The Universe's Mixer

It felt like forever since he'd been out here, like this.

Watching everything. Waiting. But it had felt fruitless before now. Bruce realized that he'd given up. Barbara gone. Maxine gone. Everybody gone. Gone back to where they'd come from, was all that he could assume. Everything had changed very quickly. Everybody had vanished on him. Clark had gotten himself turned to stone. He hadn't known what to do.

Never before had he given up as completely as he had the past few months.

But now?

Now a good chunk of the City had been murdered, brought back, but murdered. Now Tim was back. Now Jack Napier - The Joker - was back in his life, making his subtle threats with giant penises on the front of his buildings. Now there had been sightings of Harley Quinn and even Poison Ivy.

Now things were turning back to the way that they had been when he'd been really needed. Before everything had fallen down.

He felt like he needed to reconnect with this city. With this place that had become his home. It needed him again. He needed to stop feeling sorry for himself, stop missing the scores of friends and compatriots that he'd lost in the big shift, and do his job.

This was his job.

Sitting above the City, keeping a watch. Protecting. This was him. Bruce Wayne was the mask. Batman was his essence. He'd changed, sure. People had gotten close to him. He'd allowed that. He'd opened himself up. And he found he'd be willing to do it again. He was changed, and yet different. He knew in his heart that this man that he was now would never have been had he not been pulled here. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. But it was what it was, and he had to live with it. Accept it.

He was Batman. And The City was his home.

Selina stared into the mirror, looking at the butterfly stips that closed the bloody gash across her cheek. Tears filled her eyes and she sank down onto the floor in the bathroom of her apartment.

Jack had been right. He’d enjoyed every moment of their fight. And she’d given him quite a few scratches with her nails. But the pain that she inflicted hadn’t stopped the madman.

She knew she was lucky to be alive at that very moment. Lucky that all he’d done was to tie her up and take pictures of her with her mask off. She had been in the asylum for what seemed like years, but in fact, it had only been a few hours.

And he laughed the entire time she pleaded with him to let her go.

Finally he cut her cheek open with a jagged knife, leaving a wound that would not heal well. He’d told her that it was something to remember him by.

Jack had thrown her into a car and from there; he unceremoniously dumped her in a back alley.

Fortunately for her, it had been close to her apartment.

Selina wasn’t sure why he’d left her alive, but she could take a guess. It was all to hurt Batman.

One of the cats interrupted her dark thoughts, rubbing her body up against Selina. Selina smiled through her tears, petting the demanding cat. She was glad to have the company right now.

She knew that she would be all right. There would be a scar, but she still had her life.