I'm hurting. All I am is pain and blood. I can't focus. There're faces in front of me—scars and bruises and cruel smiles. Hands are on my skin, creeping up to my throat.
It's Zsasz' hand in my bra, the other between my legs.
It's him choking the life from me.
It's the blade of a knife cutting me apart.
It's the thread feeding through a needle before stitching me back together.
It's Bruce and Alfred crying over my body as I watch from a distance.
Then it changes. I'm falling, but the pain doesn't leave. It's ripping through me, mixing with something else that's supposed to feel good. Hands on mine, hot and warming my skin—spread to my lips and burn them. Soft words in my ear, telling me things I always wanted, take away everything I have left.
"Do you think I'll ever leave you?"
The feelings morph. It's a knife inside me, peeling back my skin and laying me bare. Bruce and Alfred are here, watching it happen.
No, no, no—
"Wake up."
My stomach drops—I'm observing from above; I scream but make no sound. I'm watching them die; their blood runs through my fingers. I'm holding a knife. He's holding a gun to my head.
I can't—I can't—
But it's not a gun, it was just his hands mimicking one. Laughing—unending and loud and grating and mad shakes me. It's coming from him until it isn't.
It's me. I'm the one laughing. And I can't stop.
A loud blaring—shrill and piercing—doesn't belong. Something clicks and I try to move my arms, but I can't get my body to work.
Alfred and Bruce rise and stare, accusing, blood pouring from the smiles carved across their throats. Parker stands behind them, head cocked to the side, face splitting and black hair turning green.
"Gotta catch a Mir-cat."
Someone has to help me. I need someone to help me—
I'm paralyzed. My chest won't move the way I need it to; it hurts to breathe—there's a knife in my side. It hurts; everything hurts. I can't breathe, but I need to scream.
"Good morning, Gotham! This is your number one source of news, tunes, and—"
I need to get away, I need to get somewhere safe—
Light floods in and blinds me. I sit up only for the world to spin out of control. There's someone here with me, someone's talking.
Need to be safe, need to be safe—
I'm trying to get my legs to work but fall on the floor instead, feet tangled in the strewn sheets. The world doesn't break through—stays hazy and unreal.
Get up, Miri—get up—
"We're live at 9 with your update on this rainy hour here at WXYZ Radio. You can expect consistent showers with a high risk of thunderstorms sticking around until at least tomorrow afternoon."
The words dawn on me too late. I'm on my knees, struggling to stand up—grabbing the nearby wardrobe and nearly making it fall on top of me. Air fills my chest slowly as my vision clears, taking in the streaks of light coming through the partially closed blinds, the heavy taps of rain hitting the window, the cans of beer on the floor by the bed, and the glaring red radio clock boring into my retinas and reminding me that everything was just a dream. It wasn't happening, I was fine.
But those things did happen.
Well, almost all of them.
"That's right, Phil, so wear those rubber boots and grab your umbrella!"
Legs shaking as I get up, unsteady and unsure, I make my way to the clock sitting on a ledge across the living room.
"Now we're back with another forty-five minutes of commercial-free tunes—"
Fumbling with the damn thing, I finally turn it off and almost wish I didn't. The silence is too much, worse than the sounds that aggravated the alcohol-induced headache. I don't remember crawling into bed, throwing on a different shirt and pulling the blankets over my head last night. Most of the food I got two days ago is still on the counter, some half-eaten and the rest surrounded by take-out boxes. My hair might be shorter now, but it's a tangled wreck matted to one side of my head and sticking up on end on the other.
Good thing you're not a complete mess or anything.
Like my joints need oiling, they're stiff and seem to creak as I move, protesting with an ache for me to be comatose for a few more hours. Why the sudden urge to clean up is so compelling now doesn't make sense, but I don't resist it, clearing the counters and throwing away the stale food. It's not much better—it doesn't hide the fact that I still need to get some proper food and the basics to make this place livable.
I'm too hungover to deal with this.
But instead of getting up to do any of those things, I flop back down on the bed and throw my arms over my eyes, trying to banish the thoughts that never want to go away. Regret overshadows the list of things I should be doing. On top of the growing list of stuff I need, the most pressing—and frustrating—desire is for more booze.
But that's not making the dreams—or thoughts—go away either.
Too much to drink in too short a time period—a mistake I still haven't learned from. Drowning the memories in alcohol was something I wouldn't have thought about doing two years ago, but it's an adequate replacement for the drugs I won't take but desperately want to. The tool's changed, but the end result is still the same—I know that but convince myself I don't. And yet I'm afraid of drinking more than I have been. What used to terrify me for the way it took away my control is one of the few things that helps keep the memories away. It works, most of the time, because I realized I never had any control at all.
I know it's not healthy. Mom's problems with alcohol are something I haven't forgotten. It had been the cause of almost every break-up she'd had—the fact that she wouldn't stop, that she needed it to cope with her own problems. I hadn't judged her for it, not really—I'd always seen her with a glass of something in her hand. It wasn't until high school that I realized not everyone's parents did that.
Turns out you wouldn't be much better anyway.
Pill-popper. Burgeoning alcoholic. And—
"Are you saying, ah, you played the whore? That you let yourself be used like a cheap piece of meat? Is that what you're telling me, Miri?"
"Shut up," I say, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes. There's a ringing in my ears, resonating at a frequency that hurts. I sound nuts, talking to myself, and I'm glad no one's here to see me unravel.
Again.
"Just… shut up."
I think I fall back asleep, but it doesn't really feel like it. It's more… like I'm floating. Things don't feel so bad, I can drift in between—stay away from what my mind can't escape and the reality that won't go away.
Forget, and go back to sleep.
As if to add to the list of ways this day is one worth ignoring, the tell-tale vibration of my phone rattling against the floor makes me groan. There are very few people who would be calling me, and I don't want to talk to any of them.
Let it go to voicemail.
It rings and rings, seemingly without end until it dies. Just as my eyes close again it goes off—almost more insistent than before. I keep ignoring it, willing it to shut up like the thoughts in my head. After a while it does, but I know I won't be able to ignore it for long.
You are definitely too hungover for this. Stupid—stupid, stupid.
Reaching around blindly, I manage to grab it. My fingers rub against the cracks on the screen and I sigh, knowing I'll have to get it fixed—another thing on the list. My phone's glaring at me, the stupid messages searing into my sore and tired eyes like a brand. Despite the hour, Naomi's called me five times. She seems to have changed her mind about having those three days to myself. That, or she's forgotten she gave them to me.
Or maybe she's just being a bitch.
That seems like the best fit for her track record.
Meet with David. He's your Gotham HS contact—all intel goes through him. Call him by 2200.
A number and email are listed along with an attached photo of what he looks like. His cheeks are round and pock-marked, a head of unruly hair that curls around his ears. He wouldn't look much older than sixteen if it wasn't for the poorly-grown mustache and crow's feet around his eyes. He's the man who's going to handle my case, the one I report my findings to and receive instructions from my forensic investigation unit with Homeland Security. What he's really supposed to do is make sure I don't fuck up or step out of line.
She still thinks I need a goddamn babysitter.
Throwing my phone on the bed, making it bounce and land on the floor—and probably worsen the fracture—I rub my eyes and groan at the throbbing that hammers against the sides of my skull.
Just get it over with.
Dragging myself up to the bathroom and showering away the smell of booze and sleep, everything feels sluggish—too slow for my mind to focus and distant enough for me not to care. My body's a blob of uniform colour, nothing sticks out that'll cause the spiral that had me down an entire bottle of wine and three cans of disgusting beer.
Don't think about alcohol, Jesus.
Despite the nausea, sleep still doesn't feel far away; but I resist the urge to fall back on the mattress for another six to eight hours I don't need. The clothes I grab don't matter, putting them on is just a repetitive motion that comes with habit. I know everything I grab will cover what I want to; that I can pretend for a while longer the things I want to hide don't exist. It's like I am asleep, going around in circles in the apartment and searching for something I can't totally grasp—like my brain went dark. The colours blur until I'm not sure if I'm moving or standing still—
A loud chime on my phone snaps me awake long enough to recognize that it's likely Naomi again, and I groan when I realize the damn thing fell under the bed when I threw it. My limbs are heavy and tired, but I drop down to the floor, pushing on when my head pounds in protest. Somehow lying on my stomach and reaching for it feels like the worst decision I've made in a while, my stomach giving a painful twist that makes me think I might start dry heaving. When I finally grab it and read the incoming message, I surprise myself with an unexpected growl.
I'm sending your intake forms to Arkham. Book yourself an appointment. Non-negotiable.
I throw my phone clear across the floor until it hits one of the legs of the couch, pressing my forehead against the dirt and dust-coated hardwood and muffling a yell of frustration.
She still wants you in therapy. Still thinks you're nuts and need a shrink.
The initial anger about the demand—I'm not stupid enough to think it's a request, meeting with Dr. Mano certainly wasn't—fades as I'm slapped with a painful realization that does make me heave.
Arkham. Naomi wants me to see someone at Arkham?! She knows he's there. Why would she—
Naomi doesn't need a reason. She wants me to get my work done, and she wants it with as few liabilities as possible. I did some reading before I came back to Gotham. Most of the mental health services were streamlined to be housed in one area—the sprawling new Arkham facilities. Arianna Hill wanted them all to be in one place, a super-facility to provide 'adequate care for those who need it.' Now there's only the pricey private practices and social workers in the city itself. None of which will cut it for Naomi.
No. She can't make me go. She won't.
She'll be expecting confirmation that I've read her messages. I know what she's like when I don't respond. Usually, it starts with one calm call, and then it's someone nearly busting down my door to make sure I haven't 'decided to do something stupid,' as she's said before. I've already ignored her calls, but she isn't here to drag me anywhere. Personal space isn't something you get when working for Colonel Naomi Matsumoto.
Well, fuck her.
Getting to my feet so quick I smack my head and give myself a headrush, I grab my battered phone and bag from the floor and march out of the apartment, not even sure where I want to go or what I'm doing beyond going somewhere—anywhere—else. Finding a gym or somewhere that has things I can punch seems like a good idea—I can pretend it's her head.
I slam the door, and my building anger makes my hands shake. The key won't go in the lock, and I'm close to giving up or trying to tear it off the hinges—I'm still undecided—when someone clears their throat behind me.
"Do you have a thing against doors or something?"
I stiffen but don't jump like I did the other day; I recognize the voice. "Just this door," I say, attacking the lock again and not turning around.
"It'd probably work better if you, I don't know, learned how to work a lock."
My fingers freeze, and I turn to find Zareen sitting on the stairs, elbows propped up on her knees and looking bored.
This brat.
The first words that bubble up are less than kind, and I remind myself that I'm dealing with a kid. A rude one, but still a kid.
"Yeah, I'll get right on that," I grumble, trying—and likely failing—to tame my glower. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" It's Tuesday—at least, I think it's Tuesday. And it's April; too early for school not to be in session. Giving her a quick once over, she doesn't seem sick either. "You're too young to be skipping, kid."
Zareen opens her mouth to speak but shuts it quickly, looking ahead and pretending she didn't hear me. I don't know why, but I walk over to her, leaning on the bannister and looking at her through the wooden spokes. She avoids meeting my eye.
"It's not lunchtime yet, so why are you here?"
And in the hallway, for that matter.
Giving me a sideways glare, her bottom lip sticks out a fraction. "I'm ten. I can decide when to stay home," she says, sitting up a little straighter, as if to make herself look older than she is.
"Ten?" I ask. I don't believe her—something in her face gives it away, maybe the little flush of pink in her cheeks, or the way she won't meet my eyes. "That's still pretty young. Are your parents not around?"
Zareen doesn't answer, picking at a stray thread on her blue shirt. All the thoughts about storming off to do… whatever my mind was fixing on disappears. This kid—this child—is a stranger, a smart-mouthed brat. But I remember when I was like that, when I didn't want to go to school or be around anyone, when I hid but was so desperate for company. It's familiar in a way I wish it wasn't, but I don't know how to deal with it now any better than I did then. Sighing, I drop my bag off my shoulder and round the newel post, taking a seat on the stair below Zareen, letting the quiet sit between us.
"Nine and a half."
It was so muffled I barely heard it. Zareen's covering her mouth with her sleeves, looking away and knee bouncing. "What's that?" I ask.
"I'm… nine and a half," she says, giving me a peeking glance before looking away again.
I thought she would've been younger, but she doesn't look like she's lying this time. Pressing her about it seems like the wrong way to handle this. Hell, I don't know how to handle whatever this is at all.
"I never liked school either," I say after a while, staring at the fading carpet that still smells. Zareen's knee stops bouncing. "You can still learn even if you're not there. Just don't waste your time on TV. Read a book. Take something apart and put it back together. Play outside—something other than letting your brain stay asleep."
That's something Mom told me, back when I'd fake being sick to miss a week of school at a time. Or when I was suspended. It's what opened up the door to learn about computers, how I was good with them—better at it than I was just about everything else. That I could do more with it than staring at a whiteboard and zoning out for eight hours, learn how to read something that always made sense, always had a solution if you were smart enough to figure it out—there were formulae, processes and weaknesses that could be used to your advantage. But it also took out the element of the human, the variable that always led to disappointment and pain.
"Can't think there. It's too loud. I always wanna work on something else but can't," she says, sliding down to sit next to me, scrunching up her nose in thought. I move over to give her room, not minding at all that we're sitting close to one another. "Ms. Morgan says I have DAD. Or something."
"You mean ADD?"
"Yeah, that thing," she says, face brightening and the hands falling away.
For some reason it makes me smile, her enthusiasm. And, for once, it feels natural. "You could just have a lot of energy you're not using. I was like that, too."
Why are you playing BFFs with a nine-year-old?
I don't have an answer for that, but I don't get up to leave. "Why do you talk to me so much? You like this with every stranger?" I ask with a snort, partially as a joke to break the sudden wave of awkwardness I'm feeling and because I just want to know. There's another thing I can't fathom: why I'm the one perpetuating the conversation.
She doesn't even seem to think about it before the words spill out, "I don't know." Her knees bounce again, lips curling up in a goofy grin.
"That was convincing." My own smile grows, stretching my cheeks—it's unfamiliar, like I'd lost the muscle memory of what it felt like.
"I don't," she says, trying to sound more serious but giggling instead. I laugh with her, willing to let it drop when she goes quiet and tugs at the edge of her sleeve with her teeth. "You seemed… nice, I guess. People here are mean."
The laughter dies in my chest. What has this kid seen that watching me assault a door was an indicator of something better than what she'd witnessed before? What's going on that she wants to talk with someone she doesn't know and spend her time sitting alone in a dark stairwell—that no one seems to care where she is? Guilt makes my chest constrict, my mind thinking over every rude thought I had, each impulse to be biting.
What do I say to that?
I'm not good with kids—or people in general. The last year and a half didn't help that much. But… I find myself wanting to try.
Just don't put your foot in your mouth.
"You're nice, too, Zareen," I say, making a point to look at her face and smile again even though the discomfort I feel is deep. I only had Mom and Bruce when I was her age, and, even then, that never felt like entirely enough. "If you ever need something, or just want a place to read—"
What the hell are you offering? You're an idiot—this is a kid you don't know—
"You can just… knock. I'm usually working on my laptop," or drinking—but I'll have to stop that if there's a chance she'll be over, "It's better than hanging out here, yeah?"
Zareen's face brightens up to the point I think she's going to pounce on me, but she seems to draw inward instead, wrapping her arms tight around herself and twisting and bending. "In your place?" she asks, eyes big and seeming to disbelieve, even though she's hanging on the offer, already hoping it's true.
Guilt hits me again—I might've just made an offer I shouldn't have, something I can't live up to. Who knows how I'll feel tomorrow, what stupid thing will come out of my mouth, how I'll ruin her day and make it worse.
"It's almost like… you ruin people. You're trouble—just like me. Surely you must have realized how much, ah—how much damage you do just from being around people."
My eyes close and I push away the memory—his voice, the smells, how cold I was, the fear and terror, the feelings of him—
Stop it—stop. Don't think about it.
I breathe deep, inhaling slowly and releasing the breath, letting it take the memories with it. Forcing myself to keep looking at Zareen, I wonder what it would've been like if I had someone offering that, a hand stretched out to give a small reprieve.
You did. It was Parker.
"Yeah. I don't want you to get in trouble or anything, but you can come over whenever you need to, alright?" I don't know exactly what the magnitude of that offer will look like—if I'll regret it, prove yet again that I am nothing but pure poison. It shouldn't, but what I've just offered feels dangerous, like I'm opening up someone else undeserving to future pain.
Then don't let it happen. Even if it's just her, don't let her down. Be better.
I'm grateful that she doesn't say anything for a while, her smile going small and her round cheeks getting pinker. She goes back to picking at the loose thread when she speaks, "OK, Miriam." She pulls on the thread hard enough for it to snap, making a small hole in the seam of her sleeve. "Thanks."
My smile is back—more real than anything I've felt since my life fell apart. Even after she hops up and goes back to her apartment door, still smiling and waving goodbye, the feeling doesn't leave. It feels like I did something right, that maybe it'll lead to something good instead of breaking. I never thought I was stupid enough to think a future deed would make up for the past, but I find myself falling into that line of reasoning now. And I want it to be true, for this to be an exception.
Maybe… maybe not everything has to be bad.
I still don't know what the hell I'm going to do for the rest of the day—I just know it won't involve talking to Naomi—but I find my mind wandering to the man from the other night—Jason. How he had every opportunity to prove my paranoia right and didn't, how he seemed to mean the things he said, too.
Maybe things can be different.
This could be some high of pure stupidity my brain's running on, brought on by a friendly interaction I was starved of for so long, but something close to… almost hope for things to be better makes me feel light, and not even the scar on my chest can take it away completely.
He's in Arkham. He hasn't gotten out in all this time, and he won't. Zsasz is dead. There's no one left to hurt you but you.
Before I can change my mind or second-guess the decision like I do everything else, I pull out my cell phone and start typing.
What was it you were saying about good waffles?
Y ou are so fucking stupid sometimes, Miri.
The idiocy high is wearing off, leaving me anxious and wringing my hands. If I was a better person, I would've called Alfred back. He's worried—I know from his emails that I haven't answered—but that seems like more than I can handle. Reminders of the before, of the reality I want to shirk—what happened, who I am now, what we lost—is something I don't feel ready to confront.
The rate you're going, you never will. And what will that look like? You can't run away forever.
"You want some coffee, honey?" the waitress, a petite Latina woman with her brown hair tied back in a tight bun, asks me.
I've been sitting in Sal's Diner for fifteen minutes—way ahead of when I said I'd meet Jason. I wanted to get there before I could chicken out, but sitting here turns out to have been a worse mistake. My hands are intent on strangling the other, twisting and searching for the rings that I have tucked away deep in the mess of my bags, sheltered in a small cedar box that I only open when I'm feeling particularly masochistic.
"Do you have hot chocolate?" I ask, trying to still my hands and failing.
"Sure thing." She tucks the notepad away in her apron, giving me a smile and glancing at the empty seat opposite mine in the booth I'm occupying. I feel the need to explain, that I am expecting someone and I'm not doing the lonely lunch for one.
Maybe she thinks you got stood up.
A new sort of paranoia I'm not used to hits me. I look down at my clothes, regretting that I didn't choose something a little better and yet feeling glad that the shirt is large enough to hide in. Rather than the fear of pain or ill-intentions, I'm afraid that I was stupid enough to read into something that wasn't real and finding another reason to never interact with anyone unless absolutely necessary.
Now you just sound neurotic.
"Why am I here again?" I mutter to myself, picking up the standard, slightly sticky container of salt and twist it around, staring at the small indentations and wondering how many meals it's been responsible for seasoning. It's still gray and gloomy outside, nothing unusual for Gotham at this time of year, and the diner is almost empty. The green and pink stripes look muted instead of vibrant, the 50's aesthetic not matching the decrepit facade outside. "You can still leave."
It could still happen. He isn't here yet—then he can feel like the stood-up one. No interaction to deepen any sort of connection, no foul. The urge to withdraw is powerful enough that I pull out my wallet, counting how much change I have to pay the bill.
What were you thinking? You've been just fine not doing shit like this, so why start now? Just go back to the apartment and—
But I'm too late. A tall man walks through the front door, holding a black helmet and wearing a leather jacket dripping with rain. Pushing back his hood, the small streak of white confirms the obvious. Jason looks around, ruffling his hair and smiling when he sees me. The urge to flee only intensifies.
Stupid—you're so, so stupid. It's official.
Before I can make a last-minute exit at some back door, Jason's at the table and shrugging off his jacket, eyes never leaving me. My cheeks get hot and I'm grateful for the sudden appearance of the waitress setting down my drink. I bring it close to the edge of the table, focusing on how the heat burns my hands and noticing the small marshmallows floating.
What are you, twelve? Jesus—idiot. You're a genuine, honest to God idiot.
"Afternoon, sunshine," he says, sitting down opposite me. He's still grinning, lounging back comfortably like the concept of nerves is foreign to him.
"H-Hi." I cringe at the sound of my voice, resisting the need to smack my forehead with my palm and wincing instead and pulling my sleeves down.
So fucking stupid.
"Colour me surprised, I thought I wasn't gonna hear from you again."
I can't help it—staring at him. The wide, easy grin and the open body language that doesn't seem to hide anything, the way he just looks at my face without trying to see past what my clothes are hiding. He has the physical trappings of someone I should be terrified of, the power that's obviously greater than what I can dish out and therefore dangerous, but I'm not. Perhaps this is an exercise in figuring him out as much as alleviating the hollow cavern that's grown in my chest.
"Guess you thought wrong," I say, taking a sip of my drink even though it burns my tongue.
His eyes go to my fingers, and I try to hide them in the fabric of my sleeve. The scars aren't as bright as they were, but they're still there. Dark pink lines and circles from where the frostbite seared my skin, where the burns and cuts left marks deep enough that no amount of vitamin E oil can fade away. There aren't many parts of me that don't have scars now.
"Guess so," he says, eyes going over my shoulder and hand rising in a wave. He's called the waitress back and, as if on cue, I feel my stomach clench with hunger. "Don't lie, though—it was the waffles, wasn't it? They have a way of embedding in your goddamn brain."
I don't mean to, but I snort, smirking to mitigate the expression I want to make. "Yeah—it was definitely the promise of waffles."
The conversation between us is easy. He's been here so often that the waitress knows him, and he's left a good enough impression that she looks between us and gives a knowing grin. It makes my face so hot that I'm surprised I haven't started sweating yet, and although the urge to run very, very far away is still present, it eases back the more he speaks.
He doesn't pry right away, going over the large assortment of options as to how I can experience the ultimate waffle feast of all my wildest dreams. I didn't mean to, but he's making me laugh, talking about which fruit combinations are the best like it's a science. The way he talks about it makes the food appealing in a way I haven't felt about much of anything in a long time, and it isn't until we've placed our orders—his ridiculously larger than mine—that he props his elbows on the table and gives a more discerning look.
"You been feeling alright, Adina?" he asks, trying to maintain an air of casualness. But I know what he means.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
It's automatic and much smoother than I thought I could be, but he doesn't look convinced. He raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything at first—probably waiting for me to fill up the silence with words. Dr. Mano did that a lot. I learned quickly to be OK with letting the quiet stay that way, so I sip at my drink and stare at his hands.
"Hmm." He shifts so that he's in my line of sight again. "Don't mean to be rude, but you look dog-tired," he says.
I scoff, but I'm suddenly all too aware of the permanent bags under my eyes. Sleep is a tenuous concept, one I only grasp at for a few hours at a time. I push my hair back, a nervous habit I haven't gotten rid of.
"Isn't everyone?" I counter.
"Maybe—but most people don't go around punching strangers when they're tired," he says. I go cold, starting in my face and going down my spine. Sitting back in the booth, I stare out the window, already thinking of what to say to leave. "Hey, hey—I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Just a little… worried, is all."
"Why would you be worried about me?" I ask, eyes snapping to him as my defenses go up.
Instead of backpedalling, Jason's smile changes, arms dropping down to lay flat on the tabletop. "Good question. Don't really know myself. I'd say it's the way my ma raised me, but that wouldn't be true." It's his turn to look out the window. The vibrations coming from the floor tell me he's bouncing his knee, and my shoulders unconsciously lower. "I've seen enough bad shit happen to good people that I don't particularly like to do nothing when I can help," he finishes.
There isn't much good about me left. So what is he seeing?
"You sound like a cop." But not a cop from here, I don't add—I know not enough has happened for that to change completely in Gotham. Anger finds me, that need to lash out. "I don't need your pity." I wince at myself—at how I asked to see him and then do nothing but act like a bitch instead, at how my ability to have interactions with others that doesn't end in hostility seem to have evaporated.
"Ex-military, actually." His shoulders go back, and a muscle in his neck jumps as his jaw tightens. My mouth opens like a goddamn carp's. "Always wanted to help. Make a difference, y'know?" He's smiling, but it looks pained.
"You… don't feel like you did?" I have my own feelings about what the military does after working for Naomi, the things I had to help with. But I know not everyone is like that—that they don't all think like she does.
"Sometimes I think I did. But, most of the time, no. Not at all." Genuine anger and frustration crosses his face, but it's all self-contained, wrapped up in a form of guilt that reflects what I see in the mirror every day. "They got me young. Pumped me full of ideas of helping the cause—bringing a force of good to the places that needed it. Bunch of fucking bullshit that turned out to be."
Resentment, bitterness, and hints of spite lace his tone, and I understand why. It's as familiar as Zareen's loneliness, the struggle to stand when your legs won't hold you. His fists curl and he's lost in himself for a moment. More than when he was being nice, I don't find something to be suspicious of. Instead, I see something intimate and familiar: Hate that underpins everything—every memory of pain and failure—no matter how much we might want to lie to ourselves otherwise.
"I understand." The heat comes back in my face; I didn't mean to speak. Jason looks at me, questioning—not totally convinced that I'm not being superficial. "My mom—she was in the military."
That's a lie, one I feel bad about telling. I can't tell him what I do, what I have done that makes me know what he means. How many case files have I looked at of ex-soldiers, had kept tabs on for Naomi for men discharged from Special Forces, making sure they stay as patriotic as when they had enlisted? How many did I investigate for living through the horrors that come with war, where there are no winners?
It's only been eighteen months, but I've lost count.
"'Was'? She a vet now, too?" he asks, curious and making a purposeful effort to relax his hands and arms.
"No." The word's a bark, a hasty snap to kill the topic even though I'm the one who brought her up. My finger goes to my ring finger, searching for the band I can't stand to wear anymore. It makes me angry, but it makes me feel something else, too. "No, she… she's dead. Been gone for a long time."
To his credit, Jason takes it in stride, face softening in understanding but never pity. "I'm sorry."
It sounds like he means it—not as a way to fill silence after an uncomfortable moment, but that he is sorry it happened at all, as if it's something that I could've been shielded from but wasn't.
Parker was like that, too.
I shake my head, keeping my eyes down to make it easier. "Don't be. Nothing anyone can do about cancer." Jason stays still, not making a sound to fill any uncomfortable gaps this time. It makes me feel like I have to. "Brain tumour. Inoperable. It was about the size of a softball by the time it killed her."
Jason shakes his head and rubs his chin, looking away before turning back to me. But something's changed—his eyes become shards of bright ice, mouth a hard line. I can't read anything at all on his face. "Mine died when I was eight."
I don't know why I would've expected him to come from a family more stable and full than mine, but I did for some reason. The words, and how… almost callous they sound, takes me aback.
"Oh, Jason—"
He cuts me off with a wave of his hand, his smile inured rather than easy-going as it was before. And, as if there was a sense of dramatic irony waiting in the wings, the waitress comes back with our food, setting down the hot plates in practised motions.
"You two call if you need anything," she says, and Jason waves in thanks, smiling without it reaching his eyes this time.
I'm still reeling, but Jason digs into his heaping plate of three large waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs and an omelette like it's his last meal on earth. "No, it's OK. I'll sound like a cold son of a bitch, but she was an addict—wasn't much she did worth talking about after I turned four. Having her dead or alive didn't make a difference."
Jason's right, he does sound cold, but I don't blame him. Even though his face doesn't give much away, and he's shovelling in food like we're talking about the weather, there's an entire history between the lines of what he's said: Something ugly and deep, damaging and effacing. For how he is now—seemingly stable and without any visible and apparent vices, how he managed to survive in one piece is a testament to a sort of resilience I envy.
But there's something else, too.
Grief—I know that well enough to see it in front of me.
For once, I don't look away from him after more than a few seconds, taking in the lines and planes of his face in the bright lights of the diner as I start to pick at my smaller plates of waffles heaped with fruit, whipped cream, and powdered sugar. Any lingering sense of distrust is fading despite my efforts to hold onto them. He's seen the same things I have—probably worse, and he understands them, feels what I have.
"I don't think you believe that," I say after a while.
He surprises me by smiling for real, short and fleeting before he's the one who can't meet my eyes. "Maybe not," he admits, chuckling through his nose and taking several more bites. He wipes his hand down his face, taking away the last hints of what had come over him before. "But, you didn't ask me here to talk about depressing shit. We came here to eat some good fuckin' food, didn't we?"
As if to prove his point, he shoves an entire half of one of the waffles in his mouth. My initial snort quickly turns into a laugh and Jason joins in, almost choking, weight lifting on us both. He was right, the food here is good, and I find myself eating more than I have in a long time and enjoying it. He keeps the conversation light, asking me about my favourite movies as a kid and seeing if any matched up with his, talking about music and fake-mocking each other's tastes in books with him quickly showing that he's much better read than I am.
The time flies by in a way I haven't experienced since I was fifteen. When we finish our food, we keep talking until my body loosens in a way I don't remember feeling. It isn't until I happen to glance outside by chance and see that it's dark that I remember myself—remember that I'm not supposed to do these things: Make friends, let myself forget, feel… something close to what normal must be like. The ease I felt fades, and an annoying sense of demurity that pisses me off comes over me when I realize I need to leave.
I take my hands away from where they rested in the middle of the table and draw inward, pulling down the sleeves from where they had started to rise up my forearms. He didn't look like he was staring at my arms, and I can only hope he missed the lines of scars along them.
The smell of burned rubber, smoke, gunpowder, and sweat—it's in my nose and in my lungs. Broken glass cuts through my skin, tearing at it in long, unified drags. The hard pressure of the knife dragging across my arm before splitting in a bloom of agony—
"Hey, sunshine."
The memory stops and the edges of my vision clear—I'm back in the diner; Jason's face comes into focus, but I can't make myself smile without effort. "Um, thanks. For this, I mean. I… didn't know I needed it."
Wow, Miri—you sound like an idiot. Christ.
I sound like a preteen.
Probably look like one, too.
I'm cringing, already drawing in and grabbing my bag to bolt after all when Jason clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. "I'd like to do this—or, something different, it doesn't have to be waffles—" He breaks off with a mumbled curse, seeming unsure of himself. It's strange—he's seemed so self-assured before. Confident. But now he's tripping over his words as much as I do. "Ah, shit. I'm bad at this," he mutters to himself.
Something—it's stupid, naïve, and a feeling that should be dead, crushed under the boot of so many others and the pain and hate I won't let go of—bubbles up and sits in my chest, expanding it in a way that feels… nice. It's nerve-wracking, terrifying in a way that I'm grateful is different from what I've felt before. But it's irrational—I shouldn't feel like this. How can I?
Yeah, Miri, how can you? You're pushing it today. Asking for it all to fall apart.
Turns out I didn't learn as much as I thought I did. Or, maybe I keep making the same mistakes because I want someone to prove me wrong. I just don't know why I want that to be Jason.
"Yeah, I—" Uncertainty chokes me, and I resist the urge to tug on my hair like I really am a dumbstruck teen. "I'd… like that."
Don't cry when it blows up in your face. Just wait for it all to come crashing down. For the nightmares to come back and drowning it with shit that doesn't work.
"You have nobody—no one! Who could ever want ya now, hmm?"
Before Jason can answer, I bolt up from the booth, dropping three twenties on the table and already feeling like every word out of my mouth was a mistake that I tricked myself into making. His voice comes back, echoing and filling my brain.
You're so stupid—you knew better, Miri.
"Adina, where're you going?" Jason calls after me.
I ignore him, pushing out the door and walking right into the rain. Shivering and holding my arms as I go from being comfortably warm to freezing, I try to work through what's warping the world around me and figure out which way to go.
"Adina, hey—"
A hand grabs my arm and I spin so quickly that trip off the curb. I'm pulled back up, kept from falling into the large, dirty puddle by the gutter. My breathing hitches, clenching my ribs tight and making my vision cloud. But it does clear, and it calms at seeing that it's Jason and not—
Why did you text him? Why did you bother trying? You're not worth anything.
Nothing. You're worth nothing.
"Can I give you a ride home at least?" he asks, looking worried.
My voice catches in my throat, but I nod. I don't want to walk, be alone. Even though that's what needs to happen—I need to be away. Shut-up and far from everything I can hurt.
Or can hurt you.
Jason holds out his jacket for me underneath the eaves of the diner, nodding at me to put it on. With my body aching from the cold and feeling numb from the inside out, I don't argue or think about it. I shrug it on, taking in the cologne that smells like pine and sage, and the lingering scent of old cigarettes. He doesn't crowd me, occasionally nudging me along until we get further down the sidewalk. I'm looking for a car, but he stops at a black modified street-bike. The helmet should've been a clue, but it's like my mind's wading in mud. He hands it to me, waiting until I manage to clip it right and get behind him.
"Make sure you hang on tight, sunshine."
I take the instructions passively until he revs the engine, pulling back the throttle and peeling down the street. The road and cars whip by, Jason only stopping for red lights—and even some of those I'm pretty sure he sped through—and the lights blur together until they're just long streaks passing us by. The helmet on my head is heavy, making my neck feel like it's wobbling and head off-balance. My arms are wrapped tight around Jason and it feels nice until it doesn't. Searing pain rips down my chest, carving it open.
"Now you know I'm not going anywhere, hmm? No matter where you go or what you do, you'll always think of me."
Stop it, Miri—stop it. Don't think about it.
He was right. The fucking bastard made sure I'd never forget about him. That I'd always carry him with me, no matter what. It's counter to what my mind's screaming at me, but I hold Jason tighter.
It's not until the bike turns off that the world forces its way back in, the barrier of sound no longer there to keep it away.
"Ask me to do it."
His face isn't visible anymore, only passing shades of colour that meld into a mess of confusion. It's hard to make the words come. His hand cups my face, making me refocus.
"Ask for what?"
"Adina?"
A hand waves in front of my face, and I almost scream. The memory falls away, and Jason's face—Jason's, not his—is all that's there. His finger taps on the helmet and I struggle to get the thing off, feeling stifled and claustrophobic.
"You said something?" Jason asks, taking the helmet from me and putting it under the crook of his arm. There's concern and something else, too. He's being analytical, searching for something in my face—I just don't know what.
"No—no," I say, not convincing anyone and blinking the rain out of my eyes. Looking around, trying to keep the overwhelming thoughts back, I search for which drab apartment building in a sea of many is mine. "I'm this way." I point down the road, finding the temporary place I rest my head.
Jason nods. "I'll walk you there, if that's cool."
It's nice that he's still asking, not barging his way into my life like so many others have. We walk in silence; me not knowing what to say and him deliberating some unspoken point. I force in deep breaths of air, feeling how it cools my lungs, the bitter taste of rainwater on my tongue.
You're fine. Just keep breathing. Breathe.
We get to the front door, huddling under the small awning. He's close enough that all I smell is him, and the thoughts hammering in my brain slow. I make an effort to meet Jason's eye.
"I'm bad company," I say, pushing the wet hair off my cheek and only managing a half-grin. Jason's gaze is heavy, so focused on my face and unwavering. The cold disappears and the heat comes back, not entirely unpleasant. "I hope I didn't ruin a perfectly good afternoon for you."
He smiles back, showing a quick flash of teeth and a dimple in his cheek. "Nah, I think you'd have to try pretty hard to ruin my day, sunshine." I don't mean to, but I laugh—bursting into a fit of giggles that takes him by surprise. I'm doubled over, almost howling, and Jason chuckles along with me. "What? Was it something I said?"
You have no idea, Jason. And I hope you never do.
I hope he never knows what I have ruined, what I can still erode just by being in its proximity. I don't want to do that to him—but I'm afraid I already have. His words shouldn't be funny, but they are. It's a leftover of the madness, peeking through when they irony is just too goddamn much. Wiping at my eyes, I'm about to thank him when my body stops dead, legs almost giving out and heart slamming into a wall.
No, no, no, no—he's dead. He's dead. You watched him bleed out. You watched his skin—
A man's walking down the street. Wearing a big khaki jacket, a cigarette hangs from his lips, his hair black and shaggy. The look in the eyes is the same—so are the notches carved into his skin. I'm looking at Zsasz.
Nonononono—
I start backing up, never taking my eyes off him and hoping his never find me.
You have to leave. Run, run—
"What the fuck? Adina, what's wrong?"
Jason stands in front of me, eclipsing the view of Zsasz.
Do I tell him or do I run? How could you explain how a man's back from the dead? Go, go—
I still don't know how to fight, how to quash that insurmountable fear. I'm still a coward, looking for someone else to fight my battles for me. Regressing back to being so fucking weak.
"Hey—"
I go around Jason, watching to see if Zsasz has a knife, where I need to run, but the man I'm looking at isn't Zsasz at all. He's still wearing the same thing—hair still long and black. But his face is completely different. A total stranger, someone I've never met before. He walks by, not even glancing at me, and confusion leaves me vulnerable—lets the memories come crawling back, leaving their imprint on my body. The familiar pressure is there—hands touching my skin, pulling at it, pressing hard enough to leave bruises, holding me down and stealing the life from me.
Drink. You need to drink—go to sleep for ten hours.
But I don't have booze upstairs. And there's no way I'm making it to a store.
"Sorry," I find myself saying, eyes turning back to him but feeling vacant. "Just… thought I saw someone I knew."
He's unconvinced. "Then why do you look scared?"
Good question.
I can't tell him that; why I'm like this. The feelings haven't left and I know they'll be worse as soon as he leaves and I have no way to kill them.
Yes, you do.
"No, just… surprised. Guess I'm still not really… really feeling a hundred percent yet," I say lamely. Jason's energy seems to darken, almost turning into brooding. "I'm sorry—I… it's been a while since I've been around good people."
Jason scoffs and smiles, but it's hollow. "I'm not 'good' people, Adina," he says under his breath.
Can he tell I'm not either?
There's no booze upstairs, but another solution to making the thoughts die for a little while—taking away the feelings that are choking the air from my lungs—is standing right in front of me. One tool might've changed, but some stayed the same.
It's… worked in the past. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't into you. You can't be alone with this.
I'm seeing Zsasz with his boiled skin, smelling it even as I feel his hands grabbing at my chest. The scar on my sternum burns—the ones on my arms feeling like they're happening for the first time again. Other feelings follow—that same sense of violation and powerlessness.
Just make it stop.
Make it stop.
"Do you want to come upstairs?" My voice is so… light. Airy. Detached. This body isn't mine and it needs a reminder. A block to maintain the distance.
Jason's head whips to the side, brows drawing together. "Oh." He opens his mouth several times as if to speak but doesn't until a sense of calm comes over him. Something heavy shifts in his eyes and my breathing picks up. "You sure, Adina?" he asks. Even now, he's giving me the chance to take it back, say I changed my mind.
But I know what I'm asking for.
"Yeah, I am."
I take his hand, calloused but still soft somehow, in mine and pull him into the building. I don't know how I manage to navigate anything, I don't feel the path under my feet or see the walls as they close in. For once, the keys don't give me trouble—as if they want me to feel better, too.
It's not real, anyway. Nothing's real.
We're barely in the elevator when I look at him, taking him in like he's part of a dream. And, for all it matters, he is. One that needs to replace the nightmares coming for me.
Make it stop.
My body is numb and dead until my lips touch his, small and hesitant at first. Jason's the same, standing stock still, not touching me for a minute until he pulls back.
"Hey—hey, you… don't have to do that," he says, eyebrows pinching together and looking uncertain.
"I want to."
I stay close, waiting to see if I was wrong—that I did misread something. But he doesn't back away this time.
"You sure?"
Nodding, I kiss him again, hesitant again until his hands brush along my arms, his helmet dropping to the ground. It feels nice, being close to him. There is no terror here, there is no fear of pain. I'm not afraid of Jason. That makes this easier, but that crushing sense of guilt that's never far away expands.
My hands go to his neck, holding him close as his go to my waist, careful not to go higher than my ribs. He's still being cautious—slow. I don't want him to be. It's electric, him touching me. And it does what I need it to—nothing else breaks through. Nothing else matters.
I don't realize we're moving until he's guiding us out of the elevator when we get to my floor. I barely care, chasing the feeling of him and running away from the rest. "Which one?" he asks in between breaks for air.
I motion vaguely with my hand, breaking away, lips swollen and hot. Unlocking the door is a task I only half think about, not wanting to be far from him. When I struggle, he takes them from me and unlocks it with ease, and the usual crippling self-consciousness doesn't follow me into the apartment. I'm not me—it is and isn't my body—and my mind is drifting a safe distance away.
Make the world stop.
The door closes and he's behind me, kissing my neck. I close my eyes and go somewhere else. Somewhere far from here.
I'm pressed against the wall, his body flush with mine. Memories—unwanted ones—rise and I bury them. My hands go to his chest, his just above my hips. Mine drag down, going to his belt.
"Whoa there, sunshine," he says, grabbing my wrists and pulling them away. The nickname brings something back, drags my mind closer. "Just… take it slow. No need for that."
"Why do you call me 'sunshine'?" I ask, out of breath. It sparks a memory, comes with a feeling on my ribs—a reminder of the tattoo etched into my skin, who was there when I got it.
Parker… he used to say something similar. So did Mom.
The thought hits me in a wave, coalescing with everything I'm trying to hold back.
He stares, face serious and lips brushing against mine without meeting them entirely. "Don't know. You just… are," he murmurs.
What are they all seeing? Why can't I see it myself?
When I stay still, he draws back, sense returning to his eyes. "Oh—you don't like that one either?" he asks, pulling away and checking to see if he accidentally hurt me anywhere. His body is bigger than mine, so it's possible, but I don't feel anything other than my heart constricting.
"No, it's…"
I can't finish. What I'm feeling needs to die. It can't be here—my heart can't take anymore. It can't.
Make it all stop.
Jason might be almost twice my size, but I take him by surprise when my body meets his again. I go on tip-toe, kissing him and taking his hands and putting them back on my hips, encouraging him to do more. That's all I can focus on—the present, the physical sensations that I'll hate myself for later. That I'll use as more ammunition to make the next episode worse.
Just like you always do.
But it doesn't matter right now.
You don't matter.
"Adina, wait—"
Jason tries to break away but I can't. When he pulls back, my mouth goes to his neck and hands back to his belt. None of the other men ever said no—never knew what I was doing, and I need Jason to be one of those right now.
"Hey, stop—"
He's stronger than me, I never doubted that, but I never imagined that he'd be able to use such precision in exercising it. Jason takes me by the forearms, fingers never digging in hard enough to hurt, and holds me at a distance. His lips are red and intumescent, but his eyes are sharp—the desire ebbing away and pulled back under control.
Why is he stopping?
"You alright?" he asks.
For a moment, I don't know how to answer; my mouth doesn't work. But Jason is patient, holding me back until he's certain I'll stay there. It's when he lets go of my arms that I find my voice.
"I—I'm fine."
Jason—the way he's looking at me—I don't like it. He knows I'm lying. He can see it and won't ignore it. The burning heat leaves and my body dies again, trapping me inside.
"Then why are you crying?" he asks softly.
Crying?
I touch my cheeks and realize he's right. My cheeks are streaked with them, and they don't stop. Stone-cold reality hits me across the face, sobering me quicker than a bucket of ice water. Shame hits me first. Hits me harder than those times Lewis punched me. With the shame comes the loathing—red hot and scalding. Usually that would come the morning after. When they'd be long gone and I could lie there and pretend I didn't exist.
But worse than all of those is the despair. How it claws its way up from the inside, filling my throat and enveloping my heart. It's always there, one of my constants—its presence reminding me of how much he lied, of how alone I'll always be.
Why did you do any of this? Why did you think things would be different—that you could be any better?
"Leave."
Rushing to cover the mess of vitriol tearing me apart is rage. My fists curl and I want to hit something. I want to hit it hard enough that my hands bleed and my knuckles break. Pain can take away the rest, swallow me and be my world. I can get lost in pain; it can take away everything else.
"Adina, I didn't mean—"
Now he's coming toward me, but I back up, refusing to look at him. I don't want to hit him—not like I did before.
"Get out," I growl. Anger is good at covering a multitude of things. And I need it to be enough that I don't break down now.
"You're clearly not OK—"
"Get out!" I shout, surprising myself at how it sounds. The tears come harder, a sob barely stifled in my chest. "Just… leave."
But Jason doesn't listen, trying to come to—what, comfort me? He doesn't understand and I don't want him to. My arms hug my chest tight, and everything I managed to shove down is drowning me.
"Please," I whisper.
Jason stops, but I can't look at him—find that familiar look of pity.
Get away.
The only place to go is the bathroom. Rather than stand here and lose it—inviting him to play the White Knight—I back away until I get there, locking myself in and dropping to the floor. The sobs tear out of me, and I try to muffle them by burying my face in my sleeves.
"OK, I'm leaving," Jason says, close on the other side of the door. He doesn't try to open it, and he sounds tired. No sound of movement comes for a moment, but I can almost imagine him scratching the back of his head. "This isn't a permanent no, Adina. Fucking goddamnit—"
His voice dies and quiet comes again. It makes me want to open the door, listen to what he's going to say. But the deep shame that's branded onto my skin keeps me still, keeps me wallowing in my own misery—perpetuating the agony that's the only thing I'm worthy of.
"I'll call you tomorrow, OK? And you… can always call me, too."
I barely hear him; I'm tearing at my hair like I can pull myself apart.
Stupid, stupid, stupid—
It's distantly that I register the apartment door opening, the shuffling and heavy steps followed by the click of wood resting back in its frame. He could've robbed me blind if he wanted and I wouldn't have done anything.
It doesn't matter.
Numbness finds me quickly, settling in and making my eyes dry. The grout of the bathroom tile is stained and dirty, each speck and peel distinct against a blur of muddy white.
The distance I need comes later, allowing me to settle down and lose the power in my arms. Exhaustion isn't far behind.
Just… try to go to sleep.
Inching my way up, I grab the chipped porcelain sink and stand. Washing the remnants of that from my face, the water cold and biting, I go back into the apartment. I asked Jason to leave, but now part of me wishes he had stayed.
That's because you're pathetic.
"'Adina'?"
The panic is so much that it transcends my body's ability to be able to scream. But another response is immediate—I'm close enough to the kitchen island to grab a knife. Before I can even use it, find where the voice came from, a familiar shape stands apart from the dark. He's been on the news every day, the obsession the world won't let go of. Ultimately, it's the stupid ears on his head that give him away.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" The urge to throw the knife in my hand at him is strong. I drop it back on the counter when I find my rage again. "Why would you just—why are you just standing in the corner like—like a fucking weirdo?! "
Bruce—or, rather, Batman is standing by an open window to the left of my bed. The signs of my new habit at his feet. Something close to hatred clouds everything.
But you know you're not really angry at him.
Doesn't matter.
"Get out. You're trespassing," I say, glaring and turning my back on him to get a glass of something.
He steps out from the corner but seems hesitant to come into the fading light in what counts as the living room. "We need to talk." He can't even talk normally, his voice deep and gravelly.
That's because the Bruce you knew is dead. He never came back.
"No, we don't."
I turn on the lights out of spite. He blinks once, his eyes adjusting, and I take him for what he is. His body armour, or whatever it is, looks rough—damaged. Like someone took a knife to it. Repeatedly. Half his face is obscured by the mask, but he looks borderline haggard. But he mostly looks like a man holding onto a delusion. I was right, Bruce doesn't like to look back—but he doesn't know how to look to the future either. Not in the ways that matter.
"Miri—"
"What? You can't even—can't even see me outside of that stupid fucking getup?" The built-up anger, the swirl of everything this day has turned out to be, is a tempest battering my chest. It needs to get out. I don't have alcohol and I don't have someone to take it all away—the only recourse I have left is wrath. "You want something."
He doesn't answer, and I know I'm right. Shaking my head, unable to stare at him any longer, I start forming the accusations I want to lob at him. They burn my throat, poisoning me before I can try doing it to him.
"It's not that simple."
"Sure it is," I say. With how things are, everything that's left between us is simple. The history between us is divorced from the present. It has to be. My heart couldn't take it otherwise. "What do you want, Bruce?" I ask again.
Bruce's mouth doesn't even open. He's just staring, taking the apartment—how it's a mess, the cans and bottle of empty wine—before landing on me. I know what he's seeing, and I wish he couldn't. I also wish none of this had happened, that the time away had taken the sting—the ever-present reminders, the history carved onto our faces. But it hasn't.
And it never will.
"I need your help," he says.
"You, the great Detective, resident pariah of Gotham City, need my help?" I scoff.
Downing the glass of water in my hand, I rub at my head, attempting to ease away the headache forming behind my eyes and the overwhelming desire to scream that's coming up like bile. AfterThe Siege, Batman's position in the public opinion went from hopeful to tenuous at best. No one can decide on a stable opinion, but they all blame their problems on him with gusto.
"Yes."
I laugh like I did outside with Jason, short barks like a hyena—more an expression of pain than humour. But there it is—that wonderful sense of cosmic irony; life coming back full circle. As quick as it shook me, it dies. I stay leaning on the counter—it's the only thing holding me up as the world spins.
"No."
That's the only answer he'll get from me. I look up long enough to dare him to challenge me on it. His head tilts to the side, chest deflating. I've disappointed him.
Good. About time that got shared between us.
He starts towards me, not knowing how to be in the light as a man dressed up in an overpriced costume. "People are dying—being murdered. I need your—"
His words don't really click—it's nonsense. Something he'd never draw me into. I back up, not wanting any less than five feet between us. Not after everything. I don't know what I'd do—punch him in the jaw or hug him. And I don't want to do either.
"Get out, Bruce."
For once, he takes a hint. Sighing, he shifts, coming across as… awkward.
That's new.
"Why are—"
"Why what?" I cut him off, fists curling tight as I try to control my voice. "You don't get to play ignorant with me. Who didn't bother to see me and wanted to play hero instead? Who didn't care enough to call while I was gone? Send one email, a text? Who was it that decided to put his delusions of grandeur over everything else? Where were you when I needed your help, Bruce? Me."
The tears come again and I don't want them to. Wiping at my skin hard enough to focus on that instead of what's in front of me, I try to think. It's hard—so hard. I want to be high, drunk—anything other than how this feels. I'm hurting, and even if it's nothing new, it's something I don't know how to live with. I can't make it go away, but that dark part of me—the one that's never far away anymore—wants someone else to feel like this, too.
Thoughts of Mom come up with that desire, but I crush it before it can hold my tongue. "You couldn't even help Rachel. Look where that got her."
He takes a step back like I hit him. Taking one long blink, Bruce's eyes—as obscured as they are by the black greasepaint around them—look vulnerable. And I know he feels it because he won't look at me.
"I'm sorry," he says.
I want to believe that's true, that he is and that things will change. The happy, stupid dream I have of going back in time, to that place where things were alright, seeps through. The desire to hold onto it, to make it real—even if it's just for the sake of trying—squeezes my heart.
"No, you're not. If you were, you wouldn't be doing this."
He shakes his head. "I've been watching you—"
"Watching me? You've been watching me?" Whatever I was just feeling dies. I should've seen this coming: That he'd content himself with playing voyeur and patting himself on the back as if that counted as a form of involvement, of caring. "You don't get that right. You don't get to do this—pop up when you want to and just—"
I have to cut myself off. Squeezing the glass in my hand so hard I can feel it starting to crack, my jaw tightens so hard I think my teeth will split. Self-admonishment, hatred, shame, embarrassment, anger, and just all-consuming desperation—for things to be different, for me to be different, for him to be the man I remember—hurts just as much as everything he and Zsasz did. For the first time since everything happened, the wish for death presses on my mind like a knife in the chest. But not for Bruce's—for mine.
"Get out. You shouldn't have come here," I whisper. I'm losing all control and I need to be alone.
But, once again, Bruce only sees what he wants to—putting the mission above everything else. His useless crusade that will result in nothing.
"People have been tortured, escaped from somewhere and driven mad. They tear out their own eyes, self-cannibalize, and they die terrified— "
"I'm not helping you."
"Three people already dead, and more will follow. Are you going to ignore that?"
He's going for the guilt-trip tack now, but I'm too numb for it to work. My heart's been severed, imploding on its own as feral self-preservation tries to save what's left.
"Just… leave me alone. It's what you're good at, isn't it?"
His face falls, that drive in him pulling back and replaced by something close to human again. "Miri—"
"No. No—leave. I don't want to see you, don't you get it? Haven't I hurt enough for knowing you?" A sob wracks my chest and I hate myself for it.
Why did I leave today? Why did I think anything could be different?
Why do I still have to be here?
The message seems to sink in. He backs further away, to the window he slunk through to make everything worse, just like he always does.
"Alfred… he misses you, Miri."
'We both do.'
But he doesn't say that. God forbid that Batman be anything close to human. The man I always looked up to is gone—erased and swallowed whole. I knew that before—this shouldn't be a surprise. But it is and it's tearing what's left of me apart. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I want to genuinely hurt someone. I want to hurt him—I want to watch his lifeblood leave him and take his soul with it like it might repair mine.
But it won't. Can't.
You don't matter.
That scream comes after all, and with it a burst of rage. I throw the glass in my hand—aiming for his head but missing and making it smash against the wall instead.
He doesn't even flinch.
"Get out!"
My wish for solitude is finally fulfilled. In as much time it took to muffle the shouted insults I wanted to hurl at him, he's gone—the only markers to prove he was here at all are the shards of glass on the floor and the wet imprint of boots. But, through the tears, I see something else. On the coffee table is something small and black.
Coming closer, wiping at my eyes to make sure they're working right, I pick up a small chip in my hand. It's barely smaller than my pinky nail, but it's a chip alright. Encased in some silicone lining—the kind used for implants in living organisms so they don't break down as quickly.
Probably what he wants you to do.
I need something to dull this, to take out the knife that's bleeding me dry. Setting the chip down, I go to my bags and dig until I find what I'm looking for. The bottle of valium.
Doesn't matter, does it? You're broken all the same.
Taking four, I swallow them dry. Everything in me drains away, leaving the burning on my sternum as the only sign that I can still feel anything at all. It doesn't take long, that familiar hold that I knew so well in high school finds me. It's soft and soothing, taking the blunt edge of the world away, smothering them.
Is this who you want to be, Miri?
Those thoughts again. The ones I always think have left me behind. They always come just after I give in, as if to keep reminding me how weak I am.
You didn't survive all of that for this to be all that's left for you.
"Make up your mind," I murmur to myself. It's as if I'm split in two, the halves never meeting and tearing each other apart instead.
Why haven't you tried putting them back together?
All too suddenly, I regret taking the pills—fighting to stay awake, to keep trying to think through this.
You didn't try before because it hurt. It was easier to pretend it didn't happen if you took away all the reminders. What about now—who are you going to be? Stay in the same place, or fight for something different?
But, before I can think any more, the pills smother me, too—take me by the hand and lead me down into the dark. And, just for now, I welcome it.
AN: I know things are still pretty hard for Miri - but trauma of that magnitude that she experienced takes a lot of time to process - and that's with therapy and a good support system (often), and Miri isn't willing to accept any of those things. She's making progress, and it comes at a huge cost at the moment, but it does get better. Having her jump from completely traumatized to being fine and functioning would be disingenuous, and I want y'all to walk that journey with Miriam. How that looks sometimes is rough and very much unhealthy, but those are all things that are part of a process. I hope you'll hang in there with me and see where I'm taking all this!
Thank you again to Khaosprinz for all her help, input, advice, and proofreading for this!
