I shrink away from it, pulling the blanket back over me.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I, uh, watching a movie?”
He stares at the screen, sucked in, and I observe him as he shuffles closer across the rug. When he doesn’t say anything, only stands there hovering, I ask, “Want to watch? I’ve never seen the whole thing before.”
He pushes up his frames, backpedaling to the couch and sitting the farthest away from me. He stays focused on the screen. “I know people loveThe Dark Knight. Ledger as the Joker—it’s iconic. ButBatman Beginsdoesn’t get nearly enough credit. Have you seen it? It’s the perfect origin story. Shows him choosing tobethe Batman.” He looks at me and does a double take. “What?”
I bury my hands in my sleeves, fists curling on the inside against the fabric. I slip a hand up to my mouth and cover the grin spilling from me. He isn’t even doing anything, but that’s the most I’ve heard him say since I’ve met him, and for some reason, it ruins me.
His hand comes up to rub the back of his neck as his jaw tenses. He glances at me, barely a flick of his eyes, but I trace the tightness of his expression to the tips of his red ears. He swallows and shrugs, and the way he tries to hide makes my chest ache.
“It’s nice to hear you talk,” I say.
“I’m sure you didn’t care to know all that.”
“It’s nice to hear you talk about anything, Slade.”
He rubs his hands together, shoulders relaxing.
I continue. “I’ve never seenBatman Begins. I’ll be honest I haven’t seen much. Oh! But I did see the Marvel movies with my boyfriend, er he was my boyfriend.” Guilt reprimands me as I realize I haven’tthoughtabout Tristan at all.
Slade nods, the muscles in his neck flexing, and he leans back into the couch.
“Is Batman your favorite?”
Another nod.
“Why?” I ask.
“He’s always been. I really took to the Batman comics as a kid. My grandfather … he …” Slade pauses, his eyes dim, and his expression turns unreadable.
“He what?” I reach for the remote and pause the movie.
“Nothing,” he says. “Batman was just a guy. No powers. Just trauma and lots of money. He was human, flawed”—heated eyes bounce back to me—“obsessive. As a kid, it felt like anyone could be Batman. The part where he bleeds, breaks, but still keeps going. It sticks with you.”
The rough rasp of his voice cuts through the quiet of the muted TV. Low and even, his words fall into the space between the trancelike rain. I scoot closer, just a few inches, enough to feel the warmth rolling off him, and I lean into the cadence of his voice. But it isn’t just the timbre of his words, but the words themselves.
“Is that why you … why you work to give the girls a fighting chance behind the scenes? Like you yourself are a vigilante in disguise?—”
His expression revolts. “No. No. I’m not a vigilante. I’m not good. It’s not about justice, vengeance, or a noble cause. And like Batman, the core of it all is rotting.
“I’m not good,” he says again. “I allow this to happen, so that eventually I can bring them down.”
“Slade …”
“Batman isn’t pretending to be good. He’s just trying to outthink the monsters. Sometimes, to stop the worst of them, you have to be worse.”
What do I say to that? He’s sunk deep into himself, and anything I have to say feels too small. Instead, I reach out and rest my hand on his thigh. The muscle is taut and thick, and the moment I touch him, he shudders. Tension grows beneath my palm, and I almost pull back. No. I stay there.
He brings a hand to meet mine, covering it. His skin is calloused, but his grip causes heat to bloom up my arm. It ignites something under my skin. He doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t look at me either. With his other hand, he reaches across his chest and picks up one drawstring, rolling the plastic tip between his thumb and forefinger.
“Is this my hoodie?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SLADE
