Carmine Falcone's grey suit looked almost black in the dim light, ash from a thick cigar being tapped into a glass tray sitting on the table beside a short glass filled to a knuckle with whiskey.
The silence was deafening and Carla could hear ringing in her ears from the traffic noise of the city on her journey from Arkham, though she would've gladly taken the endless red lights and scornful, reckless drivers over the company of Carmine any day.
She was sat opposite him in an office a floor above the bar of the Iceberg Lounge, the place filled with the same faces she now recognised. The music was loud but in that small room, nothing could be heard save for the clinking of the singular ice cube against the edge of Carmine's glass when he lifted it to his lips.
"I went to Sonny's grave. There were no flowers there from you."
Carmine stared at her blankly, eyes lifting from the table to her face when she broke the silence after a long two minutes. Her gaze was cold, colder than usual and he recognised the hatred that shone from within her, a hot fury that he felt scorch him for a split second before the cool whiskey numbed the heat.
It wouldn't have surprised Carla to learn that Carmine had forgotten about his son's birthday, and judging by the way an excuse didn't fly so quickly from his chest, it was safe to assume that the date had meant no more to him than any other on the calendar.
"I've been busy."
"So have I."
Carmine didn't hate Carla. Whether anyone would've believed him was another story altogether, but in his bones, he didn't. Nine years had passed since their relationship fell to pieces and they lost the only family bond either of them had left, and although he was certain that his daughter did despise every part of him, he couldn't find that same hatred in himself towards her.
"So I've seen," he leant back in the leather chair, "Running around the city with Bruce Wayne."
Carla's bones shivered beneath her thick skin when Carmine spoke Bruce's name. Those ten letters hadn't always meant anything special to her and they'd often gone unnoticed and even purposefully ignored by her for a while after they'd first met, but now things were different.
It wasn't often Carla passed through a room or walked on the street without hearing someone saying something about Bruce, and while it now made her heart race and even sometimes put a sliver of a smile on her lips, hearing his name come from Carmine Falcone made her want to reach over the table and choke the life out of him for even thinking about Bruce.
"What do you want?" She spat, unclenching her jaw and relaxing her shoulders, arms crossed and nails tapping against her arm.
The smile that curved Carmine's lips was one filled with narcissistic delight. It reached his eyes and lit them up, turning the dull whites bright and flashing something sinister across his face.
"You're stepping up, Doctor. It appears as though my men aren't cut out to face the Batman, half of them coming back to me begging for another chance with one eye swollen shut and their lips split in half. It's your turn now."
She breathed in silently, dread laced in the air she inhaled and filling the pit of her stomach with an empty pain that sucked the soul from her bones. Carla swallowed, staring hollowly back across the table at Carmine who sipped his drink again, eyes still curved with satisfaction.
"You're sending me out there. Not into a court room, not into an asylum, but into the firing line and the fists of a man that's broken half of your army and God knows who else."
"With all due respect, Carla," he tilted his head and cleared his throat, "These people expect less of you because you're a woman. I know what you're capable of, and a lot of them won't want to put their hands on you which gives you an advantage my boys don't have."
Laughter was impulsive but Carla swallowed the urge, brows lifting slightly instead as she looked at Carmine in disbelief at what he'd just said.
"Do you not remember what happened to-"
"Don't even think about finishing what you're about to say." He jumped in quickly, finger pointed at her with narrowed eyes.
Carla obliged, not because she was told to but because she too didn't particularly want to say out loud what she'd intend to, shaking away the intruding memory with a disengaging breath.
"You should see the state some of these boys come back to me in. The Batman isn't going to do that to you."
"How do you know that?"
There was an air about the comment that made Carla's stomach turn with the thought of Carmine knowing the truth, scarcely able to bear the notion of him knowing and playing her like a winning hand.
"He doesn't kill these men, he's not a murderer. That makes me think whoever he is, he has some kind of heart behind that armour. He won't hurt you."
Carla swallowed, feeling her own heart tense up inside her chest, "And if he does? Or if somebody else does? Will you be able to cope with all three of your children's blood on your hands?"
Carmine looked into her eyes, her face hard and fixed. Her almond eyes haunted him, seeing his two sons staring back at him through her and for a moment, he felt regret. He had shed tears and he'd felt pain slice him to pieces when his sons' lives were taken, but Carmine was a man who understood that the world didn't stop turning for anybody, and decided to turn with it.
He had preached the gospel of consequences to Carla many a time and she had yet to forget his words, though the thought of her life being a consequence that Carmine was willing to live with unsettled her more than anything else he'd said had. Still, given the fate of her brothers, Carla realised quickly that she shouldn't have been shocked at the heartless decisions their father made.
Carmine put down his glass and licked his lips, leaning forward with his elbows resting on the table and his heavy eyes glaring across at his child.
"It won't happen."
Her drive home took forty minutes but with the lifetime of memories that Carla's mind traced back through it felt more like forty days. Everything that Carmine had said to her had reinforced her feelings towards him and added fuel to a burning fire of resentment that had been lit thirteen years prior.
She parked her car in the garage beneath her building and sat in silence while the engine cooled, staring blankly at the grey walls with tired eyes and a numb sensation claiming her body.
Carmine's orders hadn't been much of a surprise to her considering her options had become vastly limited after Jonathan's trial, but she still felt a sense of betrayal gut her, making her wonder how a father could do such a thing to his own flesh and blood.
She'd known he was heartless after losing Santino and then Dante three years later, but for whatever reason, Carla had clung onto the thought in the back of her mind that two lessons would be enough to make him learn. Clearly, however, she had been wrong.
"What's wrong? You don't look very happy."
Bruce stood up and slid his phone into the pocket of his blazer when Carla walked into the lobby of her apartment building. He hadn't been waiting long, finishing up work just a half hour ago himself, but the happiness he'd been waiting with to see Carla was quickly slashed when he caught the look on her face.
"Do I ever?"
He tilted his head in agreement and followed her towards the elevators, "Touché. Still, what is it?"
Carla glanced over her shoulder and saw a few other residents loitering around the lobby, "I'll tell you when we're alone."
It had been four days since they'd last seen each other, saying goodbye on Monday morning before heading off to work. Like planned, they'd stopped off at the cemetery to lay the bouquet for Santino, Carla not appearing like she needed any support as Bruce watched her whisper in Italian at the headstone before turning on her heels and leaving inside of ten minutes.
Bruce didn't mind, knowing that whether Carla had sobbed her eyes out in front of him or not, she wanted him there for a reason and was more than okay with obliging.
Work kept them both busy all week and while Carla tried to rest on her nights alone, a constant news stream of the Batman taking to the streets in the early hours kept her wide awake. She had tried to see Bruce on the days after he'd been racing around Gotham during the night, but he'd insisted on her staying away while Alfred patched him up, not wanting her to see him in some of the states he arrived home in.
Carla never questioned his position on that, knowing in herself that seeing him at his worst would only make her more inclined to end up resenting him for what he did, for everything he willingly put himself through. She didn't want that, she wanted to support him and the good that he stood for instead, and so she bit her tongue and stayed away.
"How badly are you hurt?" Carla asked once they were inside her apartment.
Bruce took off his overcoat and blazer while Carla discarded her shoes by the door, dumping her bag on the kitchen island and flicking on a lamp in the corner of the room.
"It's not bad, just my shoulder. I don't want you seeing me bloody and broken, that's all. It looks worse than it actually is most of the time."
Carla just nodded, "I know."
Her eyes scanned his face and his body, noticing a couple of tiny scratches across his cheek and the thickness of a bandage across his left shoulder beneath his shirt, but nothing more than that.
"So, what is that's got you looking like you want to kill me even more than you normally do?"
Bruce didn't expect a laugh as he leant back against the kitchen counter with his hands in his pockets, but he didn't expect the tightness of her face or the paling of her eyes, either.
Carla looked uncomfortable, a hesitancy in her parted lips as she searched for the words to say when they usually came so freely to her. She stood by the window looking at him, the sun setting behind her and pulling with it the light of day across the river halfway back out of the city, starlight starting to shimmer in the sky.
"He's sending me out as his number one. I'm not surprised I'm just...well, I don't feel anything."
Bruce frowned deeply, "What do you mean? He's going to make you do the trade offs and the deals?"
"Pretty much," Carla nodded once, "Things have been going wrong for him lately, getting worse. He thinks sending a woman in might give him an upper hand."
"And why would he think that?"
"Because he thinks the Batman wouldn't hurt a woman the way he hurts men."
Bruce's blood ran cold. He and Carla had never been closer than they were right then and yet they were being pulled as far apart morally as they could get. He understood the ties that bound her to Carmine Falcone and he knew there was very little he could do about it in that moment, but knowing that he played such a huge part in the saga that fuelled her sadness was crippling.
"I won't."
"You will."
"Excuse me?" Bruce's brows lifted at her sharp tone.
Carla pulled in a deep breath and held her cool, not biting back at Bruce's snap, "He's running a deal with a guy from London, there's a shipment of cocaine coming into the docks at the end of June. I've told Jim Gordon everything I know so far and I'm going to carry on. I know you work with him sometimes so I'm assuming you'll be around for this. Carmine needs to know that it doesn't matter who he sends out to work for him, that nobody is safe. I need you to do whatever is necessary to ruin this trade off and land him in jail for the rest of his life."
Secrets didn't shock Bruce by that time and although that was the first he'd heard about Carla working with Commissioner Gordon, he didn't have it in him to be mad about being kept in the dark. What he was mad about however, was the fact that Carla hadn't thought twice about asking him to hurt her.
"Carla, have you seen the things I've done to these men? How thinly some of them cling onto life after I'm done?"
"Yes, but-"
"But nothing, Carla. I won't lay a hand on you and quite frankly I'm furious that you'd even ask me to."
Her shoulders raised with irritation and Bruce watched her clench her teeth, "He needs to learn a lesson. This has to stop, he needs to go to jail."
"And he will, but not like this." Bruce's voice was raised and Carla was growing angrier the louder he became.
"I need an end to this, and I'm willing to take a hit or two if it'll get me out. I know what I'm asking you to do and-"
"Do you?" Bruce shook his head with narrowed eyes, "Because it doesn't sound like it. It's not happening, Carla. I refuse."
She swallowed thickly, not flinching at the aggression in his tone or the way he stepped towards her as he spoke, "He'll end up getting me killed one day, just the same way he ended up getting my brothers killed. Which would be worse?"
He scoffed and turned away sharply, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he walked over to the window and stared out with his back to her, attempting to calm himself down. Bruce understood why Carla had drawn to that conclusion and he empathised with the darkness of her life, but the list of people that he'd hurt was incredibly long and he wasn't about to add her name to it.
Bruce wanted to get Carla out. He wanted to free her from the shackles of her father and his crime-riddled hands and see her live her life in Sicily the way he knew she fell asleep wishing to every night. He'd seen a happiness in her there that he hadn't seen in Gotham and now he knew the truth, it all made such painful sense.
Bruce turned to her, his eyes falling across her small frame as she stood with her feet planted firmly on the ground, arms crossed and throat bobbing with swallowed words she refrained from spitting out in anger. She looked so fierce and Bruce had felt her fire, he adored her passion and her strength and the way she turned to silk in his hands but ice in other people's, the way she chose him out of everybody and the way she trusted him, the way she let herself need him when she'd never needed anybody.
Her dark hair was pin straight and she wore a khaki mini dress with a gold chain around her neck, one ring on her finger and a golden watch on her wrist. Her dark eyes were lined with kohl and her lips glossed clear, beautiful in the most sinister way that infatuated him. Bruce wanted to hold her, he wanted to whisper sweet nothings in her ear and kiss away everything bad that had ever come close to her with the lips that she could never seem to get enough of. He wanted to keep her safe, keep her warm and keep her close to him so nothing and nobody could touch her again, and as he watched the way her lips frowned ever so slightly, he could tell that she wanted him to.
He parted his lips and let out a soft breath, an uncomfortable anger burning in his throat as his words came out louder than his heart felt them, a confession so pure it felt wrapped in rage and vexation that didn't match the way his eyes mellowed like the moon breaking through the white clouds.
"I'm going to get you out of this because I love you. And it's because I love you that I won't lay a hand on you."
Carla felt herself stop breathing. She felt the city fall silent and the world stop turning beneath her feet, her mind emptying of any thought she'd ever had and ever would have again.
The pit in her stomach filled with something that wasn't dread, something she'd never felt before and something she never wanted to live without. Whole. She felt whole, she felt seen and she felt heard and as she stood there and looked into Bruce's eyes and replayed the moment inside of her mind again and again and again, she felt the truth in what he'd told her and believed him with everything that she was.
She had never explicitly told Bruce that she loved him, even after the word she let slip the week before, and although she no longer denied what she'd said, there had been no mentioning of it since and nothing reciprocated.
Carla hadn't expected Bruce to tell her that he loved her then, or ever. She was self-aware enough to know she wasn't easy to love and admired the fact that Bruce, for whatever reason, had not been deterred by any part of her that she'd shown him. He'd persisted through her cold front and stood back up when she'd knocked down his advances, not giving up on her until finally he found himself uttering those once unthinkable words out loud to the woman he'd met in the rain.
"Y-you..."
For a woman that had an answer for everything, it was a sight to behold to have Carla lost for words. Bruce watched the way her rationality fell away from her face and any anger that resided behind her eyes disappeared, her shoulders sinking down and fists loosening their grip around her arms, hands falling to her sides as her lips stayed parted, yet silent.
It was as if Carla had been shown a shooting star or offered the universe on a string, as if something unfathomable and beyond her wildest dreams had happened right in front of her eyes. And for her, it had. For Bruce, it was the most natural feeling in the world.
"You say you love me," he continued with a break in his voice that jerked a sheen of tears across Carla's eyes, "If this was the other way around, would you hurt me?"
She didn't need time to think about her answer, Carla immediately shaking her head and swallowing the lump in her throat, blinking once to wash away the water from her eyes, "Never."
Bruce nodded slowly with a deep exhale, "Then we will find another way around this."
Carla never felt weak, but she did right then. Bruce's confession had pulled the rug right out from under her feet, snatched any breath from her lungs and torn away her view of the world and replaced it with a new one in the time it had taken for him to say those three words.
She couldn't remember Cisco ever telling her that he loved her, at least not with the effect that Bruce telling her the same thing had. Carla knew the word had probably been thrown around before, but the way she felt so afraid to say it to Bruce made her realise that if she ever had said it to Cisco, she'd never meant it.
As she looked at Bruce's handsome face and saw the way his eyes shone in the golden sunset, Carla was sure she'd never seen anything so beautiful in her life. And the way that the peace consumed her and turned her anger into pleasure as he held her gaze reassured her that despite all of the darkness in her world, she was capable of loving him too.
"Are you okay?" Bruce asked after a long silence, "I'm sorry for shouting."
Carla licked her lips and nodded, "Yeah, I just didn't...I didn't expect you to say that."
He laughed quietly and let a smile pull his lips to the side, "What, that I love you?"
Bruce watched as his words coaxed her to snatch in a sharp breath again, stunning her with a flash of something that might've been fear behind her eyes.
"I've seen you face to face with death and you've never looked as afraid as you do right now," Bruce continued, walking slowly over to her, "Why are you so scared? I thought nothing scared you?"
Her breathing was shaky as he drew closer, the familiar scent of his aftershave weakening her even more as she found herself wishing he'd just touch her.
"I'm scared because," her voice was barely above a whisper but Bruce was close enough to hear, looking down at her with his head tilted and hands still in his pockets, "Because I love you too. And loving someone only gives you more to lose."
The humour Bruce had found in seeing Carla look so gentle was suddenly lost when she told him the truth. Her words made the wind change directions and the sun rise and set all over again in a single beat of his heart, never hearing anything that made him feel more alive.
Sure she'd said it before, but never like that, never uttered the confession in its truest, rawest form and without any of her usual sarcasm or wit thrown in for protective measure. It was honest and it was real and it had the power to bring Bruce to his knees in front of her, if only the look in her eye hadn't told him that she needed him to stay standing.
"We're not going to lose anything, Carla."
He touched her waist with one hand and let his knuckles brush against her jaw before his palm settled against her skin, closing the gap between their bodies to less than a breath. Carla's hands fell to his chest, racing up across his shoulders until they reached his neck, fingers lacing together at his nape.
"How can you be so sure?"
It was rare to see Carla doubt herself and in a lot of ways, it was painful. Bruce wanted her to believe in him, believe in the both of them and while he understood that losing everything had pushed her to assume the worst, he needed her to know that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to keep hold of what they had.
"You once told me that you believe in fate. Do you still?"
Carla stifled a groan and washed some of the sadness away with a roll of her eyes, "Harvey's coin was double sided. It was inevitable."
Bruce just smiled, "So are you and I."