Satin

[satinandotherartificialmaterials]

The Corpse in Crime Alley

<- 04 | "Forgive my northern attitude"

The phone call came two weeks later. Damian nearly missed it.

The funeral will be held on the 3rd, 6:00pm. 

The sentence felt hollow, floating through his head and echoing around like a balloon hitting a fan.

It will be closed casket.

Closed casket. The word lodged itself in some soft part of his brain. Closed casket? No. That couldn’t have been the last time he saw her. Cold in that alley. It couldn’t be. 

The call ended. The silence felt like doom. Each tick of the clock in his room felt like a door slamming, windows closing, two realities getting pulled further apart. One where she was here, breathing, laughing, smiling, and another, colder reality, where Damian had been left.

He dropped his phone on his desk, next to an unfinished drawing of her braiding grass by the school. 

He passed by Alfred on the way to the Batcave, “Master Bruce has already gone out.”

“Good.” Damian muttered.

He found his uniform in storage, ripped the tracker out, and suited up, not bothering with the minute details like gloves. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know what he was doing at all. There were no thoughts in his mind, not real ones. All he had were the words ‘closed casket’ and the idea that he could not let that happen. He had to see her, if only once more. 

Breaking into a morgue was easier than most people would anticipate. The morticians had just gone home and an intern left the alarm off. Lucky.

Gotham morgues were large. Clinical. Bodies in tagged boxes stacked to the ceiling. He found her name between a deceased drug dealer and an old socialite. 

His breath hitched when he saw her again. She didn’t look that different from when he’d seen her in the alley, yet still, barely recognizable from the girl Damian had met nearly 20 months ago. The maggots were gone, her stomach stitched up where it could be, covered in some plastic sealant where it couldn't be.

“Hello beloved..” He whispered, voice cracking, he lifted her head gently, examining her grey face. 

She smelled like decay and chemicals, she looked like death, yet still he wished she’d just open her eyes again, almost believing she could.

His head lolled forward, hair grazing her body. He breathed out, a sob hitting each of his ribs individually before escaping his throat. He stood there, sobbing until his tears pooled on the table she laid on. He cried like he’d never cried before, like he'd never let himself cry before. 

Damian Wayne didn’t tear up. He didn’t cry or beg, ever. But tonight, alone in the mortuary, his tears fell, burning streaks down his face and cooling on metal. He weeped for hours. He gasped until he couldn’t breathe. His hands trembled as they grazed her body. Worshipping, loving, mourning. 

His palm trailed down her arm, fingers fluttering over cold skin. His thumb kissed an unfamiliar bump on her forearm and he paused. His eyes flickered up before his head and body could catch up with his thoughts. His finger brushed the bump again and his eyes settled on her skin.

There, pulsing with life, warm compared to the rest of her, was a little bite. A spider bite perhaps, or an ant, something small and usually barely noticeable. But it pittered with life. Damian stopped breathing entirely, eyes locked on the mark. His eyes slowly cleared of water, though he never stopped trembling. Yes, he was not crazy, he had not lost all his senses yet, the mark was alive. It pulsed with being, and with that being, Damian's mind pulsed with hope.

His arms gathered her body in a movement more delicate than anyone had ever seen before.

“It’ll be alright.” He whispered to the corpse, as he stole her from the mortuary.

He didn’t have much time, not nearly enough, he could take her to Nanda Parbat but who knows what state she’d be in by the time they reached his birthplace?

The journey back to the Batcave was a blur. Gently, Damian laid her on the floor, then he started ransacking the storage. Everything Bruce had ever come across was somewhere in this storage, souvenirs from cases and loose ends and things that might come in handy down the road. Eventually his hand clasped around something cold. Colder than it should have been. A jar, circular in shape and sealed with a cork. The liquid inside was a peculiar green color, a color that shouldn’t exist in nature yet did. His hand shook when he uncorked it.

He held his breath and her head in his hand, then tipped the bottle forward. It dripped onto her forehead, seeping into the stitches, pooling in the indents of her eyes. Breathe, he willed, body trembling. 

She woke with a scream.

Bruce was too late. 

He had just come home from patrol to see the Batcave is disarray. An intruder was his first thought, so still in his costume, he willed his steps silent, investigating with the cold stillness that came with being a seasoned professional. 

Files were scattered on the Batcave floor, most out of their folders, some crumpled, a few ripped apart. Jars rolled on their sides, cracked and spilling their contents. The storage was trashed, and the chaos spilled out into the rest of the Batcave. 

What he noticed before all that though was the smell. The entire cave smelled rotten. It was sharp, an almost sweet aroma that stabbed through his senses with a sickening accuracy. The Batcave smelled like the alleys of Gotham, like still air tinged with death and decay, like the knowledge that every brick wall in lower Gotham was laid with mortar mixed with blood and bone from events no one's allowed to know about, the air smelt like something had been changed forever.

He saw her first, a barely recognizable body, grey toned and wrong. It always hurts to see a dead body so young, a girl that hadn’t really had the chance to live yet, but you get used to it in Gotham.

His eyes landed on Damian next, what he saw made his stomach turn. He didn’t look human. His back was hunched over and his muscles were tense. He tore through shelves like a madman. The look in his eyes went past determination, he was desperate, dangerous, and everything in his body reflected that. 

Bruce had been scared before, but not like this. His blood was ice in his veins. Damian didn’t look human. He looked like a wild animal. His movements, reminiscent of a crackhead going through withdrawal, embodied a version of ferality Bruce had never seen before. He was silent as he tore through years of work, but his breathing escaped him like that of a wild dog with rabies.  

All at once Damian went totally still. Bruce tensed when he turned around, his fingers white and clutching a bottle of the Lazarus Pit’s water. For a moment Bruce couldn’t move at all, couldn’t stop him as he drained an entire bottle onto her corpse.

Does this series qualify as angst?

As always thank you guys for reading! Taglist still open!

Taglist: @lillian-morningstar @i-make-questionable-choices @booakaisha @bloomfaery @speckonearth @starrydustedwinter @clairedeselene @worldussysblog @schoolisnotkool

[satinandotherartificialmaterials]

The Corpse in Crime Alley

<- 03 -> | "You're too sweet for me."

Damian remembers the exact day they started dating. 

May 28th, 6:53pm. She had dragged him to a ‘last day of school’ party, something a friend of hers had organized last minute. It was only supposed to be a small get together with a few friends, but someone spread the idea that it was open invite. All order collapsed when some senior brought alcohol, and the two juniors moved outside to escape the noise.

“Sorry I made you come.” She murmured sheepishly, one hand swishing a red solo cup with a liquid she definitely wasn’t dumb or brave enough to try.

Damian glanced at the flashing lights emanating from a window, “It’s.. not my scene.” He took the cup from her, sniffed it, then grimaced. “The degenerate could’ve brought something palatable at minimum.”

“I think he called it jungle juice.” She offered helpfully.

“Disgusting. These are the functions Grayson warned me about.” He scoffed, putting the cup down on a ledge.

“Grayson?” She hummed, “Your brother right?”

Damian nodded, “Yes, the eldest.”

The girl hummed in thought, leaning against a wall casually. “You don’t mention your family much.”

“There’s not much to mention.” Damian muttered.

She glanced at him, then her phone. Silence stretched for a moment, the muffled beats of some vulgar song pulsed through the walls. “My mom will be here soon. Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”

“Yes, Pennyworth will be here soon.”  

“Right.” She murmured, eyes trailing over his face briefly before returning to her phone. Damian kept his eyes on her, waiting. She had been unusually quiet, something Damian could recognize now as a nervous tell. “You’re gonna be outta town for a few weeks right?” She murmured, fidgeting with her phone case.

“Yes.”

“Mm.” She mumbled. She glanced up at him briefly, “You know, your gaze is kind of unnerving sometimes.”

“So I’ve been told. What’s on your mind?” He could always cut straight to the point when it concerned her. Something she always wished he did more when it was about himself.

“..my mom’s here.” She said instead.

Damian's eyebrows furrowed and he grabbed her wrist before she could turn away fully. “Hold on. We’re not gonna see each other for two weeks and you have nothing to say? That’s unlike you.”

She stared at him. Her eyes flicked from his left eye to his right, then to the ground. His eyes narrowed, but before he could speak again she moved. Her lips pressed to his. She tasted like vanilla chapstick, he tasted like the peppermint one she gave him. It came in a two pack. His eyes didn’t even have time to close before she stepped back.

“Sorry.” She breathed, face red. He stared at her, unmoving, unblinking, unbreathing. She ran off into her mother’s car, while Damian stared at her, mouth agape.

When he got home that day his mind was running so fast not a single thought was tangible enough to grasp. He passed by Dick, who was back in preparation for the two week mission coming up, and grabbed his forearms. 

“Dick.” He breathed, eyes wide like a madman, eyebrows furrowed like usual. “What does it mean when your best friend kisses you?”

Dick stared at him, taken aback, before he burst into laughter, a big grin on his face, “Okay Little D, tell me everything.”

When Damian returned to Gotham, the first thing he did was track her down. He showed up to her apartment, a single red rose in hand, and held his breath when he knocked on her door. She answered, looking like she had just woken up, then immediately sobered up when she realized who was at the door.

“Hi.” She whispered.

“Hi.” He murmured back.

Damian wasn’t good at communication, a weakness he was painfully aware of every time she gazed at him like he was a puzzle she wished to solve. There was something so innocently beautiful about her ignorance to his world. It was something he wanted to preserve. That's what he told himself at least. In truth he was scared to come clean. He liked just being Damian with her. He didn’t want to be Robin. He didn’t want to be an Al Ghul. All he wanted was to be hers. Away from the family drama, away from destiny and duty, away from what he felt he had to be.

He had a fantasy he only dared to indulge in at night. When exhaustion got to him and the weight of the world was only lifted by the image of her face in his mind’s eye. In this world, he wasn’t an Al Ghul, he wasn’t a Wayne, he was just hers. They were married, he took her last name, and he woke up next to her every morning and went to bed gazing at her face.

His first gift to her was a scarf. Dainty, silvery, almost silk-like in feeling. He caught her gazing at it through the window of a store once. She had never had something so delicate before. Never allowed herself to perhaps. He presented it to her when he picked her up for their first date. The way her eyes lit up engraved itself in his head. Her eyebrows pinched together lightly as she felt the fabric, she seemed unsure, like she didn’t know if the gift was truly hers. He gently set it on her shoulders, smoothing the glimmering material down with a reassurance that said ‘it’s yours now.’

Damian felt guilty often. For lying, for hiding a part of himself, for not letting her decide what she could handle. There were still unanswered questions. Excuses that he knew didn’t really make sense. She could see through him, and he couldn’t truly bring himself to put up a front. His lies were omissions, not fabrications, a small but important distinction. She didn’t pry. She didn’t push. But Damian never stopped feeling guilty.

He often resorted to gifts. Little ways to assuage his guilt without telling the whole truth. It was easier to express his love that way. Affection was unsafe, so was reality, but little glimmering trinkets? He could do that. He could deliver his love to her quietly, wrapped in a silk ribbon and tissue paper. He built her quite a collection, rings in every luxurious metal on the market, pretty pendants and bracelets, earrings that whispered wealth, even a dainty chain with his initial on it. It soothed him, made him feel like he could love her without the vulnerability that came with. 

He regretted it all as he laid in his bed, rolling a golden earring between two fingers. He cursed Gotham for taking her, he cursed the thug who pulled the trigger, he cursed his family for not letting him die with her, and he cursed himself, for not saving her, for not loving her the way he knew she truly deserved.

hi guys!! this took a little longer to get out then I would've liked, but with all my work I can only assume the time between each chapter will get longer. Hope you like this chapter!

taglist: @lillian-morningstar @bloomfaery @booakaisha @i-make-questionable-choices @schoolisnotkool @speckonearth

taglist is still open!

[satinandotherartificialmaterials]

The Corpse in Crime Alley Masterlist

01 | "The Corpse in Crime Alley"

02 | "She looked just like a dream"

03 | "You're too sweet for me"

04 | "Forgive my northern attitude"

[satinandotherartificialmaterials]

The Corpse in Crime Alley

<- 02 -> | "She looked just like a dream"

In the days after her death, Damian Wayne was left with nothing but time. Bruce had barred him from patrols, something Damian hadn’t even realized until he tried to suit up two days later in an attempt to focus his energy on something productive.

Bruce hadn’t known about her. No one did, besides Damian’s unfortunate eldest brother and the all-seeing butler of the Wayne estate. It wasn’t till Dick came by that Bruce understood the gravity of what happened during that patrol. The usual questions Bruce would’ve asked felt pointless, even thinking of them made his mouth feel like sandpaper.

Did she know?

When did you meet?

How long were you two dating?

These questions went unanswered. He didn’t dare bring it up to Damian. And it was that silent understanding in Bruce’s eyes that infuriated Damian. How dare he assume anything about their relationship. Anything about her.

In many ways Damian refused to accept she was gone. The night he found her he clung to her molding body for hours. The day after he ransacked the batcomputer’s files, searching for any piece of information he hadn’t known about the Lazarus pit, praying for some nugget of gold he hadn't already memorized years ago. The second day he was benched from being Robin, with no outlet for his frustrations and no text messages to distract him, he remembered exactly what loneliness was, something he hadn’t had to face in months. On the third day, news of her passing had made its way to the media. One post, exactly one article mentioned her by name, an article that was quickly swallowed by memes and cute cats and pranks gone wrong. Damian deleted social media that day. He had only gotten it for her anyway. His personal accounts were scrubbed from the internet, except for one lone instagram account. Still following her, still waiting for a new story. The fourth, fifth, and sixth day passed as one big blob of time.

He spent hours rewinding the clock. Remembering every interaction from the last year. He drew her in his now-plentiful free time. Sketchbook after sketchbook, each page filled with memories of her, detailed portraits, scenes from the most cherished parts of his brain. Anyone who observed him from the outside might’ve thought he was going insane. He wouldn’t deny it. 

He mourned, in a different way than one might expect a 17 year old to mourn. One day, when Dick had dragged him outside of his room, they passed by the garden and Damian fell to the ground at the sight of his dearly departed’s favorite flower. He couldn’t bring himself to pick it, or even walk away from it, and stayed there, knees planted in the dirt. He remained there long past sunset.

Damian spent hours thinking of the first day they met. Replaying it in his mind like a movie.

It was art class, junior year. Damian had been placed in a beginners class and was determined to prove his abilities and advance to the highest possible art class their school held. Fortunately, that wasn’t how the school operated, and Damian was resigned to sit among artistically-challenged freshmen who loudly hurled insults at every teacher in the school, even the half-decent ones.

They were working with oil pastel. The objective was to create a piece of art that mimicked stained glass on a square posterboard. Easy, at least to Damian it was. The other members of the class found it either too difficult or too boring to commit to. The teacher allotted them a week to finish, Damian was done in a day. It was simple, a mosaic featuring a goat in a field. As he modpodged his artwork with a gentle hand—he’d chosen to come to class early the next day to work away from his messy classmates—another poster board was placed next to his. 

It, admittedly, caught him off guard. Not her presence but the project itself. It wasn’t a magnificent work of art, though it was pretty. No, what caught his eye was the clear effort spent on it. Pretty yellow and red pastels blended to form the base of a comet, black and purple swirls surrounded it to form the night sky, even the stars that dotted the poster were shaded and blended out. Oil pastels applied with careful pressure, smoothed with baby oil and smudged with intention. She sealed the artwork gently, strokes soft with effort to not smear.

“I like your lamb,” she said.

“It’s a goat.” He replied.

Her head tilted and she examined his work. 

“So it is.” 

He kept an eye on her. She approached him sometimes in class to view his work. Once in a while she’d bring her own work over to compare. He enjoyed the simplicity of it. Talking with someone who seemed to care about art and appreciate effort.

Once, the teacher changed the seating chart. Irritating freshmen in the front, quiet kids in the back. Damian had ended up sitting next to the girl. She scooted her seat closer to his slowly, maybe without even realizing it herself.

She found him in the library one day eating lunch. The next day his usual empty lunch spot consisted of five: Damian, her, and three friends she forced to join them. 

He walked her to her seventh period once, on the way some random kid in the grade below hurled an insult at him. It was casual, Damian was used to it. He’d been bullied since he came to Gotham. It hurt when he was younger, though he’d never admit it, but in the years that passed he’d stopped caring. He was used to it. She, clearly, was not. She whipped around so fast her ankle popped. Damian stood there, awe and shock in his usually expressionless face as she chewed out the kid for being a jerk.

“You didn’t have to do that.” He muttered, eyebrows furrowed.

“Of course I did.” She told him.

“I wish I had someone to go to Jeanie’s birthday party with.” She mentioned offhandedly. They stayed late that day. The semester was nearly over and exams had started, usually she’d be panicking, but being best friends with the smartest kid in school had perks, like him agreeing when you beg him to tutor you in math. 

“I thought your friends were going?” Damian hummed, holding the back of her shirt to keep her from crossing the street without looking. He insisted on walking her home. After all, Gotham was dangerous.

“Yeah, but they all have dates.” She huffed.

“So?” 

“So I'll be like, ninth wheeling or something.”

“I think when there are that many wheels, the number being odd or even matters less.”

“It does to me.” She murmured. “This is my place.” 

Damian paused for a minute before turning away, he glanced at the apartment building infront of them.

“Then I’ll be your date.” He decided. Then walked away before she could pick up her jaw from the floor.

“You know, someone asked me if we were dating.” She murmured once, threading blades of grass together.

“Yeah? What’d you say?” He questioned, sketching her threading blades of grass together.

“No, of course.” She glanced up at him.

He stayed silent for a moment. Quiet filled the air. Pencil scratching paper filled the soccer field. 

“Would you’ve been upset if I said yes?” She asked quietly. The pencil movements stopped, then started again. 

“No.”

It was quiet for a while.

“Can I keep that drawing when you're done?” She asked.

“No.” He replied.

“Why not? It’s of me.”

“I’ll draw you something else.”

“Anything?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Of reasonable request.” 

She thought for a moment. “Can you draw yourself?”

“You want a drawing of me?” His eyebrows furrowed the way they always do.

“Is that a reasonable request?” She cocked her head to the side.

“..I suppose so.”

Hi guys! Thank you for reading this chapter and supporting my writing! I'm kind of unsure where I want to head but I have a general outline in my head. If anyone wants to be tagged for next time, tell me in the comments and I'll add you to the tag list!

[satinandotherartificialmaterials]

The Corpse in Crime Alley

01 -> | The Corpse in Crime Alley

The night started as all nights do in Gotham. Cold, ugly, and undeniably hopeless. The air thinned the later into the eve it got, and by sunset every trace of life was stifled, quieted and hidden. Kids ushered inside by worried parents, pets pulled away with strangled barks, a couple rushes into their apartment after a loving date went on too long.

There's no one on the streets of Gotham for exactly 17 minutes. Then people begin to slink out of the shadows. Drunk men loiter around clubs, confident in their existence and not at all perturbed by the looming threat that is Gotham. Rainbow lights flicker on through the darkened windows of a club. A group of teenagers dart out of another being chased by a bouncer.

Gotham is alive again. This happens every day around the same time. Gotham dies in the sunlight, withers away like a worm in the heat, then blooms again once the sun disappears. Gotham is beautiful. Gotham is dangerous.

There's an inconsistency tonight. A girl runs through the shadows of Crime Alley. She doesn’t belong there, not really. Most would argue that no girls belonged in Crime Alley, but this girl specifically made curious eyes turn. She wasn’t the kind of girl that people let slip by, not in these parts of town. Her jewelry, gifted from her boyfriend, caught the dim light of the few streetlights which still worked in this hellforsaken place. These reflections wormed into the greedy eyes of men, men who were starved, holding onto their good will by a thread. The types of men who found their way to Crime Alley, unknowingly becoming the scum that made Crime Alley, well Crime Alley.

A movement, a heavy foot on a branch. The girl pauses, her head snaps towards the sound. The dim lights catch her eyes and make them glow. For a moment time feels frozen. She breathes out, and darts off like a deer. No one pursues for exactly five seconds.

She’s not fast. She’s not slow exactly but she’s not winning any races. Adrenaline takes over and she turns into a familiar alley, a shortcut to her boyfriend’s place, it’s closer, but it’s still too far. A hand reaches out, it’s bigger than her head, it grabs her scarf, a dainty silk thing that looks like it could be worth a meal or two, and pulls. The girl falls backwards, choked by the silvery fabric. The man swears, he didn’t mean to hurt her but he didn’t mean to not hurt her. He wasn’t thinking of that, you see, all he was thinking about was food, money, freedom from the shackles that held every unfortunate Gothamite down. The girl claws at the fabric, pulling it down just slightly, just enough to let her breath. She glances back at the man, fear in her eyes, on instinct the man pulls a gun on her.

Make this easy for both of us.

He says

I don’t- I don’t know.. I don’t have money on me-

The JEWELRY, hand it over.

She hesitates, but her life is worth more than her boyfriend’s gifts. It hurts her to take off her dainty earrings, pretty bracelets, and gold necklace, but she does so, quickly too, perhaps, if she adheres to the man's orders, he’d let her go and she could escape to her boyfriend’s estate before anything else could happen. She unwinds her scarf, a pretty, silvery thing, it glimmers in the faint light of the alley, she hesitates, for only a second. It's enough.

A spider lands on her arm, she freezes. How trivial, to be so instinctively afraid of a spider when there's a loaded gun pointed at your face. She tenses, so does the man. It puts him on guard. But it’s fine. It’s just a spider. The man's growing nerves mean nothing. The way his arm shakes means nothing. His trembling finger means nothing. The silk scarf leaves the girl's grasp. Police sirens start to blare. The spider sinks its fangs into her wrist. She squeaks. He pulls the trigger.

Shit.

He whispers.

Shit shit shit shit-

The gunshot cuts through the air, the girl falls limp on the pavement. Blood drips down her forehead and into her hairline. It was an accident. It was anxiety. It wasn’t his fault. The girl’s eyes are still open, empty. The police car speeds by the alley, it wasn’t for him.

A day later her phone will light up beside her corpse. A concerned text from her boyfriend steals the last 2% of her phone’s battery, before it dies alongside her.

Two days later he’ll visit her house. Her parents will deny seeing her for the last few days.

Three days later he’ll reach a dead end in his search.

A week later he’ll be on patrol. He’ll stop mid-route. Kneel down and pick up a familiar golden earring. His blood will run cold. He’ll catch a glimpse of rusty red in his peripheral vision. A footstep coming from the shadows. He’ll follow it, curious and on-guard. He’ll find his girlfriend’s body. Gotham is cruel, it always has been. She’s a sick shade of grey, maggots wriggle around her rotten flesh, her stomach is torn open, some stray starving animal must’ve gotten to her. He’ll fall to his knees, crawl closer, stare at her and wait for his own sickness to sink in. He’ll stare at this girl, the girl he loved but never dare let in. He’ll want to tear his own heart out and put it in her chest. He won’t leave her. Not until his father tracks him down and pulls him away. He’ll fight, scream, yell to stay by her side, but it’s useless. Her body was cold by the time he found her.

first post kinda nervous

if you guys like this leave a comment or something!! if you want more of this reader let me know cause I have an outline in my head.