowers. “Cute.” His voice was blank, unamused, but he peeled off the back and applied it nonetheless. He stood and hoisted his pants back up, and it was apparent to her that the apparent pain that he had been feeling was not at all the degree that he had made it out to be. He grimaced as his pants settled against the bandage, but otherwise, he seemed fine.

He rolled up the sleeves of his now-broken white shirt. “I’ve been thinking about you.” He said it quietly, and if the room hadn’t been eerily silent, she would have missed it. “I needed to see you.”

“Getting stabbed was a hell of a way to accomplish that,” She remarked, crossing her arms as he lowered his gaze to the floor, and suddenly, she became very conscious of the scattered images of her on the floor. “Now that you’re great and dandy, please see yourself out,” She exclaimed quickly, nervously, filling the space between the pair of them to tug on his arm, leading him towards the door. “Now.”

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: reader struggles with a sort of depressive episode (?), mentions of death, guns, a stab wound (you’ll see LOL)

a/n: I've been excited to post this one:)) enjoy !!

. . .

CHAPTER SEVEN  -

It was three o’clock in the morning.

She didn’t sleep restlessly much anymore, but something deeply subconscious was keeping her awake that night. She couldn’t keep her eyes closed if her life depended on it; each time she tried to ease them downward, a slight creak or tapping of a branch against her window would have them flying back open. She was severely on edge as the Bat’s voice echoed through her head.

He knows where you live. He knows what you do. He knows everything about you.

She wouldn’t allow herself to feel the fear the was beginning to consume her. She was better than that, strongerthan that. She turned to the side and her mind wandered to the Bat. She wondered if he was staking out her flat. She wouldn’t put it past him, but the bitter thought that she wasn’t the only person in the city crossed her mind. He couldn’t be everywhere at once. And if the Riddler was watching him as closely as he was her, she trusted that he knew when she would be vulnerable, be alone. She figured that the Bat knew this just as well as her, and anxiety grew in her chest as she knew he had many, many more responsibilities than to protect her. She had told him herself—she was on her own on this.

Call me when you decide to work with me. She regretted the words. She knew that he didn’t want her to have any involvement in the case, but he was ignorant to believe that she would respect his wishes. It was too late, after all. After a certain point, personal bias stops getting in the way of a case and begins to fuel the solving of it. Fear, anxiety, obsession. Her entire being was made up of it. She had never been more driven to catch a perpetrator. Nothing is more driving than the threat of one’s own life, one’s own reputation.

She had rolled out of bed now, making her way to her kitchen table. She stood over the table, gazing down onto the piles of pictures that she had assorted, table too small to behold all of the images at once. Scribbled notes and annotations upon post-it notes were scattered about, and though she was trying her hardest to focus, hands gripping the edge of the table as she hunched over the images, her mind could only digest on one major idea at a time. And at the moment, that major idea was that of which had been consuming her mind for the past two weeks or so. Batman. She rubbed her temples, slapping herself in the cheek to attempt to bring some sort of sanity to her sleep-deprived brain. But no matter how hard she tried, it was all for naught. It was all him. Her fingertips as she traced across the images on the table: him. Her eyes, wide awake, though they longed for rest: him. Her lips, pressed into a thin, concerned line: him. Him, him, him. She found him in every part of her body, every inch of her being, every crevice of her soul. He was consuming her. Her thoughts, her movements, her words, all of them were him. Her heart ached as she bowed her head and prayed to be relieved of him at once, pleaded to be released from the addictingly venomous web that was him, begged to be even half of the person she used to be without him.

A vicious, aggressive rapping at her door struck her out of her thoughts at once, and with veins searing hot with pulsing blood and a heartbeat pounding violently all throughout her body, she scrambled for her handgun and turned towards her door with rigid, fearful hands. The inside of her mouth was dry and a wave of nauseating fear swept over her like a tidal wave. She could hear her blood rushing in her eardrums, feel her heart beating swiftly in the soft spot of her throat. She couldn’t control the shakiness of the entirety of her body, and a dreadful feeling nagged at her that in that very moment, right then and there, she would live, or she would die.

She wouldn’t check the peephole, wouldn’t call out to whomever was on the other side of the door. She wouldn’t allow them a warning shot, nor would she hesitate. Fear, true fear, does a hell of a lot to a person. Restless, anxious, sporadic, and fucking scared, she wouldn’t recognize this version of her in any universe. Her entire body ached with a wishful acceptance of the expression kill or be killed. She wanted nothing more than to feel the flood of relief knowing that this goose chase, this game of cat and mouse, in which she was the lonely mouse caught in the trap, would finally end.

With each step nearer to the door, she felt more and more nauseous, more and more like she had been poisoned. She could almost imagine the darkness of death finally consuming her, and though the thought of it appealed greatly to her, she would never allow such a disgrace to herself.

Another violent string of knocks echoed out, send a wave of uncontrollable shakes through her. Biting her lip, she could taste her own blood on her tongue, and to the half of her that longed for death, nothing was sweeter, would ever be sweeter than the taste of her own demise on her lips. To be killed, she figured, was much, much more graceful than the alternative of falling from the grace of the city. The city she had grown to love, grown to protect. The blood on her tongue quickly became bittersweet. She fought the tears that welled behind her eyes, threatening to escape.

Her hand grasped the handle of the door, and on the other side she could hear the ragged, sporadic breathing of a man. This is it, she thought. Finally, the match of true justice that both she and the Riddler had been anticipating. A fight to the death would surely settle it once and for all; who is justice? She hardly felt as if she was, though she felt the burn of her shoulder where her medal of honor she once wore.

Turning the knob of the door, she felt an overwhelmingly warm wave of acceptance wash over her cold, quickly paling body. Die if she may, she felt a sense of joy overcome her as she imagined the shock of the city as they discovered their late beloved private investigator to have been in cahoots with the most infamously hated man in the whole of Gotham. Die if she must, the city would know who really deserved that medal of honor.

She threw open the door, and the sight was worse than she could have imagined. Worse than suffering, worse than torture, worse than death itself. Her gun was absolutely worthless to the man standing ragged and disheveled before her.

“Mr. Wayne, you’ve… have you been stabbed?”

[batcxves]

Reputation

a battinson pic, fem!reader, reader insert, riddler is conspiring against reader, reader has a budding relationship with b. wayne, as well as an established business-ish relationship with the batman, ongoing/not finished.

synopsis: A doctor of criminology, Y/N has been secretly conspiring with the masked vigilante of Gotham, the Batman. Despite her secret, she has rose to a sort of fame within the police department, and at a banquet honoring her success, she is shot. Bruce Wayne rescues her, and fights an ever-growing attachment to her. Meanwhile, she conspires with the Batman to catch the perpetrator that is targeting her. As tensions rise and she discovers that the shooter is much more dangerous than she previously believed him to be, she fights internal battles of complicated feelings towards the two banes of her existence: Bruce Wayne, and the Batman.

content warnings for this chapter: arguing, getting a little angsty. I promise it won't last too much longer (maybe)

a/n: I apologize for the lag in updating. I had to let the audience simmer with that cliffhanger for a little while ;). again, I have been posting a lot faster than I have been writing so expect some slight delays. thanks for reading everyone :) I hope you all continue to enjoy <3

. . .

CHAPTER SIX  -

She stood in the blistering cold atop the tower; it was her first time outside of her flat in over a week now. It had been two days since receiving the folder through the old mail slot in her door, and though it was alarmingly urgent to tell the Bat about it, she couldn’t bring herself to see him. For two days, she spent the day cooped up in her apartment, frantically pacing back and forth, terrified that at any moment, the devastating image of her kissing the Batman would be broadcast all over the news. She kept a close eye on the television, as well as order the daily Gazette straight to her flat each day, all for nothing. The perp now had her dangling on their string, and all she could do was wait in fear of their next move.

The sound of the Batman’s grappling hook clanging upon the metal building startled her, and the blood in her veins began to boil. How would she face him? Especially now. If she hadn’t truly believed they were in all of this together, she sure as hell believed it now. With a pounding heart and heavy feet, she approached the sound of his boots on the concrete.

“Doctor,” His voice was quieter than usual as he greeted her. “You haven’t been answering the Bat Signals.”

She kept quite the distance between the pair of them, and without a word, tossed the folder onto the ground at his feet. As it slid across the ground towards him, he stopped its movements with the side of his boot.

“What is this?” He asked gruffly as he bent down and retrieved the folder from the ground, pausing to stare at her, awaiting her answer before he opened it.

“It’s us.” She couldn’t help the way her voice trembled as she thought about the hundreds of images of the pair of them, thought about the fact that someone out there had the ability to completely destroy the career that she had worked long and hard for.

He cursed as he opened the folder and thumbed through the pictures, growing awfully silent when he stopped at the end, which was the picture of the pair kissing. She heard him shuffle in the darkness, and though she couldn’t see him, her cheeks were glowing red as she imagined what he was doing was taking the picture out. “We aren’t safe to meet here anymore.” He commented, “He could be watching.” He paused and shuffled more papers, quietly muttering to himself. “The Riddler,” He read the pseudonym aloud, trailing off.

She thought for a moment, mind focusing on one singular word the Bat had spoken. “He?” An inkling of fear crept into her stomach as she began to wonder if he was withholding information from her; knew something she didn’t. It wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest. He was a master of keeping secrets, after all. He led an entire double life. Though she could appreciate his innate ability to keep secrets, she didn’t find herself appreciating it when it came to her life, her reputation. “What do you mean, ‘he’?” God, she wished she could see his face in the darkness, see an inkling of guilt, of a lie, of something that gave her any piece of information on him. By the day, it seemed he was growing further and further into an anomaly which she could not solve, and nothing bothered her more than a puzzle without a solution.

“Doctor, I told you that you need to stay out of this. It’s getting too dangerous.” He sighed coldly, and she heard the leather of his gloves squeak together as he balled his hands into fists.

“I know how you feel about this,” She muttered, and then added, almost inaudibly, “About me,” She looked to the side as she said it, embarrassed to feel his eyes on her. “But I don’t care. I don’t want to hide out while this person dangles me on a string. It’s not who I am.”

“He knows where you live. He knows what you do. He knows everything about you, Y/N.” She shivered as he said her name. He had never used her first name before, but just as everything else, he seemed to be morphing into something new with every passing day. “He even knows about me, and you know that nobody knows about—”

“I’m going home, Bat.” She cut him off with a sigh. “Call me when you decide to work with me. Otherwise, I’m clearly by myself on this one.” She turned her back on him, beginning to descend the large staircase that would lead her to the dark alleyway behind the tower. He stayed silent, as she expected him to, and without another word, she descended into the darkness of the night, scared to be without his help for the first time in two years. Deep down, however, she knew the truth.

She would never, ever truly be alone.