Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-06-02 19:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Luke, Wren + Gus
What: Wren comes to make sure little Gus isn't scarred for life.
Where: Luke's apartment.
When: Continuation of this.
Warnings/Rating: None.
By the time he joined her in the bedroom, the majority of the mess was cleaned up and the sheets were changed on the bed. The balcony window was a problem, though, and it was one that would need fixing that she couldn’t manage. “I can- You’ll need to call someone,” she said about the window, motioning to it with the tip of the broom. She started to suggest he let Gus sleep in his room in the meantime, but she stopped herself from making the suggestion, and she just sighed and put the broom aside, propping it against the wall. She walked around him, and she glanced into the living room, assuring that tiny ears weren’t listening. They weren’t, and she could tell the little boy on the couch was going to fall asleep if they let him stay there much longer. The responsible part of her wanted to make sure he got a bath and a real bed before that happened, because she wasn’t really sure the last time he’d had either, but part of her just wanted to let him fall asleep wherever he felt safe. In the end, it didn’t feel like her choice, so she came back to the room, arms crossed over her stomach.
Her voice was a hush as she regarded Luke from the doorway, and she moved into the room with that same quiet still. “Are you worried I’ll take him away from you? Is that it?” she asked, and there was more than just that in the question. There was hurt, and there was longing, and there was the fact that she felt like a guest here, like she didn’t belong, like she was intruding. And maybe it was just time, the passing of nearly a month that felt like years. She’d only seen him once in all that time, and that was all alcohol and a daze of betrayal and fear in a dark park. It felt so much longer than it had been, longer than the nearly five years they’d spent apart somehow, and that was all present in the question as she looked at him. “No one would ever give me custody, Luke, no matter what happened to the Johnsons.” She lowered her voice when she spoke the surname, the word just a movement of lips without any real sound to it. “I can’t fight you on it, even if I want to. The best I can get is partial, but they’ll never give me primary custody. I have to depend on you for that,” she explained and, right then, that felt scary in a way she hadn’t ever thought it would.
She lowered her voice more, if that was possible. “And if you think for one minute that I would use anything I know about you to get him taken away, then you don’t know me at all.” Oh, and there was a world of hurt there. She couldn’t stop that from coming across in the words, despite the fact that she tried. Because in all of this, she was more worried about him ending up in an electric chair than anything else, and leveraging that to get any kind of custody was something she would never do, never consider. She thought he knew her better than anyone in the world, and it hurt to realize he didn’t. It hurt so very much. And maybe it was just all of it building up, too much, and she didn’t know what to do with all the layers of fresh hurt.
The broken window made him sigh, but Luke had no intention of keeping Gus there until it was fixed. He assumed it was obvious, that he’d let the boy sleep in his room until then, and so he didn’t think he needed to come right out and vocalize his intentions. “Yeah, I know. I’ll take care of it.” Even though he’d already ensured that the little boy wasn’t within hearing distance, he waited patiently while Wren checked for herself, though he wasn’t particularly worried about Gus falling asleep. If he did, well, he’d simply wait until he woke up and give him a bath then. It wasn’t a life or death situation, and the kid had definitely been through a lot during the past week. Giving him a break couldn’t hurt.
His first instinct was, as always, to be on the defense. He began to say no, to deny what she said, but it was the knowledge that she would see right through his lies that made him reconsider. “It’s not as simple as that,” he insisted instead, attempting to keep his voice low. “I know what your options are legally. My lawyers went over that with me. I don’t want a custody battle, and I don’t want to keep you from seeing Gus. I want you to be able to see him, Wren.” Because he did, when it came down to it, despite his insecurities and his doubts. He heard the hurt in her voice, and he knew there was so much more there, things he couldn’t guess at, and he wished once again that she didn’t know him so damn well. It was near impossible to hide anything from her, even if he managed with the rest of the world. He paced, unable to stay still, and it was admittedly easier to not be looking at her while he was talking, the flood of hurt hard enough to hear without having to see it in her expression too and know he’d put it there. Even if he had no right to be, he was frustrated, though he couldn’t single out one specific reason for it.
“I know you wouldn’t do that, Wren. I know. It’s just-- it’s not rational, but I can’t help it. Haven’t you ever been afraid of something, even though you know deep down that you have no reason to be?” Luke turned, his agitation evident despite making efforts to hide it. Articulating this, why he was insecure, wasn’t easy. “You should hate me. Anyone else would, if they knew what you know. Shit, anyone else would’ve called the cops on me by now,” he said, fortunately remembering to watch his volume despite the fact that Gus had probably fallen asleep by then. “You were drunk the last time we talked, and--- what if you changed your mind once you had a chance to think? I don’t know, Wren. It’s like how you thought I would hate you if I ever found out about Gus.” He dragged a hand down his face and exhaled a long, ragged breath. “I’m glad your case is looking good. I really am. Just-- my insecurities are my fault. Not yours. I don’t want you to feel otherwise.”
Legal options, custody battles and the fact that he didn’t want to keep her from seeing Gus, and she realized he’d been talking to his lawyers about the same thing she’d told hers they didn’t need to worry about. The court was the problem, CPS was the problem, Luke would never, and her counsel had looked at her like she was mad. But she’d never thought it would come to this. Never, not when she handed Gus to the police and made Luke’s claim incontrovertible, and not when she turned herself in and ruined any similar claim of her own. She never thought she would be having this conversation, and she just stared at his back while he paced and didn’t look at her. She could hear her maman’s voice in her head, New Orleans on her tongue and so much distrust in every syllable, and she wondered when she was going to learn that lesson, the one about being too trusting. Still, as much as it hurt, she wasn’t sorry for it. Gus was safe and so much better off, and that trumped whatever she was feeling as she stood there wanting to shatter into a million pieces.
She could almost taste his agitation and, at any other point in their lives, she would have crossed the room and tried to do something soothing, anything that she thought might work, but she wasn’t sure she could move if she tried, and she wasn’t sure if she would hug him, or kiss him, or beat him senseless. “You would never call the cops on me,” she said, but there wasn’t the same kind of conviction in her voice that there would have been before this conversation. Somehow, this was worse than anything in that park, and she didn’t even understand why. “I thought you knew I would never call the cops on you. That I love you too much to ever let anything happen to you if I could help it. And if I did call, he’d end up in foster care, and you’d end up dead, and what would the point be in living then?” she asked, tears trailing along her cheeks, but no sobbing or cracking voice going along with the dampness. “You’re glad my case is looking good,” she repeated, because that sounded like something you said to a stranger on the street, not to someone who was pretty sure they were going to spend the rest of their life in jail until a few minutes earlier. “Me too,” she said, and her voice did crack then, it cracked to hell and back, and she laughed a mirthless, soft, laugh as she brushed the tears away from her cheeks. “I thought this would be okay,” she admitted, sounding young and sad.
She moved toward the door, and it was almost like sleepwalking, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to wake up. She stopped midway, but she didn’t turn to look at him; she wasn’t sure if she could. “You don’t have to talk to your lawyers about legal options, and I’m not going to fight you for any kind of custody. Thank you for offering to let me see him.” She was pretty sure that clarified everything, and she really wasn’t sure she could say much else without falling apart on the spot. “I don’t hate you, Luke. I don’t think I know how. I’ll just let him know I won’t be seeing him for awhile, so he doesn’t wonder and ask,” she offered, a distant kind of offer that felt too polite on her tongue. She took another step toward the door, and she paused, a hand on the frame, voice quieter. “If he’s awake.” She waited for permission before moving further.
Even after all this time, after everything he’d done, Luke was still as much a fool as he’d been as a teenager. He should have realized that she would take what he said the wrong way. Then again, he could never say anything right, and it made him wonder why he even bothered, why he even tried. His lawyers had discussed Wren with him, yes; they’d had one idea of how to go about things, while he’d had quite another. But of course she would assume the worst, of course, just as she had with Brielle. Maybe he had no right to be bitter, but oh, he was, just as he was so tired of the guilt that came with hurting her whether it was unintentional or not. He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to interrupt or protest, and he simply stood in silence and watched. The one good thing about the past week was that he hadn’t been able to feel anything, and if not for Gus he might have been tempted to just let Bruce have control whenever he wanted. What would it matter? Bruce was so much better than him, and so much more important. Gus and Wren were the only things that made him want to stay, really, and now he was quickly losing one without even realizing how he was managing it.
“I know you’d never call the cops on me.” He spoke belatedly, once she’d moved towards the door, and he didn’t even bother trying to sound anything other than utterly defeated. “I didn’t say you would. This isn’t about what I think you’d do, Wren, it’s about what I think you should do, because I don’t think I deserve any of this. I’m not a good person, damn it. I pretend to be, and I want to be, but I’m not, and I feel like you should see what I see, but at the same time I don’t want you to because you’re the only person left who actually thinks I’m worth something. Thomas sure as hell doesn’t, not anymore,” he said, his voice too low, too calm, for the content of what he was saying. In his mind, no one else would be as understanding as her; not MK, not Simon, and not even Roger. It was twisted, his way of thinking, and oh so misguided, but he’d been broken for so long that the flaws in his thought process ceased to even occur to him. He didn’t see anything wrong with it. “What did you think would be okay? Us? Wren, we didn’t resolve a damn thing the last time we talked, and I have no idea where we stand right now. I can’t read your mind. You can’t just walk in here and expect me to know--” He cut himself off, frustrated, and suddenly he was angry; at her, at himself, at everything, and he was moving forward before he was really aware of what he was doing.
If she wanted permission, he wasn’t going to give it. Not like this, not when he wanted her so badly it hurt and she didn’t seem to realize it. He put his hand on the doorframe, his arm blocking her path, and he was close enough that even a whisper would be audible. “Don’t do that,” he said furiously, wishing he could just make her understand for once. “Don’t make it sound like I don’t care.”
She managed to stay quiet throughout his statements about himself, about how he saw himself, and it was only because she was trying to understand how he could think those things, how he could see himself like that, when she didn’t see him like that all. It was his question about not resolving things that got her own anger going, and by the time he cut himself off and blocked the door, her gray eyes were stormy with something other than tears. Somehow, seeing that anger on his face was better. It was better than all the polite nothing that he’d been saying earlier, all that distance. They’d never been very good at distance, but she wasn’t really thinking about any of that, not on a conscious level.
Her whisper was as low and angry as his, and her free hand reached out to wind in the front of his shirt. She was stronger than she looked, and she twisted the fabric and used it as a pulley to get him closer. “What do you want me to think, Luke? Things are messed up, and things are complicated. I know that, and you know that. But what would you think if you spent weeks in jail, and I didn’t find a way to check on you when you were out? What would you think if the next thing you know, you found out I’d been lying to about having slept with Roger? What would you think if I didn’t try to clarify that, if I didn’t even come and tell you it wasn’t true for days? And, dammit, what would you think if I told you that, at any moment, I might get arrested and sentenced to death?” Her voice dropped, and her hand tightened on the fabric of his shirt. “And then, after all of that, if I told you I would let you see Gus, and that I’d been talking to my lawyers about your legal options and custody battles?” There were tears in her eyes, but they were as much about hurt as about anger. “I meant I didn’t think you would make me feel like a visitor in his life, and that you would know I wouldn’t even think about custody arrangements. That’s what I meant.”
She dragged in a deep breath, and she shoved at him, even as she pulled him back in the same breath, because as complicated as it was, it still felt better with him close than across a room. “I can’t do that. I can’t, Luke. I’m strong, and I’m working my way through everything else, but I just can’t be someone that visits. Iris can’t have more rights than I do, and maybe that’s selfish, but it’s all I have right now. I’m not sure if you changed your mind in the past week, and I don’t know what you want. For all I know, you’ve written us off, because it feels like you have, and I don’t know how to deal with that either.” She wasn’t even bothering trying not to cry now. It was all she could do to stay quiet, to keep her voice a hushed and shattered thing that didn’t carry. She let go of his shirt, and she slid one hand up to cup his cheek. “And, you beautiful, infuriating idiot, you’re still better than nearly everyone I know, despite everything. Don’t you see that? If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be here, and Gus wouldn’t be here.”
Luke would take her anger over cool, fabricated distance any day, and a hot sort of triumph surged through him when she took hold of his shirt and yanked him forward. At least this way he knew she was feeling something, and it was admittedly easier to talk when he wasn’t thinking, a combination of anger and her closeness taking care of that. “I know what I would think,” he hissed, tugging back, challenging the hold she had on him, though he had no actual intention of freeing himself. He didn’t want her to let go. “I’d think you didn’t care, and I’d think you and Roger still had a thing. I’d be jealous, and I’d jump to conclusions, and I’m not sure if I’d be more angry at you or terrified of losing you.” He sucked in a breath, and his fingers dug into the fabric of her dress, tugging furiously, unable to keep his hands to himself. “But it’s not that simple, and I’d realize that eventually. I asked Roger to check on you, Wren, because I couldn’t do it myself. I didn’t want to risk your chances of getting some kind of custody of Gus, damn it. He was supposed to make sure you were okay,” he said. “And I wanted to come to Passages, but MK and Jack told me that I’d send you running right back into Gotham if I was there, and I didn’t want to make things worse. I messed up, but I thought they knew better than I did.” He shook his head then, because he’d never wanted to take custody from her, and he’d never tried to go behind her back and plot with his lawyers either. “They talked to me about it, Wren. They’re paid to give me advice, which they did, but I wasn’t interested. I don’t want you to be a fucking visitor in his life. I want you to be a part of his life, because you’re his mother, and I want us to be a family, even if-- if it’s not what you want.” His voice faltered, but he refused to fall apart, and he kept pushing forward, despite her tears and the hurt.
It was almost funny, because he’d been so worried about her changing her mind, and she was worried about him changing his, and they were so far from being on the same page that it made him want to laugh and scream simultaneously. “No,” he said, lifting his hands to slide around her jaw, to keep her from looking anywhere else other than at him. “I didn’t change my mind, and I didn’t write us off. I thought you might have, once you were sober. I miss you, Wren, and I still want you. I’ll always want you.” He laughed when she called him an idiot, but it was a broken sound, and his thumbs brushed across her chin as she cupped his cheeks. “I don’t know why you’re here, and Gus-- I don’t deserve either of you. I can’t see what you see,” he admitted. “I don’t know how.”
She held tight, unaware that he wasn’t really trying to pull free. It was something born in recent years, that refusal to let go, as opposed to the girl she had been, the one who had been willing to let go so easily, to run away at the slightest spike of fear. The fingers in the fabric of her dress only made her wrap her hand more securely in the fabric of his shirt, keeping her own upper hand in the only way she could in the quiet of the hissed apartment, where she was limited in how loudly she could speak and how hard she could hit him. Because she wanted to hit him, she did, and that was something new with him. “Don’t make assumptions about what I want,” she insisted, anger going sky, and she shoved to avoid just smacking him like she wanted to. “Don’t,” she repeated, his faltering voice starting to eat at all her anger, and she wanted to stay angry. Being angry was easier than being hurt, than feeling like she didn’t belong. “No one knows me better than you do,” she insisted angrily. “No one. Why would they know what you should do?” But then his hands were on her jaw, and she had no choice but to look at him. She shuddered when he said he missed her, that he wanted her, a shiver that chased along her spine and terrified her. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” she said, and her voice was nothing like the angry hiss it had been moments earlier. It was fear, and it was insecurity, and it was a complete crumbling of her walls. “Don’t say that and then go want to be with her,” she continued, a plea, one that carried pain in the corners and edges of the request.
The plea took the last bit of her restraint with it, and she yanked sharply at his shirt in an effort to get him away from the door, where the little boy could round the corner and sneak up on them without notice. She pulled, and it was an unforgiving tug, nothing delicate or elegant in it. It was all scared little girl, a million things she should have grown out of. She was sober now, which she hadn’t been when they’d discussed this before, but sobriety only made her more frightened, and she slid her hands beneath his shirt, her fingers curling against the warmth of his stomach, as much scratch as an attempt to hold on, to control something, and her fingers brushed against scars that only made the fear in her eyes darken her eyes when she looked back up at him again. “I can see it for both of us,” she vowed, shaking her head a moment later, “but I’m terrified, Luke. I don’t know if I can- I’m not MK. I don’t know how she wakes up every morning with him dead, and I don’t know how she makes it through each day. I couldn’t.” And maybe she would, for Gus, but she didn’t even think she could manage that, and her fingers slid further up beneath his shirt, desperate tugs and scratches against skin. “And I’m scared you won’t be able to stop, that I won’t be enough, that I’ll make it worse somehow.” Like now, was the unspoken fear.
Some of his anger faded when she shoved at him again, but only some, and Luke refrained from pointing out that he was merely doing the same thing she had in making his own assumptions. “Then tell me what you want,” he challenged, but then he faltered again, realizing the truth in what she said. “I know. I shouldn’t have listened to them, Wren, but they sounded so sure and I let them make me doubt myself,” he admitted, none too proud of himself, which was audible in his voice. “I just wanted to do the right thing.” Which had gotten him into so much trouble as a teenager, but apparently it took him longer to learn some lessons than it did others. He leaned against her when her voice changed, the shift from anger to fear one he couldn’t miss, and the plea made his heart ache. “I do mean it,” he said, his touch greedy and desperate as he traced over her jaw like he might not get another chance. “She’s not the one I can’t stop thinking about. She’s not the one who knows me better than I know myself, and she’s not the one I want to spend my life with.” By the end his voice had dropped to a near whisper, his mouth somewhere near her ear.
When she pulled, he followed, adding in his own efforts to nudge her away from the door. It had barely even been a month since they’d seen each other properly, but when her hands slid beneath his shirt it felt more like an eternity, longer than the five years they’d been apart beforehand. Luke couldn’t hide his reaction, and he didn’t want to. “I’m not going to die. I know you’re scared, and I am too, but I won’t die,” he reassured her, voice gone breathless as her hands slid further up against his skin. She was so close that he didn’t have the willpower to resist what he wanted, which was to kiss her, and he claimed her mouth with a groan that was lost between them. “You’re more than enough,” he told her, between kisses, when he had the breath to speak, “and you don’t make things worse. You only make them better.”
“What I want,” she managed before he faltered, “is to feel like we’re doing this together, and not like we’re fighting over who gets to keep him. I would never keep him away from you. Don’t do it to me?” and it was a request, without doubt, it was a request. Maybe it wasn’t the legal way to do it, maybe it didn’t give her a leg to stand on, but she didn’t want hours mapped out by lawyers and the court. She didn’t want that life for Gus, and she didn’t want it for them, either. If it came down to that, she’d do what she started to do when he stopped her. She’d let him win, and not because it was easier to walk away. She’d do it because she thought it was the best thing for little boy slumbering on the couch.
Then he started to admit he shouldn’t have listened, and that softened her, made her relax just a little, and the lean against her did the rest. She closed her eyes when he traced her jaw, and she wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe him so very much. She wanted to not worry that he was with Brielle whenever he wasn’t in her range of vision, and she wanted to stop worrying that he and Brielle were in bed together at night, and she wanted to stop imagining him with Brielle whenever she closed her eyes. His mouth was near her ear, and she held her breath as he spoke, wanting that lifetime he promised, even if he didn’t realize he was promising it. She made a needy sound, something that was wrapped up in more than just the feel of his skin under her hands, and she whimpered as she realized he was going to kiss her. She didn’t expect him to take that initiative and, really, she should have resisted. She’d told him she wanted to give him time, and she’d meant it, but she couldn’t resist the way his mouth felt on hers. She kissed him back with more anger than kindness, more hunger than capitulation. Her hands slid down around his waist, fingers pressing in just over the waistband of his jeans, and she was counting on him to keep her from going too far, because she didn’t have it in her to do it. There was fear in every bite against his mouth, in every whimpered demand against his lips, and in the grip against his skin. “I’d go mad,” she told him, a shiver against his body, a whisper against his kiss.
“I won’t,” he promised, and it was an easy one to make, because Luke had never wanted to keep her away from Gus. “I want us to do this together too, Wren. I’d never keep him away from you.” He couldn’t ever imagine having reason enough to do so, no matter how bad things got, and maybe now he was a little less paranoid that she would think the killing thing was enough to separate him from his son. He had to stop, of course, or else she’d be justified in her concerns, but if he made a real effort and managed to stay on track then maybe they could get this family thing down after all.
Brielle was so far from being something he thought about on a regular basis, and Luke had no idea what situations Wren imagined the two of them, although he could suspect it, as untrue as they were. He hadn’t even spoken to her since everything fell apart, and while he might have wondered if she was alright as opposed to wandering the streets or being held by Alexander, he had no real desire to see her, and there was definitely no desire at all to be with her. Maybe he should have held himself back, but he didn’t need time, because he already knew what he wanted, and it was right there in front of him. After an initial fear that she might push him away, Luke was all too eager to respond to her hunger, even the anger he tasted there, and his hands slid from her face down to her hips, pressing against the small of her back to keep her close and pushing up the fabric of her dress along her thigh. He knew, though, that they had to keep themselves from going too far, since Gus was asleep on the couch just outside the door, even if it was the hardest thing in the world to keep himself from going further. “I would too,” he whispered against her lips. “I almost did, before. But you’re not going to lose me.”
She wasn’t sure she trusted him, but that was because the worry about Gus was so new, was so raw. That unexpected moment when she realized this wasn’t her place still sharp and bright, and she was still aching from it. But she wanted to believe him. Just like everything else, like Brielle, like the killing, she wanted to believe him. She worried that this was all weakness, that she should step away, but she couldn’t. It would be easier to stop breathing than it would be to leave his embrace, and the hand at the small of her back that pulled her close made her moan into the kiss, and she intentionally tried to keep the sound muffled-quiet as his hand slid along her thigh. She wanted him so much, but she knew giving into that want would make everything so much more complicated right then, even if it wasn’t for Gus’ presence in the living room. That didn’t stop her from brushing her lips down along the column of his throat, and it didn’t stop her from sucking at his collarbone, fingers tugging the collar of his shirt aside. It didn’t stop her from pressing herself to him, tiptoes and her body soft curves against him, and it didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around his waist as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder, hands not giving up warm skin in the process.
She held him impossibly tight, her breath fanning against the side of his neck, and she closed her eyes as she leaned up into him. “You’ll tell me?” she asked, not loosening her grip at all to ask the question. “If it happens again, if you want to, you’ll tell me?” He had promised before, but she wasn’t sure he would keep that promise, and it was somehow more important than almost anything else right then. She sighed, and she pressed a kiss to the skin beneath her cheek, and she rocked into him, a sway without music in the still of the ruined room. “I want to trust you again,” she whispered, as if saying it could make it happen, and she managed a small smile as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “You could ask me out on a date. That might be a good start,” she suggested quietly, the desire to try wound up in the suggestion.
She didn’t hear the click of dog nails that indicated they were being watched, and her back was to the door and the little boy standing there looking sleepy, fingers in his mouth and confusion in his very tired gray eyes.
Her moan was like unspoken confirmation that she still wanted him, and despite the fact that she muffled it, that they had to keep quiet, Luke had to fight the urge to coax out similar sounds. His hand ventured higher, over her thigh up to her hip, and he tipped his head back when her lips trailed down his throat to his collarbone. Ever since Wren had found out about Brielle he’d feared that he would never have this again, and it almost felt like a dream, her warmth against him, one he never wanted to give up. His fingers pressed into her skin, mirroring the tight hold she had on him, and his lips brushed against her temple in an effort to kiss whatever part of her he could reach. “I’ll tell you. It won’t be easy, but I’ll make myself do it,” he told her. It was an honest answer along with the promise; yes, he would tell her, but he wasn’t going to pretend it would be simple to admit to the very thing he’d been fighting to hide for so long. His breath caught in his throat when she rocked against him, heavy and thick, and he was so caught up in her that he was entirely oblivious to Gus’ initial approach. “I want you to trust me too. I want to earn it back, however I can.”
The thought of a date made him smile as he looked down at her, and he thought it might not be such a bad idea, going back to the basics. They hadn’t been on a proper date since they were teenagers, and that had been so long ago, in a time that almost didn’t seem real now. “Okay,” he agreed. “Will you go out on a date with me, Wren?”
There was no chance for him to wait for a response, because just then Luke finally noticed Gus’ presence, all sleepy-eyed confusion as he watched with Finch at his side. He could feel warm heat spread across his cheeks as he pulled his hands back, clearing his throat to indicate to Wren that they had an audience. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he said lightly, his hand brushing hers as he stepped around to get closer to the little boy. “Are you ready for your bath now?” He was half-hoping Gus wouldn’t question what he’d seen, and he noticed that the child didn’t look upset or distressed-- just confused, and the expression made it very difficult not to laugh. Gus looked between the two of them, fingers still in his mouth, and he pulled them out to pose his question, all lisp and childish innocence. “What are you doing?” He was pretty sure Gus was far too young for the whole when two people love each other spiel, like the one his mother had given him, and he glanced back at Wren as if to say you handle this one.
The promises made her feel better, even though she didn’t take them at face value, as she would have once. But she wanted to trust his intentions, and she wanted to believe him, and she let herself just be lulled by the feel of him against her, so solid, so familiar, yet so different. She wasn’t sure she would ever get accustomed to the changes in him, that she’d ever get enough of him, but this helped, the steady warmth and the feel of his hands on her body. Maybe it was weakness, but she didn’t really care just then. In the past month, her life had unraveled like yarn, and this felt like there might be something good on the horizon. Even if it was a balm, a pretty lie, she’d take it, as long as he was there. And that definitely was weak. Still, she managed a smile up at him when he asked her on a date. She started to tease him, to suggest he come up with that idea on his own next time, but she noticed his gaze and the clearing of his voice, and she turned, already knowing what she would find in the doorway.
When he pulled his hands back, she smiled more, and she touched her fingers to the heat that was spreading across one cheek, the touch an intimate-soft caress as he stepped around her. She wasn’t worried about Gus seeing anything as innocent as what he’d just walked in, and maybe that was because of her own upbringing. Maybe she should have been concerned, but she didn’t think it was bad, the little boy seeing affection. Okay, so maybe it was a little more than that, but she didn’t think he was old enough to make that connection, and she just waited for Gus to pose whatever question he was going to pose. He really was a beautiful little boy, she thought, watching him stand there with his fingers in his mouth. So like his father.
She had to hold back a laugh when Luke looked back at her. The little boy didn’t look upset or scared, and she took a risk and walked around Luke, her hand sliding along the small of his back as she passed him. She stopped in front of the little boy, and she crouched down in front of him. She still felt like she was intruding somewhat, like she wasn’t sure what Luke would consider an okay response, but she pushed that concern aside and smiled at Gus. “This,” she said, and she tickled the little boy’s belly, and she kissed his messy cheek, and she touched a finger to his nose lightly, before whispering in his ear loudly enough for the sound to carry. “Finch needs a bath.” As if it was a secret from the dog, who was sitting there, tail thumping against the floor.
It wasn’t that Luke thought affection was a bad thing for the boy to see, exactly; anything would have been better than what he’d experienced with the Johnsons. Still, Gus was so young, and he didn’t want to confuse him any more than he already was. The brush of her fingers against his cheek didn’t do anything to alleviate the heat, but he tried to keep himself composed, because they hadn’t really been doing anything that would scar the child for life. Maybe a little affection might even be a good thing for him to see. He hung back while Wren approached the boy, waiting to see what sort of response she would give with only a hint of apprehension. Whatever he might have been expecting wasn’t clear, but he was relieved nonetheless, because Gus ended up laughing and wrinkling his nose when she kissed his cheek, all little boy reaction to such affection. He rubbed his eyes as he turned to look at Finch, as though inspecting him to see if the dog really did need a bath right that second. “Uh-huh,” he agreed after a moment. “He likes to splash. You’ll get wet.”
Luke stepped forward then, coming to stand behind Wren as she crouched in front of the boy. “He’s right,” he told her. “You’ll have to get in there with him, Gus, to keep him still.” He grinned down at the child, and Gus beamed up at them. “Okay.” He yawned, tugging on Finch’s collar as he led him towards the bathroom. “Come, Finch,” he demanded, trying to imitate Luke’s tone whenever he gave the dog commands, and he couldn’t help laughing at the way his voice sounded.
“I think Luke probably needs a bath too,” she told the little boy in a conspiratorial whisper. She considered telling Gus that she needed to leave, because even if she took the risk coming to see him, she knew it wasn’t a visit that she could draw out indefinitely. But she wanted to at least see him tucked into bed, since she didn’t know when she’d get the chance again, and she she let herself drag her fingers through the little boy’s hair in a lingering caress as the dog was led away. “I’ll clean up the kitchen,” she offered, looking over her shoulder at Luke and not turning until Gus had disappeared back around the corner and into the hall with the dog.
She hesitated a moment, because she was still feeling uncertain. But, in the end, she knew she had to say what was on her mind, even if she was overstepping. And if she was, it was a good time for it, since she could slip out while the sleepy boy was in his bath. Luke was right behind her, and it was nothing at all to turn and tug lightly on the front of his shirt, the gesture an old one, an insecure one, just like biting her lip, which she did as she watched her fingers. “I have two maids. They’ve been with me since Caesars. Let me send one of them over? We need someone who isn’t like us, in case something like next week happens again, someone he at least knows,” she said practically, twisting the fabric tighter as she went on. “And we need to have someone on the other side who he isn’t scared of. I don’t know if that’s Bruce, or Selina, or someone else, but there needs to be someone.” She looked up, as the sound of running water began, along with more commands to the dog from the little boy. “You should get in there.”
Gus giggled at the prospect of the older man needing a bath too, and Luke shook his head emphatically behind her back before pulling a face that simply made the boy’s laughter increase, which he tried to hide behind small hands. He was trying not to think about the fact that Wren had already stayed long enough, and her just being here was a risk, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to go. Surely just a little longer couldn’t hurt, could it? He watched as Gus led Finch around the corner and into the bathroom, where they disappeared from sight, though he kept an ear out to ensure nothing went wrong.
The way she tugged on his shirt was achingly familiar, as was the way she bit her lip, and he knew she was going to suggest something, or ask, before she even spoke. His first impulse was to say no, because on a good day he had trust issues and Wren’s maids were strangers to him, but after a moment of consideration he decided it couldn’t hurt to give one of them a chance. He could always talk to Wren if there was something about the woman he didn’t like, after all. “Okay,” he agreed. “Send one over, and I’ll see how it goes.” As for someone across the door, that was trickier, and he frowned as he came up blank. “I don’t know about Bruce. Gus wouldn’t recognize him if he wasn’t dressed as the Bat, which might help, but he doesn’t really know how to be around kids.” A pause. “I don’t trust Selina around him, Wren. I’m sorry, but I don’t. Not if it’s just the two of them. I’m not sure anyone on our side would work.” There was Damian, but Luke wasn’t sure he wanted Damien around his kid either. Someone normal, without a thousand different issues, would have been nice. The sound of running water made him look up, and he nodded. With his luck Gus would accidentally flood the bathroom. “Yeah, I should,” he said, just as a loud splash sounded, followed by a bark, and he groaned. “You don’t actually have to clean the kitchen,” he added over his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom, where he found that most of the water was still in the bathtub, thankfully, even if Gus had somehow managed to get his hands on bubble bath and was happily pouring it over Finch as he sat in the rapidly rising water. It didn’t take long to get the situation under control, however, even if he ended up far wetter than he should have once the little boy and his dog were as clean as they were going to get just then.
“I’ll send Carmen,” she said, before he disappeared to go make sure as much soap and water got on the little boy as on the bathroom. “She probably should have retired five years ago, and her English isn’t wonderful, but she isn’t judgemental or nosy, and she has more grandchildren than I have fingers. At least if something like last week happens again, we’ll know he’s taken care of by someone who can make it better by giving him other kids to play with. If you don’t like her, then we- just send her back. I’ll just tell her it’s to help clean up temporarily, to see if you like her.” She was still waiting for him to change his mind, to tell her no, but then her mind was on the problem of finding someone across the door. “Alfred is the logical choice,” she said, “despite my problems with Iris.” She assumed he knew about those, that she didn’t need to explain. “I don’t know Selina well enough to say yes or no, but I get a feeling she’s too young and wild to be responsible for a child, despite her intentions. The same goes for Damian or Mary Jane or Peter. I don’t know who Jack has,” she suggested, but she doubted he had a sweet old grandmother who knitted. Their lives just weren’t that simple. “Lois or Clark might be good choices, but I think Bruce is our best bet. If he’s around, there’s a chance you can influence, at least,” she suggested, but there was a question there, because she didn’t know much about any of them, not beyond what she’d gotten from Selina’s messages.
She nodded when he went to check on Gus and, despite his insistence that she didn’t need to, she kept herself busy by cleaning the mess that was the kitchen. It wasn’t a perfect job, and she couldn’t remembered the last time she’d actually cleaned anything, but at least the glass was all picked up, and anything slippery was gone from the floor. Carmen could do the rest when she came over. By the time she finished, the water had shut off, and she rinsed her hands and slipped on her shoes as she went to the master bedroom, which she’d never actually seen before, giving him enough time to get both boy and dog into bed. She leaned in the doorway.
Carmen sounded like she would prove to be an adequate childcare provider, but Luke refused to come to any final conclusions until he actually met the woman in person. “We do need someone who’s not like us,” he admitted. “I’ll let you know once I’ve met her, okay?” It was the best he could do just then. He trusted her judgment, for the most part, but when it came to Gus he wasn’t taking any chances. As for someone through the door, he wasn’t sure if Alfred would be around enough to count, though he certainly was the best choice. He didn’t know about Wren’s problems with Iris, since she hadn’t told him about them, and the look he gave her said as much. “We can’t use who Jack has,” he said, almost immediately, without elaborating who or why. “Bruce knows how important Gus is. He wouldn’t let anything happen to him, and if I want it badly enough I can influence him. He can’t shut me out, not completely, and when it comes to my side of things he usually listens.” He and Bruce worked very differently than she and Selina did, being constantly--for the most part--aware of each other’s presence and thoughts.
Once Gus was dried off, and they’d done as much with Finch as they could after he shook his fur and sprayed water everywhere, getting the little boy into bed was fairly easy. He was too sleepy to conduct his usual bedtime ritual of changing his mind about which pj’s he wanted about fifty times, and as soon as he crawled under the covers and got settled, Finch sprawled out beside him, his eyelids were already drooping and his fingers were back in his mouth. The bedroom was nothing spectacular, and just as it had been in his previous apartment, Luke didn’t have a lot of personal items that marked the room as his own. He looked up when he heard Wren approach, turning from his seat on the edge of the bed, offering a smile and gesturing for her to come in.
She didn’t clarify about Iris, knowing she didn’t have much time left and not wanting to spend it on something that she couldn’t change. She and Iris had gotten off on the wrong foot, and every subsequent conversation had been more of the same, and Wren was pretty sure the damage was done there. His statement about Jack made her tip her head a little, and she told herself that she’d ask Jack about it, the next time she saw him. She considered telling Luke about her conversation with Jack, about the woman Jack had hurt and the free sessions she’d offered him, but that would hold, she thought. And since she agreed with him about Bruce, she just nodded. She didn’t like Bruce very much, but she knew he would keep Gus safe, and that’s all that mattered as a short-term solution.
When he motioned to her, she walked into the room, and she sat on the opposite side of the bed. The little boy beneath the blankets was already mostly asleep, and she just sat there and watched him for a few long seconds, edging on a minute and longer than she should have stayed. She couldn’t look away, and it was obvious she was memorizing as much as she could, just in case. She moved finally, but only because she forced herself to do it, and she leaned over the little boy and kissed his forehead, smiling when he sleepily swatted her hair out of his face. “Fais de beaux rêves, mon bebe,” she whispered and, with a scratch to Finch’s ear, she sat back and looked at Luke. She knew she had to leave, knew she was pushing it, and she sighed and reached out her hand and trailed her fingers along Luke’s jaw. “Walk me out?”
Luke was content to simply watch her look at Gus, expression shadowed in the dim room, and he could have sat there for hours without complaint, just watching, if he hadn’t been painfully aware that they didn’t have that much time. What time they did have was running out, however much he wished otherwise. He nodded when she asked him to walk her out, no hesitation whatsoever, and he slipped silently off the bed and waited for her outside of the bedroom. For the first time since he’d found out about Gus, he felt like there was a chance that things might be okay. Not now, not yet, and not without effort on his part to fix his mistakes, but it was possible. “He was worn out, poor guy,” he told her once she’d left the room. “Usually he wants a story first, and he changes his mind about his pj’s half a dozen times.”
They were tiny details, but she took them in greedily, storing it away with everything else she was missing and had missed over the years. She was quiet as she walked toward the front door, and she stopped just shy of turning the knob and waited for him to reach her side. When she kissed him, it was soft and almost shy, the angry heat of the bedroom faded away and leaving behind a bittersweet longing tinged with fear and hope. She had to stretch against him to reach his mouth, and she stayed there a moment after the near-chaste press of lips. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said, and it was intentional, putting the ball in his court for all of it - a date, his decision about Brielle, all of it. She’d done the chasing today, after nearly a month of waiting for him to come to her. She’d done the chasing throughout their entire relationship, even when they were kids. Now it was his turn. She brushed her thumb against his lower lip, back and forth and light. She turned the doorknob, and she let her thumb slip away from his mouth, her body away from his.
Luke wasn’t expecting the kiss, since he’d been the one to initiate it before, and he didn’t take more than was offered. There was heat there, but it was a slow burn rather than a raging fire, and save for his hands skimming her sides he didn’t actually touch her. He still didn’t really understand what they were, or where they stood, but he figured she wouldn’t be kissing him if she wasn’t willing to give him a chance. Surely, if she wanted someone else, someone like Silver, she would have told him. She wouldn’t give him false hope. He told himself all these things, attempting to settle insecurities that he’d never shown, really, and he didn’t realize that she’d been waiting for him to come to her. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have known when she wanted him to come back. Now, though, he did realize that she was leaving things up to him, and he vowed not to let her down again. “I won’t be,” he said, and it took a great deal of effort to stay still when he moved away. He watched her leave, and then he shut the door, staring long after it was closed and her footsteps had receded down the hallway.
Gus was fast asleep when Luke returned to the bedroom, and while he probably should have tried to get some sleep himself, he simply sat next to the boy and watched him as the morning crept in and brought with it a new day.