Who: Wren and Luke What: Homecoming (1/3) Where: Spring Mountains When: Recently Warnings/Rating: None
Getting to Spring Mountains was easy. He called a cab from the hotel, and sitting in the backseat while someone else drove required no movement, no exertion, nothing that would strain his sore muscles or aggravate the broken and fractured bones beneath his skin. The sling he’d been forced to wear because of his (well, Bruce’s, but it carried over) collarbone was uncomfortable, and it made moving his arms and upper body a pain in the ass, but Luke figured it could be worse. He could be on crutches, or in a wheelchair, or dead. Saying he was fine wasn’t actually a lie, because he was. He could still walk, and the pain wasn’t too bad, not with the meds Bruce had gotten, and everything would heal in a week, maybe two at the most. And, okay, maybe some of the bruising looked pretty ugly, but that would fade too, with time. To the two of them, who lived lives that weren’t exactly safe, this was a walk in the park. No, Luke wasn’t worried about himself. He was worried about Wren, who’d been living in a tent for weeks, who hadn’t gone home, and who’d needed him while he was through the door so Bruce could clean up everyone else’s mess for them. He felt guilty, as he always did, but he was here now, and he’d fix everything. He’d convince Wren to come home, and Gus would come back, and somehow, he’d figure out a way to make sure this didn’t happen again. He knew Superman was around now; maybe the two could team up or something, cover each other’s back when one wasn’t around.
But Gotham’s problems weren’t his priority right then, and he set them aside during the cab ride to the campground. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a sleeveless zip-up hoodie because it was a lot easier to get on and off than a regular shirt. The cabbie dropped him off at the entrance to the park, and he resigned himself to a long walk as he paid his fare and maneuvered himself out of the cab. There was no way he was going to be able to go back out on patrol when he was like this, which meant he’d be stuck on desk duty, and he realized that taking up Max on her offer was probably his only choice, because otherwise there was no way to explain his absence and the condition he was in now. Again, though, that was a problem for later. One step at a time. First, he had to get Wren home. And, admittedly, he really, really wanted to see her. It had been weeks and weeks, and he felt every second of the time they’d spent apart; he hated it, and he just wanted to make up for lost time.
The walk would have been worse if he hadn’t been in shape. Fortunately, he was, and he only needed to stop every once in a while to catch his breath, since breathing too deeply made his ribs ache something fierce. It was easy to get lost here, he thought, but WayneTech came with some pretty good GPS which kept him on track, Finally, the sounds of the river grew closer, and he paused again, wincing as he tried to roll his shoulders back without thinking. “Wren?” If he was as close as he thought, surely she’d hear him.
It was the dogs that answered.
After getting Gus on the plane, Wren had spent her last bit of money getting Finch and the puppy out of the boarders. It had been expensive, but she hadn't wanted to come back to the huge park all alone, and she'd known she would feel safer with Finch nearby. The puppy just made a lot of noise, but she was pretty sure that Finch would tear someone's arm off, if it came down to it. That shouldn't have been a reassuring thought, but after talking to Cerise, it had been. And nights could get pretty scary so close to the foot of the mountain, where animals howled and things rustled in the trees. With the dogs zipped inside the tent with her in the evenings, she hadn't been scared. Sleep had still been elusive, especially while she'd been waiting to hear that Luke was dead, but she hadn't been scared of anything in the wilderness.
But it was daylight, and the dogs were staked out within sight of the tent. The ropes holding them were long enough to let them reach the river and the tent itself, but short enough to keep them from getting lost in the woods if she wasn't paying attention.
And she wasn't paying attention.
She had just finished washing up in the river, the cold water soothing against skin that was burned and overheated from the desert summer. The park was beautiful and green, and the nights at the higher altitude were surprisingly cold, but the days could be sweltering. Her camp was miles up an incline, even beyond the sound of the barking dogs, and she was on her way back to the tent when she heard them. Finch, especially, was making enough noise to wake the dead, and that was how she knew that it was Luke.
And maybe she hadn't really believed he would come. Maybe she hadn't believed that it was true, that he was really home. But she'd spent weeks without him, and then she'd convinced herself that it was over. When she'd put Gus on the plane, she hadn't really expected to see him again, and she'd kind of given up since then. Humanity was hard to hold onto when the things that made her human weren't around. And she knew that wasn't sane, and it wasn't normal, but she'd never quite made it back from things with Thierry, had never had a chance to deal with what had happened, and it had been a really, really hard month.
Instead of going toward the dogs and the racket they were making, she ducked into the tent, a dingy towel around her and her hair wet from the river water. There were butterflies warring in her stomach, and she thought she might cry. She found the best sundress she had with her, and she slipped the wrinkled, faded yellow fabric over her sunburnt shoulders. The fabric fell to her sunbrowned knees, and her hair was tangled; she dragged her fingers through it as much as she could, but it was a little hopeless. In the end, she opened the flap to the small vinyl tent just the smallest bit, and peeked out. Inside, the tent was pillows and blankets from home, all river washed and smelling of grass and sunlight, and boxes of dried food items. There was a small lantern in the corner, but nothing else, and only the dogs for company and entertainment.
Even out in the middle of nowhere, Luke recognized Finch’s barking immediately. He’d had that dog for five years, and for most of that time it had just been the two of them, in motel rooms and apartments and wherever else they called home. That familiarity told him he was close, and he was already grinning by the time he emerged into the clearing where the dogs were, not even registering the presence of the unfamiliar puppy, not just yet. He dropped to his knees in front of Finch, laughing, and even though having a very large, very excited dog jumping all over him made his chest and shoulders ache, it didn’t matter. He was so very glad to be here, to be alive and unbroken, because despite all his reassurances for Wren’s sake, a part of him had feared that he wouldn’t be coming back. But he was here, now, and he was okay, and he managed to get his arms around the dog’s shoulders to bury his face in his fur. “Hey, boy,” he said, voice muffled, and he hugged Finch tighter when the dog whined, wiggling and squirming in an attempt to get closer. “I missed you. Did you miss me too?” He pulled back, scratching behind his ears, and then he noticed the puppy sniffing at his heels. “Who’s your friend, huh?” Finch just barked in response, and he laughed when he tried to pet the puppy and had his fingers nipped instead.
A few moments later, he managed to disentangle himself from the two dogs and struggled to his feet with only the hint of a wince as he did so. He continued onward up the incline, Finch and the puppy following at his heels. It was nice out here, he thought, but not long term, and a tent was no way to live. There was a reason why camping was only temporary, and people always ended up going back home in the end. As he neared the tent, the dogs started up barking again, and he hid a smile as he approached and stopped about a foot or so away from the slightly unzipped flap. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and he tugged on his belt loops thoughtlessly, and he waited.
She watched through the tiny opening in the tent's flap, and she tried to wait it out, to wait until her heart settled back into her chest again, to wait until she felt like she could breathe. She didn't want to start crying before she even reached him, before he even reached her. She wanted to prove that she was okay, even if she wasn't. She wanted to let him know that it was okay to still be scared of what had happened at Thierry's, to still be scared of her. They'd never really gotten past that, never discussed the fear she'd seen in his eyes that day. Time had passed, and it had settled into her bones, that look of fear, but nothing had really come of it. Gotham happened, like Gotham always did, and now it was an old wound that hadn't ever healed right. She wanted all of that pushed aside before she got close enough to touch him, because she wasn't sure she wouldn't just cling and cry otherwise. She didn't want to cling and cry. She didn't want him to feel guilty for being gone. She knew him well enough to know he would feel guilty, no matter what she did. She wanted to make that better, not worse.
She expected him to come the whole way. He didn't come the whole way.
He stood there, and she watched him. Her eyes watered, and she watched him. Her fingers curled around the opening of the tent's flap, and she watched him.
He was so close; a foot away. She could reach out and touch him. She could. She told herself she could manage it without throwing her arms around him and never letting go, but maybe she didn't believe it very much. He was so close, and he looked so real. She almost asked. Are you really there? Because it reminded her of all the years she'd dreamed about him, only to find him gone when she'd awoken.
Another heartbeat, and she unzipped the tent the rest of the way, letting the vinyl fall away, fall open. She bit her lip as she stood, bare feet and the kind of disarray that came from living outdoors for a long time. There was nothing of the pale blonde he'd married about her, not then, tangled hair and skin gone dark from the sun. She pressed the heel of one bare foot to the arch of the other, and she rucked the wrinkled and faded dress at her thigh, a gesture she'd given up (for the most part) in the past year. A second longer, another heartbeat, and then she took that tiny step forward. She didn't touch him, not wanting to hurt him, but her bare toes pressed against the tips of his shoes, and she tipped her head up to look at the bruises that marred his face. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. "Hi."
She was right in thinking he would feel guilty no matter what she did. He felt guilty now, and he would feel guilty tomorrow, and weeks from now. It would fade, eventually, as the rest of his guilt did, but it would never actually go away. She wasn’t okay, and he’d left her all alone for weeks; he could never forgive himself for that. He should have been here for her. Being here now didn’t make up for his absence, not completely, but he could try, as though anything he did could ever fix the days and days and days she’d been out here with Gus, and then alone, thinking he wasn’t coming back. Thinking he was afraid of her, too, and whatever else had taken root and twisted into something not true since the incident at Thierry’s. He hadn’t really had a chance to reassure her afterward, but he had the time now.
He made a slight move forward when she unzipped the tent, but it was a reflex, an instinct, one he managed to subdue as she stood. Oh, he stared. He stared, and he drank in the sight of her; tangled hair and dark skin and wrinkled, sun-faded dress. To him, she looked beautiful. Remembering what happened through the door meant that he felt the passing of time, and it was agony, standing there and looking at her and knowing that it had been so, so long since he’d seen her, since he’d touched her, since they’d spoken face to face. He’d missed her, and that ache was so much more painful than any physical injury he’d sustained. His throat tightened when she stepped forward, and his vision went a little blurry, though he tried to blink it clear again. He knew he must have looked like he’d gone through the ringer, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
“Hi.” He tried to keep his voice steady, with minimal success. His movements were slower than usual, with a stiffness that wasn’t quite right, but he wasn’t going to let a couple of stupid injuries keep him immobile. He lifted one hand, fingers brushing against her cheek, then sliding along her jaw. He did the same with the other hand, tracing and touching as though re-learning the curve of her cheeks, the feel of her lips, the slope of her neck. “I missed you,” he said, fingers stilling on her shoulders. “And I'm sorry I was gone so long. I'm so sorry--” His voice broke then, and he dragged in a deep, shaky breath in an effort to compose himself.
She shook her head the tiniest bit when he tried to keep his voice steady, wanting him to know that he didn’t need to do that, not for her. And the slowness of his movements made her heart hurt. She shook her head again, then, not wanting him to do anything that made whatever he was feeling worse, even though she wanted the touch of the hand that lifted to touch her cheek more than anything. She nuzzled against that hand, grey eyes closing for just a moment to try to remember the feeling of his fingers against her skin. She thought she had forgotten, but maybe not, and her eyes opened again when his other hand touched her. She pressed a fleeting kiss to a swipe of fingers as they passed, and she just watched him until his hands rested on her shoulders. She wanted to talk, she did, but it was hard to manage it when the entire world felt like it might shatter if the broke the silence. It was like a dream, and she didn’t want to jar herself awake with the sound of her own voice.
Then he began apologizing, and she began shaking her head with more force. “No, no, no,” she whispered, the words gaining speed and force the more she repeated them. When his voice broke, she moved back, putting space between them, because she wanted to wrap her arms around him too much, and she didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t know what hurt, and she couldn’t tell what to avoid, and she was very, very close to just grabbing him in a hug. “You have to tell me what hurts,” she managed, her voice a little hoarse from disuse. “So I don’t make anything worse,” she explained quickly, not wanting him to think that she didn’t want to touch him, hold him, when that was all she wanted to do.
She looked down at his hands and, after a second, she decided it was safe enough to take one of them in her own. She didn’t think to ask, because asking (like talking) was something she’d gotten a little rusty at in the past few weeks. Tug, tug, and she backed very, very slowly toward the tent. He should sit down. It had to be better, didn’t it? And then she could see what was wrong with him. Something in her gaze said she needed that, the quiet to just look and see. Tug, and she backed into the tent and let go of his fingers as she motioned to the piles of pillows that Gus has insisted they bring from home. Inside the tent, childishly cut out stars hung from strings, and the sun filtered softly through the creamy vinyl. There was a battery-powered fan in the corner, sitting atop a box of batteries, and it kept the dry air moving in the tiny space. She knelt, and she waited for him to sit down at his own pace, the fidgeting of the fingers in her lap indicative of how hard a time she had remaining still.
He didn’t understand why she was shaking her head yet responding to his touch at the same time, but his confusion wasn’t enough to make him stop. The way his fingers explored her skin and lingered was meant to remind himself what she felt like, just as much as it was a reminder that she was there, and he was there, and they hadn’t lost each other in the span of time he’d been away. “Yes,” he insisted in response her her denial, the words coming out strained. “I shouldn’t have left you alone for so long. I shouldn’t have left you at all. I should have been here.” There was a flicker of something akin to hurt in his eyes when she stepped back, but then she was asking him to tell her what hurt, and he understood. But the last thing he wanted was for her to refrain from touching him because she was afraid of causing him pain, and he didn’t think he could stand any distance between them, not after all this time. “You won’t make anything worse. You can’t hurt me. It’s fine,” he told her. “I’m just a little sore. It’s okay.” He knew he was repeating himself, but he didn’t want her not touching him, no, not now.
The feel of her hand in his made him look down, and simple as it was, the touch made his breath hitch in a way that had nothing to do with his injuries. She didn’t need to ask, not with him, because he never would have told her no. When she tugged, he followed her into the tent, taking in the piles of pillows and the cut-out stars and the way the sun filtered in from outside. It was comfortable, maybe, but it still wasn’t a home, and he hated thinking of her and Gus being out here for weeks on their own. Even worse was the thought of her being here alone, with no one but the dogs for company. Sitting down was tricky, he could admit that, mainly because his upper body mobility was limited thanks to the sling and his sore ribs, but after a bit of maneuvering he managed to get himself into a sitting position amidst the pillows, letting out a long, quiet exhale once he could relax. “You won’t hurt me,” he repeated, reaching for her hands, wanting her closer. “Please?”
"No," she insisted quietly. "We knew you would be gone for a long time." Because this time, they had. Unlike previous times, when this had been sprung on them, they'd known this time. They'd known he would be gone. They'd known he might not come back. Resisting Bruce was no easier than resisting Selina, and it wasn't his fault. It was still bad and not fair, but it wasn't his fault. "You checked in when you could, and we knew." Repetition was always soothing, as if saying something often enough made it okay. "It's not your fault." And it wasn't. It was a bad set of circumstances. Jack not being okay, the agent coming to the house, Thierry beforehand, the antifear. It all made for really, really bad timing. Even MK being pregnant and Evie in labor; the timing had just been really terrible. "I haven't been here the whole time," she said, trying to reassure. "I spent the first few days with Cerise." But her expression shadowed a little as soon as she said the other woman's name, and then she was inside the tent a moment later, glad for the distraction the movement brought with it.
Inside the tent, she was sorry that she'd made him sit down, the obvious effort it took him to do so making her eyes water. But he looked comfortable sitting down, and she told herself it was okay. She'd just let him rest, and it would be okay. She wasn't sure she believed his statement that she wouldn't hurt him, though, and it showed on her worried face. When he reached for her hands, she slid her fingers between his tentatively, carefully, as if even that could hurt. For a second, there was just that, and she looked down at their joined hands and tried to tell herself that it was real, that it wasn't some fevered imagining. "When I was pregnant, I used to imagine you all the time," she said quietly. "This isn't like that, is it?" And it wasn't even a lack of sanity that caused the question. It was the overwhelming fear that she'd conjured him like she had then, that she was like she was then. She sighed, and she slid one of her hands free of his and lifted it, trying to figure out where it would be okay to touch without hurting him. She went for the zipper on the hoodie he wore, tugging slowly and scared of what she would find beneath it.
Knowing didn’t make it any better, not in his mind. Maybe it gave them more time to prepare, but it didn’t change the fact that he was gone, and it didn’t change the fact that she and Gus had been left behind as a result. “It doesn’t matter,” he said sadly. “I was still gone when you needed me. You thought I wasn’t coming back. You spent weeks here, alone, thinking I wasn’t coming back.” Luke couldn’t imagine having their situations reversed. Not knowing if she was alive or dead, if he’d ever see her again, would drive him crazy. It had been like that for the five years they’d been apart, and horrible things had happened as a result. He had no idea how she’d managed, though clearly, her mental state had suffered. She could absolve him of blame all she liked, but he still hated himself for not being there for her. While she’d probably meant to reassure him by telling him that she’d stayed with Cerise, it actually had the opposite effect. He frowned, noticing the way her expression shadowed, and he remembered his conversation with Jack, but he didn’t want to push her about what secrets she might be keeping for the other woman. Not right then, anyway, when he hadn’t seen her in so, so long. He was here now, and he would make sure she stayed away from Cerise and whatever trouble she was involved in. Later, he would try to find out exactly what that was. “You staying with Cerise doesn’t make me feel better,” he admitted, because that was the truth.
He didn’t want her to be careful, or to treat him like he might break at any moment, but he didn’t know how to convince her that she really couldn’t hurt him. When she slid her fingers between his, he tugged again, and then he squeezed her hands, trying to reassure her that he was okay as much as that he was there, and he was real, and he wasn’t going anywhere. “No,” he told her. “It isn’t. I’m right here, Wren. You’re not imagining me. I’m here.” He tried to shift closer, making an effort to keep from showing pain for her sake. For a second, it seemed like he might try to stop her from pulling down his zipper, but in the end he knew he couldn’t hide it from her. Better that she saw now. The thick sling wrapped around his shoulders vertically, and under his arms, criss-crossing over his upper back to keep movement limited so his collarbone could heal. The bruising there was ugly, dark purple and black closer to the actual break, and splotchy yellow around the rest. The bone itself wasn’t too prominent, and down along his ribs there was more bruising, though less severe.
“I know it looks bad,” he said quickly, trying to soothe her before she could get too worked up, “but it’s not, really. It just looks worse than it is. I promise. Bruce saw a doctor, and everything will heal. Nothing’s permanent.”
"It was easier, being here than there," she said in defense of the tent. She didn't add that it was safer, that she didn't want to go home, because she didn't want to fight with him. Now that he was there, she didn't want to fight with him. And she couldn't force herself to say what it had been like, not knowing if he would come back, believing that he wouldn't. She didn't even know if she had words for that fear, for what living with it was like. Even if she did manage to put it into words, it would only make him feel worse. But she wasn't sure if she could do it again. She wasn't sure. She should be stronger for him, for Gus, but she had such a hard time being like normal people when the world went wrong, and she had such a very, very hard time finding any will to live if he wasn't there. Even Gus, who kept her grounded for a little while, had gone slightly feral in the past few weeks. "The house isn't mine really, and I don't think I should be there if you aren't." Okay, so she wouldn't have left if the man from the CIA didn't ask, but the sentiment was still there. Being home alone with Jack wouldn't have felt right; she didn't say that aloud, either. When he mentioned Cerise, she looked at him for a long moment, wondering if he knew something. But she discounted it a second later; she didn't want him around Cerise, and she didn't want Gus around her either, not anymore, but she hadn't figured anything else out when it came to her friend. She was still in shock a little, and she didn't want to focus on it, not just then.
The tug of his fingers helped a little, made her feel like he was a little more solid and a little more tangible. When he shifted forward, she immediately shook her head. "Don't- Don't move," she said, because even if he tried to hide the pain, she could tell he was hurting. "Let me do the moving, okay?" And she moved a little closer when she said it, even as the zipper came loose from the hoodie. She pushed the fabric off his shoulders with exaggerated care, careful not to even let the fabric graze his skin, letting the hoodie slip off his arms without making him lift them. She forced herself not to look too carefully until that was done, avoiding it for as long as she possibly could. But she could only stall for so long, and she could see every single bruise in the sunlight glow of the tent. Her grey gaze was terribly slow along the sling, and just as linger-slow on the dark, dark bruise at his collarbone. Down, down, and she traced the lines on his ribs with her gaze, cheeks damp and her lip dotted red from biting it. She didn't touch him; she didn't dare. And his soothing didn't really do much, because she was too busy thinking of how almost dead he was, about how close it had been, about how he almost hadn't made it back at all. She was deep breaths and panic, then shallower breaths. Her arms wound around her middle, and she had to keep her fingers away from him, because holding him would only hurt him, and she wasn't sure she could keep from doing it if she touched him at all. She wasn't even sure she could say anything. Somehow, sitting there, she was just as terrified as she had been for weeks, just as scared of what had almost happened.
He didn’t know how to respond to that, and the struggle to find words was visible in his expression before he decided to say nothing at all. Until then, he hadn’t thought about how much harder it might have been for her, being in their house while she waited for him to come home, all the while losing hope that he would. When she said the house wasn’t really hers, though, he shook his head, some of the prior sadness still lingering. “It is yours,” he said. “It’s ours. Our house.” But he seemed so very incapable of convincing her of that, and he was having trouble understanding why.
Staying still was hard. He didn’t want to upset her, no more than he already had, but he hated not moving. “Okay,” he said, but it was a reluctant concession, and he looked down as she slid the hoodie over his shoulders and down, doing as he’d said and making no attempt to assist her efforts in getting it off. Part of him wanted to avoid looking at her, as though he could somehow hide from her reaction by doing so, because he knew, he did, that she wasn’t going to believe his reassurances. He could repeat he was fine a thousand times and it wouldn’t have made a difference. So he lifted his gaze, and he watched her perusal of his injuries, from the sling to his collarbone to his ribs, wishing there had been a way to hide all this from her. Avoiding her might have worked, but he couldn’t have done that, not when he wanted to see her so badly he’d have trekked up the mountainside itself if that was what it took to get to her. Her lack of a response, coupled with her shallow breaths and the way she wrapped her arms around herself, made him worry, just as much as it broke his heart to see her that way, and he forgot about his agreement to not move. “Wren, it’s okay,” he said, and it became more of a plea as he slid closer, trying to find some way to calm her down. “It’s okay,” he repeated, because he didn’t know what else to say, and he leaned forward as he tried very, very gently to pry her arms away from her midsection. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s okay.”
She wanted to agree about the house. She wanted to agree, because she didn't want to make him upset about anything at all just then. But she didn't want to lie, either. So many of their old problems had been about not communicating; she didn't want that now. "It's mine when you're there," she said, and it wasn't intended to be cryptic. When he wasn't there, and when there was a very good chance he wouldn't be coming back, the house seemed intolerable. "I never feel like it's mine," she added, voice going quieter. It felt more hers than his apartment had, and maybe she would have gotten to the point where she felt like she didn't need to ask permission for things there, but this had shaken that on multiple levels. "Jack needed to stay there, and I was in the way," she explained, just truth in her words and nothing that wavered or warbled. "And no one let me know to come back, and I didn't want to be there without you, waiting. It reminds me of New York, the waiting." Because in New York, when Thomas had him working at nights, she had spent so many hours at the small apartment window. This had been like that, only worse. "And after Evie, I just couldn't. I couldn't."
And she was so shaken a few moments later, at the sight of those bruises, that the house didn't matter anymore, and maybe it never had. She barely noticed that he moved, when he'd just agreed not to. She couldn't look away from the darkness that stretched from his collarbones toward his neck, so close to his throat, too close. Distraction let him pry her arms free, and she stretched her fingers toward him after, no longer having the hold to keep her from doing it. Even with his hands on her arms, she reached. She wasn't sure where she could touch. She wasn't even sure if she could kiss him, and her fingers fluttered and finally settled on nothing at all. "I don't know where I can touch you," she whispered mournfully.
He knew that the old apartment hadn’t felt like hers at all, and that was part of the reason why they’d moved, for a fresh start, for somewhere that was theirs and not his. Somewhere along the line, however, it seemed he’d failed miserably at that, and he hated hearing that the house meant to be his and hers was no different than where they’d lived before. Fleetingly, he wondered if it was Jack. He wondered if she would have felt the same way if Jack didn’t live with them. “Why?” It was a quiet question, not demanding or angry in the slightest, just a little sad. “Why don’t you feel like it’s yours?” He shook his head when she said that Jack had needed to stay there, and he hated himself all over again for letting his handler come there while he was gone; he’d made it seem like Jack was the priority, when that wasn’t true at all. “No, Wren. You weren’t in the way, and Jack didn’t need to stay there. He could have gone somewhere else. I shouldn’t have-- I should’ve just told his handler to take him somewhere else. I’m sorry.” He could understand, though, why she wouldn’t have wanted to be there without him. In New York, after she’d left, he could barely stand staying in their apartment without her. His expression softened when she mentioned Evie, because he’d known how hard the other woman’s pregnancy had been for her, such a stark difference from what her own had been. “Was it hard?” he asked, tentatively, and he didn’t mean the actual birth. He wasn’t referring to Evie at all. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” He’d lost track of how many apologies he’d made in such a short span of time, but it wasn’t likely that he would stop anytime soon.
The lack of contact, when he wanted it so very badly, was a different sort of pain than what lurked beneath his skin. In his opinion, it was worse. He slid his hands down her arms when she admitted that she didn’t know where to touch him, and he tugged on her fingers, coaxing her to let him guide her hands, to make the decision for her. “You can touch me wherever you want,” he told her. “You can’t hurt me.” He brought her hands to his shoulders, which really only hurt when he moved the wrong way, and slowly, slowly, let go. Without waiting to see if she would keep her hands there, or if she would move them away, he leaned forward just a little bit more, enough to press his lips to hers in a kiss that, while remaining closed-mouthed, lingered.
She shook her head when he asked why she didn't feel like it was hers. "I have to ask for things. You don't," she explained, quiet and not really wanting to say it at all, not when it suddenly seemed so unimportant. She didn't even understand that the entire situation had made it seem like Jack was the priority, because she was too wound up and turned around for that. She might be able to verbalize it eventually, once she was calmer, but it wasn't easy just then, not when she'd barely spoken for weeks and was already getting used to living in her own head again. "It wasn't safe for him to go anywhere else," she just said instead, because that was true. "And Gus wasn't home. It was okay," she said, because she'd never make Luke choose between her and Jack being at home. Maybe she'd thought about it, considered it once, but now it was just a given that Jack was wherever they were; she didn't question it anymore. "It's okay," she promised. She didn't like the man from the CIA, but she didn't like most people she meant, not initially; she wasn't very trusting. "I promise, it's okay. I wouldn't have gone back, even if they'd called me." Because that made it better, didn't it? It wasn't all about Jack and the CIA agent, not when it was all said and done.
As for Evie, she shook her head, and she looked down at the blankets, focusing her grey gaze on following a folded line of cotton from beginning to end. "I don't remember much with Gus, not at the end. Or, I didn't, but it brought a lot of stuff back, that's all." she said. "I thought she was going to change her mind and go to a hospital. I thought it would be okay," she explained. Hospitals were different, or at least she assumed they were. "But she didn't change her mind, and it was just-" She stopped, and she tugged at the strip of cotton she was staring at. "I don't think she noticed, though," she finally said, after the silence, sounding a little proud of the ability to hide her distress from Evie. "And I know Will didn't either. He was too busy pacing," she said, adding a tiny smile when she thought about that. "And you're not allowed to apologize. It's not your fault. You didn't know."
She wasn't expecting him to slide his hand down her arms, and she wanted to close her eyes and just feel the touch. She was warring with that desire, and with the logical thought that she should make him stop moving, when he tugged on her fingers. She watched, not pulling back, and not offering any resistance. She shook her head when he said she couldn't hurt him. "That's not true. I want to hug you, and that would hurt," she said, knowing he was lying. But by then her hands were on his shoulders. As soon as he moved his hands away, she lifted her fingers slightly, taking away any pressure against his skin. She would have drawn back entirely, but the kiss made her forget, and she sighed a shuddering sigh against his lips and kissed him back. There was a pause, a second of nothing, and then she pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, then another, and her fingers trailed along the thick X of the bandage, feather light and barely there. There was nothing sexual about the kisses, and they were almost too soft to be affectionate, but they didn't stop, and neither did her fingers, which traced the edges of the bandages lightly.
He took a breath, prepared to object, but the words never made it past his lips and he was quiet instead. Guiltily, he realized that she wasn’t entirely wrong, even though he thought it was a little unfair of her to make it sound like he made all the decisions and never let her have a say. After all, the only times he could think of when he’d had a problem with her choices was when she’d invited MK and Cerise to live with them without asking him first. “You don’t have to ask for things,” he said, after a few moments of silence, during which he’d told himself that she probably didn’t mean to accuse him of anything. “I don’t want you to feel like you do. I just-- I just think there are some things we should decide together. And I know I didn’t do that with Jack’s handler,” he added, “but that was a mistake. I should’ve asked you first. I’m sorry.” He’d thought, stupidly, that it would be okay, because it was only temporary, and he definitely hadn’t expected Wren to be kicked out in the process. “I thought you were okay with Jack living with us, but if you’re not-- you have to tell me, Wren. He’d understand. He knows I’d never pick him over you.” As for it being okay, he just shook his head, because it wasn’t and no amount of repetition on her part was going to make him believe it. “No,” he said quietly. “It’s not. You felt like you couldn’t go back home, and you didn’t want to, and that’s not okay.” He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be able to convince her to come home now, even though they couldn’t spend the rest of their lives in a tent and he wasn’t leaving her out here alone.
Before Gotham, he’d known that Evie giving birth was going to be difficult for Wren to handle, whenever it happened, and he’d fully intended on being there. But he hadn’t been, and she’d had to go through that alone, and he hated himself for it. Just when he thought his self-loathing had reached its limit, something else came up to prove him wrong. “I am allowed to apologize,” he insisted. “Evie had Will there, and she had you, but you didn’t have anyone. I should’ve been there for you. I was supposed to be.” He shook his head again, this time out of frustration for his absence as opposed to a response to something she’d said.
He wished he’d been able to better hide his injuries, or that he could have pretended he wasn’t in any pain. He understood her hesitation, he did, because he’d have felt the same if their roles were reversed, but he didn’t want her caution and he didn’t want her worrying about hurting him. Maybe a hug would hurt. No, it probably would, but he didn’t care. He would have told her as much, but the way she sighed against his lips distracted him, and he was too reluctant to move or say anything that might cause her to draw back. Her fingers were almost too light to be felt, and he thought he might only be able to feel them moving because he knew they were there, and he knew what she was doing. Even her kisses were soft, barely there, and he closed his eyes, as though that would make him somehow more able to feel. After a few moments, though, he opened his eyes, and he looked at her. “I don’t care,” he breathed, a belated response to her assertion that a hug would hurt. He cupped her cheek with one hand, and he turned his head, just a little, to capture her mouth in another kiss, this time with lips parted. “Even if it hurts, I don’t care.”
"I'm okay with Jack living with us," she said without hesitating; she'd never think of replying to that comment in any other way. And she wasn't sure she had words for the fact that she understood that, in many ways, Jack was more important, thanks to his job. "We all live in the same house, and we all matter equally," she finally said, because she knew that living together didn't work otherwise. It couldn't be their house with Jack as a guest; it wasn't their house with Jack as a guest. He had every bit as much right to be there as they did. "He had a problem, and his handler had to stay. I'm not actually more important than him, not when it comes to who gets to be there and who doesn't. We all share." She didn't add that, really, she felt like she was at the bottom of that list most days. She didn't add it, because she knew it would make him feel badly, and because talking about it really wouldn't change it. And, anyway, she really didn't want to go back, and talking about it just made it feel like she had to.
She touched his cheek when he shook his head, the comment about Evie and Will and not being there one she didn't like. "We didn't know Evie was going to go into labor, and we already knew Bruce was going to keep you through the door," she said, which was logical, and which was true. It didn't help with the how she'd felt that next day, after keeping her emotions in check for twenty-plus hours of Evie's labor, but that still wasn't his fault. She didn't even tell him that they could try to make arrangements with Selina and Bruce so that this didn't happen again, because they'd tried that, and they'd still ended up right back here. Yes, they'd had warning, but was that really better? Maybe for Gus, she decided after a second. For Gus, the advance warning had been better. But not for her.
"I care," she said of not wanting to hurt him, of not wanting to hug him. It was a whisper, but there was some bite to it, because she was trying to convince herself not to do what she wanted to. "I don't want to be the one making it worse," she explained mournfully. The touch to her cheek silenced her, though, and she relaxed a little into the new kiss. "I care," she replied against his lips, but she couldn't resist. She kissed him back with a shudder and a small sound that was almost a sob, and then her hands moved to his cheeks, trying to be careful of bruises as she kissed him back with all the desperation of missing him and not knowing if he would come back to her at all. It was loss, not heat, and her fingers pressed against his jaw of their own volition.
More than anything, he wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that she really was okay with Jack living there, but he wasn’t so sure now, and that doubt wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, it only strengthened as she went on, saying that they all mattered equally, that she wasn’t more important than him, and he realized that this was probably something he should have clarified a long time ago. And now, now it was too late, and she didn’t want to come home, and he didn’t know what to do. “But you are,” he said quietly. “You are more important. You’ll always be more important. You and Gus come first. It wasn’t right, Wren, that you left while Jack stayed. I didn’t want that. I never would have let his handler come if I’d known he was going to kick you out. It’s our house,” he insisted, a little too desperately, and he forced himself to stop, to reign himself in, before he went too far. He didn’t want to have to beg her to come home, but he realized that he might have to, eventually. Gus, when he returned, needed to go back to school, and he needed to live in a proper house, and so did she, even if she couldn’t see that just then. “I’ll stay here, with you, for as long as it takes,” he said, and his voice went quieter, to just above a whisper. “I won’t leave. But sooner or later, Wren, we have to go back home.” He wished they didn’t, that they could hide away from the world forever, but that just wasn’t how life worked.
Logic and truth didn’t change his absence, didn’t make it better. But maybe arguing was fruitless, and apologizing over and over wouldn’t change anything either, would it? “I know,” he admitted. “I know all that. But I’m still sorry for not being there, I still should have been. It still wasn’t right.” He sighed, then, and his expression turned sad. “You were still hurt because I was gone.”
He shook his head, just a little, when she said she cared, and he sought to silence her with his mouth, to make her forget that she was afraid of hurting him. “You can’t,” he told her. “You can’t make it worse. You can only make it better.” And that was the truth, no pretty lies or reassurances just to make her feel better. He let out a sound that resembled a whimper when she kissed him back instead of pulling away, and his free arm went around, just in case, not wanting her to stop. He’d missed her, he had, and he’d been so afraid that he might not come back, but he wanted her to know that he was here, now, that he’d come back, and he would never not come back. He tasted her desperation, her loss, and responded with his own, deepening the kiss, and if anything hurt, he barely even felt it at all.
She covered his mouth with her fingers, the silencing touch light and almost nothing. "I'm more important to you," she said without hesitation, because she did know that a little. His relationship with her was different than his relationship with Jack, despite the fact that he loved them both. "But not in the house. In the house, we all live together," she said, and she'd lived with the girls long and often enough to know how it worked. Her fingers brushed against his lips, soft and soothing, and she didn't like that desperation in his voice, like he might break if she didn't agree or understand. And maybe she should just agree? Maybe it would be better, but they'd done that so many times, and it had always been so bad for them, not being honest. When he said he would stay with her for as long as it took, she frowned a little. "Don't you need to be around a doctor?" she asked, her gaze dropping to the bandage that crossed at his upper chest. She didn't want to leave, but she didn't want to make him hurt more than he already did, and that vacillation and uncertainty showed plainly on her features. She bit her lips, and she considered. "When is Gus coming back?" she asked, assuming he would know the answer to that question. And there was longing in her voice. For weeks, she'd gotten used to having the little boy clinging to her all the time. It was the most time she'd ever spent alone with Gus, and she missed having him there. She knew he was happy where he was, but she missed him.
When he said she was hurt because he was gone, she shook her head, but there wasn't much force left to it. "Maybe, next time something like this happens, I should just let Selina stay through," she suggested. It was horribly weak, and she knew it was horribly weak. She should stay here if he was in trouble, and she should be strong for Gus, but it was so very hard. And she knew Gus had been better this time around than previous times. He hadn't been scared, and while he'd missed Luke, he'd believed her when she'd said he was working. For Gus, this had been okay. For her, it hadn't been. But right then she just knew she didn't want to do it again. She didn't want to sit here and wait for her world to fall apart. Maybe someone else would be okay with it, but she knew she wasn't okay at all. And she needed to talk about how she'd felt with Evie; she knew that. But not just then. It could wait. He was there now, and everything else could wait.
She shook her head while he told her that she couldn't make it worse, not really believing him. She kept it up through the kiss, and she kept it up until his arm was around her. She could have insisted he stop, but he deepened the kiss, and she forgot to think entirely. She forgot not to touch, too, and her fingers slid down past the crisscross of fabric, stopping to tug on the edges of the sling before moving down to carefully rest against his stomach. Her fingers twitched against his skin, and she whimpered into the kiss, even as she tried not to cry, but it was a lost cause, and she knew it. Her shoulders trembled, and she gave in and carefully slid her arms around his waist guiltily. She'd be sobbing in seconds, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, no matter how badly she wanted to. "I love you," she said against his mouth. Over and over. "I love you."
There was some relief to be found in the knowledge that she did, at least, recognize that she was the more important one of the two, but he wasn’t completely mollified. Not even the feel of her fingers against his lips were enough to soothe him, and he shook his head, brow furrowed. “Then maybe we shouldn’t all live together anymore,” he said. It had only been a thought, one he hadn’t intended to verbalize, but he didn’t try to take the words back. Instead, he let them be, and he watched her reaction carefully. “Maybe it’s time Jack found his own place.” He didn’t want Jack gone, of course, but he was no longer involved in a relationship where he and Wren lived apart. They were married now, and they had Gus, and maybe it was just time to have a house that was theirs, instead of theirs and Jack’s. Maybe it had been time for a while, and he’d only realized it now. He cared about his friend, he did, but his priority was his wife and son, and he couldn’t give equal importance to all three. It wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to Jack, either, because it would only worsen his guilt in the end. As for needing to be around a doctor, he just shook his head. He could have used his injuries to coax her into coming back home, he knew, but he didn’t want to use underhanded methods. If she was going to come home, it was going to be because she’d agreed of her own free will. “No,” he told her. “I’m fine. The only thing that’s going to heal me is time. I won’t be able to go back to work until I can move around better anyway.” And maybe he should have mentioned that, in order to actually have a job to go back to, he’d need to end up liasoning for the CIA, but that could wait. He didn’t want to stress her out more than she already was, not when her mental state was already so fragile.
He’d missed Gus too, and his expression turned a little wistful when she asked about him. “I talked to Max, and she said Amanda is coming down with her nanny in a few days, and Gus could fly back with them. If that’s okay,” he added, to make it sound less like he was telling her and more like he was asking for confirmation. He didn’t like the thought of a next time, because she clearly hadn’t coped well with his absence and he wasn’t sure she could take another round of this. He didn’t know what to say, though. Gus had people who could look after him, both here and in New York, and was it really fair to force her to remain here when it hurt her to do so? He gave a helpless sort of shrug, one that came with only a flicker of pain. “I don’t want there to be a next time,” he admitted. He knew it was hard for her, but it wasn’t easy for him either, never knowing what condition he would be in, coming back banged up and bruised and missing weeks and weeks of his life.
His arm tightened around her when she slid her arms around his waist, the touch something he could feel despite her caution, wanting to keep her where she was, just in case she changed her mind and tried to pull away. “I love you too,” he breathed against her lips, raw and honest, as his fingers slid into her hair. “I love you so much.” If she needed to cry, then he’d let her cry. Whatever she needed to do, however she needed to cope, he’d be there for all of it.
She shook her head when he suggested that maybe they shouldn't all live together. She didn't do it for herself; she did it for him. She knew that Jack was important to him. She knew, too, that Jack was his best friend. She didn't want to take that from him, not when it helped him get through all the bad things that happened in Las Vegas. So, she shook her head, and she looked him straight in the eyes. "No. He can stay," she said, hoping that would be enough to make it okay. She always felt badly when she started down a road that led somewhere he didn't want to go, and she was almost positive he didn't want Jack to go away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made it sound like Jack being there was bad," she said, guilt suffusing her features. "Jack being there isn't bad." Did it feel less like their house and more of a continuation of life before they were married? Yes. But she couldn't envision anything else anymore. Living alone with him was something that was five years in the past, and even then it had been so very short lived. It was a speck of a memory, and that was all. And maybe the problem wasn't really Jack. Maybe the problem was her own perception that it was the three of them living together, instead of Jack being a guest in their house. Either way, she shook her head again, another soft no on her lips.
She almost asked what they were going to do for money if he couldn't work. She almost told him she'd taken out a card and maxed it out. But she didn't want to worry him, so she didn't say either of those things. "I paid the bills last week," she said truthfully of the house bills. It had taken the last of their money, but they weren't in any danger of losing anything or having the power cut off. And she could find them money in the meantime, if she needed to. She just didn't want him to think he had to rush back to work. She wanted him to have time to heal. "We're okay if you can't work for now," she said, sounding momentarily sane and determined. For herself, she wouldn't venture beyond the tent's flap; for him, she would. She just nodded when he said that Gus could come down with Amanda and a nanny, not offering any argument at all. It seemed like a safe way for the little boy to fly, and she knew Thomas wouldn't charge them for the plane ticket. As for there being a next time, his comment was almost lost in that flicker of pain she saw in his eyes. "I don't want there to be a next time either, but if there is," she said, her gaze settling on the shoulder he'd shrugged, as if she'd be able to do something about his discomfort if she just understood where it came from better.
She wanted to tell him not to tangle his fingers in her hair, because it had to hurt to move his arms like that. She wanted to tell him, but she wanted the touch just as badly, and she needed the tether, the solid hold that kept her from drawing back from him. She was torn between holding him tighter and letting him go, and his fingers made the choice for her, and she needed that. She tried not to cry into the kiss; she tried. But as soon as he said that he loved her, the floodgates broke. She kissed him again, kissed him again when he repeated the declaration, and she whispered her own things against his lips. French, and quiet, and choked on quiet sobs that didn't actually get forceful enough to wrack her shoulders.
This would have been so much easier if he’d believed her, but he didn’t. It wasn’t because of a lack of trust, but rather the fact that he knew her well enough to know that she would let Jack stay, even if she didn’t actually want him there, for his sake. “No,” he said immediately when she began to apologize, shaking his head. “Don’t. Please don’t. You don’t have to apologize, and you don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t make it sound like anything.” He’d just finally started putting the pieces together on his own. He saw Jack as a guest, and he was pretty sure Jack saw himself as a guest, but Wren saw the situation differently, and if he couldn’t change her opinion then maybe his only option left was to change the situation itself. “I want you to want to come home,” he admitted. “I want you to think of it as our house, yours and mine. It’s not Jack’s. He lives with us, but it’s not his house. If it’s just us, and not him, won’t that help?” He tipped his head to the side, one of the few movements that wasn’t painful in the slightest, and brushed his thumb along her jaw. “Even if Jack moved out, he’d still be my friend,” he told her. “And he’d still be yours too. It’s not like we wouldn’t ever see him again.” He did realize that Jack might take it badly, but surely he had to realize he couldn’t live with them forever, didn’t he? And if he could just explain it right, maybe it would be okay. If he understood that it wasn’t that they didn’t want him there, that they just needed their own place, maybe he’d be okay living on his own. After all, Jack had been living with them for months, and he was really no happier than he’d been before. They’d still see him, and Gus would still see him, and nothing had to change in that regard.