he’ll get back on his feet

It’s cold, and your hair is still wet from being out on the street nearly an hour ago. Rain grinds against the empty concrete parking structure, pooling and reflecting the harsh green lighting. It flickers every few minutes, warping your reality for a few seconds before it settles back into its skin. 

Even from one of the highest levels, the street below is growling too loud tonight. Sirens blare past through the pounding rain, and the occasional yell tries to shoot another shot of cortisol through your veins. The midnight skyline isn’t any less punishing, looking like brutalism found a new home and named it Gotham. 

It’s tempting to climb back into the car, but the hood’s still warm under you and the heater in that old POS broke again. Besides, the smell of rotting vinyl would only be more claustrophobic right now. Not to mention the glass peppering the seats, or the sleek, black blade embedded in the headrest of the passenger seat. 

It’s either your burnt-down cigarette licking at your fingertips or the figure appearing over the crumbling cement edge a few paces away that cleaves through your focus. He looks like he’s melting out of the night, sleek with rain and pressing his lips into a hard line. Your eyes break from his face before he can meet them. Getting up slowly, it looks like he doesn’t know whether to circle you or pretend he isn’t there. 

“You look tired,” you say, voice measured and pitying. The cacophony of echos through the parking structure nearly drowns you out. His expression shifts, but it’s hard to tell how. “Am I that hard to hunt?”

Things seem like they quiet down, or get louder, or just change in a way the senses can’t register. Everything feels broken with his eyes on you. 

“No, you just-“ he tries to deny it, voice low and tense like he had a reason to run. Like you took something from him. The lights flicker again for a few seconds longer. 

“Just what?” 

“It’s-“ 

“It’s what?” 

“I-“ he stops himself this time, staring at you, mouth agape like he’s lost himself. You can see the gears turning behind his eyes, that perfect machine stuttering as it registers it’s been missing pieces. You cock a brow at him, but the rest of your face stays cold, unfeeling. Detached like all the questions were for naught. 

“Are you going to let me speak?” He asks finally, breaths coming shallow, careful. His voice loses that gravel he usually uses to warn. Eyeblack drips down his cheeks in new lines, dark and unforgiving. The sound of the rain fills the gap between you, now only pattering but sharpening the buildings outside. It’s amplifying every scent they bleed, smelling like rust and decay. 

“You expect me to? After tonight?,” you ask gruffly, wringing your jaw as his own tightens too. You were going to make this quieter, but you decided that that ship sailed 65 seconds ago when he tried to pin it on you. He didn’t even finish his sentence, but you know what he was going to say. 

And that tone? That resolve in his voice when he spoke across the concrete—like he could declare the ground you’re both standing on was liquid and you wouldn’t bite back—is just as aggravating as it was the first time you met him. 

He isn’t as charming as he thinks he is, even with you knowing what lies under that cowl. 

“Done being a jackass?” He asks, getting frustrated. 

Yes, frustrated. God, did you get under his skin like you belonged there. You both know it, but denial is a hell of a drug. 

“Did you really have to put a blade through my windshield?” you bite out, flicking your cigarette butt to the ground beside your shoe. You crush it under your heel, mostly to kindle that fire you heard burning in his throat. You stay leaning against the hood of your car, one hand mindlessly fidgeting with a hood pin, almost tempted to yank it out and throw it at him. 

“I can get you a replace-“ this time he really shuts up, teeth clacking together like a door slamming shut. Mid-offer. Mid-relinquishment of control, if that’s what you’d call it. 

“You think I can’t pay for a sheet of glass?” It’s petty and you know it. But the words are already out, just like his are. His lip twitches like he’s about to snarl.

“Why are you being like this?” His question takes on that whining edge of desperation. It sounds wrong coming from him, like a wolf crying at the side of a warm kill. It’s hard to think that Gotham could lose his edge so quickly.  

“I’m trying not to enable you,” you say, voice sharpening. 

“I can manage my own marriage-“ he says, only to tighten his fists and work his jaw like he wants to scream. At least you don’t have to point it out to him.

“Is that what you call this?” You seethe back, stance shifting to straddle the corner of the hood. The metal groans under you, like it can feel the weight settling between you two. He tries to step closer, but you cross your arms over your chest and he stops. The display is almost enough to convince you he can take a hint. 

Maybe he can. He just doesn’t seem to care either way. 

“You’re freezing,” he says, digging his nails into the tiny details about you again. You’re holding yourself too tightly, skin growing goosebumps under the fluorescent lighting, jaw sealed shut so your teeth don’t rattle between words. He knows how to get under your skin too, only he feels like a virus. “I know your car’s heater is broken. Just let me take you home and I’ll get it looked at in the morning.” 

“You’re not touching my goddamn car, dickhead,” you growl out. “I can fix it.” 

“So it can break again?” 

“Shouldn’t you be with Selina?” 

“Shouldn’t you be done with street racing?” 

Yeah, like a virus. Like he’ll change things about you until you can’t breathe. Like he can always have his way and not get anyone killed in the process. 

“How’d you even know about the heater?” You ask, pinching the bridge of your nose. Your eyes barely flit over your watch as you lower your hand, but you can still make out the time. 03:17 and you have to work tomorrow. 

“Your friends are loud when they complain… I was waiting for you at your shop this morning. You didn’t show,” he admits. The truth sounds even more unnatural than desperation from him, and it seems to make him even more uncomfortable. He’s practically squirming in front of you, itching to move closer even while you glare. 

“I had a hangover,” you say lowly, the words polished with enough shame to make them believable, just not to Bruce. 

“That it?” He asks, finally taking that step forward. His thighs nearly brush the bumper of the car, but you move before he can get too close. Stalking back over to the driver’s side door, your hand rests on the cool metal of the door handle. The pad of your thumb swipes over the lock, nail biting into the keyhole. 

“And you? Here? You’re only a vigilante?” You ask, glancing back at him through your still-damp hair sticking to your forehead. He’s taken a step closer, but he stays still as you watch him. Neither of you speak as you open the door and climb inside, sitting in the shards of broken glass and barely feeling it. 

Hell, the only thing you notice is the way his eyes look just like the remnants of that cracked and shattered windshield. Glinting, quiet, unclean.

Keys rattle in the front door before it swings open with a harsh creak. You’d both forgotten to lube the hinges again, but that can wait for tomorrow when his footfalls don’t sound so cautious. He stops just outside the closed bathroom door, his clothes shifting in that audibly antsy way they do when he knows he’s walking into something dark and thick as tar. It’s like the porcelain’s already wet with red. 

“You still breathin’, kid?” His voice comes in quiet and heavy through the door, snuffing out every thought like wax over a lit wick. 

He always asks the most godawful questions. They get inside your head every time because they’re loaded with alternatives you shouldn’t be thinking about. He knows it, and you’re getting there too. 

“I didn’t ask you t’stay silent. C’mon, it’s a simple question,” he grunts the words through the flimsy wood like he’s trying to will you to be close enough to hear. 

His shoulder hits the door with a soft thud, and you can hear his lighter flick open. He takes those puffing breaths that always made you snort as he lights his cigar. So much for the whole “no smoking in the house” rule he said he’d follow if you did. 

“Answer me straight,” you can practically hear that heavy dread coiling in his gut, making him shift his stance with nervous tension. He pauses his smoky breath just to listen. 

You’ve seen him do the same thing with his men. They’ll show up at the front door with eyes as dark as the shadows that follow a flickering torch, and his knuckles will go white on the doorframe. It’s like he’s pausing just to hear the snap of a blade shut. 

It’s like something’s gone quiet enough to make him afraid to move. 

“When’d you get back?” You ask, voice coming rougher than you’d like. Hearing his stance shift minutely again, you know he’s looking for a good answer. 

“‘Bout an hour ago… wanted t’give you time t’come to me,” he almost says it like a question. He knows shit’s getting bad again, and he’s letting the guilt think for him. He knows he should’ve been here. At home. With you, while you mourned again this year. 

“You wanna try again?” You ask, unable to unclench your jaw before a headache starts growling at your temples. The bathroom tile feels warmer than you do. The showered still drips, but the pool of water around you doesn’t grow any bigger. 

He just breathes, deep enough to make his clothes shift. You can smell the smoke through the door, soaking through the threshold. 

“Open the door. I want t’talk t’you,” he says. The house’s heater kicks on with a groan, saving you both from listening to each other think. It feels like minutes between breaths until he finally speaks again, quiet and strained. 

“Don’t make a liar outta me, kid. Please,” he says, fidgeting with his wedding band. 

Fuck. Of course he went there. 

You stand up, boots squeaking against the tile. You steer clear of the vanity mirror. The hurt’s still too fresh, even though it’s been two years. 

Your cold fingers fumble with the door’s lock. Before you can try to fumble with the knob with wet hands, John’s twisting it from his end and pushing the door inward with his cigar dented between his teeth. He all but squeezes himself into the bathroom before the door’s even fully open, grabbing a towel from the cabinet while he looks you over. He visibly relaxes at the sight of you still breathing. He wraps the towel around and yanks you into his chest like you’re five years old again.  

“Movie or books tonight? I’ll order food,” he says gruffly, rubbing your back and arms when he registers just how cold you are under all the fabric. He doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing you out the door and down the hall to your room to get some dry clothes on. 

Yeah, it’s going to be a long night. That’s okay, though. Isn’t it?