Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-01-30 01:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Luke and Wren
What: Luke and crazyWren are reunited. (1/2)
Where: A monorail.
When: After this.
Warnings/Rating: None.
Luke only had a vague recollection of getting home once he found himself standing on the sidewalk. There was a cab ride, one he’d fallen asleep during, and he was pretty sure Bruce had assisted in actually getting him down the flights of stairs and out of the hotel. He was just so tired, to the point where he wondered how he was still functioning, and layer upon layer of worry for Wren, and for everyone else through that damned door, didn’t help matters; it just weighed him down more.
Somehow, after managing to make himself move, he got inside, and he realized it was quiet. Too quiet. But then, Gus was with Evie and Will, Jack was probably in Gotham, and MK... who knew where MK was? He couldn’t wrap his mind around that just then. He did remember that Wren was supposed to be here, and he dragged himself through the house, calling her name, to no avail. She wasn’t here. Of course she wasn’t here. Selina had Lazarus Pit goo pumped through her veins; he shouldn’t have taken all those ‘okays’ as any form of real agreement. She was probably still out on the monorail, or maybe somewhere else by now, and he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all, but he didn’t even have the energy. He had no idea how Bruce could do this, how he’d pushed himself for weeks with practically no sleep and only enough food to sustain himself, but he wasn’t Bruce. He wasn’t that strong. He couldn’t do this. Neither could Wren. It wasn’t that Bruce didn’t care; he knew he did. He knew. He knew the other man cared, and he knew he was sorry, but that just wasn’t enough anymore. They needed more than guilt and apologies. Wren might never be the same, and who knew when Gus could come home, and everything was such a disaster in both worlds. He could have died. She could have died. People had died, and he just-- he couldn’t.
“I can’t,” he whimpered, making it halfway to the front door before his legs gave out. This was more than exhaustion, but he had to find Wren, and pushing himself seemed like the hardest thing in the world just then. “I can’t do this, I can’t, we can’t. You have to stop. Don’t be sorry. Just stop.” Luke closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the floor, letting Bruce’s words, his silent response, wash over him without really paying attention to what he was saying. Later. They could talk about this later, and he could cross back through to fix his precious city later. Right now, his main focus was Wren. Everything else could wait.
Up. He had to get up.. It was a struggle, yes, and it took more than one attempt, but Luke got to his feet. And then he got out the door, and he called another cab, and he tried not to fall asleep this time around. His clothes were decent, pants and a shirt, but his hair was rumpled, there were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked like someone who hadn’t slept properly in a while. That didn’t matter, though. Sleep wasn’t important either. He could do this. He could. He’d been wrong; if Bruce could, for a city full of people he didn’t know, then he could do it for the one person he loved more than anything else. Yes. He could, and he would.
Determination got him moving, but desperation had Luke calling for her, repeating her name as he searched the crowds and the platform and the blurred windows of the monorail. He asked people if they’d seen her, coherent for the most part, but no one really answered, and so he kept looking.
Wren hadn't forgotten her promise to go the house. She hadn't forgotten it, but time had run away from her. It had slipped through her fingers, but things had been doing that since she'd returned from Gotham. She could hold on so tightly to things for a second or two, wrap her head around them and make sense of them, but they disappeared without her even realizing it. And time moved so slowly in her mind, so slowly that she thought she'd talked to Luke only seconds earlier. So, it wasn't forgetting exactly. It was something else. And she knew it was wrong, and that she wasn't okay, but there wasn't any panic to it. Maybe there should have been, but there wasn't.
She was resignation in a slim white dress that she'd pressed perfectly after leaving the hotel. The cream cardigan she wore over it was perfect too, as if she'd taken her time with it. Her hair was in a perfect twist, and her makeup could have been done by a professional. Her heels were high and designer, and she looked distant and calm and unruffled. It was, perhaps, intentional on some level, and it meant that no one paid attention to the jut of her collarbones, or the way her cheeks were too sharp due to illness, or the way her grey eyes flitted around too quickly and madly for sanity.
She had not gotten off the monorail, though she had concocted a plan to visit the abandoned train station behind the Plaza. But she hadn't moved yet. Watching the people board and disembark was soothing. Watching the city's hotels fly by made her feel calmer, like things weren't crawling. She knew she'd talked to MK, to Evie, to Gus. She needed to check on other people, but she was scared, and maybe forgetting to check was good in that regard.
So she rode, back and forth and back and forth.
She didn't feel ill, which surprised her. She should feel ill. Not crazy, but ill. Like her organs were failing and her world was ending. She wondered what would have happened if Selina had just been allowed to die. Now. She wondered what would happen now. Would it be better? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe MK would be better for Luke, but she didn't think so. Maybe they would all go crazy anyway, regardless, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
She moved from her spot in the middle of the monorail, and she left her shoes behind as she wove through the center of the car, her fingers gripping the metal bars along the way, mindless of the bodies between. People feared madness; they refused to look it in the eye and worried it was contagious. By the time she curled up at the back of the monorail, on the long bench with the long window behind it, the passengers had scooted as far away from her as they could. She didn't mind. No one wanted to be near ghosts. And she would go home eventually, and everything would be okay. Luke wouldn't like it, but it would be okay.
She heard her name as something far off, something distant, and she raised her cheek from where she'd pillowed it on her up-bent knees. The doors were beginning to close, but she caught sight of him there, on the landing. She didn't say anything, didn't think to, but she put her hand on the window glass and scooted close to it, her bare feet on the bench and an arm wound round her knees.
People were starting to look at him like he was some sort of escaped mental patient, but Luke ignored their stares, searching desperately for even a hint that she was here. But all the blondes he found weren’t her, and no one was answering his cries, and he was beginning to think that maybe she wasn’t here at all. If he couldn’t find her, he decided, maybe getting the authorities involved wasn’t such a bad idea, maybe, even though he really didn’t want to have to resort to that. He stopped moving and leaned against a pole to rest, panic making it difficult to breathe, and it was nothing short of luck that drew his gaze to the window of the monorail preparing to leave.
For a moment, he thought he might be hallucinating; but no, it was her. She was there. His exhaustion forgotten, he broke into a run, practically barrelling through whatever human-shaped obstacles stood between him and the monorail doors. He ignored the cries of outrage, the angry curses, because none of that mattered, and he just managed to make it onto the train before the doors closed behind him. Gasping for air, it took a couple of seconds with his back pressed against the side of the monorail to compose himself, while those around him shot curious and even disdainful glances before looking elsewhere. But it was fine, now. He’d gotten on, and Wren was here, and it would be okay. He’d just stay with her until the effects of the Lazarus Pit had worn off. After all, he’d already missed weeks of work and the Academy; what more could a couple of days hurt?
She was alone in the back, he saw, curled up on the bench and close to the window, and his heart broke at the sight. This wasn’t fair. He hadn’t wanted this for her, not ever, and he was trying so, so hard not to worry that she might never be the same after this. “Hey,” he said softly as he approached, unsure of how she would react to his presence. “Hey, baby. I thought you were going home.” He sat next to her on the bench, trying for a smile.
Somehow, she didn't notice all that barreling and pushing, and she didn't notice all the people he displaced, the ones that complained about the crazy girl in white and, now, the equally crazy young man with the disheveled hair. She was still looking out the window when he entered the monorail, looking at where he had been. She was wondering if she'd imagined him, her hand still lingering on the glass. Normally, she would have gotten up and given chase, but that all felt pointless just then. Maybe he'd be there when the monorail came back. Maybe he wouldn't. She didn't let herself hope.
She looked away from the window when he spoke, though, her grey gaze moving before her head did. She didn't move, didn't grab. She didn't cry, didn't scream. She just looked at him. It was a greedy look, for all that it was unfocused and quiet. She was patient, and she said nothing until he sat beside her. Even then, she looked down at the bench first, as if to make sure he was really there, and then she looked back up at his face. "I didn't realize time had passed," she explained, and she wanted to sound rational. She wasn't insane, not really. She understood, and she knew, and she was (as MK had learned) more blunt and clear than normal, but she knew she didn't sound right. She looked for a long time, a quiet perusal as he tried for that smile. Maybe it was a little unnerving, her silent stare, the one that was coupled with a bone-deep exhaustion that somehow left her strangely alert and unable to rest her mind. He looked tired. He looked worn. He looked beautiful. She smiled a little. No, he didn't like her saying that. But it was true.
And maybe a screaming lunatic would have been easier. Maybe it would have been better if she cried and screamed and punched things, but she didn't. She took her hand away from the glass (it had stayed there all this time), and she unwound her arm from her knees. She tucked her leg beneath her, bare toes pressing against the outside of his leg, and she reached out a hand and smoothed down a few strands of his mussed hair before running her fingers down along his cheek and to his jaw. She traced his jawline a moment, the back of her hand an explosion of bruise yellows and blacks and greens from the Pit IV, from Selina pulling the thing free roughly. But her touch was almost nothing-light as it dragged over to his mouth, back and forth, her fingertips just pressing past his lips for a moment before dragging the touch down over his chin. Silence, all the while, and too quick movement of her grey eyes. "How many trips do you think we have?" she asked, because the monorail went back and forth, back and forth, and she figured it had to stop eventually. Nothing went on forever.
There was something about the way she stared at him that was unnerving, and in truth, Luke would have vastly preferred crying and screaming to the too-long silence and overall sense of something being off-kilter. Maybe she wasn’t crazy, but she wasn’t right either. He knew her better than he knew himself, and it was in her mannerisms, her eyes, even the way she held herself; this wasn’t how she should be. The worst part was that he couldn’t fix it, because the Lazarus Pit stuff just had to work its way out of her system, or so he hoped, and there was no way to speed up the process. “Oh,” he said, when she explained that she hadn’t realized time had passed. Not normal. Not good either. “It’s okay. I’m here now. I was just worried.” She needed to be resting somewhere, he thought, not on a monorail. Not out on her own. Yes, he’d have to keep an eye on her, and maybe it was best if Gus stayed with Evie and Will until Wren was back to her old self. He tilted his head to the side a little, puzzled, when she smiled, but he didn’t question it; at this point, considering her current state, he didn’t think it would accomplish anything.
He had no idea what to say, and her barely-there touches came as he searched for words which eluded him. Somehow, that drove home the reality that he’d been deprived of living for weeks, that he hadn’t seen her or his son in that long, and there had been a very real chance that one or both of them might never have come back at all. Now it was his turn to stare, the bruises on her hand barely registering in his peripheral vision, and he caught her hand in his once her fingers dragged down to his chin. “I don’t know,” he said without thinking, swallowing down the painful lump rising in his throat. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll stay on until it comes back, and then we’ll go home.” He didn’t want to bring up what they’d left behind in Gotham, but he didn’t want to bring up what she’d said to Bruce either; all that about giving Gus away, he knew that wasn’t her. She didn’t mean any of it. Of course not. “You should rest,” he told her instead, reaching out with his free hand to touch her cheek. “We both should. Once we’re off this. Okay?”
She looked at the hand that caught hers, and her gaze lingered there a moment, before her grey gaze met his. "I didn't mean to worry you," she said apologetically. "I just wanted to watch people going and coming," she explained, because that's as much sense as it made in her mind just at that particular moment. "At the airport, people get there all the time, and some people have someone waiting to hug and kiss them. Some look down at their feet and have no one," she explained. "And some people leave alone, happy. Some people leave alone, sad." And there were people that left together, but she didn't pay attention to them. Maybe it was emotional self-defense, even more than the Pit. Or, more likely, augmented by it. "But I didn't mean to worry you," she repeated.
With her hand captured, she was confused for a few seconds, and then she turned toward him on the bench and raised the fingers of her other hand to his face. She repeated the tracing process - temple, cheek, lips, chin - but a little quicker this time, a little bit more pressure in the touch and less dreaminess in her voice once she spoke again. "I don't want to go home," she admitted. "I told Evie she can't give Gus back, and I told MK she has to go away," she explained, and when she said it, it sounded like a macabre goodbye, as if emptying the house would make things better somehow. "I haven't talked to Jack," she admitted, and then she looked at him with a dead kind of curiosity. "Is he alive?" she asked, because maybe he wasn't. She wasn't sure, and she just realized it.
As for getting off after the monorail returned to the station, that made her look at the quickly passing city. "I was going to go to the train station. It's closed now, but can you imagine getting on and just riding until it ends?" she asked, eyes damp at the corners for reason that were beyond her comprehension just them. "I'm so tired," she admitted, almost a sobbed confession save for the dryness of it against her throat. "I'm so tired, but my head won't stop, and I'm scared of what will happen when it does," she said, and for that second she was very much herself. The fear was there, and it was genuine, and her fingers twisted to grasp onto his which as much force as she had in her, which wasn't very much. "I feel so strange, Luke."
Absolutely none of what she said made sense to him. Oh, Luke could understand the words, like he understood that she was talking about airports and people, but he had no idea how any of that was relevant or why she’d wanted to watch people coming and going in the first place. He did notice that she left out the people who’d left with someone, though he wasn’t sure what, if any, significance that held. Maybe there was no use in overthinking it. Maybe it was just best to nod, smile, and wait it out. “I know you didn’t mean to worry me,” he began, trying not to let his confusion show. “It’s okay. You just lost track of time. If you wanted to watch people coming and going, okay, that’s okay too.” There were far worse things she could have been doing, after all, like actually getting on a plane.
What she’d told Evie didn’t come as a surprise, but MK, that was another story. He hesitated, because personally he hadn’t thought her being there was a good idea in the first place, and now, with Wren like she was, it was an even worse idea. He’d sort that out later, though, let MK know what was going on and that maybe finding somewhere else for a while was best for all of them. Evie, too, needed to know not to take anything Wren had said seriously. Later. He’d do it later. “We’re not giving Gus away, Wren,” he said gently, giving her hand a squeeze. “Evie’s not going to keep him. You’re not thinking clearly. It’s okay. Once you’re better, he can come home, and you can talk to MK and explain everything. Just don’t worry about all that for right now. If you really don’t want to go home, we don’t have to,” he added, “but wherever we do go, I’m going with you.” That wasn’t even up for discussion. As for Jack, at least he could answer that with full honesty. “Yeah, Jack’s alive. He’s fine. Jason didn’t get sick.” A small blessing, although he suspected that Jason was off murdering criminals like some kind of psychopath; he’d practically fallen off the map before Bruce had left Gotham.
Instead of answering, he shifted closing, noticing the dampness in her eyes even if there was no singular reason for it. For a moment, she was her again, and not this half-there person the Pit had turned her into, and he wished so hard it hurt that he could make it last. “I know,” he soothed, letting go of her hand and winding his arms around her instead, coaxing her forward, against him. “I know you feel strange, and I know you’re scared, but listen, okay? Listen, and try to remember. You’re going to be fine. This is only temporary, I promise, and once it wears off, you’ll be okay again. It just has to wear off,” he said. “It was the only way to keep you alive. I’m sorry. I am. But it won’t last. Promise. Everything will be better soon.”
She caught little things, like the shadow of confusion that he tried to keep off his features, and how he tried to just be okay with the fact that she didn't make a lot of sense just then. "When I was small, going away seemed like the solution to everything. Not many people stay in Key West. People come. People go. But not many people stayed. And when I was older, leaving always left the problems behind. Always, no matter what. That doesn't work now. I can't run away anymore, because running away would be worse than anything now. No matter how bad things are, my heart is here, and leaving would be as bad as dying" she explained, and though it still wasn't very clear, maybe he would understand. "But I miss it. The days when nothing hurt, because there was nothing that mattered."
She shook her head once he squeezed her hand. "No, Gus needs to be with someone else," she insisted softly. "Evie will let us see him. It's better. I don't know anyone else who would," she admitted, and then she shook her head again about MK. "We fought. She was mad we left without telling anyone. I tried to explain, but I don't think I'm very good at it now. I told her she was killing herself, and that she was ruining everything in her life that she cared about, and I asked her to go. I don't think she'll forgive me, even though it's true." And maybe there was an odd candor in her madness, a strange clarity. "Jack is already dead, though. You can see it in his eyes. If he could kill himself without hurting anyone, he would. The only reason he doesn't is because of us," she added, no filter, just soft words as she turned her head to look out the window at the hotel that had just come into view as the monorail stopped to let people embark and disembark. "MK said I was so fucking perfect and had a fantastic fucking life," she said idly, a bitter little laugh following up the statement.
It was the way he shifted closer that captured her attention and distracted her, and she leaned into him when he wound his arms around her. She breathed deep, deep, as if the mere scent of his skin could make this go away. She nodded against him, her nose against the crook of his shoulder, just above the rumpled fabric of his shirt. "Okay," she said, and it turned into a litany of repetition. "Okay. Okay. Okay." Until she managed to stop herself and press a cracked-lip kiss to the skin she'd been nosing a second earlier. Even that was slow, too languid, the kiss, and she rested her cheek against his shoulder a moment later. She sighed, and the sigh was infinite sadness, and she slipped one of her hands free to sneak her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt and rest her fingertips against his belly, where the skin was warm. "I'm sorry," she whispered, even as she whimpered and tried to curl closer, her thigh sliding just over his thigh, and the people on the monorail paying more attention thanks to the unintentional flash of skin.
It was still difficult to make sense of how Wren’s thoughts tied together; the airport and the monorail and watching things pass together with her old habit of running when things got hard. Luke could understand those things separately, though he wasn’t sure why they were all coming out now. Maybe it was as simple as what had happened in Gotham bringing up all those old feelings. But that numbness, not feeling any hurt, he knew that, and he knew what it was like to miss it. Even though it made him ache to know she did, he understood. “I know,” he said quietly. “It’s easier when nothing matters. Not better, maybe, but easier. It’s not hard to leave when you don’t have anything to leave.” But it wasn’t like that anymore, not for either of them, just like she’d said, and he hesitated. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind of this kind of conversation, but maybe... maybe she was just more honest than normal. The truth hurt, but she did deserve better than this.“You said you can’t run away, but do you want to? Do you wish you could?”
There was absolutely no chance of him ever agreeing to leave Gus with someone else, even Evie, but he stifled the arguments against what she said and let his breath out slowly instead. “We can talk about this later,” he told her. “Once you’re feeling better. Okay? Evie and Will can keep Gus until then. You might change your mind.” He knew she would, of course, but that time hadn’t come yet, and he just needed to put her off the subject until she was back to normal. Despite how brutally honest and harsh what she’d told MK sounded, he had to admit that none of it was untrue. She probably hadn’t liked hearing it regardless, though. “You’re not wrong, Wren. She needs help. But, look, you’re not yourself, and she’ll understand that,” he reassured her. “Things were really, really bad in Gotham. She’ll understand.” And if she didn’t, well, he’d deal with that when and if it happened. What she said about Jack made him pause, though, and he looked at her in dismay, wishing he could find a way to make her take the words back. No, no, she was wrong, and maybe his immediate instinct to deny, deny, deny indicated that there was some truth in what she said, but he refused to accept that. “Don’t-- don’t say that. He’s not dead. He’s not going to kill himself. Maybe he’s not fine, but-- he’s not that bad,” he insisted, because it all hit a little too close to home, especially after what Max had told him before she’d left. Some of his sympathy for MK ebbed away when she repeated what the redhead had said, and he couldn’t keep the frown from crossing his features, just for a moment, before he managed to shove it away. “Well, you are perfect,” he teased, though it was a weak thing, a faltering grin that looked too tired to be convincing. “Just forget what MK said. She’s upset. People say things they don’t mean when they’re upset,” he added. The last thing he wanted was for Wren to dwell on what her friend, or perhaps ex-friend, had said in what was likely a moment of anger.
Even now, under the circumstances, there was nothing that could compare to the feel of her against him. One arm stayed firmly around her waist while he brought the other hand up, up along her jaw, where his fingers twined gingerly in her hair before beginning a sort of rhythmic caress; down, up, down, and back up again. “Okay,” he agreed, barely a whisper in the midst of her repetition. Sleep. She needed sleep, somehow, once he managed to get her home or somewhere safe, needed rest, and he’d made sure she got it. He would. His hold on her tightened when her hand slid beneath his shirt, and he couldn’t have cared less that they were on a monorail and not somewhere private. They already thought the two of them were insane, these people, and Luke glared with enough heat to force them to look away; no, he wasn’t crazy, but he wasn’t in the best place either, much like a feral animal who wouldn’t hesitate to bite anyone who ventured too close. He tried to shield her from them, keep her protected in the circle of his arms, and his breath hitched when she said he was sorry. “No, no, don’t apologize,” he said, bordering on a plea. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m sorry. I should have made sure this didn’t happen. I should’ve kept you safe. I’m sorry, Wren, I’m so sorry.” He held her tighter as his apologies became a repetition, over and over, until the words became too quiet to be heard and faded away.
She couldn't make sense of her own feelings, much less explain why they felt different. Had she been in her right mind, she would have spent all her time being worried about him. About those circles beneath his eyes, and about how he looked ready to crack and break. But she wasn't thinking about anything at all, and her notice of those things came and went with the same speed the monorail did in her peripheral vision. And still, his agreement came as a surprise. "No," she agreed about it not being hard to leave nothing. "Leaving something is hard. I used to think distance and time made things easier, but they don't do anything, really. Sometimes you think they do. Sometimes you think you're getting better. But then something happens and it all comes back. After I left New York, I thought it would be okay. I thought that I would remember, and I thought that I would forget. But I didn't want to forget, and remembering only hurt," she said plainly. She wasn't expecting his question when it came, but she didn't think it through like she would ordinarily have done. No, instead she just answered. "I want to not lose," she said simply. "If I'm going to lose, then I don't want to be here. If I have to stay, then I wish I was numb. I can't be numb now. But I'm afraid I'm going to lose," she explained, strange and twisty and definitely not clear, despite the clarity in it.
"I might change my mind. I will change my mind," she agreed, "but that doesn't mean it's the better choice. It doesn't. We're going to die, Luke, just like Silver. We're going to die, and then we won't be able to have any say in where he is. Now we can. Now we can do something for him," she insisted, but he was right. She would change her mind. Even she knew that; the desire to take it all back was already there, roiling in the empty pit of her belly. She was hungry. Why hadn't she realized that before? She held up one wrist, looking to see if it was thinner, but then she put her arm down again. As for MK understanding, she just gave him a look that was sad grey eyes and knowledge. "She won't. She'll keep it with her, just like she keeps everything bad with her. She only lets go of the good things, but never the bad things. It doesn't matter. We can't help. We only make her worse. She wants Adam to be you, and it stings that he isn't like you at all," she explained. Jack, Jack, and there she managed to hold her tongue. She knew how Luke depended on the other man, and at least Jack had a good chance of staying alive. It almost made her smile, that the one person who wanted to be dead would never be. She didn't want to be dead, and Luke didn't want to be dead, but Jack did. Her maman would have told her life had a sense of humor about things; her maman would have been right. She put her fingers to his lips when he said she was perfect, and she smiled a little bit, but that was all.
His arms actually helped. Their warmth, the way he held her, the healthy rise and fall of his belly beneath her fingertips. If she could've crawled inside him right then she would have. She would never say that, because everyone already thought she was crazy, but that didn't change the fact that she thought it. She counted the seconds in the caress, and she closed her eyes and wished the world would stop spinning for just a second. She curled closer still, thigh higher over his, and she was partway in his lap when his breath hitched. She didn't notice the world around them, and even the monorail's movement weren't a constant in her mind just then. Her arms wound impossibly tight around his shoulders, and she buried her face against his collar. "You didn't do it," she insisted, muttered and repeated five times before the record stopped looping and she continued on. "I meant I was sorry for being like this. You're tired. I know you're tired. I can see. I can't help it. I want to, but I can't," and her voice was wavering and shaking, like a teacup about to fall off a table. "But I'm scared of not being numb too. I think everything is going to crash, and I won't be able to handle it. Is anyone else dead, or only Silver?" she asked, and the teacup wobbled more, and she tried unsuccessfully to choke back a sob.