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Harvey looked out into the blue night sky. He could hardly hear any of the usual sounds of Gotham University at night over the rain - parties, laughter, exactly what you might expect among the wealthy elite who went to college for fun rather than anything else. He largely avoided those crowds, thankful that Bruce had paid a little extra to get them a dorm room together. He inhaled deeply on the cigarette between his lips and let out a long sigh.
“You okay, dude?” he asked, looking over at Bruce. The boys were tucked away out of sight behind Building C, the rain hiding the smell of smoke and their conversation from any curious students. They came here often to clear their heads and steal precious few moments alone together.
Bruce flicked some ash from his cigarette and put it to his lips again, “Mm.”
Harvey eyed him suspiciously, “Alright. What’re you thinking about, then?”
He folded his arms, “I’m thinking about your dad.”
“Why the fuck would you be thinking of him?” The confusion was evident on Harvey’s face.
Bruce made a small noise in the back of his throat, which signalled he was about to dissolve into a rant any second now; Harvey steadied himself.
“Your father died without any consequences for what he did to you. No jail, not even a slap on the wrist. It feels like he got away with it all. No one did anything because this city is so fucking corrupt. And what am I doing here? Training to become a doctor. To fix things. Except I won’t, will I? I’ll have to deny patients operations because their insurance doesn’t cover it, I’ll have to apply for funding and get denied, I’ll have to work my ass off within a system that doesn’t care about anything but profit. Do you know how much money Wayne Medical gave to the medical board of directors this year to improve patient conditions? Eighty million. And not one thing has changed. Maybe the head chairman has three yachts now. It feels like I’m pissing away my time being here.”
Harvey nodded and waited for the pain in Bruce’s eyes to subside a little before speaking, “Your parents did something for me. Remember? They fostered me for those three months dad was being investigated.”
He had been separated from his father as a child for three months when Thomas Wayne noticed his repeated admittance to the emergency free clinic he ran. With no foster carers available, and records of Harvey few and far between, the Wayne’s opened up their home to him. They fought tooth and nail to convict his father, but in the end all it took was a small favour for the presiding court judge, and Harvey was back home.
“And then things got worse when you went back,” Bruce argued.
Harvey shrugged, “Point is I met you, didn’t I? And now I’m here.”
Bruce sat down on the cement and pushed the burning end of his cigarette into the wet ground. He reached out and let some of the water that was running off the overflowing gutter hit the palm of his hand. It was ice cold and he tried to stop himself from flinching. At the lower angle he could see more of the sky and he studied each storm cloud intimately.
“I don’t feel… right here, Harv…” he muttered.
Harvey sat beside him and absently fixed the part in Bruce’s hair, which had become disheveled in the damp.
“Hey, if you drop out that’s cool with me as long as I get to keep the room to myself.”
He laughed softly, shaking his head, “I’m serious.”
“That’s your problem, I think, Bruce… always too serious,” Harvey looked over at him for a reaction and nudged him gently with his elbow. Bruce pushed a small amount of air out of his nose to signal his amusement.
“I…” he sighed softly, biting the tips of his nails absently, “I guess it’s just hard seeing my parents’ names throughout the city. And even here on campus, Dad has a whole medical building dedicated to him that I have to take classes in. I feel like if I were to fuck up, I’d bring shame on their legacy. I don’t know… it’s stupid…”
Bruce turned his face away, looking down, “How am I meant to live up to that, you know?”
Harvey bit some of the dry skin from his bottom lip in thought, there was a large amount of anxiety building in his chest about Bruce. He seemed almost hopeless.
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged, “Maybe I could go away for a while. See if I can find something else. A purpose would be nice.”
“Mm,” Harvey nodded, rolling the end of his cigarette between his fingers, “I’m guessing this is a one-person trip.”
“I’ll come back,” Bruce insisted.
“When?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Months? Years?” Harvey tried to hold his anger in, “Do you even know where you’ll go?”
“Overseas. Away from all of this.”
“Away from me?” Harvey added quickly. It was a guilt trip and a half, but it might get him to reconsider.
Bruce turned his face away again, “This isn’t about you. It’s about what I need to do. No, what I have to do in order to survive. I want to make something out of my life.”
Harvey nodded in understanding. He couldn’t deny that Bruce had seemed incredibly lost lately. His grades were dropping below his usual levels of excellence and he’d started closing himself off more than he already had.
“Can you promise me something, Bruce Thomas Wayne?” Harvey’s voice faltered. He kept his eyes on the butt of his cigarette as he squished it between the damp cement and his fingers.
“Mm?” No promises just yet.
“Don’t kill yourself.”
His words hung in the air, cutting through the rain and the damp. He suddenly felt very cold.
“If I stay in this city, I can’t promise that,” Bruce said. His voice was dark and filled with honesty. He’d been getting bad again. A lot worse than he let on.
“Shit,” Harvey muttered as worry filled his chest and made it tight. His breathing quickened and he placed a concerned hand on Bruce’s arm. He rubbed small circles into his exposed skin. His heart pounded in his chest — god, they were touching and Bruce was letting him do it. He brushed over the small bumps of old self harm scars and let out a soft sigh.
“I have my fair share of these, y’know? Sometimes it’s like I don’t even remember doing them.”
“Do you think it was him?” Bruce asked. They didn’t have a name for the other Harv yet. Mostly he ate more pizza than agreed upon and stole a beer from Gilda’s stockpile. He made an unpleasant roommate at the worst.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t do it anymore. Not since dad died.”
Bruce looked down at Harvey’s fingers on his skin. It felt nice. He hadn’t let anyone touch him like that in a long time. The rich football jocks liked to smack the back of his head. Harvey had given one of them a decent black eye for it.
“Do you remember when we set that bastard’s lawn on fire?” Bruce said.
Harvey laughed, “Yeah. He deserved it.”
“I don’t know if he really did, Harv.”
He shook his head, “Don’t give me that Bruce Wayne guilt now. He could’ve asked anyone in that class, but he asked you. He said ‘what’s the wind resistance encountered by a fired projectile, such as a bullet, when it hits its target?’. He knew what he was doing and he kept everyone back through our lunch break because you didn’t answer. We sure showed him. Burnt the answer right into his precious front lawn, too.”
“It did feel kind of good…” he admitted with a nervous laugh.
Harvey laughed, too, until the bitterness of reality hit him again.
“I never did thank you for taking all the blame on that one. Didn’t mean for you to get expelled ‘cause of it.”
Bruce shrugged, “Money can let you get away with more than you can imagine. I didn’t like middle school anyway.”
“Still,” Harvey hovered awkwardly over the words, and then even more awkwardly as he moved closer to Bruce. “Thank you for everything.”
Harvey closed the gap between their lips without warning, it was better to just do it before he lost the courage. Years of needing and wanting came pouring out as he rested a hand against Bruce’s cheek. Bruce was unresponsive beneath his touch for a long moment, long enough that Harvey was beginning to pull away, face flushed with shame. Bruce leaned forward and caught his lips again, kissing back cautiously. This wasn’t like the silly kisses Bruce gave the high school girls, it was something meaningful, something that had been burning between the two of them for years. He could’ve stayed like that forever. He buried himself in Harvey’s arms, tucking his face into his neck and holding him close and tight. Harvey held him just as tight, tears of happiness and sadness falling down his cheeks.
“You’re leaving tonight, aren’t you?” He murmured against Bruce’s shoulder.
He was silent for a long time, captivated by the closeness of their bodies, “I’ll come back, Harv.”
“Yeah,” he said, not believing him for a second, “I know you will.”