stephanie nashton does it all (forthem) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-05-22 19:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *log, eddie nigma, stephanie brown |
log: eddie/steph (2/2)
WHO Eddie and Steph (Pt 2 of 2).
WHAT First hospital visit.
WHEN The morning after Selina is found and the grave is broken into.
WHERE VA Hospital.
WARNING lots of sweetness from the newly engaged couple.
Stephanie shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s enough. Hopefully it is. Do you like him?” She smiled into the kiss, easing into the tight embrace with her body pressed right up against his. “Do you ever think of what it could be like if it were different? If we were just a little more different?” When she was younger, she rolled that around in her head, the what ifs of their relationship. If he weren’t a rogue, if she were a rogue. If she hadn’t known him when she was a kid or if he hadn’t worked with her father. If all those puzzle pieces didn’t exist, if they were just a little different, would they still be able to love each other as much as they do now? Would they be able to love each other at all. Her eyebrows furrowed suddenly, and she looked at Eddie with confusion. “Wait, he’s not from Gotham. Is he from this door?” Of course, she’d never heard of a green monster demon tearing through Gotham before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t from any of the other countless cities she knew.
She could keep talking and teasing, even if she felt heat building up below and her heart starting to race. All of the tactics he used were nothing foreign. She knew Eddie Nashton, but she was also lost in that buzzing need for him to be as close as possible. It was bad, but she didn’t feel scared pushing the limits there. Not right then, when he pushed against her hips in encouragement. She rocked against him again, agonizingly slow. It was a test for both of them and for the thrill of someone walking in on them at any moment. “How did you know I felt the same way before I said anything, huh?” And she did take the bait, so easily drawn into his trap, and when he denied it? Oh, well. The game was on. Nails scraping lightly down his back, she pressed her mouth, open and hot, on his jaw. Just for a second, just long enough for some sort of reaction before pulling back completely. “That’s because you knew I could have flit-flitted away if you put me in a little birdie cage without my permission first.”
“I’m waiting for you to meet him before I make any judgement.” Eddie wiggled his eyebrows at her. “We’re all going on a double date. It’s happening once you get out.” He said that with certainty, as if they’d have another thing to look forward to. Eddie wanted to build a castle out of things she could hope for, things she could anticipate and work towards. Something tall and bright in the distance that she could see without squinting. Her next question made him wonder. They had met other versions of each other numerous times in this Gotham before Earth-3.
“I think there’s a few versions of us that’d work out. Some who would miss each other completely. Remember that dream we had where we grew up together? Sometimes I want that. Even if it was painful for the both of us. But, I wouldn’t be the same man I am today if I went off to a boarding school.” The thought of it was funny enough to make him laugh in a soft, raspy way. “And, no, demon green isn’t from here. He’s from the other comic book door. He and his buddies come here to try and fix things for us. I don’t mind. I don’t give a damn what they do. But, it steps on toes. If we’re not careful there might be a war between doors over something stupid like Selina getting hurt or one of ours killing one of theirs.” Eddie could see all the possibilities. Each and every one. Most seemed civil enough, but when were they that lucky?
When she rocked against him slow and teasing he laughed again, a nod of his head as if to say oh that’s how you want to play. The thrill of taking their time with each other and a nurse barging in at any second made it sweeter. It reminded him of Earth-3 when they’d get caught tangled up on the conference table or in the training room or in the maintenance closet. There really wasn’t a place they wouldn’t rip each other’s clothes off when a war was going down. This was different. This was all lap dance and no pay off, but he wasn’t complaining. “I knew cause I know you, baby.” He whispered, inhaling as she trailed her nails down his back. Eddie closed his eyes as she pressed her mouth to his jaw, giving one of those nerdy growls that demanded more and a frustrated look when it was gone in an instant. “See, you call it a cage, but I don’t think you believe that’s what this is anymore.” He kissed her jaw, her throat and then bit down on her exposed shoulder with another push at her hips. “Riddle me this: what does it really feel like?” He looked up to her and pressed his lips against hers for a real kiss. It wasn’t like that frantic kiss when he pulled her down on the bed or that slow teasing one moments before. No, he hadn’t tried to kiss her like this since the night she dressed up in red lace for him. It was crossing a line, he knew that, and they had to pull back soon. But, Eddie Nigma always had a bad habit of going where he was told not to.
“Double date,” she repeated after him, easy smile curling up her mouth at the idea of something so mudane and perfect. They didn’t get many days like that anymore, especially with all the junk going on in her head. “You really think we can get Selina Kyle to join us on a double date? Doing something normal?” The astonishment was teasing mostly because Stephanie had learned over the years never to doubt Eddie’s ability to charm the pants (not literally, of course, unless it was her) off someone and get them to do what he wanted. “Oh, the pressure. I’ll have to dress cute, and make it seem like I’m really, really in love with you just so you don’t embarrass yourself. Look at what you’re gonna do to me.”
She hummed thoughtfully, nails still dragging down his back in a slow sort of progression. “I don’t know if I’d want those other ones.” She never liked to call them us. They weren’t us to her. “You wouldn’t be who you are. And you know what? I love who you are. I really, really love who you are now, Eddie Nashton.” Her blue eyes bore into his browns to cement the point. There was the suspicious absence of loving herself in that statement, but that was just another thing to work on in therapy. A couple of days of drugs and sedatives couldn’t fix what seemed like eons of self-doubt when it had only been a month or so of resurfacing. She shook her head, finger stopping just at the line where his jeans hit his waist. “Toes like the Bat, I guess.” Steph understood Bruce’s mentality. His sort of possessiveness over the city. She had it, too. They all kind of did. “I don’t know if we’d survive something like that, baby. An actual problem with them.”
But the thought was lost as he bit her exposed shoulder. She hissed out encouragement. “I know you know me. I know, I know, I know.” Her nails went deep again, somewhere at the base of his spine before relenting and skating back up the raised angry marks she’d left seconds before. Pressing here and there to elicit something sharp and hungry from him.”I know you, too.” She could feel her heart in her throat as he pressed that kiss to her lips, and she reciprocated, something dirty and wanting, and oh god she knew she needed to stop, but it had been days upon days without him and weeks without him touching her and wanting her like that. It was affirmation. It was adoration. It was another vow, a wordless one that told each of them that this was still real. That this could still happen.
“It’s everything,” she gasped out from the embrace, rocking her hips again a little more eagerly this time. “It’s freedom and life and the world and everything. It’s the farthest thing from a cage, baby. It’s my rock. My foundation. My universe.” Her nails went sharp on his back, digging into his skin to ground her there as she pushed closer. As she lost herself in that kiss, turning it dirty and wanting, but also lingering to show how damn much he meant to her.
“I love who you are, too.” Eddie couldn’t hide the desperation there, quiet and needling in his voice. He knew she didn’t love herself, that it was something that would happen towards the end of all of this. He knew telling her that he loved her and not a version of her three months earlier or even five years earlier wouldn’t be easy for her to believe. So, he ran his fingers over her skin, he snuck them under her shirt and up her belly as if that was some kind of proof. “I want you. I want you as my goddamned wife.” He looked up at her, hope that she believed him piercing through the haze. Eddie liked to believe deep down, she did know. That she looked at the ring he gave her when she was alone and knew.
As he was trailing kisses back up her neck, her nails went into his back and sent a ripple of sharp pain through him. He laughed and then bit her back hard to make a mark there. Eddie murmured her name and gently kissed the bite like a half-hearted apology. By this point in any other scenario, they’d already have each other’s clothes off and it took a lot of restraint to keep himself from lifting that tank top up and off her body. He didn’t mind the challenge. Not when she kissed him like that and grinded against him like she couldn’t stop herself.
“I’m going to give you everything you want, Stephanie.” Eddie whispered between kisses, hands sneaking all over her body as if he was trying to use touch to remember her curves. “We’re going to build it together. All of it.” He had promised it to her before, once as a way to make her hurt for rejecting him, but this was different. This was something real they both knew was on the horizon for the both of them. The growing heat between them, that dirty little way she kissed him made him push back harder. Another rock of her hips and he closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, head resting against the wall behind him like someone had spun him too hard on the tilt-a-whirl. Then he smirked through the dizzy haze. Any Gothamite worth their salt liked the feeling of adrenaline and weightlessness. They just all found different ways to achieve it. “I can’t believe you’re going to make me wait for our wedding night.” His hand shamelessly roamed up the front of her tanktop. Not a good goddamn given about it.
Steph whimpered at his words, and while she didn’t love herself, she knew he did. He stupidly, shamelessly loved her and all of her broken little pieces. Over the last few weeks, she even tried hating him for it during her weakest moments, but that was just fucking impossible. She could hate herself, she could loathe how weak and shattered she was, but she could never hate him. She loved him too damn much to ever hate him for loving her. And in the brief, dark moments when she forgot, that purple ring weighed heavy on her finger and reminded her of everything that was waiting beyond the sterile floors and doctors trying to fix her brain. Eddie was there on the other end of it all.
The sound from her throat was sharp and dirty, a high-pitched moan as his teeth sunk into her neck. Girlish noises he hadn’t heard in so long they could probably seem foreign. The sting of the bite made her dizzy and buzzed out that doubt and self-hatred to focus on nothing else but the press of his body up against hers and the taste of him on her lips. She whimpered again, a tiny noise that was begging him to just make all of this end. To fastforward until they were husband and wife finally. “I want you as my husband. I have you as my fiancé, now I want you as my husband, baby. That’s all I want. I want all of this to be over, and I want to be your wife.” Said like a vow, like so many of the things they said sounded lately. When there was the urgency they had, how could anything not sound so serious? “All of it, all of it. I want all of it.” She sounded so desperate, fingers digging in more to drag him closer to her.
Heart racing as he broke the kiss, Steph gasped for air, feeling that same adrenaline pumping through her veins that sped through his. It was the best kind of drug, his kisses, his touch, the slant of his body against hers. She rocked one more time for good measure, an aching tease for the both of them when all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off. It wouldn’t end well, she knew, but that didn’t matter to her lust-addled brain in that moment. She just wanted him, all of him, no matter what the cost.
Laughing low and throaty, arching into that roaming hand, she murmured, “And who said that you had to wait that long?” She pressed a long kiss to his lips, lingering but chaste comparatively. “If you’re that desperate we can see how far to push it here,” she teased, hands sliding down his back to wrap back and climb up his bare chest underneath that shirt. “Anxiety meds are only one button away.” But, she was clearly joking. She pressed affectionate kisses across his face, there and there and there, before pressing her forehead against his. Eyes drifting shut and hands detangling from his shirt to slide into the now messed curls of his dark hair. “I’d say we could try now, but...Jen might not let you come back if they find me in any compromising positions.”
He laughed, messy and rough, eyes rolling to the ceiling as he pushed his tongue against his bottom lip. “Do you think Jen will just leave some extra meds on the table and shield her eyes while we go at it?” Eddie slowly dragged his hand down her bare skin, a sort of final touch before relenting and then let his arms flop to his sides. “Or she can watch. I don’t have a problem with that.” Eddie shrugged and looked back down at her, his heart beating so hard it hurt and his whole body just ached for her. He was shameless. If she wanted him to fuck her in the middle of the waiting room, he would. And after going so long without her, he was even more willing to do whatever she wanted.
That loose smirk was still on his face as he watched her and after a second it turned soft. “Take your hair down for me.” He couldn’t have her right now, no, but he could try to imagine all of this later. He reached to pull her tank top strap down again and then tried to commit all of this to memory. Her messy hair, her exposed shoulder, that look in her eyes. “You are my beautiful blonde bat.” Eddie whispered and traced his fingers back up her arms slowly. It was something he used to call her on Earth-3 to tease her. Now it was more of an affirmation.
Stephanie shivered at his touch, letting out a throaty laugh as her chin rolled up to savor the feeling of his fingers against his bare skin. Fingers twitching in his hair. “You just wanna get me in trouble, don’t you?” she murmured to the ceiling, heart beating fast and hard in her throat and breath going a little sharp. Keep it together, Brown. “If she walked in right now, I don’t think she’d be allowed to ignore you pressed all up on me, baby.” Her neck rolled slowly to look back down at him, smirk mirroring his. Her voice dropped to a low whisper, warm as honey and so thick with want it was surprising she could even breathe. “Let alone you fucking me like it’s been decades.” Steph was a little shameless, too, and Eddie was only partially to blame. She ached for him too, in a way she couldn’t articulate or act on in fear of losing control again. She didn’t want to try to let him climb up her body only to fail. Only to be able to collapse into another bevy of gasping breaths and ugly tears. But, she wanted him. Oh, god, she wanted him so bad. He could tell, couldn’t he? He had to be able to tell. This wasn’t just some heartless, deliberate tease to make them both suffer before finally giving in. This wasn’t a game. As much as she wished and hoped, this wasn’t just a goddamn game.
“I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to watch. Look at us.” She tugged at his hair again, arching to press a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth before sitting back up. Then, she laughed at a thought. “We should’ve made a tape.” Her eyebrows wiggled with an expression to rival his own, and then she heard his request. With an arched eyebrow, she released her grip on his hair, slipped the pencil out of her hair, and tossed it to the side. Tink, tink on the floor, and she shook her hair a little with her hand to loosen the mess of blonde curls around her shoulders with a smirk. “Shhhh,” she hushed him with amusement, finger to his lips as she shook her head. Delicate fingers brushed against that streak of gray in his hair that she loved endlessly.
Eddie made a rolling, grumbly noise. “So vulgar.” He whispered, though Eddie was clearly enjoying even a hint of the woman he had lusted for all these years. He tugged at her tanktop, pulling it up so he could see her bare skin for himself. A smile up at her, still being so bad and feeling oh so encouraged by that thick want in her voice. He kissed the top of her chest, bit the hem of her tank top so he could stretch the fabric enough to see down and then leaned back again. “You’re making it very difficult to be good. At this point, even if I get kicked out for taking your clothes off and fucking you right now in this bed, I’d say it was worth it.” He grinned. See, he could be vulgar, too.
When she let her hair down, his grin widened and he reached to run his fingers through her hair. He looped a thumb around one of those messy curls, eyes on her face as his grin turned soft and affection. “You are.” He whispered and then pulled her close for a kiss. Loving, wanting, but without the building heat from before. “I goddamned love you. I love you so much, Stephanie.” He told her, head in his hands as he tried to cement it in her mind for good. His heart was still beating hard and messy. Eddie couldn’t think of a way to keep himself from pulling those sweatpants down and unzipping his jeans, so he kissed her again and then put his hands up like someone who was caught touching something they shouldn’t.
“Okay, let me go sit in time out.” He pointed at a chair on the other side of the room.
Stephanie let out a quiet, husky laugh as he manipulated the tanktop in whatever way he pleased. She didn’t stop him in the slightest, encouraging in the way her hips pressed into his unconsciously and how she smirked down at him. “You like it, baby,” she whispered about her vulgarity, her making it hard for him. “You love it. Admit it.” Her hands slid around his neck and tangled in his hair. “You love it.” Her hand slid down his jaw, nails scraping against the skin, and oh she wished that it didn’t all have to be a tease. She wished everything was fixed, and they were home instead of mussing up the sheets on her hospital bed. “Would it be bad if I said I wished I could try?” A whispered confession, something vulnerable and aching for him. “I wish we could try so badly. But even if-- I want you so bad, but I’m not ready yet. I know I’m not ready yet.”
She looked a little upset -- okay, more than a little upset -- but she softened a little as his hands tangled in her hair. She made a noise, not feeling particularly beautiful still, but knowing despite all that that she was his. “I’m your beautiful blonde bat,” she muttered against his mouth, even if she didn’t feel beautiful on her own. Him? He made her feel beautiful. The therapists would probably dissect their relationship and find the dependencies a problem, but try to spend five years depending on someone for your life and not come out of it the way Stephanie and Eddie did. Wholly and completely in love, desperately wanting, and very dependent on one another. “I love you, too, Eddie. I love you so much, finacé. My future husband.” She peppered his face with kisses -- on his mouth, his nose, underneath his eyes, then lingered at the corner of his jaw, nipping at the skin there.
Inhaling, she lingered there for a moment, rumbling protest against his skin until she sighed with frustration and rolled off of him into a graceless flop on the bed.
“I know you’re not ready, baby.” Eddie kissed her hands, kissed the finger with that purple ring on it and shook his head. “I’m not sorry about any of this, though. It’ll give me something to think about later.” He tried for optimism. Everyone in Gotham was a pessimist except for Eddie these days. And, yeah maybe he was trying to calculate the risk of her reaching down his pants and making him really glad he had her climb on top of him. He was one look away from suggesting it with a little perverted wiggle of his eyebrows. But, making her do that in her own hospital bed the first time she saw him was a little much, even for him. Eddie would restrain himself. He would be mature.
He sighed when she flopped off him, laying there in a mess of sheets with her for a moment before rolling off the bed to slowly sit down in the chair across from her. Eddie rubbed his face, exhaling jaggedly into his hands before running his fingers through his messy hair. “Okay.” He said after a moment. “Have you checked your journal lately?” He knew the answer to that and he also knew the conversation they were about to have was going to go badly. But, the bat family was a mess and Eddie was the only guy who could tell her right then.
“Me either,” Steph whispered, even as her body ached for him so desperately. Breathing hard next to him on the bed as she tried to will her heart-rate back to something normal. Her chest rose up and down in quick succession, probably minutes away from an attack even with the slow sort of tease it had just been. But, she didn’t regret it. She liked toeing the line with him. It almost felt a little like the first few weeks of their relationship. Needling and pushing to find out how close they could get each other to the edge without falling. It was a little thrilling to have to take it slow. They’d never done it before.
She took another moment, a few more seconds of guzzled breaths, and then she sat up on the mussed sheets. Blonde hair sticking everywhere and blue eyes still dark with something she wanted so bad and couldn’t have. “Just once,” she responded thickly, smoothing her hands over hair and twisting it into a messy pile on the top of her head. Grabbing that purple pen to shove it in there and keep it in place, she cleared her throat and shook out her shoulders. “Uh, to talk to Harley. She wanted to hear about the ring.” Stephanie smiled proudly, a beaming thing as she looked down towards the purple ring on her left finger. “That’s it. I’ve been avoiding it, honestly.”
Eddie liked that thickness in her voice. It was feminine and rough like a dancer rolling her hips in a smoky bar. It reminded him of their bed on Earth-3 and how they’d have long conversations about the war or their team or food they wish they could have while they were tangled up in sheets. He smiled something bittersweet at her and then rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head down between his hands. “Harley was crying when Selina got captured. I had to call her and calm her down.” Eddie had known the clown princess for so long that he could tell when she was upset just by how she typed. “The news about us and the ring brightened everything up. Her and Selina were like rays of sunshine when I told them.” That made him smile until he remembered how the birds reacted to just Stephanie being in the hospital. It was possible cold indifference was just how men were. And, people wondered why Eddie prefered the company of women. Well, no they didn’t.
“Selina’s safe. She had a panic attack and it got ugly from what I can tell, but she’s safe and healthy.” Eddie looked up at Stephanie and he shook his head. He remembered the last time he got news about Damian and how bad that went. “Baby. I-” Eddie looked away from her, at the flowers, at the ceiling, out the window. After the rest of the visit went so well, the thought of ruining it with news that would completely destroy her didn’t sound like something he wanted, or even should do. He looked back at her, upset because she was going to be upset and cradled his face with his hands. “Things have gotten bad out there. Some of it feels like my fault even though I did everything I could to make things work.”
The bittersweet smile flipped her stomach just a little, and her mouth twitched regretfully. She felt his absence almost immediately, her heart aching for any number of seconds without him up against her. Time was precious with him now, and wasting it on anything but saying how much she loved him or he loved her seemed pointless. But, that wasn’t the way Gotham worked. They needed to carve moments for their love between all the bullshit. How few and far the moments they could have would be. “Were they?” Stephanie smiled bright at the idea of Harley and Selina over the moon for their engagement. “That means the world to me, baby. You don’t even know.” The clear absence of any mention of her family was there, and she knew it. Whether or not Eddie had told any of them yet, she knew he must have mentioned her being in here at the very least. And yet, no word. Nothing yet. He could read how much that hurt in the briefest flicker of her face, and she closed her eyes with a sigh. “That means the world to me,” she repeated, smiling over at him to assure him that no one else’s feelings mattered.
“Oh, Selina,” she sighed again, so sad for the kitty. “You think--I think I might reach out to her. You think she’d be okay with that?” She sounded tentative, worried that the feline might still be pissed at her for whatever she’d done. Stephanie couldn’t remember, other than fights for defending Eddie and maybe she still should apologize. She would apologize. And if Selina could be happy for their impending marriage? Things couldn’t be that bad. “I know things got bad in the past, but I wanna make it better.” If that wasn’t a sign of her trying to make everything good in their lives, she didn’t know what could be.
The hesitation in his response lodged something in her throat, and suddenly, selfishly, she didn’t want to know. Whatever it was? It was bad, and she didn’t want to taint all of this either. Eddie being here, him making her feel better than she had in days. “C’mere.” She sat up a little more, arms out towards him and fingers waving a little to entice him to come close. She missed him achingly so in that moment and needed him close by. “Please? Come lay down with me.” Another wiggle for measure.
“Selina would be happy to hear from you.” Eddie had seen a shift with the cat. And, he thought that if he could start mending bridges with her, it’d be easy as cake for Stephanie to do the same. “Things are better with her. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m much better at not pissing people off than I was five years ago.” He would always needle people, especially those he kept close. But, now he was older. Eddie was more interested in harmony, a working machine with all the parts complimenting and clicking with each other than snagging on the gears.
When he looked up, she was wiggling her fingers at him, asking him to come to bed (well, a hospital bed; it still counted) and it earned an instant surprised ghost of a smile. Things were bad and when she found out about Damian, she was going to hurt. “You sure, baby?” Eddie didn’t give her the chance to think twice about it, he was already on his feet. Yes, once she looked over the journals or pulled the truth out of him, she’d hit a new low that only Ra’s could supply. Why go there now? Why not enjoy this tiny moment of happiness they got all to themselves?
He walked over to the bed, his fingers lacing with hers before he took his shoes off and climbed onto the bed with her. Eddie tugged her to lay next to him and then he rested his head on her chest, pulling her free hand up to run through his messy, dark hair. He liked being touched a certain way, especially when he was feeling starved for her and fatigued by the world around him. Eddie was demanding like a dog that pushed its nose into the palm of someone’s hand to ask for pets.
“C’mere.” Stephanie nodded with a tentative smile, keeping her arms stretched out for him like a sleepy child until he took her hand. “Hi,” she whispered quietly, like he had been in a different room for the two seconds he was gone from her and that slightly uncomfortable bed. (Well, in perspective, any bed was uncomfortable without him in it.) She knew that there were things she should know. Things about her family (because what else could make Eddie so upset and guilty?) and the world outside those sterile four walls. But selfishly, for once, she hated the idea of knowing anything about Gotham. She just wanted him, and that little slice of heaven that they carved between all the bullshit that was going on.
And once he was in her arms, she felt any sort of weight of the world outside of that room lift from her in an instant. In that moment, nothing else mattered. Sure, she should know what was going on, but was it really worth it? If she couldn’t help then, in that moment, would it actually be worth it? She felt safe there, with him in laying on her chest, one hand entwined with his and the other twisted in his hair. Stephanie sighed, an appreciative noise rumbling out before she rolled her chin down to press that mop of dark curls atop his head. She tugged at his hair and squeezed his fingers, mumbling her declarations of love as her eyes grew heavy and her body relaxed under the weight of him on her chest. Heart beat steady and strong.