Who: Selina and Bruce + Tony What: Bruce visits, and Tony swoops in (1/2) Where: DC Door, A warehouse on the docks When: Recentish Warnings/Rating: Plague symptoms
An hour was not much time at all, but for one who knew how to utilize each minute, which Batman did, it was enough.
From Gotham General he tracked down Johnny Masterson’s mother and sister, ensuring they found their way to the hospital, and then he followed the list of names Oracle had provided him with, each and every child who had come into contact with the woman and their families informed that their childcare provider had likely passed the disease along. What came next did not require the cape and cowl; it was Bruce Wayne who entered Wayne Enterprises, though the building was deserted and locked down in light of the spreading plague. The only branches still active were Wayne Medical, where researchers were working with information and samples they should not have had access to in an attempt to develop a cure, despite the disease still being in early stages, and R&D, where the employees there were working to create more of the suit the Bat currently wore, a prototype he’d perfected after nearly twenty-four hours of work, which left nothing uncovered and would protect him from becoming infected. If this suit failed, then there was nothing that would keep him safe. In the back of his mind he was aware that maintaining his secret identity would probably be far more complicated after this, but if putting his dual life at risk saved lives, then it was worth the cost.
With the flight itinerary and names of all passengers who had come into contact with Masterson’s father, he set to work. It took the remainder of his hour for Bruce to gain access to the systems necessary to transfer information; the authorities and health officials in both Berlin and London received the lists, as well as all that they knew about the plague, but he also went one step further. The World Health Organization was the very top, but this had gone beyond Gotham’s problem; Batman could not save the world on his own. No, he would handle his city, which was safely contained now, and let those he hoped were much like himself handle theirs. One cure was all they needed; as for where it was found, Bruce had no preference. All that mattered was that it was found, and soon.
The suit was donned once more when he set out to find Selina, since that visit called for the Bat, and not Bruce Wayne. This was thinner than his usual one; less concerned with armor, more about the fabric, his own modified version of a HAZMAT suit, and while his cowl still had the pointed ears and shape, it covered his entire face now. Black, of course, but now he was engulfed by it, with his mouth covered and eyes shielded by tinted goggles. Admittedly, his overall appearance was strange and somewhat frightening, and had the circumstances been different, the Bat would have sent crowds fleeing in fear. As it was, however, most understood that Batman needed to protect himself, and he simply couldn’t do that with half his face and eyes exposed.
Finding the warehouse in question was simple, as was getting inside. With him, Bruce carried all the painkillers he could get his hands on, and despite her protests, a selection of antibiotics that might lessen the severity of her symptoms. Even if they did, however, it would only be temporary, but without a cure he had little else. Up the stairs he went, and despite the lack of armor the suit seemed to weigh heavily upon him, his cape heavy around his shoulders. Selina, Stephanie, Dick; not to mention countless of citizens, and likely others now, in different parts of the world, doomed to a slow descent that would end in death unless a cure was found in time. Hope was what kept him going, along with an inherent stubborn determination, but it was difficult, so difficult, to not let despair swallow him down and break his will. Bruce scaled the top step, paused on the landing, and ventured forward.
“Selina?” His voice came out sounding slightly strange, altered due to the fact that his mouth was covered, but anyone who knew him would still recognize it.
Selina had holed up in the warehouse after handing Feathers' apartment over to the street kids, and she'd stocked up on everything she thought she might need, including a sizable vial from the Lazarus Pit as insurance. At the time, she'd still held out hope that she wouldn't get sick, even after having received the sweaty Nightwing suit. After all, she should have already died. She'd taken a fall that no one should have survived, and yet here she was, alive and meowing.
But, and it came on so much quicker than expected, she was already sick by that evening. She never got sick. It was just a thing with her, and maybe it came from being raised on the streets, an immune system that built itself up on Gotham's dirtiest places. But this wasn't a cold, and she knew it. It had moved faster than any cold, than any illness she'd ever had. It had been, even that first night, worse than the period between Crane's toxin antidotes. And she knew, then. She knew she was in trouble.
In those early hours, she convinced herself that she would go through it alone. She wouldn't meow at anyone. Not the Bat, not anyone in the nest. Damian being gone would make it easier, she thought. She could fight it. She could be stronger than anything Ra's had created.
But she'd been wrong. She'd been wrong.
She knew it would only make things harder for Bruce, knowing. She knew it with the same certainty that she'd known that her Bruce couldn't handle sleeping with a kitty cat that lived in the grey. This Bruce was different, yes, but he'd take the loss of every single one of them hard. And letting him know he was sick, it might rouse the antihero. Luke didn't need to make noise right now, and if anything was going to make him cause trouble, it was this. She'd seen it on that rooftop when Bruce almost killed her, the fact that Luke could make an impact if he wanted to badly enough. No, Bruce didn't have time for that. Not with Gotham falling apart.
But, despite all her best intentions, even she had a breaking point. She reached it on the third day, and the knowledge that it was only going to get worse was almost more than her mind could stand. That morning, she'd almost swallowed the entire vial of the Lazarus Pit down. It wasn't enough to bring her back if she died, but it might be enough to keep her alive long enough to see a cure created.
She'd held the vial between her fingers, and she'd been so tempted. One more day, though. Just one more day, she told herself, and she'd called Bruce then. Weakness, but she'd just wanted to hear his voice. She hadn't intended to give in, hadn't intended to tell him where to find her. But, in the end, she wanted something for the pain. She could hold out, she could, if only she had something to make the hurting stop.
After disconnecting from the call with him, she'd spent the next forty-five minutes cleaning up. She might be sick, but she was still going to try to look as capable as she could. And the kitty cat, she was good at pretending. She hid every bloody sheet and blanket, leaving the bed stripped bare and too exhausted to remake it. She'd showered then, on her knees beneath the cold water that was all the warehouse held claim to.
By the time she settled in on the old chair near the window, she was dressed in a t-shirt and running pants, her hair wet and her skin pale and unhealthy. Her cheeks were red with fever, and her lymph nodes were swollen, and she had an unhealthy rattle in her chest. There was blood at the corner of her lips, but none of that stopped her from talking to Ra's on the journals, from talking to Crane, from making a deal with the devil. And she was already in hell, wasn't she? The warehouse was condemned for a reason - no power, the ceiling and walls flaking off, and only a view of the dirty waterside from the glassless window. Strangely, she'd gotten to a point where she wanted the bitter Gotham cold. Even fresh out of the shower, she was soaked through with sweat, and the breeze chilled the room and cooled her fevered skin.
She wanted to call out when she heard his voice, but she couldn't yell loud enough for it to carry, not anymore. She'd already yelled herself hoarse an hour ago, and her voice was a raspy thing of no force. "In here," she managed, stifling a cough.
Bruce had seen those infected. He hadn’t seen the boy, patient zero, who would herald things to come, but he knew what his symptoms were, and he had witnessed how coughing and sneezing and flu-like ailments could worsen. And so, he believed himself prepared for whatever condition Selina was in, but all it took was one second after he’d entered the room to realize he had been so very wrong. The suffering of ordinary citizens, strangers, was difficult enough; in a way, they were his people, and it hurt in a sense he could never hope to explain to watch them in pain. But this... this was worse. Because he cared, of course. Just as the thought of Dick and Stephanie, and perhaps others he cared about, falling ill and dying hurt, and the worst part was that he couldn’t do anything. A disease could not be defeated, threatened, or reasoned with. He could contain it, stop it from spreading, but he couldn’t cure it through will alone, and cures took time; something they had so little of.
Oh, he stared, but he was rendered emotionless by the suit, and so it was impossible to tell. He couldn’t take the cowl off, couldn’t risk it; the most he could do was remove the tint so his eyes were visible, a sliver of humanity, despite the fact that it was so much easier to remain disconnected. After he finished his perusal of her and her condition, Bruce took in the warehouse, and a frown she could not see marred his features. This was not the sort of place anyone should be while healthy, never mind sick. The very least he could do was make her comfortable, since a cure was still out of reach.
"I have the painkillers." Pills, and bags of clear fluid with an IV, which he would much prefer to administer elsewhere, were in a bag slung over his shoulder and half-hidden by his cape. He was exhausted, but gave no sign of it. Worry did not begin to describe how he felt, nor did concern, but he gave no sign of the depth of his distress either. "You shouldn't be here," he told her, realizing he was still standing in the same spot and moving forward.
She wished she could see his face, but she'd already known she wouldn't be able to. And she wasn't surprised he had a modified cowl, instead of a HAZMAT suit. But still, she wished she could see more than just his eyes. Though maybe those were more telling than he realized. She felt a moment of guilt, of the realization that she should have spared him this. And, she told herself, this would be it. One hour, and then she wouldn't let him come here when it got worse. At least she could have a conversation now. The blood was getting worse, as was the pain, but she could still manage it now.
"I'm fine," she reassured him, and she even managed a hint of a blood edged smile. "Put the stuff down," she said, motioning to the floor a few feet from her. "Then go sit," she added, motioning with a shaky pale hand to a chair near the door, one she hadn't used, clear across the room. There was a noticeable dearth of third-person usage in her language, but she was too tired for that intentional affectation, and there was no hiding the fact that she was the same age as some of the little birds in his nest just then.
"I talked to Ra's," she said, after a moment of stifling of a cough and reaching for a half-drunk bottle of cough suppressant that she'd set on the sill before he arrived. "Crane too, but Crane is just Crane. Ra's wanted me to tell you what to expect. He contacted me," she said, a bitter laugh escaping her mouth, one that was following by a gasp of pain and a hand pressed to her chest. "He has a cure wherever he is, but he wouldn't give me a price. He said the Pits can only be used once. I don't know if that's true, but the one in the cave is useless if it is," she added, having to take deep gasping breaths between sentences. "He says seven days, just like River did. He asked what my symptoms were. He says I have three or four days. He said there are three kinds of plagues. He said this was the bubonic one. He said even if you find a cure, once the organs are affected-" She stopped there. It was enough, wasn't it? She brushed the back of her hand over her lips, blood smearing the skin.
Fine was no longer a word which held any meaning for him. It was a lie, one Bruce had told himself more often than he ever had in the past few days, and while it rolled easily off the tongue, he knew it was no more honest coming from her. She was the exact opposite of what fine was meant to represent. “No,” he told her. “You’re not.” There was too much knowledge behind the mask, and no amount of reassurance or smiles would be enough to overpower that. He hesitated a moment longer before relenting and setting the bag down, an easy slide of fabric over his shoulder to ensure nothing inside was broken or compromised. Sitting was something he hadn’t done since first learning that Ra’s had something sinister planned, not for more than a few minutes at a time, and he was weary enough to be concerned about managing to get back up again once he allowed himself time to rest. Sleep was a luxury he simply could not afford, despite insisting that the others try to get some, but he always had made exceptions for himself and likely always would. By this point, he was wishing he had found a way to keep everyone on the Vegas side until this was sorted out, in order to keep them safe. He should have ensured Wren refrained from crossing. So many things he should have done, and now it was too late.
While there was visible reluctance in the way he moved, he did make his way over to the chair she’d indicated. Instead of take a seat where it was, however, he dragged it closer, and then sat. There was no surprise when she said Ra’s had contacted her; of course he would want him to know what was coming. He wanted him to be tormented by having knowledge and being unable to prevent it, wanted him to know that there was a cure, a reminder for when things became desperate, and options ran dry. “What Ra’s says means nothing,” he said, after a long, long silence. “It’s not the bubonic plague. Similar enough for us to believe it is, yes, likely to ensure more time was wasted. He could have a cure, or he could not. Even if he did, he would never surrender it. He enjoys this too much. There are other Pits,” he added, before he could stop himself, and he appeared dismayed at his own slip before bringing a gloved hand to his forehead. “But they are a... last resort,” he said quietly. “One I would very much like not to rely upon. Who are we to decide who lives and who dies, and what right do we have, to save our loved ones while others never have the option?” Bruce didn’t place much faith in Ra’s timeline either. No, he trusted virtually nothing the man said, and he had a hard time believing there was ever a time when he thought they shared common goals. Now he knew better; he had nothing in common with Ra’s Al Ghul, who could stand by and watch the deaths of thousands, millions, while feeling nothing. “We will find a cure,” he said sharply, and there was anger there, though it wasn’t directed at her. “Ra’s wants us to give up. I refuse to do that. Don’t simply accept what he says as truth.” He rose, then, too wound up to think of sitting. “And you’re not staying here. The hospitals are slow to adapt, but I have quarantined locations set up which are far better equipped than this.”
She gave him that same smile, the one that was a shadow of her normal lush-lipped grin. "I meant I'm not going to die right now, Bruce. I think that's as much fine as I have in me just now." She sighed when he hesitated, because she couldn't tell what made him do it. Even with his normal cowl, she could tell when something she said hit a nerve or found a way to wriggle beneath his skin. It was in the way he held his mouth, and the tension in his jaw, but she couldn't see any of those things now, and she was so sorry for it. It was better than nothing, but it was worse than nothing too, and she laughed a pained laugh at the contraction. She refused to get philosophical; no one wanted a philosophical kitty cat. She could tell he was tired, though, or maybe she just imagined it in the way he held his shoulders, and in the tenseness of what muscles she could make out beneath the suit. But she knew him well enough to know he probably hadn't stopped since all of this began; it was a good educated guess, the fact that he was exhausted.
But he sat, eventually, and she was glad. She was glad, too, when he pulled the chair forward, though part of her wanted to insist he move back. But he was right; he had been exposed at much closer range than this, and by many more people than her. As long as he didn't touch her, she'd let him get close. She made that decision through a haze of pain that she tried not to allow to show on her features; she failed, of course.
She listened to what he said about Ra's, about the plague itself. "He said there were two others, plagues," she added, but she couldn't remember the medical terms, no matter how she tried, and her discarded journal seemed very far away just then. His comment about the Pits, though, that made her stop trying to remember the elusive phrases, and she looked at him instead, trying to will herself to through that cowl. "There's one in Wonder City. I got Eddie into the room where it starts. It works. I saw him drink from it," she said, repeating a tale already told, perhaps, but not realizing it. "I just want some to drink. Just something to keep me going. Damian said it makes people stronger, and Eddie was fine after a minute. If what Ra's says is true, if it only works once-" She stopped then, too many words and a wave of excruciating pain that caused her to double over in her chair and draw blood from biting down on her tongue hard enough to stifle a scream. For a second, the Pit ceased to matter, and all that mattered was the bag and the painkillers it promised. "Please," she pleaded in an almost-cry, reaching for it with a shaky hand. But then she had to laugh as his assertion that they would find a cure. "Of course you'll find a cure, but it might be too late for some of us, Bruce. Will you ask Eddie? Just for a vial?" she asked as he stood, and it took all the willpower she had to stop her attempted mad scramble for the bag and the painkillers for a moment. "You're staying here for fifty minutes longer, then you're going," she corrected, though she wouldn't have the strength to enforce that, should he push it. "Tony wants me to go there, where he is, something about needing an advanced patient," she admitted, even though she hadn't intended to say anything about it.
To contemplate Selina dying at all was surprisingly overwhelming. Bruce knew death very, very well, and while he always took it hard, he had never felt the sort of desperation he did now to avoid so much as a thought about it, despite the fact that it was a very real possibility. He never ignored any path which was viable enough to consider. Caring, it seemed, was turning him into a terrible hypocrite. “You’re not going to die at all,” he told her, and there was conviction in his voice. Genuine or feigned didn’t matter; people were dying at his feet, and they would continue to do so, but if he gave up hope then all would truly be lost. Ra’s would laugh at him, he was sure, mock his eternal optimism, and perhaps Selina might not believe him, but it was as much for him as it was for her. The plague was not a threat he could stop on his own, he could not sacrifice himself to save her and the rest, and even with all his power and wealth, he wasn’t getting the results he wanted. All he had was the hope that they were only a short time away from the breakthrough Gotham, and now the rest of the world, so sorely needed.
From the moment they had first suspected the plague, he’d done as much research as possible, calling in scientists who obediently returned to work and holed themselves up in order to do what they could, and he knew about the other two. He also knew that it was neither; Ra’s had obviously used the bubonic plague as a sort of blueprint for whatever it was he had unleashed upon the city. “Septicemic and pneumonic,” he said. “Half the city would have died over the weekend if it was the first. The symptoms do not align with the second.” All avenues he had gone down time and time again, with no success. As for the Pits, he was reluctant to fall back on them, wary of anything so closely entwined with Ra’s. Drinking some might make her stronger, yes, but at what cost? Riddler had seemed fine, but they had no idea what it had done to him without giving any signs at all. And, asking him for such a thing, when Bruce had been reluctant as it was to accept his offer of help, was not something he particularly wanted to do. “Can you drink from the same Pit? Damian might be wrong, and there are side effects, Selina, we all know that.” For a moment he considered the possibility of using Lazarus Pit juice on infected patients, to buy them more time, but with a shake of his head he discarded the idea. No, it would never work. The existence of the Pits had to be kept secret, and it could very well make things worse than they already were. But then she doubled over, and his attention snapped from Pits and their usage to her, concern propelling him forward until he was nearly at her side. He almost reached out, almost placed a hand on her shoulder, but it was that half-cry, that plea, that stopped him. The painkillers. That was what she needed.
“I’ll get you a vial.” His back was turned to her when he spoke, and perhaps it went against his firm anti-Pits stance, but she was in pain, and she was dying. If no cure was found, how much damage could liquid from the Lazarus Pit cause when death was the inevitability if she was left untreated? Bruce couldn’t bear to tell her no, not when she was like this. “It won’t be too late for you,” he continued, “or for Stephanie, or for Dick.” He retrieved the painkillers and held them out, apparently having forgotten all about his promise to sit. As for staying fifty more minutes and then leaving, he gave no response, but the mention of Tony wanting her where he was made him frown. The Bat had cultivated his image on the basis of being that which caused fear, rather than that which felt it, but in truth, he experienced fear often.
And right then, Bruce was afraid. Though he would never admit it to anyone, much less himself, he feared Selina would die through the Marvel door, in another city, with someone else at her side instead of him.
Even despite his fear, however, he doubted that Tony Stark would be able to find a cure when some of the best medical minds had come up with nothing. “We can get him information on advanced patients. Why does he need you there? Moving you is a risk, and the last thing we need is for the plague to spread into another door. It’s already gone worldwide here.” There was a pause as he looked down at her, and something in his eyes changed, from worry to anger, cold and hard. “I asked Ra’s why he did this, why spread it overseas, and he told me it was because he missed the way things were. He thinks he’s merely turning back the clock, slaughtering innocents in order to bring back a world that should remain in the past. Nostalgia,” he spat. “One man lives too long and he believes it gives him the right to treat the world as though it belongs solely to him.” Batman had one firm rule, just one, that he always refused to break, but he was beginning to wonder if he could endure all of this without making an exception.
She almost smiled when he insisted she wasn’t going to die at all. The smile died before it reached her lips, but it was almost there, the shadow of a thing. All that conviction wasn’t going to do him much good here, and she knew it, but there wasn’t any reason to divest him of it. Something had to keep him going throughout this, and if that was it? So be it. She had already begun to lose faith in her own salvation, after all, and all the conversations she’d had on the journals while waiting for him felt so much like goodbye. Stupid kitty cat, getting sentimental at the worst possible time. She should have taken Ra’s plane ticket, and she should have saved herself. After all, survival was the most important thing to her. It always had been. Well, almost.
His listing off of the plague types made her focus her attention on him again, unfocused green eyes dulled with pain. She gave him a fond smile when he mentioned side effects, a sad thing of a smile. “Bruce, I don’t think side effects are the main thing to worry about right now. Not with me.” Maybe with the others, maybe Steph and Helena, who had just gotten sick. But with her? A few side effects hardly mattered. Even if she went temporarily insane, like Eddie had done, she didn’t have the strength to hurt anyone. “Eddie went a little crazy. He had me hit him on the head, and he was fine after,” she admitted, just in case he needed the knowledge. “Not everyone goes crazy in the Pits, Bruce. Damian told me once. Jason had a lot of brain damage when he got tossed in. And in my world, he got over all of it. It’ll be fine.” Because it had to be fine, and because there wasn’t much of an alternative.
She was so grateful when he reached for the painkillers himself that she almost wept. Even that little bit of movement was excruciating, and she was tense with anticipation when he spoke again, waiting for him to turn around and hand him something, anything that might make this better. She wasn’t expecting him to go back and agree to the vial, not after his concerns, and she didn’t manage to stifle the thankful sob. “Thank you. I know you don’t like it, so, thank you.” And she did know. She knew she was asking him to go against his nature, but she needed to at least try. It was the least she could do after giving Wren a death sentence.
When he held out the painkillers, she grabbed them from his gloved hands with fingers that could barely close on them, and she downed them all without even bothering to wait for water. She chased them with cough syrup, and she let herself believe his reassurances for a minute. “I wish you could will that to be true,” she finally said, a hint of a more genuine smile in the wake of the cough syrup lull.
Ah, but then there was the matter of Tony, and she knew she should have kept it to herself. She should have waited until he was gone. But she didn’t have the strength for those games, and she just gave him a look that was all guilty-green. “He’s infected, Bruce. Because of me. If he needs a guinea pig, I won’t deny him. He's coming to get me later.” She nodded toward the milk crate beside the cot. “My key is in there. It opens right into Stark Tower. Take it.” Because that was as close as she could come to telling him she wanted to see him before she died, at least without crying, and after a year of trying to get him in her bed she wasn’t going to tell him like that. “He’s a genius, Bruce. If there’s something to find, he’ll find it. And it won’t hurt for him to shoot me up with anything he thinks might help.” Because, again, nothing could make anything worse now, could it?
"Ra's makes Joe look kind." She didn’t mind the anger that flashed in his eyes, because that anger would keep him going. It was important. And she knew him. If he got Ra's in his clutches, he might break him, but he wouldn't kill him. This version of the Bat was much kinder than hers. Hers left men broken to the point where death would be a blessing, and he did it often. She thought, this once, that breaking someone like Ra's might be a good thing for this Bat. "Is Luke giving you any trouble?" she asked, glad she was spared any input from Wren at all, at least then.
As much as he hated the Lazarus Pits, Bruce realized she was right. He knew what was happening to her, what was going to happen to her, as he monitored progress on the Masterson boy, and the side effects of the Pit paled in comparison. But he disagreed that someone could use it and come out entirely as they had been before. No, something unnatural like that had an effect, however slight, and brain damage or no whoever was put in one would always come out different. That was why he would never use it on himself, and he hoped, if the time ever came, the others would respect his wishes instead of defying them. There was Luke to consider, of course, but the boy was already unstable enough, and he was almost certain he would rather remain dead then come back as something less human than before. “We’re not talking about using the Pit,” he said, a touch too sharply. “Drinking from it is not the same. No one can return from the dead as they were, Selina, but since you’re not going to die, there’s no use in discussing putting you or anyone else in.” And that was that. If there was one thing no one could ask him to do, it was use the Pit, no matter the reason. Anything else, but not that.
“No, I don’t like it,” he admitted. “But time is short, and if the Pit could somehow give you more...” Time was so, so precious, and anything that could offer more, however risky, was something he could not bring himself to deny her. “Don’t thank me.” He had done nothing deserving of gratitude, and that much was evident as he watched her down the painkillers before he could think to offer her water along with them. Cough syrup didn’t seem like an appropriate substitute, but he held his tongue, realizing that there were far more pressing concerns at the moment. “I wish I could too,” he admitted, and while he took some comfort in her smile, he couldn’t manage one of his own.
Despite his disapproval towards involving Stark in the first place, Bruce wasn’t about to cast the blame on her now. He had no doubt that she had warned him, and if he had failed to follow proper protocol, to take necessary precautions, then that was his mistake, not hers. “No, not because of you. If he’s infected, it’s because he made a mistake with the sample you gave him. You were trying to help. I understand,” he said. He didn’t agree with it, necessarily, but he understood what had motivated her. “You are not a guinea pig.” He liked the thought of Stark bringing her to his lab as much as he liked the thought of the Lazarus Pits, and perhaps that was somewhat reminiscent of Luke, who remained locked away at present, but he also knew the Marvel door had its own problems, and he would not have handed her over even to his own doctors here, never mind someone he didn’t know all that well. He could stop her from leaving. Physically, she was no match for him, and Iron Man or not, Bruce would very much like to see the other man force him into allowing her to go. He said nothing of Stark being a genius, nothing of her apparent faith that he could succeed where all others had, as of the present moment, failed. But the key, oh yes, he took the key. He would not simply entrust her to the care of another and turn his back. “I’ll wait with you until he comes,” was his eventual response. It was time he didn’t have, not when things were moving so slowly out there, on the streets, where it seemed only death would motivate the people into taking any sort of effective action, but he could make up for it somehow. The others took time to rest; this would be something similar.
He shook his head when she asked about Luke. “No. Not yet. As long as I can manage to keep him at bay, it should be fine.” But that required energy, which Bruce was slowly running low on, and he had a feeling allowing Luke’s presence out would come with repercussions. Because if Selina died, Wren died as well, and even using the Lazarus Pit would not come without a cost. Banning them from crossing through ever again would probably just be the beginning. “I should have kept Wren on the other side of the door,” he said suddenly, returning to the chair and allowing himself to sit once again. “You could have let her stay, or you could have taken Ra’s ticket and left Gotham behind. You could have avoided all of this, and saved yourself,” he added, gesturing around, not at the building itself, but the city and the situation as an entirety. He looked at her, then, but he didn’t ask why, didn’t ask for a reason.
"No," she agreed when he said they weren't talking about using the Pit, not really. Despite all her arguments for it in the past, she just couldn't bring herself to fight that fight now. It wasn't that her conviction had been shaken, because it hadn't been. But she wasn't sure it wouldn't just make everything worse for him. That was it, when it was all said and done. She wasn't sure he could do it and walk away from it the same man. And she didn't think it would matter so much to Luke; she was fairly sure he'd fall apart either way - whether it was permanent or not. And if it came to that, no one would make the choice without Bruce. Damian would have, but Damian wasn't here, and the others looked to Bruce for the big decisions, whether he realized it or not. "Just drinking, or IV," she finally added, perfectly aware that swallowing might not be something she could do much longer. "You'll smack me if I go crazy, won't you?" she asked, trying (and failing) for a smile.