sequel to stay to burn (only to drown instead): read here | masterpost
pairings: bruce wayne x reader, jonathan crane x reader, edward nashton x reader
warnings/notes: a mixture between the nolan movies and the 2022 film, i.e. cillian murphy's scarecrow; robert pattinson's batman; paul dano's riddler, canon-typical violence, possible eventual smut. SEE AO3 FOR MORE TAGS/WARNINGS.
It’s been six months since Jonathan Crane was arrested and it finally feels like things are calming down. Sure, you still have nightmares you can’t talk about and yes, you’re dating someone who puts his life on the line nightly to keep Gotham somewhat liveable, but things are going okay!
…Until a certain someone re-enters your life and everything goes to shit.
Again.
AO3 LINK | PLAYLIST
A few months ago, I officially marked this series as complete. No sequels, no more one-shots, nothing. Not unless I had an idea that I thought deserved to be told. Well, this is that. I can’t guarantee that it’ll do what you want— I can’t guarantee smut, and I certainly can’t guarantee that you’ll be happy with me at the end. But, if you will indulge me, I’ll be happy to take you along with me.
If you have been following me on tumblr, you know that this project is a long time coming. After a year of false starts, scrapped concepts (which are preserved in the et cetera bonus fic), creative burn-outs, and needless pressure that I put on myself, I am very excited to put this out into the world. Instead of being a fic that I write to garner attention and appease you all, I’m writing a fic that I am passionate about.
So let’s get started.
If you haven’t read the first work in this series, Stay to Burn (Only to Drown Instead), please do so before reading this! This is a sequel and is not meant to be read as a stand-alone. (But I also can’t stop you.)
Seems that we’re all in a Bruce Wayne brainrot era huh?
That being said could i ask for for the prompt 31?
“Pulling away from a kiss, whispering words of love against each other’s lips.”
Thank you for your time!!!
This ended up being slightly different than the prompt but I really liked how it turned out! :3 This one also does have some references to what happened post-STBOTDI, so it could be a mini midquel lmao. It’s explicitly in that universe, though it doesn’t matter if you haven’t read it because it’s not a big deal.
Gossip. | Bruce Wayne x Reader
warnings: none :) | word count: 553
Currently Accepting From This Prompt List: Guess inspired prompt list | send me a character + number for a 100-500 word drabble | character list + rules
Galas were awkward events for you. Even though Bruce’s presence was comforting, it also meant a lot of attention was on you from the moment you arrived until the moment you left. Normally, you were just a decorative piece to conversations, standing to the side and trying to not let your smile become stale on your face as random people tried to make Bruce laugh.
Tonight, however, a local influencer that you didn’t know clearly wanted to press your buttons. She constantly made snide comments about your status, your looks, your lack of class (which was a bit hypocritical, considering she was the one attacking you for no reason). It was clear to you that she was either doing it to get a rise out of you (for some reason) or to try and turn Bruce off of you. After the first comment, Bruce had raised his eyebrows as if he was going to call her out for speaking about you but you just shook your head. You didn’t need him making a big deal about nothing for you.
But it was when she made a comment about your ex-boyfriend being locked away in Arkham Asylum that you broke. When Jonathan had first been arrested, your relationship to him wasn’t made public. However, when the trial started and it was revealed that Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend was testifying… the media frenzy began. To have someone who didn’t know you bring it up so callously, so casually, as if it was just a fun fact about you to poke fun at, was like a knife in your side.
Barely thinking, you excused yourself from the ballroom, practically running away to the nearest balcony. You knew what it looked like, but it was exhausting being constantly ridiculed by the upper crusts of society. Especially for something that was ultimately none of their business.
You’d been outside for only a few seconds when the door opened again. You didn’t need to turn around to see who had followed you- there was only one person at the Gala who cared enough to.
Bruce’s footsteps were soft as he walked towards you, not saying anything as he came to a stop beside you. His hand rubbed warm circles on the small of your back, a comforting pressure that alleviated any stress you had accumulated in your body over the night.
“It’s okay.” You said, though your voice was thick and gave you away.
“No, it’s not.” He tilted your chin up to look at him. He pressed a soft kiss against your lips, pulling away before you could return it. “You are one of the best people I know.” Another kiss, equally short. “You are so much more than what they say about you.” This time, when he kissed you, you eagerly returned it, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him close to you.
“I love you.” You murmured against his lips when you parted, and even though you had said it before (many months before, it didn’t take long) he still smiled like it was the first time. Taking your hand in his, he led you to the door.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” He asked, holding the door open for you and smiling like he already knew your answer.
to celebrate the two year anniversary of Stay to Burn (Only to Drown Instead), have Jonathan and the Reader's first meeting from his perspective (a flashback from chapter ten).
Thank you all so much for the love and support you have shown this fic from the beginning. This is the last thing I will write for this fic, and I'm so happy to have been able to share it with you all! <3
word count: 1482 | warnings: mentions of fear play, allusions to stalking/unhealthy behavior, sexual allusions
read on ao3 | stay to burn masterpost
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
He doesn’t remember the first time he saw her, but he remembers the first time he noticed her. Truly noticed her, not the half-second shift in his attention that happened when she was turning in an assignment or affirming her attendance with a raised hand.
Jonathan had been lecturing, a half-rhetorical question hanging in the air. In classes like Introduction to Psychology, classes that were taken by nervous freshmen and uncaring upperclassmen who needed an elective, it was practically an uphill battle to get any interaction from the class. Nothing like the upper level classes where people were practically tripping over themselves to earn his praise, hoping that they would impart enough of an impression to use him as a reference in their future endeavors. No, in this lower level class that he had been forced into teaching during the winter semester, no one really wanted anything but the three hours of course credit.
He held back a sigh when no one moved to answer his question, disappointed but not surprised.
But then her hand shakily extended into the air. He stopped halfway through his sentence, eyebrows raised in acknowledgement as he nodded towards her. Her voice wavered slightly as she started speaking but it quickly steadied, becoming more confident as she delivered a concise answer to his question that proved she hadn’t just been paying attention to his lectures but had also been doing all of the readings he had assigned, even the ones he had expected everyone to ignore.
When she was finished, her voice trailing off as she lost her confidence, he blinked once before nodding.
“Good.” He was genuine in his compliments and noted with a hint of satisfaction how her lips parted slightly at the praise. Interesting. He filed that information away in his mind, to be utilized later if needed.
During the rest of the lecture, he found his gaze returning to her. She was often looking at her notes, scribbling furiously to keep up with his fast paced lecture style. But a few times, he managed to catch her eye and held the contact for a few seconds. She was always the first to break, looking back at her notes.
She came up to see him at the end of class that day. No one ever came to speak with him at the end of class.
Jonathan looked up at her when he noticed her in his periphery, his gaze flitting between her face and the way she clutched the quiz he had handed back in her hand like it was her only lifeline. She clearly wasn’t here to talk about it, her grade had been pretty good. No notes from him, good or bad.
She swallowed, nervous.
Her anxiety was palpable in the air between them. Delicious.
“Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself, um, I know it’s a bit late in the class to be doing that because people typically do it like, the first day, but I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate the class and it’s been giving me some piece of mind knowing that everything in my head is just… im, in my head.” She trailed off, cringing slightly at her rambling. It was clear that she hadn’t actually thought about what to say.
Not wanting her to run away, he smiled as warmly as he could. It seemed to relax her slightly, her shoulders dropping a centimeter from where they had been practically pressed against her ears.
“I’m glad to be of help,” he said. He fully expected her to leave then, content with his acknowledgment. But she continued, surprising him again. Not many people can surprise him.
“The events at Gotham Square Garden just really… um, pardon my language, fucked me up.” She gestured to her head, laughing slightly. But he could see past her carefully constructed ease into the truth of the matter: she was desperate for connection, and desperate for someone to tell her it was going to be okay.
Well, he could provide one of those things in his own way.
“Were you there?” He looked down at this folio, both because he knew she probably didn’t want to be stared at and to not give her the wrong idea that he was staring at her, judging her. She wanted someone to listen to her, not judge her.
He could be that person.
“Sadly.” But she didn’t elaborate more than that, perhaps feeling like she had talked too much already, which in turn only increased his own desperation to know more about what was happening in her head.
Interesting. Despite the voice in his head telling him to not bother, he could feel himself slowly becoming more and more intrigued by the disheveled girl in front of him. She was no longer just a student to him, but a curiosity.
“Anyway, thanks again. I look forward to the last little, um, bit of class.”
He watched her turn, before calling her name before he could stop himself. It was against both of their best interests to make this anything more than a conversation after class between a student and their professor.
“Why, exactly, are you taking this class?”
“...Did I do something wrong?” He almost groaned from the way he could hear her quickened breath at his question. Would it always be this easy to get a reaction from her? Could he desensitize her to the smaller stressors in life and see how she really reacted when something terrifying happened? (The thought of her, in Gotham Square Garden, panicking, was almost enough to force him to sit down to hide his slowly growing arousal. He quickly banished the thought.)
“Answer the question.” He looked up at her, immediately noticing how her breath stuttered when their eyes met. She reacted so well, doing everything he would want from her.
“I wanted something to do over break. It sounded… interesting.” She was lying. While Jonathan may not be too great at actually communicating with people (this conversation was just evidence of that, considering how he was only a few sentences into it and he was already imagining her begging on her knees), he knew how to read them. And the hesitation as she spoke told him that she was making up a reason as she talked.
It wouldn’t take a detective to figure out why she had taken the class after everything she had said about Gotham Square Garden. It was an attempt to figure out what was going on in her own mind after a uniquely traumatizing event. That, combined with her obvious desperation for conversation and connection, told him enough about her current mental state.
She had no one and she was suffering. It was like she had been gift wrapped and placed on his desk, like she had been made just for him.
“The introductory classes are hardly interesting.” He smiled like he was letting her in on an inside joke. “If you wanted something interesting, take a look at some of the classes being offered next semester.”
She blinked, once, like she was surprised.
“Oh! Okay. Yeah.”
Then, because he was afraid he was going to say too much if she stayed for longer, he dismissed her with a wave. She turned and practically ran out of the lecture hall.
Quickly, he turned back to his papers, slipping them into his bag and following her path out of the room. If anyone had asked him why it seemed like he was rushing, he would just say he had a meeting to get to, not that he watched to catch another glimpse of her as she walked away. He watched as she disappeared in the crowd down the hallway, resisting the urge to continue following her.
Jonathan was sorely disappointed when the spring semester rolled around and she wasn’t in his class. Part of him knew it was a good thing-- he had much more important things to do than fixate on a random student. But he replayed that first meeting in his head many times, the way that her anxiety had been so evident on her face enough to fuel nights of fantasies. She was beautiful when she was afraid.
Because what is anxiety if not a low simmering constant source of fear? But oh, how he longed to see more than just petty anxiety from her. He wanted to see true, genuine fear on her face. He wanted to know if she would freeze, or try to run away, or even fight it; if she would cry or scream in the face of something truly terrifying. He wanted to see her lip tremble, her limbs shake, her eyes filled with a desperate need to escape.
And when she walked into his classroom in the fall, he decided he wasn’t going to let her get away from him again.
suffocation (like a loving caress) | teaser/preview
I've been slowly working on the sequel to my fic, stay to burn (only to drown instead), and am happy to share a little preview of it. I am tentatively going to aim to start posting chapters in early 2026, as I'm focusing on getting my shop ready for a really big Christmas market. But I hope you enjoy and I'm looking forward to writing this next chapter of the messiest reader-insert known to man (exaggeration but only slightly) <3
stay to burn (only to drown instead) masterpost | playlist (spoiler free)
Even though it had been three years since that fateful election night, in your dreams you still felt the cruel push and pull of the thick crowd around you, still heard the harsh pops of gunfire, still had phantom visions of water knocking you over and dragging you under, of hands holding you beneath the water until you couldn’t breathe anymore, the sea filling your lungs.
You knew that Bruce thought it was a lingering side effect of being slowly and steadily exposed to fear toxin for months on end. He never said as much, but you could see it in his eyes when you talked about the anxiety, the fear, the nightmares.
So you stopped talking about it.
(You hated worrying Bruce, hated the crease that appeared between his eyebrows when you said something that betrayed too much of your own mental distress… You never wanted to be the reason he was worried. You were meant to be his comfort, his relief from the horrors of Gotham. He had enough to be concerned about without you adding onto it.)
Even though you’d been having similar nightmares since you’d first escaped Gotham Square Garden, part of you knew he was right to be worried. There were elements to the nightmares that had only worsened over time, new images that had only appeared after you’d met Jonathan. They were uncharacteristically horrifying, images you were positive your mind wouldn’t be able to create by itself without outside help.
And what was better (or worse) for your already fractured psyche than a drug designed to pinpoint your worst fears and bring them into horrifying unreality?
You would wake, too often for comfort, gasping for air and clutching your chest like you would claw your lungs out just for a chance to catch your breath. Sometimes, Bruce was beside you, ready to comfort you and remind you that you were safe, that the Flood never happened and your mind was just playing tricks on you. But most of the time, he wasn’t. You’d push the thick comforter back and shakily approach the window before blankly staring down at the city he was fighting so hard to save. Then you’d grab a cardigan and wait for him in the so-called Batcave, eating whatever snack he had down there (you’re pretty sure he only started doing that once you’d waited up for him a few times) as you tried not to shiver from the ever present chill in the cavernous room.
You’d stare at the wall of the abandoned train station beneath Wayne Tower, trying to push away the remnants of your nightmare. It was difficult to not overanalyze them, not to pinpoint every detail of the dream and where it came from. Instead, as you stared at the wall, you practiced the breathing exercises your therapist taught you and listened for Bruce.
He’d arrive a few hours later, unsurprised by your presence. Some nights he would go about his normal post-patrol business, taking his single eye contact out and starting to document what had happened that night, knowing that you just wanted his company more than anything. But there were other nights, ones where you must have seemed more shaken up by the nightmares, he would take you to the couch and sit with you in silence for a few minutes, before quietly asking if you wanted to talk about it.
stay to burn (only to drown instead) moodboard no. 2: Edward + Reader (I tend to picture ed looking a bit younger than he does in the batman just because i.... want to idk. also I know that he gives her a flip phone but it was surprsingly hard to find a picture of one that fit the aesthetic i was going for. perhaps we can consider this a clue for the sequel.)
other moodboards: jonathan | bruce
I initially had a difficult time trying to think of fantasies until @vegasisthinking pointed out to me that I might be going about it in the wrong way. Instead of focusing on scenarios, focus on his likes/desires because he doesn’t feel the need to hide those parts of himself from the reader. Anyway, here are a few ideas.
stay to burn (only to drown instead) masterpost | bruce masterpost
Someone mentioned to me that they see him as very much so a service top and I agree. His primary concern when sleeping with you is to make sure that you are getting what you want.
Consent kink. He wants to know that you want him, that you want what he’s doing to you. He appreciates it when you’re vocal, either with the sounds you make or when you tell him how it feels or what you want from him.
Sex in the Batmobile (not while driving). Maybe not on his motorcycle but he would definitely think about what you would look like riding it. Which then leads us to...
You on top. He likes watching you bounce on him, taking what you need from him. Cowgirl is one of favorite positions <3 (reverse cowgirl is nice, though he likes seeing your face (and tits))
I’m sorry, but I don’t think he ever really masturbated while thinking about the reader. I just think he would see it as a violation of her privacy, though he did definitely think about having sex with her before they officially got together. He just wouldn't actually touch himself to the thought.
He does, however, rewatch your encounters often, especially the ones where you look particularly alluring. He would love to, with your permission, make a lil sex tape with the contact lens camera.
if you have other thoughts, feel free to let me know! if I like them I'll add them :3
