#vspertilian

[am4zon]

get you a man who describes sex with you as "lowkey annoying" <3

@vspertilian

[clawsextended]

neon. (lights are bright. they’re so bright! why shouldn’t you go go go —) you haven’t laughed this much in years. (your throat is raw and you’re blind but you’ve never seen so many colors. it tastes like ice cream like gelato mint gelato sherbet you love sherbet!) the city screams beneath you as your heels hit the pavement, springing exuberantly through the night air. gotham is freezing (you love it here! this is your fucking city, and no one WILL EVER FORGET THAT!) and you’re scratching cement in a showy slice — claws grate with such satisfaction —

(you don’t check the personnel. if you did, you’d know there are five undercover cops and six mob bosses where you’re about to try to rob. the place is crawling with bodyguards armed to the teeth. you’re related to three of the mafiosos (aren’t you proud of me, daddy?) and you’d know it’s a big risk when you’ve slaughtered carmine and every italian last name in gotham wants your head.)

you’re full-throated when you hoOoOooOowl! against the wind in your next leap, the city swallowing your scream beneath dense beeping, horns BLARING at every intersection.

did you reload your guns? are you fully stocked? do you have any batarangs? (holly’s having a sleepover on this STUNNING friday night) is your utility belt stocked? when was the last time you dressed your fucking whip—?

not your problem. you don’t have any problems at all.

everyone’s inside. goggles down, ruby red. you can’t help but grin, your vision lights up with words, familiar and read swiftly. you click a heel and listen to it ping with delight.

you heard somebody in here’s got a piece of the toussaint and that’s the closest thing you’ve ever felt to love. you almost laugh again. don’t worry, baby, mama will put you back where you belong.

mm, why not start with theatrics?

what a lovely glass skylight. sure would be a shame if she BACKFLIPPED THROUGH IT—

@vspertilian

[untremaine]

@vspertilian

        It’s been three days. Three days of not knowing where he is--asking Alfred, who rebuffs her as he always does with his appalling gentility, and even stooping so low as to ask that Diana woman, combing TMZ and any other rag she can think of, hoping to find a picture of him, oh, on a yacht somewhere, or coming out of a club with some slut on his arm, anything to suggest that he’s alive and will come stumbling boozily back to her, even if she’s furious, even if he’s disgusting, even if, even if.

        There’s been some drama, some altercation, at an industrial office in Gotham. One of their strange local criminals and a bomb and the Batman. She thinks he’s probably dead in the explosion. He must have been there at a meeting, or driving by in the company car, and when she says as much to Alfred, voice rising, frantic, all she gets is another set of denials, another round of--and she cries that night, frantic with it, desperate, and too afraid to call the police or anybody else, too afraid that, at the last, that will make him unquestionably dead.

        Bruce reappears when she’s already cried out everything she has, finds her withered, hollow, crumpled in a chair by the fireplace on the third evening, a glass of wine nearby, Anastasia and Drisella hiding from her, as they so often do now. Everyone hides from her, even her own husband. He’d rather her think he was dead, wouldn’t he? She looks at him with dry eyes, taking in the bruised face, the butterfly closure on his forehead, the wrapped arm, the way he favors one side. He looks disheveled, his graying hair ragged in front of his eyes.

        “Do clean yourself up,” she says, and turns away.

[a-shelasso]

@vspertilian​ | plotted starter !

❛ Bruce. ❜ They hold on to each other as though separation would devastate them. His hands at the small of her back, her fingers tracing circles against his neck. Swaying to a song only they can hear. She gazes at him with such deep love in her eyes that she fears her heart will spill out from her chest. An archaic offering to him of her devotion.

❛ There’s something I must say. A story you must know. I did not tell you all of my past before. ❜ Her voice is thick with the words that threaten to sputter out. Not used is she to having secrets or hiding things from Bruce. ❛ It’s about Steve. He did not...He did not simply die in the war. He returned to me, Bruce. He returned. Four decades ago, nearly, life granted me the wildest of my dreams. It was him. All I have ever wanted for myself, and he was there. ❜

[inze]

@vspertilian

At this point it feels natural for her to seek out Bruce when there is a question on her mind. Astra has come to rely on his knowledge and patience far more than she had ever expected to. To the point where her own feelings for him were bordering on affectionate. This, of course, was something that Astra hid, albeit poorly. Far too often did the small quirks and even just the times they sat in silence filled her heart with such joy and fondness it became embarrassing. She’d never been one to be overly sentimental. She couldn’t, having been paired off early in life and dealt with what she’d been given. But Bruce’s own understanding made her want to be. There was very little that she could give him herself, a difficult task with his affluence, but perhaps there was something. And that’s what she’d come to find out. 

She knows that he’ll be alerted to her presence before she reaches him, so Astra merely walks and sits down next to him. After a moment, when it seems he’s not in the middle of something, Astra speaks. She doesn’t do any pleasantries, just skips ahead to what she’d came here for. “Have you ever been on an actual date?” The question does feel a little silly coming out of her mouth, but Astra was determined to follow it through. “In the classic sense, like how your movies here on Earth seem to show.” 

[godblooded]

@vspertilian

the cat doesn’t need a reason to drop in on bruce. what’s a quick visit to an old flame? or a quick visit to a big, big mansion she can steal from. (maybe. she’s bored. what else is she going to do? she could steal from stark again. that was fun.)

but she gets into the cave on silent feet. how she gets through to the entrance perfectly dry and unscathed without much of a hair out of place is beyond anyone. but that’s a secret, and she’ll tell you to shut up if you try to ask. (she’s got such a head for layouts, boy.)

she’s leaning against the wall, enigmatic as the stupid mona lisa but actually impressive. “tip off, big bad bat, crane is on that water supply plan kick again. and it’s so close to the holidays, i’d take it more seriously than usual. johnny’s a sourpuss.”

she hears the beat in the air and then says, “oh. hi.”

(this is a lie. she pissed off crane stealing chemicals from him for a client— she may be out for herself, but she’ll take any chance to make jonathan angry, and it would be in her best interests if he was back in arkham, and isn’t that in brucie’s best interests, anyway?)

[daxambcrn]

for @vspertilian​​ // sc.

“what do you mean, he’s escaped?”

[cruelonlytobekindarchived]

@vspertilian

“mr. wayne.”

you can’t believe they do this to you, but you’re unsurprised they do this to you. and you take it yourself, besides. the migraines dr. lecter causes (doctor doctor doctor you keep chanting in your head) abate slowly to something even gentler, even quieter, and the headspace you find yourself in is impossibly loud and perfectly soundless at once. you know of him but what you know--

--what you know is he’s on your crime scene.

here. standing here. in your crime scene.

the two unconscious men slathered in bright green question marks have been hauled off to the hospital with serious head injuries, numerous lesions, a handful of broken bones. i feel nothing but anger and contempt for people who can hurt others but i feel rage about the pain, fury about the pain, hate about the pain.

“control is a strong-suit but that never lasts forever.” you swallow. it’s cold, and even your gloves don’t keep it out. your hands ache. gotham’s cold lashes at you; all your old injuries throb and you almost feel like it’s strange no one can hear you. you’re still touching the wall of this alley, looking at brick dust and blood spatters. your eyebrows knit further. i am not a murderer but what degrees separate me from that?

you narrow your eyes at the wall. the batman is a myth that the bureau doesn’t like, and so they’ve rolled into town. you don’t feel like one of them anymore. they give you a wider berth when you walk by, cane clicking like a third leg that you almost think of that way. the night’s just breaking to dawn. it’s three in the morning. you’d love to know what strange party animal playboy billionaire charity contributing bruce wayne is doing here at your crime scene. (he probably owns the building it took place in front of, you realize.)

you look at a particularly deep nick in the wall, touch it with a glove. when you do there’s a clang in your ears and it’s not.... sound, but your head turns nonetheless. you think what struck to leave this might’ve been a knife--

“dr. bloom--!” it’s agent brigham’s niece. seeing her makes you miss john, but she has his same dark hair and keen dark eyes. she’s following in his footsteps, you think. you’d love to know if she’s a sharp shooter how he was. you’d love to know what she knows of her uncle. you owe brigham. but she’s handing over this bat-shaped, sharp instrument-- and you turn away from the exceedingly wealthy man to look at it in the baggie.

“it looks-- a little like a knife.”

you say to yourself, and what you really mean is

here we go.