#arwrites

The truth is: you are utterly destroyed.

Not only mentally. Your muscles ache, pain spiking up on your lower back worse than any damage a sharpened knife could cause. Feet so thoroughly hurt by heels they're numb, if not for the casual sharp sting.

It is Gotham. The sky is grey, the city sucks up you out of life each passing moment.

Rain splatters against your umbrella. You stand just before the front door of Wayne Manor, mindlessly fidgeting with the wedding ring sitting pretty on your finger.

One year. You've been married with Bruce Wayne for one year already? Doesn't feel like it.

Time flew before your eyes, the start of it all just below your eyelids. Every first so toothachingly sweet, burned into your brain. Press nails against skin until it sharpens.

Behind you, you wonder if the chauffer it is still there, standing. You know he is, the manners making him wait until you enter the house to only then pull the car to the garage. Watching you frozen in place, bag lazily held in a hand, umbrella in another. Hair disheveled, clothes unruly.

You wonder if you look pathetic on his eyes, just as much as you feel currently.

Not worthy of the surname Wayne, to be called “lady of the house”.

Time is a cruel kind of lesson.

"Ms. Wayne." Alfred's voice, invariably courteous, calls. You almost wince at the door opening. He stands before you, maybe a little unnerved by your state, but if it's displeasure or worry on his face, you can't tell.

He masks terrifically well. You're always alarmed by this.

"Are you alright, ma'am?"

At that, you do wince.

"Yes, Alfred." Your brain haven't even processed his presence yet when you walk past him. He takes your coat and bag. "Just got lost in thoughts for a moment."

"Pondering the mysteries of our universe at the front step?" Ah, you do love the edge of sass in his voice. You meet his eyes, a shy-like (unlike you) smile cursing your face. "Shall I fetch for tea? Supper will be served in one hour's time."

Some months ago, you might have looked forward for it. If Bruce couldn't welcome you after work, he at least would make sure to eat dinner with you.

Deep in your stomach, rot. You swallow dry.

"No, thanks," you say, taking a deep breath. Desperately– desperately talking through the knot in your throat. "I just want to hit the showers and sleep," you say, all sincerity.

You smile politely. He doesn't pushes you.

It is easy to backslide. To make oneself likeable, less volatile, more agreeable. Until you can earn love and care.

(Oh. It's getting bad again.)

"And Bruce?" You ask halfway through up the stairs, despite yourself. My love for you is bigger than words. I search for you everywhere.

The silence that hangs would be enough of an answer. Alfred is merciful, though. "Still working, ma'am."

Isn't it painful? Loving someone just from outside their life?

Wayne Manor is a haunted house. Constantly burning, touching the skies with horrible black smoke. Sculpted coffered ceilings, furniture of expensive dark wood. Bristol, yet you can see the city and all its skyscrapers by the right window.

Wayne Manor, aka Bruce Wayne's first grave.

Every corner, a memory.

"Of course," you mutter to yourself, emotion pooling in the eyes.

Love is about the failure of language, so you fall silent and disappear into the halls.

~*~*~

The sheets are clean like you know they would be.

Heels are the first to go. You kick them off, grumbling in satisfaction. Earrings next, then lipstick messily scrubbed off in any sheet of paper.

Hairpin and belt lost to the ground. Bra? Disappeared.

Yet, despite being absolutely exhausted, you stop just before the bed. Ice at the nape of your neck like a garrote, a promise. Knot in your throat to hang on.

King-sized, silk sheets, cloud soft. Each breath is a stutter of a muscle, the blood running in your veins a statement that you are, in fact, alive.

Isn't it such a lousy fear? The fear to sleep and have yet another nightmare. Oh, to be worn out mind and body and still unable to touch a bed.

The sheets are clean, white-pure. Sours you mouth.

Messy and childish fear. To see the future, where he dies by your feet using the damned cowl. Feats unnamed, life unhonoured.

Death smiles to Batman.

(Ah, Bruce. I would break my own fingers for you. Tear the tongue out of my mouth.

But there are limits.)

You can't even remember half those nightmares. Hands shaking, clattered flesh, de-boned corpses–

You don't want to ruin the sheets. You don't want to ruin your life.

~*~*~

It might be 5am.

He nuzzles against your neck, breath hot and exhausted, chest to your back. Skin painted with purple and red, scar-tissue mapping constellations, saying eat.

Eat you do. Bite one step removed, soft-mouthed kissing blue veins and rough hands. Until you lips become raw and numb.

His weight sinks the mattress, acting like a gravitational pull. Bruce's body, which furnaces can't compare, protectively embraces you.

He's so warm. It's 5am and you both are lying together, legs intertwined, his face buried on your shoulder. You listen to his breathing, slow and controlled, in the comforting quiet of unrealized-hours.

I wish the past had been kinder on you. How the world is cruel and how you refuse to be.

Soft sunlight hums through the damasked curtains, birds start to sing. You are wide awake, and he is too.

You'd seen him die down in your mind, every night. He lives your nightmares, putting on the suit. You're not bound to him by fate, not a soulmate, with no divine intervention; hallowed by gums aching and reverence– that is to say: the door is open, you can walk away.

Because one day, he won't come back.

You know it. He knows it. He has the arrangements prepared for the occasion.

And nowadays, he can't afford to leave the cave if not for going downtown.

The life of a hero is very unthankful.

"Do you hate me?" he asks you, voice rough to be an knife's edge. It's been long enough since you last felt him this close, low in your ear.

Bruce assures you through touch. Calloused thumb rubbing your wrist. Affections ebbs in his palms, love even. A work in progress.

In all your inner turmoil, you can see yourself getting quite tired of it all. The late nights crawling up walls, knowing he won't come back until morning– the stitching of wounds, his blood in the Persian rugs– but to imagine oneself as his enemy? As in, hating him?

"No," you murmur in a steady heartbeat. A detour cross your mind, of eustress: he gets tired too. And, then you say for good measure, "Never."

People don't really think how tiring tragic the life of a hero is. But there's this exhilarating moment where all that exists is Bruce's breath in your skin.

"Do you love me?" he asks because he can't take any chances. Oh, you can bet a kid that grew up traumatized will need reassurance. Constant, gentle reassurance.

White stripes of scars in his knuckles and forearms below your fingertips, drawing into your memory again and again.

The truth is: you are utterly destroyed.

Not only physically. But he tugs with your heartstrings everyday, bruised like he'd been squeezing it. The more it lingers more you realize you've been packing up emotions for weeks, now.

"What a silly thing to ask," you say. Not an answer. Neither are breathing for a second, there. You teeth clatter like a damn trying to bust.

Ah! There's a lot of messed up stuff happening all the time. You coil in yourself, perhaps considering. Bruce's touch shudders.

And there is something to realize. You'd rather die drowning for love than in thirst of it. Repeat to yourself, to him, I will never leave you. In healthiness and sickness–

"On purpose. Always–"

Love, who is brutal, who is stored in the viscera–

"–I love you."

When you were eight, your father had two dogs and the terrible habit of beating things into shape.

Two dogs. Dobermans. Trained to watch the door.

You still remember how they curled up close to you. How warm and soft and gentle they were with you. How your father kept them outside, pitilessly.

Remember how they kept going back to him, wagging their docked tails, love and forgiveness in their eyes despite all the pain.

Never forget: how your father trained them into obedience, until they loved him, and how they believed wholly they could be loved back as long they're good.

~*~*~

"Can I ask you a question, detective?"

You open your eyes, not startled by Connor. The cold hurts your cheeks, and you're not dressed for the weather.

It's difficult to remember why you're here, at first, head pounding with pressure. Eyes dance on the freezed playground and Detroit's river running cold.

Years on the job and your ears still ring with gunshots.

But there's a beer on your hand and an android in pristine clothing before you. You take one step back, back meeting the rail, body instinctively retreating. Shuffling with your feet on the white-covered ground.

"Do all androids ask so many personal questions–, you take a sip of the beer, voice too coarse to talk loud, "–or is it just you?"

Something on your mind tells you it's just him. And this little voice also sends a shiver down your spine– Connor shouldn't be able to touch a gun, ever.

It was supposed to just help with forensic bullshit, investigation, take your job. Whatever. Not do that shitshow it did on the Eden Club.

Connor tilts its head like it's analyzing your thoughts, reading you like an open book. Like it's innocent, and can feel how you tremble from the cold. "Why are you so determined to kill yourself?"

You glance up the sky, scoffing, unable to look it in the eyes. The sky is breathing and crying, tonight. And you pretend Connor's voice doesn't bury a knife between your ribs. How you almost flinches at it.

Humans are so irrational. At the end of the day, it rots between your teeth.

"I don't know what Cyberlife did with your social program, but it's not working," you say, baffled. Then, shaking your head, you mock, "An android with all the virtues I dislike and none the vices I admire."

Connor stands still, snow upon its shoulders. "Woking with an officer with personal issues is an added challenge, but adapting to human unpredictability to is one of my features."

Your eyebrows rise. If you didn't know better, you would say Connor were sarcastic, or even sassy, right now.

But you do know better, and your lips are bleeding red, tongue tasting blood from the mean uppercut that blue-haired Traci gave you, splitting your lips and toring a wound in your jaw, and how the android is better dead.

And Connor died once, already. In the interrogation room, Ortiz's android killed Connor before killing itself. And the paperwork was a headache. Thirium stained Gavin's favorite tshirt, too.

You don't like Connor.

But you don't like Gavin even more.

So you weren't too mad about the paperwork.

(Death is the only real elegance; a promise kept. Those two Tracis never lived but now they are dead. You could throw this at Connor's face; say, even androids want to kill themselves. )

Connor adjust his tie and you roll your eyes. "Cyberlife really thought of everything, huh. They even gave you delusions of adequacy."

You take another sip from the beer, hoping it'll wash off the blood aftertaste. Bitter fighting bitter. Tell yourself it happens to everyone; this reason-less undying grief.

Connor draws closer, never not scrutinizing you. It'll try to make it work between you both; your collaboration matters to the mission, and nothing matters more than the mission– Connor itself told you so.

"You should stop drinking, detective," Connor says, hunching on the rail by your side, human-like. "It could have serious consequences for your health."

You cringe. It sounds genuine, this feigned interest. And you remember that Cyberlife ad, how humans dislike perfection. Connor has uneven dimples, a soft jawline, and nearly-invisible wrinkles– and it infuriates you.

Rage is blood in the water– rage is something that gets stuck on throats–

"That's the idea," you say. And take another sip just to challenge it, or perhaps yourself. Irrational as it is.

Connor decides to ignore the fierceness in your demeanor, setting its eyes on the river. And you decide to swallow more beer, mindful of what battles to fight.

It furrows eyebrows, yet again mimicking human body-language. "We’re not making any progress on this investigation," it says, matter-of-factly. "The deviants have nothing in common. They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places."

It was taking too long for Connor to rumble back to its ramblings. You sigh, tired. You're clocked-out and this android followed you to talk about work, and you're too sober for this bullshit.

You wish to put Connor's head between the asphalt and the tire of a very heavy truck. Making you work without payment. The audacity! "There must be some link."

With fascination, you watch his jaw visibly tense. "We know the deviants experience an emotional shock, a violent trauma or a sense of injustice," it says, forehead creased.

You glance at the empty and melancholic beer bottle on your hand. "Those android at the Eden Club sure had a reason to feel a sense of injustice."

Connor's eyes shot back to you, nearly indignantly. Nostrils flared and face washed in bafflement. "Nothing in their program allows them to feel wronged," it says, copying the mocking tone you used earlier. "They can simulate human emotions, but they're machines, they don’t feel anything."

You agree. And maybe you should keep your big mouth shut for once, but the edges of your visions are blurry from alcohol. "What about you, Connor? What are you really?"

A defiant act of creation. A crime.

A machine that can not only get your gun from you – you, an officer of the law, – but fire without hesitation. For its own benefit, no less.

"You know exactly what I am," he says, monotone. And it's true, but not what you want to hear. "In any case, I don’t see how that’s relevant to the investigation."

Connor tilts its head again, like a kicked puppy, like you are going to make sense at a 45° angle. You copy him.

"Were just executing a program when you shot those androids, them?" You question, an edge of impatience creeping into your tone.

Were you just executing a program when you left me to die?

You open and close your hands, flexing fingers, a dull pain radiating from the knuckles, spreading through the entirety of the muscles. You had to pull yourself back from the edge of a building.

Not that you were surprised when Connor chose the suspect over you. It made all logical sense. Especially when the deviant could have all the information you needed.

And, of course, Connor did not hesitate when he shot that Traci. Connor's hands can't waver nor tremble like yours.

Humans are too complicated, you'll give Connor that. This resentment bubbling on your chest doesn't belong.

"I did what I was programmed to do," it says, because Connor is just an echo of Cyberlife and Cyberlife doesn't care about who dies and who lives. "I didn't have any doubts, if that's what you're asking."

Suddenly, you are made aware of the gun sitting in your hip. The weight pulling your center of gravity down, how you won every shooting championship within Michigan in the last three years. And Connor knows that because Cyberlife knows everything.

You're so very aware of your gun that you can almost ignore adrenaline running through your veins until your hands shake, nor from fear nor pain, but from sheer instinct. How everything feels hot, burning.

Breathing deep and focusing hard on Connor, you say, "When you took the gun from me, did you feel anything? Didn't you feel it was wrong?"

"I'm sorry," it says, not even trying to pretend some kind of regret or confusion, "but I don't see what you're getting at."

You can't help but give a mirthless laugh.

("What do you want from this?" "A lot. Everything.")

Connor looks at you, brown eyes dull, empty. Studying you to the marrow, burning down like wax, slitting like razor.

What an age to live on! The world is collapsing. Nothing truly matters. Everyone is dying, and everything is dying also. You're going home with your own blood in your mouth.

The night gets heavy, like they always do. "Are you afraid to die Connor?"

Connor is sharp-edged steel and you're prone to cut yourself on it. "Why would I be afraid?"

Another chill creeps through you, lacing your throat with a knot.

" No. No," you say, shaking your head, vindicated if not exasperated, "I know that if I shoot you right now you'll just come back like nothing happened. They'll re-upload a backup. I know that."

Snow sets between you two. And something burns on the gaze Connor's giving you; stern, a furious snow storm behind artificial eyes.

"I am asking, are you afraid to die, Connor? " you say, more force behind your words than necessary. "What happens then?"

It takes a good minute for Connor to digest what you just said. I am afraid to die, you think, unashamed of your own weakness.

But looking at Connor right now, the aloofness behind dull eyes, you finally understand a pivotal element standing just before your eyes.

Connor is a dog someone beat into obedience.

And Connor truly believes that, as long as true effort is put into the mission, as long as the massacre is done and the blood is shed, Cyberlife will turn around and smile and will not raise its hand anymore.

"Why do you need to punish yourself this much?"

Most houses and apartments on Earth-42 rest in darkness, so you glance down the street, eyes straining at the neon of rooftops. It's pouring. Miguel didn't had the chance to put up a fight when you are being this cruel.

The pressure is unbearable, his shoulders tense. You watched him send Gwen back her universe despite the probability of her having to confront homelessness there. You watched Miguel try to hurt a kid, and now you're watching as he sets teams to hunt Miles.

"I need to fix this," he tells you, staring and fists clenched. His voice's flat. It's the same answer everytime. You're used to it.

And you know why, of course. It's the reason why every Spider-Man must suffer.

It's the tenderness of grief. Tender like a bruise.

Miguel suffers and weeps. It's sickening to watch how much pain can make you aggressive.

You're more than aware you're a bad person. Never a hero, never sure why you were accepted among them.

(The truth about the multiverse is that they don't know it enough. The canon theory could be right. It could be wrong. They will never know in their lifetime.

It's cruel and merciless and they will never understand it fully.

You're never fast enough to save a person. You are fast enough to watch them die.

Grief comes in waves. Miguel will never see his daughter grow up.)

"Years dedicated to this job," you lament, voice clear through rain, "It all comes down to letting people die."

In another life, we bump on each other at the grocery store. There, we are meant to a happy ending.

Never this one. Here, Miguel looks at you with dread despite all else.

He stiffens further. And you're on his side, he knows it, because you will always be, loyalty outweighting what you know is wrong.

"I don't need your approval," he says. Miguel looks at you strange, eyes fiery red as if glowing with contained rage.

You inch closer to him. Miguel keeps dooming himself. It always going to end up like this.

"I'm just saying," you start, and there's something horrible inside you, "there's no coming back after this."

It's the awareness that you will let Miguel ruin you. Besides that, you would dissect him to know what's happening in his brain, gut him like a fish.

Grief comes in waves. It outweights reason, born from love. Gabriella's laughter is so loud in his head, right now. Not one day passed that he didn't want to take the his heart out of the chest.

You enable the worst in each other. It's true, you had watched him bite off the neck of a person, blood dripping from his fangs. He had watched you punch someone until your own knuckles scratched open.

"I know," Miguel snarls. Life brimming with sorrow. "But you will be on my side."

Jeff Davis has been dead since the beginning. This can go only one way.

Yet, what were Miles supposed to do? Stay still and watch his father die?

And what were you supposed to do? You'd chose Miguel over anybody else. You were never a good person.

Miguel is, though. Despite everything else, he is trying to do what he finds right. Despite the bitterness, the grief.

Somewhere else, I try harder to stop you. Here, I don't try at all. Here, I will meet you halfway.

It rains. It had been raining. The truth is that you are better a weapon than a person. Never letting go of violence like a mother's hand.

"Always," you say.

"And you understand why," he croaks out, solemnly. Taking a shuddering breath.

You purse your lips. "I do."

Loving Miguel had made you worse. "You will regret this," he waves, leaning closer.

You cannot save. You can only try. In another universe, we grew up together. The grief doesn't end but so does the love.

"Maybe." You smile to him, it's not a happy sight. He doesn't falter. "But you can do anything and I won't leave you."

Miguel is making the wrong decision. It's okay, good people also make bad things.

You stand in front of Miguel, and he loves you too. That's why he allows you to be here. "Just don't go where I can't follow."

Everything's sacrificial– you'll make Miguel's massacre holy until there's nothing else to sacrifice.

You said many and many times to Miguel that being in love wasn't a weakness.

It was supposed to be easy. In-and-out, just trying to make a map of the warehouse Sinister Six were using. Empty room. Empty room. They've been doing some remodeling since last tim you've been there.

Just trying to get some pics. Maybe a manifest. Counting the number of goons. Your steps just like a mice's, soundless and light, using of the celling and vents to move undetected.

True to the word, you don't operate the same way most Spiders do. Peter B calls you sneaky and Jess slick, but Miguel respected you for not being reckless like that whole side of the multiverse.

The whiskey, rain and and knock-off cigars scent flooded your nose. Kraven and Sandman are playing poker over a wood box. Kraven got a Full House but you mentally bet on Sandman. Hah.

With the two as guards, you just needed to noiseless.

Empty room. Not empty room, filled with wire but nothing interesting. You had wondered what Doc Ock been planning now. Another empty room.

You don't know what hit you.

The hair in your neck raises, you can't feel your legs.

Mind goes blank with jasmine acid and white, room filled with gas and you weren't quick enough to dodge a kick to the mouth. You punch and cuss aloud before Kraken can lodge a knife on your throat.

Ears unable to hear and eyes unable to see for a sharp second. A tiny mystery. There's shouting and there's pain. Everybody has broken ribs by the end of it.

Your hand voracious raw against a face, so you fumble about what is up and what is down until Kraken is is either unconscious or close enough and there's sand on your lungs and socks.

Two seconds and hard cough is what it take for a metallic arm ragdoll you into a wall.

You bleed an unsurmountable amount.

When the fight is over and after you put Doc Ock to sleep, you hear sirens approaching. Crawling to a celling down the road, you throw up, head tripping.

It's disorienting and the sky doesn't have stars because, after all, you're in New York. The blinding lights are not from stars and your right side is all tender. And it smells like trash and oil. And you think of red eyes and pouty lips and a stubborn valiant man. You wish it to end faster.

Not reckless, huh. You wonder what went wrong and can't pinpoint it, but neither you can feel your fingertips, so all you think is never damage and concussion. Maybe you were just ill-prepared, payed the tool but couldn't pay the price. The shaking comes in waves.

You did say that being in love wasn't a weakness.

And it's true, which doesn't mean you also doesn't have to convince yourself.

Damn Ohio and Vermont. Hate New York the same amount you see it behind your eyelids. Kindness isn't free and both you and Miguel refused to put a name on this burning. You want to go home.

Sometimes the poem writes itself. Sometimes it doesn't need to be written. It untravelled all lungs.

Until the story ends all their heartbeats. Flickering matches. Teeth dripping lead.

Do you love Miguel? Not sure. Does it matter when you're bleeding? Unlikely.

A strange habit: Miguel sometimes travels half the multiverse to see why you weren't answering his calls. You hear him swallowing dry and panic in his eyes.

"M'fine," you say to him.

"You look like shit," he tells you, kneeling to be in your side, hands hovering over, unsure of what to do. Worried that holding you will cause more damage.

"Thanks," you say, calm despite the numbness growing each passing second. Moving was impossible on your current state. Instead, your throat burn at the sight of Miguel. "I can't feel my hands."

Even Miguel, a complete idiot on intersocial intelligence, notices the perfectly hidden edge on voice. You tell yourself that you'll sleep it off, perfectly tucking away the fear.

It's natural and inevitable. Miguel is calm despite himself. "It's alright," he says, voice smooth but deep, husky. Ah, you do love his voice. It could lull anyone to sleep. "You're going to be fine."

The story doesn't have a massage. The notion of it, itself, is ridiculous. In another life, we hold our hands together.

You scoff even if you tell yourself the same. Heart won't stop racing. His hand cupping your neck makes you almost believe it.

It's almost peaceful and quiet, and you can't hear the sirens or the city buzzling as it does. "I'm dying", you conclude, sharing it with him, like you do. At this point, there's not a piece of information you don't share with him.

Miguel's eyes grow wide, fast but you see it. "You're no-"

"Something's wrong, I'm not feeling pain," you say, throat dry and hurting, "I'm dying."

He says something to Layla, who toughly scans you with one droid. The conversation doesn't register on your mind. You place a hand over his.

His head snaps back to you, gaze over your bleeding body. "You lost blood," he tries, yet his voice wavered, "but you're not dying."

Tears. You're crying. His hands relax over your carotid, suddenly bare, calming your mind and breathes. Miguel's shoulders are tense, thumb caressing your cheek. When did you ever take the mask off?

Before throwing up, you think.

Finally, pain laces your head. Red spots on you suit, pooling, but the wound is to o big to stop the flowing. It's smearing him, too. You think, very clinically, that you could have tasted his lips if you both were not cowards.

A stupid mistake. You should have named what's between the two of you.

(You're dying and you can feel it. It's the bleedout and the heart going fast and Miguel denying it instead of saying you're an idiot if you think he'll let you die. It's the trembling and the getting harder to breath. It's the fact you're not in panic.)

He smells apple cinnamon pie and warm sweet home.

There's nothing he can do. Moving you may cause it to come faster. So you don't let him know how much it hurts to move at all. His stomach twists.

Miguel's instinct – always there to be blamed, making him unable to clearly process his thoughts, – is to reach out and engulf you on his arms. He moves slow, closer. He threads his fingers into your stained hair.

"I'm not stupid," you say to him, clenching at his other hand.

This declaration shocks him. As normally, Miguel can't hide the frown on his face. "I know you're not."

"No. I–" A few feverish moments pass. It hurts to breath. You might stare at him forever before blurting out, "Please kiss me."

Keeping you eyes open was starting to be a problem. The sky is spinning. All you feel is drozyness. Like you want to sleep. You want your bed.

"Sweetheart," he says, so slow and low you might have imagined it.

Hot, desperate tears streaked down your face. You couldn't keep appearances anymore, keep playing the waiting game with Miguel. You don't know what cause this pathetic display, but still wasn't worse than the numbness.

A gasp left your mouth as his lips pressed against yours. It settles deep within your chest, but all he probably taste is metal.

A low growl rumbled in your heart.

Why are you crying? It has leapt from my throat when we first spoke, alight when I first head your laughter, strong, hands gone rough with time. Your hands are trembling now.

Hungry mouth and lips. In the end, it's quiet.

Your face dropped the frown. Why are you crying? I cannot undo it. My heart under your palms, ribs de-boned and body peeled from skin. Glossy ruby eyes.

Sorry about the mess. Just hold me. In angry tears, never-mended flesh, and razor-sharp teeth, and sometimes I wondered about the needle edge of it. Guts half-spilled, and rocking waves.

Dear thing, we are bound by fate. I'll let you bring me anywhere.

Bleeding still, shining ribs.

Did you taste the best on the roof of my mouth?