eddie/irene Who: Eddie and Irene Where: Gotham -> Penny Dreadful(s) When: Recently with some stuff about the past week or so for Eddie after this What: rogue meetings! Warning: tba
The Gotham pier was a fuse lit on both ends. One side was Firefly literally burning the damned place down, the second was blood being spilled over feathers for justice, pleasure and utility. One side was rogue, roaring bright and undead in the air with his metallic wings stretched and flames burning an unnatural amber. The other side was family, good intentions(?) and the kind of death that didn't get a fucking firework show. He thought it would have taken longer for him to decide, he imagined a long conversation with Bruce about this city, about the bat signal, about them being two old men who didn't know how to save the city. He thought it would end with him taking over the police department or the mayor's office or going back to work for the government. He thought he'd run towards structure to make up for the failings of the bat family.
Instead, he saw Firefly burning brightly in the air. Nothing more than a symbol, a puppet Eddie pulled the strings to and he felt that neon green electrifying his mind. Well, look, maybe there was some safety in being a symbol? The comm in his ear was torn out, deactivated and crushed under his heel. He walked, jogged and then sprinted towards his fiery ghoul. "It's time to go! Garf, my old friend! It's time to go!" And whatever was left in that fireman's soul turned to look at him, smile and rip through the portal to an underworld with him.
"Eddie? You let me light things on fire again." Garfield's voice was mangled by death, by burns on his throat.
"Riddle me this: Did you have fun?" Eddie asked and looked down, realizing that they were falling through a magic rabbit hole. Memories of Gotham, Garf's life and question marks floating past them.
"The fire roared tonight, Eddie." Garfield said like a child who just enjoyed a trip on the merry-go-round and the two smiled at each other. Firefly's wings started to turn to ash, his helmet too and soon Eddie was floating alone towards nothing. He felt his cheeks with his hand and found that they were warm from being so connected with the firebug rogue. There were tears too and his heart tightened because that could be from anything.
Eventually he found the door out of Gotham and he stumbled back home to Muerte for days and days. He gave his heart to her in that sweet way he was notorious for. Little gifts, homemade dinner, touches to her arm while they watched TV. This domestic life healed him in the way he knew it would. And while she still worried about his adventures, he was silently sort of glad for it. The shop would open soon, in about a week and he wanted to have everything in place for that.
He returned to Gotham only long enough to erase his presence in the Batcave and then wandered the Passages halls, looking for a door where he could find trinkets, books and maybe a new rosary. He opened a door that smelled like Gotham by habit and found himself on the street of Victorian England. The door dressed him smartly in a dark green bowler hat, black coat and pants, striped vest, matching green ascot, shiny shoes and a pocket watch strung along his torso. It also gave him a cane, black with a subtle question marked handle. It said eccentric money from the faraway land of the United States, which tended to catch attention. Eddie worked well when he knew eyes were on him.
Once Eddie was done looking himself over, he realized he was standing in the middle of a line of shops. A lot of them were tailors, bookstores and the like. There were stalls set up too, some of them manned by people who made homemade remedies for things, necklaces and candles. He liked those sorts of stalls and walked to a couple, chatting pleasantly with whoever was running it, making sure to give his carnival smile whenever they noticed his accent was very-much American. He told them he was from Chicago since that was the closest a Gotham accent sounded and told them that the weather there was just awful.
He wandered into a bookstore after purchasing a few things, noticing that a little boy had followed him in. There were pickpockets around, of course, but they wouldn't find any money on him immediately. Older thieves could recognize the sharpness in Eddie's features for a fellow street rat hustler. But, little boys, the kind that saw an eccentric man and thought mark, didn't know any better. The man clad in green decided he was feeling charitable and the boy looked hungry. If he could take money from him without so much as a clumsy knock of hands, Eddie would let the kid keep them. So, he slipped a few coins into his pocket, pretended to be very engrossed in a book about cooked goose and let the kid reach into his pocket, take the coins and slip out of the store. Quiet, calm, confident. Even at such a young age. It reminded him of Selina and that made Eddie smile sadly down at his book.