CHAPTER FORTY: FALLING INTO A ROUTINE

Days passed, and Taylor settled into a routine. Or tried to, at least.

Morning lectures. Afternoon study sessions. Evenings spent tucked away in the quiet corners of the library, where the hum of fluorescent lights and the rustle of turning pages filled the silence. She attended class, completed assignments, and kept her expression carefully neutral, always sitting near the back, always close to an exit.

No one asked about the scars on her arms. No one questioned the way her gaze tracked every entrance like she expected an ambush. 

She was just another student. Unremarkable. Unnoticed.  

She should have felt relief.  

Instead, she felt like a blade left to rust, every harmless day dulling her edge

The Narrows still pulled at her. Every night, wherever she decided to sleep, she found herself mapping patrol routes in her head—marking the alleys the dealers favored, the rooftops with the best sightlines, the blocks the GCPD never bothered with. Her fingers spider-walked over tables, walls, her own thighs, her foot tapped out restless beats.

The itch to move, to act, was a constant pressure beneath her skin.  

But Bruce’s words kept echoing in her mind.

“…see what life can be when you aren’t fighting.”

She didn’t trust it. Couldn’t. This wasn’t peace—it was a ceasefire. And in her experience, ceasefires never lasted.

And yet—

She found herself getting pulled in.  

Alysia had decided, without input or permission, that Taylor was hers to befriend. At first, Taylor tried the usual tactics—one-word answers, flat stares, strategic exits—but Alysia was relentless. A force of nature. She’d slide into the seat next to her with a sarcastic remark about their professor’s monotone tone or drop a heavily annotated book on the table with a pointed, “You’ll like this one. Less bullshit than the assigned reading.”

Then came the study group. Taylor had chosen the seat in the corner for a reason, but they absorbed her anyway—a disorganized mix of pre-law students and philosophy majors who argued about ethics like it was a blood sport. They borrowed her notes, left highlighted textbooks in her spot, and once, when she’d shown up with a split lip (an accident, she’d said, and no one pressed), Alysia wordlessly pushed a coffee toward her—extra-strong and black, just how Taylor had come to like it.

Small things. Insignificant things. The way the afternoon light slanted through the library windows. The taste of cheap fast food after an all-nighter. The sharp, startled burst of Alysia’s laughter when Taylor, finally pushed too far, delivered a perfectly timed deadpan insult to the most obnoxious guy in their group.

It was exhausting, pretending to fit in. Exhausting and terrifying, because the more she let herself want this—the more she let herself be this version of Taylor—the worse it would be when it all inevitably shattered.

But.

Some part of her—some stubborn, stupid part that still remembered how to be a person, not just a weapon, a savior—didn’t hate it as much as she expected.  

And that, more than anything, made her want to run.

Back to her version of normalcy. 

. . . . .

Batman monitored her from afar—silent, patient, and utterly relentless.

The Batcomputer’s screens flickered with security feeds, tracking her movements across Gotham University’s campus. Surveillance logs noted each deviation from routine, every late-night detour that brought her too close to the Narrows’ border. Informants—café baristas, librarians, beat cops—reported back without ever knowing why they’d been asked.

Did she smile often? (Rarely.)

Did she flinch at loud noises? (Only when exhausted.)

Had she made any friends? (One, maybe. A fellow student named Alysia.)

Bruce catalogued it all. The tension in her shoulders when a patrol car sped by. The way her fingers curled into fists at the sight of public scuffles, then slowly, painfully, uncurled when the authorities arrived. She hadn’t crossed the line back into vigilantism. Yet.

But he knew Taylor Hebert. Knew the shape of her rage, the obsession—familiarity—with violence. Knew she’d walked away from the gang war only to find the silence of peace suffocating. 

Maybe he was giving her too little credit, but he had seen it before. The ones who tried to walk away. The ones who told themselves they could stop.

It never lasted.

Maybe Taylor was different. Maybe she would prove him wrong.

But experience told him otherwise.

The Pit had brought her back. Gotham’s shadows had honed her. And now?  

She sat in lecture halls. Highlighted textbooks. Drank coffee with civilians.  

It was a good act. Almost convincing.  

So Batman watched. He waited.  

Because Taylor wasn’t the kind of person who could be content with inaction.  

And when she finally broke—  

—he’d be there.