Custody Extra: Interlude I: Wayne 'The lost years'
~Interlude: Wayne 'The lost years'~
~One~
“Here is another letter for you. Alfred,” Bruce says and hands it over.
“They're addressed to the manor. Not only me, Master Bruce,” Alfred answers. It's the first time he says anything at all about Bruce not reading a single one of John's letters. And it's been years. Bruce can't really believe it.
Years.
And not a single word from John. Not even a picture.
He supposes it's his own fault for letting John go in the first place. But it was better that way. He knows it had been better. It had been the reasonable thing to do. John had been so young back then and Bruce had been messed up. He is still messed up. He has no idea what he was even doing back then. Why he had given in. Why he had touched John in the first place, except that John had wanted it, had asked for it and John never really asked for things.
Only for things he really wanted.
Like the fencing lessons.
Like staying with Andy.
Like the fact that he liked Bruce to be home more often. Bruce was more often home now. He was home all the freaking time.
He had tried to maintain a life in the public eye, but after John was gone, well, it didn't seem necessary anymore to pretend.
Or maybe, Bruce thinks, maybe he didn't have a reason anymore to pretend.
He had liked and even felt a connection to John from the first day.
And he had then fallen for John, like John had for him. Maybe because John had fallen for him, and that was all kinds of fucked up.
And Bruce knows that.
“I don't want to read it,” he says after too long a pause. It's a lie. And he is pretty sure Alfred knows it.
“Very well, Master Bruce,” Alfred replies and takes the letter back to the kitchen. “Do you want me to make you some dinner?”
“No, thank you.” Bruce isn't hungry. Not anymore. Every time a letter from Korea arrives, Bruce thinks briefly about opening it and reading every single word, and re-read it a million times until the paper is worn thin with how often he had touched it.
It's dangerous behaviour. Bruce can acknowledge that. He knows himself pretty well.
“Master Bruce-”
“That will be all, Alfred,” he cuts in, and he knows it's a dick-move, but can't help it.
~+~
Sometimes when he is alone in the manor he goes to the kitchen under the pretence to make tea or coffee, (most often tea, the kind John liked without acknowledging it), and looks at the postcards pinned with magnets to the fridge. He runs his fingers over the surface and plays with the idea of turning them around and reading whatever John has written on them to let them know he is still alive and well.
When he traces the newest his gaze falls upon a photograph. And Bruce nearly takes a step back, but then leans forward instead to study it. It's John and he looks the same, but different too. Bruce hasn't seen him for nearly two years. He's grown into himself he thinks. And he looks happy. There is a girl in the picture beside him. No, he thinks, as he looks closer, it's not a girl at all.
Bruce didn't think about with whom John could maybe be happy, form a relationship with (he didn't think John would at all to be honest, he had been always so careful around other people, always holding himself back, except with Andy, Alfred, and himself), but he didn't think it would be a cross-dressing, gender-queer Korean boy. Shows how much I know, Bruce thinks, running a finger over the photograph.
Something deep inside him aches. He isn't sure if he just misses John, who never was his child, or if he is jealous, or if it's something else, something tangled and ugly. He doesn't like to think about it. He doesn't like to be that person envying someone else's happiness.
But if he's honest, he envied Rachel hers too.
He is not a good person.
Deep down he isn't. He tries, but that is all he can really do.
~+~
The library is closed off and he never opens the door anymore. He is thinking about removing the door and putting a wall up. So he won't ever be tempted to go inside again.
There is a half-finished game of chess and a book with the page marked, and the couch, the couch John was arching into his touch on. The couch that made Bruce lose it all, and surrender to John's whispered pleas to touch him. To kiss him. To fuck him.
Now Bruce is glad he didn't go that far. There wouldn't have been a way back from that for him and John. Bruce is sure.
In his weaker moments he wonders how it would've been to be the first to make John come undone by being inside him any possible way he could.
He feels guilty for entertaining these thoughts.
It's really just a viscous circle.
~Two~
When Eggert came back from Europe, the first time for his brother's wedding, Bruce was secretly hoping John would come back too. That these months away would be enough to calm his temper. That they would be sufficient to make his point.
The truth is he knew it wouldn't be that simple. John had always been stubborn and he was out there right now to carve out a life for himself.
Eggert Senior had mentioned that his son said John was some kind of model over there. For underwear. There was judgement in Eggert Senior's voice. Bruce wanted to snap at him, but opted for just not commenting on it instead. It wasn't Eggert Senior's business what John did with his life. It wasn't Bruce's either it seemed, but Bruce still had a hard time letting it go.
~+~
He had been half-tempted. He is still half-tempted to hunt those magazines down and just look, but somehow it would feel too much like porn. Bruce knows it would.
So he doesn't. He tries not to think about John at all. How he is doing in Korea. Who he is with. If he is still practising chess and fencing. Probably not.
Bruce isn't either.
He can't blame John for - well, he thinks, he can't blame John for anything really. John had been a kid and Bruce should have known better than to give in to temptation. No matter how much John had wanted it, no matter how much Bruce had wanted it.
Especially that.
He wonders if Alfred would still be so sympathetic if he'd knew what Bruce had done with John. To John.
Alfred would probably quit his job and leave Bruce to fend for himself.
And Bruce would be alone. Truly alone.
~+~
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says setting down the tray with breakfast on the bedside table. Bruce doesn't even want to get up. He got drunk last night in the bad part of town and got his ass kicked. He didn't really put up a fight either.
It had been punishment for thinking about John that morning. For thinking about John arching into his hand and how his voice sounded and how his body looked laid out for Bruce to take. For thinking all this and touching himself while doing it.
“Thank you Alfred,” he mumbles into the pillow.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says, and he sounds disproving and worried. That is the worst tone, Bruce thinks. “You need to stop doing this.”
But I deserve it he thinks, and doesn't tell Alfred. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Alfred sighs. “Maybe you should call him. Reach out to him. It is possible, Master Bruce that he won't come back. He has a-”
“I don't want to know,” Bruce says too sharply. He feels like a dick when he does that to Alfred, because Alfred raised him, Alfred loved him when no one else could, or would even try. But it had always been a defence mechanism to play the employer.
“Very well,” Alfred answers and leaves.
Ah blissful silence, Bruce thinks. But that is a lie too.
~Three~
Bruce wishes on some days that he never set foot into that orphanage. That he never saw John trembling with suppressed anger and god only knows what else.
He remembers John staring right back at him. Like he knew Bruce. Like he could read all the secrets Bruce stored away in a deep dark box inside of him right from his soul. When he thinks back to that day, that fleeting moment, he can believe that John did know actually. That it was all over Bruce's face for anyone to see, to read; for those who knew how to look anyway.
It's not a blessing to know these things.
~+~
On most days he is glad he let John go. He can rationalize it. He lost Rachel because he loved her, but Batman can't love people. Can't have anyone around him who could be used against him. He lost Rachel because he loved her.
It's a simple truth. One sitting so deep inside his bones that it became a part of him.
“Or maybe you lost Miss Rachel, Master Bruce, because you were Batman.”
Bruce looks at Alfred and pours some coffee for himself. “And if that is true, it's for the best that John isn't here.”
“But you aren't Batman anymore, Master Bruce,” Alfred answers. He sounds very reasonable doing it too, even if he is currently making sandwiches for god only knows whom, because Bruce doesn't feel like eating at all.
And that is where Alfred is wrong, Bruce thinks, contemplating that statement. He has no illusions about himself. When his parents died that was when Bruce died too, and Batman was born. Most people just don't get it. Or maybe, Bruce thinks, maybe Alfred just refuses to acknowledge what he already knows. It would be like Alfred to try and hold on to hope with tooth and nail.
~+~
Then there are the days Bruce thinks it was the worst decision he could have made to not go after John. Bruce misses John. He misses the snappy answers, the chess-days, the weird books turning up in the library that John claimed as his own at a very young age. He misses John's friends too. The laugher and the shoes in the corridors and entrance hall.
He misses John's sleepy face in the morning, mumbling a 'morning' at them before he had the first cup of tea with at least three spoons of sugar. He misses the lazy Saturday breakfasts and conversations.
Sometimes he misses the hitch in John's voice when he said 'Bruce' with so much need it hurt to listen to it.
Bruce has no idea if anyone has ever wanted him like that. Like he was the only person who could make him whole. Maybe Rachel at the beginning when she didn't know. But even Rachel got over that. She moved on, and when she wanted to come back she was killed and Dent- Bruce takes a deep breath. He is not going down that train of thought again.
There is nothing he can do about this. Nothing at all.
A persistent voice at the back of his head reminds him that he could do something about John not being here. He could talk to John over the phone. Instead of eavesdropping on Alfred's conversations with him. He is not proud of it, but sometimes the urge to hear John's voice is stronger than any morals. John never asks about him. Bruce doesn't wonder what that means. If he were in John's place, which he is somehow, he wouldn't ask Alfred about him either. Bruce doesn't ask about John. He doesn't track him down either. He keeps his distance so John can figure out what kind of person he wants to be without Bruce in the picture.
But at the end of the day, no matter how many good reasons he puts out there - lined up on a shelf - the fact remains that he misses John like he hasn’t missed anyone else in a long, long time.
Bruce realised, when John had been gone for only three weeks, that John understood- understands Bruce like no other person he knows.
Something inside John recognizes the dark, broken parts of Bruce and reaches out to them without hesitation. It's a minor miracle that John sees them at all. Even if Bruce didn't do a bang up job of hiding behind his Bruce Wayne mask at his own home. Still, Bruce thinks, no twelve-year old should have been able to see that.
John did.
John does.
And Bruce is man enough to admit that he needs someone who sees him.
He doesn't want to, but he is still hoping that John will come back one day.
That John will forgive Bruce for being an asshole. Even if Bruce had been an asshole with the best intentions.
Actions
~One~
“Here is another letter for you. Alfred,” Bruce says and hands it over.
“They're addressed to the manor. Not only me, Master Bruce,” Alfred answers. It's the first time he says anything at all about Bruce not reading a single one of John's letters. And it's been years. Bruce can't really believe it.
Years.
And not a single word from John. Not even a picture.
He supposes it's his own fault for letting John go in the first place. But it was better that way. He knows it had been better. It had been the reasonable thing to do. John had been so young back then and Bruce had been messed up. He is still messed up. He has no idea what he was even doing back then. Why he had given in. Why he had touched John in the first place, except that John had wanted it, had asked for it and John never really asked for things.
Only for things he really wanted.
Like the fencing lessons.
Like staying with Andy.
Like the fact that he liked Bruce to be home more often. Bruce was more often home now. He was home all the freaking time.
He had tried to maintain a life in the public eye, but after John was gone, well, it didn't seem necessary anymore to pretend.
Or maybe, Bruce thinks, maybe he didn't have a reason anymore to pretend.
He had liked and even felt a connection to John from the first day.
And he had then fallen for John, like John had for him. Maybe because John had fallen for him, and that was all kinds of fucked up.
And Bruce knows that.
“I don't want to read it,” he says after too long a pause. It's a lie. And he is pretty sure Alfred knows it.
“Very well, Master Bruce,” Alfred replies and takes the letter back to the kitchen. “Do you want me to make you some dinner?”
“No, thank you.” Bruce isn't hungry. Not anymore. Every time a letter from Korea arrives, Bruce thinks briefly about opening it and reading every single word, and re-read it a million times until the paper is worn thin with how often he had touched it.
It's dangerous behaviour. Bruce can acknowledge that. He knows himself pretty well.
“Master Bruce-”
“That will be all, Alfred,” he cuts in, and he knows it's a dick-move, but can't help it.
~+~
Sometimes when he is alone in the manor he goes to the kitchen under the pretence to make tea or coffee, (most often tea, the kind John liked without acknowledging it), and looks at the postcards pinned with magnets to the fridge. He runs his fingers over the surface and plays with the idea of turning them around and reading whatever John has written on them to let them know he is still alive and well.
When he traces the newest his gaze falls upon a photograph. And Bruce nearly takes a step back, but then leans forward instead to study it. It's John and he looks the same, but different too. Bruce hasn't seen him for nearly two years. He's grown into himself he thinks. And he looks happy. There is a girl in the picture beside him. No, he thinks, as he looks closer, it's not a girl at all.
Bruce didn't think about with whom John could maybe be happy, form a relationship with (he didn't think John would at all to be honest, he had been always so careful around other people, always holding himself back, except with Andy, Alfred, and himself), but he didn't think it would be a cross-dressing, gender-queer Korean boy. Shows how much I know, Bruce thinks, running a finger over the photograph.
Something deep inside him aches. He isn't sure if he just misses John, who never was his child, or if he is jealous, or if it's something else, something tangled and ugly. He doesn't like to think about it. He doesn't like to be that person envying someone else's happiness.
But if he's honest, he envied Rachel hers too.
He is not a good person.
Deep down he isn't. He tries, but that is all he can really do.
~+~
The library is closed off and he never opens the door anymore. He is thinking about removing the door and putting a wall up. So he won't ever be tempted to go inside again.
There is a half-finished game of chess and a book with the page marked, and the couch, the couch John was arching into his touch on. The couch that made Bruce lose it all, and surrender to John's whispered pleas to touch him. To kiss him. To fuck him.
Now Bruce is glad he didn't go that far. There wouldn't have been a way back from that for him and John. Bruce is sure.
In his weaker moments he wonders how it would've been to be the first to make John come undone by being inside him any possible way he could.
He feels guilty for entertaining these thoughts.
It's really just a viscous circle.
~Two~
When Eggert came back from Europe, the first time for his brother's wedding, Bruce was secretly hoping John would come back too. That these months away would be enough to calm his temper. That they would be sufficient to make his point.
The truth is he knew it wouldn't be that simple. John had always been stubborn and he was out there right now to carve out a life for himself.
Eggert Senior had mentioned that his son said John was some kind of model over there. For underwear. There was judgement in Eggert Senior's voice. Bruce wanted to snap at him, but opted for just not commenting on it instead. It wasn't Eggert Senior's business what John did with his life. It wasn't Bruce's either it seemed, but Bruce still had a hard time letting it go.
~+~
He had been half-tempted. He is still half-tempted to hunt those magazines down and just look, but somehow it would feel too much like porn. Bruce knows it would.
So he doesn't. He tries not to think about John at all. How he is doing in Korea. Who he is with. If he is still practising chess and fencing. Probably not.
Bruce isn't either.
He can't blame John for - well, he thinks, he can't blame John for anything really. John had been a kid and Bruce should have known better than to give in to temptation. No matter how much John had wanted it, no matter how much Bruce had wanted it.
Especially that.
He wonders if Alfred would still be so sympathetic if he'd knew what Bruce had done with John. To John.
Alfred would probably quit his job and leave Bruce to fend for himself.
And Bruce would be alone. Truly alone.
~+~
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says setting down the tray with breakfast on the bedside table. Bruce doesn't even want to get up. He got drunk last night in the bad part of town and got his ass kicked. He didn't really put up a fight either.
It had been punishment for thinking about John that morning. For thinking about John arching into his hand and how his voice sounded and how his body looked laid out for Bruce to take. For thinking all this and touching himself while doing it.
“Thank you Alfred,” he mumbles into the pillow.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred says, and he sounds disproving and worried. That is the worst tone, Bruce thinks. “You need to stop doing this.”
But I deserve it he thinks, and doesn't tell Alfred. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Alfred sighs. “Maybe you should call him. Reach out to him. It is possible, Master Bruce that he won't come back. He has a-”
“I don't want to know,” Bruce says too sharply. He feels like a dick when he does that to Alfred, because Alfred raised him, Alfred loved him when no one else could, or would even try. But it had always been a defence mechanism to play the employer.
“Very well,” Alfred answers and leaves.
Ah blissful silence, Bruce thinks. But that is a lie too.
~Three~
Bruce wishes on some days that he never set foot into that orphanage. That he never saw John trembling with suppressed anger and god only knows what else.
He remembers John staring right back at him. Like he knew Bruce. Like he could read all the secrets Bruce stored away in a deep dark box inside of him right from his soul. When he thinks back to that day, that fleeting moment, he can believe that John did know actually. That it was all over Bruce's face for anyone to see, to read; for those who knew how to look anyway.
It's not a blessing to know these things.
~+~
On most days he is glad he let John go. He can rationalize it. He lost Rachel because he loved her, but Batman can't love people. Can't have anyone around him who could be used against him. He lost Rachel because he loved her.
It's a simple truth. One sitting so deep inside his bones that it became a part of him.
“Or maybe you lost Miss Rachel, Master Bruce, because you were Batman.”
Bruce looks at Alfred and pours some coffee for himself. “And if that is true, it's for the best that John isn't here.”
“But you aren't Batman anymore, Master Bruce,” Alfred answers. He sounds very reasonable doing it too, even if he is currently making sandwiches for god only knows whom, because Bruce doesn't feel like eating at all.
And that is where Alfred is wrong, Bruce thinks, contemplating that statement. He has no illusions about himself. When his parents died that was when Bruce died too, and Batman was born. Most people just don't get it. Or maybe, Bruce thinks, maybe Alfred just refuses to acknowledge what he already knows. It would be like Alfred to try and hold on to hope with tooth and nail.
~+~
Then there are the days Bruce thinks it was the worst decision he could have made to not go after John. Bruce misses John. He misses the snappy answers, the chess-days, the weird books turning up in the library that John claimed as his own at a very young age. He misses John's friends too. The laugher and the shoes in the corridors and entrance hall.
He misses John's sleepy face in the morning, mumbling a 'morning' at them before he had the first cup of tea with at least three spoons of sugar. He misses the lazy Saturday breakfasts and conversations.
Sometimes he misses the hitch in John's voice when he said 'Bruce' with so much need it hurt to listen to it.
Bruce has no idea if anyone has ever wanted him like that. Like he was the only person who could make him whole. Maybe Rachel at the beginning when she didn't know. But even Rachel got over that. She moved on, and when she wanted to come back she was killed and Dent- Bruce takes a deep breath. He is not going down that train of thought again.
There is nothing he can do about this. Nothing at all.
A persistent voice at the back of his head reminds him that he could do something about John not being here. He could talk to John over the phone. Instead of eavesdropping on Alfred's conversations with him. He is not proud of it, but sometimes the urge to hear John's voice is stronger than any morals. John never asks about him. Bruce doesn't wonder what that means. If he were in John's place, which he is somehow, he wouldn't ask Alfred about him either. Bruce doesn't ask about John. He doesn't track him down either. He keeps his distance so John can figure out what kind of person he wants to be without Bruce in the picture.
But at the end of the day, no matter how many good reasons he puts out there - lined up on a shelf - the fact remains that he misses John like he hasn’t missed anyone else in a long, long time.
Bruce realised, when John had been gone for only three weeks, that John understood- understands Bruce like no other person he knows.
Something inside John recognizes the dark, broken parts of Bruce and reaches out to them without hesitation. It's a minor miracle that John sees them at all. Even if Bruce didn't do a bang up job of hiding behind his Bruce Wayne mask at his own home. Still, Bruce thinks, no twelve-year old should have been able to see that.
John did.
John does.
And Bruce is man enough to admit that he needs someone who sees him.
He doesn't want to, but he is still hoping that John will come back one day.
That John will forgive Bruce for being an asshole. Even if Bruce had been an asshole with the best intentions.
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