#i have a feeling these alternate pov one shots will expose how much thought i've put into this fic

[summercourtship]

a missed meet cute. (edward's pov)

Edward and the reader's first meetings, from his perspective. From ch. 5-6 of Stay to Burn (Only to Drown Instead)- this will not make sense if you haven't read that!! 2687 words. | no warnings

read on ao3 | stay to burn masterpost

Arkham Asylum was both exactly what Edward had expected and nothing he was at all prepared for. When you’ve suffered in one place it was easy to think that all horrible places would make you suffer in the exact same way. And yet, it had somehow been easier to endure the suffering at the orphanage as a child than it was in the asylum as an adult. Maybe it was because when he was an orphan, he knew he could age out or request emancipation (which he had, as soon as he had been able). Here, there would only be escape if he forced it.

But, God, was the asylum boring.

There was hardly anything new going on, no mental stimulation for him to distract himself. He had a crossword from the newspaper (given to him by a sympathetic orderly each week) and a large book of sudoku that one of his previous followers had sent him a few weeks into his stint. He allowed himself to do one puzzle a day, trying to keep the book going as long as possible.

And then he saw her. Passing by a window, a new face in the stale hospital. But not new to him. No, he had seen her before and it only took a few moments to remember that she had been the one standing in front of him at the mayor’s funeral. The one who had let him move in front of her (even though that certainly ruined her view, she was far shorter than him) and gave him a front row seat to the chaos he had created.

When the car had crashed through the building and everyone was escorted out, he’d had half of a mind to find her again. After all, he had overheard her conversation and was interested in the project she was working on. (Because it was about him, that’s what her friend had said, had said that the girl talked about it all the time.)

But, he had other plans with the Batman that day and didn’t have the time to find a random college girl.

However, her friend had left her student ID somewhere clearly visible. A simple glance down at the lanyard and he knew how to find her, her name and student number out in the open for anyone to see. Later, when he was sitting alone and thinking about everything that had happened that day- the rush of his first real interaction with the Batman still coursing through his veins- he remembered her, her friend’s ID flashing behind his eyes as he sat in front of his computer, fingers flying over the keys before he could even think about what he was doing.

The name Marie felt fitting, a sign from a higher power he no longer believed in that he was on the right path.

Once he found Marie, it was easy to find the other girl, the one who mattered. One tag on Instagram and there she was. A small picture on the screen with a witty username and a short description simply stating that she was a student and what she was studying.

And, like a naive blessing, another affirmation that he was on the right path, her profile was public. Not that he couldn’t have gotten past a privacy filter easily. But now he didn’t have to dirty his hands.

He spent a minute or two scrolling through her pictures, but that wasn’t what he was looking for. It was just to solidify her face in his mind. That’s all. (That’s what he told himself. He couldn’t afford to get distracted by a pretty face right now.)

Once he was content with her photos, it was just a few short keystrokes until he had her email address. They really don’t make this information hard to obtain, not when you know how to find it.

He crafted an email then, generating a burner email quickly. This, he knew, could blow up in his face if she wasn’t what he thought she was. And she very well could turn this into the police (not that they, incompetent as they are, could trace it back to him). But he had a gut feeling about her. The way she had leaned forward over the railing, observing everything. The way her friend had described she delved into the research, how she seemed obsessed with it all.

No, he had a good feeling about her.

Normally, he wouldn’t give out the link to his website so casually. He liked that his followers had to work to find it, to prove that they were worthy of his cause. But she wasn't going to be one of his followers, not to the same extent that the others were. He knew that much. She had too much of a head on her shoulders to join a militant online group.

No, she was going to be the one to tell the world about what he was doing, the changes he was going to bring. she would sympathize with his message- karma, her friend had said she’d called it- and do the work of spreading his revelations of truth and justice in Gotham city.

At least, that’s what his fantasy had been. What should have happened if everything had gone to plan. But now he knew that it was foolish to put his trust in others so quickly, to make plans around others actions, especially if he’d never spoken to them. The Batman had taught him that much, the betrayal of his rejection still stinging months after. He had forgotten about the girl after the Flood had failed, his mind occupied elsewhere.

But seeing her on the other side of that glass in Arkham had been like the dove returning to the Ark, the olive branch clutched in its beak a symbol of peace, hope, rebirth. (If his Flood had succeeded, it would be an even more apt parallel but he shouldn't linger on that for too long.)

Ark-ham. Isn't that something?

Edward does not believe in coincidence. There was a reason she was at the mayor’s funeral and there was a reason she was at Arkham now, looking at him from the other hallway.

He stood still, his eyes narrowed slightly, wondering what she was thinking as she examined his face, her eyes wide. She made a movement, stuttering, like her body was trying to bring him closer to him. Then, something drew her attention away from him, a noise from further down her hallway. Edward continued to watch as she turned and hurried down the hallway, his head turning to track her movements.

Then, only a few brief weeks later (the weeks themselves were actually agonizingly long, boring days of doing nothing but trying to engage his mind with whatever was laying around him so he didn’t actually go insane), she appeared again.

This time, he was in his cell, laying on his cot and trying to dull the cacophony of voices from outside his cell. The glass in the cells weren’t soundproof, obviously, so he heard immediately when there was a new noise, his ears pricking up at the sound of the door to the block being unlatched.

He jumped from the cot, moving to the door to see who it could be. The guards weren’t switching yet, and as far as he knew no one had visits to their doctors scheduled for this time of the day. He pressed himself close to the door, peering down to the door.

It was the girl, accompanied by none other than Dr. Crane. The man wasn’t his doctor, but he’d seen him around and had enough small conversations with him to dislike him. (Edward didn’t like seeing you with him. He wondered how you knew him, if you had just met him when you’d- presumably- been hired to the asylum).

He pressed his face against the glass, trying to get a better look at the girl as Dr. Crane led her through the cell block. There was no practical reason for him to bring her here.

As Dr. Crane passed his cell, he gave Edward a side glance, his sharp eyes unreadable as they slowly slid away. But the doctor didn’t stop to say anything, though that insufferable smirk was still on his face. Edward paid him no mind, instead focusing on her.

Her head was craned backwards, examining the skylights and the second floor of cells as she slowly walked through the hall. He pressed himself closer to his door, mentally urging her to look down and see him. His mind was whirring, trying to figure out what he was going to say. Because he knew she would stop to speak with him, there was no way she wouldn’t feel the same draw to him that he did to her.

Finally, she did look down and almost immediately spotted him. Her lips parted, and he could see her inhale, slowly and shakily. But she continued walking, her eyes not leaving him.

Edward was now overthinking, knowing that if she did stop- and she would stop- he would have to start the conversation. (He’d never been good at starting conversations with girls. Or with anyone, really. It was a side effect, he told himself, of not speaking to anyone until he was ten even though he was perfectly capable of it. He hadn’t had the practice.)

What on earth was he supposed to say? Small talk was boring and would sound wrong coming from his mouth. He needed to say something that would grab her attention, that would keep her standing in front of him for as long as possible.

And then, she did stop. He withdrew from the glass, ignoring the fog from his breath. He couldn’t help but feel vindicated that he was right. And then, like he had planned it all along, he said the first thing he could think of.

“I know you.”

“What?” She took a step backwards, her pulse visibly jumping in her neck. He tried not to focus on it. “No, I was here a couple of weeks ago, you might’ve seen me then and-”

“No.” He knew it was irrational to expect her to remember him from City Hall. But still, how did she not remember his face when she had looked up into it and allowed him to step around her, how had she not made the connection when he was caught only a few days later? He realized, then, that he might have to hold her hand a bit. Metaphorically, of course. (For now). “You were there, in City Hall.”

It was satisfying to see the sudden recognition in her eyes, the flurry of emotions that crossed her expression. Confusion, fear, disbelief.

“Oh my god.”

“Karma, right?” And then, because he couldn’t help himself and he simply needed to know, he asked: “How’d that project go?”

“I never-” She shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s really none of your business.”

He stared at her, suddenly aware that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t like him. He couldn’t fathom why, considering the fact that she had apparently been on his side during his cleansing of Gotham’s corruption.

Then, like a snake, Dr. Crane appeared in his periphery, making his way back to the girl, though he was temporarily distracted by the clown. The girl either hadn’t realized it or was ignoring it in favor of continuing to glare at Edward. He looked over at Dr. Crane, the smile wiped off of his face at the reminder that this conversation was only fleeting and he only had a few more moments of the girl’s undivided attention. Slowly, Edward turned back to her, raising his eyebrows as the riddle formed itself in his mind. Something to keep her occupied.

A breadcrumb.

“What has a long neck, a name of a bird, feeds on ships' cargo, but is not alive?”

He could see her temporary disbelief that she was just asked a riddle. Probably thinking that he was living up to his name, or something like that. But then her eyebrows furrowed, a little crease forming in between them as she tried to figure out exactly what he meant.

The realization of the answer was clear on her face at the exact same moment that Dr. Crane slithered behind her. Edward didn’t miss how his hand found its way to her back, watching the movement with feigned disinterest.

The fact that the girl and the doctor were involved in some way would make this all a lot more interesting. And, he supposed, painful for you once you found out about Dr. Crane.

“Edward.” Oh, how he hated when Dr. Crane said his name. But then the doctor introduced her, as if Edward didn’t already know who she was. But Dr. Crane didn’t know that, of course. “This is my new assistant.”

At the sound of her own name, she whipped around to look at the doctor before back at Edward.

Edward repeated her name, slowly, like he was tasting it on his tongue (and he was- he had never said it out loud before, he’d never had a reason to). He was keenly aware that Dr. Crane was watching her, how her eyes widened and her breath stuttered for a brief moment.

Was she afraid of him? He wasn’t sure how to feel about that- part of him liked that he had any effect on her at all. It certainly felt better than his earlier assumption that she simply disliked him. After all, fear is better than indifference. He could work with fear, could use it to his advantage.

But on the other hand, he knew what Dr. Crane was doing down in the basement. For someone of Edward’s intelligence and perception, it would be hard to not know when half of his patients came back from treatment more delirious and paranoid than before, when those weren’t even symptoms they had exhibited before their sessions. Dr. Crane made his unethical behavior so obvious and yet no one in the asylum cared.

Well, no one that could do anything about it. Until now, with her sudden appearance as Arkham’s newest employee.

“We’ve met before.” Again, he couldn’t help himself.

“I wouldn’t call that meeting.” She was quick to dispute him. Of course, she wouldn’t think much of their brief encounter at the mayor’s funeral because she didn’t know what happened after. All of the work he had put into finding her, all of the imagined plans he had for her. For her, it was just an eventful afternoon that she was probably happy to put behind her.

“I suppose you wouldn’t.” But now it was everything to Edward. He could see her struggling to figure out the hidden meaning in his words. He wouldn’t help her, no, she was smart enough to figure it out. (He liked the way her eyes narrowed at him. Maybe he could work with her disliking him as well.)

Then, crushingly, coldly, she turned to Dr. Crane. “Can we go now?”

They left without saying goodbye. Of course they did, why would they say goodbye to him? But still, Edward pressed his hand against the glass, as if he could reach out and bring her back.

Like she could sense him staring at her, she turned back to look at him. He realized his hand must look like it was raised in a wave. But she didn’t return it, instead facing away from him again and continuing to follow Dr. Crane out of the cell block.

With a high squeak, his palm slipped off of the glass as he inhaled deeply, stepping away from the door and away from the prying eyes of the other inmates.

For the first time since he’d entered the asylum, he had something to occupy his thoughts. Plans, a vision of the way out forming in his mind. He wasn’t sure when he’d see you again, but he was sure it would be sooner rather than later.

After all, it seemed that fate was finally on his side.

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