Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-03-03 13:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: Wren and Luke
What: A drive, and a perfectly pleasant chat. Except not. [2/2]
Where: Caesar's Palace -> A car
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: IJ posting limits are made of evil.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t anticipate his movement. Maybe she would have in the past, when she was hyper-aware around clients, but these days she held the whip, and security was only a button push away during her sessions. Maybe she just didn’t expect him to actually touch her, not when he’d recoiled from having her close only minutes earlier. His hand was around her wrist before she even managed to register his words or the locking of the door. She could tell him the driver was armed. She could tell him that she would push the button to lower the divider before he could stop her. She could try to retaliate. But she didn’t think to do any of those things, and she knew she would never risk getting him hurt. Her heart was pounding, and she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. He’d always been able to do this to her, and she cursed herself for being so much more the child she’d been than she’d realized. She had to swallow twice, and she stared at his face, so close, so changed while being so precisely the same. She bit her lip, worried it to the point of drawing pinpoints of blood, and she forgot to breathe. “It’s a fake,” she said of the necklace, unable to think or lie with him so close. “Just let me sell it. It’s close, real stones, and they might not notice. If it works, you can take the other one back. I can’t have trouble with fences or the law, Luke,” she said, and it was vulnerably pleading. She heard it in her voice, that weak begging that she hadn’t heard since Roger had scraped her up off the street, and self-loathing flared in her eyes. She caught her breath, and she shoved at him, that same self-loathing in the push of her hands against his chest.
“No,” he said, bristling at the implication. “No one thinks straight when they’re scared. The frustrating part is not knowing why. Whatever frightened you enough to make you run off... it must’ve been bad.” Luke had deduced that much on his own. He didn’t think it was anything he’d done, because he hadn’t crossed the line yet, and while he’d been more prone to losing his temper near the end he hadn’t thought it was bad enough to drive her away. The fact that he wasn’t the only one Wren was keeping from was little comfort, and he wondered if Roger held some clue without even realizing it. Surely he’d tell him if he knew something, wouldn’t he? He had to. “Lies don’t make things any better either,” he responded, a little too sharply. “Sooner or later I’ll find out why you left, Wren, and it’s going to be a lot worse if I don’t hear it from you.” Maybe it wasn’t something she wanted to acknowledge, but it was true. Secrets had a way of coming out and it was going to be that much harder to forgive if he had to find out from someone else, someone who knew whereas he’d been left in the dark. She could cling to her lies if she wanted to; he couldn’t stop her. In a way it was almost hypocritical, because he had his secrets too, but then again what he did with his nights had nothing to do with her. It was his business, and his alone.
He saw her begin to reach for him, and he watched as she caught herself and pulled back. Suddenly he felt tired, the way he had in New York when things started getting overwhelming, before Wren had left and his world came crashing down. “If that was true, no one would ever make the right choices.” Luke hadn’t had anything to lose after New York, and deep down he knew a lot of the choices he’d made hadn’t been the right ones. He could tell himself that the ends justified the means, and he’d never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it, but a small part of him, one he pretended didn’t exist, knew that Bruce was right in his condemnation of his methods.
There was a purpose to this, restraining her in this manner, but maybe there was something selfish in it too. Luke hadn’t been this close to her in years, and it was torture, but he didn’t pull back even though he could have. “A fake?” He tried to keep his voice steady, but it was difficult, and his thoughts kept wandering to places they shouldn’t go. He wondered what he was doing, and Bruce echoed his question; what was he doing? The pleading in her voice made him hesitate, though, whereas Bruce would have remained firm, and he was close enough to see the loathing in her eyes. It was something he recognized all too well. The push of her hands against his chest barely moved him, and he caught her wrists before she could try again. “Don’t,” he said, almost absently; he was distracted in his efforts to think of a way out of this for her. However hurt he might be, he didn’t want her getting into trouble. “Damn her for doing this,” he snapped, visibly frustrated. “You think if you sell the fake and it works, everything will be fine?”
“I know,” was her quiet, simple response to the fact that it would be worse when he found out. She did know, she feared it, worried about it. She knew, but she thought it was better if he didn’t know. What good would it do him? Then he’d just be eaten up by it. The first year or so, she thought it was only her problem. That even if he did find out, it wouldn’t be about him. He might be mad at her, but he wouldn’t have any reason to hate her for it. But now, in the past few years, all that had changed. The entire reason she’d run away was nonexistent now, but she couldn’t change it. Not that it would have been easy if she’d stayed, if she’d known then what she knew now, but she would have stayed. Even with the way his temper had spiked, and even with how bad things had gotten. And maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was seeing things that weren’t there in the hint of a smile or a tiny gesture. The point was, she’d never know for sure, and that was her cross to bear. Not his; he didn’t deserve it.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to stay focused with him close like he was. She’d always been the one who couldn’t think when he was around. The one who had spent the better part of a year staring at him, while he stared at other people. She’d been on her own since the age of thirteen, but he’d been her only weakness in all those years that came after, and even years of distance didn’t change the fact that she had trouble concentrating on anything but him when he touched her. “I bought the closest thing I could find,” she said, which was repetitive, but she was having trouble keeping her thoughts on the conversation. Her light gaze dropped to the hand on her wrist, and she took a shuddering breath after the push at his chest failed. She wasn’t expecting him to stop her from shoving at him again, and it took her a second to register that absent don’t, which was instinctively met with another attempt to shove at him, more insistently this time. She wasn’t even sure if she was testing the grip or really trying to push him off, and Selina chuckled somewhere in the back of her mind. This power play, it was something Selina was very familiar with.
“I think,” she said without thinking, “that it might be okay,” which wasn’t a ringing vote of confidence. “It’s close,” she repeated. “He would know,” she added, not needing to explain which he she was talking about. Selina hadn’t been helpful in that department, because Selina wanted to win her silly little bet. She took a breath, and she thought about her conversation with Roger on the journals. “What if we get killed in there?” she asked, and there was an obvious connection in her mind between Selina’s theft of the necklace and other things she might do, especially if she lost this bet and got more desperate to win. “She’ll try something bigger, if she doesn’t win this,” she added, and it was all so much more information than she intended to give away. It came with another shove and a press of her knee to his thigh, her body against his for added leverage in the shove.
Luke had held out the small hope that maybe, just maybe, his words might push her towards a confession, but when nothing put silence followed her quiet admittance he cursed himself for allowing to hope at all. She was never going to tell him the truth. The only way he’d ever find out was from someone else, or through some chance of his own; it made him angry, but it hurt too, that she found him so untrustworthy she was willing to lie over and over rather than admit the truth. Stupid, he thought, and he decided right then and there that he’d stop hoping for her to come to her senses. No more would he ask; he wouldn’t even bring it up again, if they spoke after this. She could have her secrets; clearly they were more important to her. He’d have his too.
“I know,” he told her, and despite everything a very distant part of him wanted to smile at her repetition. Maybe he should have let her go then, after that shuddering breath and second shove, but like the necklace he felt like he’d come too far to give in. The force moved him back this time, but only to reposition himself and regain his balance, and his hold on her wrists never faltered. Bruce was displeased, and he made it known, but this time his influence wasn’t enough to empower him. Luke was the one in control... in a manner of speaking. He was hardly appeased by her answer, which didn’t sound very certain to him, and he shook his head. “You think,” he repeated. “Let me see the fake, and he can decide how close it is.” Bruce would know his own mother’s necklace better than anyone, after all. He hadn’t really considered the possibility of dying in Gotham; Batman had always seemed infallible. “I don’t know. Maybe if she was a little less impulsive and actually used her head, there’d be less of a chance of her getting herself killed,” he said, a hint of Bruce’s annoyance coming through. “Are you trying to tell me I should let her win so she doesn’t try something bigger? I doubt she’d behave even if I did,” he began, and he would have continued, but then her body was against his and her knee was pressing against his thigh, and his words caught painfully in his throat. He was caught off guard, of that there was no doubt, and this time when she shoved him he couldn’t recover in time. His back hit the seat and he slid to the side, trying to find traction, but he pulled her with him instead of letting go of her wrists.
She didn’t like his silence, and she knew she had made it worse. She tried to tell herself that it was good, that he’d stop asking questions and looking for answers that would only hurt him, but that didn’t change the way her heart ached or the feeling in the pit of her stomach that said she’d just made the wrong choice - again. “Luke,” she began, pleading. Just his name, something to break that silence and stop whatever he was thinking.
But she didn’t have any more time to think about that long stretch of quiet, because he was asking to see the fake, and she was shoving at him, and even Selina was angry at his criticism of her. She was expecting the thoughtless shove and press of her knee to be successful, but she wasn’t expecting him to pull her with him. She didn’t have a chance to keep herself from coming flush against him when his back pressed against the seat. One of her thighs ended up on the other side of his, and her knee ended up between his legs, and though she braced her hands on the seat beside his shoulders, she was no closer to getting free of that grip. She looked down at him, hair slipping lose of the sedate comb that held it away from her face, cheeks red and breath coming too fast and sharply shallow. She had worked hard to gain the calm composure she showed her clients and the world, and she hated that he managed to slice through that with one tug. She tried to remember what they’d been discussing, and she ducked her head just slightly, closer, without any real awareness. “I’m telling you she’ll retaliate,” she said. “She had a bad conversation with one of Batman’s Robins, and she’s not going to be easy to deal with.” She didn’t add that she wouldn’t be able to keep Selina away from the door; she didn’t think that was necessary to say aloud. Her purse (and the necklace) was lost somewhere on the floor of the car, forgotten in how warm he felt against her. Even Fredrick had slipped her mind, and when he slid open the partition out of concern at the sounds in the back (Wren never conducted business in the car), she didn’t immediately notice. “You need to let me move, if you want to see the necklace,” she said, voice gone lower and unintentionally breathy.
In the rearview, the driver’s hand was visibly reaching for his weapon, his gaze firmly on Luke’s hands.
There was no time to react to the way she said his name. Luke hadn’t intended things to end up like this; he just wanted the necklace, a simple request, and somehow that led to her being pressed against him in a way that made it very, very difficult to maintain his usual cool exterior. This shouldn’t have affected him as it did. Bruce’s protests faded into the background as two parts of himself warred, one that told him to push her off and the other that said the exact opposite. He wanted this, wanted her, but she was never supposed to know that. He’d never wanted to be vulnerable again, but he was doing a poor job of avoiding going down that road all over again. He was supposed to be angry. He was supposed to hate her, yet how could he be when she was so close, and all he could think of was how much he’d missed her during the past five years? His only consolation was that she looked as shaken up by this turn of events as he did. He made a supreme effort to stay still, but when she ducked her head closer he almost did the same, wanting to close the distance, and only managed to catch himself at the last moment. “So she’ll retaliate,” he said, his voice thicker than it usually was, lower, betraying his struggle for control. “He can handle that. She’s just going to get herself in more trouble, though.” He didn’t expect her to be able to keep Selina away from the door, no more than he’d be able to keep Bruce away. Maybe he should have taken advantage of her distraction to find the purse, and subsequently the necklace, but he was just as preoccupied as she was. He wasn’t aware of Fredrick or what he was doing, and he looked up at her as she spoke, a thrill he hadn’t felt in so, so long running down his spine at the way she sounded. “Do you want me to let you move?” It was a stupid, stupid question, and he cursed himself for asking it, but he waited for her response all the same.
Then Bruce’s muted protests became full-blown shouts of alarm, and that caught his attention. Bruce had an intense hatred for guns, and Luke turned his head, catching a glimpse of what the driver was doing in the rearview mirror; he reacted without thinking. He released Wren’s wrist, only to push her behind him, at least as much as he could considering the enclosed space, and he glared at the driver, every instinct prepared to dart out of the car if the idiot man actually decided to fire. “There’s no need for that,” he said coolly, raising his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.
The way his voice dropped and became thicker made her close her eyes, the futile effort to get herself under control impossible to miss. Her lips fell slightly open, and she licked them without thinking, and she tried to will away the sharp jolts of memories and desire that chased along her skin as his voice betrayed him. She knew this didn’t change anything - not his anger, not his distrust, not the hurt - but she wanted it all the same. She thought a billionaire (because she still thought that was the sum of Bruce Wayne) couldn’t handle Selina, no matter what Luke said, but it was the least important thing in the world right then. Right then, there was only him, and this, and the way his fingers felt against her wrists. “She’s going to get herself in trouble regardless. She’s trying to get someone’s attention,” she explained, not thinking, words just tumbling past her lips as she stared at his mouth. His question, the one about whether or not she wanted him to move, almost made her whimper aloud. It was a combination of things; the way he sounded, the implication, the invitation in it. She would have told him no, because she was too far gone to lie just then, too lost in how he’d changed, too driven to find out just how much he’d changed.
But she didn’t get a chance. She noticed the turning of his head in slow motion, a delayed thing, and it took a second more to realize he was looking at the driver. The glint of the gun in the rearview brought reality crashing back in on her, and she leaned forward after Luke pressed her behind him. “Fredrick,” she said, warmth and huskiness gone from her voice, replaced by that cool, aristocrat nothing. “Please raise the divider. I’m fine. Thank you,” she said, and there was no doubt that it was an order. The car had stopped, which she only realized now, and she pushed her hair away from her face and looked over at Luke as Fredrick glared at him in warning one last time before following her instructions. She didn’t like the coolness in Luke’s voice, like he’d become immune to guns being pointed at him. She didn’t like the way he raised his arms in surrender either. It was a reversal, and she hated that most of all. Fredrick was judging Luke on the clothes he wore, on the way he looked, and on the money he perceived him not to have; Wren hated it. More importantly, it made her wonder if he was still dodging bullets at night. She hadn’t paid attention to the vigilante scene in so long that she had no idea who was even out there anymore.
She leaned down and picked the purse up from the floor, a hand settling for a moment on his back as she moved, and then removed just as quickly once she realized she’d done it. She pulled the necklace out, handed it over with fingers that betrayed the facade of calmness by shaking slightly. “Are you still going out in the evenings?” she asked harmlessly.
Luke didn’t like the way her voice changed; she sounded like a stranger, someone from a world so far from his own. It made him realize, albeit too late, that she hadn’t needed him to protect her, not when he was the one Fredrick would have shot had it gotten that far. He must have fallen far if he was the one people presumed she needed protection from. The way the driver looked at him spoke volumes, and Luke returned his glare just as heatedly. Wren was the one who had money, not him, and so it was clear which of the two were deemed worthy in the driver’s eyes. “I think I’d like my fifty dollars back, Fredrick,” he shot out as the divider closed, all biting sarcasm and no humor. Either he was invisible, or he was branded an enemy. That was simply how his life seemed to work these days. He didn’t have friends; acquaintances, co-workers, but aside from Roger he was close to no one. Bruce relaxed once the gun was no longer a threat, and Luke leaned forward, rubbing his face and trying to regain his lost composure. He felt the hand on his back, however brief it was, but remained still until she withdrew the necklace and held it out. The moment, whatever it was, had passed, but he still felt something as his fingers brushed hers.
Somehow, he hadn’t actually expected her to ask that. Luke looked up from inspecting the necklace, though Bruce’s commentary still continued, and he considered his response. Would she tell Roger if he said yes? Even if he lied, would she believe him? “I don’t have time to go out. I work,” he said shortly, deliberately misunderstanding her question. Bruce, meanwhile, knew the necklace wasn’t his mother’s--which was expected--but to someone who looked at it for value alone, he decreed it might do the trick. “You’re still going through with this?” He thought it was foolish, and that wasn’t about to change, but considering where his last attempt to talk her out of it had led them he wasn’t sure they could handle another.
She closed her eyes at the comment about the fifty dollars, because she knew he couldn’t afford it, but there was no way to fix that without him thinking she was pitying him. It made her understand how he must have felt when they were young, when he was the one with all the money in the world and she was the one who wouldn’t take his charity. She took the necklace back, and she nodded. “I don’t have another choice,” she reminded him. If she was honest with herself, which she seldom was these days, she would admit that if the necklace hadn’t belonged to whoever he had in his head, she would have sold the thing and been done with it. She’d blackmailed someone to get everything she had now, after all, and things weren’t as black-and-white as they had once been for her. “If they don’t fall for it, I’ll give them the real one,” she added for full disclosure. “I can’t go to jail again, and I don’t want trouble with fences.” And she couldn’t lose her job by being anything less than perfect - at least outwardly; she didn’t think he’d appreciate that, so she didn’t add the comment.
She was entirely unaware of his concerns about Roger, but they were valid ones. She’d been trying very hard to keep from giving too much away to his older brother, not knowing what (if anything) he knew about Luke’s past or nighttime activities, but she had never been good at secrets, and even secrets generally came to light with enough prodding. She gave him a long look, one that was obviously trying to ascertain the truth of his words. It would be a lie to say she hadn’t worried about that over the years, hadn’t subscribed to the New York Times just to read the obituaries every morning. It was that last bit of truth that made her reach out and tug up on the hem of his rumpled shirt without warning, pushing the cheap fabric up past his stomach, looking for fresh bruises and fresh scars.
You always have a choice. Bruce was unwavering in his morality. He had his moments, as all men did; Batman may have been a symbol larger than life, but the one behind the cowl was human at his core. Luke was both envious and scornful of the man’s inner strength, despite the fact that Bruce often told him he was capable of the same. “If you give them the real one, I’ll find it,” he told her. Honesty for honesty. “I’ll track it down and I won’t stop until I have it back.” Such an endeavor would be a waste of his time and efforts, but he’d still do it. This, however, was hardly the last of Selina’s little stunts. She’d do it again, but Bruce had more pressing concerns and wasn’t about to put the well-being of his city aside for the sake of one reckless thief. “She’s going to keep doing this. You said it yourself. What happens the next time she drags you into one of her little crimes, Wren?” You’ll stop her, Bruce told him, and Luke shifted in his seat. He had more brutal criminals to deal with, as did Batman, but his world view leaned towards black and white rather than grey. Even now, knowing what she was going to do, he didn’t like it. Maybe Bruce was doomed to become entwined with Selina too, as his counterpart had; this one didn’t remember her, and Luke hadn’t yet figured out his exact source, but he’d probably learn quickly enough.
He wasn’t giving her a straight answer. She told him lies and half-truths, so why should he do any differently? Luke met her long look with a challenging one of his own, as though daring her to push further, though he admittedly didn’t expect her to. He wasn’t expecting her to push his shirt up, and he reacted a moment too late; even in the dimness of the car she’d get a glimpse of scars; not just bruises, but stitched wounds and red that hadn’t yet faded. What he wore when he hit the street didn’t offer the same sort of protection he’d had when it was a billionaire’s money funding it. “What the hell are you doing?” He shoved her hand away angrily and slid out of reach, tugging his shirt back down over his stomach. “You have no right,” he snapped. “You want the truth from me, but you won’t even give the same in return. What I do or don’t do with my time isn’t your business anymore.” She’d tell Roger, he knew she would, and that was the last thing he wanted. Then again, neither she nor Roger would know about his methods, but they might find out. It was a risk. He folded his arms over his chest and tried to get his temper back under control. “If the fake works, I want the real necklace back.”
She knew he would find the necklace, if it came to that. She knew it, because she knew him; not the man in his mind, but the boy he had been. She knew he’d let her try it her way, too, though. “I don’t know,” she said honestly of being dragged into more of Selina’s thefts. She lived in the gray, and she wasn’t as good as she’d once been. She knew it was a slippery slope, but she’d always been a criminal; it had always been one of the differences between them. “I don’t know why she does it, other than knowing it’s a cry for attention. I don’t know how far she’ll go. But I know she’s young; she feels young. Younger than me or you, and I think she might be scared by these changes. I’ll deal with it when it happens. “When, not if. And she really didn’t expect him to care so much, in the future, if it wasn’t Bruce’s necklace that Selina was fencing.
That is, she didn’t expect him to care so much... until she saw the bruises and the stitches.
The angry slap of his hand didn’t surprise her, and she didn’t take it as any kind of real rejection. She knew precisely why he did it (she thought she did, anyway), and she tried to keep his anger from making her angry in return, but that didn’t work so very well. “You can’t stop me from caring just because it’s easier for you that way, Luke,” she said, voice going hot and forceful. She wasn’t surprised at the map of injuries on his body, and she knew perfectly well that it meant he didn’t have decent gear. Not for the first time, she mentally cursed the man who’d left him to fend for himself. “Roger doesn’t know. Does he?” she asked, but it was an unnecessary question. Roger would be going crazy if he knew his little brother was out there risking his life every night. She couldn’t get the vision of that angry red skin out of her mind, and she reached out again, even though she knew he would give her a hard time about it. “Just let me look. Is anything infected?” her voice was intentionally quieter when she asked the question, concern in it. She wasn’t scared of his temper, not like she’d been toward the end, when things were falling apart all around them, and her fingers closed on the hem of his shirt again. She didn’t acknowledge his demand about the necklace.
Luke couldn’t say that Selina wanted attention from a man who wasn’t what she thought he was, not without giving away Bruce’s secret. Sooner or later she might find out, considering how well-known Batman was in the real world, but for now she remained in the dark as to who Batman really was. The fact that Wren didn’t seem too worried about what Selina might do, at least not about the legality of it, made him wonder. She didn’t want to end up in jail, but that was out of fear and self-preservation. Despite his own skewed morals, it was the rightness of something--or the opposite--that would give him cause for concern. “So she’s young, scared, and crying out for attention. That’s a great combination,” he sighed. Selina wasn’t his problem, however, and while he didn’t want Wren getting into trouble he wasn’t going to stand by if she was setting down a path of thievery and selling stolen items to the highest bidder. Even if she didn’t believe it of herself, she was better than that.
“I don’t need you caring about me,” he said, struggling to keep his voice from rising lest Fredrick feel the need to pull his gun out again. “I told you, I’m not your concern anymore.” Luke knew it wasn’t that easy; he still cared about her, after all, but as usual he ignored his own hypocrisy. His gear wasn’t the best, but it was enough to save his life on numerous occasions, and even if he’d had the best money could buy his own reckless nature was more of a risk. He’d spent so long not caring, having nothing to lose, and even though Roger, Wren, and even MK were back in town, it was difficult to change the way he was. “Of course he doesn’t know. Don’t you dare tell him,” he snapped, despite expecting her to do just that. “You have no right to tell him.” If anyone was going to tell Roger, it would be him, though he didn’t plan on coming clean in the foreseeable future. He tried to slide back again when she reached for him, but there was nowhere else to go, and he placed a restraining hand on hers instead to keep her from pulling up his shirt. “No. Nothing’s infected. I saw the way your driver looked at me, Wren, but I’m not poor. I can afford a hospital if I need it,” he told her, and maybe it was a bit of a lie, but he wasn’t poor. He didn’t have a lot of money, but he had enough to live off of. “I wouldn’t let anything get infected. I’m fine.” He tried to push her hand away for a second time. “Don’t ignore what you don’t want to hear. You’ll give back the real necklace if you sell the fake, won’t you?”
Luke’s very accurate description of Selina took a backseat to her bigger concerns about his welfare. She gave him a look that said she thought he absolutely needed someone looking out for him, and that she didn’t buy his statement about not needing someone who cared, either - maybe not her, but someone and, God help her, she was too jealous to even think about that being some other woman; she couldn’t even picture him with someone else without her shoulders tensing and her expression going closed and cold.
His assurance that Roger didn’t know was exactly what she was expecting to hear, what she was counting on. She looked down at his hand around her wrist, her fingers still tightly closed around the rumpled him of his shirt. “I don’t care how my driver looked at you. I’ve never cared about that and, even though you don’t believe me, I don’t care about it now.” She took a very deep breath, and she just closed her fingers tighter on his shirt when he tried to push her hand away the second time; she wasn’t letting up, not when it came to this. Inadvertently, her fingers slid just beneath that rumpled fabric to rest on warm skin, and she had to focus to get her next words out with any force at all. “I won’t tell Roger, but on one condition,” she said, obviously uncomfortable with issuing ultimatums to him, “and if you agree, you get the real necklace too, regardless of how things go with the fence.” It was an unbelievable risk, but this was important enough, his agreement, that she was willing to use it as leverage. Still, she wasn’t very good at being the one cornering someone, and she bit her lip and ruined the effect with her own uncertainty.
Luke had become stubbornly independent since leaving New York, and the truth was he could be out on the street sleeping in alcoves and beneath dumpsters and he’d still claim he didn’t need any help. His pride was easily wounded, and it was one of the few things he had left these days. His jaw tightened when she refused to relinquish her hold on his shirt, and despite her claims he did think their role reversal mattered; she had the money now, and he didn’t. Though he wouldn’t admit it, he finally knew how she’d felt all those years ago. He glared at her again when her fingers slid beneath his shirt, unsure if it was intentional or accidental, and when she mentioned a condition his expression went from surprise to cold outrage. She was offering an ultimatum, of all things, and she knew he didn’t want Roger finding out. “I can’t believe you,” he hissed, a fresh wave of anger washing over him. “You--” He couldn’t speak then, too angry, too worried about the possibility of Roger finding out, and despite her uncertainty he wasn’t willing to risk his older brother discovering his secrets. He thought of telling her that she’d be as good as dead to him if she dared tell Roger anything, but he decided to tuck that away as a last resort. “What’s the condition?”
The glare almost made her let go of the fabric she held, and it took a mental reminder of why she was doing this to keep from running out of the car altogether. One of her fingertips brushed against a scar on his stomach, one that she didn’t remember, and it gave her the determination she needed not to wilt beneath that hiss and anger. Part of her was surprised that he was so determined about Roger not finding out. She viewed Roger as that nice guy, the one who accepted everything and saved broken girls in gutters. She was surprised, but she was willing to take advantage of it to keep him safer. She didn’t think he needed to know that she’d been keeping his secrets, that she hadn’t told Roger anything, that - even if he turned down the ultimatum - she wouldn’t betray him, not intentionally. She was pretty sure it would have been a slur on his lips, had he continued; something that would haunt her for days, and she was glad he stopped himself. Her expression was guarded, hurt, imagining what he almost said, filling in the blanks, and his question was hard pressed to jolt her out of the thoughts. “A better suit. Better gear. Gear that you’ll use, even if you don’t want to accept it from me.” The from me was intentional; she wasn’t asking him to pay for it - she was going to pay for it herself.
Luke was too angry to care about her hurt expression, and he was so blinded by anger and humiliation that he had no idea what he would have said if he’d been able to get the words out. He couldn’t afford a better suit, and she knew that, which meant that she expected him to allow someone else to pay for that. As much as he wanted Roger to remain in the dark when it came to his nighttime activities, his pride wouldn’t allow him to accept charity from anyone. “I’m not taking money from you or anyone else,” he said emphatically, intentionally making his tone as cold as he could manage. “Since that’s the only way I can get better gear, it’s not happening. You won’t tell Roger anything, because if you do, I’ll never speak to you again. I can take care of myself, Wren,” he told her, less angry and more hurt. “I’ve been doing it ever since you left, and I’m still here, aren’t I?” He slid back towards the door. “Go sell your fake necklace. I want the real one. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll take it from you myself, and if you sell it then I’ll just track it down. Simple enough, right?”
She let go of the fabric of his shirt as he slid back toward the door, reluctant fingers sliding away from his skin. “I remember how annoyed you would get at me when I wouldn’t let you help me, when I stayed in a terrible room with no heat and police beating down the doors and doing terrible things, all because I didn’t want you to feel like you had to take care of me, because my maman always said you didn’t take things from people. I know now that you just wanted me safe. I just want you safe.” Her voice was quiet, but steady, ice melted away and leaving only earnestness behind. “I’ve woken up every single morning for the past five years and found a paper, or a cafe with the internet, just so I could read obituaries in New York. Please, let me do this one thing?” She didn’t actually expect him to agree, no matter how heartfelt the sentiment, and she slid to her side of the car and opened the door without waiting for an answer. “I’ll have the necklace delivered to you,” she promised, giving away that she knew where he was living without meaning to. Even if the sale didn’t work, she would give him the necklace, she knew. It was stupid, and it was dangerous, but she would agree to pretty much anything, everything just then to get that look off his face, the anger there, the hurt. She pressed the button that would lock his door, and she tapped the roof of the car as she slammed hers shut. She wasn’t going to get him involved in fencing anything, even if she had no expectation that he would come with her. He wanted the necklace, not her. Fredrick would know to drive away when she tapped the roof; it’s how she’d dealt with difficult clients in the past.
Unfortunately, Luke was in no mood to acknowledge her logic. Yes, once he’d been exactly where she was now, frustrated beyond belief when she refused to accept his help, but now he was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He knew it wasn’t charity, exactly, but it felt like it was, and he was too stubborn to accept help. Besides, his situation wasn’t half as bad as hers had been. He could afford his apartment, and food, and he certainly wasn’t prostituting himself to make ends meet. Working security was a perfectly acceptable job, after all, and completely legal to boot. She may have checked obituaries for five years to ensure he was still alive, but he refused to allow himself to be moved by her earnest words. He could keep himself safe, and he wasn’t going to take her money just to appease her concerns. “No,” he said firmly, in a tone that allowed for no argument, even though she didn’t actually give him space to respond. He wasn’t going to let her corner him into agreement that way. As for whether she’d actually send him the necklace, he wasn’t sure, but he did realize he’d done all that he could on that front. Bruce was disappointed, but Luke simply glowered in his corner as she slammed the door and left him alone in the dimness of the car. He wanted to get out and follow her, to ensure that the meeting with the fence didn’t cause her any trouble, but he forced himself to remain seated as the car began to pull away. He’d let Fredrick drive for a few minutes, he decided, and then he’d walk the rest of the way back to his apartment himself-- even if he had to jump out of the damn car to do so.