Down the rabbit hole and into Xanadu.
As a child Bruce had always imagined himself, re-imagined himself, as an adventurer. Solitary of disposition, these adventures, more often than not, were pursued alone. He’d disappear into the grounds that surrounded their home (he was young enough then just to call it home) or perhaps into the basement or the attic and he’d emerge hours later,
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It's not morning, but it's still raining when the street is disturbed again by the sound of riotous female laughter, a raised and angry voice, light spilling out an abruptly open door and a tall blonde spilling out with it, dressed as though she remembered the weather and forgot in the middle, still holding her coat in her hands-
"-hands off, wankstain," she snaps at the man very firmly encouraging her to leave, "do you see me fucking going here? Yeah! You put your hand on me one more time I'm gonna think you want me to keep it-"
-which seems to do the trick, and there's a smug swing to her step as she pulls her coat back on and pulls her hair out from under the collar to toss it back over her shoulders.
As she passes Bruce, she takes in his appearance and tosses a few coins (English - like the accent) in his direction. What a nice girl.
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It's cold, but it's not the coldest he's ever been, he's pulled a newspaper out of a nearby trash can - a free music trade weekly with some band he doesn't recognise on the cover - and he's fashioned an extra layer of cover to supplement the stolen wardrobe.
The laughter is what wakes him up. It travels into his half dream and the green haired friend is replaced by the blonde woman who stands over him for a moment before throwing her coins down.
"Are you all right?"
He says, without any indication he recognises the irony of the homeless guy with the bruised face and the cut lip and the rest saying this to the woman who has just thrown him her loose change.
"Someone giving you trouble?"
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The grin she gives him is predatory - there's nothing actively malicious or anything to suggest she genuinely means him ill right now, it's just that she's like that and where someone else might have more of a filter, might pretend to be other than what they are, October probably couldn't if she wanted to. The strongest impression she gives is that she thinks it's really cute of him to ask a silly question like that.
"Aren't you a peach! We just had a little misunderstanding, him and me." Presumably it's now painfully clear to whoever that was.
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"That's me,"
And, Bruce, of course, is the opposite - everything you see is carefully filtered through layers, and years, of carefully placed artifice.
"I'm a definite peach."
He smiles as he says it, he sounds as amused as she looks, and he swings his legs out off the bench to sit up, an unexpected wave of nausea rushing through him as he does it.
"Maybe so, but you shouldn't be wandering about with misunderstood types like that around. I'll walk you to your car."
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In the light proper of the streetlamps, it becomes clear what the shadows near her mouth were in the dark - not bruises at her lips, but fangs. She can comfortably close her mouth, but they're visible (hard to miss, even) when it's open, like maybe she's really into bodymods, or something. It explains the lisp, at least, which she's just a little sensitive about.
"You're a regular knight in shining is what you are," she says, carelessly, hands under her open coat and tucked into the back of her jeans as she walks, walking backwards for a minute to face him before she laughs and turns again.
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Kids these days. All that piercing and tattoos and... extra teeth. And those huge disc like things they stick in their ears leaving a hole the size of a small coin. And extra teeth. The teeth are probably fun in bed, he can't imagine what a gaping hole in your ear is good for.
Everyone wants to be an individual. None of them see the value in being able to blend right in.
"Yeah, I lost my armour a while back."
He stands. He smiles again, no fangs, just perfect teeth.
Bruce knows the value in blending in. The value in being whatever he chooses to be at any given moment. If she thinks he's down on his luck he's not going to correct her.
"You know," He says mildly collecting the coins. "This isn't even enough for a cup of coffee."
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"I look to you like I've got a whole lot of spare cash?" Pro-tip: none of what she is presently gesturing at (that's a cute belly-button, October, thanks, put it away) is 'her money situation'.
Girls like this sometimes have an unsurprising difficulty holding down a job and October's no exception to that rule. It's particularly hard when her new teeth and new lisp limit her further, with less than a full secondary education in the first place, though she's settled in at Bloodlust for now, where being goth as fuck with those very real looking teeth is more of a selling point for her as an employee than anything else.
(Until a while ago, she didn't even know alternative porn rental stores existed.)
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He's long believed in charm, some call it flirtation,as a means to an end. The objective, and there's always an objective, every interaction has a set of objectives on both sides of the exchange whether the participants are aware and admit it or not, and the objective is always best obtained by ensuring the other person wants you to have your way.
Sure, you can use force (brutality), or fear (the threat of brutality), or plain old deception (just take what you want and get out of there before they realise it's gone) and sure all those have their place. But if you can make the other want to give you your ( ... )
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The name makes her laugh again- "You poor thing," -but she's still amused so this is still a game she's willing to go on playing, at least for a while. Besides, he's cute and he has got to be ballsy to try and sell that one; she's not immune to a pretty face with a big set of brass ones. Sure, he's a little rough, but she's never objected to that in a man. (...girl.)
"All right, I'm up for it. But only 'cause I feel bad for you-" she's kidding, the last time October felt bad for somebody was 'never', "-you must be like catnip to the Twimoms."
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He laughs as well and there's nothing threatening, nothing aggressive about it, for a guy as big as his is (and as roughed up as he is) he comes across as strangely harmless.
"I'm not against pity if it pays for my coffee."
Falling into pace with her he continues:
"I am quite popular with the Twi-Mom demographic - though those Harry Potter fans just walk right past, barely look twice. I'm not sure what that's about. ... Can I use your phone?"
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October eyes him for a second, assessing - but she doesn't know he's fucking Batman and she does know that he almost certainly wouldn't see it coming if she tore out his throat with her teeth. (Not that she plans on doing anything unprovoked in Xanadu - or anywhere, Val's got all these fucking rules - but sometimes a girl needs to know she can handle her shit ( ... )
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"A pleasure, October." He says as he catches the phone. "I've always liked those names on women - though you never meet anyone called December. I wonder why that is."
He gives the picture on the front, her posse - he thinks to himself, just a cursory glance. Nice girls, he thinks. Even Astrid. They're just girls. Life is hard for girls. It's not bad if they know how to take care of themselves.
But then, considering the women Bruce has known, actually, the people Bruce has known, he's not much of a judge of nice.
He dials Alfred first but the connection won't go through. He tries Lucius. Same deal. Out of habit and a sort of sentiment he can't really place he then tries Julie - still the same robotic line says the number is not connected.
Beneath the shadow growing on his face the jaw is starting to set. He's holding the phone with a little more tension than is necessary. He tries Alan in the end and has the same result.
He deletes the recent call logs from her phone before handing it back.
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Looks like bad news. October wonders about that, but only in passing - a catlike kind of curiosity that will slide away when something else catches her notice - and she tucks her phone back into her coat (nails are black but it's chipping, there was silver underneath, maybe she just paints over instead of redoing sometimes) and blows smoke out through the gap between her fangs.
"Lost, huh?" She's not...sympathetic, per se, but it's not unkind, at least. She's good company until she's not any more, this one.
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It takes effort to unset his jaw, the relax the grip his fingers have found around his hand.
"It's fine." He says, but the words come out hard and a little too resolute.
He tries again.
"It's nothing."
The voice sounds easy again.
"But I could do with that coffee."
He suddenly realises how cold he actually is. And has to wonder how the rain and the elements are barely registering on this October at all.
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At a closer examination (should he care to take one) it's not so much that she's unaffected as she doesn't seem to care that she's cold and a bit damp. Maybe it's the alcohol in her system (and there's definitely alcohol in her system - she's not drunk, but she's warm and buzzy), maybe it's just that she picks and chooses what she intends to give a fuck about and when.
"C'mon," she says, swinging around to twirl her next step away, "I know a place."
She's barely known about Xanadu for a few weeks, but of course, she already knows a place.
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He follows, hands in pockets, hood around his face, his feet are freezing, perhaps he should have kept the suit after all - though, when you're The Batman there's no chance of subtlety, really. You can't just ask a girl to coffee or the like. For all the avenues The Batman opens up (and they're invaluable) there's others he cuts off.
Sometimes it's better to be Bruce Wayne.
Edward Jakobs.
"Where are you from? What part of England?"
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