Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •

V - Please Don't Leave Me

She knew what it was like to spend weeks on end in Arkham. To lay there, unable to sleep as everyone screamed out into the night. To be left alone with nothing but your own thoughts.

Regrets and things you wish you could change.

Deep down she wondered if that was why Nygma hadn't tried to break out of the asylum.
If maybe somewhere inside of him he did somewhat regret what he'd done that had led him here.

Maybe he knew he deserved the punishment.

"Why did he send you to see me?" Nygma questioned.

He didn't see any presents in the room. Oswald had been more than generous with sending him gifts.

But the lack there of quickly ruled out the thought that he'd sent Bird with a gift for him.

"I guess he thinks we have some things to talk through." Bird pulled in a deep breath, "But I'm saying this so we're perfectly clear and there isn't any confusion. If you ever hurt or threaten my little brother again, I will kill you myself."

Nygma's eyes went from Bird's threatening expression to the camera mounted in the corner. Briefly wondering if the camera recorded sound too.

"Understand?" Bird asked, "That I won't just end your life. That you will be praying for your death. You'll wish you were never even born-"

"Miss Wayne." Nygma interrupted her.

"Bird." She corrected.

"Bird." He repeated, his eyes locking on Bird's from behind his glasses' thick lenses, "I have no reason to. Professor Strange led me to believe that if I helped him I could earn my freedom from here. That is the only reason I was even involved."

"And framing Jim?" Bird reminded him.

"That..." Nygma let out a low laugh, "Was a miscalculation on my end. That won't happen again."

Eyeing the camera again, Nygma leaned in over to the table closer to her, "You've never done anything that bad?"

From behind his glasses, his eyes moved back and forth over her face as a smile formed on his lips and he said in a knowing tone, "You've done worse and we both know it."

He still remembered the night he'd killed Officer Dougherty.

How shaky he'd been after. How Bird was so calm in response to seeing someone murdered right in front of her.

She'd been the one to say they needed to get his body up into the trunk.
She'd led them to the old warehouse the mafia used to clean up loose ends.

They'd dismembered the body together.

He could have outed her. When he'd been arrested and questioned about the crimes he'd committed, he could have told them of Bird's involvement.
But he didn't.

Her name never came up.

"As long as we're clear." Bird gave him a pointed look before standing up and turning to leave.

"What was all of this about?" Nygma asked.

But Bird was already half way out of the room and showed no intention of turning back to answer him.

••• that night •••

Bird stepped out of the car and looked up to the entrance of The Siren's Club.

The lounge that Barbara and Tabitha had been running together for some months now.

A place she'd never imagined stepping foot into.