Work Text:
It’s a week of sleepless nights, endless case files and around the clock news reports until Bruce builds up the courage to visit. The manor is quiet, more so than ever before, and Gotham is-- not safe, never safe but not on the brink of disaster either.
He listens to the voicemail every chance he gets, phone clutched in a shaking hand, not thinking of Alfred’s tremors or how he’s waiting for Tiffany to show up, just like John did. Like Harvey. Oswald. Even Vicki.
This old house is driving Bruce mad. He goes out every night, needlessly, the bat-signal is lit only once the whole week and that’s nothing more than a routine robbery. It never gets any less jarring to find no one waiting for him when he gets back.
Alfred has, at least, left him a veritable supply of food that only needs to be heated. Bruce doesn’t like the bitter not-quite-laugh that gets out of him.
He wonders if John feels the same way or if he’s already gotten used to the rhythms of the place he’d once called home. There’s a good chance, Bruce thinks, that Arkham is still home in a way the outside world could never be.
You are one messed up guy.
Bruce has taught himself to notice and remember everything. He wishes John’s inflection wasn’t still crystal clear in his mind. It might have been the kindest thing he’d heard that entire night.
If John is all he’s got left, Bruce’s urge to know only gets stronger. It’s Sunday when he finally gives in and manages to catch the tail-end of Arkham’s visiting hours. Same suit he wore at Lucius’ funeral, different tie. Alfred was always the the fashion-conscious one.
As he’s led down Arkham’s dingy, interminable hallways to a wing he’s never seen before, Bruce is reminded of nothing but the manor. It’s a prison in its own right, Bruce certainly never thought he’d mind silence. Maybe he’s never seen how alone he is, maybe it’s never mattered before. His own stay here doesn’t come to mind.
Solitary, as it turns out, isn’t all padded walls and straitjackets. The brief glimpse Bruce gets of the room before John’s familiar head peeks through the little window in the door shows tiled walls and a dresser with a framed photo on top of it.
His breath hitches. It’s the one photo John had taken with Batman, same night he’d most likely figured it out. There’s still a chance somewhere in here.
“Bruce?”
It’s less of a question and more of an excited exclamation, so very and simply John that something aches in Bruce’s chest. His own awkward attempt at a smile doesn’t go unnoticed, if the sudden giggle is anything to go by.
“John,” Bruce says and braces himself for a “it’s Joker now ” that never comes. It’s not Joker anymore, it doesn’t seem like it. Joker was an almost-hero’s name.
Dubiously lucid and seemingly happy, John still makes for a drab sight in Arkham’s off-white landscape. It’s more deja-vu than familiarity that makes Bruce feel like he’s threading through a dream. He’s met John in this exact state yet can’t quite reconcile the image with neither the anxiously excited man who’d asked him to play pretend nor the grinning maniac covered in blood.
It’s still his friend. Bruce can see that even if he doesn’t know where they go from here.
“I didn’t think-- I didn’t think you’d visit!” There’s a hint of wonder in John’s eyes, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing either.
Bruce doesn’t tell John he’s not alone in that.
“I wanted to see you,” Bruce says instead. He’s almost grateful for the door between them. “How are you doing?”
It’s a misstep, a near fatal one at that. Bruce should know better than to be shocked when John’s features turn bitter. He does know better as soon as he says it. There’s been a lot of this lately. As Bruce has learned, the good rarely outweighs the bad.
They’re saved by a guard’s steadying hand on Bruce’s shoulder. John startles like he’s been touched.
“Sir, visiting hours are over.”
Bruce risks turning back to John one last time. He needs this. “Can I try again? Next time?”
John’s nods, just once, deliberate despite a smile that’s a little wobbly around the edges. His eyes are bright as Bruce offers his hand, pinky finger out. It’s a promise that meant the world to both of them before, one John accepts without much hesitation as his own finger wraps around Bruce’s.
Bruce wordlessly follows the guard through the maze that awaits him.
---
A year ago Bruce had said “I still believe in Harvey Dent.” and it had amounted to nothing. He’s never visited Harvey. He could, if he wanted to, even now. It’s too late to make amends though, too late to even find out if he’d been the one to push Harvey over the edge. Waller seems to think that much, Alfred too. That one still stings.
Belief leads nowhere, he knows, but Bruce believes in John. Maybe with the same ardent fervour John himself had confessed to.
Bruce breaks into Ace Chemicals the night after that first visit. It’s not an impulsive decision, few things are with him, but he’s still got a limited time frame to work with. John’s office is easy enough to find, the pinboard’s still there, front and center, with nothing but the Batman picture missing. He wonders whether it had been grabbed at random or John had been allowed to choose.
There’s no one to explain himself to when he comes back to the cave with all of John’s photos, least of all when Bruce spends the night going through them. Staring back at him are the faces of enemies and strangers alike but, more often than not, his own face, rarely smiling, certainly never as excited as John’s.
Tabloid clippings and polaroids are also scattered throughout the pile of printed pictures. Most are of Bruce, a few pertaining to Wayne Enterprises, not nearly enough to make a collection, surely not the one John had mentioned to Alfred. Years’ worth of tabloid pictures. Bruce tries not to shudder, it’s easier than it would have been a month ago.
In the end it’s the sole polaroid of Arkham Asylum’s sprawling facade that Bruce ends up holding on to. The rest get pushed into a drawer, not to be forgotten, hardly that, he just can’t look anymore. Not now.
John is going to want the pictures back if-- when he’s released again. Bruce is just going to take care of them until then. It’s what friends do.
---
“Alfred doesn’t want you to visit, does he?”
John might not be good with people but he’s always perceptive enough to make Bruce balk in the face of all that single-minded attention. It’s too much like before, as if John still looks up to him, as if Bruce ever had all the answers. He swallows, opens his mouth and nothing comes out.
He hasn’t said it out loud yet. No one has asked. Bruce’s days are a haze of business meetings, his nights are reserved for nothing but patrol. He doesn’t think anyone has noticed something’s changed. There’s hardly anyone left to care.
They’re sitting on John’s bed, same muted colours as last time. Arkham in the daytime isn’t too different from Arkham in the middle of one of the worst thunderstorms they’ve had in months. The faint trickle of natural light only serves to wash it all out.
Bruce is actually allowed in this time. Whether John has made it beyond solitary over the course of one week or his visitor privileges have simply changed, he hasn’t been told.
“Alfred thinks--” it’s my fault you’re here. Bruce looks at John, knees drawn to his chest, pressed up against the wall.
The bed isn’t much bigger than the one in the Ha-Hacienda, better for the lack of pallets but certainly not big enough to warrant the distance between them. Well-deserved, Bruce doesn’t doubt that.
“It doesn’t matter. I said I’ll always be there for you,” he finally gets out.
There’s the faintest of smiles sketched across Bruce’s lips. He’s forgotten about this kind of suffocating hope. It might be stupid but it’s his. The one thing Batman hasn’t yet ruined.
John’s gaze is steady but the silence stretches on and Bruce’s already lacklustre smile falters.
Honesty.
It occurs to him John appreciates honesty.
“Alfred left.”
It’s easier than Bruce thought it would be. He’s given enough bad news to last a lifetime, this inexplicable bluntness might just be force of habit by now. John flinches all the same, green eyes going wide. Whatever Bruce expects, it’s not a pale, bandaged hand covering his.
“Is it because of…?” John trails off, gentle and careful like at the bitter end of that apocalyptic display in Ace Chemicals. His hand is still merely resting on top of Bruce’s, not squeezing, not even holding.
Bruce doesn’t know if he means Batman or himself. The two have become so inevitably entangled in his mind, it doesn’t make much of a difference.
“No, of course not,” Bruce lies. It might be selfish -- he’s sparing himself a lot more than looking out for John’s recovery and potential distress. “He just needed a vacation. I don’t think I’ll see him for...a while.”
If John suspects anything, he doesn’t show it, a ghost of a smile is enough for Bruce to know he understands. It’s almost nice, this all too willing avoidance of that night.
Too many nights in Bruce’s life have been neatly categorised as that night. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, hears nothing but John’s soft breathing next to him and the buzzing of lights overhead. It’s oddly silent, the Arkham Bruce remembers had been full of screams.
“When we had coffee together,” Bruce starts, scarcely aware he’s talking. “You said something about the lights. I think I get it now.”
John’s beaming at him when Bruce opens his eyes again.
“I knew you’d understand, Bruce.”
John says his name the same way he’s always had, that hint of too-good-to-be-true has never really abandoned him. Bruce doesn’t understand this devotion but nevertheless hangs on to it with everything he’s got.
The rest of their hour together passes by slowly, filled with aimless small talk and meaningful glances. They might be getting nowhere and it all seems to come to an abrupt end when a guard interrupts them to tell John it’s time for his morning session with Dr. Leland.
“I’ll come back,” Bruce says, sudden, as he sits up. He catches John’s hand in his for a moment then trusts himself to walk out without looking back.
---
The Old Five Points subway station is Bruce’s first stop after work. He’s only ever been here as himself, it’s already too much like stepping on hallowed ground without bringing the cape and cowl into the mix.
Waller’s -- or rather the Agency’s -- cruelly clinical touch protrudes even through the Ha-Hacienda, whose flayed corpse still stands only in the loosest of terms, it’s missing doors and windows as much as its traces of John.
Bruce still takes good care to compare this current incarnation to what he remembers from his few ventures inside the place. John’s clothes are missing and so are the pictures but that must have been a case of him making it back before the Agency, it’s the presence of broken bottles and the toppled over bed that makes Bruce question what the agents might have been looking for. Whatever it was, it doesn’t become immediately evident.
What Bruce does find among the tattered remnants of John’s life, this archipelago of lost and unnecessary things, is a doll. He stares at it, too-large head and uneven stitches, and doesn’t quite understand. Or if he does, the urgency of it doesn’t make sense all at once.
It’s a doll of himself. Grey button eyes, his favourite suit and tie, it would all be there if not for a wide smile he’s never worn before. Bruce nearly drops it. It’s clearly handmade, which might also be the one thing that propels him towards the unthinkable. He takes the doll with him as he searches the rest of the subway station.
There’s nothing else that jumps out as remarkable but then again, Bruce can barely say why he’s here in the first place. He’s known for weeks that it’s been scrubbed clean by the Agency.
Harley’s room remains oddly stuck in time. The make-up kit has been taken but nothing else seems amiss. Her status as an asset had clearly meant something. Bruce’s hold on the doll tightens even as thinks of Blackgate and everyone he’s sent there.
There had been a rare satisfaction in confronting Harley. Bruce doubts he’ll ever get the benefit of it again.
---
“John’s progress has been--” Dr. Leland seems to try and think of an appropriate word, tone firm but polite. “Steady.”
Dr. Joan Leland’s office has a clear view of the asylum’s grounds, the garden stretching seemingly endlessly into the horizon, and it’s impersonal enough to put Bruce’s to shame. If not for the diploma hanging crookedly on a wall, the assumption that the office was simply currently unused wouldn’t have been far off.
It’s welcoming all the same, bright and spacious and smelling faintly like coffee. Dr. Leland, Bruce comes to understand, seems to be a woman who’s dedicated her life to the service of others. She’s one of the few people Bruce has met who find themselves exactly where they’re supposed to be.
“You realise you’re the only visitor John has ever had?” Dr. Leland asks. “Even before his readmission.”
“Yes,” Bruce agrees, still unsure as to why he’s been called here. He hasn’t given it much thought. Until now it’s seemed perfectly natural that he and John would only have each other.
Dr. Leland nods, apparently having expected that much, and leans against her desk. “I was, well, disappointed when the police brought him back but certainly not surprised,” she starts, thoughtful. “You have to understand these violent impulses are part of John and they’re particularly common in high-stress situations. These past few weeks have been nothing but that.”
“Did something happen?” Bruce tries, he doesn’t mean to interrupt but his fist clenches around the gift bag he’s holding and the tension only keeps rising.
“There was an altercation with another patient. As John’s emergency contact, we thought it would be fair to call you,” Dr. Leland explains. There’s a forced consistency to her tone, Bruce hopes he can mimic it.
“What was it about?”
“You, mostly.” A sigh follows. “The patient in question had doubted your constant visits.”
It’s been three days since Bruce’s last visit. The fact appears, abruptly, at the front of his mind. He can’t tell when the weekly visits turned into this.
“You can visit him,” Dr. Leland adds, hastily, when Bruce’s worry becomes obvious. “He won’t be allowed in the rec room for the rest of the week but that doesn’t change what I said about John’s progress. He hasn’t refused to take his medication once, he seems to be genuinely trying.”
Bruce thanks Dr. Leland and lets her point the way to John’s room -- as if he doesn’t know it by heart -- then walks there himself, too aware of the visitor badge stuck to his button-up shirt.
All the talk of steady progress sounds promising enough. It has to be promising, Bruce reasons he wouldn’t have been allowed in otherwise. He’s certainly not about to question just how often he’s found himself in Arkham lately.
---
Bruce knocks on the door and lets himself in, greeted by the now-expected sight of John sitting on the bed. He’s fiddling with the bandage on his hand this time around, stained red right in the middle. It’s never been quite this noticeable before. Bruce remembers the fury he’d felt at Ace Chemicals, remembers driving a batarang right through John’s palm like it was nothing and wonders, absurdly, if they accept walk-ins at Arkham.
He smiles despite himself and holds up the gift bag in lieu of a greeting. It might not be the best time for what he’s brought, if only he’d known about the so-called altercation before he’d left. With some luck, it won’t be read as too much of an encouragement.
“Bruce! You made it!” John exclaims, scrambling up immediately, quick and hopeful. It starts looking, for just one moment, like he might pull Bruce into a hug. “I didn’t think they’d let you in,” John admits after a beat, sheepish.
“I-- Yeah, I heard,” Bruce says, an inexplicable apology on the tip of his tongue. It’s not his fault John had lashed out, it doesn’t undermine any progress. He just needs to keep that in mind for as long as he can get away with it. “What happened?”
John rubs at his arm, stuck in this stilted movement smack-dab in the middle of the room. It’s a risk Bruce is willing to take, even if John won’t meet his eyes. It’s a first for their meetings.
“Nothing,” is what John settles on, sounding like he means it.
Bruce sits down on the bed, he can wait, they’ve never had quite this much time before. He still sighs and feels months and years of this, all yet to come, crash over him. If there’s a chance they can make it, if John does get discharged after another lifetime in here, Bruce can bear it all for him.
There’s a hand resting on Bruce’s knee before John settles next to him, closer than they’ve dared so far. They still haven’t talked, not really.
“They didn’t believe me, Bruce.” There’s something about John’s tone, a strangely wet undertone, at odds with the excitement usually fizzling in him. “They never believe me.”
Bruce resists the foreign urge to put an arm around John and instead reaches for the gift bag resting at his feet. He doesn’t have to ask who they are, it’s easier to fill in the blanks than to push John any further.
“I’ve got something for you,” he says, hoping against reason that he hasn’t got it all wrong. Bruce doesn’t know how to make it look like any less of a prize as he hands John the bag.
John tears at the colorful tissue paper rapidly and as he emerges with the doll, newly dry-cleaned and clumsily restitched where necessary, a sort of soft gasp leaves his mouth. In light of the still fresh memory of several nurses inspecting the bag and evidently struggling not to ask why Bruce Wayne has brought a doll of himself, Bruce isn’t all that sure he can stand seeing John’s reaction.
That’s a little difficult to manage as John’s arms wrap around him and they stumble their way into half a hug that barely lasts a second. John is clutching the doll to his chest when Bruce looks again.
“It was at the subway station, I didn’t know if you’d...want it back,” Bruce finishes lamely, floundering around as always and never quite finding sure footing.
“Thank you,” John says, quiet, though the fondness in his voice burns hot.
There’s something left unsaid here that neither of them seems able to reach.
“Did you make it?” The question has been floating around Bruce’s mind for two days now and as John ducks his head in some familiar approximation of embarrassment, the answer becomes clear.
“Yeah. Don’t think they’re gonna let me anywhere near arts and crafts this time.”
John, in his endless determination to own all that one might consider the slightest bit off, laughs. It’s that distantly sinister sound Bruce has come associate with him. A vague understanding of time dictates that the doll must have been made during John’s last stay in Arkham and Bruce can only muster something too warm to pass for unease.
It also, apparently, doubles as a sudden burst of bravery.
“I think we should talk.” Bruce can count on one hand the number of times he’s said those words. Maybe this time it won’t be too late.
A bittersweet kind of resignation comes over John as he gingerly places the doll besides his pillow. Bruce thinks of the get well soon card on his bedside table, these days joined by an unopened envelope marked by the sharp lines of Alfred’s handwriting.
“Well, you know what Dr. Leland says about communication. It’s the staple of any healthy relationship!”
Bruce gets the distinct impression John’s going for a joke and falling short. They can both feel how the thread has been stretched, twisting uncomfortably at every turn, now pulled tight around them. He’s not sure he wants to break free, not if it means losing the dubious comfort of these near-daily visits.
“I’m sorry for-- for using you.” Whether he’s repeating himself or not is irrelevant, Bruce knows the necessity of it as much as he did in the funhouse, weighed down by the first real glimpse of what John had been pushed to do.
He’d told Tiffany there’s no excuse for murder. Bruce’s belief in that remains as firm as ever but he can’t help wondering what he would have done, backed into a corner and forced to fight for his life. He’s pressed up closely against John now, leaning against each other in discontent silence.
“You don’t need to coddle me,” John breathes out at last. “I can take it.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” Bruce turns to face John, lips pursed. “I know how it feels to be told what you want to hear, that’s not what I’m doing here. I’d like us to be friends, if that’s something you still want.”
That last part feels much more deadly than a mere afterthought. Bruce had assumed he’d be welcome, he’d never thought to ask.
“Of course! Of course, we’re still friends, Bruce.” John doesn’t hesitate for a moment, as if there had been nothing in the long stretches of almost-heartbreak between Lucius’ funeral and this post-Ace Chemicals haze. “I guess I just shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.”
“You don’t need to be a hero, John.”
Bruce’s smile is entirely genuine and all that more awkward because of it.
“I just need to be myself, right?” John sounds like he’s repeating the phrase from memory, echoing a sentiment Bruce might’ve shared before, one that’s never stopped being real. He’s smiling indulgently though and he giggles as he shakes his head like he can’t quite believe Bruce still thinks that.
“Well, it’s true,” Bruce insists, though he allows himself a laugh as well. They’re safe for now, it’s a rare delight.
That, of course, only means Bruce has to go ahead and seal his fate.
“Maybe we could both try again when you get out,” he adds, bizarrely sure of himself.
John’s eyes go wide in breathless wonder. “You mean that? You really think I’m getting out?” His voice nearly shakes with the excitement of it all, words stumbling one over the other.
“I really do.”
It’s the truth, as naively hopeful as it might be.
---
Gotham looks brighter at night. The sparkling lights blind you and cover the cracks in the old buildings in turn, not even the gargoyles look out of place in the dark, not like they would elsewhere. Bruce has spent enough time on the GCPD rooftop to know the skyline’s every detail by now. He still keeps looking.
The smell of cigarettes announces Gordon’s arrival and Bruce doesn’t turn around as fast as he could have, still a little sore from a crowbar to the ribs last night or a well-aimed gunshot the night before. It used to be easier.
“I know it’s a little unconventional to call you when there’s no real emergency,” Gordon starts, serious as ever. He’d been reinstated as commissioner the moment Waller had left, the Agency’s tendrils are slowly receding. “I might just need you to investigate a mutual friend of ours though.”
Bruce grunts in acknowledgement because that’s what Batman would do and waits. He likes Gordon’s company, seeing him without the threat of imminent danger is more than welcome.
“I hear Bruce Wayne has been visiting Joker in Arkham a lot lately.”
That’s barely even close to what Bruce was expecting to hear. White lenses widen momentarily but he makes himself stand stock-still. Gordon’s distrust of Bruce Wayne is well-known but rarely this urgent.
“His name is John,” Bruce whispers before he can stop himself.
“What was that?” Gordon looks surprised as he stamps out his cigarette.
“Joker’s name is John Doe,” Bruce clarifies, reluctant in this new-found need to be, of all things, protective.
It’s been a month since he’s started visiting John daily and longer than that since they’ve been thrust into this catastrophe. Bruce still hasn’t gotten used to the vast emptiness of the manor but there is some half-glimpsed benefit in not being questioned until now. Dr. Leland has never called the visits excessive, he knows Alfred would have.
“Right,” Gordon agrees with only the slightest of strange looks. “Wayne’s still been a suspect in half a dozen investigations in the past two years. I think you know why I’d like to keep an eye on him when he’s talking to a criminal.”
Bruce understands, in some fundamentally implicit way, exactly how this looks. What shocks him into action is the knowledge that he wouldn’t trade it for the world. John has become irreversibly tied to the first few flickers of happiness he’s felt in years. On his better days, he still holds out hope that Gordon would understand. Tonight isn’t being particularly charitable.
“John didn’t plan to harm anyone,” Bruce says. It all seems to come purely instinctively by now. Not a good sign. “He and Wayne are friends.”
There’s always a certain disconnect that comes with having to talk about himself to Gordon, hearing that in Batman’s voice only deepens it. It is, despite everything, the truth in its simplest form.
“I’ll tell you what I find,” he adds before he grapples away. Batman’s tone never wavers, this was no exception. Some things can still be relied on.
Gordon will understand, Bruce knows he will. He just needs time. They all do.
---
Thomas and Martha’s invisible tracks are everywhere in the manor. The portrait hanging above the fireplace -- as classically dignified as ever, the furniture unmoved in twenty-two years, it’s all exactly like they’d left it. Bruce has other photos of them, ones full of life, shoved in boxes in the attic. He can’t imagine the same fate for John’s pictures.
He used to wonder, back when it had all started, what his parents would have thought of Batman, of the man he’s become. Thomas’ legacy has tarnished all thoughts of this unimaginable standard. It might be for the best. Now, at the very least, Bruce has a clear vision of who he can’t be.
Bruce doesn’t want to be part of anybody’s tragedy, this time he might even have a choice in the matter. He’s sitting in front of the unlit fireplace now, Alfred’s envelope in his hands. Opening it makes it real, it’s the only reason he hasn’t done it so far.
It’s been months though and Bruce has been lacking in optimism lately, in a lot more than that actually. Gordon’s investigation into Bruce Wayne had been cut short by the reappearance of Tiffany Fox. Another knife cutting in too deep. She’s still at large because Bruce hasn’t had the heart to bring her in. He can’t tell if he’d been bluffing that first time, coming off that inevitable heartbreak, or if he’d really meant it.
There are good sides to this new normal, all that inexplicable warmth bursting in his chest whenever he gets a chance to see John comes to mind. Bruce still wants someone to understand, to see what he sees. It seems more unlikely than ever.
The envelope remains unopened as the bat-signal lights up the sky. Visiting hours at Arkham are long over and it’s the first day Bruce has missed since he’s gotten settled in this ill-advised routine.
He’ll make it up to John as soon as he can, Bruce promises himself that much as he suits up. Even the Batsuit speaks of the departure of Bruce’s already scattered allies, he can only patch it up on his own for so long.
Bruce would wish for the days before Riddler’s arrival if it wouldn’t mean losing John in the process.
---
“I watched the signal last night. Couldn’t sleep.”
John looks sickly pale against the backdrop of green, squinting in the afternoon sun. There’s a wry smile on his lips, private and meant just for Bruce. Batman demoted to an inside joke, it’s the kind of thing he can appreciate.
Their hands brush faintly as they walk, warm and easy and aimless. It’s not the first time John’s been allowed in Arkham’s sprawling Victorian-style garden but Bruce’s company is a recent development, as is the absence of guards or orderlies. He can feel rather than see Dr. Leland watching them from her office on the third floor. It’s a view Bruce has seen before, though not one he’s been part of.
“Sorry I couldn’t make it yesterday,” Bruce says, guilty and unable to make sense of John’s words. He looks drawn today, tired out but no less animated because of it. He catches John’s pale hand in his, impulsive -- an apology in flesh and blood.
“Dr. Leland says I handled it remarkably well.” John sounds proud of it, like he’s been waiting to tell Bruce just that, at least until he veers straight into a little fit of giggles. It passes as quickly as it came. “You don’t have to visit every day though. I was doing great on my own the first time around! Well. I-I mean--”
The implications of just how John’s latest foray here had ended seem to crash on top of him one right after the other. Bruce tightens his hold on an already sweaty hand and smiles his best smile. He knows that John, if given the chance, is likely to talk himself in circles.
“I like seeing you,” Bruce admits. It’s not much of a shock to realise he means it, words tumbling out with no resistance. “I don’t know what happened yesterday.” Too much of a confession when he could have gone for an excuse. “I’ve been thinking a lot about...us.”
“Oh?” John’s curiosity seems to melt into a sort of dread, even as he takes a sudden turn and their walk gains an objective as Bruce is dragged towards a stone bench underneath a large weeping willow.
Arkham’s always worn its peculiarities well; prepared, apparently, for nothing more than these occasions.
Their arms swing as they walk -- John’s doing -- but all Bruce can feel is the jagged line running down the middle of John’s palm. It’s something of a miracle that John’s been left with a working hand, no thanks to Bruce. Mostly healed by now but clearly permanent, the scar prompts nothing but an endless look at the bloodstained finale Bruce had seen at Ace Chemicals.
It’s never been quite like this with anyone Bruce has ever known. If any dalliances stand out, they’re all dulled with a touch of relief that things hadn’t worked out after all. When exactly this went beyond simple friendship, Bruce can’t tell. Maybe that’s never been the case, it’s all gone too wrong too many times for this shared longing to be called simple.
John, always dimly anxious, sits down on the bench and waits for Bruce to follow. If it feels like the dress rehearsal of some yet unseen disaster, neither comments on it.
Spring seems to have finally reached Gotham and Bruce likes to think there’s some comfort in that. It’s certainly brighter than in any number of little rooms shoved inside Arkham’s maze.
“You wanted to talk,” John points out, leaning slightly on Bruce, careful not to prod more than necessary.
Bruce rarely gets the words right when he hasn’t been given the script. Something flutters and vanishes and takes flight again in his chest. He turns his head only enough to get a clear view of John, closer than he’d expected, closer still in his heart.
“Do you remember what I asked you right before I met Harley?” Bruce asks and doesn’t regret it immediately. Adding another misstep to an ever-growing history of them seems like nothing by now. They’ve never mentioned her before, there had been no real reason to bring up Harley’s mercilessly cold approach to what might have been John’s first love. If it had been even that, if he’d really seen that much in her unaccountable cruelty.
John nods, confused, looking like he hasn’t thought too much about it either. It hadn’t mattered then, it’s everything now. Once it starts looking like no words are coming, Bruce finds the strange need to carry on.
“I was just wondering if you still feel the same way.” Bruce tenses like he’s ready to make a run for the exit.
Uncharacteristically quiet and suddenly attentive, John just sits there for the longest moment of Bruce’s life. Then, all at once, he closes the gap between them and presses his lips against Bruce’s, determined and so much more gentle than necessary. It’s over before Bruce can even think to kiss back.
“Oh, god, Bruce, I’m sorry, I just thought--” John’s excuses stumble out, breathless in the immensity of Bruce’s lack of reaction. He’s surely reminded of the same perilous ledge they’re always standing on.
Bruce isn’t one for prolonged torture. He catches John’s lips in a proper kiss before either of them can talk themselves into a corner.
They kiss slowly, careful despite the desperation on the verge of brimming over, pressed up together as much as they can. John kisses with an enthusiasm barely even touched by the obvious lack of experience. Bruce doesn’t mind, he wants it all.
It occurs to Bruce he’s never been more at home than in the looming shadow of the asylum with John in his arms. There’s a certain dawning realisation to be found here, still so much more than he could have hoped for.
John’s lips are as red as when he used to wear lipstick once they pull away, both a little flushed. Bruce wants to stare for as long as he’s allowed to.
“I never thought you’d be interested,” John admits, a little teary-eyed and shaky, half excitement and all disbelief.
Bruce knows exactly what he means and as he smiles, rare and genuine, he takes John’s hand again. “I think it’s been a long time coming.”
“It has,” John agrees. “Promise we’ll actually talk next time we get any bright ideas?” It’s never been their forte, they go through with a pinky promise all the same.
John laughs and kisses Bruce again. He could get used to this.