#eyewrite

Even as she races down the block, she’s scanning the scene. Silver sedan, crumpled at the passenger’s side and pinned against the traffic pole. Red truck, LED headlights still blinding passerby, crumpled grill standing five feet off the ground, stranded diagonal in the middle of the intersection. A man in a baseball cap stands outside the cab, talking to an officer, scratching his head like he’s unsure of how this could have happened.

An ambulance screams away into the breathless night. Three black-and-whites block the intersection, metal sentinels. Their solidity, their uninterrupted wholeness of construction, seems to clash with the Volvo doors twisted like taffy and strewn haphazardly in the road. A beat cop in hi-viz directs traffic, and the cars obey him delicately, angling their wheels in an awkward dance to avoid picking up any crushed taillight into their tire tread.

Steph dodges a minivan and beelines for him, slowing to a jog. He starts to shake his head at her, but she cuts off whatever move along, ma’am he was peddling. “I’m here for Crystal Brown.”

The guy’s face twists in a sympathetic wince, and he waves her forward. “Talk to the boss. Him, in the brown coat.”

Steph gives him a sharp look, but it isn’t very ‘regular civilian Stephanie’ to ask what the hell Detective Gage is doing at the site of a car accident, so she just ducks around his arms, already raised again to resume the stream of cars.

“Hey, Columbo,” she calls, and she hopes her voice sounds stronger than it feels. Gage’s shoulders turn before his head does, still talking to the EMT in front of him even as he responds to the dig. When his eyes catch up with the rest of him, Stephanie tries not to feel examined—it takes him a minute to place her. She sees the recognition. Then the confusion.

“Stephanie,” Gage says. “What are you doing here?” He throws a sideways glance at the mangled cars and shifts his posture, obstructing her view.

No time to be mollified by him doing his job. “Where’s my mom?”

The EMT glances at her sharply. “What’s the name?”

“Crystal Brown,” Steph says, immediately focusing on—quick glance to the chest pocket—Marston. “I’m her daughter. She’s five five, light brown hair—“

Marston nods, her brow tightening. “We just sent her back to West Mercy,” she says. “She only got off fifteen minutes ago. She carpooled with Hannah.” This is said with a glance back at the remaining ambulance, where a coily-haired woman that Stephanie vaguely recognizes allows another EMT to shine a light into her eyes.

Steph’s breath clouds in front of her face. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. “You work with her?”

Marston nods again. Her eyes dart quickly to Gage, then back to Stephanie. Purses her lips before offering, “Here, we need to take Hannah back, too. We can give you a ride up front.”

Steph’s heart sinks. “Is she okay?’

Marston hesitates. “We’ll get you to the hospital as quickly as we can,” is what she says.

Steph swallows tightly and pulls her hoodie tighter. “Okay.”

“I can escort you,” Gage offers weakly.

Steph fixes him with a look. Then, flatly, her gaze falls over his shoulder on the driver of the truck. On the officer watching him try and fail to walk in a straight line.

Her brow tightens. “You want to help me? Get him in a cell and keep him there.”

If her intensity surprises him, he doesn’t show it. Marston pats Steph’s shoulder and guides her towards the ambulance.

“Do you want me to call Barbara and have her meet you there?” Gage calls after them.

Steph nearly trips at the suggestion, and swivels, shivering, to glare at him. “What did I just say? Do your fucking job, man.”

Now his eyebrows raise. Steph doesn’t wait to see what else his face does. Marston opens the passenger door of the ambulance cab, then immediately ducks around to the back. Steph’s freezing hand rests on the icy metal of the door, but she doesn’t get in yet. She stands there a moment, scanning the rooftops. It’s fruitless. He won’t be seen unless he wants to, if he’s even there at all.

And either he doesn’t, or he’s not. The skyline is unimpaired.

Stephanie swings herself into the seat without a word.

***

They won’t let her out of the waiting room.

She’d explained it to the nurse. The nurse had confirmed that Crystal had been taken back. They’d had a playful tete-a-tete—Steph, the worried, dutiful, diplomatic daughter; the nurse, the horrid bridge troll refusing passage to anyone unable to answer her riddles three. And the game was fucking rigged, because Steph was a goddamn verbal crackshot.

She managed to dodge the threat of security by virtue of Crystal’s coworker status, but that seemed to be all the nepotism she would be benefitting from tonight: uncuffed wrists and one of two chairs in the isolated corner, where no one would sit near her unless triage absolutely exploded in activity. Given the low hum of the lights, the two other people slumped in their own seats, and the soft, erratic ticking of the broken plastic clock high on the wall, she’s willing to hedge her bets.

Steph throws a glance at the desk. The nurse quickly looks away. She hates that this lady has a better poker face than Marston. That dear sweet rookie had told her it was bad without verbalizing the extent of it, but this nurse is seasoned. She isn’t giving away anything. It drives Steph up the wall.

Steph lets her face fall into her hands. They’re still cold. All of her is. Yes, she’d grabbed the hoodie—the location had been five blocks from her apartment, and it the closest thing to the door—but two layers and sweatpants don’t do much for you in fifteen degrees. A long, shuddering sigh escapes her.

Something in the atmosphere shifts.

Ordinarily, she would have schooled herself. Done the act. Look up and fake-startle at whoever’s there like she hadn’t noticed the approach. It’s just the better move in a civilian setting: doesn’t give anyone reason to suspect anything, and only costs you two seconds of effort.

Tonight’s not ordinary, though. Steph’s head snaps up, and her eyes fix intently on whoever’s got the chutzpah to encroach on her space here and now. She’s ready to bombard the slowpoke doctors who should have been out here fifteen minutes ago, or lash down Gage for tailing her when she made it extremely clear that he was to leave her alone, or just chew out a creep for not reading the fucking room.

She does none of these things.

Bruce meets her gaze unflinchingly.

She holds it for a long moment before leaning back in her seat, planting her feet and crossing her arms. He correctly reads this as all the invitation he’s going to get. The fake leather of the other chair creaks under his weight. She can feel him eyeing her, but Steph doesn’t look at him, focusing instead on the amber lights through the glass doors of the ambulance bay. Her mind supplies her with helpful cutting remarks, but she swallows each one.

“You’re underdressed,” Bruce says.

A disbelieving scoff jolts her chest. “Sorry my go-bag’s not Armani.”

“I meant that you’re shivering.”

She crosses her arms tighter and doesn’t reply. Peripherally, she sees him shift his weight and shrug off his coat. She could stop him. Probably should, realistically.

“Sit up,” he murmurs. She does. The coat, wool and silk and warmed from Bruce’s wear, settles its expensive weight on her shoulders. Against her better judgement, she clutches at the lapels and draws it shut to trap the air in. Her body shudders. If she weren’t running on adrenaline, she’d be mortified.

“What have the doctors told you?” Bruce says. He’s still speaking in that low voice, but it’s not Batman-low. It’s different. Steph’s unsure of what to make of it.

“Nothing.” She nestles further into the coat. It scratches at her cold cheeks. “They won’t let me go back.”

Bruce raises his chin. The desk nurse quickly looks away. “I see,” he says.

He stands. She looks up at him.

At the same time, the door swings open, and a graying doctor scans the waiting room with heavy eyes. “Miss Brown?”

Steph shoots to her feet. “How is she?”

“You’re Stephanie Brown?” The doctor clarifies as Steph hurries towards him.

“Yes,” she says impatiently. She can feel Bruce at her shoulder, sees the holy shit, that’s Bruce Wayne look dawning on the doctor’s face.

“And—”

“He’s a family friend,” Stephanie cuts her off sharply, stuffing her arms through the coatsleeves for ease of movement.

The doctor accepts this. “I’m Doctor Lal. Is Mr. Wayne coming back with us?”

“Yes,” Bruce says.

Dr. Lal adjusts her grip on her clipboard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne, I need consent from the family member.”

“Jesus Christ—yes, he’s coming with us,” Steph snaps, even though the very idea sets off an alarm in the back of her head that sounds something like, mayday, mayday! “Is my mom alive or not?”

Lal’s bedside manner is significantly stronger than Marston’s or the desk nurse’s. She’s unflapped by Steph’s outburst, and doesn’t comment on it as she holds open the door. It’s some point past three in the morning. Doctors and nurses still buzz from room to room. Lal sets off briskly through the hall, white coat made whiter in the cold lights of the ER. Bruce’s black coat feels impossibly dark in contrast. “Your mother was in a collision with a drunk driver.”

“I know,” Steph hears herself say. “They called me to the scene, but she was sent back here before I got there.”

They round a corner. This hallway is quieter than the main room. A few chairs and an abandoned vitals cart sit along the wall, and a window runs along the length of it, shades drawn. Lal slows to a stop and turns towards Stephanie. Bruce stills behind her.

“The extent of Crystal’s injuries was severe,” Lal says. Her tone is almost hesitant. “Her side of the car took the brunt of the hit. She broke several ribs, and both lungs were punctured. She—”

Steph cuts her off, searching Lal’s eyes. “Okay. That’s—that’s treatable. You fixed that?”

“Steph,” Bruce says quietly.

“Shut up, Bruce,” she bites.

“Stephanie,” Dr. Lal says gently. “I’m very sorry to inform you that your mother passed away in the operating room at three twenty-seven this morning.”

Steph stares at her.

“She was so proud of you,” Lal says, and a crack splits down her professional demeanor. Stephanie sees real emotion in her face, and remembers, almost as if her own voice is chiding her from across the room, that Mom’s thrown the name around for years. Lal, one of the attendings. “She never stopped talking about how tough her kid was.”

Steph shakes her head minutely. “Please don’t.”

Lal’s lips pinch into a line. Steph winces against the pang of guilt that immediately strikes her. “I mean, thank you. I—can I see her, please?”

“Of course. Right in here.” Lal reaches to her side and opens the door to the room with its blinds drawn. The lights are dimly lit. Steph stares at the open threshold for a moment before she remembers that that’s her cue. Vaguely, she hears Bruce murmur to the doctor as he follows her—thanks, maybe, or something else—but she doesn’t catch the words, because there’s a stark white sheet drawn up over the figure on the bed, and Stephanie starts to tremble.

“Breathe,” Bruce says.

It’s still not his Batman voice, but it’s an order nonetheless. The Robin in her obediently draws a shaky, gasping inhale.

“Would you like me to do it?” He asks.

Steph shakes her head. The sheet drapes over the body’s head, and the peak of the nose casts a triangular shadow across the sloping form of the cheek.

“Breathe,” he says again. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped.

“She was two weeks out from her three year chip,” she says when the air hits her lungs.

“I know.”

Steph rests a tentative hand on the side of the bed. Raises her knuckles until they just brush the covered cheek, then draws her hand back as if stung. A fat, hot tear burns its way down her cheek, and she furiously wipes it away with the back of her hand. Her breath catches. She counts to five.

She takes the corner of the sheet between her fingers lightly. Peels it back. For a fleeting moment, she’s sure that this will be erroneous—that this sheet covers a stranger, and Dr. Lal will burst into the room with apologies and updates, that Crystal’s a fighter and the next OR over is still patching her up.

But the low light filters clearly through the thin sheet. No hard shadow cuts across Crystal’s features, moving and carving new paths as her head swivels to see who lifted her cloth. Her cheeks and eyes do not twitch with suppressed laughter at Steph having fallen for what was clearly a big joke. Her undereyes are purple and swollen. A deep bruise blooms up what of her neck is visible. Her face has been sponged clean, but blood still matts her hair at the scalp.

Carefully, as if the fabric will tear, Steph recovers her face and turns to Bruce. He’s watching her with the same level of caution she just awarded the bedsheet.

Steph shrugs. “It’s her.” Avoids his eyes. Her lip wobbles.

The next breath comes in dangerously ragged, and her vision blurs. Still, as an undefined blob, she sees Bruce cross the distance in two swift steps and pulls her into his chest.

She just stands there for a moment and lets herself be held and tries to keep her breathing going. In, out, repeat. She loses the pattern in a matter of seconds and dissolves. One of Bruce’s hands cradles the back of her head, and she feels his thumb stroking her hair even as she buries her face into the collar of his sweater. This close, she can smell the sweat left behind from hours in the cowl.

“It was pointless,” she chokes between sobs.

“I know,” he says again. She can feel his voice reverberating in his chest. It’s the saddest she’s ever heard him sound.

His other arm is laced tightly around her back, which Steph is peripherally grateful for, because she figures she’d be on the ground if not for the support it offers. In that same vein of distant awareness, she registers that she would probably need to take some of her own weight back were it not Batman holding her up. Lucky her.

She gives a strangled laugh at the thought. Bruce sighs against her and presses his cheek against her head. It feels like how Crystal used to check her for a fever—lean in with that concerned brow and press her cheek to Steph’s forehead, and then give her a snarky comeback when Steph asked if that was the technique she employed at the hospital—and she’s wracked with fresh cries.

She’s sitting now, she realizes after a time. Bruce must have shuffled them over to the seats. One arm locks over her shoulders, while the other hand still soothes over her back in an uninterrupted rhythm.

Steph shifts slightly. Bruce freezes. She turns her head so that her forehead rests at the center of his collarbone, but doesn’t pull away. Warily, he adjusts, resting his chin on the top of her head.

When she tries to speak, all that comes out is a hoarse croak. Bruce doesn’t move. She clears her throat and tries again. “You probably have to finish patrol.”

His throat bobs against the curve of her head. “The others will handle it.”

A thought occurs to her, so haunting that she jerks backwards and stares at Bruce wide-eyed. His hands slide to her shoulders. She doesn’t want to voice it, but it’s impossible not to say aloud.

“That intersection’s on my route,” she says. “If I hadn’t taken tonight off—”

Bruce’s head is shaking before ‘if’ clears her lips. “No.”

“I could have,” she says, her throat tightening impossibly further. “I would have thrown down spikes for the reckless driver, I’ve done it before—”

“Steph,” he says firmly. “No.”

It’s her turn to shake her head. “You’re not listening.”

He pulls her back in. She struggles. The strength that had been a boon a short while ago now pins her despite her thrashing. “I know,” he says, even as she pounds her fists against his chest, trying to push away. “I’m so sorry, Steph.”

When her fight gives, and she sags against him, he gathers her closer. She’s ruined his sweater, which she’s sure cost him close to a semester’s tuition or something, but he doesn’t seem to care. His hand’s back in her hair, holding her cheek against his shoulder. She stares blankly at those triangular shadows and the clean white lie spread over her mother’s empty body.

Steph pulls back from Bruce. He lets her, but watches her carefully. She feels his eyes on her as she runs her hands over her face. Smooths back her hair. Takes a big breath. She approaches the bed again.

“Come stay at the manor tonight,” Bruce says from behind her.

“I don’t need suicide watch.” Her knuckles brush along Crystal’s cheek, distanced by her veil. “And you don’t need to babysit me.”

“You know that’s not what this is.”

Steph lifts the sheet at her mother’s side to reveal her hand. She interlocks them. Crystal’s fingers are cold and unresponsive.

Steph’s gut twists, and when she gags, it takes her by surprise. Bruce moves faster than her—by the time she turns away from Crystal’s bedside to throw up on the floor instead of her body, he’s there with the trash can. He pulls her hair into his other hand.

Steph gasps and tries to straighten, but Bruce uses his hand at the back of her head to keep her head down. He gently sets the trash can on the floor and crouches. “Sit. Give it a minute.”

She gets halfway through the ingenious retort of “You give it a minute” before her stomach heaves again and she’s on her knees over the can. Between retches, she hears him sigh, and then he’s tying her hair back into a low knot. Once it’s up, he leaves the room.

Steph stares as the swath of light from the open door narrows to a knifepoint then vanishes with a click. She wonders what he’s thinking. She’s alone with her mother’s body. The thought sends her back into the can. When all that comes up is thin while bile, Steph is confident enough to lean back against the wall with the trash bin cradled between her knees.

The door opens again. Bruce’s black Oxfords step in front of her, and then he’s sitting on the ground across from her. He holds a paper cup and a can of Canada Dry.

Steph reaches for the ginger ale. He shakes his head. “Water first.”

“Asshole,” she says, taking the cup. The first sip, she swishes through her mouth and spits into the bin.

“Small sips,” Bruce instructs.

“I’m pre-med,” she says.

The corner of his mouth twitches in his version of a beaming smile. “So was I.”

After the water stays down, Bruce pours half of the ginger ale into the cup and gives it back to her. “Alfred has your room ready.”

“My room,” Steph repeats dryly.

“A room for you,” Bruce clarifies.

Steph’s brows draw, and she studies him for a long moment.

“I’m not a mind reader, Stephanie,” he says lightly.

“Not for lack of trying, I’ll bet.”

“True. But we all have our limits.”

She sighs, pulling her knees to her chest. His coat is so long that in this posture, she’s swaddled in it. “Look, Bruce, I appreciate you being here, but you don’t have to make this into something it’s not.”

She raises the cup and takes a tiny amount of soda onto her tongue, gauging his reaction. He seems to be doing the same thing—his eyes stay on hers for several seconds before his head cocks minutely to one side. “You’re going to have to elaborate on that.”

That feels cruel. Fine. Her shoulders raise. “We both know that, you and me, it’s not the same as it is with the others. You don’t have to pretend just ‘cause you feel sorry for me.”

Bruce takes this as he takes most information—with such minimal shift in expression that the untrained voyeur would assume he hadn’t processed anything at all. But Steph sees the tic in his jaw. It pissed him off. Alright. He’ll shoot something back, she’ll take it, and he’ll leave her alone.

“I’m not pretending,” he says.

Her eyebrows raise minutely. He waits, but she doesn’t speak.

He sighs, then sets the trash can to the side. Steph watches as he shifts to lean against the wall beside her. “I let you down,” he says. “Several times.”

Steph cradles her cup of ginger ale and studies the way that the carbon dioxide bubbles rise to the top and burst. Even the sound of it seems louder in her ears now.

“I gave you every motive and opportunity to despise me.” Bruce continues. “But you continually valued the necessity of the job over the weight of my opinion.”

Steph swallows around nothing.

“Your mother was right to brag about your toughness,” he says. Fresh tears well in Steph’s eyes immediately. “I don’t know if the others would have stayed, if I’d treated them like that.”

She dares a glance at him, and he meets her gaze. “I’m not pretending,” he repeats. “I’ve let you down in the past. I’d like to be there for you now.”

She blinks. Looks down. Looks up at the curve of the sheet over Crystal’s body, and quickly averts her gaze. She raises her wrist and presses Bruce’s sleeve against her eyes. “I don’t want to just leave her here,” she whispers.

“Alfred’s already arranged her transport. We’ll take care of her.”

He stands and offers his hand.