1. Strays' curse

If there was a way to describe Julia Pritchard's life most effectively, she thinks she'd settle on this; sometimes being lost doesn't mean you'll find your way back.

Sometimes, a stray is all you'll ever be.

As sound as her reasoning is, she is aware that it doesn't make it very... healthy. You can put as much logic as you want into something, it rarely ever softens the blow. She's put herself in that category all on her own — it was the only thing that made sense to her.

But the door is not locked. Still, she won't walk out. There is nothing worse than a prison of your own making.

Because there are times Julia truly wishes she wasn't a stray. Despite being the very definition of it; rescued by the Gotham Orphanage – and the Waynes, by association – and then years later again, by Alfred Pennyworth – ...and Bruce Wayne, by association.

She understands she has little room to talk. Not everyone breaks up with their boyfriend of two years and gets a whole floor in the Wayne Tower to fall back on her feet. She hadn't even really known Alfred – who came forward when he heard what happened to her.

He was the kind of uncle you see at family gatherings; you can't quite place his face, but you know you loved him as a kid. At least, they were her memories of him. He went to war with her adoptive father. Alfred made it back – her dad didn't. She thinks he feels indebted to the Pritchards, now. Or, well, with Julia's mom following her husband a few years later, there was just her to take care of.

She is grateful for his kindness, really, she is. Simply, she knew Wayne Tower would never be her home. Nowhere would. Because this was it; a stray's curse.

And Julia soon found out that she wasn't the first one Alfred took care of.

She meets Bruce Wayne every other day, fleeting in and out of her apartment, solely because she shares the kitchen and living room with Alfred, who lives a floor above her. When he strolls in, it's always well into the afternoon, sunglasses on – inside? She won't make any comments on that – and a slight disdain that she thinks comes with the terminal condition of being rich.

Maybe Julia is the tiniest bit biased, seeing as she grew up in the absolute worst part of Gotham, but considering how magazines paint him and what she is faced with, she allows herself some bitterness. The Prince of Gotham. She wished more people knew that Gotham's prince couldn't cook himself pasta to save his life, but hey. At least they're aware which pair of socks he went out with on his monthly visit to the outside world.

Julia herself is rarely at the Tower. Any chance she gets, she spends the night at her old apartment, when she knows that her ex isn't there. He rarely spends time there, anyway. Other girls' beds always seemed more appealing than his own, as it turns out. And when she isn't at home, she's at work, which takes up most of her day.

You'd think a veterinarian salary would be good enough to afford a flat in Gotham. Or, at the very least, the alarmingly climbing crime rates would do the trick. As it turns out, they do not. Because that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? Just being able to move somewhere else. Julia never had that kind of way out.

If her apartment doesn't quite feel like home either, at least it has the benefit of being her own. At least, when she's there, the silence isn't her fault.

So for Julia to find herself at the Tower at the same time as Alfred and Bruce Wayne, well. That was just her luck...

She quietly tucks herself away in the apartment, sitting at the edge of her bed, piling up some clothes for the night. She hears the conversation getting heated, and it's not just her imagination that makes her think that it's about her.

This happens more often than she'd like to admit. Alfred always says he'll make good on his promise, to which Wayne answers that the situation cannot be permanent. He makes it sound like she's such an inconvenience, she nearly bites her tongue until she draws blood.

Her thing is; she understands that Bruce Wayne is some sort of recluse. When his parents died, the press blew him up on their front pages, every day, without fail. He grew up for twenty years with a camera shoved under his nose. Of course he'd spend as little time as possible outside.

She cannot, however, find an excuse for his frankly mean behavior. It's lucky that they made her sign an NDA as soon as she – half – moved in, because she would have a thing or two to scream about. Mainly, saying 'hello' should be common courtesy, and she's sure Alfred taught him better. Also, if he could stop making their elevator rides together so anxiety-inducing for her, she'd greatly appreciate it.

Julia is lucky she was never a big tabloid person. Otherwise, whatever pedestal Gotham puts Bruce Wayne on would have been promptly trampled.

She zips up her bag, heaving out a sigh. What a wonderful situation. A flat she has to evade as if it was flea ridden because her ex still lives there; and an apartment where she feels this unsettling feeling creep under her skin at every turn, at every stare.

Two places to live; none of them home. Wasn't that just the story of her life? Whoever said that orphans never really found a home should have experienced it first before laying it out for everyone else to see.

Julia tries her best to be quiet as a mouse, walking back to the elevator, shutting the door, ready to heave out another sigh – of relief this time – when a hand shoves itself between the doors right as they close.

Because, as it turns out, despite Julia being entirely convinced that Bruce Wayne hates her, he always, always somehow finds a way to share the elevator with her. She thinks he has some sadistic tendencies. Though, seeing how he behaves with her, they might be a tad masochistic too.

And Julia cannot help but smile – beam – at him cordially. When is she not? Maybe if he liked her, she'd feel at home a little bit more. And yes, sure, she isn't so particularly fond of him either, but that didn't matter. She just had to find out if her reasoning was true – her feelings very rarely come into play.

He takes a look at her bag, and she sees the slight furrow of his brow. Her heart is already hammering in her chest with nerves. It would also help the slightest bit if he wasn't this attractive, to be perfectly honest. Defined jawline, the ever present pout of his lips and the sheer blue of his eyes that he keeps obstinately hidden... Really, if he wasn't so insufferable, this would be a blessing.

Alas. He barely nods at her in acknowledgement of her presence, and most courtesies are forgotten.

She tugs on her bag a little, still smiling at his obvious confusion. "I'm going back to my apartment tonight. So I'll be out of your hair."

Julia thinks he mutters something that sounds like 'right', but she's not entirely convinced. She blinks away from him, not that he was even making eye contact.

The silence that stretches is not comfortable, but Julia is nothing but resilient when it comes to filling them. "You should ask Dory to make you spaghetti meatballs tonight," she says for some ungodly reason. "She made me some last night, it was heavenly."

Dory, their housekeeper, is perhaps the warmest person Julia knows at the Tower. Aside from Wayne who frankly, she doesn't want to spend more time on, and Alfred who always seems a little awkward around her – Dory, well, Julia can tell that the housekeeper likes her.

He nods again, and she can see behind his glasses that his eyes are darting all over the place. Maybe for a way out? Clearly she's annoying him. Clearly, he's not a talkative person, so why is she even trying in the first place?

She doesn't know any better.

Luckily for her, the elevator dings when they reach the ground floor, and Julia promptly saunters off, waving with some high-pitched "Bye mister Wayne!" and another beaming smile that is answered by – you guessed it – a nod. Well. She won't win him over today, that is certainly for sure.

For a moment, she stares at herself in the elevator's now closed doors. Brown skin, black, glossy hair tied in a ponytail and bags under her eyes. That's how far she can take her personal description. The rest might be biased. In any case, she doesn't remember when she had a good night's sleep. Pre-break-up? Maybe. Then again, she always had that odd feeling that something was wrong, so. Maybe Wayne simply soured her mood a little.

Still, she doesn't let herself be bummed out. This is how Bruce Wayne acts on a good day, so really, she should consider herself lucky. At least she won't be sharing his Tower tonight. Or his butler. Or the air he breathes...

She fights to get her phone out of her pocket, texting her landlady's number. Edith, who owns a building with very, very thin walls, is gracious enough to warn Julia when her ex intends to spend the night... somewhere else. It's at the root of their break-up, really, those phone calls, but she'd rather someone warn her than catching something from him.

Julia's next stop is work, where she shoves her bag in her locker and puts on paw-printed scrubs. She hopes for an uneventful night, which she is granted. Aside from a very small dog somehow swallowing a balloon who she had to administer a shot to make him puke up, it's all just very routine. Shots, vermifuge, the odd fall that stuns the animal so bad it acts hurt – but really just needs some looking after.

The nurses are whispering when she goes back to her locker – well into the night, having taken some shifts for emergencies. Hence the balloon incident. When she walks in, they fall silent, and Julia simply heaves out a sight.

Apartments – plural, work. In terms of places she doesn't belong in, that's three strikes for her.

She isn't sure what they're whispering about. Her colorful scrubs, last gift from her mother, or something else. Her clothes usually do the trick. She doubts there's anything more but surface level to their incessant chattering.

When she started to live at Wayne Tower a few months ago, they had become just that much worse. Tabloids started going after her, which forced Wayne to hire security details for the first weeks. She's sure he was positively delighted. When the press figured out that there really was nothing to her and that she was legally binded not to say anything, it all died down.

The chattering never quite did, but Julia never belongs anywhere, so what's it to her, really? Just another place she feels uneasy in. The list of which could go on for a while.

Julia slams her locker's door shut, not bothering to get out of her scrubs. She has to wash them at home anyway, and she doesn't have animal's bodily fluids on them, for once. And, to be fully honest, she really cannot be assed to.

From her clinic, Julia often chooses to walk back to her apartment. It's not that far – and getting a taxi is sometimes scarier than Gotham's well lit streets. Either she gets kidnapped in a car, or she gets stabbed in an alley. She became a bit desensitized to it all after a while.

Especially since, on her way back, the streets are bustling with people walking in and out of bars. She just has to weave her way through, unnoticed, before unlocking the door to her apartment complex, knocking once on Edith's door to tell her that she got home safely, and crashing down on the couch.

Julia's days end often like this, whether she comes home to the Tower – not her home – or her apartment – also not her home. She sits down on a couch and watches crap television until she isn't capable of a single coherent thought and falls asleep.

Not tonight, as it turns out.

She hears a thud behind her. Julia has lived in Gotham for the entirety of her life – she knows exactly how the city gets. Someone breaking into her flat somehow feels like the circle of life here. It explains why she's so quick to react, level-headed despite the fear that seizes her. You come to be prepared about a lot of things, whether you realize it or not.

She grabs the first weapon she can find – the TV remote – and raises it over her head, ready to strike when she turns around.

It clatters on the ground.

Julia never really asked herself what she thought of Batman. It was more of... a matter of: he was here. What's the point in questioning it? The city had run itself so crazy some dude decided that dressing up as a bat was a solution. And mind you, the city was equally as insane to make it work...

She did believe that he was making changes. Good or not, she could not tell you. There was the odd chance of escalation that has been proven true, but he also put it to rest. It was all a matter of whether someone would be able to kill him one day or not.

Though, she has to admit – Julia has trouble figuring out how fear can help the city. It was already living off of it, Batman or not.

Of course, those were all pretty useless thoughts to have when Batman was, in fact, standing in the middle of your apartment.

She blinks once... twice...

He's taller than she imagined he'd be. His armor seems heavier, too. They were right – all those eye witnesses. He looked like he materialized from the shadows themselves, cut right out of them. She takes a moment to realize that he isn't moving, waiting for her to do something.

She takes another moment to realize, too, that if he needed anything, he was very well aware to take it. This staring match means something else. Something that has her survival instincts slowly dying out, it seems.

He was still very much a stranger standing in her apartment.

"Um... Can I–" She clears her throat, her voice coming out breathy. "Can I help you?"

"Stitches," is his rough answer, coming out in a tone that makes it sound like it was obvious to everyone but her. "You know how to do them?"

Julia opens, closes her mouth. "Stitches," she repeats a little dimly. A little aggressively, too.

A billion thoughts are attacking her at the same time. First of all – Batman is in her living room. Second of all, he's asking for stitches which means he's hurt, and so far, it's not exactly rocket science. The biggest mystery, though, is; why her?

Then, Julia circles back to the fact that Batman is in her living room.

She would ask at least half of the questions that are running through her brain, she would, really – but she notices the odd shape of his suit – something sticking out in his shoulder. Something that, decidedly, is not part of the whole get up.

"I'm sorry, do you have a knife stuck in your shoulder?"

He stares at her, and she thinks he might look a little defiant. "You're not meant to pull it out."

"I'm aware. You're also not meant to break into the first flat you find to get stitches," she bites back despite herself, irritation slipping in her tone – if he's feeling good enough to be snarky with her, surely she can retaliate.

"Can you do them?"

Silence hovers over them. She can hear her heart beating in her ears, and feel her panic tighten around her throat. He could be here for more than stitches, for all she knows. Batman has a reputation for violence. Blood and gore and beatings.

She swallows thickly. Julia has a reputation, too. Strays and beaming smiles and puppy-printed scrubs. The damning urge to be loved – to help, to matter. She can't find it in herself to ask him to leave. What would he do, with a knife stuck in his shoulder anyway?

She sees it now. The dazed look in his eyes, the wince at each sharp inhalation. He's in pain. More than he lets on, she wagers. At least, that would fit the character.

Does the hippocratic oath work with veterinarians? She never thought that she'd ask herself this question – ever.

She decides it does. "Yes." Though, just to be sure – "How did you even get in? Did you break anything?"

"Window was open." He sounds irritated that it even was. He's Batman, of course he thinks Julia forgetting to close her window is stupid. So does she, really – which just makes her think her ex did. She's a woman; she has to be careful about anything she does, especially in Gotham.

"And you just walked in?" she lets out, a little high pitched. "I could have been a cop. I could be filming the whole thing to sell it to some journalist, right now."

"And I could have mugged you."

His eyes raise to meet hers. She closes her mouth. Okay. So they're on shaky – but even grounds. He needs her to trust him as much as she can, and she needs just the same from him. That's their stalemate, it seems. He waits for her to realize it, and take the decision. Julia really isn't used to verbal sparring with her usual company, she easily finds herself at a loss. She settles on staring him off, before quietly walking to her open kitchen – and taking out her first aid kit.

She keeps a needle and thread there. Giving yourself stitches is painful, and the tiniest bit insane, but for a cut, she'll take that over a hospital bill. Besides, she knows she has enough of a pain tolerance for it, along with the steady hands. It's also needles and thread that she has taken home from work inadvertently, most of the time.

Again, she never thought it'd come in handy for someone else.

She puts it on the table, clearing her throat again. "You should sit down."

He doesn't move for a moment, and she thinks she's stunned him. Or irritated him, in the same vein as when he told her about her open window. When he does move, taking slow deliberate steps behind her, she feels her breath hitch in her throat. She did not expect him to be this tall, or this... dark, or this anything. She saw the occasional pictures in the papers, or the very blurry video on the news, but that was as far as he went. Neither did him justice.

Once he's sat down, he doesn't move, staring at her. The piercing blue of his eyes is a stark contrast to the reflective paint around them, blending into his cowl. She stares back. It's all she's able to do for a good handful of seconds.

Even sitting down at her kitchen table, he looks intimidating.

"Um... okay. First of all, I'm a veterinarian. I usually operate on very small dogs, not full grown men, okay?" She licks her lips nervously. "Can't be that different, right?"

"I wouldn't know."

She heaves something halfway between a sigh and a laugh, rounding him while putting gloves on, prodding the wound. The only thing she can see is the knife protruding out.

"I can't really do anything with all the uh..."

In a quick snap of his fingers, he unfastens something she can barely see, his shoulder plate coming loose. Julia carefully lifts it, trying her best not to nudge the knife.

"Handy," she muses, which earns herself a groan of agrement.

She's met with a plastic like material that she cuts through with her scissors. The knife isn't deep enough to have nicked an artery, thank god. She doesn't know what she would have done if Batman actively bled out to death in her kitchen. Or anywhere in her apartment, really.

Julia hums a little to herself. "How are you... on a pain scale wise? Because I don't have anesthesia in my flat."

He shifts a little. "High."

Figures. "...Okay. So the good news is we can pull the knife out without you dying. The bad news is we have to pull the knife out–"

Batman takes it between two fingers, tugs it out cleanly, and drops it in her sink, staring back at her as if to say, 'there.'

"Well...!" is the only thing she can muster out.

Julia hurries with compresses to soak up some of the blood now pouring out. She disinfects as best as she can, and notices that Batman doesn't even budge. She shakes her head to herself. Of course he doesn't. He's gotta have been through worse. Maybe this is just a Tuesday night for him.

She prepares her thread and needle, and stations herself. With him sitting down and her standing, it's just enough for her to reach without having to crane her neck. She winces to herself when she pierces the skin, knowing the sting of it. He barely moves.

When she does it to herself, which has only happened twice, she usually has TV or music as a background noise. Anything to get her mind off of the pain. She doubts offering either to Batman would go well at this point.

What point had they even reached, really...

"Sometimes," she starts to fill the stretching silence, "I speak to my patients through the interventions. It helps with... nerves." She thinks it'd help with hers, at least.

She's stitching up Batman in her kitchen. Julia is going to have several moments to cope with that in the following months.

She sees the tick of his jaw from where she is. "The little dogs?"

"I don't just take care of dogs," she replies a little too quickly. "A soothing voice helps just about anyone, as it turns out."

She reaches the shallowest part of the cut, and sees him suppress a groan, teeth clicking together when he clamps his mouth shut, as if biting into thin air. "Does it?"

"I'm going to ask you to refrain from biting me until I've seen your vaccination certificate." She ties a stitch. "Bats are famous rabies carriers."

The silence is so thick, his eyes on her so heavy and unimpressed, she fears he might rip himself from her touch entirely and jump out the window before she's done. "I don't have rabies."

"As far as you know..." she hums. "It's actually dormant. You wouldn't know before you develop symptoms and once you do, it's too late."

She doesn't dare look up from her handiwork, not even knowing why she's launched herself in a rant about rabies of all things. She should probably get out of that rabbit hole now.

"Can I ask something?" she lets out, uneasy. Batman barely moves, but she can feel him straighten up. "Easy. No need to tense up like that, it's not anything bad. I'm not about to ask for your identity or whatever, I'm not that stupid."

She thinks he... huffs? "Just enough to leave your window open in the middle of the night."

"Okay, I actually don't think that was me." When he doesn't do anything to tell her she can, in fact, ask him a question, she takes it upon herself to do it either way. "Why a bat, of all things?"

Julia thinks she should be a little ashamed that she asked this. Batman is in her kitchen, and she asks about his history with bats. She would have made a disastrous reporter. Maybe that actually comforts him in that aspect – there is no way she'd be press.

She can see him fight himself on what answer to give her. "Why not?"

"Well." She snorts a little, immediately blushing at how stupid it is. "I don't know. Your whole thing is being terrifying and you..." She glances back up at him. "Have little horns. Mind you, bats don't even have horns."

Done with her patching up, she adds gauze and tape over it, carefully putting the shoulder plate back in place, letting him fasten it back up. At least it's keeping it in place, though she does wince when she sees some of it get caught under the kevlar.

"What I mean is," she heaves out with a sigh, "bats aren't scary. Scariest thing about them is rabies."

He doesn't say anything, but she catches the uptick of his lip as he picks up the knife, discarded in her sink. She's going to have to scrub that out clean later. With bleach. And hope the police don't do a spontaneous check of her apartment, for some reason she can't even think of right now.

When she turns back to say something – anything – Batman is already on his feet, moving away. Julia steps after him.

"Hey, no, this isn't done," she lets out, a little forceful. He looks around, and then back at her, waiting for her to continue. "Look, I get it, you probably have a no hospitals rule, which makes sense, but you need to get that wound dressed everyday if you don't want it to get infected," she goes on. "And someone needs to get the stitches out eventually."

"I have someone to take care of that."

"Then why didn't you go to them tonight?" Silence answers her. She nods. "Okay. So see you tomorrow. Or at least, don't let a whole week pass."

He barely answers her, barely even nods, turning back to the window, and climbing out on the fire escape. Julia tries to get her point across, stomping after him. When he turns around and towers over her, even despite the window between them, she takes an involuntary step back.

She watches him fight himself to say something – or not. "Lock your windows."

Julia doesn't have time to think about what to tell him, which she's not sure she would've figured out anyway. He disappears into the night after finishing his sentence, leaving her to stare down at her street, her breath fogging up the glass.

Step by step, one foot in front of the other, Julia goes to sit on the couch, taking long, drawn out breaths. Okay. Okay.

There is a good amount of adrenaline and shock along with a healthy dose of fear and panic coursing through her entire body, enough to make her dizzy, and take up her entire thought process. She thinks back to how easily Batman just took out the knife in his shoulder, and shudders.

She shouldn't – she told him to come back, but she cannot make this a routine kind of thing. Not that it even could be, seeing how cryptic her patient was, but if it happened to develop into something like that, she couldn't make it last. It would burn her out entirely.

Still, deep down, she feels it nestle against her ribs, snug against her heart – Julia thinks this is the first time she felt like she mattered. Like she was helping.

And maybe that meant... maybe, that meant Julia could belong in some way, in the grand scheme of things. Broke the strays' curse.

That or, you know. Burn out entirely.

Author's Note: Rabies counter how many do we have rn ...

Anyway yes welcome to the reason their shipname is rabiesshot it was meant to be a joke but the bit has become too serious to ignore now!!!!!!!!!

Also I'm sorry it makes me laugh that Julia is FREAKING OUT that batman is in her living room because why omg and the dude just . was close to her apartment and remembered she's a vet and decided to go to her just because him and alfred had a spat. my #boyfailure