Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •

VI - Bird in Flight

"Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe."- C. JoyBell C.

•••

"You can go." Jim said, leaning back against the counter in his kitchen and pausing to take a drink from his coffee. Looking to where Bird was checking the time, yet again, he added, "I know how important this is to you."

Bird sat her glass mug of coffee down on the table surface in front of where she was sitting at the uneven surface he was calling a kitchen table with lowered brows as she admitted, "Really? Just like that? And not one comment about how I shouldn't support a known criminal becoming the mayor?"

With a half-shrug, Jim gave her a silent smile through the steam rising from the coffee he was taking another sip from.

"Oh..." Bird realized, "I get it. You're not saying anything because you don't really think Oswald will win. Yet, you publicly supported Galavan when he ran for mayor-"

"I bought into his act." Jim loudly said over her, "I didn't know who he really was; no one did."

In a quieter voice he added, "But the whole city knows Oswald Cobblepot is a criminal. He was in Arkham."

"So was I." Bird was quick to point out.

"And so was Nygma." Jim stated, "And the three of you are the faces for this campaign run."

She caught the playful look in his eyes just seconds before the comment would have elicited anger from her.
He was joking -at least in part.

"Hmm." She hummed with a smile at him, "I think he's going to win the election."

Jim opened his mouth to tell her that he didn't want to spend the morning debating politics with her; especially when there was no possible way they were come to an agreement on the matter.
Not while she was still claiming Oswald as her best friend.

"We'll see." Jim replied with yet another shrug.

Bird stared at him in silence as she took another drink of her coffee.

Did he really not already suspect the election was going to be rigged? That money was padding the pockets of people with the power to make sure Oswald was going to be the city's new mayor?

After everything Jim had gone through and there was still a part of him that believed the law would win; Bird didn't have a clue how people could hold onto hope like that.

"Yep." She nodded, "We'll see."

Jim's eyes narrowed inquisitively at her.
There it was again. The feeling that she knew more than he did and wasn't planning on filling him in.

He watched her as she again checked the time.
A press conference-slash-rally for Oswald's campaign was starting in about an hour and Bird had made it a point to tell him this more than once that morning. Offering just as many times to accompany him to the police station instead of going to the political event.

The last they'd spoke of it, he'd assured her he'd be fine to head to the police station alone and she said she was going to the rally but would keep her phone on the entire time if he needed something.

Yet here they sat nearly an hour after coming to that agreement and she hadn't taken a step closer to the door.

He was about to reassure he was going straight to the police station to talk to Alice and see what she knew about how to break the spell her brother had put him under, when there was a knock at the door.

Setting the cup of the coffee down on the counter, he walked over to answer it.

"Morning." Bullock loudly greeted as Jim opened the door.
His former partner breezed inside the house past him.