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Scarecrow - Blog Posts
awwww he's so cute ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡
The Best Frightened Scarecrow Expressions || Lock Up
The only ginger I will ever hug and kiss platonically /j
Thanks Halloween for giving me a new hyperfixation lmaoo
I can’t remember who gave me this prompt but thank you tysm!!
Stuck on the bus and this caught my eye so let’s go
Any adaption but I’ll be writing in the 1986 ver
The emerald city, a sparkling palace of peace and wonder that sat in the centre of oz, ruled by the kind and wise king who was recently crowned, king scarecrow. The straw man was a wonderful king and made all the people happy as could be but he was bored. Bored out of his new mind it wasn’t as fun as he’d imagined it to be it was much slower, much much slower. Nothing new ever happened no excitement no action, sure it wasn’t a terrible thing it made the working system smooth and well oiled but dull as could be.
At the moment the king was going through old possessions of the wizard, left behind trinkets and inventions piled up in the other room, there was bound to be something interesting there. He searched through many chests finding boxes some empty some filled with little bits and bobs, one had a little wooden horse to make inside. He found puzzle boxes and sparkling jewellery some of which he put on just for the fun of it, admiring himself in the mirror with a giggle but nothing was very attention keeping or eye catching. He needed a book, a nice big interesting book to read with action and drama something adventurous to make him new brain fizzle with pictures and imaginary scenes of the book turning words into pictures. He settled on the idea and had a look through more chests. The wizard had so many books old ones new ones even ones in a different language but they where all more instruction like than story books. He shouldn’t have been surprised the wizard would’ve needed something to help build his inventions but he’d had hope there would be at least some sort of story book. He sighed and sat ontop of a crate glumly putting his head in his hands. He had so much energy to spare and so little time to use it. He shifted uncomfortably something was under him and it wasn’t nice. He stood up turning around to see what was under him. A book. A deep green cover dusty and old with worn edges and a beautiful picture on the front of a princess and a frog. Intrigued by the illustration scarecrow picked it up and dusted it of slightly. The picture was a little bit faded but the colours just seemed to catch his attention. He wasted no time running back to the throne room and sitting down in his velvet throne eager to read this precious jewel he’d found.
Time ticked by and scarecrow was absorbed into the book, slumped lazily with his legs over the thrones arms swinging them back and forth subconsciously as he read the book. It was fascinating a witch, a princess and a prince turned into a frog by a magic spell, there was small pictures here and there which made scarecrows eye shimmer. He was almost finished with the book, it wasn’t lengthy but wasn’t short either. Eyes glued to the book they scanned along the lines of words he began to mutter to himself. “And the princess leaned in, kissing the frog turning him back into the handsome prince he was before” he read, but something made him itch with curiosity. What was kissing? He flipped the page and saw an image of the princess and the frog with their lips touching gently. Was that was a kiss was than? Gently pressing lips to another as a show of love? He was amazed and an idea sparked in his brain. The tin man, perhaps tin man would know after all he was a human once and with a partner at that. He giggled a common occurrence when he was excited or happy and got up the book was tossed aside for now. Since becoming ruler he and the tin man and lion had all found shortcuts to each other’s domains which cut the time practically in half. He grabbed his hat and put the crown on the throne heading down the steps and out the dark room all together.
Winkie country a land once desolate and filled with worry was now filled with life, winkies where free to work and where happy as could be especially with their new ruler leading them. Tin man was having a ball really, he was polished as he needed making his tin shine like diamonds in the light, he was able to forge weapons for the winkies, gardening tools so they could grow crops and plant beds of pretty poppies around the land. The winkies country had never been better. At the moment tin man was in the old witches castle that sat on a little ledge, he was potting up some lovely purple flowers he’d received from a winkie lady as a thank you for restoring their land. Purple, a colour that showed royalty and power but also a colour that reminded him of his dearest friend, the scarecrow. Scarecrows eyes, his beautiful violet eyes, even just paint so filled with life and a passion for living it. It made tin man swoon any time the straw man looked to him with those eyes with that wide smile his new heart would skip a beat he swore he could hear his tin drumming as it hit the metal so hard. His heart was fluttering just at the thought of scarecrow. Soft glove hands, the smell of fresh straw, his voice his laugh his plush body he looked so huggable and warm. “Tin man?” Someone called. He just wanted to hold scarecrow closely. “Tin man?” To love him with all his heart and tell him that. “Tin man!” He jumped startled by the voice. He looked over and saw those exact amethyst eyes glistening at him.
“Scarecrow!” Tin man chuckled happily standing up. “It’s good to see you” he said shaking hands with him. They hadn’t seen each other for a while since they where now kings. “How’s everything in the emerald city?” He asked starting up conversation. “Oh slow but it’s wonderful really, everyone’s very kind and friendly” scarecrow replied. “That’s wonderful” tin man smiled but noticed that his straw friend seemed to be a little fidgety like there was something he wanted to say or ask but wasn’t sure. “Tin man,” he began softly “do you know.. what kissing is?” He asked. Tinman felt his heart skip again, did scarecrow want to kiss him? “I, yes I know what it is… why?” He was getting nervous with anticipation. “Well I was reading this book about a princess and a frog.. and they kissed and I was just wondering…” he shuffled about a little putting his head down. “how does it work?…”
If y’all want a continuation I may have somethin for ya! Keep an eye out hehe I’m back into oz again.
I'm very proud of this draw qwp
This is more meh
I LOVE 1986 SCARECROW AAAAAAAAA
Trying to come up with a design for this b
Barely finished corpsecrow piece I made ages ago
Bonus:
Quick Jonny cause I haven't drawn him in ages
My own batman designs again :)
Wizard of Oz art I've drawn over the week :-D
Mostly my own designs for the characters!! Click for better quality
Man obsessed with halloween commandeers american beer company’s mascot. + a brief sketch.
Been wanted to draw salecrow for absolutely ages so have a quick sketch page followed by a just as quickly made meme
(click for better quality)
This is canon /j
Based off my favourite tweet ever 😭
(TW: snakes, bugs, teeth, eyes, blood) Scarecrow for the day
Blegh sketches for the day
Trying to practice drawing this mf
Scarecrow sketches I've made over the week (learnt he's hard to draw but yknow country girls gotta make do) (tw: a little bit of blood on the third image)
Asphyxiated ✢ Bruce Wayne
Synopsis: Y/N’s once-adoring relationship with the charming Bruce Wayne begins to unravel as his nightly disappearances and distant demeanour create an insurmountable chasm between them. Unaware of his double life as the infamous Batman, Y/N is left to wonder where she went wrong, seeking solace in an old friend, Jonathan Crane. Bruce Wayne x Reader, female pronouns. This piece is not plot-specific, so any iteration of Bruce will work. Though I wrote it with Christian Bale in mind. Warnings: Angst (there's a lot, sorry), canon typical violence (not overly descriptive). Masterlist
Note: This is my first time writing for Christian Bale's Batman, and I can definitely see myself writing for him a lot more; god, I love him. I would also love to thank my lovely friend @lettherebemorelight for helping me with this plot.
Disclaimer: I have since written a prequel to this piece, you by no means have to read it, but if you do, here is the link.
Words: 7,292k
She had once known warmth in his embrace. His open arms beckoned her with a promised safety, drew her in with steady reassurance.
But that warmth had long since dissipated. In its wake, it left behind an empty, desolate bed, cold sheets, and a gnawing uncertainty festering deep within her. Bruce Wayne was slipping through her fingers, their love was fraying at the edges, and try as she might, she could not halt its relentless unraveling. Y/N was at a loss; she could not make sense of it.
The nights were the worst. Y/N would shift in their bed, reaching instinctively for the warmth that now so often evaded her, his warmth, only to find his side untouched, brisk against her moon-ridden skin. She would hear the ceaseless ticking of the clock, each of its hand's faint circuits mocking her with the unremitting absence of the man she adored.
She would lie there, vacant eyes gazing above her, with the remnants of her dream shimmering at the edges of her vision and fading into her memory. The uncertain haze of her unconscious contrivance left a burning at the base of her throat as she fought against her tears. She would always dream of him, and though she was met with twisted caricatures of what their love had once been, she pined for sleep to drag her under its unrelenting grasp once more, simply to reunite with them.
And then, come morning, he would finally show, always interminably long past the promised hour. His drawn movements weighed down with lassitude, and his words bare of any real explanation.
‘Something came up.’ He would reach for her hand and whisper it haphazardly against her hair, in the muted light of dawn shining through their panoramic windows. His words were always nonchalant, as though late-night escapades did not stray far from convention. Bruce would then press a distracted kiss to her forehead before heading to the shower, leaving her alone on their bed, her arm falling slack to her side once more as he drifted away and out of her grasp.
She wanted to believe him; she yearned for it. But there was something in the way his shoulders tensed under her timid caress, in his taut hesitation before offering any answer. It twisted at her stomach and made it coil with unease.
She had tried speaking to Alfred, desperate to understand. The older man, a perpetual fountain of wisdom and warmth, could only ever offer her a tight smile and a soft excuse.
‘Master Wayne has a great many responsibilities, Miss.’
He would always say the same thing, and it was not an answer, not truly. He was speaking without saying anything at all.
Y/N would not miss how his smile evaded his eyes, turning to pity. Alfred felt sorry for her, and her mind was reeling for the catalyst.
She used to tell herself it was better not to ask, that silence was safer. But that silence had since turned into distance, and that distance was unbearable.
When they had first started dating, she felt like the luckiest woman alive. Bruce Wayne, handsome, charming and kind, made her feel like the centre of the universe. But now, spiralling into her dejection, she felt like she was standing at the edges of a macrocosm she no longer belonged to, staring in and hammering at its unabating walls.
Bruce remained steeped in shadow, staring out into the murk that sheathed Gotham like an integument. The familiar weight of the suit clung to his body like a second skin; it was his mind that made it feel as though he was suffocating, a heaviness that seemed impossible to rid himself of. His gaze flickered to the clock on the cave wall, another night spent apart from her. Another night, he had failed her.
He could still discern her face clearly in his mind, how it had looked before all this. Her lips would curve into a dulcet smile when she saw him, a tenderness would reach her eyes when he held her close. It was not just love he felt when he gazed upon her; it was a need. She anchored him, gave him something to cling to in a city that constantly tried to drag him under, take him somewhere darker, twisted.
But now? There was nothing but distance between them, a chasm of unspoken words and apologies; it seemed nothing could bridge the gap.
Bruce clenched his fists, leaning his weight against the cool stone of the cave, head falling back against its concrete foundations. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to admit everything, every single detail; he wanted to make her understand why he could not be the man she deserved.
But the words never came.
He could not let them.
He had convinced himself over and over again that this was for her own good. She need not know. He could not inflict her with the weight of his world. The dangers, the violence. The darkness and the murk. None of it.
He was not blind to the fact she was pulling away; he was making a stranger of her. Bruce did not miss how her eyes, in the gleam of dawn, would search his with that dreaded unspoken question, the one he could never answer.
It was imperative for her safety.
If she knew, if she understood what he did when the night fell and the city beckoned its protector, she would be at risk. If she knew he was the Batman, she would become a target. A pawn in a deadly game that he could not protect her from, a game he could not win.
He had seen it happen before; too many people who cared for him had suffered. He would not let that happen to her. Not when it was within his power to keep her away from it, to suspend her above the reservoir that engulfed him.
But the guilt ate away at him regardless. The empty promises, the way he would brush her off with some vague excuse, knowing she would never get the truth, knowing she did not believe his lies. He hated it. God, he hated it.
But what other choice did he have? She was not just his lover; she was his heart; she was akin to the blood that flowed through his veins; she was life. If Y/N knew, if she saw the man he truly was, she would leave him. She would never forgive him.
He did not deserve her forgiveness.
And the thought of losing her, of watching her walk away, was a torment worse than any form of hell, its torture paling in comparison. He could never survive it.
It was for her own good.
His mind repeated this mantra like a prayer, something to hold onto as he watched her slip further and further from his embrace. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that it was the right thing to do, the truth gnawed at him, unfurled like caustic tendrils within his abdomen. The expanse between them had become too wide to ignore.
If she knew, if she knew the truth…
He would never be able to keep her safe.
Bruce’s hand hovered over his phone, his fingers trembling with the desire to call her. To hear her voice, to hear her ask him where he had been, what he had done. She felt so close, yet so entirely out of reach.
The rational part of him, the Batman, told him it was better this way. She would be safer if she stayed in the dark, if she never knew the man he truly was. But somewhere deep inside, in a plane where Bruce Wayne still existed within him, he did not believe it; he knew this was not what she needed.
The truth of it was that the Batman was the real him; Bruce Wayne was the façade, an image of the man he yearned to be, the likeness of the man Y/N deserved.
So, he kept her away. Ensured she remained in the dark, drowning in his guilt, persuading himself it was for her own good. Because if he told her, if she saw what he truly did when the sun went down, she would leave him. And that, in the end, was the one thing he could not survive. He was too selfish to allow it.
His eyes flickered to the suit, to the mask now gripped, with pale knuckles, in his unyielding hands, the mask that concealed his true identity. To the symbol of the man he had to be, to protect Gotham, and to protect her, by not telling her the truth.
But it did not feel like protection anymore. It felt akin to betrayal.
He pressed his eyes shut, the weight of it all crashing down upon him. He was not a hero. He was not even the man he had once hoped he could be.
He was a liar.
And she was slipping through his fingers; he was losing her.
It had started as small exchanges, polite words over coffee when their paths crossed amidst the twisting, serpentine alleys of Gotham City. Then, lunches at cafés, after that, afternoon walks through parks. It was the comfort of familiarity that had drawn her in, the sequestered ease of conversation with someone who had known her before her world became so complicated, so delicate.
Jonathan Crane listened when she spoke, his sharp mind quick to offer observations, to make her laugh when she had forgotten how. And she needed that, needed someone to remind her that she was not invisible, that she was not losing herself in the silence of an empty home, a chilling manor.
Because it was not just the empty bed anymore.
Y/N found herself growing accustomed to the silence that followed Bruce’s ever-present absence. There were no longer any excuses, no more explanations to be had. She did not ask. She simply waited, quietly, biding her time, until he would return to her, distorted, in some fragmented form of himself, always just a little bit further out of her reach.
The coffee would grow cold. The breakfast table remained untouched as she piercingly stared at the empty seat opposite her, mind whirling. Bruce was always sleeping, analogous with a nocturnal creature. The shadows beneath his eyes seemed permanent now, etched into the crevices of his face; in this way, they were very much alike. She would stare dolefully at the toll he took within her complexion.
It was becoming too much to bear; the distance, the constant, unceasing unravelling of everything she had known and cherished. She would go on pretending, to herself and to others, that things were fine, that the silence was not loud enough to drown her, but she was gasping for air, trying in vain to ease her asphyxiation.
She had tried everything, every little trick she could muster, to fill the void between them. She tried to meet him halfway, to carve out small moments that would make him feel like the man she once adored. But these futile endeavours were like stitching a wound that had long since festered.
And it was Jonathan Crane who made it easier.
Their meetings were innocent. Just old friends reconnecting. A simple chat over coffee, an afternoon stroll to catch up. Nothing more. But with each conversation, the air between them shifted. The rhythm of their exchanges became familiar, comfortable, safe, something she could almost rely on, like a steady pulse. Jonathan was there when she needed him. He listened. He did not push. He was not an enigma like Bruce, wrapped in layers of secrets she could never quite peel back. She felt like she could breathe again.
She noticed the slight curve of his lips when he smiled. The glint in his eyes when he found something interesting in her thoughts. There was a sharpness to him that kept her alert, something she could not quite place. But it did not alarm her; not yet.
And so, she allowed herself to lean into this unwavering presence, drawn to it like a moth to a flickering fire, not yet aware that the inferno would singe her just the same. She did not notice how the conversations between them shifted from casual, lighthearted exchanges to something more intimate. There was irresistible comfort in the way he seemed to understand her pain, her quiet, gnawing desperation. He did not push her for answers; he simply gave her the space to find them within herself. He quietly guided her toward the conclusion he had already been forming.
‘I know you’re not one to speak your mind often,’ he remarked one afternoon, as they sat in a secluded corner of a café, ‘but I can see it in your eyes, you know. You’re asking yourself all the wrong questions.’
Y/N looked up at him, eyebrows furrowing. ‘What do you mean?’
He smiled again, this time a little softer, a little more knowing. ‘You’re trying to find out what you did wrong, aren’t you? Why Bruce is pulling away.’
She hesitated, the words teetering on her tongue, but she couldn’t speak them aloud, not yet. Instead, she simply nodded, her finger faintly circling the rim of her coffee cup.
Jonathan continued, his voice measured, calm. ‘Sometimes, when people change… we forget that they’re changing for reasons beyond us. But what I think you’re failing to see, Y/N, is that you’re not the cause. You never were.’
This whole time, she had been asking herself what she had done wrong. Instead, should she have been asking what he was doing wrong?
It was the first time someone had told her that. Not Alfred, not even Bruce himself. His words settled into her chest, warmth chasing away the cold that had been so enduring.
But underneath that warmth, there was a hint of something else, a flicker of curiosity, or perhaps something darker, lingering just beneath the surface. What had he been keeping from her?
She did not see it. Not yet.
Bruce brooded in silence. The jealousy eroded him, made him bitter and cold, as he watched Y/N draw closer to Crane. He had seen them together more and more, like a slow, insidious shadow creeping closer to everything he was desperately trying to hold onto, enveloping her and stealing her from his sight.
His suspicions flared, each casual encounter between the two of them fueling the fire within him. He would track their meetings, silent and calculating. How many times had they met this week? How long had they been talking before she left with a smile on her face? A smile that had not been directed at him for what seemed a lifetime, a smile he would do a great many things to receive once more.
He had been foolish, had he not? Bruce could not decide which was worse, the slow, inevitable fall of his relationship with Y/N or the suffocating realisation that he was already too late.
There were nights when the bitterness was overwhelming. He would stare at the monitor in the Batcave, unable to concentrate, watching the movements of Gotham’s criminals as they spilled into the streets, oblivious to the wars they waged. All he could think about was the way Crane’s smile lingered in his mind, how it made his blood simmer and his chest tighten.
It was not just the jealousy. No. He was not stupid. He had seen enough of Crane’s work to know there was something wrong with him, something dark, lurking beneath the façade of a charming, polite man.
Everything she and Bruce had suffered was designed to keep her safe, though his efforts were in vain; he had pushed her away to safeguard her, but in her isolation, she turned to someone precarious.
Crane was luring Y/N into the imperilment he had been tirelessly attempting to shield her from; the very notion of it was sickening.
She was slipping away. She was beginning to look at Crane with something in her eyes, something that was not there before, a curiosity, an ease, a trust.
And Bruce could do nothing to halt it.
The suspicions were creeping in slowly for her, like soft inclinations in the rifts of her mind, barely perceptible at first. Of course, there were the large things: his sudden disappearances at night, his long sleeps during the day.
But then, bruises would blossom on his arms, and he would rush to conceal them behind clothes, to hide them before she could distinguish them. There were the late-night phone calls that always seemed to be cut short when her presence became known to him. There was his perennial fixation on the news and his rush to leave every time an active emergency broke.
She was not naïve. She saw the patterns.
Y/N perceived the unsavoury connection between Gotham’s most elusive figure and the man she loved. But the idea that Bruce could be the Batman was still too far-fetched, too unbelievable to fully take root within her beliefs, to alter her reality.
There were moments. Fleeting moments when she would see something in his eyes, in the way he moved, in the way his voice carried, moments that she could only describe as…
Haunted.
She did not want to believe it. She did not want to acknowledge the possibility. The inclination that Bruce had been hiding something from her was almost too painful to entertain, but the evidence was mounting, smothering. Every time she questioned him, his answers became more distant, more rehearsed, more evasive.
Bruce had been trailing them for weeks now, his shadow lurking behind as they shared fleeting moments of companionship, the kind that burned with familiarity and ease, a type of connection he had once known. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was sick, perverted even. There were countless awful words that could describe his behaviour, but he rationalised it; he told himself he was only worried for her safety. And he was; this was not a deception. But Bruce could not deny the burning there, the acid that would sink down and simmer in the base of his throat every time he saw him touch her.
He would watch, vision burning red, fists clenched, as Crane guided her through doors, hand rested on her lower back. Bruce would visibly cringe as Crane placed his slender hand on her shoulder as she made him laugh. Every time he saw them together, quiet conversations over coffee, casual strolls through parks, something dark inside him twisted. A ghastly sensation he could not name, a vulnerability he would never let anyone see, a jealousy he had, at this point, never known; it was foreign to him.
Tonight, he could no longer bear it. The dreadful images plaguing his mind, of Y/N’s laughter in the company of another man, had piled up until they were an intolerable weight. He needed to see for himself. He needed to know if she was truly slipping away or if, perhaps, he could still save her from the seemingly ineluctable distance between them.
To save himself from the pain of her harrowing departure.
He followed them from a distance, keeping himself shrouded in shadow as they walked together, their movements eased and unburdened. He watched them as they reached the park, a secluded part of Gotham, where trees grew thick and branches cloaked them in gloom.
Bruce lingered in the shadow of a nearby building, hidden from their view, his eyes narrowed on Y/N’s form, her back to him as she walked a few steps ahead of Crane. His heart pounded in his chest, his breath shallow. Something inside him, perhaps the instinct of a man who had seen too much loss, who had felt too many betrayals, sensed it. This was more than simple companionship.
Then, it happened.
Jonathan Crane stepped closer to Y/N, and for a moment, everything seemed to freeze. Bruce watched with bated breath. The air was drawn taut with a tension; it could have been sliced with a blade, a strain that needed no words to be understood. And then, with a smooth, calculated motion, Crane cupped Y/N’s face and kissed her.
Time seemed to stretch in that moment; in the span of a single heartbeat, the world seemed to slow to a suffocating crawl. Bruce’s stomach turned, and his throat closed. He had watched it happen, watched the betrayal unfold before his very eyes, and in that moment, he could almost feel it. The fracture of everything he had once held dear, the very thing he had worked so hard to protect, had now slipped from his grasp.
He could not move. He could not breathe.
Y/N’s face had been tilted up towards Crane, her expression soft, vulnerable. But Bruce did not see her eyes in Crane’s approach; he did not take in the hesitation there. He failed to see the way her body stiffened, her hands pressing against his chest, urging him to step back. All he saw was the kiss. The final straw. The moment that would unravel everything.
He turned sharply, his heart pounding in his ears, and walked away.
He did not hear the faint sound of her voice, calling out Crane’s name, pleading.
Y/N did not know how long she stood there, still reeling from the kiss. It had caught her off guard, an intimacy she had not expected and one she had certainly not reciprocated. And for a split second, her mind faltered. But only for a split second. In the moment the weight of what had happened settled, she knew something was wrong.
She pushed away from Crane, her heart thumping in her chest; he let her go easily.
‘I can’t…’ She stepped back, her voice trembling, hands still raised, unsure of whether the words were for herself or for him. ‘This… this isn’t right.’
Crane did not say anything for a moment, simply watching her, his eyes calculating. His lips twitched, but it was not a smile. It was something darker. Something she had not seen before.
But she did not wait for his response. Nor did she want to.
Y/N turned quickly and stumbled away, not caring if he called out to her or how he took her sudden departure. Her feet carried her swiftly, her breath sharp in the night air. She could still feel the weight of his kiss; it prickled against her skin and lingered there. Though it had meant nothing, nothing at all.
It was not until she was far enough away that she stopped, her phone already in her hand. She needed to talk to Bruce. She needed to explain, to plead and beg for his understanding.
Her fingers hovered over the screen, anxiety eating at her consciousness. With shaking hands, she scrolled through her contacts, found Bruce’s name, and pressed the dial button.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
The screen flickered as it went to voicemail.
Her stomach plummeted.
Once the dreaded high-pitched note sounded, indicating it was her time to speak and keeping true to his unrelenting distance, she rushed out a flurry of words; she needed him to understand, to know and believe how much she loved him. To know how little Jonathan meant to her, how much he paled in his comparison.
She ended the voicemail, her hand trembling as she stared at the screen, as if hoping for it to light up with his name, hoping for him to reach out to her, to offer the words of comfort, of validation, she so wretchedly longed for.
But the screen remained blank.
Bruce’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched tight. He knew she had called, but he had left her to go to voicemail. He did not want her explanation, her excuse; he understood the words would feel like a knife twisting in his chest, offering no reprieve. He knew he could not face her; he knew he could not answer her call without breaking, without crumbling under his despair.
He had seen what he had seen, and no explanation, no words from her, and no amount of time could erase that vile image from his mind, the way Crane’s lips had pressed against hers. The way he had held her, as if she belonged to him.
But she did not; Y/N was his. Or was she? He thought once more of the wedge he had driven between them, the walls he had established higher and higher until she was left standing on the other side, wondering if she could ever reach him again. He was not blind to the way she would observe him, sadness steeped within her eyes. Bruce clenched his fists, a deep ache forming in his chest. Had he pushed her away so far that she had to find comfort in the arms of another man? His own insecurities, his unspoken fears, had they created a chasm between them that was too wide to cross now? The thought of losing her, of her slipping through his fingers, falling into the grasp of another, was more than he could bear. Yet, deep down, he knew it was not Crane who had pulled her away. It was him.
Maybe he knew, deep down, that she had pulled away from Crane’s clutch. He knew she would not have wanted this. But this apprehension was futile now. The seed of doubt had already been sowed within his reality, and it had taken root in his heart like a venom.
His phone vibrated on his dash again, informing him of a voicemail left unheard. He could not bring himself to listen to it. The voice that had so recently been a source of comfort, of love, now felt like a weight. Her words would be a reminder of everything he was failing to give her, everything he could not be.
He drove off into the night, unable to find the courage to turn around.
Not yet.
Y/N’s mind raced as she roamed, and the city’s hum buzzed in the background. She was not ready to go back to the manor, not yet. Not until she could find a way to break through the walls he had built around himself, not before she could get through to him. She glanced at her phone once more; the silence radiating from it was somehow, completely illogically, deafening. The weight of what had happened hung over her, and despite everything, she could not bring herself to face him, for fear she might break.
How could she reach him when he refused to answer? Where was he? Her heart ached at the thought of him, so distant, so unreachable in his silent pain. She needed to fix things, needed to make him understand, before they lost each other completely. But the longer she wandered the streets, the more uncertain she became. What if there was no way back? What if they were already too far gone? She sighed and pushed the thought away as her footsteps quickened. The uncertainty settled deep in her chest as she realised she was not sure where she was going anymore. Y/N stumbled backward, her breath quickening as the dark figures loomed closer. She realised too late that she had backed into an alleyway, the weight of the situation settling heavy, like lead, in her chest. Her heart is pounding, her instincts screaming for her to run, to flee, but her nerves betray her. She glanced around herself frantically. She realised with a fear that felt like ice down her throat that there was no escape. One of them lurks closer, the flicker of the streetlamp catching the glint of a weapon in his hand. Her pulse thunders in her ears as she tries to steady her rattling breath. This was not supposed to happen. She was not supposed to be here. This was not supposed to be how it ended.
Her mind races, but it is too late. She knows it is too late.
There is nowhere to hide. The heinous men are closing in around her, swallowing her up. She is trapped.
A wave of nausea hits her, a sharp, cold panic that twists her stomach into knots. Her thoughts are a blur, but one thing is clear: she has to reach him.
She closes her eyes and forces herself to calm down, focusing on the small silver ring Bruce had given her, her last hope. The same ring she thought was merely a gift, a meaningless yet sweet gesture. But now she understands. She remembers the way he had pressed it into her palm, his gaze full of a quiet intensity that she had not fully grasped at the time.
‘If you ever need me…' he had said, his voice low, tone heavy with something unspoken.
‘This will help me find you.’
She recalled the confusion she had felt when he gifted it to her, though she had not dwelled on it at the time. But now, she was kicking herself; it all made sense. She had considered it before, but she was always careful to cut the notion short, halt it before it could fully form, before it became too real.
Bruce was the Batman and she had already known it; of course he was.
The late-night escapades, the sleep-riddled day times, the empty dinner tables, the cuts, the bruises and the urgent, poorly explained disappearances whenever something terrible had happened within the city.
Her hands trembled as she slipped the ring from her finger, the cool metal feeling foreign against her skin; it harboured hope. She placed it carefully between her fingertips and pressed just hard enough to activate the concealed mechanism inside.
The tiny, almost imperceptible whir of the system coming to life is the only sound she hears. And then, as she places it upon her finger once more, the faintest of beeps. A signal sent.
Her chest feels tight as she forces her sight upward, to look upon her soon-to-be attackers, forcing herself to maintain their stare. She is aware of their figures closing in again, of their eyes boring into her, hungry and cold. But her focus is on the single thought that keeps her grounded: He will come.
A sharp laugh echoes from one of the men. They are talking, but the words are unintelligible to her; she cannot hear them over the pounding in her ears. She makes no effort to answer. Her gaze shifts further upward, towards his signal illuminating the murk of Gotham’s night sky, and for a split second, she lets herself believe she can feel him out there—somewhere in the dark, coming to her.
She has to hold on. She has to hold on just a little longer.
Her vision starts to blur, the world becoming corroded at its edges, her body beginning to betray her, but she does not move. Makes no effort to run. She stays still, waiting. Waiting for him.
The night is too quiet, an empty expanse of soundless tension that suffocates with each breath. Bruce’s grip on the steering wheel is tight, his fingers stiff, trying to suppress the tremor that is slithering into his limbs. His chest feels hollow, a dull ache that has been consuming him since the moment he received her distress signal. The weight of it pressed down upon him, pushing the air from his lungs until he could not breathe at all.
The ring. The ring he had hidden a distress mechanism in. In this moment, it is all he has; it is what tells him she is still alive, that she is still fighting, though he can feel her slipping away with every second. He does not have time to think, does not have time to wrestle with the inevitability of what is coming. He pushes the Batmobile harder; the kiss, the betrayal, it is all but a faint memory; it no longer matters.
His heart ticked like a bomb, each beat augmenting the terror that wore at him. It’s too late. It’s already too late. He could not end the foul thought from hammering within his mind, a thought that burrowed deeper within him with every passing moment. But he pushed forward, went faster, even though every fibre of his being told him she was already lost.
He could not afford to think like this. She deserved better.
Bruce did not remember stopping the car. He did not remember climbing from its front seat.
As he moved, he felt akin to a puppet held suspended by strings; he was not in control of himself. He did not know how he made it to her; the time between the last glimpse of the signal on his dash and the moment he knelt beside her, in her blood, was lost to the haze of adrenaline and dread.
But then, he is there.
Her body is crumpled, macabre, like a broken doll, her form so still it makes his heart skip a beat. Her attackers were nowhere in sight. The blood pooling beneath her seems to grow darker by the second, stark and seeping into the crevices of the pale, illuminated pavement. She is breathing, just barely. It is the kind of shallow, desperate breath that sends a jolt of panic straight through his spine.
For a moment, he does not move, hands suspended above her. The world feels frozen, a long, aching pause; like it is waiting for him to act. But he cannot, he is paralysed. The sight of her, broken like this, shatters everything inside him, destroys everything he is. He wants to scream, wants to rage against this fate, but all that fills his mouth is the taste of failure; it burns like acid; he chokes on it.
‘Bruce…’
As soon as she speaks, a burning grief chases away the fear that had kept him still; he feels this morbid flame flow through his system and takes her into his arms. Her voice is a faint rasp, as if his name is all she can summon. Her eyes flutter open, and it is as though she is seeing him for the first time. Her gaze is distant, unfocused. Her fingers twitch, but they do not reach out for him; they do not have the strength. She is already too far gone.
But then, those eyes meet his, and something breaks in him, something deep and painful, something he has not allowed himself to feel in so long. She knows. And it is not anger or betrayal that he sees in her eyes. It is only sorrow, and love, and an ache that mirrors his own.
‘Take off the mask,’ she whispers, her words fragile like glass, much like her figure. She tries to lift her hand, but it trembles weakly, falling short as her body fights to stay alive, to keep breathing. ‘Let me see you... Please…'
Her plea hits him like a punch to the gut, and something inside him crumbles. Still supporting her, his fingers tremble as he reaches for the cowl. The motion is so slow it is almost torturous. Every inch of it feels like it is tearing him apart because once he does this, once he removes the mask, there is no going back. She will see the man beneath it, the broken man he has been hiding for so long. And it will be the last thing she sees; he knows it.
But she is asking, pleading. She wants to see him. And somehow, that small piece of her strength is enough to push him over the edge.
He takes it off.
The cool air brushed against his skin, and for the first time in years, he felt raw. Exposed. She does not flinch. Does not recoil. Not like he thought she would.
She smiles, a faint, fragile beam, as though nothing is wrong in the world; it is enough to break him completely, more than he already was. Her eyes are filled with a quiet recognition, and the corners of her lips twitch upward. ’I knew,’ she breathes, her voice shaky, but the words are certain, resolved. ‘I didn’t let myself believe it. But, I knew.’
His throat tightens and burns. He wants to tell her so many things, everything he never said, everything he kept locked away. But the words do not come. He opens his mouth, but the only thing that leaves it is a strangled sob.
Her body jerked in pain, her chest heaving. His hands let go and instead hover helplessly over her, shaking with the urge to do something, anything. His breath hitches, a desperate, choking sound that he cannot control. But there is nothing to do. Nothing. She was slipping through his fingers once more; only he could have never imagined it would be like this.
‘It’s too late…’ she whispers again, her voice so soft it is almost lost in the wind. The words catch in his throat, and he feels them like prickles puncturing and twisting deep into his skin. The agony of hearing her speak, knowing what is coming next, is enough to shatter the fragile control he has kept over himself for so long, the control that was already extinct, not since he took in her crumpled form on the blood-stained concrete.
‘I’m going to help you,’ he says, his voice cracked, a broken echo of a promise that he knows he cannot keep. He tells her over and over, as if saying it will make it true, but the words are hollow. They are not real. She is already gone; he cannot save her.
Her hand slides to his cheek, her fingers cold against his skin. She is so cold, so small, as if the life has already been drained from her completely. She looks at him with those same knowing eyes, her smile still lingering, even as the weight of the world presses down upon her chest, pushing her under.
Then she exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that shook him to his core, a breath she could not follow.
Her body goes still.
And in that moment, she is gone. Lost to the world. Empty eyes, gazing unseeingly past him and above her, facing, but not taking in the candescent signal shimmering in the ether.
And in the hollow of her absence, Bruce feels everything stop.
His world has fallen away. The darkness around him seems to stretch infinitely, suffocating him, pressing in on his chest.
Tears burn at the back of his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. He holds her tighter, his body trembling with the weight of her loss, shaking them both. He does not let go. He cannot. He will not.
But soon enough, they come. And he quickly grasps for his cowl, tugging it over his head.
The tears finally fell. Slowly at first, then faster, until they are pouring down his face and mixing with her blood on the pavement; it is already cold, and the groan he makes at this perception is inhumane in sound. His shoulders tremble with it, a raw, guttural sob tearing through him. It is a sound of pure grief, pure, undiluted agony, the sound of a man who has nothing left but the wreckage he cradles.
He does not care anymore.
He does not care when the officers arrive. He does not care when they try to pull him away from her. He does not care about anything but the ever-growing coldness of her being, the weight of her death pressing down on him like nothing had before.
They cannot make him leave.
But eventually, they do. The silence that follows, the vacantness of his arms without her weight, is so absolute, so entirely harrowing. Alone in the manor, he stumbled to his phone, to the voicemail, the one she had left him earlier, after the call he ignored. The voicemail she had left when she was still alive, still reaching out to him with hope. Hope he did not deserve.
He pressed play.
Her voice fills the room, shaky, unsure. ‘Bruce, please, pick up,’ she had whispered under her breath, her voice shaking with anguish. ‘I… I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. But, please, I need you to understand. This… this wasn’t what I wanted. Jonathan… he kissed me, but I pulled away. I swear. I… I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Bruce. Please, just… just understand. Please. I need you. I love you.’
She paused for a moment, her end going silent. Bruce had thought it finished when her small voice spoke up once more,
‘I love you,’ she had repeated, ‘God… I love you,’ she choked on her sob, trying desperately for air, ‘I love you so much, Bruce. Please, don’t shut me out. I need you. I love you…’
The static cuts through the air when the message ends. The words carved into him like scars that will never fade, worse than any real affliction.
He collapsed into their bed, a broken shell of a man, his body wracking with silent sobs. His hands shake, his chest heaving with each breath, but he cannot stop it. He cannot cease his crying; it sputters out.
And as the tears flowed, it felt like the world around him was disintegrating, leaving only an empty void where she used to be. He reached out, and the cold sheets of her side made him heave harder. Alfred is in the hall, trying to get through the door. He wants to take him in his unyielding embrace and tell him it was not his fault, but it is a lie. Alfred was attempting to suppress his own sobs, though Bruce could still hear them; they pierced his ears like needles.
He can still feel the cold weight of her body in his arms, the way her breath slowed to nothing, the fragile, fleeting warmth that slipped through his fingers like sand. His mind replays the moment over and over, like a cruel loop he cannot escape, a perpetual torment.
If only he had gone to her after the kiss. The thought is bitter, venomous.
He had let his fear, his overwhelming need to protect her, to keep her safe, push him away, convincing himself it was better to stay distant, to be the Batman, rather than risk anything more. But now, he cannot help but see it for what it truly was, cowardice. She was his. She had always been his, and if he had just confronted her, talked to her, if he had given her the chance to explain that the kiss meant nothing, then maybe, just maybe, she would still be alive. She would have told him the truth, and they would have worked through it together. They would have gone home together. They would have been happy.
But instead, he let her fade away, believing the lie that keeping his distance was the right thing to do. The guilt claws at him, a suffocating weight, each breath sharp and ragged. He was not there when she needed him most. He was not there when it mattered. And now she is gone.
And the words she said echo through him once more, louder than anything else:
‘I love you so much, Bruce. Please, don’t shut me out. I need you. I love you…’
But it is too late for those words now. It is too late for anything.
Here is the link to the prequel if you're interested.
Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3