Chapter Text
It was probably the fifth time Pam had tried to call me within twenty minutes, and I was about to lose my shit.
It briefly crossed my mind that she might have been calling me because someone had died. After all, what else would cause this kind of persistence in my best friend? But everyone that I cared about was at this particular party, and the few that weren’t were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
And the one person I was most concerned about getting herself into a fuck load of trouble was Pam herself, and since she was calling, she was probably fine. Unless her murderer was calling me, but I figured that at some point even a murderer would give up and send me a text.
These parties were ridiculously tiresome, but at some point, I had almost gotten used to them. Almost being the operative word in that sentence. The truth was that after growing up without much being in the face of all of this over-the-top gaudy splendor was a bit gag-worthy, but it was part of the deal.
The goddamn deal. Which was, I reminded myself, almost over. I was on my last class at NYU, then I’d take the bar, and then no more parties, no more Gotham, and no more goddamn Bruce Wayne, sugar-daddy extraordinaire. Minus the sex, thank God.
These parties were all for Bruce. A way for him to show off his ridiculous wealth, to parade his generosity, and to show off all the poor unfortunate souls that he’d helped. God, it was like Ursula herself invited a bunch of merpeople down to her lair and hung ornaments from all those creepy little people trees or whatever the hell those things were.
Needless to say, I didn’t find it very impressive, but I put on a smile because as much as Bruce Wayne might have repulsed me, the truth of the matter was that he was still, effectively, the king of Gotham. And he was my ticket out of this place. If I could get my doctorate, I could finally leave this place and follow my dream. I could find a practice somewhere else in the country, make some money. I didn’t care if I had to live in a hole for the first few years. I’d make that hole super adorable and decorate the shit out of it.
“You know,” Pam had said to me the other night as she brushed out her gorgeous red hair. “You could leave any time you wanted. You could go live in a hole and work some random job. If you hate him so much, you could just leave.”
I didn’t really know what to say to that because... she wasn’t wrong. I could leave. I could suffer in squalor somewhere and try to raise enough money for college, but...
I was so close. I was so fucking close. I couldn’t just leave, not now. Not yet.
Besides. Bruce wouldn’t let me. He’d find some way to make me stay until I finished. This is your dream, he’d murmur to me with those “gentle” eyes. Don’t you want your dream to come true?
Yeah. Yeah, I did. And maybe I’d made a deal with the devil, but the devil was about to make my wish come true with no strings attached.
At first, I hadn’t believed it. I still didn’t really, even as I took a champagne flute from a tray and shifted in my skin tight cream colored dress. Everyone knew that Bruce Wayne never did anything for free. He was as ruthless as he was handsome, and that beauty of his faded pretty quick when you figured out just how fucking cruel he could be.
And foul. Yes, he was very foul. I had witnessed him throwing enough crying men and women out of his mansion to know that he didn’t give a fuck who he hurt.
And there were, of course, the rumors that he had certain people executed if he tired of them. It was unclear what had happened to his wife and his husband, Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd, but all that was known was that they were gone. Presumed dead.
This was Bruce Wayne, and people didn’t fuck around with him. Especially people who had spent thousands upon thousands of dollars of his money to get a degree that wouldn’t benefit him at all.
It was a quid pro quo situation. One that I certainly benefited from more than others, but he still received a positive outcome. After all, I came to his parties–the formerly homeless, beautiful young woman who was now somebody, thanks to Bruce Wayne. I doubted he would have given me this deal had I not been someone who he thought of as attractive, but for the longest time I had convinced myself that I didn’t care about that. And I didn’t.
I hadn’t cared at all until suddenly, he had started to care.
Lately, it had become Bruce Wayne’s mission in life to get me when I was alone. He was forever trying to get me in corners, to walk into rooms when no one else was there. I saw the look in his eyes. I knew what he wanted. I had been getting a lot of positive reception in the press lately, and it would look good for him if–
But he wouldn’t do anything. Right? That would just be fucked up. I was attractive, sure, but I was not wealthy nor was I even remotely well-bred. No amount of she looks good on my arm could compensate for that.
I had never been trash a day in my life, even when I’d been poor, but if that was what kept Bruce Wayne’s notoriously wandering hands away from me, then so be it.
“Well, despite everything, you look great.”
My older sister Lily was sipping from a champagne flute with a remarkably sour look on her face. She looked gorgeous in an emerald green dress that I’d had to talk her into for what felt like hours. She glanced at me–and then back towards the portrait that I’d been looking at.
“Back here again, huh?” she huffed. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think that you were a little obsessed.”
“Look, it’s just interesting, okay?” I said with a wave of my hand (the champagne-less one so I wouldn’t end up sloshing bubbly all over the place). “All the other villains that Gotham has seen, he leaves their pictures up, but this one...”
For whatever reason, Bruce Wayne took pride in the downfall of the villains of Gotham. He did fund Batman, after all, so maybe he could take a little bit of the credit. It was, however, a bit disturbing that he hung giant portraits of these defeated villains in his home. They were nearly as tall as the wall, and each of them were a full bodied painting. There they all were–the Riddler, Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Scarecrow.
But this portrait. This one.
It had a long slash down the middle. The canvas hung limply. The only thing that was really discernable was a pale hand.
Every time I walked past it, I longed to push back the canvas to see his face. The only one who Batman had truly hated.
The only one that he hadn’t sent the Arkham. The one that he’d killed.
“Nobody really knows anything about him, not even the way he died,” I murmured. “It drives me crazy. Why did Batman hate him so much?”
“Because he was evil?” Lily said, utterly deadpan.
“Oh my God, you’re an actual genius,” I smirked, clinking my champagne flute against hers. “In other news, this party is almost over so we can go have some actual fun. You know, drink rose and watch Bachelor in Paradise. Fantasize about Jesse Palmer.”
“Yessss,” Lily groaned. “What–fifteen more minutes? We can make it. We just have to hide from–”
“Ladies.”
Well. So much for that plan.
It was impossible to deny that Bruce Wayne was hot. He was as conventionally attractive as they came. And if I ignored my standards, I could see how somebody could be into him. He spoke in a soft, rumbling voice. He kissed the backs of hands. He would wink and tell jokes and laugh loudly, the sound of it ricocheting around any room that he was in.
He was larger than life. He made me feel sick, but he was powerful. And for some people, that was enough.
It was so easy to pretend when he wasn’t around that he was just another man that I had to dodge for the evening. It was almost fun to pretend that he was the guy who made lewd comments on a subway, or who bought me too many drinks.
But like every man, you could only joke about him for so long before he became something dangerous. Men had a way of shapeshifting like that when you weren’t looking.
“You look beautiful, Harleen,” he murmured, offering his hand to me. I had no choice but to take it and let him kiss the back of it. His lips were soft. Of course they were. Sometimes he would kiss my cheek, and the way he would linger there after...
“And you look handsome, Bruce,” I replied as easily as breathing, trying to give him a breezy smile–but it wasn’t working. Like my mouth was defective. There was something wrong with the way that he was looking at me. Usually, he gave me space and would try to find other women in the party to set his sights on, but that whole night, I had felt his eyes following me around the party. And I really could feel them. The way they raked down my spine, curved around my ass, and casually unzipped my dress like it was his right.
Fuck. I wanted to run suddenly. And then he put his hand on the small of my back, and panic bubbled in my guy. Goosebumps raised on my skin, but not for the reason that he surely thought they did.
“I’m so glad I finally have a moment with you,” Bruce murmured. “I think we’ve both known this has been coming for quite some time. Come with me.”
Ahh. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. His hand wrapped around my wrist and I allowed myself to be toted to the middle of the party. There felt like thousands of people surrounding us now and I glanced back to see Lily trying to push after me, her eyes as panicked as mine surely were because Bruce was up to something and it wasn’t anything good.
“Friends,” Bruce said, and the room immediately went silent, all eyes on him. And me. Mostly me. I could feel them rippling down my skin. The poor miserable girl that Bruce had taken under his wing. Wasn’t she so lucky?
I didn’t feel lucky at all. Jesus, the mere idea of a four leaf clover was about as far from me as I could imagine.
“I am so pleased that all of you have gathered this evening to celebrate with me in a very special moment. Harleen Quinzel, from the moment I met you, I knew there was something special about you,” Bruce was saying, and I felt myself smiling mechanically. I figured he wouldn’t mention that the first time he’d met me, he’d sneered at my sweatshirt and jeans and said Fine, the press will be good if I support her. “And over the past few years, we have grown undeniably close.”
What the fuck. I didn’t know what alternate universe Bruce was living in, but there were probably fucking unicorns in it because apparently in this universe reality didn’t matter. I had hardly talked to Bruce, mostly just endured the way he looked at me and tried catch me when I was alone and–
“I think it is only natural that we move ahead in our relationship,” Bruce smiled–and he was reaching into the jacket of his tuxedo and this was happening oh fuck no fuck a velvet jewelry box and he was opening it and holy fucking Christ that was the biggest diamond ever? Jesus what coal had to die to create that ridiculous eyesore.
“Harleen Quinzel, will you marry me?” he asked, and he didn’t kneel because of course he didn’t.
Well. At least I knew what Pam had been calling me about now. It would seem I’d accidentally attended my own engagement party.
Fuck.