Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-03-22 17:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | alfred pennyworth, catwoman |
Who: Wren (plus a side of Iris, a child and a dog.)
What: Narrative (kind of)
Where: Luke's -> Park -> Luke's
When: Today
Warnings/Rating: Nope
Wren didn’t even walk into Luke’s apartment. She didn’t peer into the darkness, no matter how much she wanted to. She didn’t walk in and wake him, though she considered it. It was only the tight timeline that kept her from it, really. It was fifteen minutes to noon, and she knew she needed to use those fifteen minutes to ensure that Finch hadn’t decided he hated her between New York and now.
Wren had her own collar and leash, despite Luke’s offer to leave one out that would have required hunting for, and she creaked open the door and whispered Finch’s name. It was unnecessary, really, because the dog was at the door, larger than she remembered and barking up a storm before she managed to get his name out entirely. He growled, and she worried that this was a terrible idea, but she didn’t back up or run away. She was used to cats, not dogs, and maybe he could smell Petti on her. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a treat and handed it out to him. “Remember me?” she whispered, hoping he would stop growling and refrain from biting her hand off, which would surely get Luke out of bed and result in a conversation about the need to obtain a puppy in fifteen minutes, all while bleeding on the apartment doorstep (where she was pretty sure people had bled in the past, given the state of the apartment complex).
Luckily, something clicked, and instead of lunging forward, Finch nuzzled Wren’s skirt tentatively with his cold nose. She smiled, and she scratched one of his ears as he took the treat from her hand. Okay. This might be okay. “You’re a terrible guard dog, oui?” she whispered fondly, even as she slipped the collar around his neck. “Also, you’re too big to be a puppy, and I promised a puppy,” she said, the silence lulling her into thinking Luke had slept through the barking and the growling. “So pretend to be tiny,” she added. closing the door once the leash and collar were in place.
The walk to the car was a tug-of-war, with Finch trying to walk her, instead of her walking him. By the time they reached the expensive Cadillac, however, Finch had been appeased by treats and scratches to his floppy ears, and he only growled once at the impassively unimpressed driver before climbing into the backseat. Wren explained to the dog, throughout the drive, that this was an important walk, and that he had to behave, or Iris might never let her near Gus again. Finch whimpered, which she took for approval, but she kept a tight grip on his leash once they crossed the park, regardless.
It was sunny, dry and cool, and Iris was already at the park, waiting patiently on the same bench as the previous day, a less-patient Gus seated next to her, his shorter legs sticking straight out along the bench’s seat, his feet extending beyond the edge of it to kick side to side in the air. She was attempting to distract him with a story, but his attention was clearly elsewhere. She watched as he fidgeted on the bench, looking around for Wren and the puppy that had been promised. Finally, when it was obvious that he wasn’t paying attention to the story, interrupting her with question of when the puppy would arrive, she held her left wrist out to him, a large-faced watch there. She pointed at each hand, describing how the puppy should arrive when both of the lines stood straight up tall together. Gus seemed fascinated by it, and split his time watching the hands move closer together and looking around the park.
Gus saw the dog, all the way from the playground. Wren, despite having little experience with children that didn’t involve rescuing them from abusive homes, knew the pull wasn’t her, but Finch. She’d just made it to the bench by the time Gus came bounding over, seemingly unconcerned that the puppy was a full-grown German Shepherd. Finch barked in greeting, his tail thumping heavily on the grass, and Gus hid behind Iris’ skirt, all wide blue-gray eyes and a mess of brown hair. Wren knelt on the grass, unconcerned with the state of her expensive skirt, and she smiled. “He won’t bite,” she promised, hoping against hope that Finch didn’t prove her wrong. The dog, seemingly understanding, laid down on the grass, his nose just inches from one tiny sneaker. The nose edged a tiny bit closer, until it rested on the sneaker in question, and Gus giggled from behind Iris’ skirts.
“Can I names him?” The little boy asked, after a few seconds of bravely inching out from behind Iris’ skirt and reaching an outstretched, tiny hand to pat Finch’s head.
Wren started to tell him that the dog already had a name, but Gus looked so hopeful that she couldn’t do it. “I think he’d like that,” she said, looking up at Iris and giving her a small shrug. It was only an hour a day. It couldn’t hurt anything.
Gus screwed up his little face, and Wren couldn’t resist reaching a hand out to ruffle his messy hair. He looked at her like she was strange, which she probably was, and she tugged her hand away a moment later.
“I have to called him something good,” the four-year-old explained solemnly, looking up to Iris for agreement. “Like Jesus or parayers,” he added, his lisp on the s making it hard for Wren to understand the first word and the mispronunciation making prayers even more of a challenge. The comment made her frown, but Gus didn’t notice, and he just continued on, his tone turning sheepish. “But he can be Monkey too?” It was definitely a question, one posed to the woman standing beside him, and not to the woman holding Finch’s leash.
A frown had crossed Iris’ face at the first two options for names. Even not knowing what the dog’s real name was, she knew it was worlds better than those. She hid the delicate scowl from Gus by the time he looked back up at her, giving him a smile instead, and joining Wren in kneeling on the grass. She already had a smudge of ketchup along the edge of her skirt from lunch, a little green would contrast nicely, she figured. “Monkey. He looks like he would like that name best.” She nodded decisively while she reached her own hand out toward the dog, slow and easy, the way she’d been taught those years ago in the guide dog training classes. This dog was much larger than a ‘puppy’, but she’d met several German Shepherds during those weeks, and his size didn’t frighten her. She rested her other hand on Gus’ back, warm and supportive, before giving him a gentle nudge. “You can go run with him if Wren says it’s alright. But stay where I can see you.”
Wren stood when Iris suggested Gus take Finch for a run. That park was large, and Finch wasn’t the type to run off; she knew that from memory and plenty of walks that hadn’t involved leashes in the long-ago past. She tugged Finch-now-Monkey’s leash free, leaving only his collar in place, and she nodded. “Stay over there, though, away from the playground equipment,” she said, her voice lowering fondly when she spoke to the boy.
Tail thumping on the grass, the dog took off when Gus did, and it only took a few minutes of running before Gus was getting his face covered in licks, and only seconds longer until Gus was crawling after the dog on the grass. “You’re going to have to deal with grass stains,” Wren said, looking over at Iris, addressing her for the first time with a smile. “Thank you again.”
Iris’ gaze was distant, watching the pair in the grass as she responded to Wren. “It’s good for him. I’ll buy a stain remover on our way home.” She went quiet, with only a hummed response to Wren’s thanks. The hint of smile at Gus being covered in enthusiastic licks was subdued to the point of being nearly absent, but her eyes behind the large pair of prescription sunglasses she was wearing were warm with affection. After long minutes of silence and watching, she turned her head to study Wren again, much like she had during their previous meeting in the park. She still had questions, both about whatever relation was between her and Gus, but also about the door they obviously shared. Instead of asking, she simply sighed softly and returned to watching Gus roll through the grass with the dog.
Wren almost encouraged her to ask whatever she wanted to ask, because it was obvious there was something, but that would just open doors that she wasn’t ready to open. She’d agreed to come clean with Luke sometime in the near future, but even that was something thready, far away, not here and now and sitting beside her on a bench. She was distracted from the almost offer of candor by a vendor, one from the dog park a block away, offering custom name tags. She nodded at him, gave him Finch’s new name, and handed out money from her clutch, figuring it couldn’t hurt, and she could just tuck it away after letting Gus see it. The noise of the handheld machine kept there from being any new confessions for a few moments, and Gus’ return during the process shifted her attention to him.
A few seconds later, nametag retrieved and affixed to the collar (which had none, since it didn’t actually belong to the dog), Wren turned her attention to the child, who was asking Iris for a snack, all while fisting dirty fingers into the fur at Finch’s neck, as if he was worried the dog would disappear if he let go. Wren finally gave in, sighed, and spoke. “I’ll be back tomorrow, if that’s okay with you?” she asked, deferring to Iris’ position. “I know you likely have questions, but I don’t mean any harm,” she promised earnestly.
It was hard to read Iris’ expression, hidden as it was behind the sunglasses, but there was enough of a shift to indicate a smile. “If I thought you did, we wouldn’t be here.” She nodded though, and her smile widened into something more recognizable. “We’ll be here. I don’t have him the day after that, but tomorrow we’ll be here.” If Iris was being honest with herself, she looked forward to the park as well, talking to Wren, even if it was full of silences and secrets, made her feel like a normal person for a short while.
Wren smiled, her appreciation genuine. Gone was the cool facade, and there was much more of the girl she had been in the look than there normally was. She ducked her head a moment later, asked Gus to say goodbye to the newly-christened Monkey, and then she snapped the leash back on and stood. “Goodbye Gus,” she said, smiling at him when he tipped his head much further back than necessary and gave her a shy smile. She nodded once more at Iris, and then she tugged a very unhappy dog to the car.
There was much whimpering on the ride home, panting out the window and barking at passing cars. She walked him around the apartment complex before making her way back to Luke’s door and cracking it open quietly. “Don’t wake him,” she whispered as she snapped the leash off. She forgot to take the shiny red collar off, and the new nametag that proclaimed his name as Monkey clinked against the collar’s buckle as she closed the door on mussed fur rife with tiny, sticky handprints all over.
She managed not to cry until the divider was up between the cool, dark backseat and the occupied driver's seat.