stephanie nashton does it all (forthem) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-11-05 21:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *log, eddie nigma, stephanie brown |
log: steph/eddie - post plot
WHO Stephanie and Eddie.
WHAT a marriage falling apart.
WHEN the morning after plot.
WHERE their apartment.
WARNING sads. cursing.
Eddie was packing his stuff. Boxes he got from the 24/7 FedX and tape and a Snickers bar because all this deciding starved him. The candy was eaten on the way home in his green old fashioned car and he was crying, he had the window down and it chilled the wetness on his face like snow kisses. Gotham telling him to come back into her arms. He smiled, he laughed and he turned the radio on so loud he heard the buzz of broken stereos. When he got home, Matilda had already peed in the corner of the kitchen because she knew something was wrong and he had to tell her no, sweetie, no this was for the best. We’ll have our own place with Lucha and everything was going to be okay. Matilda didn’t believe him, puppy dog eyes up with her long nose down and he rubbed the tip of her ears between thumb and finger until she stopped whining.
Lucha was already making a fort out of one of the boxes filled with his video games. The more things that went into the boxes, the more Eddie felt like he was finally going home. He was a quick packer (a rogue had to be) and in just an hour he managed to get most of his stuff out and ready to be loaded into the car. He was going. God she wasn’t going to understand, no one in Gotham would, but he was going back home. This place wasn’t his anymore. It was theirs and he couldn’t be there without hating every second of it. He needed a fresh start in the city that he loved, he needed to stop trying to be a green bat, he needed to be Nigma.
He put on some music, something playing from the radio tower he fixed. Eddie didn’t recognize the song, the messy guitar, but he liked it anyhow. It was free, it was honest and that was all he really wanted. He wanted her to be free, too. He wanted to see her from across the room in a year and see how strong she was without him.
He heard the door open and he looked up, arms deep in a giant box. Matilda was still in her corner of the kitchen worrying. Lucha was meowing happy and not worried at all. “Hey, baby.” And like a shot to the heart in a dark alley next to your wife and kid. “I want a divorce.”
Number 174. The memory left a bitterness on her tongue and an overwhelming, almost crippling sense of loneliness, of loss, of sadness. That was the last drink she downed for the night, and then it was dawn and the hotel spat them out like old gum. Discarded and forgotten. But that memory, that fucking number 174, lingered with that taste of saltiness and cheap gin. Stephanie hadn’t found Eddie all night, which surprised her a bit given that the hotel always managed to throw them together during these things. But maybe that was symbolic. Maybe that meant something.
She took her time leaving the hotel hallway, staring at the door to Gotham with the key outstretched, and even when she finally did unlock the door, she didn’t go straight home. She didn’t run straight to Eddie like she should have. Like most of her wanted to. No, with tired, bleary eyes, she walked around Gotham until she (mostly) has sobered up, shaken off the litany of bad memories still reeling in her mind. But that last drink, that last memory lingered in her mind, and she couldn’t quite shake off the heartache and desolation. Whether that was from her night as a whole, the memory of that stormy beach in Norway, or just a culmination of the last couple of months, she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
She walked until the sun peaked over the highest buildings in Gotham, slums and dirt of her city gleaming underneath the morning light, and then she decided it was time to go home and see what damage had been done. A part of her, a tiny small part wondered if Eddie explicitly avoided her the entire night. That even if they weren’t looking like themselves, he somehow knew and actively steered clear. She knew it was illogical, near impossible, but that was what Stephanie was made of lately. Irrational licks of paranoia that fucked her life up again and again.
Climbing the stairs to their apartment, she thankfully didn’t run into any of their neighbors coming home from their late nights at the bars or drag shows. How was she going to explain the purple under her eyes or the bloodshot lines around her pupils? But there was nothing but her sneakers squeaking against the stairs to break up the quiet. When she reached their door, she twisted her messy blonde hair up into a bun and prepared herself. A deep breath, maybe two, and a swipe to her eyes. You realize he’s gone forever, and you’re alone on a beach in the middle of Norway. The key slid into the lock with the slightest shake of her fingers, and she pushed the door open.
The sight, of course, was not what she expected. She expected to crawl into bed with him or talk about it over the counter or just lock up in their separate sections of the apartment. Not boxes. Before she could even get out her question, however, Eddie interjected. “What?” Steph said, clearly mishearing him. Her keys clattered to the floor, door still slightly ajar behind her and eyes darting from the boxes, to Lucha, to Matilda cowering in the corner, and back to Eddie. “What?” she asked again because she must be drunk off that fucked up booze from the bar still. Clearly. Obviously.
Eddie moved with perfect grace, something that had been missing for months. He was a glass rolling across a counter without ever making a crash to the floor. A few sweeping steps and he was at the door behind her, slowly closing it with the weight of his back before he scooped up her keys. “May I trouble you for a divorce, Stephanie?” He asked like he was asking her to pass the salt and he circled the keys on his finger and then tossed them to her (whether or not she was going to catch them). “Now, I know what you’re thinking. No. And, I understand. The rings are a big deal and we’ve been together for so long. That show we put on for the wedding convinced everyone, even ourselves. But, listen. Marriage isn’t working. I don’t see the sun in your eyes and I don’t think I ever will if we keep playing house. So, please. For the love of the undead, divorce me.”
He stayed with his back against the door, heels digging into the ground and it was a bit of a reflection of a fight they had in this apartment many, many moons ago. “I love you. I want to keep loving you. So please, let’s get our own places, our own names and be done with this nonsense.” And, he thought this was one of the best ideas he ever had. He was ready for the pain of an empty bed, the fury of blue in her eyes. Anything, anything to let him keep seeing her as something he wanted instead of something he was chained to.
Stephanie didn’t catch those keys. She stared at them as they plummeted to the floor, and her gaze lingered longer as he stood at the door. Her entire body was nearly convulsing in a timid, panicked sort of way as her heart began to hammer. With a turn of her heel, she faced him completely, bloodshot blue eyes flooding already with surprised and angry tears. She opened her mouth a couple of times to argue, to come up with something, but he knew her so well still. Of course she wanted to say no. Why the fuck wouldn’t she say no?
Her hands were shaking, and before she knew it a stinging sensation split across her palm as her hand met his cheek hard. A burst of tears followed a light shove against his chest, something barely featherlight, before she retreated into herself. “Don’t fucking tell me you love me when you’re asking to divorce me.” She felt indignant. Of course they still loved each other, but wasn’t that just like twisting the knife in harder. She stumbled back a little more, just as Flounder poked his fat, yellow head out of her office to see the commotion and then shuffled over to Matilda to nose at the other dog curiously. All the while looking at his owner in a mixture of fear and confusion.
“No,” she told him, resisting the urge to slap him again because oh fucking god she wanted to. “We don’t give up, Eddie. We don’t-- I thought-- oh god.” A fresh wave of tears sank out of her eyes, and her knees wobbled. Fundamentally, she knew her marriage was failing. And she blamed herself for it wholeheartedly, despite what anyone was going to tell her otherwise.
This was going beat by beat exactly how he expected it to. He had played out a couple scenarios in his head, but this, with her shaking, crying and hitting him always prevailed as the most likely. He knew her too well, she belonged to him and Eddie wanted to put a stop to all of that. When she hit him, there wasn’t a change of expression. Something he had learnt from years of abuse. Just take it. Don’t scream, don’t cry. Some people, especially bats, needed to hit because it made them feel better. People like Eddie with their loud mouths and lack of filter? They needed to just take it. His head knocked back into the door and he watched her tremble. He wanted to touch her, but he also didn’t want to get hit again.
“I already gave up.” Eddie admitted. “And, you didn’t even see it until it was too late. Or maybe you did, but you let me keep going.” He said of his drinking and sneaking away to other doors. That was what giving up looked like on Eddie Nigma. Asking for a divorce? Wasn’t anywhere near that. “I hate being married to you. This has been the worst year of my life and I used to be a mindless hobo. So, that’s saying something.” A little sharpness poured through like a broken ice machine and he didn’t like how it tasted on his tongue.
“I love you. I do, Stephanie. So, I want to give us a real shot instead of turning into a twisted Gotham couple. You aren’t a person without me. I want you to go live instead of living for me.” He slipped away from her and went back to packing his boxes. There was no way she was going to get him to stay. No matter how hard she tried to make it, not even if she cried her body dry. He was leaving.
Something loud and bitter escaped her chest when he told her that this had been the worst year of his life. Oh, didn’t she know something about that, too. But for the years of history they had with and without each other, for their marriage to be the crowning jewel of shittiness, that was like the biggest punch to the gut to ever exist. Another bubble of tears and she pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes as if she was trying to forget or to hide away from all waves of agony this was causing her.
She shook her head, silently telling him to stop saying that he loved her. Was this love? Abandoning her? She knew he wasn’t dropping out of her life completely, but it felt like abandonment. A twist in the gut of a sharp, unforgiving blade. When she felt him move past her and towards the boxes, she spun around and relinquished the pressure on her eyes. “If you love me, don’t leave me. Eddie, we don’t have to do this.” She tried to snatch for his arm, his wrist, his hand. Anything to get him to look at her. “Not divorce. Please no. Don’t give up on this. Give us a chance. Give me a fucking chance to fix this,” she begged, tugging at whatever bit of him she reached and still crying in earnest.
“I’ll give you time. All the time you need. But don’t give up on this.” And she was tugging his hand with her left hand, rings glinting in the dull morning light. “A break. We can take a break.” Letting go of his hand, she swiped at her eyes and rambled a little desperately. “A separation. Legal one if we have to. I’ll do it. I’ll fucking do that. Just don’t ask me to break our marriage, baby, please.”
Eddie’s fingers collapsed in her grip like water trying to escape a broken mug. He tried to fight her off with a barely-there shove. The pleading made him stop, though and he finally tugged her back. The weight of what divorce meant hit him and he wished that he had done this in a letter. To him it was freedom, to her it was pain. “I don’t know what this is, I don’t know who you are.” He almost shouted and then grabbed her waist and pulled her close without warning, without asking. “Baby, don’t cry. Don’t cry.” Eddie’s voice softened and that eccentric boastfulness from before softened into nothing. “This isn’t working. I gave you so many chances. I gave you so many hints and you never figured it out.”
The absolute sureness he felt walking into this faltered, his fingers trembled at her waist and he clutched onto her. Eddie looked away from her, mouth open as he told himself to keep it together Nigma, but his lip shook and globs of tears did a balancing act on his sharp cheeks. “What does this marriage mean to you?” He asked and kept his eyes on the ceiling. “I choked down so many happy memories from other people tonight. I saw a man holding his baby and looking at his wife like they had everything and I knew that’s not us. That can’t be us. This marriage was broken from the start. This marriage never should have happened the first time you said no, I never should have- I never should have asked you again.”
He tilted his chin back down to look at her and his eyes were bright red with black pooling in the middle. His face was a mess of tears and his single curl popped up like all his springs had exploded inside of him. “Think about how much happier we’ll be. You can get your own place. I’ll get mine. You can focus on the clinics and your family. I can get back to my spot in the grey. I don’t want to stop seeing you. We can- I can take you out. We can have dinner and teach each other about ourselves. I love you. You got to believe that I love you. But, I don’t know where you went.”
Stephanie's breath hitched messily, tiny gasps and loud guzzles for breath, and when he snatched for her waist, she bit back a surprised yelp. There was no hesitation to bury her face in his chest. If this was going to be the rock bottom of their fall from couples' grace, she was going to take as greedily as she could for as long as possible. If this was it? She wanted him to hold her one more time. Sure, she heard the words, the assurances of love and not ending things, but the death of their marriage was like finality to her. She couldn't give it up that easily.
Her hand pressed against his chest, palm warm and fingers spread, and her tears began to soak through his shirt. Part of her wanted to beg him to just take her to their bed and bury all this pain between the sheets as he climbed up her body. She wanted to beg him to reconsider. She wanted to beg him to stay. But all of that was so selfish of her. All of that would only tear them down even more. Fingers twisting into his shirt, her stomach lurched as she remembered another memory. Her own memory, one years and years ago on a filthy rooftop in the middle of Gotham where they kissed and cried and promised to give each other space. That one didn't last very long, but Stephanie was scared that this would be more permanent.
Swallowing hard, she turned her face to press her cheek against his chest, to align her ear with his thumping heart so she could measure the beats. "I know I've fucked up, baby. I fucked us up bad," she croaked out, silent tears still coming, but hysterics calmed enough. "I don't know where I am either. I don't know who I am. But I know that I love you." Because she did, desperately so. Fingers still clutching, she pulled back. "One last mulligan. Okay? I'm not asking you to stay. I'm not asking you to live with me anymore. I'm not even going to ask you to promise that this will work out. Just...let's try first. We can do it, live apart and just- just date or see each other now and then, and find ourselves away from each other. We can be Eddie and Stephanie without being Eddie and Stephanie. The emphasis was the package they had come in for years now. "We can get a lawyer and legally separate if you want to. But not-- not divorce, not yet. Not until we know this is done?" Her voice cracked, and she fought the urge to cup his cheek or run her hands through those dark curls one last time.
He must have had the same thought she did in the same span of a heartbeat. It’d be easier just to carry her to the bedroom, make sweet love and then sleep this off. That’s what real couples did, right? But, he thought they were better than that. He thought that eventually they’d end up back here with him begging for space, for separate places that they could make their own. “I want you to be everything you set out to be before any of this started.” His voice cracked and whined like the bow of a ship in a storm. “We’re from Gotham damn it, we need to be strong on our own before we can ever hope to be together.”
Eddie watched her pull away and he resisted the urge to tug her back. He feared a world where goodbyes were the only windows to intimacy and he craved to have their old chemistry back. He wanted to look at her while she worked on a painting and get the urge to tear her clothes off. He wanted to hold her hand in the movie theater and whisper dirty things in her ear during love scenes. He wanted them back as much as he wanted her to find herself. “Separation?” It didn’t sound as terrifying and he wondered if it’d really make her try and find her own way without him. If it would keep him from knocking on her door late at night so they could spend a few hours pretending to be real husband and wife.
“Steph, I’m serious about this. I want you and I to start a new chapter. I want us to find what we lost. Do you understand?” And she’d know then that he wasn’t against keeping the marriage in favor of spending some time apart. It was a compromise and he thought it reflected how real couples were supposed to treat each other.
"I want to be that too. I want to be myself, but I just don't know how to be that anymore. I don't even know who I am. I wish I did. I fucking wish I did." Steph wished she could just pinpoint the moment where she turned into the husk of a woman she wanted to be, into some cheap version of the woman he loved. Another string of tears flowed out, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn't believe she had gotten to the point where her husband couldn't even be married to her anymore, and she didn't know who she was. She hated herself fiercely, and she knew that a Stephanie Brown five, six years ago? Would hate herself even more.
"I can't be strong for you until I'm strong for myself," she agreed, and wasn't the last couple of months proof of that? With her crumbling and how she dragged him down into her deep dark holes with her. She sunk their ship singlehandedly, and as she stood in the middle of their front hallway, she knew that this was the culmination of all of her mistakes, fuck ups, selfishness. She wanted to be strong enough for the both of them, but how could she do that if she hated herself as much as she did? If she was such a fucking disappointment to herself and to him.
She nodded. "One last mulligan. One real restart." She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands in an almost childlike manor, body still trembling slightly. "Separation. We can go to a lawyer tomorrow if you want to make it official. I'll start looking for a place of my own. I can-- I'll go stay at the Manor tonight, maybe. Or with someone else, I don't know." Stephanie tried to blink away tears that just kept coming. "I want to do this right. I want to have us back and not this," she waved her hands between them before risking a glancing touch to his chest, "mess I've made us. I need to have us back."
“I don’t need to make it official. Not with the law.” He said reached to smudge some tears on her cheeks and push back a piece of blonde hair. “What I want is a parting report. I want to go sit on our balcony in our love seat with a bunch of blankets, share a bag of those candy waffles I bought you and talk about everything. Everything. So we know what we need to work on, so we know where we stand. And, then you can help me load my things into the car and I’ll call you sometime.” Eddie knew that cuddling with her on the porch as they watched the sunrise was a recipe for disaster, but if this was an end to a chapter in their life? He wanted it to feel like closure. He wanted to know what they needed to mend and move on.
Eddie held his hand out for her to take. “Just until the sun comes up? I know it’s cold as balls out there, but I miss listening to Gotham wake up with you.” His left hand was out, palm up and he could see his wedding ring there waiting to touch hers. He knew, deep down, that this wasn’t going to end with them growing apart. He knew she was going to figure herself out and one day they’d be as strong together as they used to be. “Tell me how your night was. That’s how I should have said when you walked in, but I’m terrible at smooth transitions.”
She was visibly relieved when he denied wanting to make it official, make it legal that they were separated. She even stopped her hiccupping sobs for a moment, leaning into his touch greedily. Like she was scared he was never going to touch her again once he walked out of the apartment door. Her lip quivered, however, when he asked for a rundown of things, but she nodded her agreeance. She didn’t want to comb through the months of pain and suffering they had gone through, but it needed to happen, didn’t it? If they had any hope of working out. If she had any hope of having him come back.
Her hand rested in his, and then she entwined their fingers together. “Until the sun comes up.” And didn’t that feel like finality right then and there? Calling this the end of it all once the sun peaked over the looming Wayne Tower in the distance to greet the morning. She sighed shakily, and she tugged at his fingers once. “No, you go first.” The underlying question, of course, was what he had seen or heard or felt that lead him to this decision. Shaking her head, she squeezed his fingers. “Let me grab our blankets, you make us some coffee, and we’ll go sit outside. Okay?” Stephanie eyed him for a moment before daring to press a quick kiss to his jaw before moving away to their bedroom.
She took her time walking back, feeling herself teetering just a touch underneath the weight of what just happened. There were still tears, and a couple of sobs burst through as she grabbed a couple of folded up blankets from their closet and a sweater for each of them. Flounder trailed her around the room, looking up at her with those big brown, confused eyes, and she flashed him a watery smile. “It’s okay, baby boy,” she assured him, rubbing his yellow fur before venturing back outside. When she got to Eddie, she held out his sweater with the quirk of the corner of her mouth. “Thought we might need these, too.”
Eddie knew that once he left this apartment, he’d give them a few days to settle in on their own and then he’d call her to tentatively ask for a date. Somewhere out on the town without the pretense of going back home together. Not that he was afraid they’d fall into bed together to wash over old scars, no the opposite. He thought living with her would lead to an uneventful or perhaps even nonexistent love life and he needed to know if there was attraction beyond touch memory. He thought about this and the awkwardness their first date after separation would hold and he missed Earth-3. He wished he died on Earth-3 the same way Bruce wanted to die in his city. It was easy. It was perfect. But, he wanted a real life. He remembered dreaming about that white picket fence from their sewer hole in the wall. Looking up at that cracked ceiling imagining a house and kids and...
He looked up when she came back, dark eyes wide, wet and bloodshot. “Oh?” He looked at the sweater like he didn’t understand what it did and then his mind clicked back in place. “Oh, oh sure yes. Thank you.” Eddie took the sweater, realized that he needed his hands for pouring and preparing coffee, set the sweater down, picked it back up and then put it on. All in a matter of seconds like a computer figuring out what to do. He poured their coffee with one shaking hand and the other quickly moved over to calm it. Eddie hated showing Stephanie weakness these days, it was a knee jerk reaction to hide it from her, completely automatic. Just like how he taught himself to stop explaining things to her or telling her funny little bits of trivia he found amusing. All of that was locked up when it never had been before. Every person he talked to at the anon party got to see his true self. Talkative, overly informative and bright. She saw a dulled version almost as if she were looking through a dirty mirror.
Coffee poured and he handed her a mug with a steady hand. He grabbed the bag of waffle candy and then followed her out to the balcony. The Gotham air hit him cold and a bit icy. He liked it. The smell was smog and dirt with a hint of sugar from the local pastry shop and oil from the cars passing by. It smelled like home and he wished this apartment felt like home. Eddie waited for her to sit and then carefully curled up next to her, pulling the blankets over them so they were both almost completely covered. He took a couple sips of coffee. “The first thing you need to know has nothing to do with the memories.” Eddie said and his voice was very serious, very direct, very batlike. “Your little brother Damian hurt Selina. I don’t know how bad it is. I don’t know what it means. I just know that she was hurt. By him.”
There were days when Stephanie was sure she didn’t miss Earth-3 anymore, and then full-on weeks where she missed the wardrums beating in her ears day in and out. There, it was so easy to focus on how much she loved him when there was nothing else. Then came the heartache, and then came the baggage, and she knew that coming back home fucked her up more than anything ever could. Not her father, or Black Mask, or any of the countless other piles of bullshit that got tossed at her didn’t mess her up as much as that war. Or, truthfully, as much as coming home from a war not getting a piece of what she had dreamt up for years and years messed her up more than anything else. Reality? Was never really as good as she liked to believe, and wasn’t that nihilistic and morose for the bat who was known to pump hope into an entire city when she wanted.
But, here she was now in this Gotham, and there was no going back anymore. She would learn to grow in this city if she had to, and she had to. Putting her sweater on and bundling up, she took the mug graciously, scooping the blankets into one arm. Curling into the seat, she fought the urge to snuggle against him. But her body leaned against him just a touch, and she turned to look at him speak. Watch his jaw move up and down. She shook her head when he insisted that it wasn’t to do with the memories. Shouldn’t it have something to do with it? Sure, they were spiralling down fast, but something triggered it.
Before she could respond, however, he dropped another bomb. “What?” She jerked up a bit, sloshing her hot coffee on her hand. A hiss, a shake of her hand, and she put the mug on the floor next to her feet. “What the fuck? Are you serious?” Biting her lip, she shook her head. “I haven’t really spoken to either of them yet. I need to. What the fuck is up with that kid.” And she was heartbroken, fatigued, and just wanted her family to be okay. She couldn’t have her marriage crumbling and her family tearing each other apart.
Part of him was glad that she didn’t even seem to notice him awkwardly build an emotional safeguard, the other part was worried that he had done it so much that she thought that was just who he was. He decided to keep doing it, to get through all of this without the parts of him that were explicitly Eddie and then make his getaway. Laying low and keeping things close to the chest wasn’t his style, but he could do it with the right people. The ones that were posed to hurt him the most. When she shook her head no about the memories, he had an urge to explain every detail from the shimmering mermaid Selina had become to the way they categorized drinks. No, no. She wouldn’t be interested. So, he kept it locked up.
“I’m afraid so.” He watched her reaction and decided that it was pretty much what he expected. “Selina won’t want to talk about it, she’s too much of a stray cat for that. I think she tried to fix things the rogue way and it simply didn’t work.” Less words, Nigma. “Talk to him. The things he said about me don’t matter. He’s clearly finding it difficult to fit in. I drank a memory of his where he seemingly killed our version of Bruce- though I doubt that- nevermind. The point is, he’s going through a rough patch.”
Stephanie didn’t notice at first that he was pulling punches, that he was withholding information because she was still too focused on the whirlwind rush in her ear over the fact that he wanted a break. This was going to sting for hours. Days, weeks, maybe even months. He was completely right, she knew that, to ask for the break, to even ask for a divorce, but that didn’t lessen the throb in her chest or the tiny rush of panic that pulsed through her veins every now and then. Coffee was a bad idea. She didn’t need another jolt to her system.
She chewed on her lip, and she shook her head. God, she was so blind sometimes, wasn’t she? Here she was just making things worse yet again. “Nevermind nothing, okay. What were you going to say?” She rubbed her face, still damp from the tears she had cried and the tears she could cry if things went south again. “I want you to talk to me, Eddie. I know I’ve made it hard, and I know you think that I don’t want to listen, but I do. Of course I fucking do, baby. I want to carry your things just like you carry mine. I want to listen to everything you have to say.” She laughed quietly, shaking her head and rubbing her fist in her eyes. “This is my fault, too. I know that. But I don’t want that anymore. I can’t have you pulling punches or not talking just because you think I don’t care.”
Picking up her mug, she drummed her fingernails against the porcelain and frowned at the dark liquid inside. “I just want to know everything about you like I used to. And I know that’s going to take time, but you have to remember to talk to me. That I want to listen.”
Eddie remembered a time when he believed her when she said she wanted to carry his problems, his heart. He remembered laying in bed with her, half naked and talking about whatever popped into their heads and she’d say it like she was simply breathing. Like it was a vow, a real one, that could never fade. His mouth quirked into a smile at that memory and he shook his head. “It’s not that easy.” She couldn’t just tell him to unlock the door for her. Not after she slammed so many in his face. Less words, less him and there were less things she could accidentally break. “I’ll talk however I feel comfortable, Stephanie, and you’re just going to have to live with that.” If she had steadied his hand herself, if she had asked him the right riddle. Maybe. There used to be a time when she was good at that sort of thing.
“The point is, your brother needs you. Selina is going to be okay. If something breaks her, it won’t be a punk bird. You’re the only person still in the family still willing to speak with him. All the others have tried and failed, from what I’ve heard.” His words were so carefully chosen like he plucked them out of a crossword and then he sipped his coffee. When he first heard the news, he wanted to be the one to comfort her, but he didn’t even know how to do that now without giving part of himself to her. Honestly, he didn’t have a whole lot left to give.
“It’ll be okay, I think.” He offered and then looked down at his coffee. Eddie didn’t know if things were actually going to be okay with the bat family. He couldn’t pick up the pieces for them because very few of them actually trusted him and frankly he didn’t have the mind to. Eddie was lost in his own maze.
Stephanie’s selfishness kept cropping up now and then in the cruelest and most inconvenient times. She was obliviously ignorant to his pain when she was drowning in her own, and that was another problem in a long, long list of them. Truthfully, if they had taken the time to actually plot out every single issue in their marriage, it’d probably be pages long. She frowned though, and she shook her head, clutching tightly onto the mug, and she bit back the a gasp that sounded like he stabbed her in the chest. A sharp inhale still escaped. “I never said it was easy,” she muttered, grip going tighter around the warm ceramic. Tucking her legs underneath her, she shuffled a little closer to him, daring for him to push her away if he really wanted to not be anywhere near her. “I just want you to be able to talk to me at all.” She sounded so sad about it, mentally writing down a few more things to look into during this break.
There was a long, drawn out sip of her coffee that hit her stomach a little sour given the focus on other things entirely. “I’ll talk to him,” she croaked out, rubbing at her closed eyelid with the warm tips of her fingers. “I need to talk to him. Hopefully he’ll actually listen.” She made a mental note of all the people she needed to contact after this, especially now that she and Eddie were taking a break. “And I’ll talk to Selina, too. Are you sure she’s okay?” she asked, genuine concern bleeding through her words. They might have their differences, but that didn’t mean the blonde didn’t care for the other woman. She did, completely.
Finger dragging up and down the sweating glass, she turned towards him. “With them? It might not be okay. It really might not be.” She looked back down at the swirl of brown in her cup, and she swallowed hard. “I saw Barbara in one of the memories. She’s pregnant in it, and she’s so fucking sad and lonely. It’s heartbreaking, and she needs someone there with her.” Inhaling again, she closed her eyes. “I think I want to be that oppon. She needs things. She needs support, and I guess I’m the only one equipped for it.”
“I wish I could talk to you, too.” He said with sad distance. “I miss you.” Even if he didn’t know who the you was in that sentence. “The fact of the matter is, anytime I get comfortable, you hurt me. Since we got back from the honeymoon. Before that, even. I need to stop living like I can trust you with my heart because I can’t.” Eddie didn’t mean it to come out that harsh, but she was needling and acting like if he would just open up everything was going to be fine. He looked down at the mess of blankets, the coffee and then her. “This was a mistake. Talking. It doesn’t do anything for us anymore.” He wanted to be gone, he wanted to be packing up his stuff and moving into a new place. He wanted to think about Gotham, not how she used to be his world and now just being around her too much hurt.
He set the coffee down on the nearby table and pushed the blankets off him so he could stand on the other end of the balcony, leaning against the railing. “Selina will be fine. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her, maybe have a girls night with her.” Eddie shrugged. “See if she’ll let you heal her so she can get back on her feet. It’s worth a shot.” He looked away from Stephanie and he felt like they were the divorced parents of a city. They talked just enough to inform, suggest and then they’d move on in their separate directions.
“That’s brave of you to help Barbara.” He told her seriously and he hated talking like a bat. It left a really bad taste in his mouth. But, it was the only thing she understood, right? Distance, seriousness and caring about things bigger than her. Not a neon green rogue who only really worried about her. “She does need the support and I’m sure she’ll be glad to have a fellow Batgirl alumni to help her out. Deep down, she’s the same Gordon you always knew. It’s just about pulling that out.”
Eddie offered her a smile. It was forced, polite and didn’t hide his sadness. “Well, I better go.”
“I miss you, too, Eddie,” she croaked out, a fresh wave of tears pouring down her face, and she tried to stop him from getting up. She snatched at his hands, and she tugged the blankets back from him, but eventually she gave in. Selfish, she was being selfish again. If he clearly needed to be away from her, he needed to be away. She couldn’t keep hurting him like she was, even if it was unintentional (which was, in the end, worse than something out of spite). She couldn’t keep dragging him down when it was natural for him to rise from the muck. It was killing her to hurt him like she was just as much as it was killing him. A dark, dark part of her wished Owlman had ripped them to shreds on Earth-3. Then, they wouldn’t have kept suffering on afterwards.
Steph’s hand swiped messily at her tears, and she crumpled the blankets up next to her, not caring about the unforgiving early morning chill. She didn’t deserve warmth or comfort. “I’ll try. I think she likes you more than me,” she said with wry bemusement, a hurt smirk crawling up her lips. Some of her paranoia manifested like that at times, where she was worried that no one liked her, and well, wasn’t this all proof? Her husband was leaving her because he couldn’t stand to live with her anymore. Wouldn’t the rest of the family blame her, too? It would be fair of them, of course. All of this was fair.
Setting the coffee down, she teetered to her feet slowly and walked towards the balcony railing, too. Keeping distance between them, of course. Her heart throbbed in her chest, and she could do little more than nod along with what he said. Hopefully Barbara would be receptive. Steph needed someone just as much, if not more, than she did right now, and focusing on a baby coming into the world would be an almost punishing distraction.
And then his words were said with such finality just as the horizon was beginning to pinken in the distance. “You said until sunrise,” she bargained pathetically, and she dared to take enough steps closer to be in reaching distance. Instead of grabbing for him, she wiped at her tears some more and ran a hand through her hair. “Remember the first time we broke up?” She laughed hollowly, mirthlessly. “Or whatever, took a break.” Shaking her head, she toyed with the rings on her left finger. “I’m not going to dare to ask you to kiss me. Just...close your eyes and give me your hand.” She took his left hand gently and lifted it up a touch before letting it go., and with such gravity that she could feel the world collapsing around her, she took of her wedding and engagement rings, pressed them into the palm of his hand, and closed his fingers over it with her cold fingertips. “Those are yours. You give them back to me if you’re ever ready, but they’re yours now. You do what you want with them.” Then, she lifted his closed hand and kissed his fingers. She couldn’t have a constant reminder of the marriage she sunk on her finger every single morning that she woke up with his side of the bed cold and empty.
He looked like he was going to flip over the railing into the street below, body edging away as she stepped closer. Oh, she scared him because he knew how hard it was to get close. He knew that they could kiss, the could hold hands and it wouldn’t feel like anything. Or it would hurt more than being alone did. “I remember.” Though, only barely. He remembered knowing he was right, that she’d come around and that he really did love her. But, there he wasn’t afraid they would lose their spark. He wasn’t afraid of her leaving. Was he?
Like a puppet, he closed his eyes and let her take his hand. He knew the metal dropped in his palm instantly and then opened his eyes to look at her. “I never thought I’d have to hold this fucking ring again.” He said with a tiny edge of humor and smiled at the warmth of her lips on his fingers. “Give me that.” Eddie pointed to the green pendant hanging from her neck. “I want that, too.” Said like a good mugger. Give me your necklace, lady.
Steph balked visibly as he tried to edge away, but she didn’t cower back. She could be a brave blonde bat again. One last time before her entire world was pulled from her like a rug yanked from underneath her feet. “I knew we wouldn’t be able to stay away from each other very long. What did we last, two weeks?” Her joke came quietly, and she bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. The copper touched her tongue, and she tried to center her focus.
When he asked for the necklace, she touched it instinctively and looked at him in surprise. It’d been such a long time since she’d been without the damn pendant he’d given her all those years ago, but she obliged dutifully. Slowly unhooking the chain and pooling the thing in his hand, she didn’t take her eyes off him. Blue eyes bloodshot and flowing with tears unabashedly. “I’m sorry, Eddie,” she murmured, and what was she sorry about? Well he could take her apology and fill in the blanks. There was so much to be sorry for.
To him, the ring didn’t mean anything compared to that pendant. That was where it all started, that’s where it would end. She’d get it back when he wanted to see it around her neck. As for the ring with the purple stone? Well, he was going to go throw that in the Gotham Harbor for good. The love that bloomed in Earth-3 wasn’t something he wanted to hold onto anymore. “I know.” He said to her apology and put the stolen jewelry in his pocket before carefully moving past her back inside. It was still dark out.
“Lock up after you leave. I’m just taking the essentials right now.” He grabbed one box full of clothes, electronics and pet toys. Lucha was sleeping in the box on one of his green suits and Eddie spoke softly to him in Spanish. It sounded like a prayer, it sounded like a lullabye. Matilda was on his heels before he even had to whistle for her and so he slipped on his shoes and walked out the front door, down to his car and away from her.