Sofia’s laugh comes out short and dry, like something scraped from the bottom of her throat. It's sudden and genuine, loud enough that a couple at the next table glances over nervously.
"The cruellest man in Albion is sitting in front of me worried about whether I know his reputation?" She's still grinning, showing teeth. "That's precious."
She grabs the wine bottle, gestures with it. she repeats, tasting the word. Her eyes narrow slightly, reassessing him with fresh interest. "Different rules. Different game."
She leans back, one hand still on the wine bottle, the other drumming fingers against the tablecloth. "Cruellest man." There's something almost appreciative in her tone now. "And you came to Gotham." A pause. "Running from something? Or running to something? Because this city doesn't import cruelty. We've got plenty homegrown. You know I'm the Hangman."
"A girl so bad that I was closed up for ten years. But I'm out now," Her grin sharpens into something meaner. "On good behaviour." she repeats, savoring the melodrama. She takes another pull from the bottle, eyes never leaving his face.
"I gave you the keys to the city to see what you'd do with them. I didn’t hand you them as a gift,” she continues, voice level. “I handed you a map. There’s a difference. Not what you might have done or did somewhere else."
Worried is a strong word, but Sofia is talking so he stays quiet. To listen. To gather information in what she says and doesn't say. In how she gestures as she asks him questions and shares her own moniker.
The Hangman. It sounds violent. Violent enough for her to be locked away. Though ten years doesn't sound like enough for murder despite the implied finality. He'll have to investigate further.
He sips his wine slowly, pointedly, from his glass before asking, "And are you? Cruel?"
Sofia stops mid-drink. The bottle hovers near her lips for a moment before she lowers it slowly, deliberately.
"Does it matter?" She sets the bottle down with a soft clink. "Everyone already decided I am. Judge, jury, the whole city of Gotham."
She picks at something stuck between her teeth again, casual.
"Ten years in Arkham for murders I didn't commit." Her voice stays flat, factual. "But I learned something in there—doesn't matter what you actually are. Matters what people think you are."
She meets his eyes directly.
"So if it keeps people sharp around me? If it makes them careful?" A smile ghosts across her face. "Then yeah. I'm cruel as hell."
Logan tilts his head as he considers Sofia thoughtfully. He sympathises with that, the pain of being seen as something you're not. Or in his case, he hadn't intended on being. Though if what Sofia says is true, she only earned her reputation later.
"How strange... I learned the opposite."
He sips his wine, wondering how much of Sofia had bought into the role she'd been thrust into. How much she enjoyed it, and how much she wished she could get rid of it all.
"I learned that people could decide I was cruel, terrible, a monster... and that it didn't matter. As long as I reached my goal, I could endure things I never imagined, I could do things I never could have conceived of before."
He'd heard that people were versatile, that humans were capable of strength, of surviving against all odds. It was a common enough sentiment, and yet he hadn't really understood it until the last few years of his reign.
"I'm not known here, and I'm happy to keep it that way. As long as I can do what I like. And if people decide to tell stories about me? I suppose I'm in good company, then."
Sofia’s mouth twists, not into a smile—into a decision. She nudges her empty plate an inch like it annoys her for being done.
“How noble,” she says, and the words come out like an insult. “You learned it doesn’t matter what they call you.”
She taps the bottle with one fingernail. Tick. Tick. Then she shrugs, slow and careless.
“Good,” she says. “Keep yourself unknown. Makes it harder to get a read on.”
She grabs what's left in the wine bottle, drains it completely, sets it down with a thunk. “You can endure being called a monster. Beautiful.”
Her eyes cut back to him. “But you didn’t come to Gotham for peace and privacy. Nobody crosses an ocean for that. Here's the thing about not being known—it only lasts until you do something." She gestures around the restaurant.
Sofia sets the bottle down. “So. What do you like to do with a city once you’ve got your hands on it?”
Logan tips his head to one side just slightly, allowing a sigh through his nose instead of pressed thin lips. The irony in her trying to provoke him after he just explained how little the words of others matter shines brightly. Really. After the gift she gave him, he's sure she knows better.
Where she is full of movement, he remains still and quiet. Watching her fidget and comment and eye him over. Watching her size him up. It's not like this is the first time, it's just a different way of going about it.
The question is met with a raised eyebrow that hints at amusement. "You wouldn't prefer to find out when it happens?"
Sofia actually grins at that. Real, sharp, delighted.
“‘When it happens,’” she repeats. “That’s what men say right before they pretend it was inevitable.”
She flicks an invisible crumb off the tablecloth. “I’m not asking because I’m impatient. I’m asking because I want to know what kind of mess I’m standing next to.”
Sofia’s gaze pins him. “So. What do you like to do with a city?”
The grin surprises him a little, but as Sofia explains, Logan's expression settles into a soft smile. It's a fair description of him. A mess. And a fair question.
Another slow exhale and he finishes the last of his wine, signalling to a waiter for another bottle. "I'm going to disappoint you."
Not that he's concerned by the fact. He never asked for the plans. She took a gamble giving them away. Logan's pretty sure she lost that bet, whatever it was.
He waits for the bottle to appear and his glass to be refilled before he continues, so that they won't be interrupted.
"Gotham isn't my city," he tells her. "It's not mine. I don't have any desire to rule it." He takes another, slower sip of wine, pausing for a moment. "But there are things in Gotham which don't belong here. Things which need to be removed. That's what I'm interested in."
Sofia goes very still. The performance drops for just a moment, and something calculating slides into place behind her eyes.
"Things that don't belong," she says softly. Almost to herself. She taps the table twice, slow. “Things that don’t belong,” she repeats. “That’s a crusader’s sentence.”
She sets down the wine glass she'd just picked up.
"See, that's interesting. Because I spent ten years being told I didn't belong in Gotham. That I needed to be removed." Her voice stays level, but there's steel underneath. "Locked away where I couldn't hurt anyone."
Her gaze cuts sideways, then back. “Gotham’s full of things that ‘don’t belong.’ Half the city thinks the other half is an infection.”
She tilts her head.
"So when you say you're interested in removing things..." She lets it hang there. "How do you decide what belongs and what doesn't? Whose list are you working off of, Logan. Yours—” she pauses, letting it sharpen, “—or someone else’s?”
Albion means the world to Logan. If he'd been told he didn't belong there for ten years, it would have made him sharp too. Wary of anyone repeating the words that had caused so much pain.
"People aren't things," he tells her quietly but firmly. "If Albion wants people to return, the queen can command it. I'm only interested in items. Objects."
The people getting in his way won't be treated kindly, but it won't be what he sets out to do. There are enough murderers in the world, in Gotham, without him becoming one too.
Sofia goes quiet long enough that the restaurant noise sneaks back in around them. Sofia’s expression softens into something that could almost pass for polite, if her eyes weren’t so hard.
“People aren’t things,” she echoes, and the words come out like she’s testing the taste. “That’s adorable. Don’t say it too loud in this city.”
“Good,” she says. “Because if you’d said you were here to ‘remove’ people, I’d have taken that personally.”
She reaches over and hooks a finger against the edge of the bread basket, dragging it closer like she owns it. “Objects.”
Her gaze hardens. “You understand how that sounds here, right? Like you’re either lying—” a beat, “—or you’re naive.”
Sofia tilts her head. “So which is it, Logan? Are you hiding what you want… or do you honestly think an object can be separated cleanly from the bodies around it?”
She drums her nails once on the tablecloth. “Items. Fine. Then you won’t mind being specific. What items. What do they do. Who has them. And what happens to whoever’s holding them when you show up?”
People aren't things. It's something he's being very careful to remind himself as he tries to untangle the thinking he fell into while on the throne. Sofia wouldn't understand that. Who would?
He continues to watch and listen quietly while she judges him aloud, and asks questions he's not entirely sure she cares to hear the answers to. It's easier, he's finding, to just wait until she addresses him directly.
"I'm not going to tell you that." Partly because he still has research to do. Mostly because he doesn't want her interfering. She seems the type who would. "I will say that I intend to do things as cleanly as possible, because it's easier when it can be clean. If not?" He tilts his head in a shrug. "I will get things done regardless."
Then he fixes her with a look of his own, so she knows he's being entirely serious. "But whatever I do, it is in everyone's best interests that I succeed."
Sofia laughs—one hard bark—and a couple heads turn again. She doesn’t bother lowering her voice.
“You’re not going to tell me,” she says, savoring it. “But you are going to tell me it’s for my own good.”
She nods slowly, as if he’s finally spoken a language she recognizes. “Okay. So this is how it is.” Sofia wipes her fingers on the napkin and leaves it ruined. “You don’t want interference. You want access.”
Her eyes stay locked on him. “Then understand something: ‘clean’ is a fairy tale people sell to justify blood.”
She tilts her head, reaches for the wine bottle, finds it empty, and sets it down with a pointed little click. “You don’t want me interfering because you think I’m chaotic.” Her mouth curls. “I am. But I’m also local.”
Logan tops up his wine and then places the newer bottle closer to Sofia. He asked her here to thank her, after all. Making sure she has enough wine is the least he can do.
Besides, it gives her something to do while she talks, and she does like to talk. It's a curious thing, being spoken to as if he doesn't know how that the illusion of polite society is just that: An illusion. This is a different canvas, but the same painting.
"I don't want you interfering because you're chaotic," he confirms. "And because there's a chance that anyone who interacts with the objects I'm looking for will live a very short and painful death." He sips his wine, allowing a pause. "I don't particularly wish that upon you."
Sofia’s laugh doesn’t come this time. She just stares, unblinking, and the restaurant suddenly feels too quiet around them.“Aw,” Sofia says, deadpan. “Chivalry.”
His warning lands and she lets it settle, eyes narrowing—not fear, just recalculation. Short and painful. Objects. Death. So it’s not just theft; it’s a curse with teeth, or enemies with a policy.
“How considerate,” she says softly. “You don’t wish it upon me.”
She reaches for the wine and pours herself a glass for the first time—slow, controlled, almost ceremonial—then drinks, mannerly, Falcone prissy like the woman she was before she went behind bars. “I didn’t ask what you wish,” she says. “I asked what you’re doing.”
She taps the table once. “So you’re not protecting me. You’re protecting your plan.”
The switch-up is impossible to miss. Glaring like sunlight on the sea. He wonders if it's to distract him, or to try another tactic. Whatever it is, he doesn't react. Simply watches.
If she wants to hear his pragmatism, very well. "I'm protecting my plan. I'm protecting myself. I'm protecting a potential ally."
He narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "I'm not sure what you hope to gain from knowing my plans. An upper hand? The first chance at an opportunity?"
Sofia’s eyes flick once, amused—at the word ally, and sets her glass down with the same careful precision she picked it up with.
"Protecting a potential ally," she says. "That's very tidy."
She picks up her glass again, takes a measured sip.
"What I hope to gain is simple." She leans back, swirling her wine. "I gave you something first, Logan. That's not desperation. That's investment." She drinks. "I want to know what it bought me."
"You're walking around Gotham with dangerous objects and no local knowledge except what fits on a map." Her tone is even. "Maps don't tell you who owns a building in practice versus on paper. They don't tell you which streets flood when it rains or which warehouses the GCPD pretend not to see."
Her eyes meet his directly.
"That's what you don't have. And that's what I'm deciding whether to offer."
She's right, of course. Local knowledge is invaluable. She might have given him academic information, but that doesn't provide an understanding of the living, breathing city.
Logan considers her carefully. His hand remains touching the base of his wine glass, but he doesn't move to lift it.
He could find out some of the information himself, through slow and painful trial and error. The alternative would be to work with Sofia somehow. Which would mean trusting her. He doesn't. He doesn't know her enough to trust her. Can't predict her enough to trust her.
"What did you hope it bought you?" His eyes scan her face but it gives nothing away. "I'm not sure what I could offer you that would be of interest. I suspect that you're not looking for money, or that I have any influence you would be interested in."
Sofia's mouth curves. Not a smile exactly—something cooler than that. She shakes her head once.
“You really do that thing,” she says. “You act like the only currencies are cash and favors.”
"Money," she repeats, like the word tastes funny. "I'm a Falcone. I don't need your money."
She sets her glass down, the mannerly performance still intact but thinner now—something real underneath pushing against it.
"And influence." She tilts her head. "I've got influence. What I had taken from me was legitimacy." Her voice stays even. "Ten years in Arkham for murders I didn't commit. My name dragged through every paper in this city. My family, well."
She picks at an invisible imperfection on the tablecloth.
"So what did I hope it bought me?" Her eyes come back up to his, direct. “I hoped it bought me relevance,” Sofia says plainly. “I spent ten years being treated like a cautionary tale. I’m not doing that again.”
She takes another sip. “And I hoped it bought me safety. Not from you—don’t flatter yourself. From whatever you’re dragging behind you.”
She sets the glass down with a soft click. “You do have something I want: the chance to choose the shape of what comes next.”
“I want leverage. I want warning. I want a veto when your ‘clean’ turns into bodies on my doorstep.” A pause. “And I want to know what you’re taking out of Gotham, because if it detonates, it detonates here. Not in Albion.”
Sofia’s eyes narrow. “You can offer me honesty in increments. Start with one: what happens if you fail.”
He doesn't correct her. Doesn't point out all the things which he knows are useful in a trade. Let her think he knows so little, that works in his favour. It's more important that she latches onto those things. Money and influence. Easy things to trade. Things he has in abundance. Distractions.
The important thing is he doesn't give her ideas, and she focuses on what she wants, not what she could have. Whatever he does here, he doesn't want it to affect Albion.
Besides, this way he can find out what she's really hoping for. It's not what he expected... but Sofia doesn't care about expectations.
Logan considers her request quietly for a moment. There's a good chance she'll be the one thinking he should end up in Arkham if he's honest with her. But she did ask. And he might as well offer a warning.
"Perhaps nothing," he answers honestly. "Perhaps everything will continue on as it has always done, and nothing changes."
Then his voice and expression hardens. "But if it doesn't... If someone manages to use one of these items... Then either someone becomes very powerful, very quickly. Or they unlock a destructive power which will lay waste to Gotham, along with everyone in it, and continue to spread unless it is stopped."
Sofia stares at him with the stillness of someone who's learned not to react in front of witnesses. Even witnesses she half-trusts.
She looks down at the ruined napkin, the wine-stained tablecloth, the debris of a dinner that became something else entirely.
"Either someone becomes very powerful," she repeats, "or Gotham burns."
She sets her glass down. Folds her hands in her lap.
"You know what's funny?" Her voice is dry. "I thought you were a retrieval job. Complicated, dangerous, probably messy—but contained." She glances up at him. "But this isn't contained, is it. This was never going to be contained."
"And you came here alone." It isn't an accusation, exactly. More like she's reading a document and finding an error. "You came here alone, without telling anyone what you were carrying or what you were looking for, and you took city maps from a woman you'd never met."
Her voice stays even but something sharp is working behind her eyes.
"I've been called reckless." She shakes her head, one small movement. "Logan. That's not clean. That's not careful." A pause. "That's someone who doesn't actually expect to fail."
Someone who doesn't expect to fail. He could almost laugh. Failure is almost guaranteed. At some point. If he succeeds in finding the most dangerous items, there's always the possibility that he won't return.
He simply doesn't care.
Because it would be worth it. To rid the world of more of the Darkness. He cannot serve Albion from the throne, but he can like this. And just as when he was king, he'll accept the consequences.
"This needs to be done quietly," he says instead of answering her question. "If people here knew what I was doing, they would be compelled to prove me wrong. Which means they would do dangerous things. Better nobody know why I'm here, or what I'm looking for. A piece of art isn't dangerous if that's all people think it is. They look at it, they leave it alone."
He sips his wine, wondering if she'll understand when he says, "Sometimes the best course is not to say anything. Sometimes a gentle touch is safest."
Sofia listens without interrupting. That’s the only concession she makes: silence. Everything else about her stays pointed—posture too straight, expression too controlled, eyes too awake. She picks up her glass, doesn't drink—just holds it, looking at him over the rim.
"You didn't answer my question," she says.
Not aggressive. Just noting it. Filing it away.
She sets the glass down and looks at the table between them, thinking. When she speaks again her voice is measured, and the mannerly Sofia is all the way back now, precise and contained and more dangerous for it.
"You're right that loud gets people killed." She adjusts the stem of her glass slightly, a small, controlled movement. "I know that. I've watched this city eat itself over things people should have left alone."
She looks up at him.
"But you just told me Gotham could burn." Her voice stays even. "And you want me to trust that you're handling it quietly." A pause, deliberate. "With no backup. No one who knows what you're doing. And a map I gave you six days ago."
She folds her hands on the table. The ruined napkin sits just outside her careful posture like evidence of who she'd been an hour ago.
"A gentle touch," she repeats. "Fine. I can be gentle." Her eyes don't move from his face. "But I need to know you're not walking into something you can't walk out of. Not because I care what happens to you, Logan—" a beat, "—but because if you fail, that's my city."
He did not answer her question. Nor does he intend to unless pushed. Not when he knows she won't like the answer. Wouldn't like any answer he might give.
The shift is impossible to miss. Highlighting how much of what she presents is simply a tool to get what she wants. He can't begrudge her that. Doesn't he do the same with his mannerisms? How often does he glare or stay silent or arch an eyebrow to apply unspoken pressure to his companion? Too often to count.
There's no point using any of that on Sofia. She'd see right through it, he could tell from the start.
"There are only two people who have walked into the heart of this danger and survived. I am one of them. If I can find these objects, I can make sure they're destroyed or contained safely."
He tilts his head, gaze still locked on hers. "But there is no one else who can help. There is no backup. There is me, or no one."
"I can provide you with details, delayed so you cannot interfere but not so much that you are blindsided. As a courtesy. You can help as you wish, if you wish, or not at all. Gotham is not my city, but I don't wish for its destruction."
Sofia holds her composure like it’s something she can spend, and she doesn’t spend it yet. Two people survived. One of them sitting in front of her. The other one unspoken. She notes the shape of that omission and files it away beside all the rest.
“There is me, or no one,” Sofia repeats, and the words come out soft with disbelief—then sharpen into something uglier. “Ego with nicer lighting, then.”
She lifts her glass and finally drinks, a small, precise sip. When she sets it down, it’s perfectly centered. Controlled. Mannerly. A knife laid neatly on a napkin.She picks up her wine glass. Drinks. Sets it down.
"Delayed details," she says. The words come out flat, but she's thinking behind them, working the shape of what he's offering. "So I can't get in the way, but I'm not blindsided when your 'clean' turns into something I have to explain to the GCPD."
Her fingers rest against the stem of the glass without gripping it.
"Fine," she says. Not capitulation, assessment. "That's workable."
She looks at him directly.
Her gaze stays on him, unblinking. “You don’t get to call it a courtesy when it’s a leash.”
A pause—then her voice turns practical, almost bored.
“Fine,” Sofia says again. “You want quiet with structure? Here’s structure.”
She ticks it off with her fingers, counting like an accountant tallying a debt.
“First: you give me a twenty-four hour window and a neighborhood. Not an address. A neighborhood. So I can keep my people away and keep yours from getting lost.” “Second: if you’re compromised, you send one word, which we ca agree on, and you leave. I don’t care what you’re holding. You leave.”
“Third: if I hear about a ‘piece of art’ moving through the wrong hands, I act. Not to interfere. To contain the fallout. If I find out you've let something detonate in my city because you were too proud to ask for help in time, the details you give me become something else entirely."
She doesn't name what. Doesn't need to. Sofia’s mouth puckers, slightly.
“And in return,” she says, “you get what you actually came for: the living map. Judges, cops, flooded streets, whose warehouse is really whose, which corners are watched and which ones are hungry.”
She lets the silence stretch, then adds, quieter:
“You say you don’t wish for Gotham’s destruction. Great. Prove it.”
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no subject
"The cruellest man in Albion is sitting in front of me worried about whether I know his reputation?" She's still grinning, showing teeth. "That's precious."
She grabs the wine bottle, gestures with it. she repeats, tasting the word. Her eyes narrow slightly, reassessing him with fresh interest. "Different rules. Different game."
She leans back, one hand still on the wine bottle, the other drumming fingers against the tablecloth. "Cruellest man." There's something almost appreciative in her tone now. "And you came to Gotham." A pause. "Running from something? Or running to something? Because this city doesn't import cruelty. We've got plenty homegrown. You know I'm the Hangman."
"A girl so bad that I was closed up for ten years. But I'm out now," Her grin sharpens into something meaner. "On good behaviour." she repeats, savoring the melodrama. She takes another pull from the bottle, eyes never leaving his face.
"I gave you the keys to the city to see what you'd do with them. I didn’t hand you them as a gift,” she continues, voice level. “I handed you a map. There’s a difference. Not what you might have done or did somewhere else."
no subject
The Hangman. It sounds violent. Violent enough for her to be locked away. Though ten years doesn't sound like enough for murder despite the implied finality. He'll have to investigate further.
He sips his wine slowly, pointedly, from his glass before asking, "And are you? Cruel?"
no subject
"Does it matter?" She sets the bottle down with a soft clink. "Everyone already decided I am. Judge, jury, the whole city of Gotham."
She picks at something stuck between her teeth again, casual.
"Ten years in Arkham for murders I didn't commit." Her voice stays flat, factual. "But I learned something in there—doesn't matter what you actually are. Matters what people think you are."
She meets his eyes directly.
"So if it keeps people sharp around me? If it makes them careful?" A smile ghosts across her face. "Then yeah. I'm cruel as hell."
no subject
"How strange... I learned the opposite."
He sips his wine, wondering how much of Sofia had bought into the role she'd been thrust into. How much she enjoyed it, and how much she wished she could get rid of it all.
"I learned that people could decide I was cruel, terrible, a monster... and that it didn't matter. As long as I reached my goal, I could endure things I never imagined, I could do things I never could have conceived of before."
He'd heard that people were versatile, that humans were capable of strength, of surviving against all odds. It was a common enough sentiment, and yet he hadn't really understood it until the last few years of his reign.
"I'm not known here, and I'm happy to keep it that way. As long as I can do what I like. And if people decide to tell stories about me? I suppose I'm in good company, then."
no subject
“How noble,” she says, and the words come out like an insult. “You learned it doesn’t matter what they call you.”
She taps the bottle with one fingernail. Tick. Tick. Then she shrugs, slow and careless.
“Good,” she says. “Keep yourself unknown. Makes it harder to get a read on.”
She grabs what's left in the wine bottle, drains it completely, sets it down with a thunk. “You can endure being called a monster. Beautiful.”
Her eyes cut back to him. “But you didn’t come to Gotham for peace and privacy. Nobody crosses an ocean for that. Here's the thing about not being known—it only lasts until you do something." She gestures around the restaurant.
Sofia sets the bottle down. “So. What do you like to do with a city once you’ve got your hands on it?”
no subject
Where she is full of movement, he remains still and quiet. Watching her fidget and comment and eye him over. Watching her size him up. It's not like this is the first time, it's just a different way of going about it.
The question is met with a raised eyebrow that hints at amusement. "You wouldn't prefer to find out when it happens?"
no subject
“‘When it happens,’” she repeats. “That’s what men say right before they pretend it was inevitable.”
She flicks an invisible crumb off the tablecloth. “I’m not asking because I’m impatient. I’m asking because I want to know what kind of mess I’m standing next to.”
Sofia’s gaze pins him. “So. What do you like to do with a city?”
no subject
Another slow exhale and he finishes the last of his wine, signalling to a waiter for another bottle. "I'm going to disappoint you."
Not that he's concerned by the fact. He never asked for the plans. She took a gamble giving them away. Logan's pretty sure she lost that bet, whatever it was.
He waits for the bottle to appear and his glass to be refilled before he continues, so that they won't be interrupted.
"Gotham isn't my city," he tells her. "It's not mine. I don't have any desire to rule it." He takes another, slower sip of wine, pausing for a moment. "But there are things in Gotham which don't belong here. Things which need to be removed. That's what I'm interested in."
no subject
"Things that don't belong," she says softly. Almost to herself. She taps the table twice, slow. “Things that don’t belong,” she repeats. “That’s a crusader’s sentence.”
She sets down the wine glass she'd just picked up.
"See, that's interesting. Because I spent ten years being told I didn't belong in Gotham. That I needed to be removed." Her voice stays level, but there's steel underneath. "Locked away where I couldn't hurt anyone."
Her gaze cuts sideways, then back. “Gotham’s full of things that ‘don’t belong.’ Half the city thinks the other half is an infection.”
She tilts her head.
"So when you say you're interested in removing things..." She lets it hang there. "How do you decide what belongs and what doesn't? Whose list are you working off of, Logan. Yours—” she pauses, letting it sharpen, “—or someone else’s?”
no subject
"People aren't things," he tells her quietly but firmly. "If Albion wants people to return, the queen can command it. I'm only interested in items. Objects."
The people getting in his way won't be treated kindly, but it won't be what he sets out to do. There are enough murderers in the world, in Gotham, without him becoming one too.
no subject
“People aren’t things,” she echoes, and the words come out like she’s testing the taste. “That’s adorable. Don’t say it too loud in this city.”
“Good,” she says. “Because if you’d said you were here to ‘remove’ people, I’d have taken that personally.”
She reaches over and hooks a finger against the edge of the bread basket, dragging it closer like she owns it. “Objects.”
Her gaze hardens. “You understand how that sounds here, right? Like you’re either lying—” a beat, “—or you’re naive.”
Sofia tilts her head. “So which is it, Logan? Are you hiding what you want… or do you honestly think an object can be separated cleanly from the bodies around it?”
She drums her nails once on the tablecloth. “Items. Fine. Then you won’t mind being specific. What items. What do they do. Who has them. And what happens to whoever’s holding them when you show up?”
no subject
He continues to watch and listen quietly while she judges him aloud, and asks questions he's not entirely sure she cares to hear the answers to. It's easier, he's finding, to just wait until she addresses him directly.
"I'm not going to tell you that." Partly because he still has research to do. Mostly because he doesn't want her interfering. She seems the type who would. "I will say that I intend to do things as cleanly as possible, because it's easier when it can be clean. If not?" He tilts his head in a shrug. "I will get things done regardless."
Then he fixes her with a look of his own, so she knows he's being entirely serious. "But whatever I do, it is in everyone's best interests that I succeed."
no subject
Sofia laughs—one hard bark—and a couple heads turn again. She doesn’t bother lowering her voice.
“You’re not going to tell me,” she says, savoring it. “But you are going to tell me it’s for my own good.”
She nods slowly, as if he’s finally spoken a language she recognizes. “Okay. So this is how it is.” Sofia wipes her fingers on the napkin and leaves it ruined. “You don’t want interference. You want access.”
Her eyes stay locked on him. “Then understand something: ‘clean’ is a fairy tale people sell to justify blood.”
She tilts her head, reaches for the wine bottle, finds it empty, and sets it down with a pointed little click. “You don’t want me interfering because you think I’m chaotic.” Her mouth curls. “I am. But I’m also local.”
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Besides, it gives her something to do while she talks, and she does like to talk. It's a curious thing, being spoken to as if he doesn't know how that the illusion of polite society is just that: An illusion. This is a different canvas, but the same painting.
"I don't want you interfering because you're chaotic," he confirms. "And because there's a chance that anyone who interacts with the objects I'm looking for will live a very short and painful death." He sips his wine, allowing a pause. "I don't particularly wish that upon you."
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His warning lands and she lets it settle, eyes narrowing—not fear, just recalculation. Short and painful. Objects. Death. So it’s not just theft; it’s a curse with teeth, or enemies with a policy.
“How considerate,” she says softly. “You don’t wish it upon me.”
She reaches for the wine and pours herself a glass for the first time—slow, controlled, almost ceremonial—then drinks, mannerly, Falcone prissy like the woman she was before she went behind bars. “I didn’t ask what you wish,” she says. “I asked what you’re doing.”
She taps the table once. “So you’re not protecting me. You’re protecting your plan.”
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If she wants to hear his pragmatism, very well. "I'm protecting my plan. I'm protecting myself. I'm protecting a potential ally."
He narrows his eyes thoughtfully. "I'm not sure what you hope to gain from knowing my plans. An upper hand? The first chance at an opportunity?"
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"Protecting a potential ally," she says. "That's very tidy."
She picks up her glass again, takes a measured sip.
"What I hope to gain is simple." She leans back, swirling her wine. "I gave you something first, Logan. That's not desperation. That's investment." She drinks. "I want to know what it bought me."
"You're walking around Gotham with dangerous objects and no local knowledge except what fits on a map." Her tone is even. "Maps don't tell you who owns a building in practice versus on paper. They don't tell you which streets flood when it rains or which warehouses the GCPD pretend not to see."
Her eyes meet his directly.
"That's what you don't have. And that's what I'm deciding whether to offer."
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Logan considers her carefully. His hand remains touching the base of his wine glass, but he doesn't move to lift it.
He could find out some of the information himself, through slow and painful trial and error. The alternative would be to work with Sofia somehow. Which would mean trusting her. He doesn't. He doesn't know her enough to trust her. Can't predict her enough to trust her.
"What did you hope it bought you?" His eyes scan her face but it gives nothing away. "I'm not sure what I could offer you that would be of interest. I suspect that you're not looking for money, or that I have any influence you would be interested in."
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“You really do that thing,” she says. “You act like the only currencies are cash and favors.”
"Money," she repeats, like the word tastes funny. "I'm a Falcone. I don't need your money."
She sets her glass down, the mannerly performance still intact but thinner now—something real underneath pushing against it.
"And influence." She tilts her head. "I've got influence. What I had taken from me was legitimacy." Her voice stays even. "Ten years in Arkham for murders I didn't commit. My name dragged through every paper in this city. My family, well."
She picks at an invisible imperfection on the tablecloth.
"So what did I hope it bought me?" Her eyes come back up to his, direct. “I hoped it bought me relevance,” Sofia says plainly. “I spent ten years being treated like a cautionary tale. I’m not doing that again.”
She takes another sip. “And I hoped it bought me safety. Not from you—don’t flatter yourself. From whatever you’re dragging behind you.”
She sets the glass down with a soft click. “You do have something I want: the chance to choose the shape of what comes next.”
“I want leverage. I want warning. I want a veto when your ‘clean’ turns into bodies on my doorstep.” A pause. “And I want to know what you’re taking out of Gotham, because if it detonates, it detonates here. Not in Albion.”
Sofia’s eyes narrow. “You can offer me honesty in increments. Start with one: what happens if you fail.”
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The important thing is he doesn't give her ideas, and she focuses on what she wants, not what she could have. Whatever he does here, he doesn't want it to affect Albion.
Besides, this way he can find out what she's really hoping for. It's not what he expected... but Sofia doesn't care about expectations.
Logan considers her request quietly for a moment. There's a good chance she'll be the one thinking he should end up in Arkham if he's honest with her. But she did ask. And he might as well offer a warning.
"Perhaps nothing," he answers honestly. "Perhaps everything will continue on as it has always done, and nothing changes."
Then his voice and expression hardens. "But if it doesn't... If someone manages to use one of these items... Then either someone becomes very powerful, very quickly. Or they unlock a destructive power which will lay waste to Gotham, along with everyone in it, and continue to spread unless it is stopped."
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She looks down at the ruined napkin, the wine-stained tablecloth, the debris of a dinner that became something else entirely.
"Either someone becomes very powerful," she repeats, "or Gotham burns."
She sets her glass down. Folds her hands in her lap.
"You know what's funny?" Her voice is dry. "I thought you were a retrieval job. Complicated, dangerous, probably messy—but contained." She glances up at him. "But this isn't contained, is it. This was never going to be contained."
"And you came here alone." It isn't an accusation, exactly. More like she's reading a document and finding an error. "You came here alone, without telling anyone what you were carrying or what you were looking for, and you took city maps from a woman you'd never met."
Her voice stays even but something sharp is working behind her eyes.
"I've been called reckless." She shakes her head, one small movement. "Logan. That's not clean. That's not careful." A pause. "That's someone who doesn't actually expect to fail."
Her eyes narrow.
"Do you?"
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He simply doesn't care.
Because it would be worth it. To rid the world of more of the Darkness. He cannot serve Albion from the throne, but he can like this. And just as when he was king, he'll accept the consequences.
"This needs to be done quietly," he says instead of answering her question. "If people here knew what I was doing, they would be compelled to prove me wrong. Which means they would do dangerous things. Better nobody know why I'm here, or what I'm looking for. A piece of art isn't dangerous if that's all people think it is. They look at it, they leave it alone."
He sips his wine, wondering if she'll understand when he says, "Sometimes the best course is not to say anything. Sometimes a gentle touch is safest."
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"You didn't answer my question," she says.
Not aggressive. Just noting it. Filing it away.
She sets the glass down and looks at the table between them, thinking. When she speaks again her voice is measured, and the mannerly Sofia is all the way back now, precise and contained and more dangerous for it.
"You're right that loud gets people killed." She adjusts the stem of her glass slightly, a small, controlled movement. "I know that. I've watched this city eat itself over things people should have left alone."
She looks up at him.
"But you just told me Gotham could burn." Her voice stays even. "And you want me to trust that you're handling it quietly." A pause, deliberate. "With no backup. No one who knows what you're doing. And a map I gave you six days ago."
She folds her hands on the table. The ruined napkin sits just outside her careful posture like evidence of who she'd been an hour ago.
"A gentle touch," she repeats. "Fine. I can be gentle." Her eyes don't move from his face. "But I need to know you're not walking into something you can't walk out of. Not because I care what happens to you, Logan—" a beat, "—but because if you fail, that's my city."
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The shift is impossible to miss. Highlighting how much of what she presents is simply a tool to get what she wants. He can't begrudge her that. Doesn't he do the same with his mannerisms? How often does he glare or stay silent or arch an eyebrow to apply unspoken pressure to his companion? Too often to count.
There's no point using any of that on Sofia. She'd see right through it, he could tell from the start.
"There are only two people who have walked into the heart of this danger and survived. I am one of them. If I can find these objects, I can make sure they're destroyed or contained safely."
He tilts his head, gaze still locked on hers. "But there is no one else who can help. There is no backup. There is me, or no one."
"I can provide you with details, delayed so you cannot interfere but not so much that you are blindsided. As a courtesy. You can help as you wish, if you wish, or not at all. Gotham is not my city, but I don't wish for its destruction."
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“There is me, or no one,” Sofia repeats, and the words come out soft with disbelief—then sharpen into something uglier. “Ego with nicer lighting, then.”
She lifts her glass and finally drinks, a small, precise sip. When she sets it down, it’s perfectly centered. Controlled. Mannerly. A knife laid neatly on a napkin.She picks up her wine glass. Drinks. Sets it down.
"Delayed details," she says. The words come out flat, but she's thinking behind them, working the shape of what he's offering. "So I can't get in the way, but I'm not blindsided when your 'clean' turns into something I have to explain to the GCPD."
Her fingers rest against the stem of the glass without gripping it.
"Fine," she says. Not capitulation, assessment. "That's workable."
She looks at him directly.
Her gaze stays on him, unblinking. “You don’t get to call it a courtesy when it’s a leash.”
A pause—then her voice turns practical, almost bored.
“Fine,” Sofia says again. “You want quiet with structure? Here’s structure.”
She ticks it off with her fingers, counting like an accountant tallying a debt.
“First: you give me a twenty-four hour window and a neighborhood. Not an address. A neighborhood. So I can keep my people away and keep yours from getting lost.”
“Second: if you’re compromised, you send one word, which we ca agree on, and you leave. I don’t care what you’re holding. You leave.”
“Third: if I hear about a ‘piece of art’ moving through the wrong hands, I act. Not to interfere. To contain the fallout. If I find out you've let something detonate in my city because you were too proud to ask for help in time, the details you give me become something else entirely."
She doesn't name what. Doesn't need to. Sofia’s mouth puckers, slightly.
“And in return,” she says, “you get what you actually came for: the living map. Judges, cops, flooded streets, whose warehouse is really whose, which corners are watched and which ones are hungry.”
She lets the silence stretch, then adds, quieter:
“You say you don’t wish for Gotham’s destruction. Great. Prove it.”
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