eddie/steph log Who: Eddie/old!Steph part 1 Where: Gotham When: recently! What: Eddie meets his wife kinda Warnings none
The APB popped up on the computer in her office at her main clinic, affectionately called the Hub, right in the center of East End. Four of her nurses, kidnapped and being tested on in some sort of sick experiment that sounded like Crane or Pyg or someone else entirely. Gotham had been quiet the last couple of days since she’d returned, but she knew that could never last very long in that city. She was up and getting her gear on before she even thought to check in on whether or not the story was true. It was uncharacteristically sloppy of her as of late, but time was of the essence in situations like these. She would run algorithms as she jetted across town to get to them. Kill two birds with one stone, you know.
Scrubs off and kevlar and armor on, she found her way to her garage to get her bike. Only, it wasn’t Spoiler with her purple and black, with her bow and arrow, with her guns strapped to her thighs. Kevlar still black and armor more like Bat than bird, she was all black with tiny splashes of purple. The underneath her cape, her two utility belts (she could never give up that thigh one if she tried), her gloves, and stretched across her chest in the shape of a bat. She had the ears back, too. A flourish of a tall, v-shaped pair of pointy ones that protruded from the mask on her face, not a cowl over her head. Stephanie Brown wasn’t Spoiler anymore or Batgirl. Here, jetting across the city, was Batwoman reincarnated in the form of that blonde bat who finally found her own path. Even if it lead to taking another’s mantle again.
The location was an abandoned warehouse near the docks (how typical for this town), and she hadn’t been to these docks in years. It brought back memories of her father and his attempt to take over this Gotham. It brought back even more vivid memories of a man in green and question marks. Swallowing hard, she shook her head as she dismounted her motorcycle and kicked the kickstand out. Beep beep and no fuck would touch it without having a world of pain to deal with. It wasn’t cruelty, but practicality.
She approached the entrance of the warehouse with a tall, rounded back and a sort of confidence no one had seen from her in years and years. At least in this Gotham. Her blonde hair was curly and slightly wild, so much longer than it had been in years, and her expressive blue eyes were hidden behind white lenses. Any sort of identifying marks aside from the mess of blonde were masked, something she learned in the city she inhabited for years before this. A place where they didn’t know Stephanie Brown was Spoiler, then Batgirl, then Batwoman. The anonymity was something refreshing, something that gave her even more freedom to find who she was meant to be away from this cushion of friends, of family, of that riddled man.
The warehouse’s darkness was pervading, and her lenses immediately switched into night vision. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” she said, and despite the aging, the different costume, the new attitude, that sounded so much like Spoiler, like Batgirl, like Stephanie fucking Brown. A tongue-in-cheek, smirking playfulness that was rare in a family of bats and birds.
The first thing that went were those pretty white lenses over her eyes. They corrupted into nothing, flashing warning signs before turning off to reveal her bright blues. In the darkness there was near silence. A hush filled the room and the sound of water and creaking old buildings were really all she had. It felt like holding your breath before the big show and really this was a show. Just for her. The entire thing was for her. Of course it was.
In the darkness, a neon green Riddler trophy buzzed awake. It was made out of Gotham gears, batteries and scraps. Then, the other lights flickered on in soft amber and there Riddler was, sitting ontop of an old, wooden cargo box in his green. It was the modern suit if she cared to notice. Dark greens, black shirt, purple stoned tie pin, bowler hat and domino mask. He leaned back on his gloved hands and kicked his feet in the air. “Well, if it isn’t my blonde bat.” His voice was sharp and teasing. Everything the green was supposed to be. He tilted his head to the side and got a better look at her.
“Look, if you’re my Stephanie I won’t have to explain how this whole thing was a hoax to get you to talk to me. If you aren’t, then I’ve got a flash drive.” He held up a green little thumb drive and waved it at her. “I’d never actually inject a bunch of nurses with toxin. Capture them for games, maybe. But, I’ve retired that sort of life. You’ll see it all in the flash drive.” He tossed the little thing towards her and got comfortable. Eddie knew that if this was a new Stephanie, running was going to be a thing he’d have to do very soon. But, curiosity killed the cat. If she was his, was being the main word there, he needed to see it for himself.
“Nice gear, by the way. Love the ears.” He smiled and tilted his head. Eddie knew that if this wasn’t Stephanie, if this was some other version of her he hadn’t heard of yet, he’d never want to see her again. He couldn’t stand it. Just days ago he had said goodbye to his Stephanie and the pain was still there. But, in the car ride to his new home he told himself that it wasn’t really her fault. Who could love Edward Nigma in a time of peace? What was the point in hiding the bright greens of who he was if nothing he did would prevent him from being alone forever? This knowledge, the truth that no one could ever truly love him, force his confidence back up. He’d be who he wanted to be, with or without her approval.
“Eddie?” she asked in surprise. Not Nigma or the Riddler. Those were saved for a man with a cruelty streak who drove her city into darkness and murdered with cruelty and near glee. No, Eddie. The man she remembered that she loved despite ten years away from this Gotham on her own, despite the fact that her last memory of him was him walking out of their shared apartment in Old Gotham. She hadn’t returned to that place, to that home full of memories of love and pain and hate, just gone to the apartment she had gotten before she stumbled into a door that wasn’t her own, and then blinked back home.
Stephanie caught the flash drive with a sort of easy grace he’d probably never seen from her, and she just dropped it in the pocket of the utility belt around her hip. She didn’t need the information. Of course she knew in the back of her mind who it was, and though it had been a decade, she could not resist the siren call of that question marked man. She had tangoed with him once back in that Gotham where he murdered instead of just tricked and riddled, but it was too much hurt. It made her sick. But, she knew why she was here right now, and it had nothing really to do with kidnapped nurses. “I didn’t think you’d repeat the same thing twice, even if it’s been years and years for the both of us.” And toxins? That was never her Eddie’s thing.
Her blue eyes blinked a few times, and she stared at him unabashedly like he was a spectre from another life. “It’s been a really long time.” Her fingers twitched at her side, and then she pulled off the face mask to reveal herself. She looked older, in her thirties now, and there were the slightest crinkles of age around her eyes. Her signature blonde hair practically exploded around to frame her face. She was older, she looked calmer, but it was clearly his Stephanie. Even without the telltale signs of a scar curling up her neck or the bursts of ink permanently staining her pale skin.
Now, for Eddie it had been days. He still remembered his hands shaking, he was still a little red on the cheek where she slapped him as hard as she could and god he still loved her. Maybe the love was faded, maybe it was tarnished from months of failed connections and missteps, but he still loved her. His dark eyes went wide and he hopped off the crate, tossing his hat off into the distance. “Stephanie?” If he was better at keeping a distance, he would have done everything in his power to keep his expression aloof. Instead, she saw the worry of a man who was told he lost the most important thing in his life. Because that’s what this was, right? She went home. She forgot about him. She made herself strong without him.
“I feel like I just made a deal with an evil genie. Is this really happening?” He asked and took another step closer because he didn’t care about boundaries. Eddie searched her face, saw the Stephanie he fell in love with all those years ago. It made his face screw up in pain like she just slammed his hand in a door and he sighed, pulling his domino mask off so she could see him, too.
“How fucking long?” He demanded. For all her calmness he was a complete fucking wreck and it took all the inner strength he had not to just fall down and try to wrap himself up in her cape. “How long? Where? Who..is there a- of course there fucking is. Did he mean more to you than I did? Because Stephanie I still haven’t finalized the fucking div- I need to sit down.” Eddie grasped for her cape and then slowly lowered to his knees dramatic and nerdy.
Stephanie still loved him, too. It had been years, but she always remembered Eddie Nashton, her husband, the first (and as it turned out so far only) love of her life. “It’s me,” she said softly, and she smiled just a little. Biting back a tiny laugh, which was such a shock to her system because it was coming from him, she shook her head. “No evil genie. Not that I’m aware of, but if you find out, you let me know, okay?” There was no flinch as he inched closer, and she dared to touch the sleeve of his blazer, fingers rubbing the fabric. She hadn’t forgotten about him in all these years. Quite the opposite. There was always a place in her heart and in her mind for him. She’d just fallen back in love with herself in the years passed. There were a few men here and there over the years, but no one compared. No one could even come close.
Her heart hammered in her chest in worry as she could feel him crumbling in front of her. Ten years, and she could still feel hurt when he was hurt. “Oh, Eddie,” she said softly, and she sunk to her knees in front of him. She didn’t touch him, didn’t dare to poke at his fresh wounds that were old for her. She just looked at him with those wide blue eyes of concern. “Ten years. It was ten years.” She shook her head because she wasn’t going to get into others. “I went home. Well, sort of home. That new, harsh version of Gotham. I...I got a chance to find myself. Years of chances. And here I am now.”
“Ten years?!” He shouted back and then shook his head because a decade without her didn’t make any sense. “All I wanted was a few days. Maybe a week. I could have gotten my act together eventually.” Eddie rambled and a lot of things that his mind made up warped like fun house mirrors in panic and desperation. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “If I had known you were going to be gone so long, I wouldn’t have- I would have forced myself to stick around. Maybe we could have worked something out. Maybe it doesn’t matter.” Eddie took her hand the same way a magician would. A simple softness. No threat, no danger. An unsaid let me see your hand, miss and he started slowly, carefully tearing off her glove without her permission.
He went quiet. A mess of green on the floor of a warehouse with his trophy blinking in the background. Eddie forced himself to hear what she said again. Sure, she purposefully left out some details and to him that meant ANOTHER MAN in bold, capital letters, but maybe that’s what he deserved. No one could love him, right? Maybe she found someone that she could know backwards and forwards and still love regardless?
A look up at her and he focused on who she was now. “Batwoman? I recognize the getup with some obvious Stephanie flairs.” He offered her a smile. Eddie wanted her to find herself. More than anything, he wanted her to be the strong blonde bat he fell in love with. And, this? This looked like she had accomplished it. “Look, I’m happy for you.” He said and there was true sincerity in his voice. Fondness. “You spent ten years there and came out like this? I’m happy for you b-Stephanie.” The glove he was working on came off silently and he pulled his own glove off, too so he could touch her skin. His fingers pushed against hers, exploring the new roughness and the grooves in her palm. He paused and smiled with his eyes closed at the warmth of her skin and then gingerly pulled away in case it made her uncomfortable. “Finding out what you’re made of was all I ever wanted for you. I hope you remembered that, at least.” He swayed to his feet and then looked around for his bowler hat.
“I’m sorry for ambushing you. I like doing things with flair if you don’t remember. Anyway. I’ll leave you be. I actually ought to be working on my computers.” He gave her a wary look and then started off towards his discarded bowler hat.
She immediately started shaking her head. “No, Eddie. No, it’s not your fault. You don’t get to blame yourself. You had to get out, and all I wanted, all I still want is for you to be okay. For you to be healthy. And living with me back then? That wasn’t healthy at all.” In the years that past, in the aging down and the years back in her, in a Gotham, she realized how sick she was. How selfish. How much she hurt him just because she had lost herself in all of the muck and dirt of her fucked up head. “I’m glad you got out. I am, and-- oh, Eddie, I didn’t forget you. I never forgot you. Not for one second.” She didn’t take her hand back, didn’t curl away, and maybe despite all the years, she was hungry for his affection. Curious, honestly.
“Batwoman,” she said with a pride that bled through her blues and curled her mouth up. She went through the natural progression again, only this time there was no war to punctuate the growth. In that Gotham, despite the darkness, the cruelty, the unforgiving nature, she was able to become who she wanted to be, who she was meant to be. A Bat, a doctor, a grown woman who could love herself. Who actually felt worthy for the first time in a very, very long time. Her gloved hand brushed his chest like she was testing out if it was really him as her other appreciated the glance of his touch with a quiet sort of voracity.
Stephanie started shaking her head again and pushed herself off of the floor. “You didn’t ambush-- no, don’t leave. Stay.” There was an edge of begging, but it was still that radiating calm of a woman finally grown into herself. She reached out for his hand again, and she brushed her thumb over his knuckles. “Talk to me, please? I haven’t-- I’ve missed you so much. It’s been ten years for me, I haven’t seen you in ten years. I want to hear your voice.”
“You spent ten years away from me and you’re- what thirty? That means there were years completely rewritten. Without me.” He couldn’t stop thinking that a decade away from each other was a long time and there was a chance that everything they had tried to build together was gone. “Neither of us were doing good. I’m still a fucking human disaster, look at me. Instead of calling you or something normal I spent 20 plus hours putting together an elaborate hoax to guarantee you’d be here. I’m out of control!” But, if she remembered anything about Eddie, this was him down to the bone. Simply calling her or waiting to run into her wasn’t him. No he needed to grab her attention and he had to do it with dramatics.
He swept down to pick up his bowler hat and then worried it between his fingers as she told him to stay, to talk. Eddie had rejected that offer just days ago before she made the jump, but this wasn’t the same girl, was it? She spent a decade building without him and now he was just a footnote in her story. “I can talk.” He pressed his thumb hard into the fabric of his bowler hat and he felt true loss. He felt like he should have thrown the other rings into the Gotham Harbor. “I want to hear about you, though. Okay?” Eddie wasn’t afraid of her hating him or his mind when he spoke. Now that she was older and distanced, she could reject him and he’d get over it. The damage of his lost wife was already done when the hotel took her away from him. How could they rebuild what they had before? Did he really want to spend years and years waiting for her to feel safe to commit to him again?
“Come on, let’s go sit on the dock.” Eddie let her take his hand and held onto it like he wanted to hold her hand the whole way out of the warehouse. He didn’t care how silly it looked for a rogue and a bat to be hand-in-hand.
Stephanie’s heart throbbed in her chest. “Thirty-one, actually,” she said regrettably, chewing on the inside of her cheek. Ten years was a long fucking time, and she rubbed her cheek as she munched on her flesh until she tasted copper. But then she laughed just a touch. “Eddie, it’s not like that. Okay? It’s not.” Because out of control? Was not this Riddler, especially not compared to the one she’d been around the last couple of years. And, Stephanie knew when this Eddie was spiralling. This was not it, not at all. This was him calling her attention in a way he always knew would work, and yeah, maybe it earned some fondness from the blonde bat. “You knew I would come. I knew I would come. If I was really pissed off, do you think I’d be standing here still?” It wasn’t spiteful, or meant to hurt. It was just pure honesty. Steph wouldn’t stick around to be hurt.
Taking the bowler hat from his hand, she took his hand with her free one. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. You deserve it.” There was no hesitation in her hold, and her thumb grazed the back of his hand. She had missed him over the years, and she had never actually thought that she would get the chance to hold his hand again. To see his wide brown eyes. To hear him call her Stephanie one last time. She had dreams about him constantly since she blinked from this Gotham and into that dark, desolate one. Dreams about his smile, his voice, the way his hands wandered her body, how his mouth felt against hers. The heartache, too, like the way he looked at her that last time she saw him before he left their apartment.
Steph let go of his hand for a second just to adjust her mask before taking it up again. It was a habit of the other Gotham, the one with secret identities, but who didn’t know that Stephanie and Eddie were an item in this town? More people would probably be surprised to hear they were on the rocks honestly. Still, it was habit, something she might not break out of, even if people learned who was behind the Batwoman mask.
Dusk was turning into night, early evenings and that nip of wind off the water pointing to the preview of winter, and she bit back a shiver from the cold. “I couldn’t come back during the summer,” she quipped quietly, smiling over at him as she lead him to a ledge that they could sit on. She sat down, fiddling with his bowler hat for a moment before reaching up to smooth his hair and place the hat on his head. “Are you okay?”
He took a seat on the edge of the dock and kicked his feet in the air, looking down in the dirty water filled with rogue ashes, an engagement ring and bones of mooks he didn’t even know the name of. Eddie leaned back on his hands and looked over at her as she put the hat on his head. “Me? I’m shitty.” He said honestly and then offered a tiny, small laugh. “I feel like I just found out my wife is dead. The last couple times I told her I loved her she didn’t want to hear it. I don’t think she even said it back. So, she’s dead, right? I know she’s not. I know she’s you, but all those years and that makes you a new person.” Eddie’s logic was flawless. She might have had feelings for him still, but he was an old memory she dug up once and a while when she felt lonely. For him, it felt fresh. It felt like walking out of that apartment because he needed space killed her.
“I threw your ring in there.” Eddie told her and then squinted. “Well, not this spot precisely. Over by the carnival. It had romantic significance for me.” He tilted his head up to look at her and his chest hurt more than it did when he asked for a divorce. “I was going to make you a new one. With some better stones that were from this Gotham and a more detailed design. Something more elegant. But, now-” He shrugged because he didn’t know where they stood. He didn’t think she wanted to keep the marriage going and even if she did, who was to say they’d like each other as much as they used to? But, if she looked, he was still wearing his ring.
“Sorry. Anyway. Tell me about this new Gotham. Tell me everything.” He thought he could sneak pass those confessions because what good did they do? She couldn’t pledge anything to him now, not after ten years. He couldn’t tell her that he loved her because who was she? “Batwoman is a pretty high honor. It looks good on you.”
Stephanie stared at him for a long couple of moments, worrying her lip and cupping his hand while she held it in her lap. That ungloved hand skated over his skin to keep it warm against the late autumn chill. Her chest throbbed in the way it did whenever she thought about Eddie, about her husband. “Just because I might not have said it doesn’t mean I didn’t feel the same way,” she whispered into the rush of water knocking against the wooden dock. “I wanted to come back. Every single day I wanted to come back, I promise you. I can’t even count how many nights I sat up wishing for that, but after a couple of years I didn’t think it was going to happen.” She looked up at him with bright blue eyes older than he had ever seen, and she silently asked him not to fault her for living her own life. Wasn’t that what he wanted?
She looked down at the murky water knocking against the rocks, and she scoffed with bemusement. “That ring needed to drown.” She sounded regretful, but it was true. Eddie wanted to close that chapter, they both needed to close that chapter, and that ring was fucking cursed for the both of them. Her thumb tapped the back of his hand as she thought. “I saw that memory. All the way back then, I remember seeing that.” The tips of her fingers grazed up and down his hand gently. “I wish that I could have made you feel like that every day, but I just...I didn’t, did I? I didn’t.” Steph worried her lip again, and then she looked off into the skyline of a city she had to relearn.
She smiled though. “You think so?” She knew that Batwoman was good for her, but she couldn’t fight the sweet feelings of happiness when he approved of her. She bit back a smile, looking down at his hand in her lap. “I feel good about it. I’m good at being a bat.” And wasn’t that a different tune to sing than ten years ago for her. After a moment, she looked up at him. “It was...darker. Messier. Crueler, in a way. I went to the Gotham where Selina was from when she was just a kitty cat. Where Dad was Dad, and mom was...well, not mom.” She gave him a look like she knew that he knew what she was talking about. He had read those comics, after all. “Before that, I went to that door you did. The one where you were a teenager, only I got stuck there for a few days so I was stuck at twenty-one. And then when I came back into our door, it wasn’t our Gotham for me. The key was gone, the journal was gone, you were gone.”
Letting go of his hand for a moment, she ran her fingers through her messy hair. “Since both my parents were wrecks, I was on my own. I became Spoiler again for a while there, but didn’t hook up with the family until later.” She thought he should be proud of that. That she was her own agent. “And even then, I did my own thing.” A smile, soft and shy, before she shook her head. “I found Leslie and trained with her, lived with her, grew with her. We went to Africa for a couple years to help improve the conditions in the poorest villages in Uganda and the Congo, and I fucking loved it there, helping those kids and families learn and live. I even got my MD a couple years back.” She took his hand again, cautiously like she was worried he wouldn’t like all those changes. “I came back to Gotham though because none of us can ever stay away too long, can we? I came back, and I took a different mantle, and I tried to make things good in that city that was bleaker than bleak.”
He shook his head and gave her a look like it didn’t matter. The woman he was in love with was gone and replaced by a new shiny model and yeah wasn’t that what he wanted for her? Eddie truly wanted nothing more than for her to find herself and be happy, but he always thought he’d be somehow part of that equation. She could have kept living in that Gotham with its sharp edges and insanity running thick like blood and she could have been happy. Eddie didn’t think he could really be happy here without her.
“It’s not your fault. I would have driven her crazy too, eventually. The only thing that can keep up with me are computers. Or multiple girlfriends. That’s the only way it’s ever worked long term.” He shrugged and pat pat her shoulder to tell her that it wasn’t something for her to worry about. She had her life together, she was Batwoman and this particular riddled man was nothing but a lost cause.
Eddie didn’t want to keep running in circles about the past. What she remembered of him was a shadow, barely a real person. That was what happened when you didn’t see anyone for a decade. And, he didn’t mind being a ghost. She could keep feeling sorry for him if it made her feel better. Instead, he wanted to listen to what happened to her. His dark eyes were attentive and he nodded and smiled at the good parts of her story. She sounded healthy, whole. He wanted that for her. Eddie squeezed her fingers. “I’m glad you found your way. And, a doctor? That’s a big deal. I remember when you couldn’t figure out what to do and Earth-3 robbed you of school days. You got it all back.”
Another smile, though this one floundered a little. “I read all your comics in the New 52. Just you being there brought hope. I read all of it.” He squeezed her hand and let it go, leaning back on his palms again as he looked out at the ocean. “This Gotham needs someone like you. It’s a mess. We’re doing better, you know, but it’s a mess.”
“You didn’t drive me crazy, Eddie. It wasn’t your fault.” And she believed that was the truth, still. Sure, they were both messes, and they both did things to hurt each other, but she had been the one who didn’t know herself. Who dragged them both down into the depths. But now, she was better. Now she knew herself, and that was good for everyone in this city. “And I’m still sorry I let us get that way. That I let you get hurt.” Stephanie smiled sadly, kicking her legs back and forth through the cool air. “That’s one of my biggest regrets, Eddie. I hope you know that. Even ten years later, I hate the idea of hurting you as much as I did. As I have, I guess, for you. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been for me, I still care about you. You’re still so important to me.”
Another sad smile, and an ache in her chest. She took her other glove off to have something to fiddle with it. “I wish you were there for all of it. I got it all back, but I was still missing something.” Sure, she had other relationships, and she had people. The family was even around on and off. But, nothing replaced that question marked man in her heart, even if ten years dulled their connection for her. She laughed quietly. “And here I thought everything would get fixed up with me gone.” She shook her head. “I thought that at first, honestly. When I was really lonely, really sad, really weak. That you’d all be better off without me.” She rubbed her cheek in a little bit of frustration. “But you have to know how much I missed you. How much I missed this Gotham, but you especially.” Just because she disappeared from Gotham with their relationship on a sour note didn’t mean that her love had been dulled or lost. Ten years, and she still had a place for him in her heart. No one could compare to the husband she left behind.
“It’s okay. I can’t work out who’s to blame or what we should both be sorry for. I’m done with sorry. I just wanted to make it better. I wanted to get her back.” He tilted his head to the side and believed that she still cared about him. He just didn’t think they were anywhere near that love he used to cherish and depend on. Loving her and being with her was as easy as breathing, now it was a shaky touch and run. And, this felt like someone telling him he came up short, even if that wasn’t what she meant.
“We’d be awful without you.” He said honestly and looked up at the smoggy, almost red sky. Eddie tried to think of what to do with her insisting that she missed him. Even if the feeling was still there, memories were chipped away. She wouldn’t be able to remember every tiny thing that made up their lives. He hoped that was for the best, since the last year had been hell. “So, what do you want from me? Honestly? I don’t know where to go from here, so it’s up to you.”
The fact that he kept saying her instead of you twisted a knife dulled in her chest after years of being apart. The time lessened the pain but didn’t disappear it, and ultimately she wanted her husband (ex-husband?) to be happy. That was all she ever fucking wanted for him. If that wasn’t with her? She would have to get over it eventually, wouldn’t she? And it wasn’t like she had abstained the last ten years, but instead of falling for another man, she just realized what she needed in her life. She realized what she liked, what she wanted, what she needed. Stephanie finally had gotten the chance to grow up, and even if it was without him, she hoped he could like the woman she had become.
“It didn’t feel like that when I left,” she confessed with a shrug, tugging at the fingers of her gloves for distraction. “But I hope they’ll all take me back again. I don’t need them to, if they don’t want to, but I still want them to love me.” Maybe that wasn’t just for the bats and birds either. She turned to him and eyed him cautiously, a sad smile on her face. “You said we could try again. I know that was years ago for me, and I’m a completely different woman to you. That I’m not even your wife anymore. But if you want to try? I want to try. I really, really want to try. We don’t have to force a goddamn thing. We can just be friends if you can’t actually be with me anymore, but I don’t want to lose you again.”
“They’ll love you.” He assured her easy and his voice went from those jagged 8-bit notes to soft pillow talk. He touched her face with his cold hand and rubbed his thumb on her cheek. Eddie couldn’t help it sometimes with her and although he likely should have pulled back to something more bat-like, he didn’t. The riddled man could stand getting burned one more time for taking a chance on loving her. He could give it his best shot and if it didn’t turn out, well at least he tried. At least he could go back to Selina and Bruce and the rest and convince them that he put in everything for her. For their marriage.
“Legally you’re still my wife.” He teased and then took his hand away and slowly got to his feet. “I don’t think we’d make very good friends, Stephanie. But, I’m willing to try, too. I can give you a tour of the city you’ve left behind. Actually, I only just finished a little project I was putting together for Bruce. I was revamping the Monarch Theatre and I found the alley his parents died in. It’s untouched. Sad. Or, you know, it was.” Eddie held out his hand for her and then snatched it back before she could take it. He wasn’t going to be a gentleman anymore. Not after that night when their chemistry fell so flat. “You can tell me if it’s awful, if he’ll hate it. Did you bring your cycle? I’ll happily ride bitch.” He smiled brightly.
Stephanie’s bright blue eyes closed behind those clear lenses, still scrambled from his tech black out, and she didn’t fight the urge to lean into his touch. She was glad he wasn’t scrambling away from her in fear or some other form of disgust because this wasn’t the woman he loved anymore. She was glad he wanted to risk it again -- weren’t they both so good at that? -- and she was going to be goddamn sure that no matter what shook out, that they would have at least tried one last time. There was no guarantee, how could there be when they didn’t even know each other anymore? Steph and Eddie didn’t make it work when they thought they knew each other inside and out. But trying? At least they were trying.
She rolled her eyes affectionately. “Sure, legally,” she quipped back, eyeing his hand as he snatched it back for only a second before pushing herself up off the dock without his help. She almost asked if he wanted to play one of their games, one of their oldest games again, but that failed so epically the last time that she didn’t think it was prudent to even ask to play anything at all. “I doubt he’ll hate it. If it’s the same Bruce I remember, he won’t hate it.” And that Bruce? Was so different from the one she’d dealt with over the last ten years. A laugh slipped from her though, and she nodded. “Only this one time will I let you ride bitch, okay?” She jerked her head in the direction of the cycle parked in front of the entrance of the factory, blonde hair flowing with the movement. As she lead him over, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled with good nature. “I’d like to say I remember this place, but I’d really appreciate your help learning everything. It’s been a little too long.” And that wasn’t just about this city, but she left that to simmer.
Eddie took a moment to take a picture of her cycle with his tablet. “I’m sending this to Dick.” He informed and then tucked the tablet away to inspect the bike himself. He was more of a cars man, but he could fix a cycle up real nice just as easily. “She’s beautiful.” Eddie said, kneeling to eye the engine. “I would bet money you need new shocks because I’ve seen the way you drive.” He teased up at her and then leaned on the back of the bike. “I haven’t let you anywhere near the parts of old town I’m working on. You won’t recognize it.” And, that was a play on something more than the city, too. Ever since her little comment about him being a lowly construction worker, he kept his development work to himself. He didn’t tell her about the new apartment buildings, the grocery store, the theater. He didn’t go into detail about how he helped people open up shops and shelters and break land for parks. They were all things he was proud of, that he believed in and he didn’t trust her with it.
And, now, well. He didn’t know if he trusted her with it, either, but she was a different girl and if she made some fucking comment about it he’d have an easier time turning away from her. She wanted to see his heart? Well, it started around the end of their block and stretched just past Crime Alley. “After you.” He let her climb on the bike and then got behind her. He wrapped his arms around her kevlar waist and tried not to think about how different it felt. The blonde hair was the same, though and when he leaned closer to her body, he could feel himself getting lost in it again.
Her GPS lit up with coordinates and they raced off towards the old-new part of the city. She would notice lights that weren’t there before. People with families, shops that didn’t look like they were broken into every night. The Monarch Theatre was bright with new bulbs and a warm welcoming entrance that breathed new life into a building that was only known for murder and tragedy. They turned the corner and what was once an impossible dark, narrow alley was now lit up with color, people and smelled like flowers. Strings of lights hung low down the alley, showcasing murals, pictures and memories of lost loved ones. There were about a dozen people walking through. Some praying in their corners to pictures of young men gunned down too early, some simply taking in the small amount of peace they could get from the alley.
Eddie got off the bike and quickly put his domino mask back on, fixed his suit and put on a smile. People would recognize him. Ask him for things. They’d likely do the same to the new Batwoman, too. “When I found the alley, there were candles lit along the sides. Flowers left on catwalks and around trashcans. I tapped into the spirit world and they told me people come here to mourn. To hope. The Wayne family were supposed to bring Gotham out of an era of darkness and their death only plunged the city deeper. So, when people come here to say goodbye to a family that poured their money into this city, they come to hope for a better life. The Gotham the Waynes wanted.” Eddie gave a wave to an old lady who already recognized him.
“I wanted to make this a memorial. For everyone. Not just for the Waynes. People lose so much in this city, they deserve a place to say goodbye.” Eddie smiled simply at Stephanie and he tried not to look proud of what he had done. “I don’t know, though. I think I took away one of his favorite brooding spots.”
Stephanie had a lot of regrets, but like she had told him before the biggest regret she had in her life was making him feel unloved, unwanted unworthy. The comments she had made hadn’t been spiteful in theory, but when she looked back at them years later, with distance and time and healing between the woman she was then and the woman she was now, she could see that it was mostly her trying to drag him down with her. She hated herself, so she couldn’t help him love himself. It was impossible, and honestly hurtful. So, she knew he had been hiding things, of course he was, but she didn’t fault him. She would have protected herself a bit had roles been reversed.
What she didn’t expect, however, was the injection of life into the old part of town that they had both grown up in. Colors, people, camaraderie, neighborliness. As she drove her bike, she slowed down to the speed of a tour bus so she could fully absorb all the things he had done to their neighborhood while she was buried in her wallowing pit of despair. He brought life and safety and hope to this collection of people who had probably never seen something like this in their lives and never dreamed to. A smile spread across her face as she sped up a little to reach their destination.
And when she dismounted her bike and kicked the kickstand and laid her eyes upon what Eddie had done for this city, her smile brightened into a grin that stretched from ear to ear. Still clear and not opaque, he could see her blue eyes glint with a sort of charm and amazement he hadn’t seen in years. “You made all this,” she breathed, and Eddie might have tried to hide his pride, but Stephanie couldn’t for the life of her. She was so fucking proud of him. “You gave them this. You gave the city this.” She shook her head a little in disbelief that he would doubt. “I love it so much. He’s going to love it, Eddie. I promise you that. How could he not?” Rebuilding Gotham, wasn’t that what Bruce was all about anyway? She knew that all he wanted was for his city to finally be safe, whole, healthy, and these were the first steps.
“You’ve been doing this all this time?” she asked, stepping forward underneath the tinkling lights overhead to crouch by one of the memorials: a cluster of flowers and cheap candles from the 99 cents store surrounding a picture of a young, smiling boy who had his entire life ahead of him. Just like the boys she would see in her clinics from time to time. Victims of the city’s disease or of violence culture or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She touched the picture briefly, and she knew that she would be here often herself, with or without Eddie. “This is amazing,” she told him, looking up at him over her shoulder with that spill of blonde hair and blue eyes bright and full of wonderment.
He leaned his shoulder on the brickwall next to her. It was covered in murals, painted flowers and sketched landscapes. Across from them, a smiling portrait of the Wayne family looked down at them peacefully. They were distant the way saints were and yet Eddie felt whispers of their presence here and there. The mother especially had the same kindness Bruce did and sometimes it would just blink to life in a dark corner of their city. “No amount of booze or drugs could stop me from creating.” He whispered and watched solemnly as she looked at the picture of a little boy who died tragically. Eddie saw her, he saw his wife and so he talked to her like she was there. He had to believe she was there. “The love I have for you is the same that I have for this city. They’re intertwined and they don’t separate no matter how hard I try. So, when we were going through a rough patch, everything I had to give went here. To this neighborhood.” Always the city.
Eddie kept his gaze on her a little too long. In the glow of fairy lights and the warmth of candles, he felt a piece of what they had before. Just a sliver. “You really like it?” Asked quietly and he turned to look at the painted brick wall. “Bruce needs to know this city is still capable of great things. That he helped people like me and you. Like them.” He turned to press his shoulder blades into the wall and he looked up at the lights that blotted out the dark, Gotham sky. “I don’t think this will last long. Something will sweep in and make it a dark, empty alley again. But, at least we had it while it was still good.”
The murals reminded her of the stretching, colorful one she had painted years ago in their shared apartment, and her hand stretched across the concrete canvas as if she was trying to absorb the artwork. “Can I add something here one day?” The question came cautiously, like she wasn’t sure he would want her to taint his special place, the oasis for the mourning and lost of the city. She could imagine constant candle-lit vigils here, like the ones that surrounded them now with their warm lights and soft tears. “You don’t have to say yes, and I wouldn’t want to invade. I just...this is wonderful, Eddie.” She pushed herself up from her crouch, and she brushed gravel from her kevlar. “I love it. Honestly. And if our rough patch got you to do this, at least we can say there was one good thing out of all of it.” She smiled gently, teasing quietly like a poke to the side before turning a little more solemn and teetering a little closer.
“It might last long. There are some good things in this city that last long. Maybe they go away for a little bit, but it’ll come back. Now that you’ve planted the seeds? They’ll do it on their own. There’ll be one family with one candle and then it’ll bloom again. The bad comes back, sure, but the good always finds a way to shine through. Even if it’s just the tiniest flicker at first. It’s always there somewhere.” She hoped that was true of everything between the two of them, too. That maybe their relationship would be reborn into something good, maybe even something better. “I’m proud of you, Eddie. Honestly. This is beautiful. Everything you’ve done so far is beautiful.”
Eddie’s dark eyes lit up with something teasing when she asked to add something and then backtracked immediately. It was sweet and with every inch she gave him, he wanted to give it right back. “I’d love it if you added something.” He said and edged closer so they were almost touching. To passerbyers they looked like long time lovers having a gentle conversation about the things they lost. He saw something familiar in her blues eyes, something he didn’t think he’d get to see in a long time. It was strange. Loving her so much and yet not knowing so many parts of what made her up. He knew the core. He knew that lightness in her eyes and that teasing tone in her voice. He knew that shared love they had for Gotham and the belief that things would get better. So, he wondered if she saw the same in him. If she really could love him again, or this was just an exercise in futility.
He nodded at her little speech and it warmed him. He hadn’t heard her talk like that so genuinely in a long time. “Absolutely. Besides, the more bats who know about this place, the safer it’ll be, right?” Sure, he was more comfortable with the rogues these days, but he understood the bat heart. He knew that even the ones that thought this was pointless or a little too much would see the warmth it brought Gotham. It was for him, it was for them, it was for everyone.
Eddie’s voice lowered to a murmur and his dark eyes stayed on her. “Well, you could say a beautiful blonde bat inspired me.” There wasn’t a teasing lift of his brow or a smirk that said he was trying to needle at her. “You know, people are going to talk about you being here with me. People in this town love to talk. Like the kids of that woman right there?” He pointed to a picture of a smiling, dark haired woman with big rimmed glasses. “They’re going to ask when they can meet Batwoman since they heard I run around town with her. I know a college student I built a motorized wheelchair for that’s going to be really pissed at me if I don’t get your autograph.”
Her grin was bright and genuine, and she was already hatching some ideas for additions to the beautiful, colorful murals and pictures that spread across the sides of those alleyway walls. When he stepped closer, she didn't waiver, just rocked on her feet like she wanted to test the space out. Being close to him at all after all this time was the most bizarre and amazing feeling in the world, heart beating just a little bit faster and awakening feelings dulled by a decade. She smiled a touch, and she could feel her body warm a little bit. Maybe she had to learn to love him again, but wasn't that what they both wanted? A fresh start?
Nodding, she said, "Definitely. Even some people who aren't bats might get vested in it." The Selina she remembered would want to keep flickers of light and hope around, especially if it helped Bruce out. "You know we bats like to run our mouths and fight with each other, but I like to think that we'll protect the things each of us love, too." Hopefully. She remembered a family on the brink, and she wanted to spend time repairing each relationship she had in this city. Her family, her surrogate father, and most importantly her husband.
Another smile, and Stephanie looked at him with wry blue eyes. "Oh, yeah?" She sounded pleased to have some sort of positive impact on him, and she dared to graze gloved fingers down his arm before retracting. Not out of disgust or hatred. Just tentative fear that he might not want to be touched by her. She wanted things to go well. Over the intervening years without him, she could only focus on the good and she wanted all of that back so badly. The warmth and kind words, even with a bit of teasing, just fed a small bit of that. "I like the idea of having some sort of good impact on you, in spite of all the heartache I caused."
She chuckled quietly and shook her head. "Are you planning on blackmailing me into meeting some Gothamites? Because you don't have to." She looked at the picture of that woman and imagined her family, eyes red rimmed and looking for a semblance of something good in this hellhole of a town. "My head hasn't gotten big over the years."
He looked at her hand as it grazed his arm and then up at her when she stopped because he didn’t want her to pull away from him. Eddie had brought her the center of where his heart was, a big question marked test to see if she’d joke and dismiss all the hard work he put into this tiny little alley that was once a place of pain and now a place of hope. He thought it would have been easy to walk away from her then. One little sneer, one little comment and he could tell her thanks, but no thanks and go back to his place.
But, it didn’t turn out like that. She loved it. Her eyes lit up like the lights he strung across the alley and she wanted to add instead of subtract. So, he wanted her to keep touching him. He wanted her closer, but he didn’t ask and he didn’t make the first move. That was all round one of their relationship. All him showing her it was okay to fall for a rogue even if her instincts were against it. This time around, he wanted her to let him know it was okay to fall, too. He thought that was romantic until he realized she didn’t love him like she used to. She cared, but there wasn’t the attraction from before. How could there be after so long? So, this would have to be a tiny game of tag. A game of getting to know each other and seeing if this was still the real deal.
So instead of just standing there, he reached to touch the tip of her blonde hair to spin between his fingers. “Stop feeling guilty.” He told her and then gently tugged on the strand of hair. “I know that’s a tall order, but I forgave you. I forgive you. The amount of light you brought my life is ten or twenty times greater than the dark stuff.” Eddie brushed her chin with his finger and then leaned back against the wall.
“Look, I won’t make you go visit these people right off. I know you’re busy. Besides, people see us in public and they’re going to expect us to be lovey dovey right off the bat.” He reached into his blazer and pulled out a pen and a tiny square of paper Eddie held it against the brick wall behind him, popped the cap out of the pen with his mouth and then handed the pen to her. “Make it out to Mark.”
There was a tiny, excited piece of Steph that the two of them could potentially relive the first steps, that round one, of their relationship. Sure, there had been plenty of missteps, but there was a passion ignited and an inexplicable (at first) connection forged between bat and rogue. It was some of the most thrilling and wonderful times in her life, falling in love with Eddie "Nigma" Nashton, and she hoped they could replicate those feelings of love, of heat, of knowing each other.
She flashes him a grateful smile. "I'm going to be better about it, about feeling guilty. Thank you for forgiving me." Her eyes traveled to his finger wrapping around her blonde hair and then trailed his finger as it brushed her chin. Without though, she dragged her fingers across his jaw in that way she remembered doing years and years before. She wanted to keep touching him, but maybe they were supposed to take it slow this time. Maybe they were supposed to romance each other instead of bluster through the steps of their relationship.
"Tell me when, and I'll make time. Okay? Sure I'm busy, but this is important too." Connecting with Gotham wasn't just fighting crime and healing wounds. It was about getting to know those around you. She took the pen up and wrote Mark a warm, generic message about kicking ass and being the future of their city, signing it with a messy girlish Batwoman. Holding out the pen to Eddie, she smiled. "You should come to the clinic one day. Maybe bring Mark along. See if my healing powers can do anything for him maybe?"