XXVII - Broken People Break People
"What small tragedies their lives had turned out to be." - Ashley Flowers, All Good People Here
•••
"Lady Wayne," Alfred greeted as he walked into the kitchen, "I thought you'd left already."
The early morning sun cast a orange glow through the windows in the room, her damp hair had a golden sheen in the lighting with her back turned to him.
"Nope," Bird glanced over her shoulder at the him as she stirred the sugar into her cup of hot tea, "Still here."
He was glad to see she'd cleaned off the paint and blood from her face and washed the sprayed on temporary color from her hair.
She looked human again, no longer like a performer at a twisted carnival as she had hours earlier.
"I can see that," His voice trailed off. Frayed at the end and left an open invitation for her to unload whatever it was that was weighing so heavily on her mind.
When she didn't, Alfred took his time pouring the steaming water from the kettle into another mug to make a cup of tea for himself.
They stood in silence as the tea steeped in the water, the tannin spreading out from the submerged leaves.
"Well," He cleared his throat, "Out with it."
Bird bit down on the inside of her cheek.
He knew she'd had something on her mind that was bothering her -only she didn't know where to begin.
There was no shortage of thoughts bouncing around in her mind, tangled up with invisible weights and pressing down on her shoulders.
Mainly it was the what ifs.
So, so many what ifs. The paths not taken. Choices that were both thrust up on her and stolen away.
Stirring up the tea to dissolve the sugar granules she'd sweetened it with, Bird looked around the room again.
The large kitchen that wasn't near as grand as the rest of the manor.
Back then the sprawling estate was first built, the Waynes of that era probably never stepped a foot in the kitchen.
It wasn't built for show like the formal dining rooms, no -this was built solely for staff.
The hands of time spun back in her mind.
The table was no longer empty, she could see her parents at the table with her younger brother.
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
They didn't dine in the kitchen very often, usually in the main dining room, but whenever they'd order pizza or get take out -they'd usually just eat in the kitchen.
Bird always liked those dinner nights more. The casualness of it all. How her dad would spend the night out of his study and opt for family time instead. Usually dinner would be followed up by watching a movie together, or playing a board game.
The happy memory turned on end and shot a pang of guilt through her system; the smile fell from her lips.
She wondered how many more of those nights she could have had if she hadn't started butting heads with them both so often in her teenage years.
Family nights were the last thing on earth she wanted to do.
She'd opt for sneaking out and running wild around the city instead.
Sometimes even just taking a couple of slices of pizza to her room and claim she was too busy to watch a movie or games.
Only the pain hit a little different this time.
Usually when the uncomfortable itch of nostalgia would start up, she'd feel like the villain of the story. See her family cast in a halo of lighting and herself a shadow.
In the years since her parents' murder she'd mourned the missed opportunities she should have gotten with them, moments that were stolen from them all.
And usually she'd grieve for herself, for the ways that she had screwed up the relationship and dynamics between them.
But tonight, she felt sorrow for all of them. Seeing the two people who raised her as real flawed people who didn't always make the right decisions either.
"Lady Wayne?" Alfred's voice broke the silence of the room.
The images of her family faded to ghosts and the table was once again empty.
Bird blinked and tried to focus her blurry vision. Her sight still focused on the table.
"I wish I'd really gotten to know them." Her voice was feather-soft.
Alfred raised a brow as he followed her line of sight to the wood table.
"Your mum and dad?" He guessed.
"Yeah." She cleared the hoarseness from her throat, "That's supposed to be part of it, right? Getting older and getting to know your parents as real people and not just as mom and dad."
Sensing that she was more so voicing her thoughts to the room and not actually expecting an answer, Alfred took a drink of his tea and waited for her to continue.
"I just…" She ran her tongue over her lips, "I spent so long… even before they died, thinking that everything was my fault. That if I were someone different everything would have been so much easier on all of us."
"But it's not all on me." The words rode the abrupt exhale of air to freedom.
"No." Alfred agreed, "It wasn't."
He admired both Thomas and Martha Wayne, had complete loyalty and a deep friendship with them both.
And even though he'd always loved both Bird and Bruce like they could have been his own, they weren't and perhaps it was that degree of separation that allowed him to see the flaws in how they both, mainly Thomas, chose to handle the rifts that developed between them and their daughter.
He'd witnessed the shift when Bird reached her teenage years and started to rebel. Saw the absolute terror on Thomas' face when Bird first started to venture off into the city on her own. He thought for sure they'd lose her, that she'd cross paths with Carmine Falcone and she'd learn the truth.
Suddenly, Thomas Wayne morphed from being a father who trusted their children to make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes to one who began to treat his daughter far differently and where there used to be a push for her to pursue independence, there was now a want to control.
To keep her closer to home, to know exactly who she was spending time with and stricter rules as she got older instead of loosening the reigns.
Bird had no way of knowing why the shift had started, didn't know the regulations were an attempt to keep her safe and away from her organized crime roots. All she'd felt at the time was that her dad was suddenly trying to control her.
Martha spent her time trying to play peacemaker between them. Support and standby her husband, wanting to keep their daughter close but also fearing they were only pushing her further away.
Alfred had spoken up once to Thomas once about it. Cautioning that making more rules right when teenagers start to push back for their own freedom and independence would only make things worse. That the more he tried to assert dominance over her, the more extreme lengths she'd go to -to show she wouldn't be controlled.
He'd only brought it up once and while Thomas was polite about it, he was also stern in making it clear that it wasn't Alfred's place to question his parenting.
In truth, Alfred carried some guilt about that himself. That he hadn't tried harder or spoken up more on what he was witnessing as the tension inside of Wayne Manor grew from bad to worse with the passing time.
Just like he'd predicted, Bird pushed back against the new boundaries hard.
She took to skipping school and then sneaking out at night. When he'd tidy up her room he started to find empty liquor bottles hidden away, mainly wine bottles she'd clearly lifted from the family cellar.
What would have just been small disagreements in the past turned into screaming matches and slamming of doors.
And then came the worst of it all.
The night she snuck out and didn't make it back home. The early morning knock on the door and the uniformed officers waiting outside with somber expressions.
Alfred could remember that dark morning like it was just the day before. Learning that Bird had been assaulted, shot and left for dead in an ally in the city.
He remembered trying to keep things as normal as possible for Bruce when he got up that morning and asked why his parents weren't there, how he'd been the one to tell him that they were at the hospital with his sister and even though she was going to be fine, she would have to spend a while under medical care to get better before she could come home.
Fish Mooney had been the one who'd found and saved her -and from the night on Bird had been more lost to them than ever before, in far greater ways.
Alfred often felt a degree of responsibility for that. Wondered if any of that would have happened if he'd pushed more the issue more with Thomas about his actions driving her away.
If she hadn't been sneaking out and running wild in the heart of the city to get a taste of freedom, maybe the attack wouldn't have happened, then maybe she'd never have crossed paths with Fish Mooney.
How different her life could have been if she'd never met the likes of Oswald Cobblepot.
"I, uh…" Bird blew out another breath, "When I found about about Falcone, all I could think was how different my life… how different I'd have been if he'd been the one who raised me. And I just kept thinking how much worse of a person I'd have ended up turning into. But…"
Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.
"You're not a bad person." Alfred spoke up.
"I'm not exactly a good person either, am I?" Bird chuckled and with a small sniffle reasoned, "I'm capable of doing terrible things."
"Aren't we all?" He commiserated.
"They taught me to lie." Bird shifted the conversation back to her parents, "Not directly, but… the reason I can look people that I love right in the eye and lie to them is because of them. The duplicity and manipulation that I'm capable of are survival methods I learned here."
Setting her cup back down on the counter with a clink, she then waved around to the empty room.
When she saw the expression on the butlers face, Bird conceded, "I'm not saying it's all their fault and I understand now what they were trying to protect me from. I guess it's just nice to know it's not so black and white. That they weren't all good and I wasn't all bad."
She didn't say it out loud, she didn't want to sound ungrateful for all of the opportunities her life had afforded her. She didn't want to sound resentful of being taken into a stable, loving and extremely privileged home.
But there was a small part of her that couldn't help but wonder if she might feel more like a whole person if she'd grown up not having to hide so much of herself instead of splintering.
If that were the case, maybe she'd actually be capable of having healthy relationships and not gravitate towards the people who only wanted to accept either the light or dark of her.
Like Harvey Dent, who at the time she justified the way he treated her by thinking he just wanted better for her, that he wanted her to be better.
And maybe on some level he did, but was only attracted to the shiny veneer covering up all the cracks and rot beneath.
Then there was Oswald who wanted just the darkness that oozed out.
Maybe, she thought, if she wasn't always so torn trying to hide one side or the other, forced between switching up masks on a daily basis -then everything wouldn't be so extreme one way and then the other.
Maybe she'd have grown up being more centered, knowing that it was okay to have both good and bad in her as long as she stayed true to herself and let both sides balance out.
Who knows?
She internally shrugged with consideration that if she'd been raised under Falcone's wing that she could have turned out to be a complete monster.
It's possible but she didn't feel like that would have been the case, considering she didn't view him as monster.
"You wanna know something funny?" Bird asked, rolling her head to the side to look at Alfred as he took another sip of his tea.
"What's that?" His eyes revealed the slight alarm her sudden change in mood and conversation stirred in him.
"I think Jim and I still would have crossed paths. I don't know that we'd be where we are now… might have ended up complete enemies, but I just feel like he still would have ended up in my life."
Alfred let out a small laugh, the smile lasting on his lips as he watched Bird still lost her thoughts. Only she didn't look near as burdened as moments before.
"Perhaps you should tell him that, eh?" He said, knowing that Jim had been trying to get her to come back home and Bird had been avoiding him, "For what it's worth, Lady Wayne. I can see very well how much he cares about you. What happened to Mario, as tragic as it was, I don't believe Gordon would do anything to intentionally hurt you."
"Yeah." Bird nodded.
She believed that too. The problem was that she wasn't used to that in her life.
It wasn't so long ago that she'd stabbed Oswald with a fork and he'd held a knife to her throat.
But that was over now.
She'd meant it when she told Oswald they were done outside of City Hall the day before.
He didn't believe and it and she doubted he'd let her go so easily, but she was determined to stop the cycle between them. The constant games of an eye for an eye and throwing herself in front of bullets for him.
Literally and figuratively.
With another nod of agreement with herself, Bird pushed away from the counter she'd been leaning against and repeated, "I should go home."
"Lady Wayne?" Alfred called out just as Bird reached the doorway of the kitchen.
Despite her opening up to him, he knew there was a lot more on her mind than she'd chosen to voice.
He could sense a shift with her and he had a feeling the events of the prior day and night had worn on her more than she'd let on.
Bruce had only told him about a portion of the horrors they'd witnessed at the boardwalk carnival; it was enough to eat away at even the most hardened of souls.
Bird was always torn between her conscience and the darker impulses that had plagued her for years and that she'd been trying to turn over a new leaf for quite some time -but kept getting pulled back into the darkness.
"A word of advice," He cleared his throat and hoped the unsolicited suggestion would strike a cord, "When you feel the past nipping at your heels -don't look back. The only way is forward."
•••
Bird didn't go straight to the townhouse she shared with Jim, instead she made a stop by the hotel she'd been staying at to gather her belongings.
Or at least that was the excuse she was telling herself instead of fully acknowledging how nervous she was at the idea of talking to Jim.
He wanted her back and she wanted to pick back up where they'd left off on their life together. To begin with she'd never intended on staying gone this long.
To be fair, she also hadn't expected Mario's death to affect her as deeply as it did either.
Still, she knew Jim hadn't done it to purposefully hurt her and if that's all there was too it she'd probably have gone home much sooner.
She still loved him and wanted to be with him, just like he'd wanted to be with her -and put that way it sounded so simple.
What got in the way of the simplicity was her name, her family, the public image she'd been working hard on curating ever since she was thrust back into the public eye a few years ago.
After she'd moved out when she reached legal age and stopped attending event at Wayne Enterprises and showing up in pictures with her family that wound up in the media, she'd just lived her life the way she wanted and didn't care how it appeared to anyone.
Everything was so different now.
Not only was she a public figure once again but so was Jim and at varying times they'd both been painted in the most unfavorable light by the papers and especially the tabloids.
Bird wished that she could block out the noise and the speculation that came in the aftermath of everyone learning that Jim had shot and killed Mario; wished she could unsee the articles in the papers she'd picked up and unhear the coverage on the five o'clock news.
She thought back to when she a child and the uncomfortable clothes her mom would make her wear whenever there was to be an interview or a profile done on the family where pictures would be taken. How she was supposed to sit there with a smile even though the dresses were itchy and she hated the way the hairspray made her hair stiff.
More so, she thought about how that instilled in her that the image she put out into the world was more important than how she felt.
Public perception ranked over personal happiness.
Leaning her head back against the headrest in the car, she looked out the window with an unsettled stomach as her driver got closer to the street she lived on. She tried tried not to imagine the catchy headlines the social section of the papers would have when they spotted her back with Jim.
An even sicker feeling pulled at her core and left the bitter taste of fear tickling at the back of her tongue. She'd told Jim repeatedly that they couldn't just snap back into place and yet here she was already imagining how the media would respond to them being back together -when she wasn't entirely sure that they were.
Then again, she also wasn't entirely sure they'd actually separated either.
She'd just taken off, needing some distance between them to deal with the grief of gaining a brother and losing him in very quick succession; never intending to stay gone this long.
But grief isn't linear -and now she had things she'd have to answer for too.
And despite loving Jim, she had a strangely hard time coming clean with him.
When her driver pulled to a stop outside of the townhouse, he started to get out of the car to get her door and carry her bags for her, but Bird stopped him and opted to do that on her own.
Unlocking the door, she took another breath and held onto one last moment of hesitation before she walked into the house and closed the door behind her.
The still air was chillier than she'd prefer as she moved down the entryway hallway. She guessed the power must have just recently been restored to her neighborhood and the heat hadn't been running for long.
Following the faint sound of Jim's voice she found him in the living room talking on his cellphone with a cup of coffee in the other hand.
She gathered by the one-side of the conversation that she was privy to, that the hospital had managed to reattach Jerome's face and he was already on his way to the medical wing of Arkham Asylum.
Bird looked behind her and knew this would be her only chance to make an escape before he knew she was there, but she didn't want to run anymore.
She was tired of staying away; of punishing Jim - or punishing herself, she couldn't tell the difference or remember the point any longer.
She dropped her luggage on the hardwood floor harder than necessary to ensure it would get his attention.
The noise did it's job and caused Jim to whirl around, his startled expression gave way to one of shock. He blinked, as if to make sure she was really there and he hadn't imagined it.
"I'll call you back." He quickly said into the phone before shutting the flip-phone and dropping it to the coffee table.
"Hey." Bird's voice was just over a whisper.
"Hey?" Jim repeated back to her but he didn't make any movements. Didn't take a single step away from where he was standing.
Bird considered all of her literal running away from him over the past few weeks probably had him spooked.
She offered up a smile and awkwardly swung her arms at her sides, like she didn't know what to do with them.
Noticing he seemed to freshly showered and in clean clothes she motioned towards him,
"You, uh…" Suddenly she was tripping and stumbling over her own words, "You heading off to work?"
"No." He quickly answered.
It was a lie. He'd had every intention of heading to the police station to help with the cleaning up of the disaster Jerome's cult had turned the building into.
Not to mention all of the lingering chaos on the streets from the blackout.
He'd had every single intention of going until he saw her.
"Okay." The word left her lips with an airy laugh.
Internally cringing, Bird reached up and pressed her fingertips against her lined forehead. She'd never felt so awkward around him before. Not even when he'd brought up marriage and voiced how he'd one day want to start a family.
What she wouldn't give in that moment to reverse the hands of time and go back to how things used to be, but she couldn't.
As Alfred had told her, the only direction to move was forward.
And that meant having to face that Jim had killed her brother, and having to lay bare the way it hurt her and fess up to her own actions.
"Are you… home?" Jim questioned when the silence started to feel suffocating, "For good?"
"You talking about you or the house?" Bird asked, still not looking at him but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth from the question.
Finally looking back at him, she said, "I'm sorry it took me so long to find my way back."
Relief washed out the tense expression; softened his eyes and relaxed the stressed posture he'd been frozen in.
He'd replayed what he'd said to her so many times since they parted ways several hours before. I
t had been the truth, the comment he'd made about feeling like maybe he didn't know her as well as he'd thought, but truth or not, he'd worried it would only distance them even further.
The glue that had been keeping his feet planted to the floor melted away and he moved closer to her, "Bird, I'm sorry." His voice was soft, "I never meant to hurt you. I didn't go there planning on killing anyone. I thought I could get there in time and arrest Mario, that we could hold him somewhere safe until they developed a cure for the Tetch virus-"
"I know." Bird nodded.
"But he had a knife and he was going to kill her and I had to make a decision that I never wanted to-"
"I saw the knife." Bird admitted, her eyes fluttering some as she spoke and the images of that day flooded back, "He would have killed Lee and then he would have went after you."
Jim swallowed hard, his eyes burned when they met hers and he could see the pain she was still in. Pain that he knew he'd caused.
He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out.
What could he even say?
After so long of yearning for this opportunity to get the chance to talk to her, to explain and apologize for his actions.
He'd told himself on so many sleepless nights that if he could explain himself he could set things right.
Only now the search for the words was coming up empty.
"You tried to tell me, you tried to tell all of us that Mario was infected -and maybe if I'd listened, this never would have happened-"
"Bird, no-" He moved closer, taking her face in his hands and getting her to look at him again, "That's not on you. That is not yours to carry."
"Yeah, but it kind of is." She protested, "I know now that it was the virus that made him at the act the way he did, but Mario planted these insecurities in my head about us. I opened up to him about things, told him about my relationship with Harvey and he used it against me -manipulated me and I didn't even realize it was happening."
"He manipulated all of us." Jim shared in the guilt, feeling like if he'd caught onto Mario's game sooner the ending could have been different, "I didn't see it at first either… in fact, I played right into it."
Her eyes were wet with tears but they didn't overflow, she wouldn't let them spill down her cheeks.
"I love you." Bird said, her hands resting against his that were still cradling her face.
"And I love you."
He moved in, his lips capturing hers in a kiss that made her her heart swell like a balloon inside of her chest.
She wanted so badly to stay in that moment with him, forget about all of the bad that had gotten them to this point, but she couldn't.
"I know-" Her voice softened against his lips as she tilted her head to the side just enough to break the kiss and find her voice again and pick up the conversation she'd avoided the night before, "Which is why I ended up at Harvey's."
"I meant it when I said nothing happened between us." Bird was quick to follow up the blow with an assurance.
She could have used any excuse she'd been telling herself since the day she showed up at his door like how it was the last place anyone would think to look for her, but instead she opted for something else.
For the truth that she'd hated Oswald for calling her on; that she'd went to the only place she could that would hurt Jim and she'd done it on purpose.
Her breath caught in her throat when she felt him start to pull back from her.
"Jim-" Her tone thickened with desperation, her hands gripping back onto his that were now down at his sides.
His eyes closed, "We don't have to talk about this."
He was uncomfortable; so was she.
But he'd been right the night before when he'd said they were going to have to talk about it. Face it head on.
"I did it to hurt you… to hurt me?" Her voice wavered, "Jim, I have never loved anyone the way that I love you. And after what happened with Mario… everything just hurt so bad. There was so much pain and I didn't know what to do with it! I guess I thought if I got back at you that I'd feel better."
She held her breath. The uncertainty of laying the ugliest parts of yourself bare and asking to be loved in spite of it.
"Yeah, but I didn't do anything to intentionally hurt you."
The words came out with in a strangled voice.
"But the problem is that everyone else does." She paused, looked down at where she was still clutching onto his hands, as if he'd try to jerk away from her at any moment in repulsion; he didn't.
Jim's eyes searched her face. She was being as open as she'd ever been.
A lion rolling over and showing it's belly. Exposed and vulnerable. It wasn't a look he was used to seeing on her.
"I saw this city… and the people in it come undone last night in a way I've never seen before." She cleared her throat, "And I've seen people turn on each other before, but last night…"
"Yeah." He glanced down to their connected hands and then back to her face. His voice was soft and full of understanding as he agreed, "It was a lot."
He had only caught the tail end of the dark carnival, but he'd seen plenty of chaos and violence on the streets and at the precinct after the lights went out.
The darkness had given a shroud, a mask, to Gothamites to turn to total anarchy. Years of pent up rage spilled over and anyone in sight was fair game to be a target.
It had just been one night but ripple effect of the madness the city fell into would be felt for years to come.
Something had shifted in the city. Lines were crossed. People saw not only the darkness they were capable of themselves when given an outlet, but also witness the lengths their neighbors would go too.
"Everything is changing." Bird said.
She'd felt the shift in the city beneath her feet the moment the darkness descended upon the city, spilling down streets and winding through alleyways like spreading tendrils taking up root.
Jim opened his mouth to agree that he'd been thinking the same thought, but Bird spoke again before he got the chance.
"You were right, Jim."
His jaw hung lax. Brows slowly rising in question at what exactly she was referring too.
Hands slipped from his grip when she left go and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears.
"Go on…" He was still at a loss.
"When you got mad at me for killing that guy who was beating up his wife and daughter." Bird crossed her arms around herself. Neatly folded in. "We can't live like that."
"We…" She shook her head and took the responsibility, "Me. I have to do better. Everything I saw last night… the utter lawlessness of it. No rhyme or reason. People were just killing to kill-"
She shook her head in disbelief.
Jim's head titled to the left.
She wasn't wrong.
And the night they'd gotten into the argument over how she took the law into her own hands and time and time again still sat fresh in his memory.
The calmness that coated her tone when she'd said 'I understand you don't want me to kill people but he deserved it'.
"Agreed…" He drew the word out before offering a pardon, "But Bird, last night… what happened with Jerome isn't your fault."
"I know." Offering up a somber smile and one shoulder shrug she reasoned, "But broken people break people, Jim. And I don't want to live like that anymore."
The cycles she'd been stuck in for as long as she could remember needed to come to an end.
She'd already informed Oswald they were done.
She'd cut ties with Falcone when he'd tried to have Jim killed.
Fish was still around somewhere but they weren't in contact.
She felt a renewed sense of peace in how things had ended between her and Harvey.
What was left to keep her anchored to her old life?
It was time to move on. Stop running back to the things that hurt her -no matter how familiar that pain was.
The only direction to move was forward.
One foot in front of the other and like Alfred had said: don't turn back when the past nips at your heels.
The restlessness and uncertainty she'd felt for so long had dissipated.
"You told me not all that long ago that you wanted more. That you wanted a serious future with me. A family, even." Bird's voice had quieted to just above a whisper, "Do you still want that? Still want me?"
"Of course!" There wasn't a second of hesitation in his voice, "I love you, Bird. That never changed, I never wavered on that. I want a life with you -always."
Motion matched the certainly he spoke with as he crossed the distance between them.
With a hand on the side of her face and the other laid against the side of her neck he leaned in, mouth pressed against parted lips with a kiss that proved it.
"Always."
He repeated like vow with his breath hot against her skin.
"Good." Her cheeks were flushed; breathing hastened and heart skipping inside her chest, "Because I want that too. And I don't care what anyone else says about us."
And talk they would.
She knew word would hit the gossip section of the papers once they were spotted together again.
Rumors and theories would run rampant about why she was back with him after Mario's death.
She didn't care what they thought or what they would say.
He'd become a safe heaven. A shelter from the storm.
In that moment the only thing she cared about was the sensation of his touch against her skin. The familiar taste of his mouth as it collided back with hers.
Being back in his arms was truly coming home.
•••
A/N - *nervously peeks out from behind a wall*
I know it's been over a year since my last update. I am truly sorry about the wait for anyone out there who was waiting on this to get posted.
I'll keep this short but this last year of my life has been an absolute roller coaster.
Between illness and deaths in my family and my own hospitalization in the ICU earlier this year where I could have died (non covid related), I haven't been in a headspace where I was able to sit down write anything.
To be honest I've also been really nervous about trying to get back into writing and posting at all.
Please be kind about me taking so long to get this update posted.
I'm really trying to get back to feeling like myself and finding the spark of inspiration that has been absent for such a long time in my life.
I know this chapter wasn't super long, but I hope it was enjoyable and just the same.
To those of you who have reviewed and who have messaged me on Tumblr to let me know how you were still hoping to see another chapter, thank you so much!
I haven't gotten around to answering those asks on Tumblr, so if you are someone who sent me something on there, I do apologize.
Please know that I am so thankful for each and every one of you who has taken time out of your day to read my stories and leave a review or send me messages letting me know!
I would love to hear your thoughts on the chapter and Bird's decision to go back to Jim finally -and to turn over a new leaf.
I hope you're all having a great holiday season!
Take care.
xx