Robin is the original romantic hobag, thank you very much, and he is proud to be so though he had always been only a hobag before he met her. She did change him in so many wonderful, amazing ways. There would be no way that he could ever list them all as much as he would like to be able to, to say thank you for each and every good thing that she has ever done for him and the many ways that she has changed him for the better.
The amazing part of all that is that he realizes he has changed her too... for the better. It is one thing to believe that a strong woman can change him (though he would never have believed how much she's changed him), but another entirely to think that he has done something so wonderful and amazing for someone else. If asked, he would always say and still believes that she has done so much more for him than he has ever done for her, but he recognizes that he has done a lot for her and that she has changed for the better because he loves her and she loves him. This is an absolute impossibility.... or it would have been only a year ago.
He never would have imagined it but he knows it to be true now as he looks at her with her chin resting against him. It is very difficult to focus on the rings when she is so near, and it isn't until she's pulled away that his head clears enough to allow him focus.
After all this time, he will finally be married to her. They are doing it on a whim, and it has never felt so right. Nothing could ever feel so right. It's such an important life decision, but it is one that they have made over their year together. It is one that they made when they came back together and said that neither of them wanted to be without the other again.
Robin only smirks at the question that is given in response. "I know I wouldn't tell me," he murmurs softly, shaking his head and marveling at the fact that he can have a conversation with someone that's a stranger that's so positive and good. There is no false charm presented on his part. There is no wondering of why he should bother considering he'll never see the man again.
It comes so easily now a days, and it all goes to show how much he's changed for the better.
He has no idea what's going on in that backroom until Rachel returns with a bag. It isn't hard to figure out that she's found a dress back there, which is good. She deserves a dress for this day, this moment between them even if they don't need the dress or the flowers or the music or the bouquet or the reception afterward. Rachel deserves a beautiful dress. One that she'll never wear again.
There are some wedding traditions that make his chest clench in a good, happy way, and he really likes to think that she'll have this dress for this day, they'll have their rings, and they'll have their church. And he doesn't even believe in God. Somehow it's not about that. It's about something that's different but of equal importance to him as religion would be to others.
It's about how far they have come together, how this whole relationship feels like it must have been orchestrated by a higher power. In that way, because of her, this day is sacred to him... and that's what the church is for.
Robin nods at her whisper, turning to smile at her. His eyes are bright, and he clears his throat. It isn't only women who get emotional at these times. Ahem.
"I thought so too," he confirms and then he turns back to the jeweler and pays for the rings, carries them in a nice bag in velvet boxes to be opened when they find the church.
It is only when they step out into the sidewalk again that he takes an audible breath. Robin turns to look at her. "The dress and the rings. Now all we need to find is a church, and I believe there's one down the sidewalk and around the corner. Gorgeous, old building. On the small side, but I once walked by it around winter. Most beautiful singing you've ever heard pouring out through the stain glass windows somehow."
And when he walks out of that church, he'll be able to call her his wife.
It would be impossible to experience everything they have experienced and remain unchanged. Together and separately, they have gone through so much it would be impossible to condense into one sentence. The person that stepped into the Conrad hotel for the first time, making her way over to him is not exactly the same to the woman that stands beside him now, perusing wedding bands.
Rachel smiles at him a little, noticing his lack of focus. She places her lips on his cheek momentarily before she goes upstairs and has her girly moment slash glass case of emotion.
It isn't totally on a whim, mind you.
They never agreed on a date but they did talk about it beforehand, though never with exacting details. They both spoke about marriage in general and wanting it with each other, wanting it the ceremony to be about just them, and doing it when the time was right. What better time than here, in this city that's come to mean so much for them, on a vacation that has been all but perfect?
She wasn't the little girl dreaming obsessively of perfect weddings. She wasn't the teenager who dreamed of finding prince charming and searching for dresses and rings ahead of time. Her dreams were always different. Her priorities had always been so very idealistic and activist-minded.
Rachel wanted to be a lawyer. Rachel wanted to change the world. Rachel wanted to restore order and justice in Gotham. Rachel saw plenty of her old high school classmates marry young while she was hunched over law books, studying for her bar exam. And she never quite understood the fascination for it. Never understood what the big deal was, always placing it aside for later in favor of work and idealism and what have you.
Not she understands, albeit a different sort of understanding. No two people are the same. No two relationships are ever the same. No one else has lived exactly what Rachel and Robin have. No one else could understand exactly what it is they're promising to each other and exactly why they are here today. That's just as amazing.
When he turns to her with that smile, different from so many other smiles she has seen of him, she leans forward, thumb brushing his chin and placing another quick kiss on his lips. He is totally allowed to his emotions, okay.
She takes his hand once more and that's how she walks, beside him. Not one step ahead, not one step behind. Just right beside him. "Then that's the church for us," she concludes lightly. Her gaze is anything but, and the closer they get the bigger the emotion in her chest feels.
Robin wasn't lying when he said it was gorgeous. Rachel breathes in deeply, glancing upward and admiring the stained glass windows as they step inside. The silence found within is just as peaceful as the whole feeling enveloping her, and she's kind of left without words the more she looks at it.
The priest finished mass only an hour ago, and he makes his way over to them once they've been spotted. Rachel will let Robin start the conversation, since she cannot speak French to save her life, much as she loathes to admit it. There's a room where she can change and a choirboy that can be their witness. The man's features are one of the kindest she has seen, and he seems to understand the meaning of why they're here today.
Rachel turns back at Robin, her throat suddenly thick.
Next time she sees him she'll be walking toward him and a priest, promising till death do them part.
This might be more nerve-wracking to someone that hasn't already made such a promise, if only to herself.
"See you on the other side?" she asks with a wobbly smile, squeezing his hand lightly, once.
It would be impossible, and Robin is happy to have changed so much. He has discovered that life and living can make him happy, and he never thought that it could. He never thought that he could wake up in the morning with a sincere smile on his face that comes from something else, something other than the lingering rage and memories that could never leave him be do to what he is.
Who could live in the present when they are changed so painfully to the past? Rachel taught him how. She lead by example. She believed in him. She loved him, and he found that there must be something to believe in, something worth loving within himself if she found those things within him. Rachel made every moment that he was with her a joy.
Never with anyone else has he wanted to spend so much time with. He never felt like he saw her enough at the start with the days in between the times they ran into one another then. He had met her once or twice before he went away to look for a cure, and he thought about her far too many times for someone who should have been merely a stranger to him.
Robin does not know why it all worked out the way that it did. He will never understand it but he will never stop being grateful that it has worked out this way. There are so many moments where so much could have shifted in another way entirely. She could have been lost to the hotel destruction. He could have succeeded with killing himself on the many occasions where he stood on one edge or another. They could have never gotten back together, the first or the second time.
They suffered and wept. They felt so much pain to get to this point, but it wasn't only that. There was so much love and hope and happiness felt as well. If it had only been the negative, they never would have made it here. Their relationship would not have survived.
There has always been more, and in the darkest times when he was alone, he remembered that and it often gave him strength.
No one else will ever know what it is like to love Rachel the way that he does, and no one else will ever know what it is like to be loved by Rachel in the manner in which she loves him. This is theirs entirely, his entirely. No one can take it from him.
Death will come. One day, they will die but the fact that this love was theirs and theirs alone... that will always remain true. The truth will survive while the two of them die.
Robin smiles against her thumb and swallows thickly. There are plenty of emotions for them both but it's understandable considering all they have been through. He pulls her hand down gently, wrapping it in his, and leans in to kiss her again.
There is a different light and air to the church, looking at it and knowing what it will become and what it is doing for them. When he passed it at a younger age, long before he met her, he had faltered there and waited in front of its steps for two minutes. As soon as he gained his senses, he scolded himself.
A church is only one more building with stone and glass and wood. Nothing to be drawn in by.
Now he understands. Now he knows exactly how a building can be more than stone and glass and wood. It can have meaning beyond those materials that make it up. The meaning is made by what happens inside and by the people who enter and exit through the doors.
He is excited and emotional but at such peace too. This feels right, and he can't quite get over how right it feels when so much in his life has been wrong, has felt disjointed and out of place and bad. This is good and right, and he even likes the damned priest and thinks the choirboy is adorable.
Honestly, he looks like he did as a child, not exactly but there's the blond hair, the hesitant upward glance. This child has more freckles. His face is cleaner, and there aren't any bruises but it's... strange. It's reminding him of being that small boy, and for once, it's not painful so much as it feels like he's coming full circle, becoming more whole than even that little boy knew how to feel.
Robin turns to look at her, and he leans in to kiss her one last time. His hands remain against her face and he pulls back, sending her a rather emotional smile of his own. "See you then, Rachel Dawes," he says with such fondness and love in the saying of her name. Her name. His chest clenches with happiness, and he releases her hand almost reluctantly.
When she returns, the main portion of the church will have hundreds of candles let. There aren't flowers, only that fire. Robin's suit will have been straightened, and he will be standing at the end of the row, turning toward her when the priest prompts him to, waiting anxiously for what will be the best and happiest moment of his life.
It isn't strange, the fact there's no one else in the church but them and it doesn't feel empty. It's not empty. Their history, what's led them to this very place in this very moment, and everything they've become is there with them in the low-lit temple. She loves him and he loves her and that can be found within the church, as well. Rachel looks over the stained glass and the statues and the narrow aisle that leads to the altar, not wanting to miss an inch of it. She doesn't know if she'll ever be back here.
She doesn't know if she'll ever see this church again, and get to say, this is where I was married. It might be this one time and she wants to make it count. It meant something to Robin long before they met. For whatever reason, he stopped on his way to wherever he was going, and it made enough of an impression he's remembered it years later.
Rachel wants to remember it for however long it is she has to remember.
The same way she's remembered absolutely everything they've ever shared together. Every date, every dance, every mistake, every demand. Every time they laughed and cried and made love and everything in between.
She rests her forehead against his for a moment, smile widening when he says her full name. It's more the way he says it than anything else. It's knowing this is just as important to him as it is to her. It's knowing she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, knowing the same feeling that made her kiss him back that first time is the same feeling that's lasted and grown immeasurably to what it is now. Knowing the battles they fought and the ones they lost and the hurt they endured led them to something like this.
It's with reluctance she releases his hand, too.
Rachel gives one last look, one last familiar smile, and then she's led to the bridal room. It's small, the way the church is small, and it's beautiful like the rest of it. She doesn't think she's ever been somewhere that's so old and beautiful at the same time. She stands in the very center of the room, appraising the whole of it, hand gripping the edge of the bag with her dress.
The dress is not extravagant, and it's still the most beautiful dress she's owned. It seems fitting she'll only wear it once and why. Because it's simple and unlike the big, poofy gowns brides often wear, she doesn't need help slipping it on. It slides down her body easily and the small trail at the back rustles on the floor.
As she promised the woman at the store, she takes off the pins keeping her dark hair in a swept-up style and lets it fall down to her shoulders.
The only piece of jewelry she's wearing is the heart necklace Robin gave her for her birthday. Her fingers linger over the surface, tracing its shape before her hand drops back down to her side. "This is it," she says to no one in particular, gaze lingering on her reflection in the mirror.
No one in particular, except maybe her mother. She thinks of Bruce and she thinks of Alfred, of her friends in Chicago, but she speaks to her mother alone. Rachel herself isn't much for religion and the practice of it. She went to a Catholic school, strangely enough, because her mother was a believer, but Rachel claimed she was too practical for it. Her faith wasn't placed in a God, catholic or otherwise. Her faith was stored in people and the world they shaped.
Now she can't be sure after all she has witnessed (not to mention the plagues she survived) and either way, it doesn't matter.
Rachel believes somehow, from somewhere, some place mothers and daughters meet beyond a world that doesn't contain them both--her mother is listening.
"I really love him." She wipes at the corner of her eyes and smiles tearfully at the reflection. "You'd have liked him, too."
Taking one final deep breath, she steps outside the room with a steady calmness that is only eclipsed by that peaceful, happy feeling that is stronger than anything she can remember. She's still blocked by the arched entrance, but is noticed by the choirboy that does rather look like what she'd envisioned Robin as a small child.
The choirboy lifts up the small bouquet they've procured from her (from an earlier ceremony) with reddened cheeks while Rachel simultaneously leans down to pick it up. "Merci," she whispers with a deepened smile, wide enough to almost show a dimple on her left cheek.
Rachel runs a knuckle down the side of his face and his cheeks only seem to get redder. Then he's racing down the aisle to announce Rachel is ready. It isn't until he gives her the thumbs up that she appears.
Rachel, you're the most important person to me. It's you. It always will be. You deserve to be loved and to love. I've seen you, and I love all of it when you're crying, when you're making those tough decisions, when you're laughing, when you've fallen asleep.
You gave me Paris, and you gave me a home here, when I thought I'd never have one again after Gotham. You found me that day and you took me to that hotel and I've loved you for what feels like a very long time now. I'm always going to love you. Years from now, wherever we end up, that's still going to be true.
No, no one is ever going to truly know how much one loves the other and vice-versa.
Hi, Rachel mouths at him, that same deep smile she's held from the moment she existed the room. The walk down the aisle seems endless and not long enough.
"Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together here to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended to be honorable among all men; and therefore - is not by any - to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly - but reverently..."
Robin has remembered absolutely everything that they have shared together as well. Most of his life has existed in a blur of meetings and all the work that is involved with being an assistant. Many of his memories have squashed together into a mess. He cannot pick out one from the next but he remember this past year.
He remembers how it all happened with her, and he remembers the words that they have shared with one another. There have been times where those words are all that has seen him through. While he did find hope on his own eventually, there were dark places that he visited. He remembered what she had said to him before. He remembered what he'd said to her and what it felt like to say those things, and it carried him through.
There is no doubt in his mind that this will be the strongest memory of them all. It is a culmination of all that they have been through and all that they are. Throughout this entire trip, they have been reliving it either out loud or in their own heads. They have gone over the bad and the good time and time again.
It all comes together here.
Robin can feel that in his chest as he stands waiting for her. She walked away from him, and he felt a flood of that knowing... of knowing that the next time that he sees her, she will become his wife. His wife. And he will be her husband.
They will wear rings that symbolize the fact that they are each others, that they plan to be with one another 'til death do they part', through sickness and all the rest. They did not need the ring or ceremony to do that. These were promises that they had already made to each other and would already see through if the idea of marriage had never even come up in their heads. They are not getting married because they need to but because they want to.
It feels right and good for the entire world to know how he feels about her and how long he is planning on being with her (til death). It is the little things like that band on his finger that will remind him as her words have and as his memories with her have of what they fight for, of what he has. It will be one more weapon to use against the battle with that inner monster of his. It is theirs and it is more than that. It is so many things, and there will never be words enough to describe what all it means that he can stand with her and marry her.
It means so much to him, and he turns when the priest prompts him to.
He turns to look at her when she steps out into the main room. His breath is taken violently from him. Words and thoughts and memories leave him quick, and it is a wonder that he manages to remain standing. The sight of her in that classic, white gown is enough to make him weak in the knees and breathless.
His gaze is only for her as it has been so many other times, but this time is different. This time there is that extra intensity to it all, and he takes in the sight of her, drinks it all in, and then notices every part, every detail of how she looks in this moment. The dress, her hair, the way she moves toward him but more than that... so much more than that, her expression. Robin memorizes the way that her face looks as she walks toward him.
He will never forget it, and he is still trying to catch his breath when she stops next to him. Robin can't quite manage to mouth a single word. He has not found the words since she stole the breath from him by walking out in that dress looking absolutely beautiful in the candlelight.
The priest's words fade into the background. The man seems to recognize that this is a private moment between the two of them, which is why he does not say much. He says the basics. He reiterates the meaning of marriage. It is not to be entered lightly but reverently, joining two people together in something that's sacred.
He says his part as simply and unobtrusively as he can and then he nods, urges them to take their vows.
Robin goes first, and there's that half second where he wishes that they had planned out the wedding. He wants what he's going to say to be perfect but then the words come and they come easily even if they are not technically perfect in any sense. It's natural and true and right as everything between them has been.
Robin takes in another breath. It is not steady. It could never be steady in the face of the emotions pulling through him like rope tightening across the whole of him, not to hurt but to remind him of what he feels for her and how that means he could never be alone.
He reaches for her. He does not know if it is custom in marriage or if it is allowed at this point but his hand finds her and he holds it close to his chest. His thumb slides down the top of her hand. Her hands are warm and smooth beneath his own. Robin knows each of the lines of her hand. He knows the subtle difference between what it feels like to hold her hand when she is stressed or when she is at peace or when she needs him.
There's that moment where it occurs to him again. This beautiful, demanding, strong, intelligent, and brave woman needs him and she loves him too. She knows nearly everything that there is to know about him, and she stands across from him wanting to marry him until death do they part. If nothing else in his life could make him feel like he was worth something, this much alone could make him feel like he was worth so much.
One more unstable, shaky breath taken in through the heavy wall of emotion that has slammed down upon him.
He tightens his hold on her hand, aware of what the burning in his eyes means and not caring that it is there. They have always been able to be bare and vulnerable with one another. This moment should be no different. His eyes are bright but he makes no effort to hold back the tears or to push back that wall of emotion.
"Rachel," he breathes, and her name alone is like a prayer of its own in this sacred place. One that is joyous and complete and strong. It's more praise than prayer in its nature. "From the moment that I met you, I felt this connection to you. It wasn't until the second time that I recognized it as a connection, stronger than anything I had felt before, and I was terrified of it. But again, from the very moment that I met you, that terror did not determine how I acted. It did not send me hiding from you permanently. Before I really ever even knew you, you gave me strength and more than that, you gave me the ability to find strength within myself by the example that you led, by believing in me and showing that you did believe in me."
Memory after memory slides through his mind. The words come easily though he stumbles on the emotion and gets caught up in it as he tries to say it all as well as he can.
"Some people will describe love as making them feel weak. For so long, I believed that love could only be a weakness especially for someone like me." Robin hesitates, breath catching on something painful and wonderful, throat tightening. He does not take his gaze from her, not once but his hold on her hand tightens. "Loving you has never been weak. The love that I feel for you and have felt for over a year, Rachel, it has always made me stronger and better. I am at my absolute best when I am with you. All of the ways that I have changed along the way, I never would have changed if not for you, and every change has been for the better. You have inspired me. You have built me up. You have given so much of yourself to me, and it has all been a gift and a blessing, and I hardly believed in such things before I met me. You have stood in the face of such destruction and pain, and you never held me up with your own hands but you gave me the ability and the realization that I could stand on my own with you. Despite what everyone else says about love, I believe that is so much more important. You have given me... so much, and I would never be able to list it all. I would never be able to say everything that I feel and all that you have done for me, and it doesn't matter how many words I say because they could never be enough to... to say it all."
He swallows thickly again. The tears slip down his face freely, and he makes no effort to clear them away. He is bare and vulnerable with her. It is as they had hoped it would be. Robin is unaware of the priest or the choirboy. 'God' is the furthest thing from his mind. It's Rachel. It's only him with her.
Robin finally does duck his head. Bare and vulnerable with her as he has always been able to be, it is much more difficult sometimes for him to express how far he has come. She knows the reasons why, and he has come incredibly far in accepting gifts and accepting that she is proud of him but he still has moments.
"A long time ago, you told me that everything I shared with you would be kept safe with you, and you have kept true to that promise. And in keeping what I gave to you safe, you loved me and you helped me become the best possible version of myself."
He breathes in again and lifts his head to look at her, tears still burning brightly in his eyes. His jaw locks, and he nods as he finds the rest of the words that he wants to give to her today. They come as easily as the rest but saying them is more like that breath of fresh air, the water after a long walk through the desert.
This moment. This is why they are doing this. It is easy to say because nothing has been more true and nothing will ever be so true for him again.
"You are the only person in any universe that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, whether that is one more day, one more year, or one more decade, Rachel, that's all I could need or want. It does not matter how long, the longer the better. I'm where I belong. I'm with you."
til my body is dust til my soul is no more I will love you, love you.
There's a moment, just the one, where Rachel almost stops walking. She feels the steadiness leave her and she feels it being replaced by something far less controlled and more emotional. It's the way he's looking at her, the way it sends a strong jolt to the very heart of her, making her pause. So many of the steps she has taken from the moment she was brought to this world are steps that have led to him, to this place, to this aisle, to this future. It isn't anything she could have ever prepared for, much less imagined. The certainty with which she'd lived her life was stripped from under her, and nothing turned out the way she'd thought it would at some point. Never could she have imagined this. Never could she have dreamed someone like Robin existed and she would be marrying him.
Rachel sets the bouquet down in the first bench and steps forward so that she is standing in front of Robin. Beside him. She makes an effort to pay attention to the priest while he speaks, but her focus is on the man before her and nothing else. The magnitude of the moment slowly keeps building within her and she is overwhelmed, in a good way.
It only keeps building when Robin says his vows. It's more than what he is saying. It's that she feels it. She feels his love for her, she remembers along with him everything they survived in order to be brought back together again. There've been so many good times and bad times, so many tests and second chances, it's hard to believe it happened in only a little over a year.
She didn't know people could mean so much to each other in this way. She was blessed with a loving and giving mother. She knew from the time she was young what love was, what caring for others was, what it means to place them before yourself if you want to make a difference. But this, what she has here, with him, she's never had with anybody before. And that young girl that once ran through the gardens with her childhood friend named Bruce, that girl who believed different things to the woman she is now, she would be amazed to see what life makes of her and how it is she ends up in this church in Paris.
Using the pad of her thumb to wipe away the tears forming at the corners of her eyes, she smiles through them and tightens her hold on his hand. There's only his voice and the way he sees her. There's only him and the way she sees herself through him, what they have made for themselves in a world that is broken and doesn't seem to want to give them more.
It's hard to keep from interrupting him, but she doesn't. She listens with her ears, listens with her heart, most importantly. Humbled and thankful and happy someone can love her this way, that it's him who loves her this way. She lifts her hand, cupping the side of his face and wiping away the wetness she finds there. Rachel's pretty sure that it isn't customary and she's also certain that's the least important part of this. She only drops her hand to find his again, linking both her hands with his hands and keeping them like that.
The silence once he is finished speaking is palpable with the significance of what they are saying and what they are doing. She finds her voice much later, prompted by continued silence. The church is filled with candles. The air is cool and sifts through her. And she is only aware of Robin, bare and beautiful and hers.
"My turn?" she asks the priest with a thick voice, and he smiles kindly at her and gives her a small nod in response. She takes in a shaky breath and looks down at their linked hands another time, wondering how to begin when there is so much she wants to say, none of which seems as beautiful as what he has just said to her.
Rachel's given speeches before. She understands the power within someone's words and how they can be used to transform an idea, a thought, a feeling. She has stood behind countless podiums and given numerous press conferences where she's supposed to convey a message exactly the way it is supposed to. She has stood before a jury and plead her case in hopes of swaying their verdict. This is different. Every time she has spoken of what it is to love Robin, it's different. It isn't something she is used to speaking of so openly, however frank and honest she is. Now it feels like it's bursting in her chest and if she doesn't say something, she won't be able to contain it all.
They've always shared a certain kind of intimacy. She has always been able to give into vulnerability with him in a way she hasn't been able to with anybody else. It's why she doesn't need to write down her vows. It's why she doesn't have to overthink what she is saying and whether it's right. She's speaking and allowing herself to be ruled by the heart instead of her mind. Rachel always uses both, never one in sacrifice of the other. But it's her heart that led her here.
There is no doubt, no darkness, no wondering.
There is love, trust, and painfully bare honesty.
"Robin, when I first found myself here, I was confused, lost, and grieving for home. For the first time that I could remember, the foundation and the strength of what I believed in was shaken and I wasn't sure how to get it back when my heart belonged to a city I'd never see again. I was led to you when I had nowhere else to go and with that began something greater than I could imagine. You gave me your hand while I was still a stranger and simple gesture that it was, it meant more than I could say, even then. I didn't know then, couldn't anticipate what I'd find in you. I fell in love with you before I realized it, and once I did, there was no turning back. More than the man I was in love with, you became my best friend. More than that, you became my home." She unsuccessfully tries to blink back the tears, but her voice remains steady, if not heavy with emotion. "You've seen me at my best and my worst and loved me through both. It feels like there isn't a part of me you don't know. We're both fully capable of getting by on our own, and you've shown me I don't have to. My work and my ideals are important, but so is living for me. There were parts of me I weren't aware existed until I met you."
There's more to her than her ideals. There's more to her than her love for Gotham and her determination to see the world change. She hadn't discovered the more until him. That also means the world to her. She's more whole because of it. She is more whole than she would have been had she survived a warehouse explosion and the insanity of a man with a scarred smile and the descent to the shadows of her oldest friend.
She'll never love anything the way she loved and loves Gotham.
But she'll never love anyone the way she loves Robin.
Growth comes from change. The change in her that allowed her to let go of the city that defined her and give her something else. The change in her that made it possible for her to see there's more than a world in black and white, right and wrong, what's underneath and what is done. Robin did that for her. Not because he's an angel of vengeance, not in spite of it. It's simply him, all of him, with the angel and everything else.
Rachel swallows thickly, attempting a small laugh but she only manages to inhale sharply, cheeks feeling warmer than usual, streaked with tears. "You say I've never given up on you, and I never will, but you--you've always held out your hand for me to reach. I know no matter how dark it gets and I can't see, your hand is there to take in my hand and I'm not alone. I've seen you grow into this amazing, strong, brave man that stands before me today. I've seen the burdens you've had to carry and what you've had to face. I believed in you then and I believe in you now. I'll never stop fighting for what I believe in, and I'll never stop fighting for us. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, Robin, and you'll always have my hand to hold the way y-you've held mine."
There won't come a day when she won't want this.
There won't come a day when she doesn't want to fall asleep beside him and wake up to him that very same way.
There's no one else she wants to dance with, make love to, share the deepest parts of herself with. There's no one else anymore.
"We once promised each other something similar. Whether it was six decades or six days, we would spend them with each other. It's a year later, and I still feel the same way. I hope for us and the love we share. Now and always."
It is difficult to describe his reaction to hearing her speak, to looking at her and knowing, knowing what she is feeling. He does not have to guess at it. Robin is connected to her, and he has been for such a long time now (not nearly long enough), and he feels it too. It has never been anything that he was capable of describing, how one person can be connected so intensely to another.
It is why telling her how he feels is even more difficult when he is looking at her face, because he is feeling both their reactions to his words. His gaze scans her face, noting the tears on her face and the expression as she takes it all in. If this wasn't such a sacred moment, he would give into the urge to kiss her but he seems to understand that the kiss is what seals these vows.
In the end, it is probably silly. They never needed the wedding. They felt these things without it and they made promises to each other outside the church that they would have kept without it. However, this moment... There is something about it despite how often he has said that marriage is overrated and unnecessary. There is this feeling of culmination and of a beginning too.
It is stating those promises in a way that the entire world knows of them, and Robin has never been more happy to do so. The world will know how he feels. The world will know that he has promised himself to her and her alone. There is no one else that he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Does the universe hear it? It does not matter if it agrees or if it doesn't.
This has never been about anyone else, certainly not the rest of the world. It is theirs and theirs exclusively. When his hand reaches for hers, he knows that she will always reach back and hold on. It is something that is private even when this ceremony is supposed to be more for the rest of the worlds benefit than their own.
In the future, he will be able to look back on this moment. There is much darkness ahead. There is a fight and a war ahead. In Chicago, there will always be these things. However, nothing can take this moment from them. He will look back on it often, remember how quiet and how good he felt to express his feelings out loud and seal it all as a truth that cannot be denied. He will remember the peace that he felt here and remember what it is that he is fighting for.
My turn? She asks in that voice. In that voice, and it is enough to twist his heart, not painfully at all but good. There is nothing that he feels right now that isn't good, that isn't absolutely amazing.
There is another moment that he feels uncomfortable. His head lowers, and he does not know if he can face her while she says all of these things about him. It has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with how he was built and what he was made to believe. However, he takes in a strengthening breath.
He has been through situations much tougher than facing the woman that he loves more than anything as she describes her feelings for him.
Robin lifts his head again and settles his gaze on her face. He is not planning on looking away, not once as he listens to her speak. The tears that she had wiped away return when she begins to speak. His throat tightens, and he relives those moments with her. The moment that they first met. He does not know why he was able to offer his hand to her even then, even then but he did.
The connection has been present from the start. It is why his interactions with her have always been different than they were with anyone else. It is why he has always been able to be more open in her presence about what he is feeling and about who he is. There were rarely any walls up when she was near and speaking to him.
From the start, he has wanted to share his heart with her.
Robin should have known. He honestly should have known then but he had no idea. How could he when he didn't believe such things existed? Love was a fairytale, and it certainly was nothing so wonderful or so great as so many books and movies make it out to be. Or so he thought. And how could he know that it is real?
Love can do so much, be so much, mean so much, and he never would have known that if he hadn't met her.
Robin listens to her as she speaks, and he... It is difficult not to duck his head. They have said things like this before but it always amazes him when she tells him how much he has done for her. It amazes him that he could do so much for someone so wonderful and amazing.
She is his home, and he is hers too.
There is nothing quite like what he feels for her, and it fills him with renewed strength. It brings fresh tears to his eyes, and he swallows thickly past those emotions that have tightened his throat. His heart calls out to her, and he squeezes her hand again. The warm, smooth hand beneath his cold hand. How he knows her. He knows her so well, and there is still more to know about her. He will always want to know more.
Robin reaches over to wipe the tears from her face as she has done for him. They will always do for each other what they can, what the other has done for them. The strength in knowing that makes it easier to breathe every day, but he is not thinking about how he is doing for her what she just did for him. He is wiping away the tears because Rachel is crying and because he wants to, because it is instinct to.
And then she says so many amazing things about himself, and he-- There is the strongest urge to look down or away but he does not. His hand tightens on hers from that small fight within himself to look down but his gaze remains on her face. He nods and swallows thickly. There is no describing how it makes him feel to know that she thinks and feels that way about him.
He is humbled by it and floored by it.
I hope for us and the love we share. Now and always.
And maybe it is not custom either for the groom to speak after the bride has finished her vows but he does anyway.
"I hope too."
The church is silent in the face of the vows. Robin does not think that the priest or choirboy can speak English, but they would not have to to see or sense the strength of the emotion and love between the two of them. He is not even aware of either person until the priest speaks again.
"I believe your vows alone said enough about how you feel for one another and how you promise to honor those feelings and each other in the future so Robin Rice and Rachel Dawes, by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."
Robin does not pause. He does not even hesitate. He pulls her in by the hand that he had still been holding, wraps his arm behind her waist to keep her close, and kisses her.
He has kissed her so many times before but somehow this one feels different. Like he can hear singing in his head, bells chiming, fireworks exploding around them. With his lips locked to hers, there is so much beautiful sound in the silence of the church.
She once said to him love wasn't a fist. It was not the first time, and it wasn't the last, she'd gain some level of understanding when it comes to the conditioning he received for so many years of his life. From the time he was a child, to the time he lost the sister that protected him, to the time he was picked up by a First and molded into something else, he was never allowed to believe he could be more than the product of what vengeance angels are meant for. Life for so long was broken bones and rage and walls.
It was his difficulty believing in anything else, her difficulty in bending when she was supposed to, that led them to so much pain.
It led to them walking away from each other. It led to them nearly losing each other for good. It led to a contract and a four-walled room and everything they had imagined but never truly realized the full extent of until there was no going back.
But there was always that something more that refused to die.
Through plagues and conditioning and unbending ways, there was love. Love is fragile but almost impossible to kill when it's real. And despite the need of hers to analyze and find reason in what she is able to, love itself does not need reason. Her need to understand in what logical way she can doesn't apply to this. She doesn't need a reason to why he was able to hold her hand that first day. She doesn't need a reason to why he was less guarded and she was more vulnerable whenever they were in the presence of each other. She doesn't need it because these things simply are, and she has learned if she lets them be, they come into their own understanding that does not necessarily need a tangible answer.
It isn't explained, it's felt, and they both feel it, have felt it for a long time now. It's difficult and wonderful, to give into something led by one's heart and allow it to turn you into who you're supposed to become. Who you are capable of being.
Who you were all along and didn't know it.
Rachel understands he is fighting against those years and those beliefs to listen without them. To look at her and believe what she is saying without the voices telling him it can't be true. It's one more reason to add to an ever growing list to why she's so proud of him. To why she believes he's stronger than he's ever known and ever fully realized. Slowly he will discover those strengths inside of him. He already has, bit by bit. He's begun to see what he has done for her the same way that she has done these things for him.
It's why they were able to come together stronger than before. It's why it has worked, when it the past it has not. It has more to do with their growth individually and the time apart that they spent. It also has to do with the relationship being balanced. They are equals. He doesn't have to jump through hoops of fire to deserve a love that has always been there. He sees her imperfections and she sees his and they are not idealizing the other to be something they are not. It is what she has always wanted, without knowing she wanted it.
After walking away from love once, after idealizing a man that did not exist, after waiting for a day that would never come for a person that was no longer there, she understands just how much she has wanted and needed what she and Robin are offering each other.
It's love without masks, but more importantly, they themselves are without a mask. They're stripped from what armor a person can wear to keep others at bay, stripped from unbending ways that don't allow for other view points, and stand before each other completely as they are. It's why she can't do anything but speak honestly. It's why she can't do anything but say what she has always said in the only manner which she knows how.
When he tightens his hold on her hand, Rachel opens it so that her flat palm can rest against his. It's a gesture she has made countless of other times, in different situations and without much thought with the instinct that dictates the movement.
I hope too, he says, and the whole of her emotions swell inside her chest. She has never and will never be able to live a life without hope. Another Rachel in another place and with a different outcome realizes what she becomes without it. The woman standing before Robin never will.
She gives Robin a shaky smile once she is done, leaning into his hands while they wipe away at her cheeks. They're both tearful at this point and there is no shame in that. It's something they have always, always been able to afford in the company of each other. They have not only bent tradition but thrown it out the window. The ceremony means what it means to them and it does not take away from the importance of it.
Rachel does not have the faintest idea what the priest is saying.
She knows what is necessary in terms of proceedings and what any priest would say, so she doesn't honestly care. She makes out their names, but it's more importantly--it's how Robin looks that lets her know it's done. And she'll never, ever forget how he looks, how she feels that seems to mirror his expression exactly.
It's knowing the promises they have made to each other are the promises they have know made official in some capacity, and while it wasn't necessary for it to be true, it means so much.
There's a ring on her finger that has been placed there by him.
There are vows they have made and acceptance they've embraced.
Another day or another lifetime, they've chosen this for as long as they are allowed, and she can't begin to sort through the endlessness of the feelings in her chest.
Full and painless and entirely right.
Rachel throws her arms around him and the trembling smile remains on her lips when they meet his. They're soft and just as promising as they kiss him, mindless of the choirboy who is most likely hiding behind the man that has just married them.
Married. They're married.
She rests her forehead against his once they've drawn back, closing her eyes and smiling.
Of all the things they have learned, perhaps this one is the most important:
Love isn't enough, and it doesn't always win--
But sometimes it does and it's time it did.
shadows will pass Smoke, it will clear If something survives of us around here I'll be glad 'cause I know I was lost in the glow Of love
The amazing part of all that is that he realizes he has changed her too... for the better. It is one thing to believe that a strong woman can change him (though he would never have believed how much she's changed him), but another entirely to think that he has done something so wonderful and amazing for someone else. If asked, he would always say and still believes that she has done so much more for him than he has ever done for her, but he recognizes that he has done a lot for her and that she has changed for the better because he loves her and she loves him. This is an absolute impossibility.... or it would have been only a year ago.
He never would have imagined it but he knows it to be true now as he looks at her with her chin resting against him. It is very difficult to focus on the rings when she is so near, and it isn't until she's pulled away that his head clears enough to allow him focus.
After all this time, he will finally be married to her. They are doing it on a whim, and it has never felt so right. Nothing could ever feel so right. It's such an important life decision, but it is one that they have made over their year together. It is one that they made when they came back together and said that neither of them wanted to be without the other again.
Robin only smirks at the question that is given in response. "I know I wouldn't tell me," he murmurs softly, shaking his head and marveling at the fact that he can have a conversation with someone that's a stranger that's so positive and good. There is no false charm presented on his part. There is no wondering of why he should bother considering he'll never see the man again.
It comes so easily now a days, and it all goes to show how much he's changed for the better.
He has no idea what's going on in that backroom until Rachel returns with a bag. It isn't hard to figure out that she's found a dress back there, which is good. She deserves a dress for this day, this moment between them even if they don't need the dress or the flowers or the music or the bouquet or the reception afterward. Rachel deserves a beautiful dress. One that she'll never wear again.
There are some wedding traditions that make his chest clench in a good, happy way, and he really likes to think that she'll have this dress for this day, they'll have their rings, and they'll have their church. And he doesn't even believe in God. Somehow it's not about that. It's about something that's different but of equal importance to him as religion would be to others.
It's about how far they have come together, how this whole relationship feels like it must have been orchestrated by a higher power. In that way, because of her, this day is sacred to him... and that's what the church is for.
Robin nods at her whisper, turning to smile at her. His eyes are bright, and he clears his throat. It isn't only women who get emotional at these times. Ahem.
"I thought so too," he confirms and then he turns back to the jeweler and pays for the rings, carries them in a nice bag in velvet boxes to be opened when they find the church.
It is only when they step out into the sidewalk again that he takes an audible breath. Robin turns to look at her. "The dress and the rings. Now all we need to find is a church, and I believe there's one down the sidewalk and around the corner. Gorgeous, old building. On the small side, but I once walked by it around winter. Most beautiful singing you've ever heard pouring out through the stain glass windows somehow."
And when he walks out of that church, he'll be able to call her his wife.
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Rachel smiles at him a little, noticing his lack of focus. She places her lips on his cheek momentarily before she goes upstairs and has her girly moment slash glass case of emotion.
It isn't totally on a whim, mind you.
They never agreed on a date but they did talk about it beforehand, though never with exacting details. They both spoke about marriage in general and wanting it with each other, wanting it the ceremony to be about just them, and doing it when the time was right. What better time than here, in this city that's come to mean so much for them, on a vacation that has been all but perfect?
She wasn't the little girl dreaming obsessively of perfect weddings. She wasn't the teenager who dreamed of finding prince charming and searching for dresses and rings ahead of time. Her dreams were always different. Her priorities had always been so very idealistic and activist-minded.
Rachel wanted to be a lawyer. Rachel wanted to change the world. Rachel wanted to restore order and justice in Gotham. Rachel saw plenty of her old high school classmates marry young while she was hunched over law books, studying for her bar exam. And she never quite understood the fascination for it. Never understood what the big deal was, always placing it aside for later in favor of work and idealism and what have you.
Not she understands, albeit a different sort of understanding. No two people are the same. No two relationships are ever the same. No one else has lived exactly what Rachel and Robin have. No one else could understand exactly what it is they're promising to each other and exactly why they are here today. That's just as amazing.
When he turns to her with that smile, different from so many other smiles she has seen of him, she leans forward, thumb brushing his chin and placing another quick kiss on his lips. He is totally allowed to his emotions, okay.
She takes his hand once more and that's how she walks, beside him. Not one step ahead, not one step behind. Just right beside him. "Then that's the church for us," she concludes lightly. Her gaze is anything but, and the closer they get the bigger the emotion in her chest feels.
Robin wasn't lying when he said it was gorgeous. Rachel breathes in deeply, glancing upward and admiring the stained glass windows as they step inside. The silence found within is just as peaceful as the whole feeling enveloping her, and she's kind of left without words the more she looks at it.
The priest finished mass only an hour ago, and he makes his way over to them once they've been spotted. Rachel will let Robin start the conversation, since she cannot speak French to save her life, much as she loathes to admit it. There's a room where she can change and a choirboy that can be their witness. The man's features are one of the kindest she has seen, and he seems to understand the meaning of why they're here today.
Rachel turns back at Robin, her throat suddenly thick.
Next time she sees him she'll be walking toward him and a priest, promising till death do them part.
This might be more nerve-wracking to someone that hasn't already made such a promise, if only to herself.
"See you on the other side?" she asks with a wobbly smile, squeezing his hand lightly, once.
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Who could live in the present when they are changed so painfully to the past? Rachel taught him how. She lead by example. She believed in him. She loved him, and he found that there must be something to believe in, something worth loving within himself if she found those things within him. Rachel made every moment that he was with her a joy.
Never with anyone else has he wanted to spend so much time with. He never felt like he saw her enough at the start with the days in between the times they ran into one another then. He had met her once or twice before he went away to look for a cure, and he thought about her far too many times for someone who should have been merely a stranger to him.
Robin does not know why it all worked out the way that it did. He will never understand it but he will never stop being grateful that it has worked out this way. There are so many moments where so much could have shifted in another way entirely. She could have been lost to the hotel destruction. He could have succeeded with killing himself on the many occasions where he stood on one edge or another. They could have never gotten back together, the first or the second time.
They suffered and wept. They felt so much pain to get to this point, but it wasn't only that. There was so much love and hope and happiness felt as well. If it had only been the negative, they never would have made it here. Their relationship would not have survived.
There has always been more, and in the darkest times when he was alone, he remembered that and it often gave him strength.
No one else will ever know what it is like to love Rachel the way that he does, and no one else will ever know what it is like to be loved by Rachel in the manner in which she loves him. This is theirs entirely, his entirely. No one can take it from him.
Death will come. One day, they will die but the fact that this love was theirs and theirs alone... that will always remain true. The truth will survive while the two of them die.
Robin smiles against her thumb and swallows thickly. There are plenty of emotions for them both but it's understandable considering all they have been through. He pulls her hand down gently, wrapping it in his, and leans in to kiss her again.
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A church is only one more building with stone and glass and wood. Nothing to be drawn in by.
Now he understands. Now he knows exactly how a building can be more than stone and glass and wood. It can have meaning beyond those materials that make it up. The meaning is made by what happens inside and by the people who enter and exit through the doors.
He is excited and emotional but at such peace too. This feels right, and he can't quite get over how right it feels when so much in his life has been wrong, has felt disjointed and out of place and bad. This is good and right, and he even likes the damned priest and thinks the choirboy is adorable.
Honestly, he looks like he did as a child, not exactly but there's the blond hair, the hesitant upward glance. This child has more freckles. His face is cleaner, and there aren't any bruises but it's... strange. It's reminding him of being that small boy, and for once, it's not painful so much as it feels like he's coming full circle, becoming more whole than even that little boy knew how to feel.
Robin turns to look at her, and he leans in to kiss her one last time. His hands remain against her face and he pulls back, sending her a rather emotional smile of his own. "See you then, Rachel Dawes," he says with such fondness and love in the saying of her name. Her name. His chest clenches with happiness, and he releases her hand almost reluctantly.
When she returns, the main portion of the church will have hundreds of candles let. There aren't flowers, only that fire. Robin's suit will have been straightened, and he will be standing at the end of the row, turning toward her when the priest prompts him to, waiting anxiously for what will be the best and happiest moment of his life.
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She doesn't know if she'll ever see this church again, and get to say, this is where I was married. It might be this one time and she wants to make it count. It meant something to Robin long before they met. For whatever reason, he stopped on his way to wherever he was going, and it made enough of an impression he's remembered it years later.
Rachel wants to remember it for however long it is she has to remember.
The same way she's remembered absolutely everything they've ever shared together. Every date, every dance, every mistake, every demand. Every time they laughed and cried and made love and everything in between.
She rests her forehead against his for a moment, smile widening when he says her full name. It's more the way he says it than anything else. It's knowing this is just as important to him as it is to her. It's knowing she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, knowing the same feeling that made her kiss him back that first time is the same feeling that's lasted and grown immeasurably to what it is now. Knowing the battles they fought and the ones they lost and the hurt they endured led them to something like this.
It's with reluctance she releases his hand, too.
Rachel gives one last look, one last familiar smile, and then she's led to the bridal room. It's small, the way the church is small, and it's beautiful like the rest of it. She doesn't think she's ever been somewhere that's so old and beautiful at the same time. She stands in the very center of the room, appraising the whole of it, hand gripping the edge of the bag with her dress.
The dress is not extravagant, and it's still the most beautiful dress she's owned. It seems fitting she'll only wear it once and why. Because it's simple and unlike the big, poofy gowns brides often wear, she doesn't need help slipping it on. It slides down her body easily and the small trail at the back rustles on the floor.
As she promised the woman at the store, she takes off the pins keeping her dark hair in a swept-up style and lets it fall down to her shoulders.
The only piece of jewelry she's wearing is the heart necklace Robin gave her for her birthday. Her fingers linger over the surface, tracing its shape before her hand drops back down to her side. "This is it," she says to no one in particular, gaze lingering on her reflection in the mirror.
No one in particular, except maybe her mother. She thinks of Bruce and she thinks of Alfred, of her friends in Chicago, but she speaks to her mother alone. Rachel herself isn't much for religion and the practice of it. She went to a Catholic school, strangely enough, because her mother was a believer, but Rachel claimed she was too practical for it. Her faith wasn't placed in a God, catholic or otherwise. Her faith was stored in people and the world they shaped.
Now she can't be sure after all she has witnessed (not to mention the plagues she survived) and either way, it doesn't matter.
Rachel believes somehow, from somewhere, some place mothers and daughters meet beyond a world that doesn't contain them both--her mother is listening.
"I really love him." She wipes at the corner of her eyes and smiles tearfully at the reflection. "You'd have liked him, too."
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The choirboy lifts up the small bouquet they've procured from her (from an earlier ceremony) with reddened cheeks while Rachel simultaneously leans down to pick it up. "Merci," she whispers with a deepened smile, wide enough to almost show a dimple on her left cheek.
Rachel runs a knuckle down the side of his face and his cheeks only seem to get redder. Then he's racing down the aisle to announce Rachel is ready. It isn't until he gives her the thumbs up that she appears.
Rachel, you're the most important person to me. It's you. It always will be. You deserve to be loved and to love. I've seen you, and I love all of it when you're crying, when you're making those tough decisions, when you're laughing, when you've fallen asleep.
You gave me Paris, and you gave me a home here, when I thought I'd never have one again after Gotham. You found me that day and you took me to that hotel and I've loved you for what feels like a very long time now. I'm always going to love you. Years from now, wherever we end up, that's still going to be true.
No, no one is ever going to truly know how much one loves the other and vice-versa.
Hi, Rachel mouths at him, that same deep smile she's held from the moment she existed the room. The walk down the aisle seems endless and not long enough.
"Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together here to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended to be honorable among all men; and therefore - is not by any - to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly - but reverently..."
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He remembers how it all happened with her, and he remembers the words that they have shared with one another. There have been times where those words are all that has seen him through. While he did find hope on his own eventually, there were dark places that he visited. He remembered what she had said to him before. He remembered what he'd said to her and what it felt like to say those things, and it carried him through.
There is no doubt in his mind that this will be the strongest memory of them all. It is a culmination of all that they have been through and all that they are. Throughout this entire trip, they have been reliving it either out loud or in their own heads. They have gone over the bad and the good time and time again.
It all comes together here.
Robin can feel that in his chest as he stands waiting for her. She walked away from him, and he felt a flood of that knowing... of knowing that the next time that he sees her, she will become his wife. His wife. And he will be her husband.
They will wear rings that symbolize the fact that they are each others, that they plan to be with one another 'til death do they part', through sickness and all the rest. They did not need the ring or ceremony to do that. These were promises that they had already made to each other and would already see through if the idea of marriage had never even come up in their heads. They are not getting married because they need to but because they want to.
It feels right and good for the entire world to know how he feels about her and how long he is planning on being with her (til death). It is the little things like that band on his finger that will remind him as her words have and as his memories with her have of what they fight for, of what he has. It will be one more weapon to use against the battle with that inner monster of his. It is theirs and it is more than that. It is so many things, and there will never be words enough to describe what all it means that he can stand with her and marry her.
It means so much to him, and he turns when the priest prompts him to.
He turns to look at her when she steps out into the main room. His breath is taken violently from him. Words and thoughts and memories leave him quick, and it is a wonder that he manages to remain standing. The sight of her in that classic, white gown is enough to make him weak in the knees and breathless.
His gaze is only for her as it has been so many other times, but this time is different. This time there is that extra intensity to it all, and he takes in the sight of her, drinks it all in, and then notices every part, every detail of how she looks in this moment. The dress, her hair, the way she moves toward him but more than that... so much more than that, her expression. Robin memorizes the way that her face looks as she walks toward him.
He will never forget it, and he is still trying to catch his breath when she stops next to him. Robin can't quite manage to mouth a single word. He has not found the words since she stole the breath from him by walking out in that dress looking absolutely beautiful in the candlelight.
The priest's words fade into the background. The man seems to recognize that this is a private moment between the two of them, which is why he does not say much. He says the basics. He reiterates the meaning of marriage. It is not to be entered lightly but reverently, joining two people together in something that's sacred.
He says his part as simply and unobtrusively as he can and then he nods, urges them to take their vows.
Robin goes first, and there's that half second where he wishes that they had planned out the wedding. He wants what he's going to say to be perfect but then the words come and they come easily even if they are not technically perfect in any sense. It's natural and true and right as everything between them has been.
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He reaches for her. He does not know if it is custom in marriage or if it is allowed at this point but his hand finds her and he holds it close to his chest. His thumb slides down the top of her hand. Her hands are warm and smooth beneath his own. Robin knows each of the lines of her hand. He knows the subtle difference between what it feels like to hold her hand when she is stressed or when she is at peace or when she needs him.
There's that moment where it occurs to him again. This beautiful, demanding, strong, intelligent, and brave woman needs him and she loves him too. She knows nearly everything that there is to know about him, and she stands across from him wanting to marry him until death do they part. If nothing else in his life could make him feel like he was worth something, this much alone could make him feel like he was worth so much.
One more unstable, shaky breath taken in through the heavy wall of emotion that has slammed down upon him.
He tightens his hold on her hand, aware of what the burning in his eyes means and not caring that it is there. They have always been able to be bare and vulnerable with one another. This moment should be no different. His eyes are bright but he makes no effort to hold back the tears or to push back that wall of emotion.
"Rachel," he breathes, and her name alone is like a prayer of its own in this sacred place. One that is joyous and complete and strong. It's more praise than prayer in its nature. "From the moment that I met you, I felt this connection to you. It wasn't until the second time that I recognized it as a connection, stronger than anything I had felt before, and I was terrified of it. But again, from the very moment that I met you, that terror did not determine how I acted. It did not send me hiding from you permanently. Before I really ever even knew you, you gave me strength and more than that, you gave me the ability to find strength within myself by the example that you led, by believing in me and showing that you did believe in me."
Memory after memory slides through his mind. The words come easily though he stumbles on the emotion and gets caught up in it as he tries to say it all as well as he can.
"Some people will describe love as making them feel weak. For so long, I believed that love could only be a weakness especially for someone like me." Robin hesitates, breath catching on something painful and wonderful, throat tightening. He does not take his gaze from her, not once but his hold on her hand tightens. "Loving you has never been weak. The love that I feel for you and have felt for over a year, Rachel, it has always made me stronger and better. I am at my absolute best when I am with you. All of the ways that I have changed along the way, I never would have changed if not for you, and every change has been for the better. You have inspired me. You have built me up. You have given so much of yourself to me, and it has all been a gift and a blessing, and I hardly believed in such things before I met me. You have stood in the face of such destruction and pain, and you never held me up with your own hands but you gave me the ability and the realization that I could stand on my own with you. Despite what everyone else says about love, I believe that is so much more important. You have given me... so much, and I would never be able to list it all. I would never be able to say everything that I feel and all that you have done for me, and it doesn't matter how many words I say because they could never be enough to... to say it all."
He swallows thickly again. The tears slip down his face freely, and he makes no effort to clear them away. He is bare and vulnerable with her. It is as they had hoped it would be. Robin is unaware of the priest or the choirboy. 'God' is the furthest thing from his mind. It's Rachel. It's only him with her.
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"A long time ago, you told me that everything I shared with you would be kept safe with you, and you have kept true to that promise. And in keeping what I gave to you safe, you loved me and you helped me become the best possible version of myself."
He breathes in again and lifts his head to look at her, tears still burning brightly in his eyes. His jaw locks, and he nods as he finds the rest of the words that he wants to give to her today. They come as easily as the rest but saying them is more like that breath of fresh air, the water after a long walk through the desert.
This moment. This is why they are doing this. It is easy to say because nothing has been more true and nothing will ever be so true for him again.
"You are the only person in any universe that I would want to spend the rest of my life with, whether that is one more day, one more year, or one more decade, Rachel, that's all I could need or want. It does not matter how long, the longer the better. I'm where I belong. I'm with you."
til my body is dust
til my soul is no more
I will love you, love you.
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Rachel sets the bouquet down in the first bench and steps forward so that she is standing in front of Robin. Beside him. She makes an effort to pay attention to the priest while he speaks, but her focus is on the man before her and nothing else. The magnitude of the moment slowly keeps building within her and she is overwhelmed, in a good way.
It only keeps building when Robin says his vows. It's more than what he is saying. It's that she feels it. She feels his love for her, she remembers along with him everything they survived in order to be brought back together again. There've been so many good times and bad times, so many tests and second chances, it's hard to believe it happened in only a little over a year.
She didn't know people could mean so much to each other in this way. She was blessed with a loving and giving mother. She knew from the time she was young what love was, what caring for others was, what it means to place them before yourself if you want to make a difference. But this, what she has here, with him, she's never had with anybody before. And that young girl that once ran through the gardens with her childhood friend named Bruce, that girl who believed different things to the woman she is now, she would be amazed to see what life makes of her and how it is she ends up in this church in Paris.
Using the pad of her thumb to wipe away the tears forming at the corners of her eyes, she smiles through them and tightens her hold on his hand. There's only his voice and the way he sees her. There's only him and the way she sees herself through him, what they have made for themselves in a world that is broken and doesn't seem to want to give them more.
It's hard to keep from interrupting him, but she doesn't. She listens with her ears, listens with her heart, most importantly. Humbled and thankful and happy someone can love her this way, that it's him who loves her this way. She lifts her hand, cupping the side of his face and wiping away the wetness she finds there. Rachel's pretty sure that it isn't customary and she's also certain that's the least important part of this. She only drops her hand to find his again, linking both her hands with his hands and keeping them like that.
The silence once he is finished speaking is palpable with the significance of what they are saying and what they are doing. She finds her voice much later, prompted by continued silence. The church is filled with candles. The air is cool and sifts through her. And she is only aware of Robin, bare and beautiful and hers.
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Rachel's given speeches before. She understands the power within someone's words and how they can be used to transform an idea, a thought, a feeling. She has stood behind countless podiums and given numerous press conferences where she's supposed to convey a message exactly the way it is supposed to. She has stood before a jury and plead her case in hopes of swaying their verdict. This is different. Every time she has spoken of what it is to love Robin, it's different. It isn't something she is used to speaking of so openly, however frank and honest she is. Now it feels like it's bursting in her chest and if she doesn't say something, she won't be able to contain it all.
They've always shared a certain kind of intimacy. She has always been able to give into vulnerability with him in a way she hasn't been able to with anybody else. It's why she doesn't need to write down her vows. It's why she doesn't have to overthink what she is saying and whether it's right. She's speaking and allowing herself to be ruled by the heart instead of her mind. Rachel always uses both, never one in sacrifice of the other. But it's her heart that led her here.
There is no doubt, no darkness, no wondering.
There is love, trust, and painfully bare honesty.
"Robin, when I first found myself here, I was confused, lost, and grieving for home. For the first time that I could remember, the foundation and the strength of what I believed in was shaken and I wasn't sure how to get it back when my heart belonged to a city I'd never see again. I was led to you when I had nowhere else to go and with that began something greater than I could imagine. You gave me your hand while I was still a stranger and simple gesture that it was, it meant more than I could say, even then. I didn't know then, couldn't anticipate what I'd find in you. I fell in love with you before I realized it, and once I did, there was no turning back. More than the man I was in love with, you became my best friend. More than that, you became my home." She unsuccessfully tries to blink back the tears, but her voice remains steady, if not heavy with emotion. "You've seen me at my best and my worst and loved me through both. It feels like there isn't a part of me you don't know. We're both fully capable of getting by on our own, and you've shown me I don't have to. My work and my ideals are important, but so is living for me. There were parts of me I weren't aware existed until I met you."
There's more to her than her ideals. There's more to her than her love for Gotham and her determination to see the world change. She hadn't discovered the more until him. That also means the world to her. She's more whole because of it. She is more whole than she would have been had she survived a warehouse explosion and the insanity of a man with a scarred smile and the descent to the shadows of her oldest friend.
She'll never love anything the way she loved and loves Gotham.
But she'll never love anyone the way she loves Robin.
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Rachel swallows thickly, attempting a small laugh but she only manages to inhale sharply, cheeks feeling warmer than usual, streaked with tears. "You say I've never given up on you, and I never will, but you--you've always held out your hand for me to reach. I know no matter how dark it gets and I can't see, your hand is there to take in my hand and I'm not alone. I've seen you grow into this amazing, strong, brave man that stands before me today. I've seen the burdens you've had to carry and what you've had to face. I believed in you then and I believe in you now. I'll never stop fighting for what I believe in, and I'll never stop fighting for us. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, Robin, and you'll always have my hand to hold the way y-you've held mine."
There won't come a day when she won't want this.
There won't come a day when she doesn't want to fall asleep beside him and wake up to him that very same way.
There's no one else she wants to dance with, make love to, share the deepest parts of herself with. There's no one else anymore.
"We once promised each other something similar. Whether it was six decades or six days, we would spend them with each other. It's a year later, and I still feel the same way. I hope for us and the love we share. Now and always."
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It is why telling her how he feels is even more difficult when he is looking at her face, because he is feeling both their reactions to his words. His gaze scans her face, noting the tears on her face and the expression as she takes it all in. If this wasn't such a sacred moment, he would give into the urge to kiss her but he seems to understand that the kiss is what seals these vows.
In the end, it is probably silly. They never needed the wedding. They felt these things without it and they made promises to each other outside the church that they would have kept without it. However, this moment... There is something about it despite how often he has said that marriage is overrated and unnecessary. There is this feeling of culmination and of a beginning too.
It is stating those promises in a way that the entire world knows of them, and Robin has never been more happy to do so. The world will know how he feels. The world will know that he has promised himself to her and her alone. There is no one else that he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Does the universe hear it? It does not matter if it agrees or if it doesn't.
This has never been about anyone else, certainly not the rest of the world. It is theirs and theirs exclusively. When his hand reaches for hers, he knows that she will always reach back and hold on. It is something that is private even when this ceremony is supposed to be more for the rest of the worlds benefit than their own.
In the future, he will be able to look back on this moment. There is much darkness ahead. There is a fight and a war ahead. In Chicago, there will always be these things. However, nothing can take this moment from them. He will look back on it often, remember how quiet and how good he felt to express his feelings out loud and seal it all as a truth that cannot be denied. He will remember the peace that he felt here and remember what it is that he is fighting for.
My turn? She asks in that voice. In that voice, and it is enough to twist his heart, not painfully at all but good. There is nothing that he feels right now that isn't good, that isn't absolutely amazing.
There is another moment that he feels uncomfortable. His head lowers, and he does not know if he can face her while she says all of these things about him. It has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with how he was built and what he was made to believe. However, he takes in a strengthening breath.
He has been through situations much tougher than facing the woman that he loves more than anything as she describes her feelings for him.
Robin lifts his head again and settles his gaze on her face. He is not planning on looking away, not once as he listens to her speak. The tears that she had wiped away return when she begins to speak. His throat tightens, and he relives those moments with her. The moment that they first met. He does not know why he was able to offer his hand to her even then, even then but he did.
The connection has been present from the start. It is why his interactions with her have always been different than they were with anyone else. It is why he has always been able to be more open in her presence about what he is feeling and about who he is. There were rarely any walls up when she was near and speaking to him.
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From the start, he has wanted to share his heart with her.
Robin should have known. He honestly should have known then but he had no idea. How could he when he didn't believe such things existed? Love was a fairytale, and it certainly was nothing so wonderful or so great as so many books and movies make it out to be. Or so he thought. And how could he know that it is real?
Love can do so much, be so much, mean so much, and he never would have known that if he hadn't met her.
Robin listens to her as she speaks, and he... It is difficult not to duck his head. They have said things like this before but it always amazes him when she tells him how much he has done for her. It amazes him that he could do so much for someone so wonderful and amazing.
She is his home, and he is hers too.
There is nothing quite like what he feels for her, and it fills him with renewed strength. It brings fresh tears to his eyes, and he swallows thickly past those emotions that have tightened his throat. His heart calls out to her, and he squeezes her hand again. The warm, smooth hand beneath his cold hand. How he knows her. He knows her so well, and there is still more to know about her. He will always want to know more.
Robin reaches over to wipe the tears from her face as she has done for him. They will always do for each other what they can, what the other has done for them. The strength in knowing that makes it easier to breathe every day, but he is not thinking about how he is doing for her what she just did for him. He is wiping away the tears because Rachel is crying and because he wants to, because it is instinct to.
And then she says so many amazing things about himself, and he-- There is the strongest urge to look down or away but he does not. His hand tightens on hers from that small fight within himself to look down but his gaze remains on her face. He nods and swallows thickly. There is no describing how it makes him feel to know that she thinks and feels that way about him.
He is humbled by it and floored by it.
I hope for us and the love we share. Now and always.
And maybe it is not custom either for the groom to speak after the bride has finished her vows but he does anyway.
"I hope too."
The church is silent in the face of the vows. Robin does not think that the priest or choirboy can speak English, but they would not have to to see or sense the strength of the emotion and love between the two of them. He is not even aware of either person until the priest speaks again.
"I believe your vows alone said enough about how you feel for one another and how you promise to honor those feelings and each other in the future so Robin Rice and Rachel Dawes, by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."
Robin does not pause. He does not even hesitate. He pulls her in by the hand that he had still been holding, wraps his arm behind her waist to keep her close, and kisses her.
He has kissed her so many times before but somehow this one feels different. Like he can hear singing in his head, bells chiming, fireworks exploding around them. With his lips locked to hers, there is so much beautiful sound in the silence of the church.
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It was his difficulty believing in anything else, her difficulty in bending when she was supposed to, that led them to so much pain.
It led to them walking away from each other. It led to them nearly losing each other for good. It led to a contract and a four-walled room and everything they had imagined but never truly realized the full extent of until there was no going back.
But there was always that something more that refused to die.
Through plagues and conditioning and unbending ways, there was love. Love is fragile but almost impossible to kill when it's real. And despite the need of hers to analyze and find reason in what she is able to, love itself does not need reason. Her need to understand in what logical way she can doesn't apply to this. She doesn't need a reason to why he was able to hold her hand that first day. She doesn't need a reason to why he was less guarded and she was more vulnerable whenever they were in the presence of each other. She doesn't need it because these things simply are, and she has learned if she lets them be, they come into their own understanding that does not necessarily need a tangible answer.
It isn't explained, it's felt, and they both feel it, have felt it for a long time now. It's difficult and wonderful, to give into something led by one's heart and allow it to turn you into who you're supposed to become. Who you are capable of being.
Who you were all along and didn't know it.
Rachel understands he is fighting against those years and those beliefs to listen without them. To look at her and believe what she is saying without the voices telling him it can't be true. It's one more reason to add to an ever growing list to why she's so proud of him. To why she believes he's stronger than he's ever known and ever fully realized. Slowly he will discover those strengths inside of him. He already has, bit by bit. He's begun to see what he has done for her the same way that she has done these things for him.
It's why they were able to come together stronger than before. It's why it has worked, when it the past it has not. It has more to do with their growth individually and the time apart that they spent. It also has to do with the relationship being balanced. They are equals. He doesn't have to jump through hoops of fire to deserve a love that has always been there. He sees her imperfections and she sees his and they are not idealizing the other to be something they are not. It is what she has always wanted, without knowing she wanted it.
After walking away from love once, after idealizing a man that did not exist, after waiting for a day that would never come for a person that was no longer there, she understands just how much she has wanted and needed what she and Robin are offering each other.
It's love without masks, but more importantly, they themselves are without a mask. They're stripped from what armor a person can wear to keep others at bay, stripped from unbending ways that don't allow for other view points, and stand before each other completely as they are. It's why she can't do anything but speak honestly. It's why she can't do anything but say what she has always said in the only manner which she knows how.
When he tightens his hold on her hand, Rachel opens it so that her flat palm can rest against his. It's a gesture she has made countless of other times, in different situations and without much thought with the instinct that dictates the movement.
I hope too, he says, and the whole of her emotions swell inside her chest. She has never and will never be able to live a life without hope. Another Rachel in another place and with a different outcome realizes what she becomes without it. The woman standing before Robin never will.
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Rachel does not have the faintest idea what the priest is saying.
She knows what is necessary in terms of proceedings and what any priest would say, so she doesn't honestly care. She makes out their names, but it's more importantly--it's how Robin looks that lets her know it's done. And she'll never, ever forget how he looks, how she feels that seems to mirror his expression exactly.
It's knowing the promises they have made to each other are the promises they have know made official in some capacity, and while it wasn't necessary for it to be true, it means so much.
There's a ring on her finger that has been placed there by him.
There are vows they have made and acceptance they've embraced.
Another day or another lifetime, they've chosen this for as long as they are allowed, and she can't begin to sort through the endlessness of the feelings in her chest.
Full and painless and entirely right.
Rachel throws her arms around him and the trembling smile remains on her lips when they meet his. They're soft and just as promising as they kiss him, mindless of the choirboy who is most likely hiding behind the man that has just married them.
Married. They're married.
She rests her forehead against his once they've drawn back, closing her eyes and smiling.
Of all the things they have learned, perhaps this one is the most important:
Love isn't enough, and it doesn't always win--
But sometimes it does and it's time it did.
shadows will pass
Smoke, it will clear
If something survives of us around here
I'll be glad 'cause I know
I was lost in the glow
Of love
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