addy and steph are the (blondebat) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-09-06 15:11:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | door: dc comics, riddler, stephanie brown |
who Eddie and Steph.
what relationship issues come to the surface.
when Right after this convo
where some grease pit diner.
warning so much sads. i actually teared up. no lie.
Eddie was going to let Stephanie go off and stomp around Gotham until she got all the angry out of her system. Part of him knew that’s what he was supposed to do and ever since they started having talks about space and freedom he thought it best to let her deal with her own problems. But, Eddie wasn’t good at holding back his needling and he certainly couldn’t stop himself from worrying over her. He waited a couple hours. He saw her gps dot on his computer drive all over the city without stopping anywhere for very long. Finally, sometime right before dawn, he saw the dot stop somewhere far from his neighborhood or her apartment. He pretended to work while he stared at that stupid little purple dot for a lot longer than he should have and before he realized what he was doing, he was getting dressed and leaving the house.
The place Stephanie ended up was a diner and Eddie knew immediately that he had failed completely at trying to comfort her if she was trying to find it fork deep in a breakfast slam. He was dressed in black slacks, a white button up shirt and a green tie she had seen a million times. The shirt was a little rumpled and his hair was already starting to escape it’s gelled position. Dark circles surrounded his eyes as he gave a worried, cautious look around the diner and tried his best to smile politely at the waitress. This wasn’t his area of the city. He couldn’t just waltz in and take over everything like he did anywhere around his apartment. He couldn’t have a yelling match with her over eggs and pancakes and not get kicked out. It made him feel out of place, but Eddie was good at looking like he owned every piece of this city.
He caught that short cut of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye and carefully walked to her booth, each step a little more wary than the last. “Stephanie.” Eddie’s voice was cautious and he didn’t move to touch her when he came into view, only taking a seat across from her at the table and exhaling as he pressed the palm of his hand into his eye. “I know-” He put his hands out defensively. “I know I’m the last person you want to see right now, but I was worried. I’m allowed to be worried.”
Since the universe had decided to leave the wacky alternate realities behind and snap back to normal, it had been one of those days. Those stressful days where everything seemed to go wrong, where every single time you brushed yourself off something else would knock you down. Stephanie had already been freaked out about what happened in that other, nonexistent Gotham, where she and Eddie fed off the sweet, needling pain they caused each other. And, she knew Eddie was something like that, and she was something like that, too. Deep down, it wasn’t that much of a stretch from what they became in that alternate universe to what they really truly were. It worried the living daylights out of her, just like so much of her relationship with him did. It was a lot for a girl her age to wrap her mind around. Everything with commitment, freedom, being in love with someone who sometimes wasn’t quite right in the mind.
Steph thought she had come to terms with that months ago, when he dumped the Lazarus Pit on her head or when he still had casual conversations with members of the rogue gallery or when he forgave Muerte after only a day or so. Eddie would always have a different set of morals that the little blonde bat could never understand. He would always be at least a little different shade of gray. But, that didn’t mean he was allowed to run away from her when things got tough or if she was being too difficult for him. Then again, wasn’t that what this tantrum was about? Him being too difficult for her to deal with? No, Steph decided as she ripped through her stack of pancakes with a sort of anger that had the waitress raising her eyebrow high. It wasn’t the same thing. She hadn’t ditched him as she could feel the world crashing around her ears. And that didn’t even begin to touch how she knew that Eddie didn’t quite feel remorseful towards what was going on with Helena. He might not have said it, but she could just detect something.
Tucked away in the back of the diner with her breakfast platter, mug of coffee, and orange juice, she didn’t expect to hear Eddie’s voice across from her. (Though, frankly, she should have.) The shock had her inhale a piece of fluffy pancake down the wrong pipe, and the blonde bat broke out into a wicked coughing fit. “Why-” A gasp, fingers splayed across the pale collarbone sneaking out beneath her ratty Gotham U t-shirt. A purple zip-up hoodie covered most of it, and a pair of cut-off jean shorts with purple converse sneakers made her look at least like she hadn’t rolled out of bed. She looked more like a college student refueling from an all-nighter than a bat running away from her rogue boyfriend. A couple more coughs rang out before she could speak again. “You’re right,” she said, strained for breath still and shooting him a pointed look. “You’re ruining my breakfast.” She cleared her throat before looking down at her plate again.
On any other occasion, Eddie would take a special moment to make fun of her getup. He was known for giving perplexed looks at her ratty t-shirts as if he assumed they were magically sent here by some grunge-torn planet and then making a face until she laughed or threw a fake-angry fit. Here was not the time or aAn c place, though, and Eddie was starting to pick up on social cues that he previously didn’t give a damn about. “Stop it.” He warned her, deciding that if he couldn’t cop an attitude then he wasn’t going to put up with hers and then leaned to the side to catch the attention of a waitress so that he could order himself a cup of coffee. A not-so subtle sign that he wasn’t going anywhere and if she really didn’t want to see him, she’d have to walk out.
It was a gamble, though, because Eddie didn’t know what he was going to do if she left him.
He leaned forward, both arms resting on the table as he moved to snatch something to eat off her plate. “I’m sorry. For the whole night. You know I am.” Eddie’s voice wasn’t playful or that sweet, geeky pitch. It was darker, deeper and serious like it got when he talked about important things. Things he wanted to fix. “If it had been any other night, I would have thought more clearly about the consequences, but we had just gotten back and I can’t begin to describe the residual pain that idiot version of me left behind.”
When he told her to stop it, she pulled a little mocking face, silently repeating the warning, but not looking up from the carbohydrate- and meat-filled plate. Eyeline following the syrup as it flowed off her pancakes and across the plate to contaminate the bacon. She didn’t even look up as he waved the waitress over and ordered a cup of coffee. She only stared down, lips deepening into an angry frown and fingers turning white as she gripped the fork between her fingers, and willed him to just leave her alone for a little while. At least until she could get her head straight and not want to stab a utensil into something.
Her blue eyes finally snapped up when he grabbed something off her plate. “Can you not?” she snapped, gesturing to her plate with the attitude of a cagey five year old who didn’t want her older sibling to grab something that wasn’t theirs. She was tired, purple under her eyes matching the purple of her hoodie, and the whites of her eyes were still bloodshot from panicking and angry tears from earlier. Steph stared into his dark browns, almost scarily upset, and then she rolled her eyes hard. “I get that,” she mumbled, dropping her fork onto the plate and going for the chipped white mug. “It wasn’t a trip in the park for me either, Edward Nashton.” Her fingers wrapped around the hot cup, and she brought it to her lips. “If you just talked to me--ugh, whatever.” Sipping the coffee, she tried her best to come off as nonchalant as possible, but failed miserably. It was clear everything was weighing her down, from the puff underneath her eyes, to the way her shoulders hunched forward, to the haphazard ponytail her blonde hair was pulled into. Stephanie looked like a wreck who hadn’t slept in days, and having him there wasn’t helping matters much.
Her attitude gained a mirthless, oh here we go kind of laugh that was admittedly a little meaner than he intended. Eddie loved her, he really did, but sometimes she presented him with puzzles he didn’t understand and he couldn’t cheat his way through. When she was like this, young and angry and impossible to reason with, it made him feel stupid and there really wasn’t a worse feeling than that for the Riddler, was there? He snapped a piece of syrup laden bacon and slowly, tauntingly ate it like he had just won the first round of acting like an immature brat. “You can’t just storm off into the night because your boyfriend is having a hard time dealing with the same goddamned things you’re going through.” He scolded her and then immediately felt strange for it. As if the way he was speaking to everyone else finally bleeded through to how he spoke to Stephanie. Eddie didn’t want it to ever come down to that.
The waitress brought him a coffee and gave him a look. The kind of look that bubbled up anger in him that was dangerous for anyone who didn’t want their diner lit on fire with a couple hot riddles and inflammatory puns. It was a look that assumed Eddie was an older man abusing this clearly much younger girl. It was a look that said she’d happily call the cops if she saw Stephanie freak out. If they were in his neighborhood he wouldn’t have to worry about it. If she knew what he was capable of this ape-minded waitress wouldn’t have given that silent threat.
He stared down at his coffee, dangerous and dry crackling Arkham flames hidden from the wary woman and Stephanie. Eddie could keep it under control. He could stop himself from being himself, but under stress the threat and want for it leaked through and all he could do was try to hide it. His hands retracted. He stayed on his side of the table. “Stephanie, please.” His voice was at a whisper. Broken and ready to lash out at anything that tried to take her away from him, including her. “I keep calling the other Eddie him, but it was me. I had to live through all that. I know you had to live through all of it, too. And, we talked to each other, didn’t we? But, it never solved anything because we had defenses up. I can’t go back to that, so I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Eddie trailed off softly, fingers pressing on the table, his gaze never settling back up at her.
She snapped a glare on him, blue eyes angrily, tiredly bloodshot. His sharp laugh tensed her shoulders, made the grip on her coffee mug tighten, narrowed her eyes just enough. She didn’t like that laugh, and it almost reminded her of the Eddie she saw on Christmas Eve, the one tucked away in Arkham, reigning terror on Gotham City, and grinning about it the entire time. But that was the game he wanted to play, huh? She could do icy cold as well. She could do it so well. And while she almost dropped the mug to slap his hand away from her plate, she didn’t. Steph only stared at Eddie, fingers drumming slightly against the porcelain mug, and when he chided her, she quirked an eyebrow up at him. Scoffed a little and rolled her eyes in that way that aimed to piss her question marked man completely. “Are you serious? Maybe my boyfriend doesn’t own me so I can storm out if I feel like it. I don’t have to do a damn thing I don’t want to,” she said lowly, eyes immediately flitting down after she said it. Finally, she put her mug down and attacking her plate again.
Okay, she knew that was probably a little uncalled for. Maybe she should have just stayed at home and cried all her worries and frustrations away. Maybe she shouldn’t have let everything rile her up the way it had. But, that was the way things always were with the blonde bat, wasn’t it? She jumped the gun before a modicum of hesitation whispered at the back of her brain. She let everything get to her, and though she never let it fester like other people she knew, Stephanie was good at blowing a fuse when the situation called for it. And, when it didn’t call for it either. Obviously, a diner tucked away in Gotham filled with insomniacs and passing journeymen wasn’t the proper place for the blow-ups that Stephanie and Eddie were known for in, say, anywhere in Old Gotham. But that didn’t mean he was getting off the hook so easily. Not in the slightest.
As the waitress stared Eddie down, Steph wasn’t focused on either of them. Instead, she pushed some fluffy pancake around in the pool of syrup now drowning her plate. And she waited. Waited for him to beg because that was always the pattern of their arguments. It was always like this: one of them does or says something that infuriates the other, then there’s always apologies and sometimes begging, and then they needle their way back into the good place. Oh, and puppy dog eyes if you’re Eddie Nashton. And, she knew his big brown eyes were somewhere widening as he spoke with love and concern and need, so she couldn’t look up. Then, then she would break down if she did. She had to be resilient, at least until he realized why what he was doing was wrong. And that could possibly take all day into the next night. “I wasn’t the one who hung up,” she said simply, dangerously low and quietly enough for just him to hear, and she popped a piece of bacon smothered in syrup in an effort to seem nonchalant. He hadn’t heard that tone in a while. That challenging tone that egged him on to do something stupid.
It was true that Eddie Nashton didn’t know why what he did wrong was so, well, wrong. They had blowout fights before and he was pretty sure she hung up on him plenty of times either out of anger or simply being uncomfortable, but he never held it against her. Then again, Eddie Nashton (while riddled with plenty of other problems) didn’t have abandonment issues. His mom didn’t leave when he was a child, she died. His father didn’t grow distant and impossible to get in contact with, he turned into a control freak with a love for beating his gifted child. The Riddler was a loner by nature, the sort who charmed to get what he wanted and then jumped back out into the Gotham darkness when people were no longer of use to him. That made him resilient. And, though he had plenty of people he cared about in Gotham now, if they up and left he’d survive. He’d find a way to survive because that was all a rogue knew.
Living without Stephanie was a different problem altogether, though and that much was proven by the one-time “break” they tried back when their relationship just started. He was miserable without her. The reality warped version of himself proved that over and over.
Eddie wrapped both his hands around the warm coffee cup and looked up at Stephanie to see that she had her head down in a refusal to look back at him. He knew why. Charming men could use their tricks on strangers, but let anyone close and snap they saw through all of that. Eddie didn’t mind. He liked that Stephanie was the only one who could really see through all his riddles. Still, that tone made him mad and he itched to tell her that he was going to move to Washington DC for the JLA indefinitely just to get her yelling at him again. But, he resisted. “You can’t be mad at me for being-” A strained cough because the next part was going to be very difficult, “wrong about something. I screwed up. Do you know how hard it is for me to admit that? Me? Who can see every possible outcome and act accordingly? Me, who if I was in my right mind would have stayed out of all this Helena business in the first place?”
He reached across the table and brushed his warm fingers across her knuckles before dropping his arm down on the table to wait for her to touch him back. “I shouldn’t have hung up on you. But, it’s not like I cut you off. It’s not like I let you run around Gotham without trying to find you. I’m always going to be here and I would have thought by now you’d get sick of it.”
The little blonde bat sighed into her plate, still not daring to meet his big brown eyes. Because then she knew he would win. “I’m not mad about that,” she said softly, teeth gritting just a little as she pressed the tips of her fingers into the table. Shoulder stiffening as he brushed his fingers against her knuckles, and she almost looked up at that moment. Almost. “I’m not, I promise.” Okay, maybe she was a little mad about that, too. But there was more under the surface, and the slight inflection in her voice told Eddie that she did appreciate that he was admitting he was wrong. She just couldn’t articulate it at the moment.
Stephanie knew that she was just as guilty of abruptly ending conversations before when they were having one of their snippy, vicious fights. She was guilty of instigating, of exacerbating problems, of not knowing what to say or do when Eddie was at his worst. But, at least she tried, right? When he spiraled out of control, she tried to talk him through it and understand what was going on. Maybe it took some time and a little bit of pushing through her stubborn goddamn brain, but she tried her best to be there for him. When she was losing it, he just left her hanging to dry. And, of course, she understood deep down that he needed to prevent a panic attack himself, but he didn’t even bother trying in her eyes. When the going got tough, Eddie bolted.
And, sure, some of it was the major abandonment issues that bubbled under Stephanie’s skin. It was the main source of her insecurities, fears, and twisted little scenarios where she always ends up alone. Growing up, her mother lost herself in the throes of addiction, and her father obviously fell into a world of crime, leaving her to pick up the pieces as a young child. Though Steph always managed to look on the brighter side of things eventually, to hope for a better tomorrow, the niggling doubt festered in the back of her mind. Swirling up a fright that she wasn’t good enough for anything or anyone. That didn’t even go into how Dean had abandoned her during her pregnancy and Tim decided to peace out.
She took a sip of the coffee, and she chewed on another piece of bacon, and she stared down at the tacky, faux marble table top. Using the silence to quell the rage washing through her mind and the wibble threatening angry tears. “I’m not mad about that,” she repeated, softer and as if attempting to convince herself. “I was scared, Eddie. I’m scared, and I feel guilty as shit about what’s happening to Helena.” Finally, regrettably, she looked up, and her blue eyes were awash with frightening upset and anger. “I was losing it, and you just gave up. Just like everyone else gives up on me. I don’t care that you think you’re here. You need to actually fucking show it. When you--that day in your living room, did I just run away? No, I didn’t. But you got scared, and you just left me to deal with it myself, and I can’t even count how many times that’s happened to me, Eddie. Everyone leaves, and I’m scared you will, too. And, what you did? Doesn’t really help assuage my fears.”
Eddie might have mentally prepared himself for Stephanie’s inevitable look of pain and betrayal (because he knew that’s what this was coming to), but it wasn’t enough to stop a sharp pain right through him that dulled and sank through his ribcage. His eyes seemed to say regret, which otherwise seemed impossible for the riddled man, but Stephanie had a way to pull things out of him that he didn’t think existed. He leaned forward and snatched her free hand, making a mess of tangled fingers in an attempt to latch onto her despite the looming threat of her fork in the other hand. Well, if she stabbed him, maybe it’d make her feel better? Like she really taught him a lesson here in this diner.
“I ran because it was my fault.” He told her, fingers squeezing fingers to try and get her to understand. “You were upset and it was my fault, don’t you get it? Stephanie, I mean good god if it were any other reason I would have stayed on that comm until you forced me off. But, what am I supposed to do when I’m the problem? When I’m the only real reason you’re feeling any pain?” Eddie caught a glance from the waitress looming from behind the counter, but in a sudden rush of passion or desperation he just did not give a damn anymore.
He lifted a single finger in the air, his hand retracting away from her and Eddie vanished under the booth’s table. With the sort of expert fluidity that only someone like The Riddler possessed, he popped up on her side of the table next to the wall without touching any of the gross floor with his hands. He settled in the booth, one arm across the top in an attempt to get her to move closer to him. Eddie knew those escapist skills would be put to good use someday. “Look, I outright refuse to keep causing you pain. If you’re miserable with me then I want you to leave. I do. But, not before you give me a chance to fix things. I screwed up with Helena and I made sure she wouldn’t die. She isn’t dead and Bruce will take care of her instead of letting her run off to some faraway country. And, I didn’t fix it for Helena, or even Bruce. I fixed it for you, goddamnit.”
Oh, there it was, wasn’t it? The wide, hurt eyes of Eddie Nashton that Stephanie found more dangerous nowadays than any time is Arkham fire sparked up in them. She knew that he knew that she was a sucker for the puppy dog routine. How he could burrow into that little hole in her chest that burned anger towards him and cool it down with a gentle touch and a small smile. She let him take her hand, tangling her fingers with his in that messy desperation she shared to just make this all go away. Squeezing back, she looked down at their entangled hands and sighed deeply before biting down hard on her bottom lip. Dropping her fork on her plate as he began to speak.
“Eddie, I-,” she started but in a split second, he disappeared underneath the table and wound up sitting next to her. For a couple of beats, she looked over him silently, blinking slowly and measuring a glance at him that told him it wasn’t that easy. Stephanie didn’t move closer to him, and after looking at him, she took her hands and wrapped them around the mug again. Looking over at the other half of the booth, with its vinyl booth seat and foam filling spilling out of tiny rips. She could feel him staring at her, begging her to forgive him without saying the words, but there was so much swishing around in her mind that she needed to work out before she could let him see the light emerge in his special corner of doghouse hell.
“You don’t make me miserable, baby, good fucking god. Do you actually, seriously think that?” She snapped her neck to the side and set a look of outraged shock at him for just a moment before turning away again, stretching her neck from him in that way that was all defiantly young woman trying her hardest to seem tough and above it all. “I’m scared, don’t you get that? I’m always scared, and after the last couple of weeks? I’m more scared. I’m scared that we can hurt each other so badly that we’ll hate each other at the end of the day. For good.” The blonde bat’s voice cracked towards the end it all, and she took a shaky breath to steady herself. In the background, she spotted the waitress staring at them. Steph shook her head a fraction to tell the woman to back off, and then looked down at her hands, still on the table and splayed the way he left them before slipping over to her side.
“She was miserable.” Stephanie swallowed hard, a failed attempt to rid herself of the lump in her throat. “You know what’s fucking with my head? Seeing all these different versions of us, and how they aren’t working. They’re all miserable, or on their way to be, and what if that’s us? And don’t start on that bullshit about my wavering faith. Don’t start,” Steph snapped, placing her mug down a little too roughly. Lots of glances flickered their way, and she turned in time to pull a face at them. “I’m allowed to be scared of things, Eddie. You know, you know how often I’ve gotten things I love taken away from me. And, in every other situation, the heat gets to be too fucking much, and you leave or I leave, and it’s fucked up.” Elbows on the table, she pressed her eyes into the heel of her hands. “People leave me all the time, and Eddie, if you want to, please do it now before things get more serious.”
Eddie liked the way that Stephanie made him feel as if she was shielding him from the rest of the diner. Even in the middle of a fight like this where everything seemed to be on a very thin line, she was snapping looks at people to tell them to leave her alone. And, maybe he had seen through her immature postulating, but there was real bravery under all of that she probably didn’t even recognize. He attempted a smile in anticipation for her to look at him, to just look at him. Eddie was sure she heard him mentally egging her on to engage him more than looking down at her food or off to another side of the diner. It didn’t happen right away, though and his smile twitch, twitched into a deep and worried frown.
“How is it fair for you to be afraid when you won’t let me wonder if I’m really awful for you?” He asked softly, moving closer to her just a little and reaching to touch her. The next thing she said about things never working and things always leaving her made him stop and his hand fell hard on the tabletop. “I’m not going to leave you, Stephanie.” Eddie insisted and his voice cracked at the end weakly. Everything that happened throughout the night, everything stupid screw up and each wrong scenario began to crush down on him suddenly. His throat tightened and he curled away from her, arms crossed over his chest as his head bowed down and he tried to keep in an unraveling hurt. “I love you so much, why would I ever leave you. Goddamnit Stephanie goddamn-”
He squeezed his eyes closed and groaned out a reluctant sob as large, impossible to hide tears streaking down his face and staining his otherwise white shirt. Eddie felt like a teenager again, angry at Stephanie for never understanding or apparently caring how he felt. So full of hurt and fury that he didn’t know what to do with it. He never thought in a million years that he’d feel that young again, that raw and stupid for another human being, but it was the damn hotel. It was Stephanie and that hold she had on him that he never wanted to break free of even when it hurt this much.
Embarrassed and ears turning a bright shade of crimson, he looked away from her and tried to stealthily wipe away the ongoing and relentless tears. “Stop testing me.” He whispered, hiccuping another sob as he kicked the booth with his heel in frustration. “I can’t take any more of this tonight. I can’t.”
When his hand slammed down on the tabletop, Steph jumped at the sudden sound and again looked around the diner to see the other patrons’ reactions. Some of them looked horrified, others angry, but everyone was curious about what was going on with the young blonde girl sadly tearing through her breakfast platter and the older man who could be anything from her father, to her brother, to some jilted lover. She glared at every single one of them, blue eyes watery and red, and eventually snapped to the closest person (a middle aged man, not much older looking than Eddie, who was clearly some truck driver or tough biker), “Could you just mind your fucking business?” Her lips curled into a snarl, and she turned to the waitress, who looked pissed. While she was preparing to shout at all of them to leave the quarreling Gotham sweethearts the hell alone, she heard a sob next to her and snapped her attention towards him. And, that was when the world started to crash around her. The anger melted away. The shield she had around her to keep him at a distance faltered pathetically.
She had seen Eddie upset before. Body shaking out the adrenaline of a panic attack or eyes wide and worried about something. But, she had never seen him like this, especially in public. The closest had been the night they’d gone out after the debacle with Muerte and his bunker where they danced and drank his pain away. She could see moments of his pain flicker out behind his brown eyes, and the way his voice softened now and then indicated a hurt he wasn’t willing to discuss. It was nothing, however, compared to seeing him slump over in this gross booth and dissolve into tears. Her chest lurched painfully, and all of the hardness set in her jaw and across her face melted away as he choked out another sob.
“Baby,” she said softly, reaching out to tug his collar in order to get him to turn to her. Then, she fished through her pockets, threw a twenty on the table, and tugged his collar again. “C’mon, baby, let’s go outside. Okay?” A major part of Stephanie wanted nothing more than to curl up in that booth and kiss away his tears until they were little more than a distant memory, but she knew they needed to talk about this. Right? They couldn’t just bury all of this away and hope that it would sort itself out. That wasn’t their style, nor did it ever actually work like that. “Okay, baby?” She leaned forward and ended up catching his chin to press a couple of kisses on his damp cheeks before sliding out of the booth and strolling out.
But, of course, not before saying a last few words to their adoring audience. “Next time, why don’t you all just record it, huh?” She fixed a glare on the waitress especially and sneered as she pushed past her and out of the door. The cool early morning air prickled on her face, and the glare of the sun pushing over the horizon of skyscrapers had her wishing she’d brought sunglasses. Both to hide away from the glare of the sun and her own tears. After a moment of staring off, she turned again to the door, pulling up her hood, shoving her hands in her pocket, and leaning against the hood of her car parked just outside.
Eddie couldn’t hear anything over his own mind pumping out static and uncomfortable heat that walled off the rest of the diner. After a couple of messy, uncontrollable sobs he reached the point beyond caring that he was crying in public or pressed up against some disgusting booth in a grease pit diner next to his girlfriend that might have been on the verge of breaking up with him. And, it all felt juvenile and trite and so beneath the sheer mind power of The Riddler, but that persona was very different from anything he had felt in the past nine months. Sure, there were glimmers of the man in the green bowler hat, but he was a joke, a cardboard cutout of a man compared to what Eddie Nashton had turned himself into.
That said, The Riddler from years ago wouldn’t be balled up in a booth crying about some girl. The distinction was finally clear as day for him now and despite the pain she put him through and difficult work that went into being a real goddamned human being. “Ooh-kay.” He nodded as she was suddenly pulling on his collar and kissing his wet face. Eddie’s voice was so weak and geeky like that tiny what she had heard in their dream. He sniffed, drying his eyes with his sleeve and then stumbled after her out of the booth. When she called out the peanut gallery gawking at them, he choked out a small laugh and followed her into the Gotham morning.
Unlike Stephanie, Eddie always had his sunglasses and he haphazardly pushed them onto his face, the violet glow of the lenses blocking out his dark, brown eyes. “Just give me a second.” He walked past her to the green, swanky Riddlermobile that was parked only a couple feet away from her car. He grabbed the side of the car with his hand and bent down like he saw a penny on the ground. His other hand ran through his dark, messy hair and he rattled off a couple riddles to himself and choked out a couple more sobs.
“What has feathers, but can’t fly and rests on legs, but can’t walk?” He whispered to himself aloud. “What moves over water, but can’t fly? What moves under water, but stays quite dry?” Eddie’s voice was even softer now as he muttered mattress and shadow under his breath, coughed and then stood back up.
He looked like a mess, but in seconds he had tamed his hair back down, straighten out his shirt and fixed his tie. And, with his glasses on it was almost impossible to see that he had been crying (or so he thought) and that was enough for him to feel like he had his mind together. Eddie didn’t walk back over to her though and simply took a seat on the hood of his car and leveled a stare at her. “You made me cry in a 24-hour diner are you happy now?” He asked, humor at the edges of his voice instead of anger, but the pain was still making his tone rough and worn out.
As he stumbled out of the diner, she looked up and could see that he wasn’t well at all, and she only nodded numbly as Eddie asked for a moment to himself. In the interim, when she heard him muttering in the background with what Steph could only assume was an awful string of riddles. She had never made him riddle out like that, not in a desperately sad sort of way to keep his little mental ticks in check. The sobs had her covering her mouth to suppress her own choked out sounds as she began to cry herself. She never, since this whole thing started with him, wanted to turn him to this. Even when she was so angry she wanted to beat the absolute shit out of him, Stephanie never wanted Eddie to crumble into a riddling mess because of her.
But he did, and as he took his moments to collect himself, she fell apart. Pressing her hand to her lips as she hiccupped out some sad noises. Wiping away the tears roughly. Pulling the hood down further to hide her face away. Burying her face into her hands. So, she didn’t see when he finished or how much better he hid away how upset he was. She only heard him sit on the hood of the car with a metallic squeak, and that had her wrapping her arms around her middle. Her shoulders shook in the other obvious motion of how wrecked she felt. Muttering incoherent apologies to her riddled-out man until he spoke. She finally dared a glance over to him, and though she wanted him to tell him to take those fucking glasses off, she didn’t. That wouldn’t be fair.
“I’ll check it off my bucket list. ‘Make my boyfriend cry over a breakfast slam.’” She tried to fake a smile behind the hoodie, but it failed. Looked strange twitching across her lips before it fell down again. “I’m sorry,” she finally croaked out, one hand falling down to grip onto the hood of her car. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean--I never wanted you to--I just need you to know how I’m feeling, Eddie.” She wiped furiously at her eyes again. “I need you to know how I’m feeling about everything. I can’t just keep it buried. What if I end up like--.” The blonde bat swallowed hard, swallowed that selfish thought away.
Eddie crossed his arms and looked down at his shoes. Through the glowing violet he saw his email, his various text messages, his upcoming appointments and the very end of his last conversation with Stephanie. He quickly moved past it and onto things that pleased him. Pictures of trains, Harley’s twitter, the schematics for a thingy he was building in Wonder City before Arkham City was built over it and then some pictures of Stephanie in Hawaii. Eddie pulled a face and tried to push past it because he was still upset at her. He usually had those pictures on hand when he was feeling stressed out about JLA or really anything else he was working on, but tonight it felt wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to gain any happiness from seeing her.
And, he thought if she had told him all of this while they were laying on the beach or watching the sunset (even in Gotham), it would have turned out a lot differently. But, here they were in some dingy parking lot, paces away from each other under the weight of one of the bat family members trying to commit suicide. Under the weight of seeing their perfect Gotham sweethearts relationship crumble everywhere else. It was in that very moment that he knew his anger towards Helena was justified, even if no one else would ever see it that way.
Eddie eventually took his glasses off and walked over to her, shoes scraping on gravel like they would on a rooftop and he wrapped his arms around her without asking. “You can tell me. But, you can’t tell me like that.” He whispered, pulling her hoodie back down and resting his head on her shoulder. “You can’t tell me that you’re afraid of losing me with a look like you can’t wait for me to goddamn leave.”
Stephanie didn’t have those convenient distractions that Eddie always had with him, so she lost herself in her regrets and concerns and thoughts. Why did this all feel so off, so wrong? They had gone through much worse together so much earlier in their relationship. Why did this feel like a dagger to her chest? Why did this burn her eyes more than the green goop Lazarus Pit had? It didn’t seem very fair or right that they could work through so many other things, but now, they were falling apart in the dirty, desolate parking lot under the dull glow of the 24-hour diner sign and the rising sun beyond the skyline. She wished she could know what he was looking at or thinking about as they sat on their respective cars, but all she could do was create worse and worse scenarios in her head. Scenarios where he decided he had enough or that she was too stress-inducing for his delicate mind.
The scrape of gravel underneath his shoes caught her attention, and she turned just in time to see him come over to embrace her. With a whimper, Stephanie wrapped her arms around his back and then up to grab onto his shoulder as she buried her face into that little nook of his shoulder. “I hate this,” she murmured against his crisp button-up shirt, dampening the fabric with her tears. “I hate this so goddamn much, Eddie. I don’t want to be scared.” She shook her head imperceptibly, barely a twitch against him. “I’m so mad at you for making it feel so fucking real, baby, don’t you get that? You hanging up when I needed you to talk me down? That makes me feel like you’re ready to just drop and go.”
She pulled back for a brief moment to rest her chin on his shoulder. Her voice shook under the tears that threatened to fall, and she shuddered in his arms. “I never want you to leave, okay? I’m just--I’m so fucking mad at everything right now.”
Eddie let her talk, occasionally kissing the side of her face or moving to trail his fingers across her neck and nodded when she shook her head. This time there was more listening than trying to simply stay in the ring with her, this time he was less concerned about trying to get her to touch him back than what she was actually telling him. “I know and I’m sorry.” He whispered, though now the word was starting to feel a little flimsy with how many times they were using it. “I won’t ever do it again. I won’t hang up. I won’t move to the Moon. I won’t hide in my server room on your birthday. I won’t mute you when I’m playing shoot ‘em games.” He tried for humor, because humor was how they got through these sort of things and wrapped his arms tighter around her shoulders. Maybe to someone else this would come across as flippant, but Stephanie out of anyone else could hear the sincerity in his voice. The extra ridiculous stipulations to his promise were simply proof that he understood this went past hanging up on the comm. He couldn’t leave when things got bad, even if that was what he did with everything else.
“You can be angry.” Eddie said, voice leveling back to normal and he pulled back to look at her. “And, you know you can be angry at me. But, I don’t want to talk about us breaking up unless one of us really means it. I sure as hell don’t and I know you don’t either. So, we can talk about everything you want, but not leaving each other unless that’s what you really want to do.” He touched the side of her face, rubbing out some of the tears with a sad little smile. “And, in case you were wondering no the rule does not apply to alternate dimensions or dream us. We can worry and talk about them all you want. Sometimes it’s informative.”
As much as she hated herself for it, being there in Eddie’s arms felt like home again with his fingers brushing against her skin and his lips searing their marks across her cheeks. Like the world was finally clicking back into place, however slowly it decided to. Like, at least one thing in this entire goddamn city finally made sense for a second. Helena wasn’t bleeding out somewhere on the other side of the world, Damian wasn’t cutting his biological sister off completely just because she couldn’t fit into the family right. Arkham City wasn’t looming over their beloved neighborhood. She wasn’t scared of losing Eddie, and he wasn’t scared of losing her. For a moment, the storm was assuaged, the waves crashing against them calmed long enough to let them catch their breaths. Despite herself, Steph laughed quietly at his flippancy, his exaggerations, and she buried her face in that nook of his neck to breathe his cologne in. It made her a little dizzy, his cologne, and reminded her of curling around him as he played video games or fighting Matilda for his attention as the dog burrowed her way between them in bed. Quiet snippets of life with Eddie that she never, ever wanted to give up. And, she suspected the other Eddies and Stephs didn’t have anything close to that.
When he pulled back to look at him, she tried to put a brave face on, a twitching smile as he wiped her tears away. “I don’t want to,” she said softly of ending it all. She didn’t want to lose him, she didn’t want to leave him at all. Even if it scared the living daylights out of her sometimes. She shook her head in his hands to emphasize how little she wanted that. “You have to talk too, okay? You have to promise you’ll talk, too. About whatever scares you or whatever,” she continued, leaning into his touch, smiling just a little. “Informative is one word I’d used for it.”
Eddie leaned in and gently bumped his forehead against hers. “I don’t have anything to say tonight. I just wanted to find you and make things right. Are we okay? Tell me we’re okay.” He bent his knees slightly so he could kiss her jaw. “At least sort of okay.” Another kiss to her cheek. “Mildly adequate.” Another smattering of kissed until he found her lips and he pushed his body against her to eliminate anymore space that might have been between them. It felt good to finally have her in his arms again and feel comfortable enough to kiss her in the way that honestly scared the daylights out of reality warped Eddie. He wanted this gentle affection. The funny little ways they showed they loved each other. The honest feelings that poured out like an overstuffed closet whenever it was opened.
“I love you, come back to my place with me. Please.” He asked all at once, words jumbling together in a mix of excitement and a tiny, tiny fear that she’d say no. Oh, she’d make it difficult on him if she wanted to, but crying for her in public was his trump card for tonight and Eddie wasn’t afraid of using it.
Blue eyes looked into his browns as he leaned in, and she couldn’t help the tiny smile that crawled up her lips. His proximity made her dizzier than even his cologne did, in that sweet sort of way that left her wanting more and more of him until she could barely stand up. Like a new special toxin that made her stupidly head-over-heels lovesick for the question-marked man in a way she had never, ever felt for a man before. Even those men that up and left her. Which is why this whole thing made her feel so panicked and uncomfortable. Now, if he left, her world would really get turned upside down. Now if he left, she actually had something to lose.
But, she didn’t want to think about that right then and there. Instead, she lost herself in a tiny fit of giggles as Eddie smattered her with kisses. “I guess--I guess we’re o--,” she stuttered out as his lips attacked every inch they could reach, only to be cut off as captured his lips with hers and pressed his body up against her. She whimpered, arms unraveling from behind him to slide up his chest and wrap around his neck. She was comforted by the fact that they would always wind up like this. No matter how often they fought or how ugly it became, they would always find comfort in each others arms. They would always place the puzzle pieces in the correct order to lead to the best solution. Which was them, always. Stephanie left out a breathless laugh and leaned in to brush her lips against his. “I don’t think that was really convincing,” she murmured, breath tickling his lips before she leaned forward to kiss him softly, gently with her hand catching his jaw to tug him closer.
Eddie always felt the best mix of comfort and thrill when she kissed him back or smiled against his lips. It did feel natural, it always felt like they were supposed to fit together like this even if things tended to get jumbled along the way. He laughed when she did, shaky and recovering like two people trying to crack jokes about a tragic play they just watched. They were both a little different now, especially since this all started, but they were okay and that was all that mattered deep down. “You’re such a bad liar.” He teased, humming until she kissed him again as if it stopped all Eddie processes at once. It was easy for him to lose himself in the softness of her lips against his and he couldn’t get enough of how different it was from a typical Gotham embrace.
“Tell you what.” He kissed the side of her mouth . “Not only will I cry in a disgusting 24-hour diner for you, but I’ll throw in an additional drive the Riddlermobile for no additional charge.” Eddie pulled back just enough to look at her blues. “I know for a fact you have the hots for my car. Don’t try to deny it. She’s a fast girl. I don’t blame you.”
She scoffed, a little rumble in her throat to try to argue his accusation. “Am not,” she muttered against his lips, even if she was the worst liar when it came to him. She could never keep anything from him, not for long, just like he had a problem doing the same with her. Despite how difficult it was sometimes, there was that inalienable trust and honesty they had in each other that would never really fade away as long as they were together. There might have been tests, there might have been fractures, but Eddie and Steph would triumph over it. They were Gotham’s sweethearts, after all, and they were both individually built tougher than that. Together? Well, together they could do anything.
With a laugh, Steph slipped her hand up his jawline into his hair and looked at his big brown eyes. “You’ve figured out my secret, haven’t you? I’m only sleeping with you for the car. Busted.” Grinning, she nudged her nose against his and pressed a quick kiss to his chin. “Your car is way hotter than you, baby.” As she spoke, and as she captured his lips with hers again, she slipped her free hand into his pocket to grab his car keys. When her fingers closed around them, she pulled back and dangled them in front of his nose. “Sure about this?” she asked, eyes bright and playful. “Bats never let me drive the Batmobile. Maybe he’s got a good reason.”
He grinned when she did, the same easy grin that she had seen in the dream when they were two kids against the world. Eddie leaned forward as she ran her hands through his hair and smirked when she reached for his keys. “I know my car is hotter than I am, that’s why I keep driving it around for everyone to see. I might defy many other masculine stereotypes, but my hot rod is an extension of my-” He wiggled his eyebrows, not bothering to finish as she kissed him again and then he took a step away from her. Hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, eyes up at the Gotham skyline above them.
“If you crash it, it’ll give me something to work on.” Eddie said with a shrug, moving towards the passenger seat. All his grace and easy swagger back in place of the earlier fits of fear and panic. Gotham kids had to bounce back a lot faster than anyone else if they wanted to survive. “And, any excuse to add those flame exhaust pipes is a good one.” He said brightly, deviously like the old fashioned super villain that still lingered around his edges. Despite what Eddie claimed, despite his apparent reluctance, he actually had taught himself to love working. Not grinding away at the same thing over and over, but building. And, if Stephanie helped him with anything, she was the one person who kept handing him new and interesting blocks for his latest creation.