Work Text:
"I thought you were taking the night off," Bruce's voice echoes through the vastness of the Cave, his footsteps silent as he approaches you.
"I am," you respond distractedly, still fiddling with the gun in your hands as you clean it meticulously.
"This isn't taking the night off," he counters, firm as he sits down in front of the computer, and you pause to watch him as you consider whether or not to call him a hypocrite.
But you wonder, a bit sullenly, if it'll make any difference - if your words hold any weight in a place like this.
Your silence must alert him to something, though, because Bruce turns slowly in his chair to eye your movements, watching your work with a sharp gaze.
"Are those Jason's?" he asks slowly. You don't look up.
"I don't know why he leaves them lying around like this," you retort. "He needs to take better care of them."
"I'll tell him you said that," Bruce responds dryly, but you exhale sharply.
"Don't bother."
Bruce pauses at that, watchful and focused as he sits in front of you and drums his fingers against his thigh thoughtfully.
"Are you any closer with the case you've been working on?" he tries. You keep your gaze focused down on the gun you're cleaning.
"I thought we were taking the night off," you murmur, and he leans back in his chair.
"I just want to know if you need any help with it," he tries.
"I know how to ask for help," you respond shortly, though, and his lips pull down into a frown as he crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't need any."
"Do you want any?" he pushes ever so gently - just a nudge, just a little.
You don't respond, though, and he sighs stiffly as he watches you - your hands less steady than they should be, your movements less smooth.
"Do you want anything else?" he prompts, and watches as your hands slow.
"No," you say flatly, an echo in the otherwise empty Cave - a decision that reverberates back to you over and over and over. Bruce doesn't move - just sits and watches you as you work, his eyes never leaving your hands as they try their best to scrub something good into what they're holding.
You look up at him for just a moment, suspicious - annoyed, maybe. But it's not enough for you to speak.
Water drops somewhere nearby onto the rough stone of the floor. A bat flutters its wings, distant, echoing, barely there.
Your movements, eventually, stop - and you stare down at the gun in your hands like it's the first time you're seeing it.
"What are you doing?" you ask finally - because you know, even without looking up, that Bruce is still there.
"Taking the night off," he responds easily, and you glance up at him with a frown flashing across your face.
"Go upstairs, then."
"I'm comfortable here," he counters. You exhale slowly, a shaky sort of thing.
"Why don't you go upstairs?" he tries.
"Are you kicking me out?" you press - but you know, you both know, really, that he won't take the bait.
"No," Bruce says plainly. "But I think if you're staying down here, I am, too."
"I don't need a babysitter," you retort.
"That's good," he says sternly. "Because that's not what this is."
"Then what?" you shoot back.
"It's just… company," he suggests, and you can feel it somewhere in the bottom of your lungs - something crumbling, something breaking beneath an unbearable weight.
"Ok," is all you get out, a wavering little thing that falls flat between the two of you. The Cave around you reverberates in the silence, echoing your own solitude back at you endlessly. Your hands clench into fists, your nails digging into your palms as you stare down at them.
"I don't know why I do this," you mutter, and Bruce hums.
"You don't?"
"I don't think it makes me a better person," you add.
"Do you put on that mask to be a better person?" he asks, and you finally look up at him, slanted and unimpressed as you frown.
"Do you?" you counter.
"No," Bruce says plainly. "I do it because it needs to be done."
You duck your head back down at that, scrubbing at the gun in your hand until it shines as Bruce watches - patient, steady, there.
"I don't think I need to do this," you say haltingly.
"Why not?"
"Because anyone could. Hood, Nightwing," you start to list off.
"It wouldn't be the same," he counters.
"Of course not," you admit. "But it would be good enough." The gun slips out of your hand from the force of your movements and clangs against the floor, echoing endlessly through the emptiness of the Cave.
"I didn't realize we settled for good enough around here," Bruce says thoughtfully, and you kick at the gun on the floor.
"I didn't think we settled for me," you murmur - and maybe someone else wouldn't have heard it. Maybe someone else would've missed it, would've been distracted or misdirected.
But Bruce fixes you with a stare that you think might wither you, and you snatch the gun up from the floor to keep working on it instead of looking back at him.
"I don't think this makes me a good person," you repeat, scrubbing and polishing something that's already shining.
"Is that why you do it?" Bruce counters again, and you circle each other in your heads once more.
"I'm trying -" something in you cracks, just a bit, and you clench your teeth until your jaw throbs. Bruce watches - still, silent, waiting.
"I don't want to be like this," you say when the silence gets to be too much, the words scraping your throat on their way out. "I didn't want to be - I don't know."
"Yes you do," he prompts, and you huff out a breath through your nose.
"I think there's something wrong with me, Bruce," you admit, your hands slowing - something weary wrapping around your wrists and squeezing. "I think I might just… I don't know. I think maybe I'm just an awful person, and everything I do is to try to make up for it."
Your hands move again, fidgety and slow, putting the guns back together so that you can leave them where you found them - untouched, unnoticed.
"I tried for a long time to be a good person and I think maybe it just… isn't working," you admit, your hands careful as you place Jason's belongings back where they'd been before - your movements kind and practiced.
Bruce watches, something loving bleeding from your actions as you smooth your hand over the metal - something seeping from the cracks of your soul that he's sure you can't see.
"I don't think the mask makes you a better person," he says, and you freeze - you crumble, because you're sure it's the truth that you didn't want to face.
But Bruce stands, finally, and moves towards you - kneels down in front of you where you sit and takes your hands in his to squeeze a bit of steadiness into them.
"I think you were already a good person," he says gently, ducking his head to look at you when you try to look away. "I don't think you ever had to prove it."
"Then why do I always… feel like this?" you ask haltingly - a bad question with an answer that you already know, and he lets a slow breath out in a sigh.
"You're a good person," he insists again. "You don't have to prove it."
"I can't - see that," you waver. "I don't know that."
"None of us see ourselves right," Bruce shrugs.
"Then how do I know?" you press. He squeezes your hands again.
"Why did you clean Jason's guns?" he asks, and you blink.
"I don't know. He left them there."
"Ok," he nods, smiling at you like he knows something that you don't. It makes you pull back, but he holds your hands firmly in his.
"You're a good person," he says again. "You don't have to always remember that. We do."
"Does that do me any good?" you retort, more bitter than you would've liked - less kind, less good.
"It can - sometimes," he says easily. "Not every time. But sometimes."
"What about the other times?"
"I don't know, kid," he admits. "I guess we just take them as they come."
"Like now?" you ask.
"Like now," he nods. You slump down just a bit, something heavy laying on your shoulders - some kind of weight lifting, sort of. In the silence of the Cave, Bruce's hands holding onto yours like he can keep you from falling apart, you wonder, just a bit, if you'll always feel this way.
"You know what I think we should do?" he prompts, and you look down at him like you've just realized that he's been there the whole time. "We should take the night off."
"I thought we were."
"No," he laughs. "Really take the night off. Come upstairs, have something to eat."
"Do you think that'll fix this?" you counter, wincing as the words throb with something unkind.
"No," he smiles - unbothered by it, unwavering. "I think it'll help… just a little bit."
"Just a little bit?" you echo, and your voice comes back to you through the Cave, reverberating endlessly.
"Yea," Bruce nods. "I think that's enough for now, don't you?"
And you think, as he stands and puts a hand on your head, heavy and sturdy - safe, that maybe just a little bit really is good enough on days like these.