THE SHADOW OF SINNERS | how many times do people have to fall into the darkness to try and find the light?
BRUCE WAYNE x FEM!OC
PART OF THE SINNERVERSE
The Batman, 2022
August 22nd, 2020 - ???
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IF YOU HAD ASKED HARLOW FINLEY WHAT HER WEDDING DAY WOULD LOOK LIKE, EVEN A MONTH AGO, HER STORY WOULD BE SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM THE ONE IN FRONT OF HER. Of course, she was still in the planning phase, but she never expected her wedding to look like this. Not in the manner of how her wedding looked physically, no, she was pulling out everything she had always wanted in a wedding. All of the decorations and colors were straight out of her childhood dream wedding. But marrying her best friend just to have a memory with her father? That had never been in the wedding scrapbook she made in elementary school. Having her father there with her has always been a constant, never anything she thought to question. Not when he had gone to everything before when he was feeling okay not even three months ago. He had been fine, until the minute he wasn't. And suddenly Harlow Finley's entire life was uprooted. Her entire life changed and she saw everything flash before her eyes. The grand wedding she had always planned on, with the purple and pink color scheme, and her father walking her down the aisle to an instrumental cover of her favorite song, her childhood dream had gone up in flames.
What made it worse, she had nothing to be angry at. No one to be mad at. No one except the world and life itself. But you can't curse the world, no matter how hard you try. It just comes back to bite you in the ass. At least, that was Harlow's experience with the world. Some people had good relationships with the world, with life itself, Harlow Finley wanted to understand that odd place that people existed in. How they could be so content with something so cruel? So evil. Then again, some people thrived in the evil of Gotham City. Some people could only survive in the shadows, with the darkness that poured from their souls. Sometimes that darkness was the only thing a person could see, the only thing a person knew. Harlow Finley had never been a person who thrived in the darkness. No, she had always been someone who blossomed in the light. It's why Gotham City was stifling to her, the city-bred darkness and darkness only. So dealing with this? Dealing with something as dark as her thoughts at this moment? It was something she was woefully unprepared for.
Bruce had always been the better of the two when it came to the darkness. Harlow Finley confided in him for lots of things, trying to find a way to even begin to survive in the growing darkness. Especially now, she found herself wishing he had words of wisdom for her. He was the only person she knew who had lost his parents; the only person she would trust with her feelings and her current thoughts. The only person who could give her advice that she would be willing to follow through. But even then, even with his guiding hand and words of wisdom, she knew this journey was something only she could travel through. Something she had to go through alone because no one had been under the same circumstances as she. Not many people were getting married to their best friend for their dying father to walk them down the aisle. No, most people getting married to their best friend were doing it because of love.
And Harlow Finley wouldn't deny her feelings for Bruce Wayne. It had taken her years to come to terms with them. Taken her dating another guy to understand that she felt a little something more than just friendship for him. Bruce Wayne was a part of her soul, whether she had planned for it or not. But, he would never feel the same. Or, maybe, he had at one point. Either way, Harlow Finley felt like her chance had passed when it came to him. She was too old for silly crushes, Harlow Finley was past the point of having her heart beat quicker in her chest at the mere sight of a boy. If he had liked her, he would have said something. Especially now, they were both older adults who understood what they were feeling. It's why Harlow never said a thing. She was in love with him, she knew that much, but he wasn't in love with her (and as much as it hurt, she wasn't going to cry over it, she couldn't change the way he feels).
