Archive of Our Own ^beta

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BATMAN SAVES ENTIRE FAMILY, WORSEGER BEHIND BARS

SELF-PROCLAIMED “GOBLIN KING” FALLS; BATMAN SAVES THE CITY AGAIN

OpEd: BATMAN: HERO OR VILLAIN? 

INTERVIEW WITH COMMISSIONER MAGE: WHO IS THE BATMAN?

ANOTHER HUMDRUM HIT; BAT SIGNAL SEEN OVER LONDON

COMMISSIONER MAGE CALLS FOR PEACE

BATTLE BREAKS OUT IN WHITECHAPEL; ROADS AND BRIDGES TEMPORARILY CLOSED

MAGE ANNOUNCES HUMDRUM HAS BEEN DEFEATED

BANSHEES SPOTTED IN HYDE PARK—BUT WHERE’S BATMAN? SIGNAL OVER LONDON STAYS DARK

COMMISSIONER MAGE PROMISES—“BATMAN WILL BE BACK!”

BATMAN RETURNS! OR DOES HE? MAGE DISMISSES REPLACEMENT RUMORS AS “FAKE NEWS,” SCOFFS AT CHANGES IN APPEARANCE

Chapter Text

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. 

-Batman Begins

OCTOBER

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Penny asks him for the hundredth time, looking him up and down.

“No, it’s a great idea. I already told you that,” Simon insists, slurring just a little bit. He may have been a bit aggressive with his pre-gaming; he’s allowed, though. He’s sure he is.

She looks skeptical as he tugs on the hem of his costume, pulling it away from his body so he can take a deep breath. It’s … maybe a little tight. He deflects, like the pro that he is, and tries to smile. “Hey, you’re not body-shaming me, are you?” 

“No,” she scoffs. “I don’t have a problem with a Batman crop top. It’s just, are you sure you want to do this?”

He knows she means are you sure you’re ready to run around like Batman when it’s not for real anymore, are you sure you can handle it, are you sure you’re not going to have a meltdown in the middle of a giant crowd of people when half the time you can’t seem to do the grocery shop, and he doesn’t want to think about that now. He’s so tired of thinking about how not fine he is. 

He chooses to misunderstand her instead. “The NDA says Batman can’t wear the uniform for fancy dress,” he lectures, like she hasn’t read it as many times as he has. Like it doesn’t have edits she wrote before he signed it, like Penny herself isn’t written into the thing. (Commissioner Mage told him that was a first, but everything about him was supposed to be a first, wasn’t it?) Simon turns away from Penny to the hallway mirror and fusses with the bottom of his Kevlar vest where it’s riding up around his middle. It’s not a crop top. It’s just a little shorter than it used to be. “And I’m not Batman, am I. There’s another Batman. Which makes it not my uniform anymore. Now it’s just actually fancy dress.”

Penny’s still looking at the side of his face, undeterred. “You’re not afraid of someone recognizing you, though?” He doesn’t answer, just tugs at his hem, tries to straighten his cape. It’s a little wrinkly, probably because it only gets used as a couch blanket these days. 

“We’ve already talked about this,” he tells her sullenly. “You could have dressed up as Robin.”

“No way,” Penny repeats, just as she did last week when he’d suggested it in the first place. “You could have dressed up as Shaggy or Scooby. Or Daphne, even, but you didn’t. Besides, I’m not your sidekick.”

“Robin wasn’t exactly a sidekick.”

“Well, whatever that relationship was, it wasn’t healthy. And I don’t even think she really liked you.”

“Her girlfriend definitely didn’t.”

Penny huffs and stomps out of the room to collect the last bits of her outfit, leaving Simon to try to collect the last bits of his sanity.

He looks at himself in the stretchy uniform—no, costume—that fit differently a few months ago. Is this what a snake would feel like if it tried to crawl back into its shed skin? Unnaturally tight and itchy. A too-large thing squished into something that used to feel like a part of you. Do snakes think it’s strange to shed their skin—does it creep them out or is it a relief? Skin is supposed to stay where it is, he thinks. And be with you forever.

“Your skin renews itself fully every four to six weeks,” Penny says from the doorway, startling him, and Simon realizes he’s been speculating about skin out loud like a weirdo. He sounds like that bad guy from Silence of the Lambs, which Penny made him watch several years ago and who he thinks about every time he puts on lotion. 

“His name was Buffalo Bill,” she says. Fuck, he may have started the pre-gaming a bit too early. “You definitely did,” Penny answers, because yup, he’s still saying all of his innermost thoughts out loud.

“Maybe I should just stay home,” he suggests, trying not to look too hopeful.

“No!” she groans, and hip-checks him away from the mirror so she can adjust her orange turtleneck. “You know what? Fuck it. You look fine! No one will recognize you and I'm sure there will be no negative consequences from this”—she waves her hand over his entire body, maybe his entire life—“this situation you have going on. I don’t care anymore. Whatever gets us out of this flat.” 

“Whose party is it again?” he asks, going back to examining his face in the mirror while Penny pulls up orange knee-socks. When did he get wrinkles around his eyes? Is he that old or were these early?

“He’s an intern at work.”

“Oh really!” Simon crows, turning from the mirror to look at her.

“Gross, not like that.” She rolls her eyes at him, and pulls on her shoes. “He’s a grad student, but one of the non-traditional ones. He started late, so he’s our age.”

“Hmm,” Simon hmmed, already losing interest and going back to examining his face for signs of life.

“He’s annoying really. He’s one of those Americans that smiles at you all the time. With all of his teeth.”

“Big talk for someone whose fiancé is American.”

“Please. Micah smiles just the right amount.”

He sighs and gives up on the mirror. Turns his back on the whole thing. “Then why are we going to his party if he’s so annoying?” 

“He invited the entire office and made each of us pinky-promise we’d come.” Penny sighs. “He was surprisingly earnest about it.”

“Are you kidding? We’re going because you don’t want to break a pinky promise you made to a grown adult?”

She looks annoyed. “He freaked me out! Said a demon would show up and take my soul if I didn’t.” 

Simon scoffs and then brightens. “Hey! If we stay in, we could watch Practical Magic and both Hocus Pocuses. Hocus Pocii?”

“No! I’m not taking a chance with a demon. It’s not in my ten-year plan. We’re leaving and that’s final.” Penny turns and slaps the sign by the door on her way out. It’s one of those “days since last incident” signs from a factory, but she’s written over it so it reads, IT’S BEEN ONE WEEK _ _ _ DAYS SINCE SIMON KILLED ANYTHING OR ARRESTED ANYONE! 

“244!” Penny says. “Let’s make it 245!”

Simon groans. “I still don’t see why we need a sign memorializing my failures,” he grumbles as he flips through his keys outside their door.

Penny pushes him aside and smoothly slams the deadbolt home. “It’s a celebration, not a failure. Not killing or arresting anyone should be a goal for all of us.”

“Then why don’t we have a sign for you?” he says grumpily, plodding down the stairs without bothering to wait for her to finish at the door. She’s always faster than him these days anyway.

“My pattern of not killing or arresting is better established than yours,” she says, and pushes past him for the exterior door, but stops before she opens it. He slams into her back, but she doesn’t turn around. “I know you don’t believe me,” she says more quietly, “but it’s growth.” 

He doesn’t say anything, and they stomp into the chilly October night together.

There’s no trick-or-treaters, since it’s not technically Halloween yet, but there are other parties happening—Simon can see people dressed up as witches and skeletons and zombies, wearing pajama onesies and lingerie with animal-ear head-bands and elaborate cosplay—through street-level windows as they walk down the street. People dressed as Batman, like him, and dressed as Batman’s villains, too. It makes him jumpy, but he tries to push through. He supposes on the off-chance one of them is really Catwoman, or the Riddler, or a vampire, that they have as much a right to go to a party as he does, as long as they’re not doing anything wrong at the moment. Everyone needs a night off.

And it’s not really his problem anymore, is it?

The student housing flat where the party’s being hosted is grim, but the host—Shepard or Shep or something, which sounds more like an occupation than a name—is friendly, and the economy-sized plastic bottles of vodka are more than welcoming enough. Penny tries to introduce him to some of the people she works with, but what’s the point? What’s he got to say to functioning adults who never forget how long it’s been since they showered and don’t need reminders to eat more than once a day? Ask them if they know how to use a batarang or how many days it’s been since their last arrest?

Strangely, he keeps thinking of his gran telling him how to bake a cake a few years ago. “It’s overwhelming at first,” she’d told him, “but you have to remember to take it one step at a time. Plan out your attack in advance.”

He’d never planned out attacks before. He always thought he worked better on his feet. Now he wasn’t so sure; his feet didn’t seem to be doing him any favors. What worked in battles didn’t transfer to everyday life—getting a job, dating, grocery shopping even. They all felt harder than they should be. He’d thought eventually, he’d work his way around to figuring out this “being a grown-up” thing. And now he found himself firmly in an age range that could not plausibly be denied adulthood, with still no idea what he was doing.

Shouldn’t there be some kind of drive that would kick in? An instinct, like when you just knew a dog was were, or there was an evil henchman sneaking up behind you? When was that going to happen?

Maybe it didn’t kick in for fuck-ups.

That’s how Simon finds himself becoming one with a recliner that’s seen better days. So has he; they’re a perfect match. How long has he been sitting here? Time feels elastic, stretched, loose somehow. He hopes the Clock King hasn’t finally figured out time travel and—well, it wouldn’t matter, would it? He wouldn’t be a target.

He should get up, he thinks distantly. He should find water; he should find Penny. Did she leave a while ago? He remembers her saying something to him about leaving, reminding him how important it was that he not say anything about being Batman. The fucking NDA, he recalls fuzzily, emphasis on the non-disclosure. Regardless, he should find water. Or maybe another vodka tonic, hold the tonic. He should go home. He should go to bed. He should get his fucking life together. He lets the shoulds rack up, lets himself feel buried in them, like a weighted blanket. He should … yeah, whatever the end of that sentence is, he really fucking should, and he’s not going to.

***

Simon’s first thought is that he’s hot, then the thirst registers. Then his head, pounding like he’d dropped a cartoon anvil on it. He rubs his face on his pillow—thank god it’s his pillow, he doesn’t seem to be in anyone else’s flat, but what’s he doing, does he think he could rub off the hangover? He supposes he’d try anything with how he feels right now; even his skin feels weird. Waxy and greasy at the same time, sticking to the fabric of his pillowcase; he’s covered in a slick of sweat. He runs for the loo.

After he finishes being sick, Simon sticks his head under the tap and drinks until water runs down his neck and he thinks he might throw up again. He stumbles to the kitchen and drinks a glass of orange juice, too quickly, then runs back to the toilet. The second time he goes for water and sips slowly. Clicks the kettle on, glances down the dark hallway at Penny’s closed bedroom door, puts tea bags in two mugs. She’ll drink it.

On cue, Penny stumbles into the kitchen as the kettle clicks off, looking as bad as he feels—that’s a first. She doesn’t even look at him but heads straight to the fridge to pour her own juice; he hands her a mug of tea as she puts in four pieces of bread for toast without asking him.

When she turns around and finally catches sight of him, she lurches back again. “Augh!” she recoils, then chokes on the mouthful of juice she’d just tried to swallow. “What the fuck, Simon? What happened to you?”

Lack of parental figures? Undiagnosed learning disabilities? A marching band that moved into his skull and is practicing for the big game? “You’ll have to be more specific,” he says and blows on his tea. Still too hot. Fucking kettle. Fucking tea. Fucking body.

“You look like you tried to dress like a clown blindfolded.” Her eyes get big. “God, if this is a recently discovered kink, I support you but I need some trigger warnings.”

“What are you on about?” His head feels like it might actually implode on itself. Maybe he’s coming down with the flu. “Penny, I think I’m coming down with the flu.” 

“You’re not,” Penny says, without sympathy and too loudly; they both wince. “But you definitely look like something’s wrong with you. Go look at yourself.”

He has to drink the whole cup of tea and have two pieces of toast, and then two more, before he feels like he can stand up without losing his breakfast; even then, it’s only because he promises himself he’ll make another cup of tea. As the kettle starts, he wanders out to the hallway mirror to have a look, and recoils. “What the fuck?” he sputters. 

Is that lipstick around his mouth? What’s the white stuff?

Gray eyes

Pale skin

Red lips

Purple suit

A hand on a rail 

The rail on the bus?

He pops his head back into the kitchen, where Penny is frowning at her phone. “Pen, how did we get home?”

“I don’t know. You were already here when I got back.”

“That’s a first.” He furrows his brow, trying to remember; even the action hurts but a memory floats to the surface. “Wait, did you tell me you were leaving?”

“I said I was stepping out. I didn’t say I was leaving. And you were gone when I got back.”

“Stepping out? Like, to the shops?” 

“Yes, Simon,” she says defensively, like he’s dense. Is he dense? He feels like his brain hasn’t kicked back online yet, like it’s still floating in a primordial stew in his skull. An achy stew. He flops back into a seat at the table, frowning at his empty mug. How did he get home and at what point did he press his face on a clown?

The soup that is his brain sticks on a completely irrelevant detail. “At a party? Why would you go to the shops at a party?”

Penny abruptly gets up and opens the fridge; he watches her as she slaps a packet of bacon on the counter. (The marching band in his head quiets down a bit at the prospect of bacon.) Finally, she huffs in an exaggerated fashion as if he’d been pestering, and mutters something.

“What was that?”

“Shepard had never had Jaffa cakes,” she says louder.

“Okay…” Realization blooms for him. He’s slow, but he gets there on his own eventually, thank you. Maybe his brain’s regaining some functioning. “So you had to go get some Jaffa cakes, in the middle of a party, for the intern you work with to try.”

“Well, we had to get them,” she says curtly, gesturing emphatically with the bacon. “You can’t not have had a Jaffa cake.”

“Certainly not,” he agrees—he thinks—that was a lot of nots for the soup-brain, and gently pushes her out of the way. She always gets distracted and burns the bacon. “So he left his own party with you to go buy Jaffa cakes?”

“You know, you sound very judgmental for a man who fell asleep halfway through a DIY clown makeover,” she says severely. “I don’t like your tone.”

“Neither do I,” he says back, mock-seriously back to her.

“I’m just going to see if I can get Micah on Facetime while you cook this, if you don’t mind,” she says, already backing out of the kitchen. “See if you can clean yourself up before I’m back.”

“Tell him I said hi. Does he like Jaffa cakes?”

She doesn’t answer him, just slams the door, and he smiles although it makes his head throb again. 

A hand on a rail. The side-by-side sway of a bus. He slid into someone beside him, someone in an expensive purple suit who steadied him by the arm.

There had been a newspaper on an end table at that terrible party. Who has paper newspapers anymore? Maybe someone was doing a paint project or toilet training a puppy. 

He hadn’t seen any headlines in ages—not just paper ones but any news at all. After the accident, it felt like everything he did was spelled out in headlines that lived in his head. BATMAN’S BIGGEST FUCK UP. BATMAN CAN’T GET OFF THE COUCH. BATMAN CAN’T DO HIS JOB. And then just, AREA MAN’S ONLY CV ITEM: FAILURE. 

After a lot of negotiating, Penny agreed to ban the news from the flat. (“You can’t bury your head in the sand forever,” she’d told him. “Watch me,” he said from the couch. She threw a pillow at him.)

He wondered if Penny had been right all along. Maybe he should have kept up with things; maybe he would have built up a tolerance over time. Because at that party, he couldn’t stop looking at that headline. BATMAN’S BACK, SAVES CITY AGAIN. Back. He wasn’t back. Someone else was back, his replacement, doing his job better than he ever had, by the looks of it. And he was where he belonged—becoming one with a curbside pleather recliner that probably had bedbugs.

He remembers the headline. He remembers pulling himself out of the chair, threatening the guy nearest to him—dressed as Gandalf but with breasts, somehow—to save the seat, filling his plastic cup with enough vodka to explain the marching band he’s experiencing.

And then…

Purple suit?

Did they—he remembers talking. Oh god. His talking. He was talking.

No. He couldn’t have, surely. Penny reminded him. He would have remembered he shouldn’t be talking. 

A cold sweat breaks out all over him. He couldn’t have. He didn’t.

But he feels like  …he thinks he might remember…

Did he say, “I’m Batman”?

It’s the one secret of his own he’s managed to keep. Well, except of course Penny knows. He told her as soon as he was recruited, once he aged out of care. That’s why she had to be written into his NDA. Oh shit, the NDA. Fuck. Well, no one had ever accused him of having good judgment. That’s why he’s here, after all. Instead of out there, doing his job. His ex-job. Fuck.

Maybe he's wrong. Maybe it was a bad dream.

Penny bursts out of her bedroom, phone in hand, looking as panicked as he feels. “What the fuck is this, Simon?” she screeches. Penny doesn’t screech. 

She’s holding out the phone and in the moment before she shoves it in front of his face, he reminds himself it could be anything. It’s a Schrodinger’s box of an image, until it isn’t. Until it’s him, sitting on a bus in a too-tight Batman costume— it’s a costume now, he tells himself sternly—with his arm slung around someone.

Purple suit. A haughty-looking face painted white. Red lips.

He can’t see them in the tiny square of a picture, but he knows the eyes are gray. 

“Simon.” Penny’s trying to stay calm. “Why the fuck are you going viral in a pap shot with the Joker?”

Chapter Text

“Because I knew that one day, I wouldn’t have to do this anymore. One day, I could stop fighting, because one day…I would win.”

–Batman #625

NOVEMBER

If it had been up to Simon, he probably would have put off tracking down the man in the photo forever and hoped for the best, like a dog that hides in the corner after it’s pooped in your shoe. This would have been stupid. He knows putting it off would have been stupid because Penny has told him it’s stupid about twenty times a day since their photo together went viral.

As it is, it still takes Simon a few weeks to bring himself to seek out the man-that-is-almost-certainly-not-the-Joker. Not because he’s particularly hard to find, because the man-that-is-almost-certainly-not-the-Joker is almost certainly not the Joker and is therefore very trackable. More because Simon feels like he’s had his fair share of facing the consequences of his actions lately—the whole losing his job and his purpose in life because he couldn’t manage to defeat the Humdrum more efficiently, remember, Penny?—and he’s just not sure how much more of that he can take.

But evidently what he really can’t take is Penny giving him side-eye while banging pots and pans around in the kitchen.

“You have to go see him,” she scolds him that morning while she bustles around the kitchen getting ready for work. It’s pitch black outside despite being after 7; the winter feels endless already and it’s barely begun. “You have to go see him today.”

“Do I really, though? We haven’t seen much more about the photo. I think it’s going to be fine.” Simon yawns blearily. He may not be Batman anymore but he hasn’t given up the hours, preferring to watch whatever floats by on the telly at 3 am until the cider finally knocks him out. (He likes it better than Netflix, even though the options are crap, because if it’s on the telly, there’s got to be someone else in London watching it at the same time as him.)

But staying up until the small hours makes Penny’s overdramatic banging around at 7 am that much worse, and this morning, to add insult to injury, Penny has hauled him out of bed in order to track down The Man—or rather, rolled him off the couch, where Simon falls asleep most nights.

“It’s not fine,” she huffs now, slamming a mug of tea in front of him; it sloshes over the edge. “You’re not losing your state pension because you broke your contract not to disclose your identity. I knew that outfit was a bad idea.”

Simon also knows (now) that the outfit—costume—was a bad idea. It had felt so good to put it back on though.

Well, that’s not exactly right, is it? He’d thought it would feel good. But it was like the snake skin after all—it didn’t fit anymore. In all the ways. “Maybe we should get a snake,” he says now to Penny.

“Don’t change the subject,” she says severely. “I didn’t endure an hour-long phone call with the intern to weasel this guy’s name out of him for nothing.”

“You didn’t endure anything,” he retorts, slurping his tea. Still too hot. “I heard you laughing!”

“I wasn’t laughing!” she says indignantly. “I was placating. I was humouring him to get your man’s name—“

“He’s not my man!” Simon interjects, but she bulldozes on.

“—and you’re going to go see him today. You’re going to go see him at work, you’ll tell the front desk you’re there to see Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch—“

“Now that’s a villain name. That’s better than most real villains’ real names. Are we sure he isn’t actually the Joker?”

“Yes, Simon, we’re sure, he’s a cousin or something of a guy the intern invited. And—”

“What if his mate’s cousin is the Joker though, hmm? The real Joker probably has cousins.”

Penny shoots him a look. “Stop trying to deflect. He’s a librarian, for gods sake! He’s not suspicious. And he’s not the Joker.”

Simon hmms sceptically and Penny throws a heel of bread at him as she put her toast in. “I called Arkham; they confirmed he’s still there. You’re going—”

“Maybe he’s fooled them. Maybe he Shawshank Redemption’ed them and snuck out.”

Penny takes a deep breath like she’s trying to remember she loves him. “You’re going to go into the library,” she repeats, placing her lunch things in her work bag with deliberate calm. “You’re going to go to the front desk. You’re going to tell them you need to speak to Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch, and you’re not going to return here until you make sure he’s not going to tell anyone about what you talked about. Whatever you talked about, since you don’t even remember most of what you leaked. Who knows what you told him!”

“You know, I don’t need you to spell out every step for me,” Simon mutters. “I’m not a child. I’ve actually saved the city before, if you remember! I defeated the Riddler!”

“That reminds me,” Penny continues. “You’re also not to break your streak of not killing anything or arresting anyone.”

“Ugh!” Simon groans. “The fuck, Pen. You don’t know what I’ll be walking into!”

“I actually know exactly what you’ll be walking into! A library! And you don’t need to kill anything or arrest anyone there!” Penny says. Then her tone turns coaxing. “Come on, you just hit your 250-day milestone last week. Let’s make it 300 and I’ll make you my sticky toffee pudding.”

Simon knows he should be extremely cranky about this bribe, he does. Not the least because one pudding in exchange for fifty days’ effort feels a bit much, even for Penny. He wants to generate the will to be offended at Penny bribing him with sweets like a primary school student, but instead he’s just numb. Feelings in general are out of reach these days; it’s like they’re on the shore of a beach he’s drifting farther and farther away from and he just doesn’t care enough to try to paddle back.

And Penny’s sticky toffee pudding is really good … it’s the only dessert she makes from scratch, and only under extreme duress. “I’m just saying,” he backpedals, “I don’t need you to draw me a diagram. This isn’t that hard.” He faltered under her stare. “Comparatively, I mean, that’s all I’m saying. I can do this.”

She looks over her glasses at him as she shoves her water bottle in her bag. He hates that look, which always means she’s about to be right about something. “And yet, here you are, still not leaving.”

He throws his hands up and goes to take a shower. If he’s going to have to endure the humiliation of finding this guy again and begging for a favor (or worse, trying to pretend he’d been lying), he could at least smell better.

“I’m leaving!” Penny shouts through the bathroom door a few minutes later. “If you don’t find him today, don’t be here when I get home!”

“Penny!” Simon shouts back over the water running. “You’ve got to get out of my arse about this guy!”

Penny literally stomps her foot in the hallway; she must be putting her shoes on. “No, you’ve got to go find this guy and convince him not to breathe a word about your no-longer-secret identity. And until you do, I’m going to stay so far up your arse, not even an enema will get me out!”

Absolute silence and an uncomfortable pause follow. “Please don’t say anything like that ever again,” Simon says finally, still through the door.

”If you’d behave yourself, I wouldn’t have to,” Penny retorts, and slams the door on her way out.

That’s how Simon finds himself standing out in the cold in front of this extremely inoffensive library, feeling extremely offended, putting off going inside to track down the man-who-is-almost-certainly-not-the-Joker about their viral instagram photo. And he blames Penny for the whole thing, except that he knows it’s really not Penny’s fault; it’s him, it’s always him.

He’s pacing outside, soothing his nerves by cataloguing the ways he could break into the building in under sixty seconds. He’s up to sixteen, which he feels pretty good about, except when he remembers that Penny would tell him he only needs one method of entry and it’s through the doors, to the information desk, asking to speak to Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch, at which point he goes back to pacing the pavement and feeling extremely offended. With himself, with external brickwork that provides convenient climbing holds to both good and bad guys, with himself, with himself, with himself. EX-BATMAN CAN’T EVEN ENTER A LIBRARY THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR, the headline would read. STYMIED BY HAVING TO POLITELY ASK TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE.

Simon thinks the whole situation would be a lot easier if he could have just maintained the blessing that was his initial memory loss around that night. If it could have stayed hazy and fragmented, maybe he could have walked up to that information desk like a normal person. Maybe he could have had this awkward conversation about maintaining his secret identity with a handsome stranger without wishing he could literally fall through the pavement to the center of the earth like he did that time with the Worseger. (Was it too late for that to be an option?)

As it is, though, most of the night has come back to him, although he hasn’t felt the need to tell Penny that.

He remembers an expensive-looking purple suit. A waistcoat—a waistcoat!—pocket square, the whole works. He thinks someone might have nudged the Joker toward him, or shouted about them being in the same room, or maybe Simon himself shouted (god he hoped not, but anything was possible). However it happened, the Joker was suddenly standing near his recliner, looking down at him and saying (how could this be his line? Simon had to have imagined it, no one could say this line smoothly but in his memory when the Joker said it, it was smooth as silk) “Why so serious?”

Simon’s really hoping somehow he’s wrong about the next part, but he knows he’s not.

“I’m Batman,” Simon slurred the words out.

“I can see that. From your crop top,” the Joker said with tolerance.

“No, you don’t get it,” Simon said, trying to pry himself out of his recliner but just managing to lean way forward on his knees, insistent and unsteady. “I’m Batman. Like, for real.”

“Yes, and I’m the Joker, as you can see from my suit. Don’t you just love Halloween?” The Joker gestured at his lovely expensive suit, and Simon’s eyes got stuck on his trim waistcoat. He shook his attention back to his own knees, to his Nomex trousers. He wondered how long it would take to wear holes in them, if they could wear holes.

“No, I’m the real Batman,” he told his knees, sadly.

“What about that guy, then?” he thinks the Joker gestured to the fucking headline, and that’s when Simon does remember tossing back the rest of the vodka-tonic-without-tonic he’d gotten himself earlier.

“Ugh,” Simon had rolled his eyes. “Fine. Fine. I was Batman. He’s the new Batman. So what? Anyone can be the new Batman. He barely has a track record yet.”

“The new Batman? Isn’t there only one?”

“Come on. The same Batman for decades?” Simon remembers scoffing, like that was the ridiculous part. “They switch them out. Like Santa Clauses at the mall.”

“Hmm,” the Joker seemed to consider this. “Yes, you being Batman like the Santa Claus at the mall, I can believe.”

“Hey! That’s not what I meant.”

It’s a blur again after that. He thinks he tried to get up for more vodka, but rolled out of the recliner onto the floor instead. Voices surged around him incoherently while he snuck into the kitchen; he managed a long pull out of the vodka bottle itself, plastic cup lost to the fall, until a hand gently pulled him away by the elbow, and offered to walk him home.

He remembers how fresh and cool the air felt when they left the stuffy, sad student flat. Trying to walk in a straight line and feeling like he’d be doing all right if only the ground wouldn’t move so much under his feet. Slumping into a seat on the bus. Every time he closed his eyes, the world felt like it was going to spin off its axis, so he had to force them open in the glaring overhead lights. He remembers a slim wrist holding the handrail in front of them, disappearing into an expensive purple wool sleeve. He remembers—god, this was humiliating—how soft the wool of that suit was under his cheek when he finally stopped trying to stay upright and let himself slump over, how nice the hopefully-not-the-Joker smelled. He’s also remembered…

Well. He’s been trying very hard not to think about how he might have ended up with greasepaint on his face, how the paint on his lips matched his memory of the paint on the probably-not-the-Joker’s lips, or if he’s right in remembering a low laugh, a hand on his waist pulling him in gently, his own hand pulling that purple suit closer…

He’s just … he’s dreading the look on the guy’s face when he sees Simon again. Simon’s memory may be fragmented, but the vibe he’s left with is “reeks of patheticness.”

“Pathos?” Penny suggested.

”No,” Simon said flatly. “Whatever the wrongest-sounding word is, I’m definitely that.”

He just knows this guy is going to see him and—he’s going to see him. And the mix of secondhand embarrassment and pity and maybe even fear that he’s going to see on almost-certainly-not-the-Joker’s face—well, it feels like more than he can take.

This is ridiculous, Simon thinks now outside the library. He’s got to piss and he’s cold and he shouldn’t have to put up with this—hasn’t he been through enough? And he’s sure Penny was bluffing about how he shouldn’t come back if he flaked out, or at least he’s pretty sure, so he turns to go back to the tube and bumps into Tyrannus Grimm-Pitch.

At least he thinks it’s him. That night was really fuzzy, true, but, well. It smells like him. And it’s another soft expensive wool coat against his cheek when Simon slams into him. And—he pulls back—those are the gray eyes from his memory. And the lips…

“Oh!” the man says, surprised. “Pardon me. Are you—?”

“I’m Batman!” Simon shouts. The actual fuck? How did he survive this long in the real world, how did he used to function? He never told anyone his identity before this—the one thing he’s managed to keep, that someone hasn’t taken from him. Well, except of course Penny knows, but that was his; he did that. He told her as soon as he was recruited, once he aged out of care. She had to be written into his NDA.

Oh shit, the NDA, that’s right. Fuck.

“I’m Batman,” Simon says again, firmly, authoritatively this time. You sound so stupid, he thinks. But no point in trying to deny it now, now that his stupid mouth has decided it’s not going to even attempt to lie about things. (He had to learn that the hard way in the early days—you have to make your mistakes work for you; no point in trying to wish them undone.)

“Okay,” Tyrannus-likely-not-the-Joker says. “I thought you might be.”

“What??” Simon says. “Um—really?”

“You’re the guy from the party, right? You told me you were Batman like, ten times at least.”

“And you believed me?” Why is he questioning this when it’s already too late? When he fucking introduced himself as Batman, again and again?

“Well, not at first, but you had a very convincing utility belt.”

“God. I can’t decide if I hope that’s a euphemism or not.”

“For the record, it wasn’t.” The man grins at him, unexpectedly. He’s got a very nice smile; it’s a bit crooked and his incisors poke out, just a little.

Simon glances around and lowers his voice. “Have you—have you told anyone?”

“No!” the man says quickly.

“Really?” Simon felt vindicated somehow, but surprised. “Why—why haven’t you?”

“Oh, well.” The man looks abashed. “It seemed like you were having a hard enough time as it was. At the time.”

“Oh.” That’s—well, is it thoughtful of Tyrannus-likely-not-the-Joker? Why wouldn’t he take advantage of Simon’s stupid lapse in judgment? Wouldn’t most people? Simon should ask him what he’s up to, what he’s plotting, although this guy doesn’t seem to be plotting much of anything and to be fair, Simon’s the one who tracked him down to his place of work and has been lurking outside like a villain himself. “Um … is your name really Tyrannus?”

The man looks surprised. “Where did you hear that?”

Oh god. What if he’s got this man all wrong? No, he said he recognized him. “The guy who threw the party? Your cousin or mate or somebody knows him and he works with my friend Penny.”

The man—Tyrannus?—scoffs. “Of course Dev would tell people that’s my name.”

“So it’s not?”

“No, it is, but I go by Basilton. Baz, really. I’d sound like an old-school villain if I went around calling myself Tyrannus.” He looks appraisingly at Simon for a moment. “Which I’m not. I guess that’s probably relevant for you to know, considering how we met.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Simon adds a few points in his mental “possibly the Joker” column, just because the Joker would say he’s not the Joker, but it feels like it’s for show at this point. And besides, Simon can’t stop thinking about how many directions they could be attacked from; he finds he’s pressed himself to the wall behind them. He can’t have this conversation outside. “Look, can we go somewhere? Somewhere else, I mean?”

“Are you trying to get me to take you home again?” Tyrannus-not-the-Joker, no, Baz, asks, looking amused again, and Simon doesn’t know what to think. The balls on this guy! He believes that Simon’s Batman, but he’s still teasing him? Doesn’t he understand Simon is intimidating? He defeated the Dragon, for gods sake!

Amused is a good look on him, though, Simon thinks against his will. Better than the Joker face paint. Shut up, Simon. Focus. Now is the point in the conversation where you say something that will make him understand he needs to never say anything about you to anyone.

Baz seems to sense Simon’s inability to do—well, anything—and takes pity on him. “There’s a coffee shop nearby,” he offers. “I can take my lunch a bit early.”

“Aren’t you … are you just getting to work? It’s, like, 9 am.”

Baz has pulled his phone out of his pocket and is tapping on the screen; he answers without looking up. “Did you want to go somewhere else or not?”

The words sound harsh but Simon can’t stop watching where the corner of Baz’s mouth is twitching, like he’s ready to smile again. “Ye—yes.”

Baz finishes his typing and turns and walks back the direction he was coming from; Simon has to jog a bit to keep up with his long legs. The street’s busy—it feels busy to Simon, anyway. He’s out of practice at being in public, around so many people at once. He can’t stop looking around, waiting for something to pop out and attack. That was really the Humdrum’s style more than anything else, though, and he’s gone. And so is Simon, essentially.

Simon sees someone eying a pocketbook too closely as they wait for the pedestrian light to turn, and gives them a menacing look; they startle and walk the other way. He guesses that’s something. He still has the intimidation level of a teacher on hall duty.

Belatedly, he realizes Baz has said something to him, probably a few times, and is now looking at him with some concern.

“Pardon?” Simon says, too late, too loudly, as they cross the street. He can’t make conversation and watch for danger at the same time; it’s one reason why Robin—alright, just Agatha to him now, he supposes—always hated working with him.

“I said, your name’s Simon, right?” Baz repeats. “I mean, that’s what I can call you?”

”Oh, yeah. Simon Snow,” Simon says. Baz is walking with his bag dangling on his shoulder. Does he want it to get taken? Simon speeds up a bit to walk at his side.

“Are you all right?” Baz says. “You seem nervous. Do you think—is something going to happen?”

“I’m not nervous!” Simon says, outraged. He looks around again. He’s not nervous, he’s keyed up, he’s just on alert, this is necessary vigilance, he’s not anxious, doesn’t have anxiety like that one therapist suggested, the one he had to see before he could leave the hospital with Penny after the Humdrum. He’s not anxious, it’s just that he can’t stop watching, can’t stop monitoring, can’t stop feeling responsible for every one of the people he sees. BATMAN FAILS TO PROTECT THE CITY. Again, Simon adds in his mind, again again again.

“Okay,” Baz says, very calmly, and Simon realizes he probably missed something again—he’s always missing something, isn’t he? All the people he hasn’t helped would say so, every alley he arrived at not quite soon enough, and that could be any of the people they’re passing.

He jerks when he feels a hand on his elbow—but it’s just Baz’s hand, just like his faded memory from being held upright on the bus, but this time Baz withdraws it again when Simon startles. He realizes they’ve stopped in front of a small storefront, THE WINGED GOAT spelled out in faded gold print on the window.

“We’re here,” Baz says, holding the door open for him. “Why don’t you go find a table in the back? That’s where the best chairs are. Do you want tea?”

“Yeah,” Simon mutters, forgetting to say thank you because he’s got to check for an exit route—is that a closet or an external door? No, that’s the loo, that should be fine unless—no, he peeks in, there’s no window. He pulls himself together enough to find a seat with his back against the wall, near the door to the kitchen.

Baz joins him a minute later, a loaded-down tray in his hands. “I didn’t know how you take it,” he says apologetically as he carefully begins to arrange the tea things. “They gave me a pitcher of regular whole milk but I can get you something else if you’re lactose intolerant. I, uh, got you a scone as well. They’re very good and they happened to be fresh from the oven and you looked like you might be hungry. I ... I hope you’re not allergic to anything. Are you allergic to, um, anything?” He’s talking quickly and Simon feels an alien urge to say something reassuring.

“Um, no. Not allergic to anything,” he says.

“Good,” Baz says, and then he’s gone again, returning the tray, hanging his coat on a peg near the door, saying something friendly to the woman at the register. He does have a nice smile. It’s not Simon’s fault he notices that. It’s just objectively true.

By the time Baz is back, Simon’s life has been changed by the scone Baz had left with him, and he’s feeling slightly calmer.

“What is this?” he says with his mouth full.

Baz gives him a quick smile and pours milk in his tea, stirs. “Sour cherry. It’s a specialty here.”

Simon looks at the pain au chocolat in front of Baz. “But you didn’t get one. Do you want a bite of mine?”

Baz looks awkward. “Oh, well, I actually … I came in earlier and got one.”

“Oh,” Simon says, awkward to match. “So I’m taking your lunch break from you, and you’ve already been here once today.”

“It’s all right,” Baz says politely. “I stop in here a lot. They have a queer book club here that I go to sometimes.”

“Hmm,” Simon hmms. Another thing he’s failed to give much thought to that seems to be fairly straightforward for other people. FAILED SUPERHERO STILL DOESN’T KNOW IF HE’S GAY OR NOT. Which reminds him…

Now that he’s face to face with Baz, he knows where he should start. He should see if he can tell if Baz really hasn’t told anyone about Simon’s identity, make sure he understands how important it is that Baz never tells what he knows, hope he hasn’t sold his story already. He should definitely start there, but he can’t stop thinking about the pull of their lips together…

“Um…” Baz clears his throat and Simon realizes he’s gone silent again. Did he ever know how to talk to people? Was it just a dream that he was, very recently, an at-least-half-functioning adult capable of defeating supervillains? “How much do you remember about that night?”

“Not much.” Simon tries to sound casual, non-committal. Baz looks disappointed, though, and Simon unexpectedly feels bad and amends, “Well, some. I remember some … things. I just wasn’t sure how much of what I remembered was accurate.”

“I see.”

“You helped me home, didn’t you? That must have been out of your way.”

“It wasn’t any bother,” Baz says gently. “I wanted an excuse to leave anyway.”

“I can only remember a bit of the ride home,” Simon says apologetically. This is so awkward, he’s so fucking awkward, and this is coming from someone who had to sit through the Penguin monologuing his plans to blow up the London Underground for forty-five minutes. He’d rather listen to that again then try to make conversation with this very nice come-on-at-this-point-yeah-alright-almost-certainly-not-the-Joker.

Baz eyes him more curiously now. “How did you find me?” he asks.

“The guy who threw the party, who I guess knows your cousin. Like I said, he works with my flatmate.”

“Oh, is that Penny?”

“Do you know Penny?” Simon’s surprised.

“No, just from your lock screen. On your phone.”

“Ah.” Simon glances down at it, then taps it and holds it up bashfully. The screen reads, “IF LOST, RETURN TO PENNY. REWARD OFFERED.” Their address and Penny’s phone number follow.

“I asked you if Penny was your girlfriend and you said more like your warden. Or your zookeeper.”

Simon smiles ruefully. “Accurate.”

“And then I told you it was a strange way to keep track of your phone and you said no, the reward was for you.”

Simon feels his face go red. ”Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“It came in handy,” Baz says wryly.

“That’s even worse!” Simon says, but he’s smiling a little, somehow. “And now you know where I live.” His voice drops; he doesn’t mean it to sound quite as serious as it does, but he’s not used to this—how people speak to each other. And it’s true, isn’t it? He knows where Simon lives, where Penny lives. The whole point of tracking this guy down in the first place was to make sure they’re safe, he reminds himself.

“Look,” Baz seems to anticipate where Simon’s mind is wandering, and goes serious, too, lowering his voice and leaning in. “I didn’t know that woman was going to post that picture of us on the internet. She took it without asking and I was more concerned with keeping you upright than trying to strong-arm her phone out of her hand.”

Simon winces. “Fair enough.”

“But, no one’s contacted me about it except Dev, and I didn’t tell him anything. And if they do, I won’t be telling them anything about what we talked about. I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone thinking I was the real Joker and I don’t even have a secret identity.” He leans further forward. “That you know of.”

Simon looks at him for a minute, watches the corner of his mouth, then smiles tentatively. Teasing. This is what normal people do, tease each other.

“What I’m saying is, your secret’s safe with me,” Baz continues, serious again, leaning back.

Simon knows he should feel relief that this is settled then, but he’s … disappointed. That’s it, then. He knows that’s going to be the end of this thing between them. He trusts, somehow, that Baz won’t talk—he hasn’t so far and it’s hard to see how it would benefit Baz anyway, especially now that the moment has passed, now that Simon’s not Batman anymore anyway, and so that’s that. Baz can go to work and live the rest of his life knowing just how pathetic Simon is, and Simon can go back to—well, back to the couch, he supposes.

“Hey,” he says abruptly. “I don’t know if I’m remembering this right, but did you tell me your aunt was behind all those bags of poo that kept showing up everywhere the Commissioner went?”

Baz laughs, head thrown back and everything. God, he does have a lovely laugh, and that’s not Simon being weird about things, it’s just objectively true.

“Hey!” Simon goes on, smiling again. This has to be a record. “He was furious about those! He made me drop everything to investigate. I got so sick of trying to track poo like a forest ranger that when they finally stopped I told him I’d figured out who it was and scared them off. What happened to her?”

Baz’s eyes are still crinkly. “She went on a business trip. Would you believe she tried to convince me to keep it going while she was gone?”

“I guess if you had, we might have met under different circumstances.” Does he sound flirty? Surely not.

“Probably for the best we did meet the way we did. Instead of you arresting me over a bag of poo.”

“Instead, I was the bag of poo,” Simon says, looking down at the crumbs on his plate.

“Don’t say that,” Baz says. “Anyone would have a hard time, I think, in the same circumstances.”

That’s not true, Simon thinks but doesn’t say. Maybe he’s been pathetic enough as it is. He clears his throat. “Um, who kissed who?”

Fuck. This is not the question Simon meant to ask, but it’s really the answer he wanted to know the most, yes, Penny, even more than did Baz tell anyone and does he plan to?, so there it is.

“Oh.” Baz is blushing. God, that’s cute, Simon thinks, against his will. He’s not sure he has the right to think that. It feels inappropriate, given the circumstances, but there it is again. He seems to have very little he can control, thoughts-wise, in regards to Baz. “Well,” Baz continues, “um, it was you. Technically. But, you, uh, you asked first.”

“Oh.” Simon lets out a big breath. That’s a relief. He had remembered something like that, but he’d been afraid it was wishful thinking. He didn’t think he’d ever force himself on someone; it’s not in his nature, whatever else might be wrong with him, and he hadn’t been quite that far gone anyway, but it bothered him; he wanted to be sure. He wanted to know for sure what kind of person he is.

“And…” Baz continues, blushing even more brightly and looking intently at his untouched pastry, “to be fully accurate, it was mutual after that.”

“Oh,” Simon breathes again. Well … well, that’s a relief too. Yes, that’s the feeling he’s having. Relief. He’s pretty sure.

“Although if I had known you were out of it enough to not remember, I would never have—” Baz interjects quickly, looking panicked again.

“No, no, I thought—I mean I remembered that generally—or, I thought that it was like that—I just—I did want to be sure. After you had already done so much for me.”

Baz smiles at him. He’s still blushing. “It was no trouble. Really.”

Simon’s phone screen lights up. Did you find him? Penny’s text reads from the lock screen.

At the same time, Baz’s screen lights up as well. He swipes it away, but another message pops up, and then another. He sighs and clicks it dark again. “I may need to head into work after all,” he says apologetically.

“Circulation emergency?” Simon tries to joke.

Baz smiles at him again, bigger this time. “Something like that. The book signal doesn’t work in the sky when it’s light out, you know.”

Simon gathers his tea things to bring to the counter, and follows Baz to the door. None of this has gone the way that he expected, but it’s been all right, hasn’t it? It’s just that it’s over faster than he thought it would be.

They stand outside the shop, and Simon tries to think of how to say thank you for being kind, and sorry I’m a mess, and do you want to snog again sometime, without being weird.

“You should take my number!” Simon practically shouts instead. Baz looks startled, and Simon sighs at himself. That’s not … well, it’s not his best line, but he’s done much worse. In this conversation alone. “I mean, just in case something comes up. And we need to be in touch.”

“Okay,” Baz says, the corner of his mouth lifting, just a bit.

“And … and I should take yours,” Simon says firmly.

“Ah, well, you already have it,” Baz says shyly.

“No, I don’t,” Simon frowns. He would know if he had this guy’s number. “Penny had to track you down for me.”

“You insisted I put my number in your contacts for you after—well, before you went inside. I put the number in but I didn’t see what you saved it under.”

Simon looks at his phone, opens the contacts app. Scrolls through until he gets to the Js, where he sees a contact named “HOT Joked🤡.” Wonders if he can make himself spontaneously combust. Hits “message” instead. Types, This you?

Baz’s phone buzzes in his hand, and Simon gets to see Baz smile at the screen in live time. He’s stupidly glad he didn’t delete the contact, embarrassing as it is.

The phone in his hand buzzes. Yes. It’s Baz Pitch.

Simon looks up to find Baz watching him. “Well, now I have your number, and you have mine, in case you ever need backup for your circulation emergencies.”

“You’ll be the first person I call,” Baz says, his eyes crinkling again. “Until we meet again?”

Simon watches him until he turns the corner, then ducks back in the coffee shop to get a few scones to bring back to Penny as evidence that he did, in fact, accomplish his mission. He looks at the board in the coffee shop, takes a number for a yoga class he knows he’ll never go to—Penny’s always telling him it would be good for his mind and body to unite—and resolves to stop at Sainsbury’s for ingredients to make an actual meal in his actual kitchen this week for himself and Penny. With vegetables. Maybe more than one!

He gets cider too, but the organic version. Surely that means it has vitamins or something.

***

“So it was the right guy?” Penny says that night.

“Yes,” Simon says, and pulls up the text thread with Baz Pitch🤡 where he’s been looking at it periodically all afternoon. When he taps the “message” box, the keyboard appears and a cursor blinks at him encouragingly. “Yeah, it was him.”

Tomorrow. He’ll text him tomorrow, and he’ll think of something funny to say—something witty and a little flirty and maybe he’ll ask him if he wants to meet at that coffee shop again. For lunch, or maybe meet for dinner, even. Maybe he’ll cook for him! He got kale, for gods sake. He looked up a recipe for a salad while standing in the produce section. He could be a whole new person now.

He could be funny and functional. Tomorrow. He turns on the telly as Penny goes off to bed and settles into the couch with a healthy, organic cider. He’ll start tomorrow.

***

Penny throws out the kale when she finds it a few weeks later, smashed into the back of the fridge, liquified.

Chapter Text

Sometimes people influence you not so much by what they mean to you - as by what they allow you to mean to them.

-Gotham Knights

DECEMBER

Simon met with Baz on a Monday. Probably it being a Monday carried him away, convinced him to “start the week off right.” He’s decided to say that’s why he bought all those vegetables he should have known he was never going to cook anyway. And feeling virtuous from doing the shopping, he treated himself to drinking all of the organic cider he bought, waking up on Tuesday grumpy and disoriented.

He opens the text thread with Baz approximately ten times per hour but reasons with himself that texting the next day would look too eager. It’s bad enough that he is too eager. He doesn’t have to broadcast it.

He gets more cider. It’s not organic.

On Wednesday, he didn’t even remember the vegetables. And every time he opened Baz’s thread, the keyboard felt intimidating. Too many possible combinations of letters.

Now it’s been too long. It’d be weird if he wrote him now. He’d think Simon was creepy, maybe even that he was still stalking him. He looks at the blink blink blink of the cursor, the a e i o u waiting to be transformed into something meaningful. He locks the screen and rolls over on the couch.

***

Penny’s decided they’re celebrating Christmas early because she’s going to be with Micah for the holidays this year. She’d wanted to stay in London, but Simon insisted. He wanted to pretend it was the darkest days of January already anyway, that Christmas had come and gone. He had always had to work that day; he didn’t feel too attached to it.

Even now, Simon tells her it’s too early, but she bribes him with popcorn to “string” and gingerbread biscuits, and he relents. They decorate them together while bad pop music plays on her phone; as is tradition, he makes her a tiny Penny with crooked glasses and purple hair like she had the first time they made gingerbread together at Christmas. Hers has the buzzcut he used to wear when he was still in care, his shitty trainers. He decorates one round biscuit in honor of the red bouncy ball that he’d been in tears over losing when he was too old to be crying over toys, in honor of how they met; Penny was the only kid in year six who helped him look for it. It never turned up, but Simon thinks if he got Penny out of the deal, the sacrifice was worth it.

They toast with hot chocolate and bite their own heads off.

Simon settles next to Penny on the couch; she made him get up and turn off all the lights so the room was only lit by the softly glowing Christmas tree in the corner. “I hate this film,” he tells her as he shoves the fleecy blanket from under his legs toward her.

“You can’t hate It’s a Wonderful Life. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.”

“Well, arrest me,” he says, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth, “because I do.”

“I’m not arresting you. ACAB, Simon.”

“All right then, I’m allowed.”

Penny doesn’t ask more questions, distracted by the start of the film, and Simon gets sucked in too, against his will. The black and white of the pictures is so soft, with no hard edges.

Jimmy Stewart’s suit reminds him of Baz, although he’s sure there are some important style differences he’s not picking up on. He unlocks his phone and navigates to Baz’s text thread by muscle memory; it’s a reflex at this point. Yes. It’s Baz Pitch, shines up at him. He taps the text box, watches the cursor appear expectantly, the keyboard ready for words. He types Do you ever watch, and deletes it. He locks the screen again.

“I hate it,” he says as the credits roll at the end, “because we’re supposed to love this film and think it’s so great and no one ever talks about how fucked up it is.”

Penny glances over at him, still sniffling. “What?”

He shakes the unpopped kernels around in the popcorn bowl; they’re loud. “Like, you have this guy. And all he wants to do is see the world. He doesn’t want to do fucked up things, he doesn’t want to make lots of money, he just wants to do something for himself. Just one thing. And in the end no one even cares.”

Penny grabs the bowl out of his hands; maybe he was rattling it a bit incessantly. “But in the end he was glad he made the choices he did. That’s the whole point. Realizing that everything you gave up made an impact on others that you couldn’t even see.”

“That’s even worse!” Simon protests. “He’s fine with it. We’re supposed to be fine with him giving up everything and no one even seeing everything he gave up for them, and he doesn’t even fight giving up his dream. Not really. Why shouldn’t he get to see the world?” He unexpectedly feels a lump forming in his throat and tries to choke it down. “Why…why should he have to sacrifice everything for other people?”

“But he wanted to. He figured out the people around him were more important.”

“He wasn’t asking that much,” Simon grumbles, sliding further down the couch so he’s slumped against the cushions. “He never even got to travel anywhere, he never got to do anything that he wanted to do, and no one cared that they were asking too much of him. No one even acknowledged it.”

“I mean, really, it’s a critique of capitalism and the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few,” she tells him authoritatively, collecting the cider cans off the coffee table in front of them.

“I don’t care,” Simon grumbles. “He should have gotten to leave. They shouldn’t—he shouldn’t have had to give up everything he ever wanted to do. They shouldn’t have made him carry that all by himself.”

Penny ruffles his hair, flings the blanket she’s folded at his lap. “I don’t think that’s what they were trying to say. Anyway, have another biscuit.”

***

His head hurts in the morning. He fell asleep on the couch again.

He feels old in ways that don’t go away quickly enough.

***

Simon thinks about going back to the Winged Goat. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. He could get some scones for takeaway, it would just be a short trip there and back, he wouldn’t have to be gone long. He could leave with Penny in the morning and walk her to work on the way; he used to do that sometimes, when he was still up by the time she had to leave. It wouldn’t be hard.

He opens Baz’s text thread. Types, Would you want to, deletes it, closes it again.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

***

“Let’s go for a walk after tea,” Penny suggests. She says things like this to him sometimes, like he’s a normal, functioning person who does things like leave the flat.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Why he doesn’t want to do anything; or maybe what he doesn’t know is why it’s a problem. What does it matter if he’s dead inside? What difference does it make, practically speaking, to anyone?

Sometimes—now, this was really unfair—but sometimes, he finds himself resenting Penny. Penny, who had stuck by him through everything. Penny, who had taken her turn to be the hero over and over, getting him out of the hospital, making sure he eats, pushing him to keep participating in daily life activities. She leaves the flat almost every day, holds down a job, does her laundry. He knows it’s not easy for her, but these things feel so insurmountable for him—he can’t even imagine a world where you just do them.

He shouldn’t resent her just because she’s a normal, functioning adult, especially when his main complaint about her is that she’s determined not to leave him behind. He’s pretty sure he’s the reason she and Micah still aren’t living in the same country—pretty sure, but not certain, because she does seem pretty content with how things are. “I don’t want to live in America,” she always says. “Micah and I are fine. We’ll find someplace in the middle eventually.”

They play a game sometimes where they came up with increasingly outrageous places that would work instead. A melting iceberg. The Bermuda Triangle. A houseboat, crossing the Atlantic back and forth.

Now, though, he resists her efforts to remind him he’s alive whether he likes it or not. “I don’t want to go for a walk. It’ll be dark. And cold.”

“It’ll be nice to get some fresh air.”

“No air in London is fresh.”

“Fresher than in here. When was the last time you showered?”

“Yesterday.” Probably. Maybe the day before. At least in the last week.

“Seems like you’re trying to figure out how little maintenance the human body needs to keep working.”

“I’m just being efficient.”

She sighs and he can feel himself being a problem Penelope Bunce can’t solve, which makes him feel defeated and a little pleased with himself at the same time. That’s right, Penny, some things aren’t fixable. But she doesn’t say anything, just budges his feet over and sits down next to him for an episode of whatever he’s been pretending to watch.

***

After Penny’s gone to bed, though, he can’t help but wonder. Someday, Penny will move to America. Or Micah will move here, which is marginally better, but although they get on well enough, he’s unlikely to want a useless flatmate.

How is he supposed to do this on his own? Leave the flat. Eat vegetables (let alone cook them), get daily exercise???, brush his teeth and sleep eight hours, when he’s like this, when he’s himself, every day of his life. Stuck in this body, stuck in this world that he has made for himself. And if he leaves the flat, people. People everywhere! People he can’t save, people he can disappoint, people just existing, expecting things of him. How is he supposed to function like this? The headlines were right, but not for why they think; he is a villain, because he’s a person who could be useful and isn’t.

He opens Baz’s text thread, types, Do you ever feel like. Deletes the message and locks the screen.

***

He doesn’t know what day it is when he finally leaves the flat. Penny’s shoved him out the door with a very specific task list that Simon suspects is partly made up—a grown-up version of a scavenger hunt. Buy loo roll at the farther away Tesco’s because ours is out, get Indian from that place on the Elizabeth line because I deserve a treat for washing your dishes last week, buy stamps. He half-expects the last item to be, send me a selfie with someone wearing a green t shirt or take a picture on the London eye.

As it is, it’s almost that. He double takes when he gets to it. Text that bloke from the library you keep going on about. If you don’t, I’m limiting you to only talking about him 10% of the time.

Has he talked about him that much? Maybe once or twice. Surely not more than a few times a day. For…it’s December?...only a few weeks now.

Anyway, Simon doesn’t think that’s very fair. Penny was allowed to talk about Baz plenty when she was going on about how he needed to find him and shut him up. That’s a double standard, thank you very much, although it doesn’t seem wise to say that.

That’s a double standard, he texts her when he sees it. He’s never been wise.

Did I mention you’ve already used up your 10% today? Her text buzzes back.

Another message pops up from her. Maybe we’ll watch Loki later with the ban in effect and see how long you last.

And again, while he’s still in the middle of replying, while he’s still three bouncing dots of unexpressed outrage, she sends a gentler, what’s the worst that could happen, anyway?

He could not reply, Simon texts back before he can think better of acknowledging the whole thing.

He’s already not texting you. It wouldn’t be that much different, right?

At least you’d know you tried.

You need a little suspense back in your life.

Simon scoffs out loud, loud enough to make a pigeon veer nervously away from him. He sends her a picture of himself with the London Eye in the background instead.

***

“Come with me to America,” Penny says as she shoves another scarf into her bag. “We can pick up Micah, do that road trip we always talked about.”

That we were planning to do, before you got recruited, she doesn’t say, but Simon hears in the pause.

He’s tempted for a minute. Top down convertible, oldies radio station playing classic rock—what else could they listen to in America? Never mind that it’d be freezing this time of year. The wind rushing past his face. He hasn’t felt that since before he lost his job.

“Naw,” he settles back on the couch. “I’m too old to sit for that long. It has to take, like, hours to cross that country. Remember when we looked it up that night we decided to ‘finish off’ the liquor cabinet and you thought it’d be a great time to finally plan the whole thing?”

“I do not remember,” Penny groans. “And thank goodness for that. I think I was hungover for a week.”

“I felt concussed,” he says fondly.

“So no road trip,” Penny sighs. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Aren’t I always?”

“No,” she says. She nods her head at the sign by the door. “301 days since you killed anything or arrested anyone! Don’t break that record.”

***

Penny leaves. It’s fine. Simon’s fine. She’ll be back in three weeks anyway.

He tries not to think about when she’ll eventually leave him permanently.

***

He’s making himself a toastie when someone tries to break into their apartment.

Well, he’s making another toastie. He’s lost count at this point how many toasties he’s made and eaten since Penny left to visit Micah for Christmas, but that’s what she stocked the fridge with before she left, so that’s what he’s been eating. And yeah, maybe he recalls her saying something like, these are for emergency consumption only, don’t eat all this cheese at once, it might actually kill you, but she knew what the likelihood of him listening to that would be.

Back to the burglar, though. He knows it can’t be Penny because (he checks the date on his phone, just to be sure) she’s not due back for another two weeks. Not much of a burglar, though—scrabbling at the lock for half a minute, followed by what sounds like a head banging lightly against the door, and … sobbing? Simon’s not sure if he should knock them out or comfort them.

Finally he gets tired of standing at attention behind the door with only the toastie spatula as a weapon, and just opens it.

“Penny?” he says, confused, as she falls into him, still sobbing quietly. He catches her. He would think that he must have lost track of time, regardless of the reality of his phone’s calendar, but the crying and arriving home in the middle of the night seem unusual. “What are you doing here?”

Penny looks as confused as he feels, and even manages to pause her crying. “Why are you answering the door with a spatula at 3 am?” she hiccups. “Oh, no, Simon. Tell me you’ve eaten something besides cheese toasties.”

“Nuh uh, you first. Why are you crying on our doorstep instead of in America? Where’s Micah?” Simon looks out in the hallway like maybe she’s hiding him. “Is he okay?”

This sets off a fresh wave of tears, and for some reason, now Penny looks angry, too. “He’s fine.”

***

Simon learns, over the course of the next few days, that Micah may be fine but Penny is decidedly not.

“We were supposed to get married!” Penny wails.

“I know, Pen,” Simon says, patting her back. “Have a biscuit.”

“I don’t want a biscuit,” she sniffs. “They’re so stale. I want to go to the movies.”

Simon doesn’t want to leave the flat, not when there will be people everywhere, trying to avoid spending focused quality time with their families in the days between Christmas and New Year’s, looking for distractions. But Penny took notes on what medications he should be taking when, when he left the hospital; she made him get up and brush his teeth when all he wanted was for every bone in his body to dissolve back into the earth; she wrote angry letters to the editor every time a newspaper called him a villain. She never told anyone about when she caught him crying the first time they lit the signal after he “resigned,” the way he fell apart when that light hit the sky, and she never seemed to judge him for it, either.

So, they go to the movies.

They see a kids’ film, which they both thought would be safer, emotionally, and which ends up making them both sob hysterically; Penny has to pull the hood of her sweatshirt over her face and stuff her sleeve in her mouth because people keep turning around to look at them.

She sobs on the tube without caring if anyone’s looking at them. (People are definitely looking at them.) Simon puts his arm around her shoulders and doesn’t let go, even though it’s an uncomfortable angle.

A man gets on with huge over-the-ear headphones on; Simon wonders idly how he keeps alert enough about his surroundings to not get mugged.

In the stretches between stations he sees them reflected in the dark window opposite. They both look like they’ve put their fingers in a light socket; they’re puffy and swollen and frayed. He looks stretched out and worn through; Penny’s hair is staticky and frizzy and all over the place, including in his mouth, somehow, as her head bounces against his shoulder.

They pull into a station; the embarking passengers give them a wide berth. They pull away again and Simon realises that Penny’s stopped crying and fallen asleep on his shoulder. They’ve both been sleeping like shit, which is the norm for him but not for her.

She’s been joining him on the couch now. If you’d asked him, Simon would have thought it’d be nice to have Penny off his back about laying on the couch so much, but this is worse. They doze in front of sitcoms or Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (such a tosser), or pass each other in the kitchen like ghosts, trading depressing 2 am snacks and cups of chamomile tea that don’t do anything to help them relax. He’s relieved she’s finally managed to close her eyes.

He’s a mess, because of course he is. He always has been, even when he was able to cover it up with body armour, good reflexes, and a shocking lack of regard for personal safety. But Penny’s always had her shit together. And if she didn’t have it together, she got it together. He’s never seen her this bad, derailed—like that train outside London a few years back. That was…Ra’s al-Ghul, wasn’t it? Ah well. Doesn’t matter now. He’s never, ever seen her like this.

And seeing her now…he’s been trying to put his finger on the feeling. He’s not glad she’s suffering. He’d dig his utility belt out in seconds if he thought there was some way to fight what she’s going through for her. If heartbreak could be defeated by a well-placed shot from a Bat-Laser, he’d have done it already.

He doesn’t want Penny to be derailed like she’s a train hit by a weaponized microwave emitter. But getting to see her like this, and being here to pick her up…he tightens his arm around her shoulder. Somehow it feels like a privilege to get to help her pick up her pieces for once, instead of always being the one to fall apart. He likes knowing she has a place to go when she’s sad, that he can be that place for her. Makes something feel even between them.

He shakes her gently for their stop and when they get home, he makes her tea with extra sugar the way she likes it.

***

After four more days of watching telly and eating takeaway, Simon can’t stand it anymore. He does like being a comfort to Penny, but if the roles were reversed, he’s pretty sure Penny would have booted him from the flat for his own good by now. She has, in fact.

“Let’s go for a walk after tea,” he tells her.

“No,” she says flatly. “Ramsay is on.”

“Ramsay’s a wanker. I showered today. Let’s not waste it.”

She considers him. “I don’t want to.”

“I know,” he says consolingly. “I’ll buy you biscuits.”

On the way home, they see a gym offering discounted memberships in advance of New Year’s. “Let’s join,” Simon says impulsively.

“Why?” Penny spits, disgusted.

“You’re always telling me I need to move!”

“I was wrong,” Penny says flatly. “What’s the point when someone can just decide at any moment they don’t love you anymore? Uproot all your future plans, throw all your ten-year projections in the trash. No, Simon, I take it back. Lying down without moving is definitely the better bet.”

He drags her into the drab lobby covered in pictures of happy, skinny people using complicated machines, her complaining the entire time. Convinces her to stay thirty minutes, which turns into sixty once they finish signing the reams of paper required for their thirty-day free trial. He shoves her into a room with treadmills and goes into the weight room and lays on the bench press. Thinks about what a failure he is, although it feels a little rote by this point. Opens the text thread with Baz, reads Yes. This is Baz Pitch. Closes it again.

He gives up after fifteen minutes and peeks into the treadmill room, then walks in when he sees Penny slumped in a chair against the wall, watching the telly. “It’s hopeless,” she moans to him. “There’s no point to any of this. Why—why try when people can just let you down?”

He pulls her into a hug. It’s not even sweaty because neither one of them have managed to do anything at all strenuous. “Some people don’t let you down. You’ve never let me down.”

“That’s not true,” she tells his shoulder. “I’ve let you languish for months.”

“Ah, don’t take all the credit for that. That’s my hard work that did that.”

They decide to get takeaway on the way home but valiantly order vegetable biryani.

***

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve always feels strangely frozen and timeless, but this one’s particularly bleak. Never fully light outside, and Penny crying in every corner instead of off to work; Simon doesn’t know where he is at any given time.

Maybe he was always going to need to feel like he’d stepped outside of time to finally be able to press send on a message to Baz Pitch.

Simon’s wanted to reach out, of course he has. But carry that thought thru–what’s he going to do, flirt? Him? He wishes he was the kind of person who could have some kind of witty comment that might make the corner of Baz’s pretty mouth twitch up like he’d seen him do. A joke or even a photo of something with a clever caption. But you have to leave the flat or talk to anyone to come up with those things, and he doesn’t leave the flat, or talk to anyone who isn’t crying about their ex-fiance, so. That’s that. He’s not messaging Baz Pitch.

And then somehow, he’s doing the washing up after making oatmeal for himself and Penny for dinner (better than cheese toasties), and when he’s done, he just takes out his mobile and texts Baz Fancy a walk along the river? He hits send as if he didn’t announce his secret superhero identity multiple times out of the blue to this total stranger and then ghost him for four weeks.

He hits send, as if that’s just a thing he does, and then he locks his mobile, puts it in his pocket, and proceeds to clean the inside of the oven, a chore he has never once done before in his life. And this failure shows, both in his lack of skills for this task and the state of the oven after.

When he’s done, despite his terrible job he feels a sense of accomplishment he didn’t expect, that he hasn’t felt since he locked up Mr. Mime—maybe not even then. The guy was kind of a pushover in the end, couldn’t even give a good monologue, although he did manage to wreak a lot of havoc.

He almost forgets the text he sent out into the ether, for about a minute until he feels the weight of his mobile in his pocket, realizes he never felt it buzz. How humiliating to have his first outreach to someone besides Penny be completely rejected, but that’s what he gets for trying. He pulls it out—it’s dead. He plugs it in, paces around his room while waiting for the screen to light up, watches as it begins to process what appear to be a year and a half’s worth of updates, decides to shower, and races for it as soon as he’s out, hair still dripping down his hastily thrown on shirt.

Yes. When?

Simon smiles big enough to make his cheeks hurt. He glances out the window, where clouds hang low overhead. Suggesting soon would look pathetic and desperate. But, he’s pathetic. And desperate. Next week? I could meet you when you’re off work.

Alright. You’re on.

Simon smiles again. He’s got to get all his smiling out now or Baz will really think he’s a loon.

Chapter Text

“Maybe that's what Batman is about. Not winning. But failing, And getting back up. Knowing he'll fail, fail a thousand times, but still won't give up.”

-Batman: Zero Year

JANUARY

On New Year’s Eve, Simon and Penny ring in the New Year by being the least-cool versions of themselves. They’re already pretty uncool, but this—this is next level.

Initially, Simon briefly wondered in a panic if he should suggest they go out. Would—would Penny want to go on the pull? At this point in their mutual couch depression, he’d brave going out for her. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her go this long without changing out of pyjamas. Maybe her third year of university when she was taking that terrible stats class? Or the week she got the flu years ago.

He asks tentatively if she’d like to make plans. Or if she already has any, even. Penny of four weeks ago certainly would have, and would have been thrilled that he was asking.

“Of course not,” she says, listlessly scrolling on her phone as another episode of The Only Way is Essex plays in the background. Surely they’ve seen every episode at this point three times over. Then she looks at him with deep scorn. “What am I going to do, go on the pull? With you? That sounds awful.”

He’s not even offended. It does sound awful.

How strange, he thinks, that Micah’s influence on their day-to-day lives is at its greatest now that he’s left, far greater than when Penny and Micah were actually planning to spend the rest of their lives together. Penny angrily mailed a box of his things back to Micah immediately, but Simon feels like Micah kept something more of Penny than he would have otherwise thought possible. Her confidence, her ease, her comfort in her own life somehow. Penny’s always been self-assured; whatever else she struggled with, she knew where she was going and how she was going to get there. But now Penny seems lost, and Simon isn’t sure how she’s going to get back what Micah took with him when they broke up. How’s she going to find her ground again, when he’s never seen her off her feet?

Since she got back, he feels like he’s hauling them both up a steep hill in roller skates.

And now it’s New Year’s, and Simon decides they’ve had enough telly at least. He begs for board games, playing up the “I’m an orphan, no one ever played with me” card that he rarely uses around Penny, because he doesn’t think another rerun of TOWIE is doing anyone any good. He thinks he’s even starting to pick up the accent; he’s never even been to Essex. (On the job, his region was strictly London proper, and it’s not like he took vacation leave.)

In a transparent attempt to manufacture a festive atmosphere, he goes to the shops and gets every kind of candy available; he even skips the cider, because Penny hates it and he feels like if they’re going to make it to midnight without sobbing or injury, he needs to keep his wits about him.

This strategy works, although Simon learns immediately that he is not a prodigy at Carcassonne like he thought, nor is he good at literally any game. Evidently Penny has been going easy on him for years, but now her Micah-rage has been redirected toward beating him viciously at every game they own, even the ones where previously he thought they were evenly matched. He thinks this is probably a good thing, although it doesn’t always feel good. (She even trounces him at Hungry Hippos, which he thought he was guaranteed to win.)

Fighting back is a good sign.

At midnight, they’re both sugar crashing and dozing off over Monopoly; Simon steers Penny to her bed instead of the couch for the first time in the last week and then, while he’s up, figures he might as well go to his own bed too.

He sleeps through the night for the first time in months. In the morning, Penny insists on throwing all the leftover candy away, but she makes him pancakes and they even leave the flat, albeit in pyjamas still.

Happy New Year, Simon texts Baz. They’ve been texting a bit, since Simon asked to see him; Baz was out of town for the holidays and they decided to set a date after he returned. Did you make it home from Hampshire?

Almost. I’m taking the train back today. See you in a few days?

Yes. Simon feels fluttery. Yes.

***

Penny has to return to work eventually, even though she keeps threatening to quit and move onto the couch with him permanently. Somehow, it’s less appealing than he would have expected.

They debate whether she should claim the flu the first few days. Maybe the amount of people asking brightly, how was your holiday? will have decreased once everyone’s back in the swing of things again.

“It won’t work on the intern,” she grumbles. “He never forgets anything I tell him. And he’s American, so he was excited about this trip. He wasn’t even the one going on it. Why does he care if I got a Chicago dog or not?” she says miserably.

“Wait, did you?” Simon asks.

She glares at him through puffy eyes. “Yes, but it was disgusting. I threw most of it away.”

Simon’s horrified. “Tell him that. Maybe it’ll put him off. I think it put me off, anyway. That’s good food!” She throws a pillow at him and settles on texting the intern, Don’t ask about my holiday or I will sell your name to the fairies, which Simon thinks sounds stupid but she swears will work on him.

***

Simon walks Penny halfway to work; she says she needs to go the rest of the way alone to “get her game face on.” Normally Simon thinks this is a stupid expression, but he’s seen Penny’s game face successfully thwart at least one mugging, so he leaves her be.

He makes himself walk back to the flat instead of taking the tube, because it’s light out, so the walk home should be mostly fine. The streets are full of people rushing to work, but instead of feeling out of place, Simon lets himself feel swept along a bit. All these people are fine. They’re okay. They’re going about their business. Simon lets himself enjoy the okayness of the moment. He sits down on a cold bench and swipes open his messages, looks at his last exchange with Baz.

Simon: Do you want to meet Tuesday for our walk?

Baz: Sure. I’m at work that day. Do you want to meet me here after?

Simon: I can do that. What time are you done?

Baz: Does 17:30 work?

Simon: yea fine!

Baz: Do you know where to go?

Baz: 😉

Simon laughs out loud. This … this is going to be embarrassing, but worth it.

He can’t actually believe this guy agreed to see him again. He can’t believe he even asked. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. He hasn’t dated … well, has he dated? He’s been busy; it just hasn’t come up. In the early days, Mage tried to get him to put on a bit of a playboy persona, said it was tradition, but Simon was pants at it.

That’s how they got Agatha, actually—she was one of the dates Mage arranged, but after his third time abandoning her mid-date and her second time being kidnapped, she told Mage that if he didn’t tell her exactly what was going on, she’d go to the press and ask them to figure it out. He gave her a job instead, and agreed Simon could give up the dating and the public persona. Thank goodness for Agatha.

And then when could he meet anyone? He was essentially a workaholic. It’s all he really liked to do. There was a bit of a thing with Catwoman but she flirted with everyone so it didn’t feel like he was anything special, and she wasn’t really his type—a bit too self-obsessed. He always felt like she was trying to get information out of him rather than being particularly interested in him as a person.

It’s 3.4 kilometers back to their flat from where he leaves Penny. On the way home, he buys:

-a coffee and a bacon bap.

-new trainers while waiting for a rainshower to pass. He’d been meaning to anyway.

-biscuits for tea, and while he’s in the shop, he gets more tea, and he remembers they could use some bread and might as well get some squash and if he gets a frozen pizza does it count as cooking? Maybe a half step up from takeaway. He’ll take it.

-a new brolly when it becomes clear the rain will not be passing.

By the time he gets home, it’s after lunch and he’s done more in one day than he has in weeks.

***

On Tuesday, Penny shoos Simon off to meet Baz, says she wants the couch to herself anyway. Simon arrives at the LSE Library fifteen minutes early, panics, ducks into a shop and gets them both teas in paper cups, and is then five minutes late. By the time he rushes up to the glass double doors of the library, sweaty and nervous, his butterflies over seeing Baz again have soured in his stomach.

But Baz comes out quickly as soon as Simon walks up, like he’d been watching for him from inside. Baz waiting for him … Simon feels warm, despite the miserable weather.

“Nice night for a walk I picked,” Simon says ruefully.

“You can’t blame yourself for London weather,” Baz says. He’s got a soft-looking blue scarf around his neck. Simon offers him the cup and Baz takes it, their fingers brushing; even through Baz’s fine leather glove, Simon feels the imprint of their fingers overlapping. He peels back his own lid, sips steam, and they fall into step together, walking down toward the Thames.

They’re quiet at first. Ugh, too quiet. Simon’s the worst at this—small talk—he’s had very few opportunities to practice other than the obligatory one-liners during a fight.

And the weather’s terrible, clouds rushing across the sky, raindrops spitting down periodically. Baz must be miserable, full of cold regrets. Simon wonders what he’s thinking now. Hoping it’s not, I regret ever meeting up with you. I’m cold and I’m damp and you have the worst ideas for a first date. (Second date?) (Third date???) Simon really has the worst ideas.

Why didn’t it occur to him that if they met, they would have to actually speak to each other? And if the next words out of either of their mouths are about the weather, it’s all over, they’ll never recover, they’ll never even have a chance, he might as well throw himself in the Thames and save themselves both the embarrassment of further conversation. It’s not that fast or deep, he’d probably survive. Oh god, but maybe the new Bat-dork would rescue him and haul him back out right in front of Baz and they’d be back to where they started but so, so much worse. Would it have killed him to come up with a single simple question he could have—

“How’s your friend? Penny, right?” Baz asks, and Simon looks at him; he’s bright-eyed, open, interested in Simon, of all things, then suddenly, unexpectedly, it’s easy. Baz is easy to talk to, once Simon stops yelling at himself in his own head—asking about how he and Penny met, about their holidays.

Simon finds himself telling Baz all about their disastrous Christmas, which, actually, now that he thinks about it, was kind of nice, except for the sobbing and the crushed dreams. He hasn’t gotten to spend that much concentrated time with Penny since secondary. He wishes he’d thought to make time for it without her future having to crumble to her feet in front of them both first.

He briefly wonders with a pang if he should be telling Baz Penny’s personal business, but they have to talk about something. And Baz doesn’t seem like the type to gossip.

They cross the road and without thinking, Simon presses in closer to Baz’s side, shifts to walk between Baz and the cars waiting at the light. Baz turns and smiles at him. The street lamps are already on, although the sky above isn’t fully dark yet; there’s fewer pedestrians here, which could mean fewer witnesses to a crime. Or maybe it only means most people have taken the tube instead of a walk tonight.

Simon even remembers to ask Baz about his holiday. He has siblings, right? Baz smiles at him, like he’s pleased he remembered, which makes Simon pleased, too. Fine, Baz said, it was good, his siblings were taller than they’d been at half-term when he saw them last. They were loud; it was exhausting; he was glad to be home again.

They’re quiet; Simon feels Baz take a breath in like he’s about to speak, but let it out again.

“How are—” Simon starts.

“What were—” Baz says at the same time.

“You go ahead,” Simon offers.

“Sorry, what—” Baz begins, again overlapping.

“Sorry,” Simon mutters. “You go ahead.”

“Oh.” Baz pauses, like maybe Simon will change his mind, but nope, he’s absolutely never saying anything again. “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again. I suppose I—I’m trying to think of what I can ask you about that won’t be top secret or voyeuristic.”

“Oh. Well, you could—” What could he? “I mean, I’ve always wondered—or, I suppose, I was surprised. That you weren’t asking more questions. About the—you know.”

“Should I have?”

“I don’t know. I just thought you would. Or, that someone would, if they ever found out. I thought it would be all they would want to talk to me about.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

They walk a bit.

“I assumed it would be rude to ask. I mean, I didn’t want you to think I was prying. You said you weren’t supposed to talk about it, and I would like to respect that.”

“I’m not. No, you’re right.”

“That it would be rude?”

Simon laughs a little. They’re both hopeless at this. “No, I mean, the top secret bit. You’re right, I’m not supposed to be talking about it.”

“All right then.”

“Penny’s relieved I’m done,” he says abruptly. So much for not talking about it. “That I’m out of the whole superhero thing, I mean.”

“Are you?”

“Glad to be done?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Baz gives this his considering face again. “I don’t know. I can see why—what was it you called her? Warden or zookeeper?”

“She prefers dread companion, actually.”

Baz laughs. “Well, I can see why your dread companion would be glad you’re not endangering yourself on the regular anymore. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel the same way.”

“I’d be a nutter, though, wouldn’t I, if I said I missed it? Who wants to risk their life every day?”

Baz doesn’t answer, just waits him out.

“I know what you’re thinking. I should be messed up over the things I did. I saw the stories they wrote about me, the property damage. People got hurt from things I did, even if I didn’t mean for that to happen. I shouldn’t be messed up over having to stop. That’s worse than actually causing bad things to happen in the first place.”

Baz takes a sip of his tea. It must be cold by now. “I do have to say, I work rather hard to avoid risking my life … ever, actually. But,” he considers, “I don’t know what the onboarding process is for superheroes, but I imagine you had to do quite a bit of preparation to take the role. It was your job, Simon. I’d have a hard time if I had to leave my job, even if it did mean I didn’t have to speak to people who want to be investment bankers all day.”

Simon smiles at him. “I think I’d rather take the villains.”

“What’s the difference?”

Simon laughs, watches a dog in a sweater rush by with his owner. After they’ve walked a few paces, he says quietly, “I mean, I did like it. I liked the work, I liked helping people. And I liked having a mission. Mage, he—he made me believe it. That I was special, that everything that happened to me happened for a reason, that it was leading me to this grand purpose.” He gestures around him. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t complicated before. When that light hit the sky, I knew who I was. I knew what I should do, and I knew I was helping people—that I was on the right side. Like that quote they tell children—look for the helpers. That was me. And no matter how tired I was, or how hard it was, I did what was expected of me because I knew it needed to be done. I didn’t wonder if I was doing the right thing.

“I thought I knew what I was, who I was, and then one day that just stopped. I just stopped. My job was everything in my life, and then all of a sudden, it wasn’t anymore. It felt—it felt like one of those holes the Humdrum used to leave behind. Like the last vacuum he managed to create was me. My life. My job. A hole that couldn’t be fixed in the end.”

Baz is frowning at him. “You’re not a hole.”

Simon takes a big gulp of tea and grimaces. Absolutely frigid. “Do you wish—well, this whole thing would be easier if I was someone else, wouldn’t it?”

“What whole thing?”

“Us meeting. Talking at that party. Trying to find things to talk about that aren’t horribly embarrassing or government secrets. Wouldn’t everything be easier if I was just a normal bloke talking to you at a normal party about normal things?”

Baz seems to consider this. Like he was really thinking about the answer. Simon likes how he thinks before he speaks, like it matters to him what he says to Simon.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “Maybe it’d be easier, but that doesn’t mean it would be better.” Baz looks at him with his eyes crinkly over his scarf. Not quite a smile. “Perhaps you’re worth the extra effort. I’m not sure yet.”

Simon barks out a laugh. “Or you could decide you wasted a bunch of time with a loser.” He winces at himself. Too much, too soon, too needy. He does this, this is why he doesn’t have friends. Or a partner. Work or romantic. Okay, maybe one reason of many.

But—

“What was I doing anyway?” Baz is saying easily. “Dev—my cousin who brought me to the party—has been saying I need a hobby. Or a life. He’s been saying that for some time, actually.”

Simon smiles, quickly, and looks at him out of the corner of his eye. Baz’s cheeks are flushed from the cold; he’s not looking at Simon, but his eyes are shining. They’re the same color as the clouds overhead. He looks so soft and touchable and steady. Simon has a sudden, almost uncontrollable urge to pick him up and carry him off. “Really? You look like you’re doing pretty well for yourself.”

“Thank you, I think. I suppose I work very hard to make that true. Dev is of the opinion that I could stand to do a little less well.’”

Simon scoffs. “He sounds like a tosser. Who complains their friend’s doing too well?”

Baz tucks his chin into his scarf again and hesitates. Cuts his eyes in Simon’s direction but doesn’t look directly at him. “He worries about me. He was—I had a difficult time in uni. And in grad school, to be honest. I did very well in secondary, maybe too well, but I—well, I was in boarding school where my mum had been headmistress, and I suppose I felt I had a legacy to uphold.” He looks up at the sky and smiles, just a bit. “Seems silly, but it felt very critical at the time that I not let her down.”

“Was she hard on you, then?” Simon says. Honestly, did Baz not have anyone in his life who thought he was doing beautifully just as he was?

“More like I was hard on me.” Baz clears his throat. “She died when I was young.”

Ah, fuck. “I’m sorry,” Simon says.

Baz looks at him quickly and smiles. “It happens, doesn’t it? I have a father, and a very lovely step-mother, and an aunt who cares about me very much even if she does have a penchant for leaving bags of poo in the paths of politicians.”

Simon honest-to-god throws his head back and laughs. What are the odds he can get this man to kiss him again before the night is over?

“Anyway,” Baz continues, “In secondary, I felt my mother’s presence looming over me at times, but I also felt very close to her, being in the last place she’d worked, being taught by people who had known and respected her. I did well, and I suppose it made me feel very confident in my ability to do well forever, I think.” He shakes his head at himself. “Uni was a different story. I didn’t go in with close friends and I didn’t have anyone to look out for me, make sure I was eating or leaving the library. I got in over my head and didn’t do a very good job of asking for help, and I ended up having to take a leave of absence. And then, if you can believe it, I learned nothing from the whole thing and did it again during grad school.” He scoffs at himself so scornfully that Simon can’t stop himself from taking Baz’s hand nearest him, almost on instinct. He can’t—that’s not—that’s not fair to him.

Baz looks at him quickly and looks away, but gives his hand a squeeze back. “This must sound absurd to you,” he says. “I know it’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Everyday problems must seem like child’s play compared to what you’ve had to take on.”

Simon thinks about how he still hangs all his washing because he can’t figure out how to work the settings on the dryer. “I didn’t go to uni or to grad school, so I’m the last person who should be telling you what it’s like or that you should have done it better. Watching Penny go through it seemed hard enough to me.”

“All the same, I’m aware it’s a very privileged problem to have. No lives were hanging in the balance. All I had to do was go home for a bit with my tail between my legs, feel utterly humiliated, and take an extra term or two to graduate. Which is fine, I was very, very fortunate that it was fine and mostly only my pride was hurt. But Dev thinks—well, I felt like I needed to—” Baz stops; Simon gives his hand a squeeze again and he continues after a moment. “I suppose I found that the easiest way to keep my life in order afterwards was to keep it manageable. To keep it simple.”

Simon, never once having kept anything simple or manageable, nods. “That makes sense. What’s his problem with that?”

“Dev worries that I’ve possibly erred too far in the other direction. I don’t take enough chances, or put myself ‘out there’ enough. Too dependent on consistency and routines. He thinks I’ve made my life too small, I suppose. ” Baz glances at Simon and away again. “I’m sure you would think so.”

Simon is not taking this Dev person’s side against Baz for anything. It sounds like bollocks, anyway. “That sounds like a load of tosh. I don’t even know what would make someone’s life small.”

For the first time since they started this conversation, Baz looks at him like he thinks Simon is having him on. “I would think—well, wouldn’t most people’s lives seem small, compared to yours? Fighting supervillains, saving the city? Doing justice and all that? I mean, the most exciting thing I’ve done this week is unpack my luggage immediately when I arrived home from holiday.”

Simon smiles despite himself and holds Baz’s hand more firmly against his side, walks him out of the path of a cyclist heading towards them. He thinks about how nice it is to be able to hold someone just because he wants to, because they want him to, not because it’s a matter of life or death. “I don’t do superhero stuff anymore. And the first time we met, I couldn’t even operate a city bus home.”

They walk another few paces.

“I actually think,” Simon says slowly, considering, “that my life—before—sounds a lot like what you’re talking about. Routines, consistency. I didn’t like to take chances. All right, I probably took plenty of literal risks,” he says to Baz’s sceptical look, “but I didn’t—they didn’t feel risky. It was easy to limit the kinds of things I did each day, and I could avoid the things that felt like actual risks. Like uni. Like—” he holds Baz’s hand carefully against his side, and swallows, “—relationships, I suppose. Or getting close to people. When someone gets kidnapped just from getting a kebab with you in public, it starts to feel safer to just not have anyone in your life if you can help it.”

Baz intertwines their fingers. “So what you’re saying is, we match?”

“Maybe.” Simon smiles at him. Baz is looking at him back, and he’s so very lovely. And maybe a bit more of a mess than Simon thought, which is really only making Simon want to kiss him more, not less. Would—could he …?

A footstep sounds behind them and Simon startles badly, sloshing cold tea over his hand as he assumes a protective stance. A jogger bundled up behind them gives them an odd look and a wide berth as she jogs by.

Simon reluctantly drops Baz’s hand to fumble for a napkin to clean himself up, looking around for a bin for their rubbish.

Baz pulls his attention back to him, and they fall into step together again. “So,” Baz says, returning to their earlier topic, Simon realises, “how exactly would my life be so much easier if we’d met normally? If you weren’t—well, if we’d met at a party, and you were just yourself, what would you have said to me? If the costume was just a costume.”

Simon stalls for a moment. “Bit early for roleplay, innit?”

Baz rolls his eyes and nestles down into his soft scarf, casting his eyes down on the pavement in front of them. “Would you have even spoken to me if I hadn’t offered to take you home?” he says quietly.

Simon almost laughs out loud, but catches himself. He doesn’t want Baz to take it the wrong way, but the very idea that maybe Simon wouldn’t have noticed Baz? Absurd. Ridiculous. Impossible.

Simon doesn’t play pretend very often, even to himself, which is surprising since engaging in denial and avoiding his problems seems to be one of his favorite activities lately. But he doesn’t love fantasizing about things that could never happen; he prefers just not thinking.

He gives it a try now, though. He tries to think about what Baz would deserve to hear, if Simon were someone else; what Baz deserves to have someone say to him at a party if he really was the type to not go out much. Unbelievable as that seems.

“I don’t know if I would have spoken to you, to be honest, but I know I would have wanted to. I might not have had the nerve on my own, though. Probably would have still needed the drinks to get up the courage to say something.”

Baz buries his face further into his scarf, maybe to hide his smile, then tucks his mouth out above the fabric so Simon can hear him. “What if you had had the drinks, then?”

Simon fidgets with his hair, shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets. There’s a light drizzle starting and he closes his eyes briefly with his face lifted to the sky, like maybe he can imagine the scene better. “Maybe I would have bumped into you on purpose so I’d have to say pardon and start talking to you.” He opens his eyes and looks out over the water, away from Baz, at the sky the color of a bruise. “Maybe I would have asked if you’d come with someone or if I could get you another drink. But more likely, I would have made fun of you wearing a posh suit to a dive of a party, because—” he takes a deep breath “—because you were so lovely but I wouldn’t have had the nerve to say so.”

It’s dark. The river beside them is a muddy brown and the clouds are ominous overhead, but Baz’s smile is making Simon feel warmed through. It’s blinding; how are people walking by them, indifferent? Why aren’t people stumbling to a stop? “I might have gotten prickly about that,” Baz says lightly, as if he isn’t giving Simon the sun right now. “I felt like a fool at that party, in a full suit and that idiotic makeup. I might have been a bit sensitive if you’d made fun, and snapped back at you.”

“It was a great costume. Better than mine, and I was wearing the real thing.”

“It was Dev’s idea.” Baz gestures at his face. “The makeup. He said a suit wasn’t enough on its own.”

“It worked for you! You looked like the Joker.” Simon grins. “I believed it.”

“You did not.”

“No. The Joker wasn’t fit.” Simon closes his eyes again and grimaces. He is embarrassing. What’s Penny’s little brother Pacey say? He’s cringe. But Baz bumps him with his elbow, smiling, his eyes downcast, and just … doesn’t move away. Moves back to pressing against his side like he belongs there. Simon feels the contact through his t-shirt, jumper, and coat, and it makes him reckless. “I do like being able to see your face, though. You have–” he clears his throat “—very pretty eyes.”

“Is that you speaking as a stranger at a party, or you speaking as yourself?”

“Well—” Simon’s saying, smiling, when the signal blinks on against the clouds overhead. The signal.

This. This is why he doesn’t fucking leave the flat. Why didn’t they meet for lunch?

One thing to know about the Bat-Signal is that it’s really not much of an alert unless you’re already scanning the sky for it. A year into Simon’s contract period, they switched to text notifications, anyway. (Yes, on a special government-issued Bat-Phone. Simon felt that was a bit much; couldn’t they just message his regular mobile? But Mage said it had to be a secure line.) Despite the texts, the Bat-Signal still lit up the sky, too. A back-up system of sorts, but also a symbol of intimidation. Mage said it was supposed to be a reminder to people that Batman was out there, watching out for them but also just watching them, seeing what they did wrong.

It’s a reminder, Simon thinks, that someone always sees when you’re doing the wrong thing.

Simon isn’t on alert anymore, and he doesn’t have to be watching for the Bat-Signal, and he doesn’t watch for the Bat-Signal. He just happens to know where in the sky it would show up, if it were to appear. Of course he knows; it’s not muscle memory his body has just forgotten. But he’s not watching for it. Simon knows he’s not watching for it, because the direction they were walking in, down the Thames, is away from where the signal would show up. Take that, therapist. He’s fine now.

He usually knows when the signal hits the sky, though, whether he’s looking for it or not. It’s probably just a movement in the corner of his eye, maybe a flash or a brightening that his senses register without him being consciously aware of it, but it feels like more than that to Simon. Like it’s embedded itself in his bones, this knowing that something’s gone wrong, that something has happened that someone’s got to fix. And it used to be good, the fact that he didn’t miss the signal. He was the person that knew something had gone wrong. He was the one who fixed the thing.

He stands stock still on the pavement, twisted around, staring at the stupid light in the stupid sky. Heart racing, adrenaline pumping, yet he feels like his feet are made of lead. A few seconds later, his mobile begins buzzing in his pocket. It always does after the signal shows up, unless he and Penny are together. He’s sure she’s subscribed to an app or something, but it feels like it’s buried in her bones too, with how often she’s precisely on time. For the first time, he thinks about how scared she must have felt every time she saw it, no cortisol release to help her out, just waiting to see if he’d respond, if he’d come home that night.

They both hate waiting. It was behind half the trouble they got into in school; they never did well left to their own devices, no matter how many times the headmistress told them to wait and let the adults handle it. They couldn’t sit still to see if someone else was going to speak up, help out, punch out the bully, do the right thing. It must have made her feel crazy, every time, having to wait for him. His chest tightens.

What was he—he’s got to be—he’s got to get out of here. He’s supposed to be doing something. He can’t just stand here, he should—he should—no. No, there’s nothing he should do now. He’s left the map; he’s walked right out of the story everyone had been telling about him. No place to go but down.

There’s a touch on his arm, and he startles so badly that he flings off whatever touched his arm. It’s Baz, though, his gray eyes big, who pulls his hand back quickly but stays close. “Hey,” Baz says. He doesn’t look up at the sky but keeps his eyes on Simon. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Simon croaks. His hand’s still up, to defend himself, he guesses. He can’t seem to move, and against his will, his eyes slide back to the light in the sky. He feels the tightness in his chest, the pounding of his heart, can practically feel the muscles in his legs twitching, ready to run.

And then Baz holds out his hand for Simon to take again, and Simon sees him, waiting. Not saying anything, not leaving, just giving him a moment to be a mess. He clears his throat and rides the cortisol in a different direction, reaches out slowly and takes Baz’s hand again. Baz, who doesn't need him to take his hand, maybe just wants him to, for reasons Simon doesn't have to understand right now. Baz intertwines his fingers back like they’ve done it many times before, like he knows how to hold him. “Hey,” Simon tries again, hoarse. “Could you—shit, hang on.”

He wrestles his mobile out of his pocket with his left hand. It’s still buzzing. He forces a breath into his lungs and answers. “Hey Pen. Hey, it’s okay, I see it. No, I’m okay. I’m—I’m with Baz actually.” He looks up at Baz again and smiles. “Yea, not the Joker, as it turns out. Shut up. We’re taking a walk. Stop fussing. Yeah, no, I can get some. Half pepperoni, we don’t all eat like toddlers. Yeah, in a bit. Okay. Love you.” He hangs up.

His heart’s still pounding in his throat, but it’s nice to think it’s partially because he’s holding the hand of someone handsome, rather than just because he’s broken. Maybe he can hold both inside him.

“Hey,” Simon says again. He forces his grip on Baz to gentle, to turn careful. Turns his back on the light still shining against the clouds. Lets it stay at his back.

“I should head home soon,” Simon says to Baz regretfully. He likes to imagine asking Baz to dinner, but Simon knows he’s going to start trembling soon when the immediate rush of fear wears off, and he might cry, he’s not sure yet, and he’d actually like to see if this man might agree to see him again sometime. Preferably soon. Preferably with less falling apart and talking about his lack of a future. “I need to make sure Penny eats. It’s been rough going back to work for her and having to pretend everything’s fine. But we could walk a bit further, if you like? I told her I’d pick up a pizza and there’s this place on the way …”

“I’d love to,” Baz says.

Simon can do this. Simon can still be brave, now. Baz’s hand in his. Baz looking at him with those sea-gray eyes. “And … we could do this again sometime? If you would want to.”

Baz’s nose starts too high on his face, just a bit. He looks like he might need to shave–he’s one of those blokes who can grow a beard just by thinking about it, it seems like. His cheeks are bright red in the cold wind and his lips are chapped and his smile is crooked and uneven and so soft Simon feels his chest get tight, just looking at him. “I want to,” Baz says, and then kisses him.

Simon kisses him back, and back, and back.