Collection of Shorts

The Christmas Fire [Holiday Tales submission][Batman/Dark Knight fanfiction]

It was snowing in Gotham.

But it was Christmas Eve, and winter here was only ever alternating days of soggy wetness and frigid ice storms, anyway. Nothing surprising. Esther dropped the narrow slat of her vinyl blinds down and turned back around in her armchair. Power would go out soon. She pulled her feet up on the chair and listened to nothing, staring past the dark shadows that glutted the corners of the room. She had little to her name, little to cramp the apartment and little to entertain her. But she wasn't looking at any of it, anyway. She was looking at something past the walls, at something past the whole building - in the direction of the heart of Gotham City.

Before she'd turned off the news, the pretty Vicki Vale had been shouting updates into her mic about the massive fire that had enveloped the fundraising Christmas Eve gala there a half-hour ago. Everyone who was anyone had been at the event - that is, no one except the hundred-odd wealthy elite who could afford an eighteen thousand dollar plate for charity. No one Esther knew had been invited. That was far removed from any social circle she even vaguely brushed past.

Still, she wondered if she knew the names of anyone who had perished in the fire. She hoped not. Even better, she hoped no one had died at all. But the anonymous tip had come late, or so Vicki Vale had said, maybe too late to save everyone -

A dying, creaking scream of metal outside made her jump. Half-perched on the edge of her seat, she froze, prepared for flight but remaining motionless. Like a bird caught between the urge to flee and the fear it would be seen and swallowed up if it did.

Another metallic screech, then a thump. Close. Too close. Her pulse throbbed in her throat, choking her.

Tap-thud.

She flinched. Right behind her. Someone was at her window, on the fire escape. Her blinds were down and it was too dark to see through them, both ways, so as long as she stayed very, very still, they would go away. Please, she begged. She had nothing worth stealing.

Thud-tap.

Creak.

She turned around. It was a terrible idea, but she did it anyway - and nearly died. She hadn't dropped the blind slat down earlier, not all the way, and beyond it, she saw a dark shape moving. Black, darker than the moonlit night, and...an eye. Or eye-hole, whatever that should be called. She scrambled off the armchair and tried to melt back into the darkness, but there was nowhere she could go in this one room apartment and nothing she could hide behind.

Creak.

That was the last warning she got before the window slid up. She didn't know how he managed to do it, but then again, she was the idiot for questioning it. After all, this man was the one person in all of Gotham City who could go wherever he wished whenever he wished, locks and bars be damned.

"Batman..." She was half-choking as she watched the man push aside her blinds and slide into her apartment. "There's no trouble here. No need...uh. Sir."

He was bigger than she'd imagined. A lot bigger. Looming, even, and terrible and dark and all sorts of unfortunate things as she shrank back against the wall. They were across the room from each other, but that didn't mean much when said room was scarcely more than eight feet wide. And hell, she could be standing on a hundred-acre plot and still feel crowded: something about the man-apparition-machine? made her feel like he could take up the entire volume of wherever she tried to creep away to.

"I need your first aid kit."

She swallowed. Hard. Was there a rafter lodged in her throat? "I don't have one of those," she said. "Sorry."