Lush green hills, deep and rolling, with grass that grows beneath my feet, soft and wet, tickle the sensitive spots under the arch of them, weaving between my toes. They spring upward as I walk, eager to be close, to touch my skin. There's a breeze that wraps around me, pushing me forward, working its fingers through my hair and close to the scalp that makes me shiver.
I've been here before. Stared at this same azure sky, looked at the same trees. It was another lifetime ago, when the snow fell and embraced the earth, hardening it—leaving it unwilling to accept one of its own. My eyes burn, but I keep moving, aimless and lost.
But I've been here before, right?
"You don't have to disappear."
I spin around, searching for the sound of the voice. It's so familiar, an extension of me.
Turning in circles, I find nothing—the grass grows too long, snaring my feet. I fall forward, landing against something firm and warm.
"It's all right here."
Shoulder-length black hair, slanted eyes the colour of home. Sharp cheekbones and a smile that tells me everything will be OK, that I don't need to be afraid. I'm not alone.
Hands grasp mine, gentle and adding the smallest bit of pressure. Something in my chest aches.
"If you open your eyes, you'd see."
My arms go around him, pressing his chest to mine. I need to hold him—I need to keep him close. He can't leave. He can't die. He can't leave me. I can't let him.
"Everything you need is here."
No, it's disappearing, the sky going gray and clouded. The grass spires up my calves, biting and sharp, the life leaving it like it's leaving me.
"It's all right here in front of you."
But it isn't. It's all gone. Gone because of me.
"Don't leave—Parker, don't leave me again—"
His hands bite my shoulders, fingers pressing deep into the skin. His body, once warm, grows cold—the heat sapping into the earth.
"You just have to open your eyes," he says softly.
I don't want to, but I'm under some strange spell, the kind that paralyzes—shackles you in your own body, making your bones a new kind of prison—and I look up. I'm not staring at Parker anymore.
This man's hair is blond and curly, wrapping around his ears and fanning down his neck. Eyes like honey left to harden, he's not smiling, but his gaze sets my chest on fire. Staring at him is the same as staring at the sun, and I can't look away.
His fingers trail down my cheek and I lean into the contact. I do and don't know him—he's foreign and a part of me. His touch goes down my neck, so slowly—his thumb making my skin rise to meet it. Not stopping until he reaches my sternum, he leans in close; his face makes up the world, smelling like smoke and decay—like the end of everything.
"You know I'm not going anywhere."
I do know it; I know it better than anything I ever have in my life. Something cool passes over my lips, fanning across my cheek to push my hair back.
"No matter where you go or what you do, you'll always think of me."
My eyes close, but rather than being greeted by black, a flash of colour—green, purple, and red—blinds me instead. Twisting and dancing, winking in and out and forming something—someone. The cold grips me until I know it's all I'll ever feel—all I'll ever have alone, all that will ever wait for me until I embrace a new sun and abandon the one that died.
Something soft passes over my closed eyelids, brushing against the thick lines of my eyelashes, tracing my brow.
"Just open your eyes."
I wake up alone.
It's with a jerk, a sudden spasm of my limbs that sends a painful jolt up my back to the base of my skull, that I sit up just to smack my head against the ceiling of… something.
What the fuck?
Rubbing my smarting head, my eyes adjust to the dark. Blinking away the lingering flashes of light from the dream, I'm already forgetting it as reality floods in. A groan, deep in my throat, is the only sound I can make as I try to get my dry tongue to stop sticking to the roof of my mouth.
What happened?
I'm sitting in the car Naomi left for me, propped up in the driver's seat with the back of it down all the way. Instead of seeing the lights from the warehouse district, I see a pitch of black that's impossible to find in the city. Looking out the window, I see the moving shadows of the trees around me, the small stars above.
"Shit," I mumble, clearing my throat and searching in the dark for my keys, phone—anything to tell me exactly what happened.
Things are still fuzzy, like there are parts of my brain still stuck somewhere else. I find my things on the passenger seat, and the car starts immediately when I put my keys in and turn over the ignition, its lights flashing on and illuminating some enclosed field.
How the hell did I get out here? Where is 'here'?
Rubbing at the back of my neck, the motion pulls at the skin of my forearm, making me wince. Bringing it down under the interior light, I find gauze that's been tightly wound around my arm and soaked through in a long line of blood. The sight of it brings back the rest of what happened today slowly, methodically illuminating just how brash I'd been, just how badly that could've ended. I groan again and smack my forehead.
When are you going to learn, Miri?
Red Hood was there, he knows my name—and he's probably the asshole who drove me out here. But, besides wrapping my arm, I don't think he did anything. Other than the headache and my sore neck, nothing else hurts, feels out of place.
He didn't do anything to you. Those men… they're probably dead.
I want to feel bad, I do—but I… I feel empty. It doesn't have the same impact—the sight of pooling blood and the sound of a bullet going through bone, someone screaming in pain. Yet I remember those same things so well from before, when I was surrounded by death and men dying, rivers of blood that never seemed to end. How many times have I woken up screaming, so sure guns were being fired over my head, the smell of iron and sweat filling my nose? But this… It's like it all was experienced by someone else, a movie I fell asleep watching, something that just… didn't happen to me.
But I know it was real—that I didn't dream it up. I know what they were going to do to me, what almost happened tonight.
I do, don't I?
But I also know what I wanted to do to them. How I couldn't stop myself as I swung the pipe, hitting harder each time.
What were you going to do if he hadn't come? Would you have stopped, would you have kept yourself from trying to hurt them when running away was the best option for everyone?
I don't have answers for any of that, don't feel anything I thought I would. It's like someone carved out the experience from my head and let me hold it, examine the memory without putting together what it means. That distance is dangerous. It means that fear isn't there to keep me from doing something like this again, taking away one of the few fail-safes I still have to keep me from imploding.
You could just stop being so stubborn…
What did Red Hood tell me, that it was pointless to try and stop those men from dying? He was eager to shoot first and ask questions later, and the likelihood that he had a sudden change of heart is slim. And now I remember everything David told me—Red Hood doesn't take prisoners, doesn't leave witnesses behind.
Well, apparently he does.
The bastard might've done the gentlemanly thing to drive me out to God knows where and been kind enough to not shoot me in the head, but he also knocked me out cold.
And he was a condescending ass.
I don't know what exactly I'll do to recompense that—it's not like going to find him only to actually smack him over the head with a pipe will do anything.
Sounds like as good a plan as any right now.
I'm angry, but I can't pick out at what. If it's the men sent to kill or maim me, Red Hood for being there, how the entire day—every goddamn thing that I try to do—went straight to fucking hell, or at myself for making the entire thing happen. Just like always.
Good job. Yet another screw up to add to the list.
I might need to add one more.
What are you supposed to do from here?
My mind draws a blank. I could go back to the warehouse, see if there's something left to investigate, but something tells me Red Hood would've made sure that anything I could've gathered won't be there anymore. Going back to the apartment is an option—digging through STAGG Enterprises' servers and seeing exactly who sent those men. Taking this to the GCPD—to Gordon—is also another avenue, but I dismiss it almost immediately. There would be more to confront there, and then the tricky problem of explaining exactly how I got all of this information.
Being stubborn really is going to kill you.
I can also add that to the list, but it doesn't change anything. My body tenses up, the air catching in my throat and the urge to fall back asleep becomes overwhelming. Oblivion would be easier than this, too. I push that thought away—drinking myself to sleep or taking more valium won't make this go away.
I'm left with one option—the only viable one, anyway. All my efforts to prevent it were for nothing; I'm going to wind up exactly where I wanted to avoid the most.
It's time to go home.
As much as I tried to ignore everything having to do with Gotham and the Wayne name, there were some things I couldn't avoid. Or that I ended up searching out when the ache in my heart would grow too painful, resonating for something familiar in those late nights when sleep wouldn't find me. Bruce moving back to the half-finished Wayne Manor was one of the few things I followed closely.
It was a more selfish impulse—I couldn't help but think of the years that passed and died a lifetime ago, what it was like being in that big house, all the memories and ties that came with it. When I first left Gotham, I saw the Manor being gone as a moment of release rather than a signifier of grief like I originally had. There were no physical reminders to remind me of what I lost—it was destroyed, gone in a literal spire of smoke and ruin that cleansed away everything that hurt.
That's what I wanted it to be. But nothing ever works out quite the way I think they will.
Now the Manor's back, a replica of the one that Bruce decimated, and everything it used to hold didn't come back with it. The memories I made with Parker have no bearing there, the halls Bruce used to chase me down aren't the same—only shadows of what was—and everything Mom ever touched, every picture we had—it's gone. It's all gone.
Idling on the top of the hill and overlooking the drive that leads to the Manor, uncertainty and the familiar grip of hate paralyzes me. I can't move forward and I can't move back.
Make a decision already.
I've been sitting in the car, knuckles white as I grip the steering wheel, for over two hours. It was close to nine by the time I woke up and I sat, agonizing over whether this was the right decision or not, for hours—making it well-past four in the morning. Everything except a few perimeter lights is dark at the Manor, making its hulking outline barely visible. I know Alfred will be home, and as much as I'm afraid of seeing him, I'm more afraid of seeing Bruce. Thinking of how I threw the glass at his head—how I screamed at him, how I still think he deserved it and more—brings me shame.
You really like screwing everything up, don't you?
What's left of our relationship was in shambles before I left, and now… I'm not sure what's there to put back together anymore.
Breathe. Sitting here all night isn't an option.
The air hitches in my chest, bordering on a sob. I keep them down, holding my breath until the urge to cry ebbs.
Go home.
The stretch of road is so familiar—it's where Alfred first tried teaching me how to drive, where I crashed his favourite car. Down a small road leading into the trees is where Bruce would take us when we'd double-up on a bike and race through the low-hanging branches, the trees scratching our cheeks as we went faster.
I want to hold onto my anger, to be mad at Bruce—mad at him for everything, but I can't, not really. It leaves me—just like everything does—when I get to the front gate.
Six different cameras, wrought-iron surrounded by dense shrubs, and a keypad are the first things to welcome me home. There's an option to call inside on the intercom, but the thought of making that my official greeting after so long feels… wrong.
Forgoing the intercom, I try the old family code—the one Alfred made me memorize just in case I ever went out and got a ride home from someone else. It never happened, but Alfred believing so hard that it would meant something I never fully appreciated at the time.
"Well, here goes nothing…"
To my surprise, the gate swings open silently after punching the code in. Only the sound of crickets hiding in the grass is in the air, the fading night absorbing the rest as it waits for the sun.
Some things did change. The driveway has been altered, the road down to the servant's quarters is on the wrong side. Tarps and metal framework still stretches and spans across the entirety of the West Wing, but the rest is clearly close to completion. It's too opulent—even more foreign after not being here in so long, more like a place I never belonged. In the hour just before dawn, the Manor looks darker—like it's a mausoleum rather than a house. It might have the same shape, the same cut stone and foundations, but all the life it used to hold is gone.
Parking on a wide angle, I try to get out of the car quietly. It's not until I shut the door and stare up at the stars I missed seeing so much that I realize I don't have a house key—I'll have to wake up Alfred if I want to get inside.
Smart thinking, Miri. Brilliant.
I'm about to head for the backdoor when something down the grassy hill catches my eye. Walking a little further, a new memory hits me. One of a chase, my dress bunched up around my thighs and laughing—that visceral reminder of what I could've had, of what laid at my fingertips if I buried what's so ugly inside of me deep enough—the smell of wet earth, light shining through the glass, looking at the telescope Bruce gave me in wonder.
I don't know how long I stare at that little greenhouse, as if the memory is replaying for me in real-time, but I don't want to look away.
It's all gone, remember?
Wiping at my cheeks and wincing when I touch the large, swollen bruise on my jaw, I turn around and banish the greenhouse to the back of my memory.
The shaking in my legs spreads to my arms, not stopping until it's in my throat. What will I say? How do I deal with Alfred? How do I avoid talking about all the things tearing me apart? How will I lie that I'm doing alright, that he doesn't need to worry?
Everything I want to say—everything that will take away his fear—it would all be a lie. He just has to look at me to know—I'm not the same, won't ever be the same. He knows why and I wish he didn't, I wish that I could've born my suffering alone. But that's not how this works. I can't lie to him, but I don't know how to tell him the truth, either.
You never have.
I stand at the back door, my hand rising and falling, stuck between acting and leaving again.
Grow a spine, Miri. It's just a door. Knock. Ring the doorbell. Come on.
The door swinging open saves me the trouble. My fist raised and ready, the sudden flood of light and air wafting over my face, moving my hair, almost drives out a squeak from me.
"Miriam—"
The voice breaks off and my shock turns into uncertainty. Alfred's standing in the doorway in a set of blue plaid pyjamas, hair flattened on one side, slippers haphazardly on his feet, and a fluffy housecoat wrapped around his thinning frame. He looks older than when I last saw him. He came up to Chicago once, two months after I moved, and even then he looked like he had aged five years. It's only gotten worse, and the thick lump of guilt sits heavy in my throat.
"Hey, Alfred."
I want to say something normal, for this to not feel so—so strange. But it's like I'm ten again, like when Mom and I would visit and the size of the house and the sight of Alfred's suit would stifle me with its formality. I didn't know how to be myself—not until he would grin and whisper in my ear about buried trinkets in the garden, when Bruce would take me on adventures in the woods searching for the mythical creatures we invented.
Sheepish. You're feeling sheepish. Jesus.
Pushing my hair behind my ears doesn't help matters, either. My chest burns, the scars on fire and searing thick lines along my sternum. He can't see them, but I know he's looking for them all the same. I'm about to try again, force something out, when I'm enveloped in a hug. My limbs freeze, my body going rigid. When was the last time someone hugged me?
When's the last time that you wanted somebody to?
He squeezes me tighter, arms wrapping around my shoulders and pressing me close. If it were anyone else, I'd feel trapped—claustrophobic and ready to put ten feet between them and me. But it's not. It's Alfred. I smell the sandalwood—that permanent scent of home, of having one constant that I always take for granted—and I will the lump in my throat not to grow larger.
"It—it's OK, Alfred. You don't have to squeeze that hard," I say with a quiet laugh. The tears come and I almost can't keep them back, and I'm grateful when he draws away, holding me at arm's length.
"What the bloody hell—"
I'm trying to smile, but I'm sure it looks entirely fake, and Alfred cuts himself off. He touches the bruise on my cheek and I try to keep back the wince. From the look on his face, I didn't succeed. His mouth opens once, then twice, and I can tell he's trying to figure out how to ask. He swallows and drags his eyes from the bruise to the rest of my face. Sighing, his thumbs rub small circles in my shoulders.
'What happened to your face? Why didn't you return my calls? Why does it look like you were in a row?'
Something settles in his eyes, and all I can see is acceptance. The burning eases and it's only then that a tear comes out, and I brush it away quickly before more can join them.
"You trimmed your hair," he says instead, forgoing all the questions I thought of in my head, smiling weakly. "Did someone hack at it with shears or is this one of those new styles I still can't quite fathom?"
I laugh and it feels light in my chest. Genuine. It's neither of those things, but how do I tell him that I couldn't stand looking at how long my hair had been, feeling it brush against my skin, how it fell over my shoulders and surrounded me in a permanent reminder of—of what he enjoyed touching so much, wrapped his hands and buried his face in? How do I tell him that, after an especially heavy night of drinking, I took a pair of scissors and hacked at it myself, slicing my ear and nicking my neck bad enough that I had woken up in the morning covered in blood?
You can't.
That was a year ago, and I've been cutting it myself since. Anyone touching my hair has been enough to send me into a tailspin, and it's only started to grow out semi-evenly after many failed attempts to manage my own curls.
"They told me it was trendy. Maybe I need to try a different place." Laughing it off fails, it's too stiff, and from the look in Alfred's eyes, he knows it's a lie. I'm thankful when he doesn't call me out on it.
"When's the last time you ate, my dear? I could fix you up some supper, there's always plenty to go around."
He's smiling now to help cover what we don't know how to talk about, and I'm grateful, but we're falling back into old habits—seeing the still-bleeding wounds, the raw aches without a cure-all, and hoping that if we concentrate on what we want there to be instead of what is that it'll somehow make it real. I take his hands in mine, feeling his wrinkled skin, the familiarity of them, how they fit against my palms.
As we walk through the house, his questions only pertain to my life in Chicago—how it's been and if I'm resting enough, if I've met anyone or made friends. He asks about it like a parent would if their child went off to college and was visiting home for Christmas. It helps distract me from how the interior doesn't exactly match what I remember. I try not to focus on it, letting it fade back into those shapeless forms of colour that don't impact the now, severing all that might bring up something that'll make this so much worse.
What Alfred doesn't ask me about is how long I've been back, why I didn't call sooner, why I look so different and decided to show up close to five in the morning unannounced. He just takes me to the kitchen—an almost exact replica of the one I remember—to sit me down on a barstool at the island. He starts working with that same grace I came to know as a girl, almost like I never left at all and saw this every day: him flitting about and pulling things from cupboards and the fridge, talking to me all the while. It's all so achingly familiar, and I didn't know just how much I missed it until I see it happening in front of me.
Putting a bowlful of raspberries topped with cream and a generous serving of sugar in front of me, he sits on the other bar stool and we visit—talking about everything other than what's important. I'm so tired, but I don't know how to broach what I need to, why I actually came. Maintaining the illusion that I'm here just to see him could be easy, but I can't go back to pretending everything between us is alright, that we can ignore it like I ignore the rest of the world—I can't go backwards. Not on this.
"Is he… is he out still?" I ask eventually. It's like I'm physically choking on the words, but it feels good to speak them aloud. Alfred looks at me with confusion and my shoulders tense. "Bruce. Is he here or is he out doing, well… whatever it is he likes to get up to."
Heat burns my face at remembering what happened between us before. I wonder if Bruce told Alfred what I did when he sneaked into my apartment, when I was so intent on maiming him in that fit of wrath I couldn't master. Anger and anxiety curl together in my stomach. The memories of me screaming at him, finding out his lie—the truth of why he left and let us think him dead—I never dealt with that either. It's a helpless feeling. So much of me wants to repair what shattered almost a decade ago, its remnants eroded long before I thought of trying to preserve them.
Looks like our ineptitude at handling conflict is genetic.
"I'm… well, I didn't check when I received the alert of a visitor approaching, but—"
"I'm right here, Alfred."
My body goes rigid when my eyes snap from Alfred to over his shoulder, to the entrance of the kitchen. Bruce stands there in a navy t-shirt and black jogging pants, traces of black greasepaint still marking the creases around his eyes. He looks exhausted, like he hasn't slept in days. Physically, he looks as strong—if not more so—than when I left, but from his face, it's had a toll.
How long has he been keeping this up?
Doing what Batman does for a year would likely be enough to cripple a man. Bruce has been doing this for nearly three.
He did it to himself. No one's making him do this.
Bitterness floods in with regret. Both paralyze me as I stare at him, deliberating exactly what I should be doing. He saves me the trouble of getting up, walking over slowly to the breakfast bar and leaning on the opposite side. He's smiling, but it's just as tired and hollow as his eyes. That same urge from a few days ago to punch or hug him is at war with one another again.
"What happened to your face?" he asks. Alfred, seeming to be as uncertain as I feel, gets up and heads to one of the cupboards to pull out teacups.
I don't do any of the potentially violent things I'm thinking about—sullen silence is what I greet him with instead, turning away to help Alfred make the tea.
Real mature. What was the point in coming if you're going to act like a child?
This is too much. Being here is too much. I want to leave—I want to go back to Chicago and the existence of total denial, where I can keep thinking none of this was ever real.
Bruce doesn't want me to forget. He grabs my arm when I turn my back on him, his grip firm and the pressure in his fingers building.
"Miriam—" he starts, and it takes more restraint than I thought I could summon not to snarl.
"You don't get to ask." I rip my arm out of his grip, keeping my chin high in a challenge. Anger's winning out, the destructive need to watch his reactions as I drive in another barb.
"Wh—of course I do." He says it like he means it, like he missed the point of my silence for all this time.
Maybe he's already trying to fall back into old habits of his own.
But I can't let us. I can't let him think that he still has a place to position himself as a protector of mine, someone I can rely on, someone I trust enough to lay myself bare to. Resentment—at leaving, for lying about what he wanted us to be, a family, betrayal that cut through my heart, eradicating any shot at whatever future I would've had if none of this had happened—curdles my blood.
Part of me still blames him for what happened to Parker—how he saved the wrong person, didn't do enough to find him before I did. It's foolish; I'm displacing the blame that belongs to me on him. Parker's death is on my shoulders, his loss something I feel every day, but I need someone to share that burden with. I need someone to take the pain so I don't have to bear it alone anymore.
That's what it always comes down to, doesn't it? But you know better, even admitted it yourself: You're always going to be alone.
Always.
"No, you don't." He opens his mouth to argue, but I keep going, "What, don't tell me you're the only one who's allowed to go out and do something completely stupid and get punched in the face for it?"
He's silent for a moment, mouth opening from the firm line it was in before. Alfred's frozen behind him, hand caught mid-motion as he reaches for the sugar bowl.
"I feel painted into a corner here," Bruce says, chuckling and rubbing a hand through his hair.
It's only now that I feel that loss, that absence of sound—the sounds of my family—that used to get me through the worst days all those years ago. I didn't realize how much I missed it—missed this, but I've never been good at saying the things I mean, articulating what's important. Anger is easier. Anger makes things clear and, most importantly, it keeps my heart from tearing open again.
"If you didn't want me getting hurt or digging into things I shouldn't, you should've been more specific," I say, crossing my arms. My sleeves cover the bandage and cuts, the intersecting scars that line them, and my hands curl into tight fists.
He tilts his head, smile becoming almost genuine—alive, and his eyes soften in a way that makes me want to cry. "Like that would've helped." He breathes heavily through his nose in a half-laugh, turning and leaning his back against the counter. His smile is infectious, and I try to keep one from pulling at my own lips. His smile changes, turning into something patronizing, looking down at me and raising an eyebrow. "I know it's hard to grasp, but I have training, proper equipment, experience—"
I scoff and it almost turns into a full-fledged guffaw.
He was always good with excuses.
The urge to smile is gone, and I'm almost more upset that he doesn't look fazed to see me—that he isn't upset about how things ended before. He's almost smug that things will be different this time, that I'm coming around. It's because I came back after all, am showing that, deep down, I'm not really that mad. That this has an easy fix. It shouldn't make me want to prove him wrong—demonstrate how mistaken he is—but it does.
And then it hits me—it's been so long since I've seen it that it took a while to recognize. Bruce is faking—he's not acting like himself, not the one I remember from nine years ago, not even the one from two. This isn't Bruce, this is Bruce Wayne—the condescending, heavy-drinking, partying, billionaire manwhore. The one I'd see on every cover of those stupid celebrity gossip magazines—they'd focus on his extravagant and eccentric hobbies, dating habits, and his rogue cousin, how he must be devastated because of how everything I did must've impacted him.
What's a family reunion without some good ol' self-destruction, hey, Miri?
I know they're lies. I do. But they still make me angry, afraid.
Because I'm terrified that they're telling the truth—even a sliver of it.
I swallow the fire and venom I want to spit, but I don't know what to do without it either. "They're overpriced hockey pads and we both know it," I say eventually, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead. "You still don't get to ask. Thought you'd be able to at least guess because of all that extracurricular stalking you've been doing."
Teacups clatter against the counter and Alfred lets out a small noise of surprise. "You've been doing what, Master Bruce?" he asks calmly, but I don't miss the critical look he shoots over his shoulder.
I feel a juvenile sense of satisfaction when I see Bruce's mask starting to slip, the smarmy grin faltering. His face goes placid, bent on hiding what's going on underneath—but I see a glimpse: it's tired misery, exhaustion and a driven sense of self-destructive purpose. It's exactly what I see when I look at myself.
Pushing away from the counter, he approaches and stands too close—well, it's only a few feet away, but it still feels like an indicator of the relationship we had before rather than the one we have now. "Did it have to do with the fire in the warehouse district?" he asks, expressionless and ignoring Alfred's comment.
Fire?
My eyebrows shoot up in question and I straighten. "What are you talking about?"
He turns into a statue, drawing himself higher and his head tilting a centimetre to the side. When he gives me the address, I feel the blood leach away from my face and hands, curling into a tight ball in my chest. My mouth opens and shuts quickly, a thousand thoughts running through my head at once.
'Hope you know that's pointless.'
They're dead. If he didn't shoot them first, then he left them to burn. That distance I felt when I woke up is fading, and the smell of bodies burning wafts through the room like I'm back on the ship.
Don't think about it. It's not happening—it's not real.
"So you were there."
He sounds monotone, but he somehow manages to temper that with a look of fury in his eyes. It fans my own, gives me a distraction to funnel everything through. Effacing rage is better than confusing turmoil.
"Yeah. Emphasis on was," I snap, my jaw clenching tight.
His eyes narrow at my tone, at the building confrontation. This isn't Bruce either—this is all Batman. "Who else was there—who started it?"
He even lowered his voice an octave. Jesus fucking Christ.
I'm about to tell him where to shove his questions, hit him with a few verbal jabs and storm out, when Alfred steps between us, holding a cup of tea in each hand.
"Now, I did not raise either of you to be so uncivil." He motions for me to take a cup and I obey, begrudgingly appreciating how the hot china warms my hands, and Bruce does the same. I glare at Bruce through the tendrils of rising steam and Alfred cocks an eyebrow. "Let's move to the parlour, make ourselves comfortable. It's too early for bickering and I may be a butler extraordinaire, but I am much too old to take on the role of mediator."
He's smiling, but this is just like when I was little and being stubborn about something. Mom would give up quickly but Alfred had a tone of finality that was difficult to challenge. Muttering something along the lines of "fine", I choose to ignore the indulgent grin on his face and start walking, determined not to be lagging behind with Bruce.
You really are being childish. Christ, Miri.
The rest of the Manor is just like it was before, and I follow the route that's ingrained in my muscle memory, going down the hall to the foyer and around the grand staircase. I find a seat in an wing-backed armchair, struggling with feelings of petulance.
Maybe Bruce and I had never really learned to communicate the way we should have. Were things liable to break down this way, even if none of this had happened? What would have happened if I didn't let him pretend when he got back, if I challenged him—ripped into him when the break was fresh so that we could set the bone and let it heal? Now it's set wrong, and no matter how many times we re-break it, there's no getting it to be the same again.
"Why did you come, Miriam?" Bruce asks, walking in to lean against the fireplace.
Alfred follows in behind, sitting in the chair opposite and sipping at his tea as he observes us. I'm not sure if he's here to referee or if he's as eager to hear my answers as Bruce is. He's always been so willing to forgive, let it be water under the bridge. Accepting what comes and what he can't change.
You could learn from that.
Bruce won't look at me, but he stares into the fireplace with no flames alive to bring us warmth or light.
Just… maybe try being honest. You don't have to make this worse—you're choosing to do that.
"Because you were right."
Head rising, his eyes narrow again. Schooling my own features is something I've never quite mastered, and that still holds true. I want to stay angry, to have that distance—but I've missed them. I've missed seeing them every day, having Bruce being an absentee brother-figure be the only thing wrong with our little 'family'.
No—that's not entirely it. You just don't want to be alone anymore. Haven't you learned anything?
Now it's my turn to not maintain eye contact. "I looked into the chip."
Hope sparks in Bruce's eye and something else—something I don't recognize—settles over his expression. "What did you find?"
Taking a long sip from my tea, I let out a long, pent-up breath and explain. Bruce's body stays rigid, face blank, as he listens intently, and I treat it like any other debrief I've had with Naomi. My language is specific, all details reported. Well, except for the prolonged interaction with Red Hood. Just mentioning him had Bruce perk up and glare, staring at me with an intensity that means he's met him before. That's the only time he interrupts me, to ask for descriptors, what he said. I keep it vague and I'm not even sure why, but I'm sure that Red Hood wasn't as gentle in comparison with Batman as he was with me.
I forego telling Bruce about the comments the men made, how I nearly caved in one of their heads with a pipe, or anything involving most of my interaction with Red Hood. Those are things I'm not willing to navigate with him right now. Bruce concentrates hard, dedicating everything I say to memory.
"I woke up in my car and came here. Wasn't much else to do," I finish, handing him the flash drive with the incomplete code that I extracted.
Bruce nods, hand on his chin as he thinks and sinking onto the couch opposite me "AA," he repeats to himself under his breath. He's silent for a moment before his back jerks upright, and I can almost see the lightbulb blinking above his head. "STAGG Enterprise sells equipment and prosthetics to a host of medical facilities, but how many of them in Gotham would need something that doesn't serve a medical purpose embedded in a patient's nervous system?"
I get caught up in Bruce's energy like we're goddamn Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys—or whatever book series that was—and I feel the involuntary thrum of excitement. It was like this back in Chicago: When there was enough to occupy my mind that I could ignore everything else, I threw myself into it. Even if what they were asking turned my stomach, added to that invisible burden of guilt.
Still can't kick those habits yourself, can you?
"Nowhere legitimate—they'd need FDA approval, be doing clinical trials, and information on these would be easier to find."
"Exactly," Bruce says, nodding.
The Bruce I knew is dead, I know that. The man who replaced him let me down in a way that I don't know if I have it in me to forgive.
But I don't know how to forgive myself either.
"Gotham's a hot pile of corruption, but where would someone have the money and resources to get these and have STAGG willing to help them cover it up?" I ask, leaning back into the cushions as my brain runs in circles.
Maybe this is a way to try something else. He can't talk to me as much as I can't talk to him, but…
How long do you want to keep being angry, Miri?
Anger makes sense, black hate has rotted enough in me that it's familiar. Letting in something else… Why does the idea of it scare me so much?
"AA," he repeats again.
Bruce stands, going over to a piano sitting in a far corner and pulling back the lid covering the keys. I follow him, the pieces falling in place in my brain as they fall into his.
"Arkham Asylum."
"Well, that's a cheery development, sir," Alfred says from his seat, still sipping his tea.
Bruce starts playing random notes on the piano, some off-beat tune. Last time I remember him attempting to play something was before Mom died.
"I thought it was some sort of… twentieth-century Bedlam-type place?"
"It was," he says as the bookcase behind the piano swings open and my mouth drops, "when Crane was running it."
I close it quickly, looking from the bookcase turned 'hidden entrance' to Bruce's face. He's smirking.
How many infuriating men can I deal with in one night?
"And it's not anymore," I say begrudgingly, following him around the corner to find an elevator. Looking back, Alfred gives me a wave and a sad smile. Silently, I resolve to show no more surprise.
The man's a billionaire and dresses like a bat in his spare time. Why are you still surprised by anything he does?
Stepping inside, he motions me to join him. As soon as I do, the door closes, leaving Alfred upstairs as Bruce and I descend.
"No, not since Arianna Hill started funding it—expanding their facilities and their patient population."
"What do you mean?" Being so close to him brings the burning again, and I look around the small tin box, everywhere other than his face, and will away the claustrophobia.
"She came to Lucius a year ago asking for our mental health outreach programs to merge with the city's." The doors open to a large black, cavernous expanse. Air damp and holding enough condensation that I can feel it on my tongue, water drips down from some unseen ledge and lands on my nose. It's loud down here, but Bruce doesn't wait for me to take it in. "He said 'no'."
Following behind, I keep my arms wrapped around my torso and pull my sweater close, shivering from the cold. The cave is large and rushes of water cascade down and form large pools. Before I can even wonder why Bruce brought me down here—or how exactly this place came to be—I see the large, sprawling computer terminal with almost half a dozen different screens. It's then that I notice the protruding shelves filled with black objects that I can't fully distinguish along the walls of stone. Chattering coming from above alerts me to its moving masses, the high-pitched screeches that I recognize as belonging to bats. Fifty-feet worth of stacked, brick arches come in and out of focus as bats fly in and out, weaving down and around before returning to their perches.
Bruce keeps walking ahead, taking a seat at the terminal. Instead of excitement, or even curiosity—hate, anger, resentment rises back up. But, once again, I don't really know where it's aimed—only that it burns white-hot, scorching my being from the inside. It makes me feel helpless, like it's all I'll feel—that it'll burn until only ash remains.
Where has anger gotten you, Miri?
It's what made me survive in Chicago, forging on out of spite and fear. But now that I'm here… it's like I'm emptying, losing everything I thought made me strong. I can't be vulnerable here, not with Bruce.
Then where can you be?
"Why are there more patients?" I ask, clearing my throat and purposefully not asking any questions about why a giant cave filled with flying rodents—I really shouldn't have expected differently, given his whole costume and all that—and a computer are down here of all places.
Bruce lets us carry on like we've done this before, as if it's a routine we've already developed, and I try not to stare at any one thing too long.
"They're afraid—terrified of having another Joker or Scarecrow hiding in the streets. Anyone arrested with signs or a history of mental illness are sent to Arkham."
At the mention of his name it feels like I'm being branded, the air stopping in my chest and the whispers that never leave prowling the edge of my mind. A shiver goes down my spine and I crack my neck, closing my eyes and breathing deep.
"It's more of a super-prison than a facility to treat the ill," he finishes, sounding grim and frowning.
The implications hit immediately. I'd heard about the crackdowns happening in Gotham, the mass trials for the people I doxxed for taking part in the polls, the backed-up justice system that can't keep up with the number of people being incarcerated, the rioters who helped him in his terror-spree. I knew it was bad, but not like this.
"That's—"
"Wrong? Yes. But it's also understandable."
He starts up the computer and plugs in the drive I gave him, watching as the files download. My skin crawls and eyes get hot. This was already overwhelming, but being away allowed me to have distance in the immediate aftermath of what I helped happen. A good deal of this is my fault. Would any of it have happened if I had been less of a coward, if I had stayed strong and had him kill me in the beginning? Guilt smothers me, just like it always has, and I don't know how to redress it, release its hold so I can breathe again.
It'll never go away. You're poison, remember? This is… just what you do, isn't it?
You ruin people. Everyone.
Something warm lands on my shoulder and squeezes gently; I go rigid. "That's not your fault, Miri." His voice is soft. Reassuring. He sounds like he believes what he's saying, but he doesn't see how that's a lie.
Twisting out of his reach, dislodging his hand with more force than required, I glare again. Wrath has become an elusive figure, but I grasp what I can and hold it tight, letting it burn into me.
"Looks like whoever replaced Crane isn't much better," I bite, my face hardening as I watch Bruce retract, putting the mask in place and embodying the guise of detached impartiality.
"No," he says, voice just above a murmur. He goes back to staring at the screen, face hardening back to that impenetrable stone. "I'll need to investigate further into the new director. I need to know if he's involved." Clicking away, he brings up the command keys that I cracked, his brows furrowing together as he puzzles over the same words I did. "'Jest', 'captivate'?"
"Yeah, I couldn't make sense of it either." Mirroring his look of detachment, I stare at the screen, at the lines of code that are missing from making it functional. "Those are verbal commands, meant to activate… something. Too much data is corrupted to know specifics. We need to find the source code, or who programmed them."
He nods and I suddenly think of Naomi's "request". She wants me to go to Arkham—for therapy. Shuddering and breathing shallow, the world does a momentary spin as I think about what that means. Who'll be there. What they're actually doing. Fear comes first—fear of everything. There are a thousand other places I'd rather be than there, talking to some stranger like they can give me answers with some hollow platitudes and being in the same building, the same one-mile radius, as that goddamn bastard is enough to make me hyperventilate.
"Let's turn that frown upside down."
Don't think about it—it's not happening. You're fine. Breathe. Breathe.
I'm glad that Bruce is too engrossed to notice, that his inattention is something beneficial for once. As afraid as I am, I also see another lead. I don't know why I entertain the possibility, why I feel so aimless, so… lost.
It's not like this will help either.
But what else will? Valium and alcohol won't. Neither will rotting in that apartment.
"What do you think is left for you? Huh?"
I shake my head but the voice stays in my ear, his breath on my neck.
"You have nobody, no one! Who could ever want ya now, hmm?"
"Naomi—Colonel Matsumoto… she wants me back in therapy." I say it through my teeth, eyes still closed until my breathing calms. He finally turns around, eyebrows raised. Bruce almost looks hopeful, like I somehow decided on opening up. My mouth pulls into a tight line. "She said she was sending my intake forms to Arkham."
"No."
Like you've got final say on shit. Jesus—maybe he hasn't changed at all.
I roll my eyes and somehow manage to feel like I'm living out the experience I never had of being an angst-ridden teenager arguing with her mother hen for a parent. "I'm going regardless. If I don't, Naomi will drag me there herself." He opens his mouth to interrupt, but I talk over him. "You're not going to be able to break in—not without causing trouble. But I'll already be inside, I can get access to things without them knowing."
He can't deny the logic, but he seems hell-bent on it anyway. "No."
"I don't need your permission."
I stand taller and glare. He doesn't get to do this—drag me in again just to leave me in the dark. He doesn't get to cherry-pick what does and doesn't affect me. Bruce dragged me into all of this the day he got back and decided to lie. He turns stern, rising out of his chair and his body language indicates that he's getting ready for a fight. Even now, the urge to have him tear into me, for me being able to rip into him—compounds.
Maybe it's easier if you really did have nothing to come back to. There'd be nothing left to disappoint you—not like before.
"Again, if you didn't want me checking into things, you should've said as much and not left the damn thing with me in the first place." He's only a few inches taller than me, and I think if this was two years ago he'd have had more energy to fight me on this. "Don't be surprised when shit doesn't go the way you wanted—I'm not here to follow orders from you. I do enough of that in my day job."
He lets out a long breath before pinching his nose. Conceding my point isn't far behind. "Miriam—"
He knows I'm right—I can see it—and I feel like driving the point home.
"Either you can get over yourself, help me instead of being a control freak, and we can do what you said you wanted all along—which was, you know, making sure there weren't more people showing up dead—or you can keep being a knob and I'll do it myself."
I don't look away for once, my eyes unwavering as I stand firm. He looks down at the bruise on my jaw, briefly glancing at the place where the scar's carved into my chest. The compulsion to pull my sweater away, to make it stop touching the skin, is keen—but I don't fidget. I won't let him shove me back in the dark, I won't give him any ground on this.
Bruce tries his best to stay stern, to think of a counter-argument, but the corner of his mouth twitches and he chuckles through his nose. "Looks like you painted me into another corner."
I want to stay mad, for it to fuel my case, but, just like before, his growing smile is infectious. "Only have yourself to blame."
This is… almost close to teasing—close to being something like I remember.
I can't decide if that's a good thing or not.
"You asked me to help. This is part of the package."
Squinting and darting his eyes away for a moment, Bruce shifts and I know I've won. "On three conditions."
"You don't get to dictate anything to me—"
"Stop being so—so obstinate for a minute. Please."
The near-pleading shuts me up for a moment. His eyes soften, and I'm taken back to that winter morning when Bruce held my hands and told me that no matter where we were or what we did, I'd never be alone. I want that to be true.
But I know it isn't. It was a lie—one wrought out of kindness—but a lie all the same.
"I can't… You can't go around and not talk to me, Miri," he finishes, attempting to banish the emotion from his voice and only half-succeeds. It makes my chest cinch tighter until I can barely breathe.
Anger covers a multitude of things, doesn't it?
So does snark.
"Funny. You do it all the time."
He huffs in exasperation, swinging his arms out before shutting his mouth quickly. Rubbing his chin, I can tell he's trying to be patient. It makes me want to push him even more. "Will you listen?" Deciding to leave the jabs unsaid, for now, I roll my eyes and wave for him to continue. "One: You don't take any unnecessary risks."
I bark out a laugh and I can't tell if I mean it antagonistically anymore—my damn smile is still there and I can't seem to make it go away entirely. "Define 'unnecessary'."
Bruce glares, but it's in the same way he used to when he'd be studying and I'd come tearing into his study and attempt to drag him away to play outside with me. It has about the same effect now as it did then. Twisting away and walking around this large cavern that Bruce likely spends all his time in, I wonder how much of the past is going to be repeated here.
"Fine, fine. I won't be… reckless, if that's what you mean," I finally relent, picking up a—what does he even call these, batarangs? They're cold and sharp and I have an urge to throw it at him.
Nodding, he continues, "Second… Reconnaissance is all you're doing. Intel gathering. Nothing different than what you do for the government now."
Biting back a reply, I drop the bat-shaped shuriken and grimace. Bruce doesn't want to know what I really do for them, and, even if it wasn't classified information, I don't know if I'd ever tell him.
"Fine."
"That means bringing what you find to me, not going out to warehouses—by yourself—without telling anyone."
Nodding isn't enough for him. He crosses his arms and stares me down until I give him a verbal acknowledgement.
He really is a mother hen. Jesus.
"Yeah, agreed."
He walks over and takes away the other gadgets in my hands, giving me a look that says these aren't toys when that's exactly what they are, and stands too close.
"About what I saw in your apartment," he trails off, clearing his throat to try again. He's only said seven words, but I know exactly what he's referring to. Shame makes my face hot when I think of it all again—the screaming, the cans at his feet, the demonstration of how much I've lost it. "Will that be a problem?" he asks, moving until I meet his eyes.
I can smell his cologne—how it hasn't changed—coming from his shirt and the sweat from his skin. It's that same earthy smell—freshly mown grass and cedar. It erases the last eighteen months, like they didn't happen. I want so desperately for that to be true that I feel tears pricking my eyes and I turn away, distancing myself to breathe in the damp, cool air of the cave.
"No. It won't."
I don't even know if that's true or not, but I want it to be. He sighs and I stare ahead, watching the water battering against the black rock.
"This is important, Miriam. I need your word."
Shoving my hair back from my face, I can't look at him. "My word for what?"
"If it's getting too dangerous, if I can't… if I can't be there, I need you to promise me you'll stop if I ask." There's pain in his voice and I look up just in time to see hints of the man that I saw shattering in the hospital after he dragged me out of the river. This man is afraid. "I need that from you, Miri."
I stare at him for a long time, trying to decide if I say the words, I'll mean them. Lying is something I try to avoid now, not giving out promises I know I won't keep. He might've lied to me, gouged out my heart and stranded us on our own private islands of hell, but… I don't want to do the same to him. As angry, as mad, as resentful I feel, as much as going back and drinking would make this easier, would erase some of the pain, I can't find it in myself to feel that now. Maybe this is like with Jason and Zareen, when I foolishly thought that maybe I could be better.
And then you went and screwed that up, too, didn't you?
But how is anything supposed to change if I don't do anything differently? Do I really want to lose my family? Yes, the valium is waiting back at the apartment for me, but I don't want that to be my first escape anymore. This… this could be the last shot we have at building something new, bridging the gulf we both created. Because, if I'm being honest, I can't just blame Bruce—no matter how much I want to. I had a part in this, just like I did with everything.
"I… I'll stop if I'm in over my head. But I want you to trust me when I say I'm not—that I can handle it," I say quietly, all traces of hostility gone. The energy between us changes. His shoulders relax as his eyes search my face. "I want you to promise, too. Promise that you won't treat me like a child, that you won't hide things from me. If you want me to help, then you're honest." I take a shaky breath, lowering my arms and facing him head-on. "Always."
Bruce doesn't say anything, but he extends his closed hand—only his pinky extended. I almost cry, but I hold it back. We used to do that when I was a kid, before I outgrew it when I was eight. I'd make him promise and swear on the stupidest things, but he'd do it. And he always kept them. My heart pumps against my chest painfully, and I almost didn't think I'd recognize this feeling again. This… feeling of belonging. In the back of my mind, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for things to go to hell and me with it. I know these things aren't meant to last, that I'm delaying the inevitable.
But… right now I don't care. There's only so long I can go, how much pain I can take on my own.
When I return the gesture, my pinky wrapping around his, he smiles and I hope I'm not making a mistake.
"Always."
AN: Sorry again that this is so late, and thank you all for sticking with me and being patient. ❤ I'm still dealing with some health stuff, but hopefully I'll be back on track to post for the 21! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and I'd love to hear what you think! I appreciate all of you so freaking much ❤.
I'm still taking suggestions for the holidays one-shot, but right now I'm thinking it'll be three (short) parts that takes place during one of the Christmases during the 18 months between Everything Burns and There's No Hell Like Arkham. There'll be a chapter for Alfred and Bruce, one for Miriam, and another for Joker during his time in Arkham (it'll be less depressing, though, promise!). You can leave a comment here, send me a message or send me an anonymous ask or message on Tumblr under my username ladyoftheseastuff with any requests for what you'd like to see :D.
And, as always, a big thank you to Khaosprinz. I'll be back soon with a new chapter and then the holiday fic :).
