001 . . . SMILE

if you wan't me you can find me at the bar

lost souls congregate at the bar

smile wolf alice

Livia Santarsiero's mother used to say that this town — Gotham City — could wreck a person. Everyone here is playing a rigged game. Some convince themselves that winning means getting out, but in what world do you get to leave the ring and declare victory?

It seemed ironic now that Helena Grant had ever considered Gotham City to be a beacon of hope. A city of rebirth, a place where people went to shed their old skin and start anew. She might have had a better ending had she not believed that her future could have been brighter in that dark city. In her heart, the city whispered promises of reinvention, a realm where she'd weave a new narrative amid the glitz and allure.

Her glossy dreams of finding fame and glamour in Gotham were shattered by the unforgiving specter of reality. The city was cruel to everyone, but even more so to the less fortunate. Fresh off a scraggly bus with dusty windows, Helena seemed like the perfect victim had she not been resourceful enough to brave through those first few years until she met Lili's father.

But Gotham City won't let good things last.

Gotham's neon-lit facade concealed a darker underbelly, a labyrinth of shadows that swallowed her ambitions whole. The city, relentless and unforgiving, doused her hopes in a rain of harsh truths and bitter realities, leaving behind remnants of shattered aspirations in the dust of its unforgiving streets. Leaving behind a woman who lost her optimism.

Lili shared many of her mother's attributes, like her Old Hollywood looks and enough charm to con any men out of his fortune, but, most importantly, she shared her mother's dreams. Which is why she loved that city, no matter how many times it broke her heart.

Which was also why Lili was now in Gabby's pastel pink bathroom, slipping into a cargo miniskirt that seemed like it had been made in the 90s (and, knowing Gabby, it probably was). Lili fiddled with the oversized buckle and turned towards the cramped living room, throwing her hair behind her shoulder.

"What do you think?" Lili asked.

Gabby, laying on the couch right across the bathroom, blew out a cloud of smoke. She dropped her hand to the floor, the cherry of her cigarette, dangling too close to the carpet, was the only light in the room except for the way-too-dark purple lava lamp and the yellow light spilling from the bathroom.

"I told you this skirt was perfect for you. When I found it at that thrift store I said to the girl: my friend's going to love this." Gabby said, nonplussed. "We could have done this whole thing at your place, though. At least you have air conditioning."

Lili took the cigarette from Gabby's hand and took a drag, "If you stopped smoking for a second maybe it would be less hot in here."

"That has nothing to do with anything," Gabby retorted, sitting up to take the cigarette from Lili again. Lili waved her off as she bent down to tie her high heels. "Ready for your date?"

"It's a job," Lili said. "And I don't even have it yet, we're just gonna talk about the details and seal the deal."

"A job that you found at Gotham's deep web craigslist," Gabby blew out another puff of smoke, smoothing her black hair away from her face and from the cigarette smell. "From some guy who didn't even say his name."

"Since when do you say no to a little bit of excitement?" Lili teased. She flopped down on the couch next to Gabby, checking her phone to see if her bodyguard-slash-confidante was waiting for her already.

Gabby and Lili, everybody said, were too much alike for their own good. They had known each other ever since Lili started "learning the trade" with Selina, and their friendship was like a freight train. Neither one had the good sense to say "maybe that's a bad idea" to anything the other suggested. It made sense that they had become friends, considering that they didn't like to be stopped or countered, but Miss Holleran — the old lady that often invited Lili over for tea — had told her countless times that they would ruin each other if they continued to egg each other on like that.

"You know I don't. I'm just saying maybe this is too shady. Why wouldn't he want to identify himself?"

"Maybe he's very high profile," Lili replied, wiggling her eyebrows. Gabby laughed and threw one of her blue furry pillows at her. "Also, my username was lilkitten69 and he still thought it would be fine to meet with me. I think I can handle him."

"Yeah, what kind of idiot would offer a job to someone with that username?" Gabby snickered, and Lili threw the pillow back at her just as her phone flashed with a notification.

Lili pushed herself off the couch, trying to ignore the sudden shiver that ran up her spine. "Okay, Joe's waiting downstairs. I'll call you when I'm done."

"If you don't, I'll hunt this guy down and kill him."

Lili blew her a kiss, already halfway out the door, "I'd do the same for you."

In the car, Lili tried to conceal her restlessness, more for her own sake than anybody else's, but it only consumed her further as Joe drove them out of Old Gotham and into the neon lights of the Fashion District.

She had always been drawn to the edges of things — where light faded into shadow, the places where the world held its breath. That night, the nightclub at the top of the old Gotham Vista Hotel looked like the perfect combination between two different worlds. The air was hot and heavy, announcing the coming relief of a summer rain. The party goers were dressed in trashy outfits, dancing lewdly in a gilded room that once had held masquerade balls and fancy galas. The dance floor was a convergence of worlds, a place where the bold and the desperate sought refuge. As she glittered through the pulsing crowd, her sage green eyes flickered with a steely determination.

The guy offering the job had told her to find him at the bar. He'd be wearing dark-gray cargo pants, a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket. He had both his ears pierced, and he wore small hoops on them. Lili had told him she'd be wearing a tiny miniskirt and a lacy brassiere, all black. She also mentioned she had a navel piercing, silver with a crescent moon dangling over her belly button. She did not mention, though, the easiest way to identify her: her white-blonde hair, much closer to white than blonde.

Everyone in Gotham knew that Franco Santarsiero's daughter had inherited her mother's platinum-blonde hair, but no one in Gotham knew what Franco Santarsiero's daughter did when no one was watching. Seeing her at that party, no one would look at her and think "business". She was just another girl looking for a good time. To Lili, business and good time were one and the same.

The crowds parted for her, as they often did when she went out as Livia Santarsiero instead of Black Cat. It was a bit ironic how she could make herself so grand and hard to look away from in one instant, and nearly invisible in the next. She had a commandeering presence, an aura that she could turn on and off with ease. But it was a learned behavior, something she had to practice once it was clear that she wasn't supposed to be noticed more than her brother was.

The bar was at the back of the ballroom, unusually deserted, if not for one person, his back pressed against the counter. Surely, he wore the cargo pants and the leather jacket, but when he turned to look at her and Lili saw his face, her blood crystallized into ice.

Lili had thought about this moment more times than she could count, and she would never, ever admit it to anyone — unless you had Gabby's preternatural ability to get things out of her. In her mind, though, this wasn't how it had happened. The places where she imagined meeting him again were never quite clear, but she had never considered it would have been at a hotel-turned-nightclub. The things she wanted to say to him were all spoken clearly, evenly. She got her point across without bursting into tears, without exploding like an enraged sun. Jason always apologized.

Part of her, she guessed, had always known that her daydreams would never come to fruition. Lili was not the kind of person who expressed her anger in a simple, straightforward way. No. Her father used to say that she had a penchant for making things more complicated than they had to be. Sometimes, you wouldn't even know she was mad at you if you didn't pay attention to the thinly veiled insults that she wove in a casual conversation. She had mastered the art of passive aggression, and her father considered it a virtue. He said it was "classy", fit for a girl like her.

If he knew the things she wanted to say to Jason, though, he surely wouldn't find it classy.

Lili approached him and, as she walked, she saw his expression go from relaxed confidence to something that resembled the faces of the men she pickpocketed when she was younger, once they realized their wallets were missing. Involuntarily, her lips tilted up in a lopsided smirk.

"Look who crawled out of his grave," she said, then feigned naivety with a light tap of her hand on her lips. "Oops, sorry. Too soon?"

Jason turned his head just a little bit, as if it was too difficult to stare right at her.

"It's you, right?" He said, and there was a far-off quality to his voice. Lili suddenly couldn't tell if he was asking her if she was the one who responded to his job offer or if he couldn't believe that it was really her in front of him.

"Disappointed?" She pouted.

She wished she could just be mad at him instead of whatever she was doing now.

She was mad at him. Why couldn't she act like it to his face?

"Surprised, actually," he said, working his mouth like he didn't know what to say. "You took a lot of risks coming here tonight."

"I like taking risks."

"I know," he said, glancing at her quickly before turning his face away from her again. "I guess you didn't change that much."

"You, on the other hand..." She bit the inside of her cheek. "Been working out much?"

Before Jason could reply, the song blasting from the speakers changed into something less suitable for dancing. It still had a jittery beat, but it brought many of the least excited party goers to the bar. An elbow jammed in the space between Lili's shoulder blades, pushing her closer to Jason. Somebody came from behind him, forcing Jason to turn his side to the bar, facing Lili. She stumbled slightly, pressing her torso against him as he held her up with a hand on her waist. The people coming from the dancefloor started piling up around them.

"Should I buy you a drink?" He asked, voice thin, suddenly unsure. She was so close to him that she could see a thin film of sweat coating the hollow of his eyes, a flush creeping to his cheeks. Lili hadn't realized that he was actually nervous about the meeting. She didn't even know if he was nervous about the meeting or about her.

Lili leaned in, pursing her dark-red lips into a flat line. The bartender looked up. She said, "No need. Oliver knows what I like, doesn't he?" He nodded, and turned around to give them privacy. "Let's skip the foreplay, shall we? Tell me about the job."

"Oh," he said, almost like he had forgotten why they had met up in the first place. Jason adjusted his posture, straightening his shoulders. He seemed even taller now that he wasn't leaning against the counter. There was a crease in the space between his eyebrows, making him look more serious, like somebody you'd feel compelled to listen to. He let go of her waist. "Right. There's a shipment of some chemically enhanced drugs arriving in Gotham just before dawn and I need to stop it from getting to the person who ordered it. But I need it to be a stealth job. The people I work with... They're not so sneaky. They're no cat burglars, I mean."

"But I am..."

"Precisely."

She went quiet for a moment. The people around them were shuffling back to the dance floor. Oliver-The-Bartender filled a glass with a pink mix of alcohol. Lili looked up to the ceiling, glittering with fractured light from the mirrorball, as if she had been considering Jason's offer. In fact, she had made up her mind as soon as she saw him at the bar. She couldn't take a job from him. It would have been humiliating. "Huh," she huffed, looking back at him, unimpressed. "I'm gonna have to pass."

She reached behind him to get the drink the bartender had left for her. In doing so, she dislodged a small listening device from the jewel in one of her rings. She had such quick hands that Jason barely had time to process the fact that she was declining his offer before she attached the bug in the lapel of his jacket.

"What?" He blurted out, stunned. "Why?"

"I'm not interested. I've got a lot on my plate right now, so..." She said, checking her nails, taking a sip of her drink. "I have to say no. Sorry. Hope you find someone else, though."

"Right," Jason sneered, suddenly. He stood straighter, his head bowed. "You've got a lot on your plate. Didn't sound like it when you answered to my ad. But what do I know?"

Lili leaned back, one shoulder hunched. She stared at him through narrow eyes, her lips curled. She felt like a snake ready to pounce. It was a weird feeling, like a knot unraveling too quickly inside of her. Like she was a puppet and her string had been cut. This was the feeling she had been looking for.

"Yeah, exactly. What do you know?" Lili glared up at him, slamming the cocktail glass on the counter, spilling the remains of the pink liquid. "Do not ever imply that I'm desperate for anything ever again."

The thing was... Jason was right. Lili was desperate, and she hated that he could tell. That he still knew her well enough to pick up the tell-tale signs she had tried to disguise.

Lili's disquiet was an uninvited guest she couldn't dismiss. It lingered, a relentless itch that begged for attention. This had always been her problem, or so people said. Maybe they were right. It didn't matter. Her restlessness was bothersome, but it was only one of the many factors that had led her to where she was that night, despite everyone else's better judgements.

Her job was odd. She worked sort of alone, but she had a bunch of friends — like Selina and Gabby — who worked as cat burglars and con artists as well, and sometimes they traded and helped each other with business, and so... she didn't always have a big and elaborate scheme to perform, but she had never been this bored and this unoccupied before. They were all going through the same rut, and Selina had said that sometimes — very rarely — this happens. But Lili was restless, and she could never deal with that very well.

And still... She could tell that Selina hadn't really meant what she said, about that quiet being normal in Gotham City. It had settled in Gotham like a stifling blanket, dwindling the chaos to a whisper. Lili had been used to the chaotic pulse of the city, it had been a song that she danced to effortlessly every night, but now... She was on edge, waiting for a storm that brewed in the shadows.

She gave him one last look before turning away and said, "Pleasure seeing you again."

"Pleasure's all mine."

"We'll see about that." 

author's note

hiii :DDDD so i know this took AGES but i wrote like half of it two months ago and then i didn't know how to write a beginning that i liked, mostly because i kept seeing the chapter in my head like a comic book and the transitions between scenes were SOOOO wonky when i tried to write them out as proper text so i apologize and i do not plan to take longer than this to write the other chapters, but also i can't promise anything tho i'll try my best 

thank u guys for ur support MWAAAAAH see u soon