contritumella | [ open post ]

They brought her back over to the United States on a boat, wrapped tightly in a straitjacket and resting in a casket that had holes drilled in it and was opened twice a day. There were tubes and needles and an IV. No food. Plenty of fluids. Drugs that made her limbs feel heavy and the noisy thoughts of others too quiet and too loud by turns.

It would have been hilarious in a way, if not for the casket next to hers. If not for Simon's body being shipped back home in it. A terrible accident, she imagines they told her parents. Her mother would have cried. Her father would have had a drink, maybe three. And they would have continued on with their lives.

(Their daughter was long since forgotten. Sent away for a greater good, a cause, unwanted and not missed in the least. It was her fault, anyway. If she hadn't written Simon, if she'd just forgotten, if she'd just let go...)

They brought her over on a boat and they changed the drugs but they kept the straitjacket. She played her role - docile, afraid, uncertain, skittish and confused, and they were only roles in a small way. She was afraid. She was uncertain.

They started talking amongst themselves about a man on rooftops. They joked about setting her loose on them. Like she was a weapon to be pointed, something unthinking to be fired, to kill.

Maybe they weren't wrong? Maybe.

They decided to find out. He was in the neighborhood, after all, and she was very good. Very skilled. She would do this thing, wouldn't she, they asked, crowding her into a corner, and she swallows, and nods.

They let her out. They let her out but they're watching, with cameras and a sniper rifle and her mind races almost as fast as she runs across rooftops. She does fight him. She has to, to make it believable, but she doesn't really hurt him, just constantly knocks him down, knocks him back. He doesn't want to kill her; she doesn't want to hurt him. So she leads him on a winding chase until the man with the sniper rifle curses into his earpiece because he's lost her.

She breaks his neck. The man she's been fighting turns into a walking question mark.

She takes the gun. Walking exclamation point now, but she's not pointing it at him, and she can run faster than him anyway. Somewhat. Enough to empty the building of anyone who would be able to explain what's happened.

She dismantles the gun, and he becomes interrobang. Questions and concerns and mostly what the hell is happening in a few languages, so she puts her hands up.

"They'll come looking soon. Maybe twenty minutes."

Not that there's a typical night out here, but this is really not what Bruce was expecting to do tonight. Fight a woman, who doesn't seem to want much of a fight. He doesn't want to hurt her but he can't figure out why she's also holding back. Leading him away--or towards something, maybe.

He's curious enough to follow. Startled enough not to stop her when she takes out the sniper, breaks down the gun.

She raises her hands, explains someone's coming for her. Where he's been punctuation he becomes formatting: italics, for emphasis, for whispering, for the urgency of his snap decision.

"Two blocks west, five blocks south. There's a large dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. Follow me."

He ducks out a door, not bothering to check that she's coming. He knows she'll follow. He wants to get to the bottom of this, but right here is not the time or place.

It's easy enough to follow; now that she's fought against him (kind of) his thoughts are a dark, shining thread, like a glint of silver in one's peripheral vision on the streets after 3am; besides, he knows where he means and even though she's never seen it before with her own eyes, she can see it in her head, borrowed from his.

People are creatures made of dark secrets and shining truths, and as much as she would like to trust this man with all of hers in the hopes that he could actually fix something, she's not so stupid as to presume he can. Or that he would trust her. Or believe her, for that matter.

She has time. She has nothing but time.

When he gets to the dumpster she's just perched on top of it, swinging her legs. They've got her dressed in scrubs, with a black hoodie, an elastic to keep her hair out of her face but that's it.

"Hi!"

"...Hi."

More things he didn't expect: to be beaten here, or such a chipper greeting. He stands there a moment, thinking. They can't stay here, they're still too close for the thorough kind of sweeping an organization that sends a sniper would do. He can't take her back to the cave under the manor, not with so little information on who she is, who will come looking for her, and what any of them might want with him.

One of his safe houses, then.

There's a recycling bin beside the dumpster; Bruce shoulders it away from the wall easily, wheeling out the motorcycle he hid there earlier in the night. "Get on. Let's get out of here," he says, waving her down as he straddles the bike.

She watches him think, listens to the tone and timbre of it while surrounded by the familiar noises of people moving on, closes her eyes and tilts her head. She can't stop how loud his thoughts are in her mind, but she can try and pay attention to what else might be overheard and thought about her.

No one's looking for them yet. No one thought to record their 'fight'. Two points in their favor.

She's probably going to be sick in a few hours once the drugs start wearing off. A point against.

The man in front of her comes to a decision and her eyes pop open just as he reveals the motorcycle. This will be fun, she thinks, and she has no hesitation climbing onto the bike behind him.

"An evening of firsts! You're a good dancer, too, but can you sew?"

Because someone has a tracker in the back of her thigh. She can handle it on her own, but, you know.

He isn't sure what to make of her words. They seem to make no sense, have no bearing on what's happening, but his intuition tells him otherwise. It's a matter of parsing them, he supposes, once he learns her particular rhythm, grasps the ebb and flow of thoughts and words.

"I can get by," he says, a lot more offhandedly than he actually feels. He supposes all will reveal itself, in time.

He waits for her to settle behind him, to hold on securely, and then the bike roars to life under them. Wheels gain purchase on the pavement and carry them farther and farther from the center of the city, out toward the water. The docks, but so far out along them that few ships come and few trucks go. Where a somewhat run-down warehouse sits silent and empty.

He pulls up outside, taking a moment to hide the bike again once they're off, and then he cants his head at the door, inviting her to follow him inside.

It's dark inside, but enough moonlight streams in through busted windows up high to keep them from stumbling around. "Make yourself at home," he quips, turning to face her, keeping the hood of his sweatshirt up for now.

Well, then, if she has permission; River grins at Bruce before pirouetting her way across the dusty, empty floor, showing off for sure but also reveling the fact that it's far enough away that no one will come looking for her.

Maybe they'll assume she'd go back 'home', to her parents. The idea makes her laugh, giggles bubbling to the surface as she dances her way into the bathroom, finding an industrial first aid kit and carrying it back into the empty room where Bruce still stands, hood up like it would stop her from identifying him in a crowded night market.

Or, you know. In any given situation.

"Better than a cave underground," she says with an offhand air, grinning and sitting crosslegged on a table as she opens the first aid kit and takes stock. "Something with a sharper edge is required...." She makes a face.

The dancing throws him as much as her greeting in the alley. He still feels off-kilter with her, like a man on storm-tossed seas. It's not an act, that much he's grasped. He can't get a handle on why she speaks the way she does, why she finds an open warehouse so delightful as to spin across the floor.

Better than a cave underground, she says, and he doesn't quite manage to school his expression under his hood, his eyes going wide for a moment before he pulls himself together. How did you know? is what wants to come to his lips but he pulls that back, too--it's confirmation and he doesn't know what she actually knows yet, or how much.

"Why something sharper? What are you looking for?"

She blinks hard, startled that she made such a simple mistake - but that's always been the nature of it, hasn't it? She can plan and she can plot and she can keep secrets but she can't stop herself from becoming Cassandra's granddaughter the moment she opens her mouth.

Well. "And it helps, and it hinders. You're too smart for a simple sleight of words. She doesn't mean what she says, she doesn't say what she means because for that to be untrue, the logic states something impossible. But to reach the impossible is a jump, a double-tap, curl your spine in and reach out, but that won't do for a traditional walk in the park. So you're walking, but you're only pretending to look at your phone, you're walking but you look up.

People don't look up."

While she speaks she takes certain items out of the kit. Gloves, hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes, iodine swabs, gauze. A small sewing kit, which she beams at before setting aside.

It's got a sad excuse for a pair of safety scissors in it, though, so that won't do.

"She's an investment, a tool, a task made nearly perfect. Nearly." Quickly she pops into a standing position on the table before - sorry Bruce - yanking down the pants of her scrubs and turning around, dropping her head and shoulders to look at him upside-down between her own legs.

She points to a small incision scar on the back of her left thigh.

There's some strange sense to her explanation. It's a bit like listening to the lyrics of a song for the first time and trying to decipher the meaning.

He watches her get to her feet on the table, his eyes tracking the drop of her pants for a moment before decency catches up to him and he lifts his gaze, surprised. "She's a tool. She-- you mean, you. Please excuse me."

He offers that last sentence before his fingers trace the scar, an apology for invading her personal space, for touching her. First his fingers ghost over the knotted skin, and then he presses, here and there, feeling something buried beneath.

"What the hell is that?"

She knows - she thinks she knows - but maybe she just knows what it does and not what it is, what it looks like, how it got to be there even if she fully understands why. It'd be better if he saw for himself.

It'd be better if Simon were here. Simon would get angry, and hold her, and understand, but Simon isn't can't won't ever be here again and River moves her head from side to side, closing her eyes. He is kind, like Simon. A sense of the righteousness that burns like a candle with a flame on both ends.

"The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows." A sigh through her nose and she opens her eyes again. "You can't just let your tools get stolen. Something sharp, and then you can see who comes to collect."

This time--he thinks--he has enough context to comprehend, and he curses under his breath. "A tracking device," is his best guess, as he gently palpitates her leg with his thumb again, getting a sense for where it is. A tracking device and he needs to cut it out, carve away what's there to reveal what he needs to know.

He drops into a crouch, fingers disappearing into his boot; when he rises he flips open a folding knife with a deft flick of his wrist. He grabs an alcohol swab from the first aid kit, liberally rubbing her thigh with it, then going over the knife's blade.

He glances up at her, because she's right, for all the toughness, for all the scars that drove him and made him into a man racing across rooftops and trading punches in dark alleys, he is kind. "I'm sorry," he says softly, and the blade digs into her skin until it gives way.

She doesn't hiss or flinch; her muscles don't even contract under the blade. She just keeps her eyes on him, breathes in and out. In the larger scheme of things the pain is pretty minimal anyway, so it's not like it's a struggle but River is half-sure that not reacting at all is not the thing the normal girl her age would do.

Since there aren't any around to ask or imitate, she'll have to do her best with what she's got.

"Not your design or intention." As he pries the device out of her skin, River closes her eyes. "What should she call you?"

She's pretty sure 'Bruce' is not on the table, and that's fine, but it's not a bad name.

She's right, it's not what a girl her age would do. The lack of reaction alarms Bruce enough that he steals a glance up at her, the tip of his knife briefly stilling.

His attention goes back to the task, though he lifts his gaze properly at her question. "Zhihao," he replies, his voice soft, and it's not his name but it is his name in that he chose it, carefully considered characters and meaning (heroic will) in crafting the name that cloaks him, the way he imagines his mother might have had she had more of a say in his name.

He will always and forever be Bruce Anthony Wayne to the city, the entire world. He's proud of that, proud of his family, understands the drive to assimilate. But he can also have heroic will in his more private life, the one where he does just as much good as his family's money and connections do in the public eye.

The implant slides out from under her skin, and though the urge to examine it and deal with it is clear in him, another urge burns more brightly. He sets both knife and implant down on the table, reaching again for the first aid kit, for more alcohol swabs, for a suture kit.

"What's your name?"

"Jianghe," she answers, letting her arms swoop around her head, cradling in them while upside down, eyes sliding shut. The adrenaline from the fight and ensuing flight is finally wearing off, and she's getting tired, feeling distant from the reality of her life. "It's like a story, isn't it?"

It's hard to tell from her tone if she's speaking to him, or to herself.

"They named her River." That's derision, clear as day. "Lazy. Boring. White hippie kinda name," she imitates in a perfect British accent, an overheard conversation between an early family tutor and her own family far away on a telephone many years ago. "They think she's dead.

Just as well if not simpler for all."

What the hell kind of name is Bruce Wayne?

The words in Mandarin are sharp, disapproving, but not spoken aloud in this warehouse. They're a memory, summoned without conscious effort, at her words. Two years ago, he'd finished school, multiple degrees with honors despite his youth, he'd done well, worked hard, done what was expected of him, and he'd run. Run all the way back to the other side of the world, one he knew only from books and family tales long handed down.

His expression remains inscrutable as the suture needle cuts into her skin, though he spares her a glance because his kindness will always, somehow, win out. His focus resettles on the task at hand, the golden thread connecting his parents, his city, his flight, his training, tonight fading as he closes her wound.

"Your family." Is his conclusion after he considers her apparent train of thought. "They think you're dead?"

"Her family is dead, her family is buried, her family made the ultimate sacrifice; they lost their first born son. What's a second born daughter in the face of that tragedy? What is goodbye when the photos were already packed away?"

Her eyes remained closed and River breathes in, out. Feels the pain associated with the new wound, wonders about the scar.

"She had a brother and he's gone. She had parents on paper but they were never interested in the dirty work."

"I'm sorry about your brother."

About her family, fractured, apparently uncaring--but he doesn't say that. He's not sure how she feels, doesn't want to impose his own ideas and feelings about broken families where they may not be welcome. He's lived it for nearly twenty years but that doesn't make him any kind of expert on what's right or wrong, sad or acceptable.

He stitches as carefully as he can without lingering; given his preference he'd want to take a little more time with this but there's still a tracker on the table. Once the wound is closed he cleans it again, swift strokes with another alcohol swab.

Out comes his phone, one, two, three photos snapped of the tiny device before he reaches for his knife. Folded closed, it's not a blade anymore, but a blunt instrument, the tracker shattered with a single blow. Two more photos of the resulting mess and he sweeps it all into the packet the suture kit came from.

"Jianghe, do you have somewhere safe to go?"

The first apology anyone has given her about Simon. No one even told her, but she felt the life slip and she knew what was in the box next to her as she traveled. No one said "he's gone" no one said "I'm sorry" even if they thought it, even if they felt it.

Somewhere deep in her mind are the details on how her brother lost his life but she doesn't want them, won't keep them, refuses to access them. Instead she pulls her pants back up and folds herself onto the tabletop.

"He would have liked you," she says quietly. "He had a soft spot for heroes."

At Bruce's question she shakes her head, once. She could flee. Hide. But she has no papers, no accounts, no finances or access to them, and no ability to really go anywhere without those things.

"She's a homeless ghost."

Edited 2017-09-29 17:25 (UTC)

She could probably see the wheels turning in his head even if she couldn't do... whatever it is she does. He has some sense of something unusual, superhuman, but for the moment it's beyond even his imagining let alone his comprehension.

It's a terrible idea, logically. He can already hear Alfred's arguments, and the man doesn't need more things to trigger his disapproval. God knows he's irritated enough over whatever this is Bruce is trying to do-- be a hero, maybe, in his own way.

But there's logic, and there's compassion, and as much as he's his father's son, full of grand ideas and the capability and courage to actually pull them off, made of brilliant mind and singular vision... his mother's big heart beats within him still, her values, her warmth, her concern for the people around her shaping him as much as his father's qualities.

And maybe he sees enough in this girl sitting on the table not to turn away. Set adrift after the violent loss of family. Unsure who she is or what she's doing. A lyrical name converted to a sharp roadblock by disapproving mouths lacking the proper practice to let them flow.

And the desire to do the right thing.

He extends an arm, beckoning. "Come with me. We'll figure it out."

It's a huge risk, to her, to him, to what he's building. But he sees no other way. He can't just leave her.

"Get back on the bike with me. I'll take you somewhere safe."

He hopes it's safe, that it will remain so for a long time.

Edited (I'M SORRY I'M DONE FIXING IT NOW LOL) 2017-09-29 22:18 (UTC)

She hears it, sees it, doesn't believe it. It's too good to be true, it's too dangerous for them both, and so she just kind of blinks at him before throwing her arms around him and squeezes, briefly. Then she nods.

"Okay. Okay. She promises, it will be...she'll listen, and be careful, and you won't be sorry. She won't be the albatross."

She can say that all she likes, but the likelihood she says something too forward at a dinner party full of stuffed shirts is high.

Either way, she does what she's told for now; gets back on the bike and holds on, humming a lullaby as he drives them through town.

Like so much else this evening, the hug, however brief, is a surprise. He manages to squeeze her shoulder before she pulls away to stride toward his bike.

This will work. He'll figure it out.

And, honestly, his life could use a little saying something too forward at a stuffy dinner.

There's a short detour on their way out, closer to the water, where he lets go with one hand long enough to pitch a tiny package into the water--the remnants of her tracker, the suture kit, the alcohol swabs, all the evidence of them being in the warehouse tonight.

Then it's back on the road, through the outskirts of the city, then beyond. Quiet residential streets give way to quiet wooded roads. Eventually he turns onto a dirt road, little more than path through the trees. It comes out near a rock outcropping, a small cave mouth visible.

The entrance to the cave held in his mind, the one she glimpsed earlier.

They ride down and down and down and then there's a door, an archway hewn in the rough rock. He slows the bike as they roll out into a cavernous room, a natural cave buried far below the ground.

"Ah, you're back," calls out a voice from the interior. "How did-- what on earth?"

A man steps closer, a man with a stern face and confusion writ large across his features in this moment. He looks old enough to be Bruce's father. He may as well be even if he isn't in blood.

"What have you done?"

Bruce holds up a hand. "I had to. Alfred, I can explain, just give me a minute."

It takes a lot of self-control not to lean back as Bruce drives, not to throw her arms open wide and feel the freedom of the night air whip between her fingers. Simon would be proud of her, she thinks, flexing her fingers into the material of his jacket. She made a friend, found a safe refuge, escaped.

He wouldn't be thrilled that she killed a man to do it, but. It is what it is.

So instead of doing something unsafe and dangerous, she shuts her eyes during the ride, listening to thoughts and heartbeats and wondering about the future, ignoring the drop of drugs in her bloodstream or the way her vision doubles when she does open her eyes, once Bruce has stopped. Her self-control hits its limit, there, once the bike has stopped; River gets off and opens her arms, twirling in space.

"It isn't what you think," she intones as she comes to a stop, looking Alfred dead in the eye. "No. No. Closer. Yes."

Alfred does not look pleased or amused, honestly.

"She was sent to kill me."

Alfred just about loses his composure, but it at least gets his attention refocused on Bruce, which was his intent. He needs to explain this.

"She didn't, obviously."

"Master Bruce, your deductive powers grow more impressive by the day."

"Alfred." Bruce climbs off the bike with a sigh. "She killed her handler. I pulled a tracking device out of her leg--I smashed it but I took photos that I can study later to try to find out what the hell is going on here.

She had nowhere else to go. What was I going to do, leave her out there to be found and dragged back?"

At that, at least, Alfred's expression softens. A degree or two.

"She's good at keeping secrets and keeping quiet and keeping. You're worried that he needs more friends, more people to care for; she can be perfect for that."

Alfred gives River a look, takes a breath, and intones: "It would do the young lady well to stay out of my head."

"That's the problem," River responds. "She can't."

Bruce shoots Alfred a look, half you really think I need more friends? and half you see why I couldn't just leave her?

It does raise another question, though.

"I gather you've figured out who I am?"

River bites her lip in apology. "Always known the names others call you, wanted to know what you wanted her to call you. Zhihao is a good name!" They're both going to be upset, now, she can tell but she can't help it.

"She had a real name once too."

[ open post ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject