Chapter Text
Today Holly and I walked through this really rundown looking street in Park Row that was home to this old, abandoned theater. It had this really haunting look about it; no doubt once an elegant building in its prime. Its large brick facade was blackened by years of grimy buildup and neglect, and its marquee was stripped down to a rusted skeleton. There was something about the sight that was absolutely captivating, I felt like I could’ve sat there for hours sketching every minute detail. Holly seemed to notice my interest.
“That’s the old Monarch,” she said, like it held grander meaning. “Place is kind of infamous.”
“Oh really?” I asked, not having the slightest clue what she was referencing.
She motioned for me to keep following her and as we passed by an alleyway that ran behind the building, she tilted her head in its direction.
“Pretty famous murder happened like, twenty-something years ago down that alley. A mugging gone wrong. This area’s been called Crime Alley ever since, and most try to stay as far from it as possible.”
I stopped, staring blankly at the alleyway she had indicated, imagining what kind of scenario had taken place there. It was partially blocked by a chainlink fence, and before I could move closer for a better look, I felt Holly tug at my sleeve for me to keep following.
“C’mon, it’s nothing to see, really.”
I kept walking with her but my mind was swimming in thoughts, silently recollecting a familiar scenario I’d personally been witness to. I’d be lying if I said I still didn’t occasionally remember the man I had the misfortune to see get gunned down in a mugging. The sight of him lying motionless on the ground was seared into my mind and still finds its way to the forefront of thought on occasion. That same sickening knot of fear settled back into my stomach. The helplessness of that night still clung to me harder than I wanted to admit. It wasn’t until I heard Holly footsteps stop and her words cut sharper through the air that I was pulled from my thoughts.
“Dude, you okay?” She asked, glancing sideways at me.
“What? Yeah,” I try to play off. “Why?”
“We were talking and all the sudden you’re staring off into space with no response.” She explained, like it was overly obvious. “What’s up?”
I took a moment to think, to decide if I wanted to tell her. To be truthful in this moment, and open up. I wasn’t too sure how I felt sharing my thoughts with her, it felt vulnerable. But then I looked into her face, into her eyes, and I felt safe.
“I just…” I heard myself say softly. “I’ve seen what that kind of thing does to people.”
“Oh,” she hesitated, like she was weighing her next words carefully. “Have you ever… you know?”
I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d meant at first, but when I realized she was asking if I had ever been the one behind the gun, I felt a heat rush up my neck and it settled in my cheeks. I felt all too aware at that moment that Holly still didn’t know too much about me, but to think she might believe I was capable of doing something like that.
“No!” I said a little too fast. “No… I’ve just… I’ve seen it happen.” My words felt awkward, I didn’t know how to talk about things like this. “I worry sometimes I could be the next victim of that sort of attack…”
Holly was quiet for a good moment, like she was truly seeing the vulnerability in my words. When she did finally speak, it felt like she’d chosen each word carefully.
“I get it…” She began as she leaned against a nearby building and looked distantly down the street. “I have those same fears sometimes too, we don’t live in the safest place afterall. I don’t know, you just don’t seem like the type of guy that’d be stressed over all that…” She was quiet for a long moment, then spoke again in a lighter tone. “Not after how we met, Gunslinger!”
She said it lightly, almost teasing, like it was an amusing contradiction. It didn’t feel amusing to me at all. It wasn’t really those masculine words she used, I’d grown numb hearing people talk about me like that. It was the version of me Holly seemed to see when she looked at me. A hardened street kid, some scrappy looking boy shaped by Gotham’s worst corners. I wondered just how many people saw that when they looked at me.
I wanted to laugh at that notion of myself. It felt absurd, hell I still feel like a scared little kid most of the time. I don’t even feel confident with who I am, or how to exist, I truly have no idea how Holly could believe in this version of me. Apparently brandishing a gun once, adrenaline pumping violently and shaking the whole time, had rewritten me into someone bold and unafraid in her mind. Something I felt I could never be. I didn’t know quite what to say, but I desperately wanted to correct her beliefs about me.
“No… it’s not really like that. I mean I don’t really even know how to use that thing,” I began to explain, but before I could continue, Holly’s demeanor had shifted and she cut me off.
“Wait, what?” She was looking at me suspiciously. “Have you never used it?”
I felt incredibly awkward now, I wanted to just lie and tell her I had, but she had this serious look on her face. I felt too guilty to lie to her.
“I mean…” I stammered, still not wanting to admit the truth. “Not really…”
She looked like she was surveying me properly for the first time. “Do you at least know how to use it?”
I felt my throat go dry as she looked at me, her face a dead serious expression. I couldn’t help but stare down at my feet as I answered. “I mean I think… but no… not really…”
“So you’re walking around with a gun, with no clue on how it works?” She asked, an undercurrent of outrage in her voice
“I mean I know how a gun works, you point and shoot stuff.” I said, trying to shift the tone to something more joking, but Holly’s demeanor did not waver.
“Dude this is serious,” she stressed. “Do you still have it with you?”
I gave a small nod. “It’s in my bag,”
The words between us felt distant, like I was talking about someone else’s life. My shoulders were tight, braced for something I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for. I watched as her lips curled into a displeased kinda look, like she was disappointed in me.
“Dude, you… that’s…” it was like Holly didn’t quite have the words to explain how she felt about learning this. “I mean okay, I get why you have it.” She started, almost like she was justifying it to herself more than anything. “But dude, you’re gonna get hurt walking around with a gun you have no freaking idea how to use!”
“It’s fine,” I tried to dismiss, but she didn’t relent.
“Oh really?” She shot back haughtily, "What if you… shoot your eye out?”
“Shoot my eye out?” I couldn’t help but chuckle. I understood her sentiment but I couldn’t help but find her choice of example humorous.
“You know what I mean!” She defended angrily. “Look, all I’m saying is that if you plan on keeping it then you should at least know how it works. You know, I could show you if you want.”
I shook my head without really even considering it. The idea made my skin crawl, I didn’t really want to mess with the gun again. I didn’t like to think about it, about how wrong it felt to hold it, how heavy it was.
“I’m fine really, you don’t have—”
“Hey,” she interrupted, and she stepped closer, lowering her voice to something more intimate. “I don’t like the idea of you carrying something that could seriously hurt you because no one ever showed you how to use the damn thing.”
There was a long pause of silence as she searched my face, clearly expecting resistance, but I couldn’t give her much of anything. It felt like agreeing with her was going to be easier than continuing to argue, even if I didn’t want to.
“I promise,” she began, her tone shifting to something softer and more encouraging. “I don’t care to show you. I’d be happy to, in fact.”
Everything started to feel strangely far away again, like there was cotton packed between me and the rest of the world. I felt myself nod along in agreement, and we were off again. I tried to keep hearing what Holly was telling me as I followed her down the street, but I was too lost in my own internal warring thoughts. I really had no desire to learn how to use the gun, honestly I didn’t like carrying it at all. I hoped that in case of an emergency that the appearance of it would act as a deterrent enough. But maybe Holly had a point: If I was going to keep it, then not learning how to use it seemed stupid.
After a bit of following Holly we passed by this building that stood out in a way that had distracted me from my thoughts, even if just temporarily. It looked like it was trying its utmost to present itself as tidy and respectable compared to its surroundings. Large windows reflected the drab gray daylight and the brick was completely graffiti free. All around it the street sagged with shuttered storefronts, and trash collected in the forgotten corners like it belonged there. Yet this place sat defiant against it all. A sign hung proudly overhead the entrance that read: Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic.
There was an older looking woman outside sweeping debris away from the front doors, pushing leaves and paper back toward the street. She looked up when she saw me and Holly passing by and smiled.
“Good to see you, dear,” she called warmly to Holly. Her eyes shifted to me. “And who’s your friend?”
“We’re good, Ms. Thompkins,” Holly replied without missing a beat. “Just showing him around.”
The word hit me late: ‘Him’. My body reacted before my mind did. I felt my posture tighten, that same icy sensation in my chest. Even if I knew it wasn’t malicious it still occasionally hurt to hear. Ms. Thompkins offered me the same kind of appraising smile and waved, to which I gave a half-hearted smile and waved back as Holly kept ushering me forward. Once we had walked a bit down the street Holly turned back to look at me.
“She’s a dear, Leslie. Runs that clinic back there. She can be a bit nosy if I’m honest, but she’s never turned me away.” She explained.
I nodded, though I hadn’t really processed much of it. The city blurred past like scenery painted on a wall as I kept following Holly through the East End. We eventually ended up by the water somewhere near the docks, tucked into a quieter stretch where the city noise thinned out into something distant and muffled. The river was dark and sluggish, reflecting the skyline in broken pieces.
Holly lit a cigarette, exhaled smoke, then held out her hand expectantly. I hesitated before retrieving the gun from my bag and handing it to her. My fingers felt stiff as she slid the gun from my grasp. She inspected it with a quiet efficiency that showed experience. She released the magazine and checked it too before she looked up at me with a small laugh.
“It’s not even loaded dude.”
“Oh,” I was a bit surprised about that honestly. “I don’t like… have any bullets…” I said stupidly.
She shook her head, half amused, half unbelieving. Then, her tone looped back around to a more serious nature. “Well, I can load it for you later at my place. I can still show you the basics you need to know, even without firing it.”
I just kind of stood there awkwardly while she walked me through it in broad strokes, her tone patient, grounded. She stayed close, having me hold it, adjusting my hands, my stance. Her touch was setting my skin on edge, it was gentle, meant to steady me. Each touch landed heavier than it should have. My body reacted before my thoughts could catch up, my chest tightening with something that felt uncomfortably close to longing. I’m not really used to other people touching me, and I definitely wasn’t used to being handled like that without some kind of anxiety attached. It made everything inside me feel off balance.
It was starting to get dark by the time we were walking back to her apartment. The city around us was beginning to light up from the numerous neon signs overhead, each one brokenly reflected in the small puddles of the street. We weaved in between people who passed us without ever looking twice, each one of them no doubt too absorbed in their own private lives and worries.
“How do you know about this kind of stuff?” I finally asked.
“My sister has one, at our apartment.” Holly explained. “She taught me all this. You know, just in case.”
I walked into her apartment again expecting to see someone else there, to finally get a glimpse of this sister she kept mentioning. Yet it was still silently empty when we entered. Holly walked into the back bedroom and emerged a few moments later with a small box. She held her hand out again and I began to dig in my bag for the gun, handing it over a few moments later. She loaded it, made sure the safety was switched on, and handed it back to me carefully. I awkwardly thanked her, and silently hoped I would never need to use any of the information she’d taught me.
I found myself lying restlessly awake that night on my rooftop, staring into the night sky and thinking about the day. My mind drifted from the Monarch, to Crime Alley, to the now loaded gun tucked down in my bag. I kept thinking about the way Holly’s hands had felt when adjusting my stance earlier, soft and comforting while making my skin want to crawl all at once. I’ve never felt more confused.
I also couldn’t help but dwell on the image Holly must have had of me in her head. Being confronted with that in a small manner had been an uncomfortable reminder of how the world sees me. It’s hard not to focus on that disconnect. No matter how I feel about who I am, the people and the larger world around me will decide for themselves who and what I am. It’s strange to think I’ve become so close with someone who still isn’t seeing the real me when they look at me. But even so she treats me with respect and affection, even if I don't feel like I fully deserve it at times. I wonder if she’d still treat me the same way if she did know the true me.