Chapter Text
Sometimes the word ‘no’ isn’t one that everyone hears.
Bruce Wayne - 20 years old
The courthouse was almost empty by the time Bruce got there, the setting sun marking a rainbow hue of pinks and purples across polished granite floors and grand cedar desks. The courthouse was almost quiet, the slight surge of hushed whispers rushing in a quick fire banter that would leave sane people reeling in confusion. Looking at them, those tight suited lawyers with their legal terms and busy lives, with their complex cases and intriguing suits, it hit the billionaire that in another life that would have, could have been him. In another life he might have been a lawyer or doctor or well rounded businessmen, or maybe a politician, or writer, or artist. In another life things might have been easier for him. Somethings might have been clear cut and easier to decipher than it is now.
Yet it isn't, easy that is, rather is it quite difficult to find footing on unsteady ground, on harsh battlegrounds and fuzzy frontiers.
He is alone.
He is trying to find an island in the middle of the ocean of corruption, of tyranny and injustice. He is trying to find himself once more. He traded a war he wanted no part in for the one he's been waiting for.
Blue eyes shadowed by dark night locks attempted to push away past endeavors, tried to camouflage pain for pleasure, turn despair into desire, loneliness for luxury. A sigh is pushed passed quivering lips, shoulders are straightened, a smile is stretched out on plastic features: he is exactly what he is supposed to be, what they want him to be.
"Bruce?"
For the first time in seven years he is looking at James Gordon in person, for the first time in seven years he remembers what justice looks like, what perseverance incarnate is built into.
"Ah Detective Gordon," his voice is too high, too loud, too cheerful, too carefree, from the last time they had spoken. He is wrong, Gordon, not this city, no, in this instant he is out of place, a broken hinge sticking out of frame."It's been too long, you're looking swell I see." Bruce Wayne is not supposed to use words like swell, but Bruce Wayne hasn't been seen in a long time, can't be seen in public anymore, is no longer entrusted to anyone. This is Brucie, floozy billionaire with a head filled to the brim with air, with nothing but expensive materialistic bullshit that could be better invested in places, in families that have bigger more important wants like basic living necessities like clean water. This is Brucie, a man that causes Bruce to recoil in distaste, to sneer in revulsion.
Gordon frowns, lips curling down like most good men do when meeting someone as arrogant as Brucie. He is looking at Bruce as if he were a puzzle to solve, a case to be figured out. He frowns because he knows something has changed. He frowns because he knows what Bruce looks like, had at one time taken great care of the little boy with no parents but enough grit and stubborn determination to hunt down the killer, a boy with sharp intelligent eyes and quick wit. A boy that is nowhere in sight. "Right, so what brings you here?" He speaks quickly, as if the conversation is already rubbing him the wrong way.
"Oh I'm just looking for Harvey," he flashes a sunny, distant smile, like he has better places to be, better people to be speaking to. There is no one he would he would rather be speaking to.
"Really, I didn't know you kne-"
"BRUCE!" Harvey, all booming voice and bright gleaming smiles appears from behind him, heavy arm slinging around thin muscled shoulders, "you made it just in time."
"Have I?" He lets his amusement show for once, dancing timidly across unsure features to cover for the tight uneasy feeling curling like a dragon in the pit of his stomach, an honest smile flickering softly over controlled features.
"Yup," he smiles brighter, as if Bruce was the only one in the whole world, as if Bruce was the only thing that truly mattered, "just need to pick up a few files from my office then we can head on over to Racello's." He is calm and sweet and does all the right things. Harvey does everything by the book, opens doors for him, pays for their meals, brings him little gifts, laughs at all the right places. Harvey is genuinely a good man, has always made sure Bruce felt loved.
It's the first real relationship he has ever had, the first romantic attachment he has allowed himself to latch onto. Its Harvey, safe with his righteousness, Harvey, who fights for the little people of Gotham. Bruce feels safe for once, finally is beginning to understand what it means to be loved.
Phillip, his strange uncle, once told Bruce he could never love, Thomas, his lost brother, said he didn't know how to, would never truly understand those four simple letters. But Harvey makes him feel like he stands a chance at proving them wrong, makes him feel like there is no set line for what loving someone is supposed to look like.
"Mr. Dent," Gordon nods, eyes flashing between the two. Their relationship was one done with digression, one dimly disguised as merely a close friendship. They could never reveal it, to anyone. Harvey even convinced him not to tell Alfred, had planted the ideal that Alfred may not be too open to the idea of two men being more than friends.
"Gordon," Harvey grunts, eyes flashing slightly, "I hope you've reconsidered my offer."
"No, I think I'd still like to decline, I do not endorse people," he states with a hard voice, tense and sturdy.
"Shame really," Harvey near growls, voice lower with every word that slips past his lips, "would have made my campaign, you being the people's hero and all."
"Maybe, but I like keep out of politics." Gordon shifts, eyes shifting from Harvey back to Bruce, something of a warning reflecting into warm brown eyes.
"That what you told Galivan?" Harvey snaps, lightly, hand suddenly yanking Bruce to his side, as if it belonged there. "come on Bruce," he does growl out his time, aggression filling his tone, his body language, something completely new settling into the skin of what once was kind, patient Harvey.
"Harvey;" he warns, once they're at a safe distance away, voice dropping slightly, "that's enough, Detective Gordon has a-"
"Do not," Harvey barks, suddenly, pushing Bruce back in his office, slamming him into a bookshelf as the door clicks shut, "defend him, you are on my side not his."
"There is no side to this, I was merely saying th-"
"Shut the fuck up."
His head swims, tears rushing to his eyes, as his world begins to blur.
"You are on my side, do you understand. Quit being a little bitch and just do what you're fucking told."
It doesn't sound like Harvey anymore, yet Bruce knows it has to be him, knows it, like he knows what a concussion feels like.
Steeling himself, he goes to defend Gordon, before suddenly he is being kissed, hot fiery passion, bitter hot rage consuming him whole.
He shoves, trying to push the mass of Harvey off of him, but he's stuck, stuck under the one person he thought was safe. His ribs now feels as if one of them is cracked and the world doesn't seem to be making sense and suddenly his face is on carpet, hands desperately trying to push him up and Harvey off. But his muscles feel weak, or maybe he's just the one who's weak.
Bruce closed his eyes and wondered when Harvey would stop; wondered if agreeing to have sex with him would be easier than what the alternative could be. That’s the thing about ‘nice guys.’ You can’t always pick them out. They have good haircuts and they open doors; they even pay for your drinks and laugh at your jokes and they ask about your family. But sometimes nice guys do those things, not because they’re nice, not in the real sense of the word, but because they associate doing those things with getting what they want or at least deserving it. Sometimes we forget they don’t deserve it, that they are not entitled to a body they do not own. Sometimes he forgets that this body is his to own, not something to be sold out for information, or freedom; not something that can be put on loan for those who might need it more. Because he forgets he needs it most; needs this hollow grave he calls home to feel like home and not some cheap shared living space. He needs this empty meat-sack to fill like someplace he can buckle into for the long run, and not just some place he would only visit. He needs this, at the very least, to ground him to a reality that takes what it wants and leaves too little for the rest of the lost souls praying for a life in hell.
Bruce closed his eyes and wondered when he would stop; wondered if the words slipping past his blood soaked lips even registered anymore, even held a purpose anymore.
Bruce closed his eyes and wondered when his words began to fall from the heavens as rain drops instead of solid slabs of hail; when they could so easily slide off the surface into oblivion as if they were never here to begin with.
Bruce closed his eyes and whispered the word ‘no;’ grounded out the word, ‘stop.’ But his words were merely raindrops in the desert, soaked up too quickly by dry land, pushed out of sight as quickly as they could emerge.
Bruce closed his eyes as rough calloused hands found their way to his lips, as hard bulky muscles weighed him down, as he lost touch of his only safe zone, and another man made himself at home in a house that was not his to call home, as another man treated him as something to be conquered, squandered for all its goods, left barren and used and empty and shattered on a bed that was not his to slander.
Bruce learned the hard way, that sometimes the word ‘no’ means what society labelled it to be, means the definition of stop and don’t- this is not yours, you cannot do that. He learned the hard way, that some people do not care what society, what human principles label as consent, some people do not care about consent, they simply take what they want, because they feel entitled to everything they cannot have and nothing they do.
Some people, no matter how hard they try, cannot stay alone. In loneliness there is madness, in heartbreak there is sadness, and at the end of the day, everyone just wants at least one person to share the pain with.
Bruce was once a bright star, shining and glowing too bright to look at. But time was not kind, a flash of a gun and in a single moment everything turns to oblivion, a lone star implodes, collapsing in on itself, mutating into a massive picture of darkness, into a void of inky black unforgiving darkness. He was a black hole, pulling in and decimating everything in its orbit, until there was nothing left, but a trail of black holes in a vast universe of stars.
But he lets it happen. He lets Harvey push him and shove him around, lets him do whatever he wants to something that does not belong to him, because Bruce hasn’t felt love in a long time, has forgotten what it looks like, tastes like to be loved and to love.
These waters he treads in are dangerous, they are filled with treacherous monsters and raging monsoons, they are unkind and frightening. They were all he had until Harvey.
“Get up,” he growls, suddenly he is on his feet, rooming swirling around him in a way that leaves him dizzy, confused, unsure. He doesn’t quite understand, remember what happened. He doesn’t quite get it anymore, the way he should, but knows he does, but doesn’t understand, should understand, knows he shouldn’t have spoken back. It is an old lesson he must relearn. Silence was a friend in dangerous waters.
His hand finds something, a desk, yes, a desk, latches onto it like it was the only thing is existence worth touching, like it was a lifeboat in these trying waters, like it was the only raft left a sea. Clothes are being shoved into his hands, he thinks they are his.
“God damn it Bruce, quit being a dumbass, and put them on, you’re going to make us late you stupid bitch,” he growls again, this low intimidating sound that resonates through the room, grunts like a caveman as he begins to dress Bruce himself, roughly dragging expensive fabric over bruised and scarred flesh. “Oh and look what you did,” he motions down, and vaguely Bruce tracks his motions, eyes finding stains on his shirt, “you fucking ruined your goddamn shirt. You really are a piece of shit, you know that Bruce?” He treats Bruce like he were nothing but trash, picking him up and throwing him to the side, maybe he is one. He is the only one Harvey treats like this, has to be. He slides Bruce into his jacket, lets it sit loosely on his shoulders, lets it cover up the evidence, like he’s trying to hide a crime scene. “Now put on your socks.”
He throws them at Bruce, and Bruce just lets them fall, lets his eyes track the motion, head trying to keep up the chatter it always has, tries to calculate the distance and velocity of such a motion, but nothing is quite working in his skull, nothing is really registering, so he whispers, voice cutting through the room, like a hand reaching out through jello, slow and sloppy, “ I do not want to.” He’s not sure if that was for the socks themselves, or if his brain is still caught up in what just transpired.
“Shut up,” he snaps, finally turning to look at Bruce, finally seeing what he just did, eyes softening slightly, “awe, baby,” he whispers sounding more like himself than he has all evening, as if he is only now entering the scene, “I’m sorry,” he whispers, kissing the top of Bruce’s head as he speaks, sweet words pressed against throbbing pain. A hand cards through sweat dampened hair, lips against sticky wet, blood soaked skin, he’s sorry.
He’s sorry.
He’s sorry.
He’s sorry.
He is sorry and that’s okay.
He says he’s sorry.
He promises it will never happen again.
He just lost his temper.
Next time he’ll watch himself.
Next time
Next time
There’s always a next time.
Shut up he says.
And Bruce lets that sink into his bones, lets himself shrink until there’s nothing, but empty shadows for people to see, where man should be.
Shut up he says.
And Bruce takes that with him, carries it like he carries the world, his city, his mistakes.
Shut up he says.
And Bruce lets that hang in the air between them, swallowing down all his anger, swallowing down all his grief, his feelings, his drama.
Shut up.
And Bruce thinks, say that one more time, thinks the same thing every time, despite the fact he knows there will always be another time and he is just an empty promise to himself.
Shut up.
And Bruce does.
He silences himself to for years, lets days pass, and nights soothe his disjointed heart, lets himself take all his pain out on others, lets the raw agony clawing at his skin do some good.
All he’s ever wanted was to do some good, but what’s the point in helping others, when you can’t even save yourself.
They say when the house catches fire, when the plane begins to crash that you need to save yourself first, need to find safety before you can save others. He prefers the martyr route, prefers to the let the fire melt flesh, let the air leave his lungs, let others know what it is like to breath, to live in fresh air, before looking for it himself.
He tolerated Quinn later, was sometimes a little too rough with her, a little too harsh, because he understands, knows how easy it is to fall into the delusion of love. He knows what it is like to love so hard, so purely that at the end of the day, there is nothing too big or too small to do. He understands feeling like it is your own fault, feeling as though the skin that you wear doesn't make up for the faults in your flesh. He knows what it is like to love and feel nothing but pain, yet love anyway because at least you feel something, anything. Sometimes feeling pain is better than feeling nothing, sometimes pain is all he has to keep him from slipping into madness entirely.
And when Harvey gets a girlfriend that turns out to be a villain, a mistress of mother nature herself, he keeps his mouth glued tight. Bruce listens as he goes on about her, even as Harvey fucks him into the floor of his office, as Harvey promises forever. He keeps his mouth shut when Harvey calls him every name in the book, when Bruce screws things up between them time after time after time. He keeps his mouth shut the first time Harvey’s fist meets his cheek, allows the sharp pulses of the physicality of it all, the deep cutting tang of his wounds, mask what hides underneath, wears the brutality of it all as a masks for what stirs deep inside, what screams at him to stop screwing up, what pushes him to be better, to be alone once more.
He learns a lot later that some people were just made to feel pain, some people’s lives were etched out in tragedy before they even have a chance at happiness.
They make it to Racello’s. They make it to Racello’s every time they go. They always make it on time.
It’s their place after all.
It will always be theirs.
The saddest part of it all, was that if Harvey hadn't become the villain of the story; he wasn't sure if wouldn't have gone back to him.
He’s pretty sure he would have.