CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE

The dilapidated building was silent in the aftermath. No more assassins slipping through the shadows. No more calculated words meant to sow doubt and confusion. Just the distant hum of Gotham outside and the implications of what had just transpired.

The woman—Talia al Ghul, she had come to learn—had left with the League, her parting glance unreadable. Whatever she had come to see, whatever measure she had taken of Taylor—she had found her answer. For now.

Taylor exhaled slowly, forcing her body to loosen from the fight. Her knuckles still ached from the confrontation, muscles burning with exertion, but that didn’t matter. None of it did.

Across from her, Batman stood as still as a statue.

The fight was over, but this—the thing between him and Talia, glimpsed only in the little exchange they had—wasn’t a battle of fists. It was something heavier. Something with history. 

“She’ll be back,” Taylor said, her voice steady despite the weight settling in her chest.

Batman didn’t respond right away. He just watched her, the intentness of his gaze obvious in the dim light, studying her like he was searching for something—some final confirmation of whatever answer he had already come to.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, controlled.

“And when she does?” 

Taylor rolled her shoulders, shaking off the last remnants of tension. “We both know this wasn’t just about publicly showing their alliance with the Calculator.”

Batman inclined his head slightly. “No.” A pause. “This was about you.”

Her jaw tightened.

Was she the only one who hadn’t seen it? Hadn’t realized how neatly she’d been playing into their hands?

What did that say about her?

“You were never just an obstacle to them,” he continued. “You were a test. One you passed.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “I didn’t take a damn test.”

“You did the moment you stepped onto this path.”

His voice wasn’t cruel, wasn’t accusatory. It was worse—factual. Unshakable.

Taylor folded her arms, inhaling sharply. “They came to me. I didn’t seek them out.”

Batman took a slow step forward, his cape shifting with the movement. “It doesn’t matter how it started. It matters how it ends.”

She had no response for that.

To the side, Nightwing and Spoiler stood silent, watching. They didn’t interfere. This wasn’t their fight. This wasn’t their fight—not really. But they were still here, a quiet presence in the aftermath. A reminder that, despite how alone she often felt in this city, she actually wasn’t.

She didn’t know what to make of it, so she pushed it aside.

“You think I should stop,” she said finally.

“I think,” Batman said, “that you already know what happens if you don’t.”

Taylor didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers twitched at her sides, tight with building tension. She wasn’t sure if it was from the fight, the conversation, or the choice in front of her.

But was it really a choice?

She exhaled, steady. “It’s not that simple.”

Batman’s tone didn’t change. “It never is.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Nothing ever was.

It wasn’t simple when she first woke up in Gotham, body whole but lacking a purpose. It wasn’t simple when she saw the gang war tearing through the city, when she stepped in, when she kept stepping in. It wasn’t simple when she realized she wasn’t just surviving anymore—she was choosing this. Choosing to retread old paths. 

And now, standing here, blood drying on her knuckles, it wasn’t simple to stop.

Batman was still watching her, as if searching for the exact moment she made up her mind. 

She met his gaze, searching for something—certainty, warning, maybe even understanding. But his expression gave nothing away. Did he not care? Or had he seen too many stand where she was now, consider the same choices, and already knew how this would end?

She inhaled again, deeper this time, and for a moment, the weight of everything threatened to crush her—every fight, every choice, every step that had led her here. It pressed against her ribs, coiled around her lungs, made her feel like if she lost focus for even a second, she might collapse under it.

But she didn’t.

“It doesn’t matter what the League wants,” she whispered, her voice steady despite the storm raging inside her. She couldn’t let it show—why, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was a habit, maybe it was survival. But after everything, after fighting so hard to hold herself together, letting that facade crack now felt like a betrayal of everything she’d been through.

“This isn’t about them.”

It never was.

Batman didn’t react. He only asked, “Then what is it about?”

Taylor didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked past him, past all of them, to the ruined walls and shattered windows framing the city beyond. Gotham loomed in the distance—towering skyscrappers, endless shadows, and blinking lights. A city built on crime, on corruption, on the struggle to carve something better out of the rot.

She had tried to break the game. Tried to work outside the rules.

And somehow, she had ended up exactly where they wanted her.

But that didn’t mean they controlled her next move.

Maybe… It was time to try something different. 

She stepped over broken beams and uneven concrete, sure-footed despite the wreckage beneath her feet. 

“Taylor—” Nightwing’s voice cut through the quiet, wary.

She didn’t acknowledge him. She didn’t need to.

Batman didn’t move. He didn’t try to stop her. Maybe he already knew it wouldn’t change anything.

She came to a stop near what remained of a shattered window frame. The wind cut through the hollowed-out structure, stirring the dust at her feet, tugging at the loose edges of her clothing. It should have been cold. Maybe it was. But she barely felt it.

She wasn’t hesitating.

She was choosing.

And as her fists clenched at her sides, she realized—

There had never really been a choice at all.