Rainy Days (Bruce/Effie Log)
Effie was curled in her large bed, hugging the Hello Kitty plushie her father had given her. She never did return to Stark Tower, instead buying out an apartment building for herself and Marcus, the man insisting that she should go back and that she was a moron, but Effie ignored him.
She needed a space that was her own. The Opera House had been Erik’s, the Warehouse Enigma’s and later her father’s, Stark Tower...obviously belonged to Tony and Bruce.
Effie needed a place that was only hears, not tied to anyone else.
But the big empty building felt cold to her, the loss of Timmy, Bruce, their animals...everything was cold and hollow.
“I’m heading out,” Marcus said from the doorway, staring at his young charge. He was tempted to simply pick her up and drag her kicking and screaming back to the Tower, but for now, he would let things play out. Even if she was an utter fool.
Effie nodded, snuggling more with her plushie. “Good night, Marcus.”
“Good night, little moron,” he said, using his new nickname for her.
Effie snorted, throwing a stuffed koala at him, a smile playing over her lips before she sighed, her eyes closing, listening to the rain machine blocking out sound.
--
Since his conversation with Dinah, about what he was feeling pertaining to Effie's actions and also the costume design, Bruce was feeling quite confident. At first he had mixed feelings about the ordeal of Effie's arrest, but Dinah had managed to talk sense into the genius and he felt better about it than he had previously.
And he had seen Edward that morning, whom didn't mention that his daughter had been sprung from jail and was actively avoiding the scientist and the Tower all together. Which would've clearly explained why Bruce hadnt seen her. Though he believed she was still tucked away in her cell.
He knew he was sort of avoiding that place, but he wasn't partial to seeing the love of his life cooped up like a cages animal. She was more than that, and he wanted to retain the image of her free and clear. Not locked up and wearing prison orange.
So, instead the scientist dived deeper into his work.
He began sketches of what his thoughts would be pertaining to Dinah's new costume. He would need second opinions, of course, which he knew he could willingly get from Tony. Bruce was curious if Dinah would bring Dean along to the initial scan and chat, wondering what his opinion would be on the subject.
Humming to himself, Bruce sketched out a few breast plate designs, writing down a few mathematical equations next to them, and a few notes about color or style.
--
Marcus knocked on the door to Bruce’s lap, leaning against the frame. Yes, he probably shouldn’t be interfering, but the father in him couldn’t help himself. “Doctor Banner? I think there is something we need to discuss regarding your wife.”
--
Bruce heard the knock. It wasn't a sound that he normally heard. Tony usually let himself in and Effie did too, when she was around.
So that, in itself, caused the scientist to set the pencil down and turn around to face the man with the familiar voice.
"Hey Marcus. What's up?" Upon seeing the mans face Bruce knew it wasn't something to be terribly excited about. But now he was curious.
"Is she alright?" Concern finally began to cross Bruce's features and he approached the much taller, bulkier man slowly.
--
“You realize she’s been out of jail for over a week?” Marcus asked, arching an eyebrow at the scientist. “Her father got her out by bribing a judge.” He moved into the lab, closing the door behind him for privacy. “She is refusing to return to the Tower.”
--
Bruce blinked. A week? A week?! And Eddie didn't even tell him this morning. He felt like a failure.
Slowly he took a breath and tried to calm himself down, "Why is she refusing to come back?" That was the part he didn't understand. Actually, none of any of this made any sense, but when Eddie factored in often the equation was altered in a way that only the criminal could understand it.
"Where is she?"
--
Marcus pulled a small card from his pocket, writing the address on it. “Top floor, security code is alphabear,” He held out the card. “She thinks you don’t truly love her.” he said simply.
--
Alphabear. Why did that not surprise him?
Bruce accepted the card, trying to process the rest of what Marcus said. Didn't love her? How many times had he gone above and beyond for her? Several. He'd compromised his own image for her own, to prove that she wasn't as terrible as everyone seemed to think and yet that? That he didn't love her? That was heartbreaking.
Bruce nodded and looked at the card, "I'm sorry you had to come all the way over here, Marcus."
With that, the scientist exited the floor and took the stairs to the garage. He didn't even bother with a jacket, stealing one of Tony's tamer convertibles.
He drove to the building, took the stairs to the top floor and entered the code. When the door clicked to unlock he pushed it open slowly, unsure as to what to expect. She was a Nigma, the place could be wired to blow.
"Effie?"
--
Effie was sleeping in her giant bed, surrounded by various stuffed animals, hugging her plushie closer at Bruce’s voice, shifting on her sleep. She mumbled something, settling again, snoring oh so softly, having no idea that her husband was there, looking for her.
--
He called her name softly again before pushing through the door. Worst case scenario was that if something did explode he would bring the place down round both of them.
He hoped that didn't have to happen.
Shutting the door behind himself Bruce moved further into the apartment. He perked into every room until he saw the bed, the overflow of cuteness with the young woman in the middle.
He approached the massive overdose of plush and moved them aside, before leaning over to shake her gently, "Effie, wake up."
--
She jerked up, a gun pointed at him before she even opened her eyes, blinking slowly. She yawned, putting the gun under her pillow again. “Imma gonna kill Marcus or daddy,” she mumbled, flopping over, peeking at him. “Why yous here?”
--
Bruce blinked at the gun. He hated guns, and his eyes instantly reflected that with a swirl of green. With a slow breath Bruce stepped back.
"I'm here to get you," Bruce replied, looking down at her. She didn't even seem to care that he had shown up to look for her, "But now I'm thinking that maybe coming here was a mistake."
Maybe that would get her attention.
--
“Obviously it was,” she said, not even flinching of his eyes turning green. If he chose to Hulk out...well, there wasn’t much she had left to fight for anyway. She turned, shifted in bed, her back to him. “Go back to being happy in your little tower with your machines and your best friend and the perfect life without your screw up of a wife like you were,” she huffed.
--
"What are you talking about?" Bruce inquired, voice full of irritation. He wasn't going to 'Hulk out'. At least not here.
"My life isn't happy without you in it. If I had known Eddie had bailed you out I would've been there, and then Marcus tells me you're not coming back to the Tower....I don't understand why."
--
“You didn’t even visit me!” she screamed, turning and launching a stuffed cat at his head. “You left me there to rot away while you...fluffed about! You can’t say I make you happy, that you love me when you LEFT ME!”
-- Bruce caught the cat, almost snatching the thing out of the air, "I left you there? You turned yourself in, Effie. Without even telling me first. You left me. You don't talk about anything with me. If I had known you planned to turn yourself in I would've worked something out to get you out. But you would rather be independent and then rely completely on your father, who doesn't love you."
He was trying to control his temper. She was making it difficult.
He couldn't even begin to express to her how he had felt about what she had done. How the image of her in a cell, again, tainted what he wanted her to be.
--
“If I had told you, you would have tried to stop me, or save me! I wasn’t supposed to get out! I was in there for life! My father did what he did on his own, without asking me. but you didn’t visit me, you didn’t even care!” She was yelling, her voice cracking with the force of air through her vocal cords, but she didn’t care, anger, pain and frustration rushing through her. Tears stained her cheeks as she launched another animal at him in her frustration.
“I gave up everything to do the right thing and you. weren’t. there!”
--
"You're right, because I love you. That's why I would've tried to stop you, but you didn't even give me the chance to try to tell you..." Instantly his tone went from angry to just defeated.
His shoulders slumped and he looked down at the floor, feeling the next plushie bounce off of his shoulder.
"I couldn't visit you. Not again..." He breathed, not looking up at her. "I wanted your image to stay pristine, and it was. It still is, but in my mind I couldn't take seeing you locked away. You don't deserve jail, much as you thought you did. What you did was brave, and senseless, but without need. Those families might've gotten justice but they won't ever get solace until someone hangs for that crime. I know you would never sacrifice yourself for what you did. But I didn't want to see you in there again. It hurts too bad to see you that way."
Eddie might've been cold-hearted enough to stomach seeing his girl in a cell, but Bruce wasn't.
--
“You can’t say that, Bruce. I’m not the conniving, selfish bitch you knew,” she said. “I was ready to die for my crimes if that was the punishment given. I killed those women, I deserve the punishment offered.”
She ran a hand through her hair, frowning as she got her nails tangled in her pigtails, tugging at it. “I did deserve being there, and more…” she was distracted, her hand refusing to untangle.
--
She had never deserved that life. If anyone deserved to be behind bars it was her father. Her father for making her the way he had, for poisoning her mind and making her feel that killing filled those empty holes. For putting her in this position.
He looked up at her, "But you didn't stay. If you really felt that way you could've stayed. They would've convicted you, I'm sure. There was plenty of evidence collected, I read the stuff in the papers," He managed, trying to stomach through having to lose her to the justice system for a life sentence, or a death sentence.
"But we need you more than they do. What about your family? Timmy? Me? Your dad...we all need you. And you would let yourself take the fall for a crime you committed when you weren't thinking clearly? For what? Peace of mind?"
--
“Uh, Bruce, I was released, there was no evidence, that’s the point. I couldn’t have stayed there, unless I wanted to have a sit in protest. The only thing they had was my confession or I wouldn’t be here.”
She was still fighting with her hand, growing more and more frustated. “Timmy is a robot, you could have programed him to forget me and daddy has Jonathan now...which, ew. And no, because it’s the right thing.”
--
If anyone had shown Bruce a grey area in a way to live, it was Effie. Or Enigma. Whichever. The point was, what was really the right thing when it came to such a situation.
"I could never reprogram Timmy," Bruce said with a shake of his head. "And your father might have Jonathan, but he will always have you too."
But it seemed Effie had made her choice.
"If you want me to leave, all you have to do is say it, Effie." He didn't want to, he wanted to bring her home, but it was obvious she didn't want to be there.
--
“What I want, is for you to get my goddamn hand out of my goddamn hair,” Effie growled, sounding like Enigma for a flash of a moment. “Please.”
Her father didn’t love her, she was a tool to be honed and used at his leisure. A tool he couldn’t have locked away. And Bruce would be better off with her locked up. He could move on, marry Beauty or Di or whatever girl he was flirting with behind her back that she pretended not to notice.
--
Bruce sighed and approached her, taking a moment to detangled her fingers from her now very messed up pigtail. It took a moment of maneuvering but he managed. He wa good at solving problems. Or, at least mathematically based ones.
Edward did use Effie when he could, and he would continue to do so. She was his monster to use as he saw fit and when she was done being useful she would fall by the wayside.
Bruce needed Effie. He didn't want anyone else nor would he even know how to try to begin a new life without her.
"Come home, please?"
--
“No.” Effie said firmly. “It’s not my home anymore, Bruce. It’s just a reminder of everything I can’t have anymore. I don’t want to live in the place my dreams died.” She curled her hand into a fist, tears still leaking down her cheeks, though they slowed slightly. “I can’t wake up there every morning and remember I don’t have a job, or friends, or a life to go back to.”
-- He didn't understand where any of this was coming from. Logically he figured it was Edward's doing, poisoning her mind with lies.
"Baby, Tony never said anything about you being fired. You just never came back home once you were out. Nothing has changed except for the void you left when you turned yourself in. You can come back and have all of the things you left."
--
“He said one chance, Bruce...I was arrested again, for murder. No more chance. That means I’m fired...once he gets done with his ‘I told you so’s’. Dinah won’t want to be near me after that, not to mention she likes you more anyway...I doubt even Timmy will want to be near me.”
--
What was coming out of her mouth had Bruce reeling. Seriously?
"Effie. Tony is not firing you. Or kicking you out. If I know anything about him he will probably lecture you, but you and I both are too valuable to him as friends and employees to risk losing you or me. Because he knows if you go, I go."
He shook his head at her, "Dinah knows you did the right thing. She admired what you did, even though she knew the weight of the risk you took. And she doesn't like me more. What makes you think that? We're friends but she has Dean, for one, and two she's a hero. She wouldn't do anything to hurt you."
--
“Friends. Like you’re friends with Beauty and Christine and Dinah and every other girl you come across,” she said, huffing and plopping her Hello Kitty into her lap, resting her chin on the plushie’s head. “I was a friend once…”
She was scared. Under all her anger and all her pain, she was a scared, lost girl who had to bury or say good bye to so many people that she was terrified of losing Bruce. So she shoved him away, hoping to outrun her own fear and pain.
-- "I'm allowed to have friends. And don't even get me started about your friendships." She was still friends with Damon, and Bruce didn't even like the vampire! But he never said anything about it because he meant so much to her.
So he would have his friends. "Friends are different than what you and I have, Effie. I don't love Dinah, or Beauty or Christine. I love you. I married you and nothing could ever change that. There is no woman in the world I could ever want over you," Bruce said, moving a plushie aside to sit next to Effie on the bed.
Bruce wasn't the one wearing Beauty's handkerchief all over the place either. Eddie just about flaunted the cloth every time Bruce saw him.
--
“What friends?” she asked, honestly confused. Tony was Bruce’s friend, Damon was long gone and she hadn’t seen Tink in forever and feared the fairy was gone as well. The next closest thing was Dinah and she doubted that they could be called friends.
“I don’t have friends, Bruce. I haven't in a long while.”
-- "You underestimate the power of friendship, Effie. Tony likes you, Dinah likes you, I like you.....and I don't know of any other people you associate with. And Dinah isn't the only person in the world. You can get out and make more friends besides her," Bruce knew it could be hard meeting new people, but she could at least try.
"Trust me, there are people out there that would help you if you needed it."
--
Effie snorted. “Every time I leave the Tower things happen,” she pointed out. “Last time, daddy tried to get me to join him in robbing a jewelry show.”
Which she had agreed to, but still.
Effie wasn’t even sure how to make friends, but she wasn’t going to point that out. The less Bruce thought of her as crazy and developmentally challenged the better. She still loved him and wanted him to think better of her then she was.
-- "Maybe it's because he sets you up for failure. How many times are you going to let him knock you down before you get tired of it?" He sighed, knowing Eddie was a sensitive subject.
"Your father walked today, by the way." He thought she should know.
And Bruce wasn't exactly mr. Popular, either. He was about as social as a pet rock, but he managed. She would too.
--
“A million billion!” she said, sticking her tongue out at him before applauding. “Yay daddy!” She then pouted. “Wait, this means I can’t ride the wheelchair down the street anymore, damn, that was fun.”
She shifted absently, moving closer to him, instinctively searching him out as she played with her plushie, making it walk across the bed. “How soon till he’s walking normally and being annoying?”
--
Bruce put an arm around her as she shifted closer and held her gently, "He should be back to his annoying self in no time. He's kind of nice without a gun in his hand. But I'm sure he will find a way to remedy that."
Edward had been missing his revolvers, the ones that had fallen by the wayside before the initial attack by Scarecrow. One had fallen beneath the couch in Jonathan's office, and Edward hadnt been sure what became of the other.
--
“I have his revolvers,” Effie said, smirking slightly. “I got them back the next day...reminds me, I have to return to Arkham to have a chat with my stepfather and show him my present I left for him.”
She hummed happily, playing with the plushie, an evil smirk on her lips the whole time as she thought of the C4 left in Jonathan’s desk, just waiting for her to press a little red button on a remote around her neck.
He was going to pay.
--
Bruce sighed, "I knew that was too good to be true." It didn't matter. As long as she was happy.
"Need an escort? I'll go with you if you want." It wasn't that he didn't think she would be safe, he just didn't trust Jonathan. Nor did he have a clue what she was planning.
--
“Mm, please. I don’t think he’ll be happy when I blow up his office.” Effie said, forcing her face into her best ‘innocent angel’ smile, which, considering she had all her memories and personality back, was actually a pretty good innocent face.
“And I never said I was going to give them back...he has to earn them.”
--
Bruce nodded, holding Effie gently against him, "I'll be there to protect you. You just have to tell me when." He couldn't stop her from doing what she was planning but at least he could be there to make sure she was safe.
He was relieved to know that she wasn't just going to give them back to Eddie. That man didn't need to be armed, but that was inevitable too.
--
She curled against him, snuggling close. . She enjoyed thise quiet moments with him, as rare as they were. Moments when neither one of them were running around, mind on something else, thoughts a million miles away.
“I love you, Bruce,” she said, looking up at him and kissing his cheek. “No matter what, I love you.
--
Those words meant so much to him, and he was glad for them. "I love you too, Effie. I mean it. I know I'm probably not the greatest husband but I do love you. More than anything else in the world," Bruce said, sincerely. He just wished she would come back home and be there when he needed her.
He might not know how to show when those times were, but having her nearby meant he didn't have to worry about expressing it. She would be there. Well, when she wasn't here.
--
She smiled, tilting her head up for a soft, tender kiss, before sighing. “I’m keeping the apartment building,” she said, toying with Hello Kitty’s hair bow, biting at her lip. “I need a space that’s just mine...like you have your lab.”
She needed an escape...a just in case.
--
Bruce leaned in to kiss her, glad they had managed to work through whatever it was that had come between them. "That's fine, I can understand needing your space," Bruce said with a nod.
He couldn't begrudge her a space of her own despite having a whole tower to herself she could utilize.
--
She kissed him back, before laying down again, pulling him with her. She snuggled up close to him, her bare legs entwining with his. “Love you,” she said, her voice growing sleep filled again, holding him tightly with her arms.
Not matter what, Bruce was her husband...her rock. She knew she would have returned to him eventually...she couldn’t exist without him.