After leaving the nightclub, Oswald’s face was clouded with disappointment.
His recklessness and cowardice had nearly gotten them both killed in front of Falcone.
“…Will.”
“I’m sorry.”
He’d lost count of how many times he’d apologized tonight.
His voice was so low it barely escaped his chest, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet Will’s eyes.
“What are you apologizing for?”
Will looked surprisingly relaxed.
Stretching lazily beneath the cold pre-dawn breeze, he let out a satisfied sigh.
“Your judgment wasn’t wrong.”
“There really is a rift between Falcone and Maroni.”
“And we still achieved what we came for.”
“We even walked away with a job.”
“So at least we won’t be unemployed for a while.”
“…Y-you’re not actually planning to become Falcone’s informant, are you?”
“Haven’t we gotten involved enough already?”
“If we get caught between those two…”
“People like us won’t even leave behind a body.”
Fear crept across Oswald’s face.
The string of recent setbacks had ground away nearly all of his confidence.
The proud, ambitious Oswald of only a few days ago was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s wrong, little penguin?
It’s bad enough that you haven’t grown any taller, but have you lost your manhood too?”
Will Quentin suddenly threw out a cheap shot, leaving Oswald wondering if he’d heard correctly.
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re a little penguin, idiot!”
Oswald’s features twisted, anger flushing from his neck up into his cheeks.
He simply couldn’t believe that Will, whom he’d regarded as his best friend, would deliberately poke at his sore spot.
“Will, I don’t want to argue with you, but you’d better give me an explanation!”
“Did I say anything wrong, little penguin?
Woohoo~ Why’s your face so red?
Your eyes are all watery too.
Don’t tell me you’re going to run home crying to Mommy!”
Bam!
Oswald answered Will’s provocation with a heavy punch, and Will was not about to back down either, swinging his fist right back.
The two of them started fighting just like that.
Strangely enough, neither of them tried to dodge.
It was as if they’d joined a fight club, simply standing there and taking each other’s punches head-on, venting all the frustration they’d accumulated inside.
After a full ten minutes, Oswald was the first to collapse.
He toppled to the ground with a thud, his face covered in bruises of all sizes.
His right eyelid had swollen so badly that it nearly filled his deep-set eye socket.
Will wasn’t much better.
His entire face was distorted, his nose crooked to one side, while a mixture of saliva and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
A perfectly good handsome young man had been beaten into something resembling a leprous dwarf.
The two stared at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter at the same time.
“You bastard.
My fists don’t feel so good now, do they?
Just look at that ridiculous nose of yours!”
“Fuck you, Oswald. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
You got KO’d by me and you’re still yapping!”
Laughing and cursing, Will reached down and pulled him back to his feet.
That wild bout of violence swept away all the pressure they’d been carrying inside and helped Oswald find himself again.
“Will!
You were right.
We can’t spend our lives beneath someone else’s thumb.
We’re going to bring Maroni down!”
“But this time, it isn’t about revenge.
And it isn’t about becoming Falcone’s good little dog and wagging our tails for him.”
“It’s because we have what it takes!
That position is fucking ours!”
Will nodded in satisfaction.
That was exactly the effect he’d wanted.
If Gotham had no Batman, if no one was going to stand up and uphold justice, then the only way to maintain order was to build a wall of order out of bricks of evil.
If he didn’t want to be controlled and bullied by anyone ever again, this was what he had to do.
Oswald would be his best ally.
And Will would do everything in his power to help Oswald ascend the throne and become the king of Gotham’s underworld.
…
Three days later, Will’s superficial injuries had mostly healed.
As for the bruising on his face…
It didn’t seem to affect his intimidating handsomeness at all.
The two of them had earned a total of $100,000 from this job with Maroni.
Oswald immediately bought himself a Ford Mustang and drove down to the lower district to recruit men.
After all, the “elders” of the “Senate” had all died in the casino massacre.
Without any men under him, there was no way he could get back to work.
During the quiet days that followed, Will first went to Gordon’s house to repay the money.
Gordon was out on patrol at the time, so Barbara made him a strawberry-filled pancake and entertained the starving man.
After chatting with the warm and innocent girl for a while, he learned that she would be heading off to college after the summer.
She had applied to the police academy and wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps.
Will didn’t say much about it.
After all, according to the original timeline, Barbara would become Batgirl and fall in love with Robin.
But in this world without Batman, everything was unknown.
After that, he went to the hospital to visit Bullock.
Following the customs of his hometown, he bought some fruit.
But the bearded cop wasn’t in his room.
After looking around, Will discovered Bullock leaning on crutches and chatting up a pretty nurse at the front desk.
Well, best not to disturb him.
Will quietly left the fruit basket behind and slipped away.
His final stop was Selina’s place.
Will took out the note.
That night, Catwoman had written Falcone’s address on it.
When Will flipped the note over, he discovered another address on the other side.
Following the address, he took the light rail to the fashionable district in the city center and found the yoga studio inside an office building.
Selina was an instructor there.
It was almost closing time, and the students had gradually left, leaving only her behind, stretching in front of the mirror.
Her body moved with the supple grace of a cat on the yoga mat.
Selina gripped her ankles with both hands, pulling her body into the shape of a bow.
Her red lips were pursed, and sweat trickling down her fair neck had soaked through her gray tank top, running over her firm abdominal muscles and dampening the waistband of her yoga pants.
The curves of her near-perfect body left Will staring in a daze.
He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there before he finally looked up and found Selina watching him with her head tilted, a mischievous smile dancing across her face.
“Like what you see?”
“Even Michelangelo would have praised it.”
Will’s compliment was completely sincere.
“I’m going to take a shower.
After that, let’s grab some dinner together.
I have a few questions I want to ask you.”
The two walked out of the office building.
The gentle summer breeze of evening blew against them.
Selina closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then naturally slipped her arm through Will’s.
It had been an unconscious gesture, but when she felt the solid muscles in Will’s arm, she was still startled.
“Do you work out often?”
“Looks like I might.”
Will scratched his head.
Before crossing over, he had also gone to the gym whenever he had the time.
Not to bulk up, but simply to keep his perpetually sedentary body from rusting away.
But this body was different.
It might not look like much when he was dressed, but once his clothes came off, it became obvious that the entire body was covered in perfectly sculpted muscles, as flawless as if they had been carved from granite.
Will had wondered about it before.
Could he possibly be Bruce Wayne himself?
But there was no evidence to support that idea.
He couldn’t get into Wayne Enterprises, and there was no sign of Alfred anywhere in the abandoned manor.
More importantly, he didn’t want to find out the answer.
He didn’t want to carry the heavy burden of Batman’s mission.
“What do you want to eat?”
Seeing that Will didn’t want to answer, Selina deliberately changed the subject.
At that, Will suddenly found himself longing for the taste of home.
“I want dumplings.”
“There’s probably somewhere in Chinatown.
It’s beside Brown Bridge.
We can get there by crossing the city center.”
Chinatown?
Will’s heart nearly stopped at the name.
Although he couldn’t return home, the framework of this Gotham world was still based on the real world.
There, he could hear his native language and taste the food he remembered.
“Chinatown it is!”
Will was ecstatic.
He let go of Selina’s arm and immediately started toward the light-rail station.
“Where are you going?”
Selina called after him.
A low, powerful engine suddenly roared behind Will.
He turned around.
Catwoman had already put on her helmet.
Beneath her sat a matte-black Ducati Diavel, trembling with the roar of its engine.
That was way too cool!
Will whistled.