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John slams the door shut and lets himself slide down against it. The office is hardly welcoming but his own door doesn’t lock. He has to make do, as he’s always done. They’re on the verge of something too disastrous to recognise.
He likes secrets. They make him feel all tingly inside, a bit like those butterflies he told Bruce about once, a bit like love. Secrets aren’t the reason he can’t quite remember how to breathe right now. Trust is rarer than John would like to admit but they remain exciting little treats, almost always out of reach.
Except, that is, when a secret’s found accidentally and its rightful owner doesn’t give any indications that he knows John knows.
That one’s never ended well and John, who notices everything and understands next to nothing, has stumbled over his fair share of secrets before. It’s usually a consequence of living in too close quarters, both in Arkham and here. He remembers it all anyway, files it away for later just in case.
It’s always just in case. He thinks people appreciate it when you remember something about them, it’d be rude not to, someone’s got to keep track of those stilted, all too human details and John’s more than happy to appoint himself to the position.
His eyes wander over to the beer bottles on the desk, some empty, some not. Bane leaves traces of himself everywhere. John rubs at his now-black eye and is grateful for the lack of reminder as to whose office he finds himself in exactly. Certainly not Bane’s. The grinning mannequins aren’t helping, that’s another secret gone awry.
John has been informed, through more violent means than what might be traditional or even necessary, that Harley does not like anyone knowing about the full conversations she’s had with the mannequins in her office. That kind of instructions he can follow, despite popular belief.
Still, that had been nothing more than an accident. Bad timing and a desire to get too close. John looks at the window and at Riddler’s corpse he pretends he can see beyond that. That’s one guy that got too close to something. Well-deserved, John supposes, and gives a giggle that sounds a little wet even to his own ears. He’s still taking deep breaths and getting nowhere.
It shouldn’t be the same with Bruce. It’s not the same with Bruce. John thinks that might actually be the problem. That other kind of secrets, those miniature glimpses into lives, are easily brushed off, forgotten or explained away.
Nothing’s ever easy these days. John misses Arkham and resents it in turn. A danger to himself and others, Dr. Leland had said once, and the potential is baffling but there all the same. Everything’s slipping out of his hands, it’s already started. Or has it ended? Harley’s already taken off.
All he knows is Arkham isn’t home anymore and he’s terrified the Ha-Hacienda won’t be a substitute for much longer. Bruce’s secret is only dragging him even further down.
That unbearable itch beneath his skin, the anxious excitement, some desperation tugging at his insides -- it all feels a little bit like Bruce’s fault. John knows it’s not, knows he’s spent half his life in an asylum for a reason. He also knows there’s a chance he doesn’t deserve this.
People are hard to figure out, John knows that intimately, but Bruce isn’t just anyone. Bruce wasn’t just anyone. They’re still bound together, as he keeps telling him, as he’ll keep on telling him until Bruce gets it once and for all, but John needs something real to hold on to. Not quite salvation but close enough to taste it.
So much for friends for life, for pinky promises and bad advice and the one person John thought he understood. The puzzle pieces he’s found himself holding fit effortlessly.
It starts with the laptop or rather the distinct lack of laptop. John gave it to Batman and heard back from Bruce. He’s suspicious by nature, comes with the territory, and the immediate agreement to sacrificing Selina throws him for a loop. Just for a little while. If anything, the heist confirms what John’s been dreading all along.
Watching himself talk to Bruce isn’t too dissimilar to looking at several car crashes at once, minus the morbid fascination. It might actually be worse. He doesn’t regret scoffing at Bruce’s kind words during the heist, not after everything, but John aches for that sort of thing now.
At least Bruce seems to trust him with the implicit sincerity of someone who’s forgotten John started a riot on their first meeting. His eyes go wide with some sudden realisation. Bruce is going to come check on him any minute now. That’s what friends do, he’s sure of it. Yes , it’s obvious now that Bruce would understand.
Bruce might lie and lie and lie and-- John screws his eyes shut and scratches at his arm until he remembers Bruce does like him. No one’s ever not pushed John away.
He pulls himself up and tries to remember the fire he saw in Bruce back at Arkham. That’s everything. Some base part of John had known the truth right then and there. Maybe Bruce hadn’t been lying at all. There’s a chance he, too, had understood then that John knew. It’s a pathetic way out but as John crashes onto the one chair in the room, he finds he doesn’t care.
John loves Batman with all the glee he can muster in the face of someone so magnificent. Bruce is attainable, real and so much like John that he feels familiar. Nothing feels familiar out here. Some relief washes over him along with the knowledge that he doesn’t have to choose. Bruce wouldn’t make him choose.
His own ghost-white hand wrapped around a bottle is jarring enough to shock John out of this panic-induced reverie. His eye throbs dully. He can’t tell if he’s been drinking this whole time.
A door opens somewhere and John takes another swig. It’s Bruce. It has to be Bruce coming to check on him. John’s heart is racing, he tries to take it as a good sign.