Work Text:
https://letterboxd.com/film/gotham-411/
Review by Adana Lincolnshire - ★★★★ ½
Gotham 411 is the Gotham film scene’s response to the perennial love for chick flicks and iconic rom-com/dramas like Sex and the City. SATC’s fifth protagonist is its setting, New York City, and the fourth side of this film’s love triangle is Gotham herself.
Review by batling38 - ★
this movie sucks balls and dick. it doesn’t even rain once. what metropolis hack directed this. gave it one star because even though this setting definitely nyc with a coat of soot the jokes about the gcta got me real good
Review by Bryce - ★★★
It was ok Main actress can’t remember her name bad Gotham accent Niice tits tho
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-live-in-Gotham-still
Why do people live in Gotham still?
I wondered because the scarecrow gas attack on the green line has been the ony thing on the news in Trenton for a week and I dont know why people live they’re if its so dangerous, they can’t move or is their another reason?
Hazel Lin-Wood - 5y
Lifelong Gothamite - Preaching Courage and Strength NO MATTER WHAT! - #GothamBold - Joshua 1:9
Somerset born and raised here, South Island/Old Gotham now. That’s hard to answer and easy to answer at the same time… to make it short it is home… to make it long all cities have things that are bad and good… I don’t go around asking why people choose to live somewhere with EARTHQUAKES. The Bristol families give so much money we have great schools and infrastructure because we have to have them… if we have to carry around gas masks SO WHAT. I haven’t gotten fear toxin yet or frozen and I’ve lived here all my life. It’s not as bad as the news makes it look. GOD BLESS
Amanda - 5y
Gotham resident / GU ‘12 MA Urban Planning (Disaster Preparation, Villain Circumvention, Hero Damage Control)
You would be amazed at the kinds of things people can get used to. When millions of dollars of post-disaster relief is waiting in the wings, it’s a question of when things will get back to normal, not if. Population centers have personalities. Gotham’s is a shrug, a laugh, and a backup pair of sturdy galoshes.
batsbaysandblogsohmy.blogpod.com/posts/2009/10
ARCHIVED →
POST: October 15, 2009
Short one today, you guys! Sorry about that. I was kidnapped for ransom on my way 2 my opener (don’t ask me who, I was blindfolded the whole time, don’t even try it!) and I barely had a day. They didn’t even have the courtesy to feed us this time LOL. At least the penguin provides sandwiches! You could totally tell these guys were amateurs, which is extra crazy cuz we didn’t even get rescued until after my shift ended so that was a total wash. I’ll get a couple hours of villain incident backpay for this pay period but it’s still annoying as hell especially since my work nemesis claimed hers this week when I knowknowknow she was at a P!nk concert in Metropolis LOL.
Anyways, it’s autumn in Gotham! A lot of neighborhoods are trying 2 phase out Halloween this year (for the 7th year running LOL) for obvious reasons but there is so much pushback I don’t think it’s going 2 happen. I say let the kids have their costumes! The foliage really came out today, and Old Gotham is just full of gorgeous scenery. Don’t let the news scare you, come see it with your own lenses, shutterbats! LOL (Camera is Canon EOS 50D) PHOTOS COPYRIGHT 2009 AVERY CHOI!!!!
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On the first morning of his retirement, Dave wakes up after dawn (for the first time in thirty years!) to a sunny day with a sky the brittle, cold cornflower blue of midwinter. He unfurls from his nest of fluffy blankets, on instinct reaching a hand to brush his sleeping wife’s back. It meets cold flannel sheets -- Dave retired early on a Gotham night shift janitor’s astronomical salary, and Hauwa adores her kids at GPS 90 too much to let them go just yet.
Dave sighs and rises from his whirlwind of sherpa and wool. On his nightstand, a cup of his favorite tea sits still-steaming in a Superman-branded travel mug, a hot pink Post-It in Hauwa’s impeccable schoolteacher handwriting wishing him a good morning. Dave smiles. His Hauwa, always thoughtful.
He dresses in suitably warm layers, dripping with hand-crocheted scarves and stocking caps, bundled in a wool peacoat older than his daughters, and strikes out on the town with his tea in hand. The morning sun is weak and cold, but the brisk air bites his cheeks and he smiles despite himself. He’s got all the time in the world, after all -- and a hefty nest egg to fund whatever he sets his mind to. He won’t have to worry about break-ins or getting murdered on the job or being concussed by a well-meaning Bat. Dave meanders throughout East Gotham, listening to the birdsong, the clang of trolley bells, the rush of the waves in the Harbor against the levees. It’s a quiet morning in Gotham, a rare but treasured treat.
Dave wanders into a little bookstore on 70th and Walnut, a skinny haphazard construction built into a sectioned, former tenement house, bricks washed with age and outside hardware drooping to one side like a hunched old man. The hardwood is uneven under his boots when he enters, announced by a little battered bell on the doorframe. A worker in a purple apron pops up from behind a sagging bookshelf, looking frazzled, and greets him breathlessly. He waves and continues his labyrinthine path through the crowded shelves, ordered in no particular system, it seems, and he runs his fingers along the aged leather spines.
Hauwa loves it when he brings old books home. He plucks a 1953 copy of Ulysses, thinking of her, and lets it fall open in his hand with a symphony of cracks, when he then notices the door at the very back of the store, nestled between yellowed cookbooks. In his defense, the sign tacked to the door is not altogether clear about what it is pointing to -- cookbooks to the left and right, then further up are language reference books, then pointing down, tourist guides. He assumes “down” means “forward”, and though Dave doesn’t know this when he tries the handle, one bleeding, hassled guard forgot to lock one door the night before when Spoiler and Batgirl cleaned house.
The door creaks open, and Dave doesn’t find more books, but a long, sterile hallway in half-gloom lit by hospital-style fluorescents flickering menacingly. The hallway keeps going, and right at the door, forgotten and dripping, a mop lays on the linoleum. Dave stares at it. The malfunctioning lights buzz.
Dave, who did not survive thirty years as a night shift janitor in godforsaken Gotham by being stupid, takes this as an ill omen, and closes the door.
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Start: Bristol Township Station |
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Board the GMT West Line train 589 to Burnside Rail Center - $1.00 cash fare Scheduled at 6:30 / 7:00 / 7:30 / 8:00… | Bristol Township | Bristol South | Pine Barrens East | Germantown | Arlington | Buck Lake | Burnside Rail Center |
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Downstairs to Mitchell Station/Burnside 0.1 miles, about 3 minutes |
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Board the Gold Line Outbound toward Wayne Park $1.00 GZip card fare Train runs every 5 min | Harborside | Harborside East | North Row | Chinatown SERVICE INTERRUPTED AT 8th - FREEZE CLEANUP. Service resumes at 10th and Wayne stations. Violet line -- Bus 9 at 9th/Arnold connecting service. | 10th/Wayne | Kaneton | Botanical Garden | Atlantic | University City |
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Exit at University City on Vera Avenue |
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Walk to destination 0.2 miles, about 5 minutes |
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Arrive - 7:45 Gotham Academy, 1200 N Vera Avenue, Gotham City, NJ, 07740, United States |
Messages
Birdie - 06:04
Can you drive me to school
Please
[Click to unlock, calluses scrape against the cracks in the screen protector from a lucky hit on Thursday nightmorning (too early, too late, too much going on), squint against the brightness through a pounding hangover and two hours of sleep, what the hell does he want?]
You: Im like 45 mins awy dont you have GZip card? student discount too?
Birdie: yeah and i can make it by myself but i dont want to vomit in in the train cuz i got concussed at our night job last night
You: don’t go to scool
Birdie: I have a physics exam
You: instead of puking on the train you puke in the exam hall thats better than the train? or in my car? Go back to bed
You: Get B or smt
Birdie: whatever.
Birdie: Dont take tylenol rn you’ll give yourself more liver damage
You: what
(Birdie has notifications silenced)
Lunar-Solar Books & Curiosities
4890 E 8th St., Gotham City, NJ
732-390-XXXX
Cashier: Ivy
To Gotham, With Love - $13.87
Hamlet (1985 reprint - Dowd Publishers) - $5.03
A New Gothamite’s Guide to the Bat City [NEW] - $14.99
So Your House got Exploded: Now What!? - $4.50
The Priory of the Orange Tree - $11.09
Mistborn - $8.12
BAT PIN COPPER (3) - $15.00
SUBTOTAL: $72.60
TAX: $5.81
TOTAL: $78.41
MASTERCARD DEBIT: XXXX XXXX XXXX 9087
COMMENTS → 12.4k
→ gherkin_jerkin 19:03
“rObIn iS tHrEe SePaRAtE GuYs” bro thinks she’s a detective 💀
→ ymca0194875 19:04
I’m so confused? Do you think he stopped growing at 12?
→ teresabunbun05 19:05
who’s gonna tell him lmao
→ lylalee1995
!CLICK HERE FOR HOT DESPERATE HORNY SINGLES IN GOTHAM CITY! We’re waiting for you and we don’t have our gas masks ;)
→ ashketchupppX 19:06
“Bro thinks she’s a detective 💀” bro is willfully ignorant 💀
This class is important , Alice knows it, but she just can’t focus. It’s impossible. Dr. Płażyński is a shitty teacher on the best of days and he sucks even more now when Alice’s mind is on more important things than trig, even if this is the last class before the exam on Wednesday.
She woke up today with half her apartment building gone and a healthy breeze in her bedroom. Alice is here on a partial scholarship, her parents definitely wouldn’t be able to afford the rebuilding costs if the whole building weren’t insured, a thought that makes her legs bouncy and the pencil in her hand twitch back and forth. It’s fine. It will all be fine. Don’t think about how much more natural light your vintage posters are getting right now. Focus. Sohcahtoa. Sohcahtoa.
Tim in the back row snores and his desk neighbor, Will (she thinks his parents do, like, hotels or something) snickers. He flicks eraser shavings into the limp sweep of Tim’s dark hair across the desk. Dr. Płażyński lets outs a loud sigh from the chalkboard, slides a textbook off Noor’s desk (old Gotham money, Alice remembers) and sidles up to Tim. He lifts the textbook in the air and lets go. It drops onto the empty desk next to Will with a thunderous bang.
Tim jerks up like he’s been shocked, eyes wide and pale, hair a mess and plastered to one half of his face with drool, and his momentum carries him so far that his chair tips back onto its back legs, and rocks back forward. He catches himself on the desk edge. Half the class erupts in nervous giggles. Alice sighs. She just wants to do her trig worksheet.
“Leave the sleeping at home, if you would, Mr. Drake,” Dr. Płażyński says, returning to his post at the front of the room. Tim sighs and leans his forehead into his hand. Alice shifts her worksheet to the side so Tim can see it over her shoulder.
[SPOTIFY WRAPPED 2022:
You listened to BROWN TONES FOR FOCUS AND SLEEP for 782 hours!
CAPTION: when you live in crime alley you gotta do what you gotta do.
REPLY: Rebecca let me put you on some good shit
You: I’m listening
REPLY: oscillating fan covers up the screams a lot better than white noise
You: Interesting. Thank you benefactor mine
“We’re prepared for anything”: Gotham U College of Engineering to hold Spring 2019 graduation in Cold War bunker
… “We’re prepared for anything,” said Dean Rodriguez. “We’ve had enough chaos during the school year, our students deserve one day of peace.”
Besides the location change, the GCPD will be providing forty uniformed officers to man all exits and entrances. Attendees and graduates must pass through metal detectors before entering the bunker. Seismic sensors have been implanted in nearby buildings to detect threats miles away.
“It’s nice that they’re putting this much effort into keeping it safe this year,” said graduating senior Rashid Suri. “When my brother graduated, he got Joker-toxined onstage while grabbing his diploma and we didn’t find [the diploma] or him for three months….[he’s] fine now and he can move his mouth almost normally. You worry about all the prep being enough though.”
An anonymous source told the Globe that a Bat will be keeping tabs on the events from a secure location nearby.
The actual location of the bunker will be sent out to attendees and graduates one hour before celebrations begin.
r/gothamgrunge
u/hattylite-cone - Grunge scene in Gotham for newcomers? (2 years ago)
What it says on the tin. Moved to Gotham for work and not really sure where to look here. Heard lots of good things about the Gotham scene (and of course listen to Robin Teeth haha, Dungeon Debut is always going to be my favorite) and want to get a foot in.
→ u/honeysugarcavity
Dude party foul! You have to ask around irl or there are lots of flyers in record stores or some coffee shops in Harborside. This is how you get cool places shut down or burned down. DM me
→ deleted user
Oh my goddd shut up. “Cool kids ONLY you don’t get to enter our clubhouse” that’s what you sound like. GCPD has to deal with grown men in spandex doing domestic terrorism and murder and u think they give a shit about DIY venues full of sweaty losers in the fuckthousand abandoned warehouses in this city? They can’t even handle the grown men in spandex
→ u/honeysugarcavity
Lexi I know this is you. Please just give me back my sweatshirt and I’ll unblock you on everything. Except I know you can’t because you already sold it on eBay and bragged about it to Kat. It wasn’t even a real Nightwing autograph on it
→ deleted user
bitch
COVENTRY CHRISTMAS WONDERLAND
Come for a night of snow, sparkles, and Christmas wonder, stay for the light show!
WHO: Sponsored by the North Gotham Villain Cleanup Union!
WHAT: Hot chocolate, Santa, Christmas tree lighting, carols, and a Christmas market with dozens of local businesses!
WHERE: Church Park at Kirk Avenue and Cathedral Boulevard!
WHEN: Festivities start at 7 p.m. turf battles and weather permitting, villain junk parts firework extravaganza at 9 p.m. (watch for falling debris!)
WHY: For some good old-fashioned Gotham fun!
HOW: With fireworks!
Two drunk friends stumble on a Gold Line train back to University City. They sway unsteadily against the plexiglass partitions, while one breathes slow and steady to stave off the rolling tide of tequila nausea. The soberer friend watches the greasy yellow lights of the subway tunnel whip by the bulletproof windows. The doors are armored and airtight. Military-grade vents filter the cool September air through the train car. Fluorescent lights bleach the slick blue-and-silver interior into harsh, sickly greens.
An L&D nurse in pink scrubs dozes at the far end of the car, her badge looped around her hand, her giant lunchbox empty and sagging like a sad wet pile of polka-dot laundry against her side. A group of midwestern tourists on their way to a redeye wrangle rolling suitcases that are dead-set on making the length of the car. The drunker friend blows a long breath through their mouth. Glitter and black eyeliner is smeared around their eyes in a messy approximation of the flawless cat-eye it had been five hours prior. The soberer friend digs through her bra and discovers the chunky statement necklace she’d thought she lost to the sticky floors at the Harborside Dive. Always a quick learner, she stows it in a safer place: the other cup of her bra.
“Y’know,” the drunker friend begins, as a distraction from the sway-sway-sway of the world and the car. The consuming roar-clatter of the train, that massive steel beast, hides the slur in their voice. “I’m worried about the little boy.”
“What?” says the soberer friend. “What little boy?”
“Y’know, the little boy. The color one,” the drunker friend says. “Bird. The flippity jumpy one. I can’t say my R’s now.”
“Bird.” The soberer friend considers. She leans her head against the nasty glass in the door to feel its cold against her hot skin. When she lifts her head again she leaves a sweat print. “Robin? The little boy?”
“Yeah. He’d used to, um…” -- they gulp and pinch their earlobe, a trick a freshman-year roommate had insisted worked miracles -- “I live by… the ice cream place on 16th. He’d use my fire escape as a shortcut because he was little and could run it. The big bat is too big. I’d see him. Every T’ursday… no more now.”
“Uh huh?” says the soberer friend.
“I don’t even see the big bat anymore,” says the drunker friend.
“I’ve never seen the big bat,” says the soberer friend.
“That’s cuz you’re from, um, Philadel…phia?” says the drunker friend. The roar of the train slows, the train limping into the station, the low screech of the brakes.“You’re not worthy.”
“If I wanted to see a grown man in a costume I could go to Delta Omega Chi on Halloweekend. I don’t want any of that… stuff around me,” says the soberer friend.
“That’s why -- that’s why --”
The speakers overhead interrupt in a reassuring alto with “Atlantic,” just as the drunker friend splinters her sentence with an “oh god,” and lurches out of the car toward a trashcan, backed by her friend’s vehement protests, and the doors shut behind them. The L&D nurse sighs in relief.
A record of sightings, by an exhausted professor in apparently the most climbable building in Little Italy. Trying to grade papers and the Bats are not letting me. 🧵(1/?)
→ TA recovering from a dip in Gotham Harbor last week. This is a solo fight. So here, since I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one of them is young enough to have Twitter, a callout (2/?):
→ 21:08 -- First sighting. Just this year’s Robin. He looks in high spirits. Saluted at me when he saw me. 1/81 papers graded. (3/?)
→ 21:52 -- Batwoman thrown into a dumpster in my alley by a rogue (unidentified, unremarkable, no cause for alarm). Got up right after. 8/81 papers graded.(4/?)
→ 22:30 -- Batman looming over rooftop. He is arguing with someone over an earpiece. What about? Don’t care. 14/81 papers graded (5/?)
→ 22:41 -- Robin came through my window. Antonym of defenestration? Thread canceled. Glass everywhere. Good night. @batalert Invoices? (6/6)
TRANSCRIPT: Recording #014: 19:05 14/5/19 - ROBIN TEETH ALBUM #2 BRAINSTORM SESH #4
00:00 ZAFIYA ZLASHER: Ok. Check, check, mic’s hot. Ready for audio calibration. Uh, what did everyone do today?
00:17 BECKY BREAKER: WelI I, um, got way too high last night and I woke up like half an hour ago, so.. ate some pizza rolls, I guess?
00:39 NADIA NEEDLE: Those things will kill you, you know.
00:43 BB: What, mother, the joints or the Red 40?
00:46 ZZ: Will youse guys quit already? We haven’t even got started yet.
00:52 NN: Whatever.
00:54 BB: Whatever.
00:56 RACH REAPER: Ooh, Zaf, I got one!
00:59 ZZ: Uh-huh?
01:00 RR: Took the commuter up through Blüdhaven after work today and you’ll never ever guess who I ran into.
01:09 BB: Was it Kayla-with-the-bangs again?
01:13 RR: No, no. She moved to the East End. Said being near me and a Bat was givin her gray hairs and she had to pick one or the other. Nightwing was in my car, just snorin up a storm!
01:24 BB: Bullshit.
01:25 RR: I’m not lyin!
01:26 ZZ: Six’s a weird time to be headin into Gotham. He usually sticks to Blüdhaven unless somethin’s goin on, right?
01:31 BB: Jesus, if I have to shelter in place with you four here I’ll kill myself. No offense, Robbie.
01:34 SOUNDBOOTH: Got it.
01:36 RR: Zaf that’s what I thought! So I poked him askin if he was doin ok and was like, “just peachy!” and I told him we’re almost to Gotham Center and he said he’d be good for bit and thank you, then went back to sleep. Figured it was none of my business and left him there. Hope he didn’t miss his stop.
01:59 BB: I think the superhero’ll be just fine if he misses his stop, Rach.
02:04 NN: It sure is a weird time to be starting patrol, it’s not even dark yet… but it is dinnertime. You know who lives past Gotham Center and might be having dinner right now?
02:10 BB: Goddammit, Nadia.
02:11 ZZ: Don’t even start with your “Bruce Wayne is Batman” bullshit again. The man’s a grade-A idiot.
02:16 NN: That’s exactly what he wants you to think! You’d never suspect him!
02:19 ZZ: Robbie, are we good on sound?
02:23 SOUNDBOOTH: Yeah, we good.
02:25 ZZ: Let’s do a warmup.
02:27 BB: Not waiting for --?
02:29 ZZ: If Dean can’t bother to show up on time he can shred his chords for all the shits I give.
02:35 RR: I think you mean Dirty --
02:37 ZZ: I am not fucking calling him that. One, two, three --
Is Gotham tap water potable?
NO. All tap water sourced from the Harbor or Gotham Sound watershed should NOT be considered potable without proper filtration.
Where do I get an at-home water filter?
Most construction in Gotham Proper has a built-in water filtration system that will be able to counteract most of Gotham Harbor and associated watersheds’ pollutants, barring extreme circumstances. Ask your property manager or conduct tests of your own with one of Gotham City Utilities’ free water tester kits to see if you need a system installed. Residents in the Financial District, Park Row, Coventry, City Hall District, Old Gotham, and the East End should take extra care to ensure water filtration systems are in proper working order. Property owners found in violation are subject to minimum fines of $50,000 (Gotham City Ordinance No. 409841).
SHOPPING WED./THURS.
Target
- Pepper spray refills
- Razor head refills (Billie brand)
- Not Your Mother’s curl cream
- Gas mask filters (Wayne Enterprises brand)
- Sriracha
- RETURN THE BOOTS!!!
- Oatmilk
- Frozen pizza x2
Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Sharpener for pocket knife
- Aluminum baseball bat
- Nike running shoes for Logan size kid’s 7
ACE Hardware
- Nails x1
- Plywood 4*5 x3
Farmer’s market 3-7p
- Apples
- Sourdough
- Swiss Chard
- Soy candles - clean gotham harbor scent
Two men stand on a stoop in a quiet residential neighborhood a few streets over from Chinatown one night, wrapping up a night out. The shorter of the two balances their leftovers in styrofoam containers (pad Thai and pad see ew from that place next to the Bat Burger on Bradford and Oak) while the taller digs through his pockets for their house keys. The shorter sighs and rolls his eyes, shifting his weight onto his left leg to let the railing bear some of the burden of takeout.
Just as the taller retrieves his keys with a loud crow of victory, there’s a clink from the fire escape on the window above. The two look up with practiced Gothamite urgency, and meet the domino-masked gaze of a little boy hanging by the leg from the ladder, hinges rusted in place from years of acid rain, a chain as thick as the boy’s wrist wrapped thrice around his ankle and pulled taut, caught by something on the roof. The chain is scratched to hell from several attempts at freedom, to no avail.
“Sorry to interrupt, fellas,” says the boy, in the sweet creaky tones of a teenager, his voice a little faint from the blood to his head. His face is nearly purple with pooling blood. “Couldja cut me down? Or maybe get my distress bracelet? It went down in those flowers over there. The Bat got to be losin ‘is mind.”
The boy’s got dark cherub curls and his hands and feet have outgrown him before his limbs have gotten a chance to catch up. The bright colors of his outfit gleam with threads of Kevlar and textured patches show careful mending. Each inch of him must be covered in hidden weapons or tools that he knows how to use in a million ways, but now, he’s hanging limp with his arms useless up by his head.
Park Row oozes out of every corner of his mouth, the easy, low drag of his vowels curling around to the front of his teeth. He’s got the accent Hollywood makes starlets put on (to often-middling success) to immediately peg them as Gotham. He talks like the shorter man’s kid sister. His eyes flutter as he starts to pass out.
“Jack,” the shorter man snaps, dropping the takeout onto the concrete step, peanut sauce dripping in the plastic bag. Jack’s mouth thins and he nods, all business, tossing the keys to the shorter man and vaulting the railing into the hydrangea bushes under the boy. He falls to his knees and starts sifting the mulch through his fingers. The shorter man fumbles with the keys before flinging the door open and taking the stairs two at a time. A cacophony of noise spills out the front door while he looks for their bolt cutters.
Jack is having no luck finding the distress bracelet in the dirt. He snarls with frustration and starts ripping up the plastic sheeting under the mulch. Robin makes a little noise of distress and dismay. It’s barely audible.
“Hold on, baby,” Jack says, giving up his search to reach up to Robin. Their fingers barely brush. The cacophony inside has stopped and the other man starts up to the third floor with the fire escape. “Hold on, sweetheart, we’ve got you. We’re gonna get you down from there.”
“Yuh huh,” Robin slurs.
The shorter man scrapes at the window latch, frantic, and flings it open. He clambers out onto the fire escape, which wobbles precariously. He readies the bolt cutters, glances down to meet Jack’s eyes, who nods at him with a somber determination, and forces the blades through the chain. It shrieks, gives. Robin plummets into the hydrangeas and Jack’s waiting arms. The bushes and Jack’s shoulder joints crunch, but he drops with the momentum, and Robin is on the ground safe with little more than a bruise and some scrapes. Jack’s air gusts out of him.
“I’ve got him, Cameron,” he calls. Cameron lets out a little relieved laugh and scrambles back inside.
He emerges on their stoop panting, fingers bloody from digging and pulling and scraping and pushing, and marvels at Robin half-cradled in his fiance’s arms, groaning as he sits up, holding his head. Jack looks up and grins at him. Cameron laughs again.
“You okay?” Jack says. He pats Robin’s back.
“Yeah,” Robin rasps. “Christ. Sorry.”
“Don’t even worry about it,” Cameron says. “We’re glad we got home when we did.”
“That’s for sure,” says Jack.
Robin stands, sways so hard Jack and Cameron make to catch him, but rights himself.
“Thanks s’much,” he says. He bends and rubs his ankle. “I dunno how I managed it.”
“Where’s the big Bat?” Cameron asks. “He’s got to be worried sick.”
Robin makes a noise that’s nearly a scoff, but then jolts upright. He presses a button on his belt and his distress bracelet starts shrieking where it's hooked on a branch in the depths of the hydrangea bush. He retrieves it and presses a few more buttons.
Not fifteen seconds later, a dark mass peers over the edge of the building. Lit from below, Batman’s cape renders him a black wraith in the night, shifting gently, the only visible bits of him the ghost-white, glowing pits of his eyes. Robin’s shoulders sag with visible relief. Jack and Cameron gape up at the Bat in stupefied silence.
“What happened?” a voice calls down, gravelly, deep, but gentle, carried by the breeze.
“Went over the edge,” Robin shouts back up. Batman tilts his head, something Jack can only tell because the angle of his eyes shift in the great mass of shadow. “Chain caught me. These two helped me out. Say hi, Batman.”
Cameron opens his mouth to say, “Hi, Batman,” but Batman beats them to it, with a low murmur of, “hello,” twisted by something that’s almost laughter.
The glowing pits shift back onto Robin. “You’re alright?”
“Right as rain!” Robin says, doing a little spin to display his four intact limbs. Batman nods, jerks his head to summon Robin to his side. Robin ducks to dig his grapple gun out of the hydrangeas, turns to bid Jack and Cameron goodbye with a megawatt grin and a salute, then shoots off into the dull orange glow of Gotham’s night sky, disappearing over the lip of the roof. Batman watches his arc for a moment, then peers back over at Jack and Cameron, still struck silent. He gives them a single nod, and melts into the darkness.
Cameron snorts. Dissolves into helpless laughter, takes Jack with him. Jack’s shoulders smart as he squeezes Cameron but he pays it no mind.
“Well, we’ve got a story for the toasts, that’s for sure,” Jack says, and Cameron collapses into giggles again.
Three months later, Jack and Cameron get married, and the little boy with the cherub curls is dead. Two months after that, Tim Drake starts showing up to school with black eyes and bruised knuckles.
To Gotham, With Love: A Memoir, by Katherine Long
Equal parts history and confession, Long’s sophomore novel To Gotham, With Love combines Long’s trademark tell-all style with the sleek prose of a journalist to paint a picture of Gotham City most outsiders don’t see: the landscape, the people, and the things that make a place home -- men dressed as bats sometimes included. A love letter addressed to Gotham, with all the sap and earnestness that entails.