In the few months since the attacks, Gotham had begun the process of rebuilding. Slowly but surely, things were beginning to feel normal...as normal as they could after a riddle telling psychopath committed the largest terrorist attack in U.S. history.
The death toll was still being tallied; missing person's reports still being filed, but people were back to work.
The streets, that had been flooded with fire, water, and the bodies of dozens, maybe hundreds, of Gotham City's citizens, were now flooded with taxis and other vehicles.
The streets that had once echoed screams of agony and rushing water, now echoed honking and hollered obscenities from Gotham citizens to their fellow survivors.
As normal as things could get.
***
Things were never normal in Gotham.
Anya Flores knew this, but finding a masked vigilante knocked out on your fire escape had to be one of the more peculiar things.
She had just finished dinner when she heard it - the thud of a large object, or person, falling onto the metal platform outside her apartment's window.
At first, she'd panicked. She'd ducked behind the kitchen counter, grabbing a kitchen knife from the drawer. She held it close, wondering why she insisted on charging her phone in her bedroom instead of the kitchen.
She waited several moments. No sound followed. She peeked over the counter, past the television set to the fire escape window.
She could make out a dark outline but nothing more. It lay unmoving.
She pursed her lips.
Her curiosity would be the death of her, she thought, begrudgingly, as she tiptoed her way to the window.
Anya recognized the figure immediately upon closer inspection.
The Batman.
The name was synonymous with the Boogie Man for many in Gotham.
While for others, the Batman was synonymous with hope, a beacon of light in the shadowy world of Gotham City.
Anya had grown up in a rough part of Gotham, which was no surprise: it seemed most parts of Gotham were rough.
Her mother had worked as a custodian at a fancy enterprise in Gotham's inner city, while her father had passed from pancreatic cancer when she was four.
They'd only been able to afford a seedy apartment in a building that could not have been up to code, in a part of town where even Gotham PD seemed to shy away.
She'd seen things. Awful things.
She'd witnessed her mother, the hardest working woman she'd ever known, robbed by a man who'd smelled like death personified.
She could still see the glistening blade of the knife he'd pressed up against her mother's ribs.
She could still hear his shaky voice, see his shifty eyes.
Things like that changed you.
Made you think, "I need to make a change in this city."
But Gotham PD was notoriously corrupt, and politicians were morally bankrupt, so she'd settled on another profession that required a meticulous oath: medicine.
It was just the Batman's luck he'd wound up unconscious on a doctor's fire escape.
She shimmied the window open and began the process of dragging the costumed crusader in.
She grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged him towards her.
It was like trying to haul a small car.
Minutes passed, and she began to worry whoever had knocked this man, who was seemingly made of lead, unconscious could still be lurking...watching her.
She pushed this thought aside but began tugging with a renewed sense of urgency, until finally, he was resting on her apartment floor after a not so graceful, but short, fall.
Anya latched the locks of the window and quickly drew the curtains.
He was breathing. She could see his chest rise and fall behind the thick layers of his suit.
That's a good sign, she thought to herself.
She began her assessment, though any observation was marred by the man's suit covering 99 percent of his body.
Only his lips were visible, with the bottom being split.
Anya hurried to the kitchen, opening the cupboard where she'd stashed a first aid kit.
She placed the first aid kit down to the left of the Batman's face, setting herself down next to him.
While she would have preferred to treat her "patient" on the couch, she would be delusional to think it was possible to move him any further.
She made a mental note to start weightlifting.
She opened the first aid kit, grabbing a small bottle of saline solution and a dropper.
She syringed the solution and began the process of cleaning the lip wound.
The wound wasn't too terrible, and she imagined he's sustained much worse in his days of crime fighting.
He, however, was still unconscious, and there was no way to know if he'd sustained a spinal injury. His not so graceful fall into her apartment could not have helped much.
It had been nearly fifteen minutes since she'd heard the thud of him falling on the fire escape.
Anya gnawed on her lip.
Who could she call?
She couldn't take him to a hospital. He was a vigilante for Heaven's sake. She might as well deliver him to Arkham Prison, wrapped in a bow with a tag reading
From: Anya
To: Gotham PD & Every Crime Boss in the City
She would have to wait it out. He was still breathing.
As long as he was breathing, there was a chance.
________________________________________________________________________________
Author's Note: Hi, everyone! I saw "The Batman" a few days ago and absolutely loved it, so I thought I'd write a fanfiction about it. I love Bruce and Selina, they're endgame, obviously, but I thought this would be something fun to write. I think I might write a Selina x Female OC soon too! Let me know if you're interested in that! Stay tuned for the next chapter **very** soon! - C
YOU ARE READING
Scars & Hearts: The Batman Fanfiction
Fanfiction"Things were never normal in Gotham. Anya Flores knew this, but finding a masked vigilante knocked out on your fire escape had to be one of the more peculiar things." Anya Flores is a doctor at Gotham General. Growing up in the mean streets of Goth...
