There was no way in hell Ms. Reál thought her plan was going to work. And there was no way anyone who'd lived in Gotham for more than two months thought her plan was going to work.
Blaze couldn't believe her plan. It started with getting funds from the Waynes. Again. Except this time, the project was supposed to be carefully viewed by some both Mr. Wayne and Ms. Reál trusted.
Well there was problem one. The only person in the city- possibly the whole world- Mr. Wayne trusted was his butler. That was a well-known fact to pretty much the whole city.
Then Ms. Reál had suggested the police force have the now Commissioner Gordan talk to Batman and get him to join their cause in fixing the city.
Wasn't the Batman's whole thing that he worked alone? Why would he join the police and government in fixing the city? If all the crime was gone, what was he supposed to do?
Ms. Reál had talked about some other ideas, but the first few she'd presented already had Blaze laughing, so they'd just left.
Now they were wandering around, wondering where they were going to get food. Currently their options were pick pocketing someone for money and go to a fast food place, or try and find something edible in a dumpster.
A fast food place sounded a lot better. They had a habit of falling sick after eating out of dumpsters. And when you don't have money or somewhere warm to sleep, being sick lasts a lot longer.
Sighing, Blaze turned back to town square. The crowd would offer plenty of opportunities to steal some cash. Few people would notice, and if you were stupid enough to leave your pockets or purse open in Gotham city, you kinda deserved to be robbed.
After a few minutes- and a couple new dollar wads- Blaze made their way to a random food place.
They got food, then sat in the sad park to eat it. Various people passed by, but nothing interesting happened.
Once they were done and had thrown away their trash, they searched for some where to sleep. They hadn't slept yesterday- which was normal- but they were tired now. So sleep seemed like a good idea.
After searching for a bit, they ended up in a camping store. They bought a water-proof sleeping bag and headed over to the creamery, yet again. It was becoming quite a good hideout. Using their backpack as a pillow (it wasn't very comfy), they curled up with a ragged blanket they kept protecting their face and with the hood of the sleeping bag pulled up.
It took them a while to fall asleep, between paranoia something was gonna happen, their mild insomnia, and things their brain decided to have pop up behind their closed eyelids. But they did sleep, and that had to count for something.
°~◇~°
When they woke up, it was 8ish the next morning. They'd slept far longer than they intended, but it didn't matter. No one was expecting them. They had nothing planned.
Like always.
Instead of dwelling on the fact that they were bored again, they got up and decided to see Gotham in slightly early morning. Most of the things that happened in Gotham didn't happen till noon, as if the whole city was half nocturnal.
It probably was.
So they headed into the main part of town, as the sky tinted slightly pink through the grey clouds. It was quiet in town, and they just kinda wandered around as things slowly got busier. As they walked they noticed various buildings they could probably get away with painting on.
They ended up stopping at a small cafe that was next-to empty, and sitting at a table with one of their unfinished notebooks. They’d already ordered a small treat and some lemonade (they didn’t like coffee). They sipped the drink as they stretched and looked out the window they were sat next to. There were the normal people going by to get to work, but no one odd and note-worthy had really gone by.
Turning back to their table, they closed their notebook, and pulled out the roll of one-sided tape and loose paper cutouts. They started cutting out some of the tape rolls, allowing them to turn their drawings into stickers. They were distracted working one when someone walked over.
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” a voice asked. Blaze jumped before setting down the scissors and turning to the person. It was a woman with a leather jacket and very short-cut hair. “O-oh, um, I’m making stickers… I use them to help me tell my stuff from others,” Blaze answered hesitantly. The woman smiled, picking up one that had a group of cats on it.
“Do you take requests? Or can I buy some?” she asked. Blaze swallowed nervously. “Uh, sure? I guess? No one’s ever asked me that. Which ones here would you like? And what exactly would you like me to make?”
The woman set down the cat one she’d been holding. “Do you have any other ones? Or is this all? Also, my name’s Selina.” Blaze gave her a hesitant smile while reaching down to grab the bag of stickers. “I’m Blaze. Here’s all of them.”
Selina looked through them all while describing her idea. “What if you did like a cat and bat side by side with the words ‘the cat and the bat’? And maybe one with a set of bikes and a cat?"
“Yeah, I can do that. Um… you can meet me here tomorrow to buy them? I shouldn’t be busy tomorrow,” Blaze mentioned as they began sweeping the leftover stickers into a Xiploc. Selina had picked three stickers. “How much do you want?” she replied. Blaze hadn’t thought that far ahead… “Um, is $5 a sticker ok? It's a little expensive making them… and then if we could do like $20 in total tomorrow…”
Selina smiled. “Sure! Here’s the fifteen for today, and then tomorrow I’ll pay you for the other ones.” With that, the woman stood and walked out of the cafe.
Blaze looked down at the honestly earned cash in their hand. “... I actually made money. Like, actually made money.” They tried to restrain the smile on their face as they began packing everything up. It was almost noon, so they figured they should probably leave. They’d been in the cafe for almost four hours now.
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Words: 1089
Hey! I'm back! Sorry I haven't posted forever but since school's out, I got kinda bored of writing. So I wasn't really working on anything lol. Plus typing on a phone is hard. Anyway, hope you like this chapter! I figured adding in other characters would help a bit. See ya later!
Words after Author's note: 1146
(also hi again. yes I edited this one a lot less then the previous chapter, but it still reuploaded. I'm sorry. hopefully a new chapter soon?)
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This Is... Not What Was Planned - The Batman 2022
FanfictionBlaze had ended up on the streets of Gotham alone after the Riddler's flood had killed their family. They had expected things to stay the way they were, with them pick-pocketing people and breaking into places for somewhere to sleep and food. They h...
