Fic: Drycleaning
Talia claims to be using every resource available to assist in his search for answers but as the weeks go by Bruce becomes more convinced by the day that this is not the case. Certainly she brings him leads, but all the leads her contacts give them come to be a waste of time, a dead end. More often than not it seems they’re taking him further from
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Alcohol will make you say and do things you normally would not. Tony had drank enough to match basically everyone at the party. When Rhodey showed up in another suit, and told everyone to get out, he didn't need to be told twice. Peter had felt helpless. How could he help people when there was no reason for Spider-Man to be at this party? It would blow his cover. Glass had shattered, people were chaotic trying to get to their cars, and in the end, Tony and Rhodey had blown up Tony's house.
By the time they'd dropped Mary Jane and Peter off in NY and gotten back to Gotham the next day, Harry was stressed out. He needed to get away. It was wrong, he knew it, but he needed to see Talia. It was all over the news now about Tony's explosive party. He has no clue if Talia is watching the news.
The place she takes him to is new. It's a different motel. Not the boat, a motel. It's late and his excuse for taking a long drive was that all of his friends were losing their minds. Tony was blowing houses up, Bruce was missing and being hunted, and he couldn't breathe. He makes up an excuse. Something is going on at OsCorp. He has to check it out now. Yes. Who else can do it? Bruce is gone. He has to do it.
He has no idea if Kara buys it.
This motel isn't the type of place Harry would normally stay in. It's the type of place he stayed in when he left Connor after being attacked by Chilton and changed his name. When he tried to become someone else.
Talia has been teaching him what she likes, and right now, Harry just wants to focus on that. Focus on Talia and this motel room and not on explosions and friends who are self-destructing. He just wants to not be Harry Osborn for a little while.
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He's aware there is more than one person in the room before he even enters and for a moment he wonders if he's returning earlier than usual, if he's caught Talia by surprise. He has a moment when he feels irritation she'd be so stupid to bring someone, anyone, even if it is a source, back to the room they share. It's asking for trouble, inviting it.
Perhaps it's a neighbour, one of the people from the neighbouring rooms, who has shown more interest that they should? Perhaps Talia couldn't get rid of them?
But you can't catch Talia by surprise. He knows her. He knows she isn't one to be caught out. And if Talia wanted to get rid of someone should would.
Whoever is in there, Talia wants them in there.
It's Matches Malone who opens the door. Talia and Harry look up. Harry looks shocked, Talia not so much so.
"Honey,"
He says. It's a rough voice, slight accent, the words slur and run into each other, this is not the pronouciation of an Excelsior education.
"I'm home."
This is the sort of guy whose wife, girlfriend, whatever, the sort of guy whose woman you don't want to fuck.
He could play this without revealing himself. There have been times when in one disguise or another Alfred himself has failed to recognise him.
But if he does then Harry is still going to connect Talia with Matches and, in a roundabout way, with Bruce. The last thing he needs is Harry mentioning Matches Malone to the wrong person.
As both the bodies on the bed look up at him, he throws the drycleaning on a chair. The drycleaning. There is a drycleaner there. It's real. It all makes no sense.
He'd made enquires about Vesper. Said he knew she was a client. Said he was here to get her drycleaning. The police report said she'd called about her drycleaning. Fine. Where was it?
And after some discussion (he was her cousin, they were as close as siblings) they'd handed it over. Even said how sorry they were for his loss. Two dress shirts, tight in all the right areas, and a long line velvet jacket in pale green. He remembered her in them but these didn't smell of her now. They smelt generic and bland.
He'd handed over his own dry cleaning - a winter jacket with surviellance equipment built into the lining and he'd left.
"Why don't you finish up here, kids. I'm not in the mood for dinner and a show."
The man looks nothing like Bruce. His eyes, his hair, even his height, the way he stands, it's all wrong. You'd put him at 6 ft if you were being generous, Bruce was taller without a doubt. And the scar right across his face...
But the voice has suddenly become Bruce's and the man straightens a little - stands a little straigher and suddenly the posture itself is the way Bruce Wayne would stand.
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Harry feels sick. Kara was never supposed to find out. This guy, this whatever he is to Talia, he looks like the type that could seriously fuck Harry up. More so, he looks like the type that probably would have seen Harry's face in the papers. What if he's the type of guy to go and call up Harry's wife and tell him exactly what type of OsCorp business her husband is up to in a seedy motel room in Gotham.
He really feels sick.
His pants are on the floor. Actually, all of his clothes are on the floor, but he's mostly concerned about his pants. Maybe his shoes. Hell, he'll take the boxers and a quick exit out the door if it comes down to it.
Problem is, his clothes are on the floor, and the guy, this guy that is looking at them, looking at Talia and Harry, is standing between the door and the bed.
Fuck.
It goes from bad to worse. Because, it's one thing to be caught in bed with someone by someone you don't know.
It's another to be caught in by bed by someone you do.
Harry pales a little. "Bruce?"
Oh fuck him.
He looks at Talia and the look on his face says simply, 'Seriously??????'
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Talia looks back and that beautiful face is the portrait of extreme innocence. She even says something to the effect of having not expected to see him back so soon... and to complete the show, she covers herself, ever so coyly, with the sheet.
Bruce seems... it's hard to know how Bruce seems. It's hard to see him at all beneath the whole charade.
"Put some pants on, Harry."
He says. No. He orders.
He doesn't do Harry the service of looking away. He isn't that kind. He looks right at him. He even looks him up and down.
"Really, Talia?"
But this Bruce that isn't Bruce is making no move to hand Harry his pants. And he's standing between Harry and them.
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The walk of shame is one that most people have done at one point or another. You go into that house, that motel, that boat, the night before, and you leave the next day with the same clothes on. Or you go out the window with half your clothes on to avoid an angry judge whose wife you're fucking.
There's not a window to go out of. Bruce is ordering him to put his clothes on. Except, he's standing between Harry and his clothes, and christ on a cross he wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole.
Talia's innocent face, Harry can't even process that. Instead, he looks down, away from Bruce, and moves past him, to grab his pants.
"You're standing on them."
No answer.
"Bruce, I can't put my pants on unless you move your foot, please." Careful tone. Can you be respectful when you're caught in bed with your father substitute's...not quite wife?
Yeah.
Fucking awkward.
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"Yes. Move your foot, beloved."
Talia says. She sounds... smug isn't quite the word but it's close enough. She certainly doesn't sound concerned. She's up off the bed herself, sheet still draped in mock modesty as she moves towards the tiny bathroom at the side of the room. She comes out again with a robe on.
Bruce's face in response is as if it is cast in stone.
"How rude of me."
He finally says, after a long moment in which it seemed like he might not move at all. And he steps aside.
As he watches Harry snatch up his pants he adds:
"Your underwear first, Harry."
And Bruce kicks his underwear towards Harry as well.
"You do still wear underwear or do you find that adds needless seconds to the act of infidelity, Pumpkin?"
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A little set up.
Was this a set up? What was the point? He didn't expect that Talia was really that into him. They served a purpose for each other, but seriously he feels set up. He just doesn't get why. What is the point of this?
Harry dresses. Quickly. Underwear, pants, hey he even finds his belt and his shirt. He sits on the edge of the bed with his socks and shoes, and tries to put them on quickly. He wants OUT of here.
"I'm sorry." He's not even sure what he's apologizing for. For cheating on his wife? For cheating with Bruce's ex? For...getting caught?
Maybe the last, probably all three. He can't seem to look at Bruce. Really what is there even to say?
Except he does force himself to look up and he takes in the disguise and it makes him wonder what the fuck is going on? Seriously.
Okay, he's being hunted by the cops, so...
"You're wandering around Gotham wearing a disguise?"
If only he knew how hilarious that question was.
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Wandering?
For some reason that word irritates Bruce more than anything else going on in this room. He doesn't wander.
"Be quiet."
Talia starts to speak, not in English, in a rare dialect that she knows Bruce understands but it's extremely unlikely Harry will.
Oh, leave him be. I'm not your wife. He's a good boy. You'd think you were jealous ---
I can assure you I'm not.
Well, you're acting like a jealous hus--
I'm acting like a man who is being played. What are you doing here, Talia? What game are you playing?
I'm trying to help --
With what? Dead ends and leads that go nowhere?
You're so paranoid.
I know you.
And I know you - my father may have considered you the worlds greatest detective, I consider you the worlds greatest masochist - running after women who reject you and a city that despises you, that despises both your masks -
Better than running after a father who was endlessly disappointed -
Talia is laughing. She's really laughing.
Oh. Oh. Oh!
She's laughing so hard.
Be quiet, Talia.
Oh, Bruce. Oh, Bruce. You should talk about running after disappointed fathers. What would Thomas think of you? What would he think of you and all your sluts? Of your hobbies? Of your perversities? What would your mother think?
Be quiet, Talia.
What would they think of their little boy all grown up - what would they think if they saw what you've become? You know it, Bruce, they'd be ashamed. They'd not even look at you. They'd see that darkness and they'd wish you'd died with them rather than become this monster -
I TOLD YOU TO BE QUIET. I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, TALIA.
And the rage, the anger, the pure venom of the final line. It isn't Bruce in the room. It isn't even Matches. This is the venom usually reserved only for the Batman.
Even Talia wants to step back, but she doesn't.
But we loved you. We love you still. You're our family and we see you and we accept you, not for what you want to be, or pretend to be, but for what you are. Not because of duty, but because ou are ours and we recognise you. We accept you.
Bruce takes a step towards Talia and for a moment Talia thinks he's going to hit her or worse, but he stops, that veil of self control slips in place and he turns to Harry instead.
When he speaks to Harry, in English, his voice is cold and calm and perfectly controlled.
"You,"
He says.
"Are not going anywhere."
The hold he takes of Harry's arm is resolute and he all but drags Harry off the bed pushing him down on a worn vinyl chair next to an old heater attached to the wall.
The cuffs slip around Harry's wrist and then around the heater.
"You,"
He says.
"Are not going anywhere."
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When Bruce raises his voice, Harry's head snaps up. He looks a little freaked out. Bruce doesn't yell. He's always in control. What the fuck is going on?
Harry's eyes travel to Talia's face, trying to get a read on her, but she's still talking just to Bruce. He can't understand what they're saying, but the body language says this is bad. This is really fucking bad.
What happens next makes Harry even more confused. More convinced that something is seriously off here. Bruce has a hold of him and he's telling him he's not going to leave. Then he's handcuffing him.
Um.
WHAT THE FUCK?
He nearly says he was pretty sure Talia was the one who was into bondage, but Harry hasn't gone totally stupid. He doesn't say that.
Instead he stares at the cuff on his hand and on the heater and then looks at Bruce like Bruce has lost his mind. "What in the hell? Bruce, I have to go home."
Oh God. Kara was going to find them and kill Talia and Bruce.
Great. Just fucking great.
"Talia, what's going on? What is he doing? What is going on here?"
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"He's throwing one of his fits." Talia says in the most offhand manner possible. "Do you want a drink? I want a drink? I want a drink..."
Bruce has gone into the bathroom, but he's left the door open so he can hear everything easily. She knows he's listening. Talia stands up, walks over to the small fridge and pulls the bottle of vodka out from it. She puts two coffee cups down on the laminate table Harry is sitting behind and takes a seat across from him.
"I'm sure as intimate as you both are that this is nothing new to you, darling. He's always had the talent of a tantrum or two ---"
Her words are deliberate. What she is saying is: Little boy, you don't know this man at all.
"So much rage, darling. He's got more rage than anyone I've ever known. Including my sister. Including my father. My father was amazed by his rage, delighted by it --- "
She pours into the coffee mugs. She laughs. She can see Bruce taking out his contacts, taking off his clothes, she watches him step into the shower for just the shortest moment. So much discipline, he doesn't even enjoy a shower, he can't even enjoy that anymore.
Just like her father. He's turned into him all the time running from him.
"And, you'll have to forgive him, he's usually out having his constitutional around this time. Exercising those demons. Doing his thing. Getting rid of all that rage through his little hobby - He's such a grouch without his nightly therapy session - "
Bruce has come out of the bathroom. Towel around his waist. The large tattoo of a rat that winds up his leg is frighteningly convincing - it has to be fake, doesn't it? - and even more disturbingly, it's slightly sexual. His body is a mess of bruises and cuts, some new, some not. None of them appear to be healing. The stab mark on his lower stomach is oozing, the mess can be seen through dirty gauze and tape.
He takes a bottle of water out of the fridge. Checks the seal. He always checks the seal.
"Leave him be, Talia." He says. "Leave him out of this."
He sits down on the bed and pulls off the padding around the deepest stab wound. As he pulls it away it reveals an angry weeping wound and skin surrounding it an angry red - an angry red that's growing.
He takes the bottle of vodka and pours it straight over.
And Talia, looking at the infection, seems so unconcerned. They both seem completely unconcerned.
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Goddamn it, he doesn't want to think about this stuff. He never analyzes Bruce. Harry purposely doesn't analyze him.
Talia's words are wrapping around his head though. Tightening it's hold and he tells himself, no. He's wrong. It's his own paranoia from Bruce snapping on him.
He's wrong.
"Tantrum. Yeah, that sounds like Bruce. Lots of rage huh? That's how he really is?"
Harry's hand, you know, the free one that isn't currently cuffed to a heater, goes to his neck unconsciously. His mind flashes to a couple of things.
No.
No, it's not that.
"I'd love to be left out of this. In fact, if you'd uncuff me so I can go home, we'll pretend this never happened." Because seriously, he doesn't want to think about where her words are leading him.
Looking back at Talia, he asks, "Why have him find out? Was that the goal all along?"
He's so young sometimes, and really stupidly innocent. Norman always hated that about him.
The wound is infected. "You need to have that treated, Bruce. Is that from the prison attack?"
It has to be right?
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She's entirely calm when she says to Harry:
"You can't tell Bruce anything, my father knew that, he has to be shown."
With force.
"No one can live two lives forever, it isn't natural, is it, Harry? It isn't right, is it, Harry? It isn't normal. Normal people don't do that. Good people don't. Do they, Harry?"
She's speaking to Harry but she's speaking at Bruce.
Bruce is ignoring it. He's cleaning his wound, and wow, if you were close enough to it you'd realise it smelt. It's more than a little infection. It smells, it's oozing green.
"No, I did it falling off the carousel."
He says, tone completely dry. Completely Bruce like. Soft and dry. Maybe softer than usual. Maybe.
Yes, that is one of the wounds from the stabbing. He left hospital before he should have, he's been on the run ever since. He's been out as the Batman every night and as Matches every day.
"I am treating it."
And without any intentional humour he says:
"My father was a doctor."
Some of the stitches have come out. He's literally leaning over and restitching his own oozing wound.
"Just ignore her, Harry. She's trying to teach me a lesson. I'm sorry she used you to do it."
He finishes stitching the wound and moves on to examining his arm. That one is not from prison.
"Talia never had boundaries... but you, I'm very disappointed in you. You have a wife. How's she going to feel about this?"
And then, calm as can be, he starts stitching up his arm.
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He thinks he could do a better job with that wound than Bruce is. Not that he can do anything given he is handcuffed to a heater.
"Talia, is he Batman? Is that the other life?" It comes out before he can stop himself. He doesn't even mean to ask the question. Nothing else makes sense though. Everything else she's saying is leading to that assumption.
Is Bruce Batman? Is he?
Batman had said he didn't have time for this on the roof.
That's Bruce's line.
No.
He's not Batman.
"Kara isn't going to know." He says it calmly. Because she's not. "There's no reason for her to know."
It stings. That lecture. But you know, it's a little hard to feel completely guilty when someone elses secrets are being revealed. God, is he Batman? Is he?
He can't be.
Peter can't be Spider-Man.
Norman can't be The Goblin.
"Everyone wears masks." Maybe he means himself too. His own double life. He jerks on the handcuffs furiously. "Let me go. You're lecturing me about my fidelity while handcuffing me so I can't even get back to my wife and kids. I need to go home now, Bruce."
ARE YOU FUCKING BATMAN?
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No! No, you have not!
"I thought you were a different man than this."
He rips a bandage with his teeth and ties it around his upper arm. He wraps another around his waist.
"I thought your marriage meant something to you, that you had some sort of respect for your wife. You have children... you have a family. Don't they mean anything to you? Do your responsibilities mean nothing to you?"
He sounds completely serious.
And Talia who looked smug before is now staring at the floor. She doesn't look at Bruce. She doesn't answer Harry.
"You've soiled my bed and your own."
He says, standing up.
"I've never been as disappointed. Disgusted."
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Again.
Par for course.
There's nothing he can say.
So there's silence. Just silence. He lets it hang there. Talia's non answer is an answer.
It can be an answer.
Is it an answer?
"She'll be worried if I don't come home. I need to go home, Bruce. Please. You're right, I have a family and I've let them down. I will not make excuses for that."
Then it hits him again. That Bruce is lecturing him while holding him captive.
"I thought you were different too." He jerks on the cuffs to make his point. "Why hold me here? Do you really think I'd tell anyone anything? I shouldn't have been with Talia. I know that. You have to know I would never tell anyone anything about you, Bruce."
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Bruce stares at him for a moment. He doesn't feel remorseful, he doesn't feel bad. He doesn't believe he's done anything that isn't completely reasonable.
"He's right, Bruce." Talia finally says. "You need to let him go and we need to get out of here, beloved. It's not safe for you here... now."
She glances at Harry.
"Be. Quiet. Talia."
Bruce is still staring at Harry.
"Stop being dramatic."
Says the man that has chained Harry Osborn to a heater. He's getting dressed. Talia's right, they have to move on. He's not leaving Gotham but they have to leave here. He has to leave here.
And not with Harry. Not with Talia. None of them can be trusted.
"You ask me to trust you. I begged you to do something for me. I needed you to do it so I could trust that your legacy could be safe. I needed you to do it so I could know I could give you the Foundation and you'd have the resources and the name to back it. I never beg and I begged you - and now you say I can trust you, Harry. I can't trust you - the only thing I have ever begged you for you refused because it would make you feel bad. You didn't trust me. You didn't trust my reasons. At my weakest I turned to you and asked you to trust me and you would not. And you sit there and say I should trust you?"
His voice sounds so... over it. Over everything. He's dressed. He's throwing the necessities in a bag. Wireless cards, phones. Spare SIMS. His computer. Clothes go in a backpack. Medicine gets thrown in there, too.
"I did trust you. And you betrayed me."
He moves towards Harry.
"But you're right. I won't betray you, Harry. I have no right to keep you here."
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