Who: Bruce and Helena What: Hospital visits. Where: Hospital in Gotham. When: When Hels was in the hospital, before her surgery. Pre-Batmite. (After this.) Warnings/Rating: Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels.
Leaving Damian in the hallway to his thoughts, Bruce turned the knob carefully before pushing open the door to Helena’s room. He stepped forward once, twice, and then paused in the doorway, needing a moment to absorb the situation before continuing. He was strong. He could look upon a great many things and not flinch, and he could endure what most could not. But alternate universes or not, he thought of Helena as his daughter and it hurt to see her like this, in a hospital bed. It hurt to know that she was in pain and he couldn’t fix it. This kind of hurt was an ache in his chest, and he knew the feeling because he’d felt it before. The doctor’s words rang through his head as the moment passed and he stepped further into the room, letting the door slowly close behind him with a quiet click.
He moved to the foot of the bed, and then he stopped again. “Helena?”
Inside the room, the lights were set on low as one nurse moved around the bed, checking Helena's IV, making sure she was good in a position and was there anything else she needed? Helena already had one flat white pillow curved around her head, her arm bent over the top to keep it pressed over her ear. It didn't help the ringing, but she couldn't hear the mechanical grinding of the IV pump this way.
She had heard Damian out in the hallway, but it was distant, far away, and not an immediate concern unlike what the people in the waiting room felt. "No," she said with a little shake of her head, a rustle of skin on pillowcase. Fine. Fine. Maybe fine. As close to fine as she was going to get. Some of her thoughts were fine, but some of them were up and some were down, like a puzzle being put together on gravel, disjointed and broken. Helena was the Goldilocks of thoughts. ('These are too high' she heard in a cartoonish like voice in her head, Alvin Chipmunk on speed. 'These thoughts are too low' a deep baritone.)
Her gaze tracked Bruce into the room, little line appearing between her eyebrows . Why did he look so young? She sighed, quiet, put upon like he'd done something that was the epitome of silly (nevermind that Bruce never did anything that was silly) and relaxed her death grip on the pillow she'd armed her head with. "You looked better without the facelift, dad. You look too young now. People are going to think you're my older brother."
Bruce nodded at the nurse, but it was little more than courtesy and his attention was reserved for Helena and no one else. Critical as always, he took in the condition of the room, the bed, the IV and the machines that beeped and whirred beside her. And then he looked at her concern evident in his features if one knew where to look, but what didn’t make it onto the surface was fear. Fear for her, of losing her, of things he didn’t even quite understand himself.
Silence engulfed him when she spoke. He stood, and he stared, and it was so very exhausting to pull forth a smile that gave no indication of anything being wrong. “You’re exaggerating,” he said, finding a chair to drag over to her bedside so he could sit. “I don’t look that young. How are you feeling?”
The silent was weird. Maybe weird. Maybe? The pillow was shoved over her ears again as the metal legs of the chair squealed on the floor, the sound like a wild pack of greyhounds snapping at her eardrums turned rabbits. Her entire face pinched at the sound and as soon as it was gone, as soon as he was in the seat and his lips were moving -- she relaxed her arms, completely missing the exit of the nurse to allow them some privacy.
"Loud," she whispered. She alternated between squinting and opening her eyes comically wide to take in his youthful appearance. "And you dyed your hair. I liked the gray better, made you look distinguished." The other question, that took longer to answer, but not because she was trying to formulate the correct response, a response that would give away absolutely nothing, but because her words were a runaway train that she couldn't catch. It took her another moment, tongue stuck between her teeth before she answered, "My lips are numb and my head hurts. They're going to go drilling for oil in my skull," she told him, as if that was the honest truth instead of a metaphor. Was that all she felt? Mostly. She smiled in that semi-vacant way, like she was hoping that her answers would please him.
Immediately, Bruce realized his mistake in the way she shoved the pillow over her ears and the expression that overtook her features. He was apologetic, though by the time he was seated it was too late, watching in apprehension as she relaxed until he was mildly reassured that he hadn’t caused any lasting damage.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, too quiet, until he cleared his throat and brought his voice back its normal volume, appropriate for a hospital room occupied by only the two of them now that the nurse had departed. He was better prepared for her remark now, and another small smile made an appearance as his fingers brushed absently over his hair. To correct her, to tell her she was wrong, would be pointless, and only do more harm than good. She’d be better soon enough. “I thought I’d give it a try. If you don’t like it, I’ll let the gray come back.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and even though he realized Helena thought he was her father, the Bruce from her world, it didn’t matter very much just then. His expression became something pained for a brief instant before it was gone, and he took a breath to keep from upsetting her. “They’re going to make you feel better, Helena,” he told her gently. “Your head won’t hurt anymore, and your lips won’t be numb either.”
It would have been an acceptable, completely normal volume if her brain wasn't in agony. "Why are you talking so loud?" She asked, her own fingers creep-crawling up her neck and jaw, heading for her ears in case he remained loud.
"You know they're not going to notice if you have gray hair, dad. If they can stop in the middle of a fight to investigate your hair, you've got more things to worry about," she said gently, almost smiling. And while she noticed his look of pain, that tightening around his eyes, the cant of them, she lacked the ability to realize what it meant, or why he was making it. One plus one no longer added up to two in her mind, but equaled out to some unknown integer, represented by x. Unknown variable. Her thoughts shifted, icebergs breaking off the ice shelf and drifting into the cold, deep ocean. "I want a croissant. They have the best ones in Paris and you can sit beneath the trees and look up at the Eiffel tower. It's not under Darkseid's control anymore." Darkseid reminded her of Christmas, of that horrible world. "I was supposed to blow up Wayne Manor, but Kara did it."
This time there was no verbal apology, but there was an unspoken one written in his expression as he returned to the volume he’d thought had been too quiet to hear. It felt strange, because Bruce was used to being loud, whether it was actual raised volume or harsh words that resonated with authenticity and purpose. “Is this better?” Hushed, now, barely a step above a whisper.
He didn’t think she’d ever called him dad before, and he felt guilty for not caring that it was under false pretenses. “I suppose you’re right,” he admitted. Even though he knew she wasn’t herself just then, not entirely lucid, he was the sort of man who would have gotten her a croissant straight from a Paris bakery if he’d thought it would help in any way. But it wouldn’t, and he knew that. In a minute she would be talking about something else entirely. “I’ll see what I can do about a croissant, Helena. After this, maybe, once you’re better, you can go to Paris and do all of that.” He paused when she mentioned Darkseid, and something like confusion flitted across his gaze until he realized that she must have been talking about her world, about what had happened there. “I’m sure she did,” he agreed quietly, seeking to placate her. “But Darkseid isn’t here. It’s alright.”
She mulled over the question for a moment. Was it quiet enough? There were no bright spikes crawling in her ears when he spoke, nothing that made her want to curl into a ball and clamp her hands over her ears. Helena nodded. It was better.
"I miss Paris," she said quietly as she started to uncurl on the bed, legs beginning to stretch out down the length of it. Paris was picnics by the Tower, Kara assured that something had followed them from the boom tube to this new Earth and Helena being sure that nothing followed them. If anything had, it would have been her father. She was sure of that -- and she was right, because here he was. Smiling, she reached out to him, fingers curling as they came closer, the IV sticking out of the back of one hand. "Can I have your hand?"
Bruce breathed a sigh of relief when she said it was better. The quiet was uncharacteristic, and this was a side of him few rarely ever saw, a softer side, where emotion wasn’t something he buried so deep it barely seemed to exist at all. “I’ll take you there, after this is over,” he said impulsively. While he knew that was unlikely to ever happen, the words seemed right to say just then and he didn’t even think of taking them back. He returned her smile with a small, yet no less genuine, one of his own, and when she asked for his hand he didn’t hesitate. His smile became quizzical, but he held out his hand for her regardless.
The smile meant nothing; the hand everything. Both of hers grasped his, fingertips brushing over the lines of his palm, tracing them half heartedly to the meat at the base of his thumb. Even if she had been completely well, she would have a hard time discerning his hand from her father's. Now it was simply known, hands she had known all her life, that had caught her when she leapt off dressers, that had trained her, pushed her abilities.
They were safety, if such a thing was ever had in Gotham. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulled him closer, head lifting slightly off the pillow to slide his hand there, the heel of his palm cool against her throbbing temple. She rubbed her head against his hand slow, sound of skin and hair but it wasn't so loud that thousands of angry tiny villagers came running into her ear canals to stab her eardrums with wicked long spears. It was good, but better when she stopped, head held comfortable by his hand. "See, Dad?" Helena asked, girl-child sweet. One hand remained on his forearm, reassurance with slow passes of her thumb. "Safe now. You're here," she stated, absolutely sure, absolutely trusting of him and his abilities. "I'll be fine."
Touch was something he was unaccustomed to when it wasn’t given and taken in the form violence. A sad reality, perhaps, but that was familiar. This was not. Bruce watched her face at first, but then his gaze was dragged downward, following the path of her fingers along his palm. He didn’t speak, though whether he could have forced words past the lump in his throat was questionable. And then she was pulling him closer, sliding his hand beneath her head where her skin was warm beneath his palm and his fingers curled ever so slightly, light against her hair. Even though it was likely an effect of her condition, the sheer amount of trust and faith behind her belief that she was safe in his presence made his chest hurt, made it ache, but it was a sweet sort of pain. “Yes,” he agreed quietly. “I’m here, and you’ll be fine.”
Some people measured safety by knowing that the sun would rise again, shower the earth in bright yellow light. ROYGBIV. What if sunlight appeared as green? Would the grass look greener? Would the sky be aqua? But it wasn't, it was yellow, sun yellow, almost white if you looked at it and orange sometimes when it hung on the horizon like a bloated yolk. But still, it was yellow, the sky was blue, the grass green, and she was safe with father here. She gave him a smile, something true that caught even her lazy eyes. It wasn't something that had been seen in months, not really, but here it was all for him. "Yes, daddy," she murmured, daughter trusting as her eyes closed. The monitor above her head, reading her heart beat and respirations registered her slower heart beat, the steady plow onward as her eyes slowly shut and her mind slid into a halfway to nowhere world where everything was fine, and there was nothing but her father's care and rainbows made out of clouds for her to lie in.
Bruce tucked the memory of her smile away like a mental snapshot, something to be guarded fiercely and kept for a later time. It had been a long, long time since he’d seen her smile like that, and he didn’t want to forget. He could have taken his leave once she closed her eyes and slipped into sleep, but he stayed. What seemed like an eternity passed as he sat, unmoving, watching the daughter he’d never thought he would have, who felt like his even though another man had fathered her. Belatedly, then, he remembered Damian, but it was with great reluctance that he pulled his hand back and stood. Seconds ticked by as he lingered, caught between staying and leaving, and then he stooped to press a kiss to her forehead before he finally turned and left, quietly, as to not awaken her.