Saving Ceramic (Meradith and Hush)

Meradith honestly had thought that she was going to be able to make it from the store on the corner by her apartment, to her apartment again without having to worry about someone trying to mug her or someone trying to ask her how much she was charging because honestly it was such a short walk.

10 minutes, tops.

Yet, when she rounded the first corner, there was a man coming towards her, nothing to worry about normally as many people do walk the other way on the sidewalk.

What made her worry was that he swiftly pulled out a knife when he was passing by her, before Meradith could react he had pushed her into an alley just off the main street and was telling her to give him her money, otherwise she would be getting it.

Biting her lip softly Meradith nodded her head very gently;

"O-okay." she whispered "I'll give you all the cash I have..."

Very slowly she reached into her bag so that the man could watch her movements, and she pulled out her purse, just as she was about to hand the mugger the cash he took the purse from her and began to leg it down the alleyway.

No no no! That had her passes and everything inside of it...she was going to give him the cash but that wasn't good enough!

"Come back here you jerk off!" she shouted as she pummelled the pavement after him.

Hush had been keeping an eye on Meradith.

He liked her well enough and her artwork really livened up his little homes away from home. Gave them a touch of character to the point that he had started to name his little hideouts by the titles of the paintings he had hung in them. From "Joker's Entrance" to "The man who broke the Bat". All over the city he had his own little makeshift surgeries in order to keep up with his constant self-surgeries.

As he had been keeping an eye on her he was able to see the mugger take her purse and go rushing off with it.

Using his grabbling gun, Hush was able to make it across several buildings and lower himself down into an alleyway that the mugger had yet to pass. As the mugger went to run past the alleyway... Hush struck. With both of his pistols firing one shot each, he shot out the man's kneecaps so that he went skidding along the pavement by his face. Putting his guns away, he reached down and easily took the purse from the mugger.

Turning his bandaged face to Meradith, he held out the purse for her to take back,

"I take it this is yours?" he asked her before raising an eyebrow, "Either that or I've just crippled a very badly transvestite who was being mugged by a beautiful woman."

He paused before asking,

"What are you doing out so late?" he asked her with a frown underneath his bandages, "This is Gotham after all."

Meradith was like about to give up...she had chased the guy for blocks but even in her flat shoes she was far from being a really good cardio person. Her exercise was walking to work in the morning, and mixing her paints, occasionally she would go swimming but there wasn't much chance for that now, not here. The pools were for the most part disgusting if they were public pools, and had completely over the top fees if they weren't.

Panting softly as she stopped a few alleys from where the guy was currently running off with her bag, Meradith groaned softly, she was going to have every pass remade now and she would have to cancel her cards and put out a feeler to the police to try and see if anyone used her cards that had been stolen from her.

Although, all that seemed completely redundant when the thief landed face down on the pavement, two shots being fired in his direction. Blinking in shock and wondering where the hell they had been shot from and in fact who had shot them, when none other than the Villain Hush came out of the alleyway with her purse in her hands.

Coming towards him in the alley to take it, Meradith looked up at him and frowned softly, she had seen him before, but maybe it was just the really amazing cosplayer from the party? That had to be it, after all she had never seen the REAL Hush before.

"Uhm...yes it's mine." she stated softly, taking the purse back from him "Thank you for getting it back for me, I wasn't expecting it."

When he asked her what she had been doing out so late, Meradith felt like he was chiding her in the way that a friend might chide another for doing something stupid. Rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment, Meradith fessed up;

"Well I went to the store, I wanted some Red Bull I thought I'd be able to make it there and back with no incident but...I guess now. Besides, aren't you yourself a big reason of why I shouldn't be out at night, but you're sweeter than you look, saving a girls purse."

Hush had to admit that it had felt rather good to stop the bad guy and give the girl her purse back. Maybe this was what Batman got out of his otherwise dull and thankless life? The thrill of the chase... the hunger for victory and the taste of success. He could see himself getting into that to be honest but not now.

Not before he had completely ruined Bruce Wayne's life.

After that... who knew? He might just decide that he wanted to get the same thrills he got from crime from stopping crime instead? God knows it would give him more chances to meet up with Meradith and other regular people. He often got sick of only ever meeting other villains or members of the Bat Clan after all,

"No you weren't expecting it... and neither was he." he glanced back at the groaning criminal and slowly took out one of his guns, "Of course I have to make sure that he will never again do it to someone else."

Without warning he fired another shot straight into the man's spine. The man screamed before he suddenly went very quiet before screaming even louder and turning his upper body to reach down for his legs,

"My legs! My legs! Dear god I can't feel my legs!"

And Hush, being a surgeon, knew where to shoot the man to make sure that he never did feel his legs again. Hard to mug someone when you were in a wheelchair. He shook his head a little bit before spinning his gun slightly and extending it toward Meradith handle first,

"Take this for whenever else you feel like leaving the safety of your home for the uncertainty of the Gotham night." he instructed her before looking around, "Come on, I'll walk you home this time to make sure you don't attract anymore attention."

Meradith's mouth opened in shock and a rather big amount of horror when he shot the mugger in the spine right in front of her eyes, oh why would he do something like that!? Already his knees were shot he wasn't getting up, and unless they phoned an ambulance she was sure that nobody else would in this district of Gotham, at this time of night.

Didn't want to get mixed up in gang warfare by helping the guy they had attacked after all.


"Oh my god!" she squeaked, placing her hands in front of her mouth as she fought her instincts to go and look and see if the gentleman was okay, but, she didn't want to anger the man who had just saved her so, Meradith stayed where she was "Was that really needed? He was already on the ground, you shot his knees out already..." she murmured softly.

When he turned the gun to her and bid her take it, Meradith was shocked, so shocked she just stared at Hush and the gun for a few seconds before shaking her head;

"No no I'm sorry but I can't carry a gun." she murmured "It's illegal without a permit you know." Meradith teased softly, but still she was a little on edge with the situation at hand, the walk home oddly seemed to soothe her "I would enjoy the company on the way home though, you know if you have the time, and aren't going to use me as some sort of hostage." Meradith teased softly.

Hush could see that she didn't approve of his methods of making sure that someone wouldn't be a problem anymore. And frankly he didn't much care. The man would never mug, murder or torture anyone ever again. And that was something that needed to be done more often when considering the Gotham crime scene and it's strength.

He shook his head a little bit,

"No it wasn't needed to keep him from completing his mugging of you." he told her before shrugging, "But knees can be replaced - he'd steal or murder again. Spines... cannot be repaired."

His offer of one of his pistols seemed to shake her up just as much as his decision to shoot the man in the spine, for some reason. Honestly he would have thought that his intention with handing her the gun was not only clear and logical but actually a good idea even for a goodie two shoes like herself,

"You seem to forget that Gotham city police neglect to ask for permits. If they did then they'd be arresting most of their own families too." he noted with a small smirk before nodding and leading the way towards her home, "I've been watching this area so I know where you live... I have quite a few of your paintings Meradith."

Meradith thought that it made sense what Hush had did, she had even been able to agree with it, she just did not want to see it happening in front of her eyes. She had grown up in a very much anti-violence family and she wanted to be able to keep it that way, the violence in Gotham was something she would not miss when she returned home later on in the year.

"I guess you would know being the surgeon out of us." she smiled gently "I guess you know I'm not used to seeing things like this, back home there isn't anything like this happening on the streets, not right in front of me anyway."

Slowly, Meradith decided that she would begin to walk back to her apartment. The guy had taken the complete wrong direction that she needed to go in and it was quite irritating she had to walk for so long after something like that had happened, even with a big protector like Hush walking beside her. It might be more likely to get her attention.

At Hush's admission that he had been watching this area, Meradith blinked and was a little bit confused for a moment, before it dawned on her, and automatically she gasped and wagged her finger in the air at him;

"No way! That Hush cosplayer at my party a few weeks ago was you? The one who bought the most expensive Hush paintings!" she gasped softly "Oh my god, I can't believe it!" Meradith squeaked happily "How cool is this? I flirted with Hush at a party, and look, Imma do it again...how you doin'?" she asked with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

"Uhm sorry about that, I just knew that you weren't all you were saying you were, there was something I was missing and here it is." Meradith explained with a small smile as they walked down the sidewalk together.

Hush nodded a little bit when she agreed that he would know better about it because he was the surgeon out of the two of them. It was true. He had spent most of his medical career in cosmetic surgery but that didn't mean he hadn't started out as a general surgeon to get his skills up to a high enough level. Plus it aided him immensely in his current lifestyle. You couldn't just go to hospital as Hush and you definitely couldn't go when your face was that of Thomas Wayne, a very famous surgeon in the local hospitals and world-famous dead man,

"Gotham city is your home now and you would do well to recognise that this city's underbelly... is all around you." he told her with a dry chuckle, "The underworld of most cities? That is the surface world of Gotham, with me and others making up the darkest underworld in the entire world."

Following her on the, admittedly, rather long walk back to her apartment, Hush kept his eyes open for trouble but the few potential muggers he saw instantly started running away when they realised who he was. And it wasn't hard to know who he was really either. Who else had their entire head covered in bandages after all?

So she had figured it out had she? Well... he might just have to tease her a little bit,

"Cosplaying? Isn't that some kind of adult dressing up game?" he asked her with an amused voice before tilting his head to the side slightly, "We've flirted before have we? I think I'd remember flirting with such a beauty."

After a few more seconds of dead pan serious, he cracked a smirk,

"Just kidding." he told her with a light chuckle, "Yes I went to your party. Yes we flirted. It was very enjoyable I must say. And yes... we are flirting now too my darling damsel in distress. If I rescue the beautiful princess in peril does that mean I get a kiss for being the valiant hero?"

Meradith was pouting prolifically when she heard that he was playing coy about the whole thing, or she really had no idea who the guy who had bought all her paintings was and was never going to see him again unless he called her up and asked to see her. Which wasn't half irritating when you were trying to get things done, while waiting around hopelessly for the phone to start ringing.

Folding her arms across her chest, Meradith cast her eyes down to her bag and picked out her keys as they neared her little apartment block, it was in the slightly upper area of town, on the borders of the bad lands so she occasionally got caught up in the crossfire. But her Cousin had insisted he buy the state of the art security for her flat, as she didn't want to live in Wayne Mansion with him.

"Come on now teasing isn't fun you know." she stated with a bigger pout "Especially when I already know that its you!"

Grinning widely when Hush admitted that it was him at the party, Meradith smiled and suddenly everything was making more sense than it had done before, little things in the conversation that hadn't really made sense until she had thought about them in more detail and what they could mean were now obvious!

When Hush called her his darling her heart went a little funny for a moment and she giggled softly;

"Awww well, seeing as you asked so nicely I'm sure I can oblige you with a kiss, as long as you promise to phone me some time." she stated, in a mock warning tone as she placed her finger on his nose.

Softly, Meradith pressed her lips to his own, even though they were covered slightly by bandages, the rough combined with the smooth made her shiver softly, in a pleasant way. It was a sensation nobody else could give that she was sure of. Pulling away she put her keys in the door, turned, opened it and walked inside.

"Thank you, for walking me back." she smiled shyly "And be safe yourself out there okay? Ive finally got my own stalker I don't want you going any where." Meradith teased before resuming her shy smile "I'll see you around then, Hush."

Closing the door Meradith sighed softly, and placed her hand to her chest to see if her heart was really beating that fast.