Fic: Georgian Nights (7/?)
Title: Georgian Nights
Universe: Heavy Nolan with influences by others
Characters: Dr. Jonathan Crane, Bruce Wayne, Jeremiah Crane (Kid from the Narrows), Dick Greyson, Original Female Character, Original Male Character
Pairing: Jonathan/Bruce
Rating: NC-17 (full story)
Warnings: Graphic medical procidure, Romance, sex, snark, mentions/descriptions of psycological disorders, graphic depictions of animal testing.
Word Count: 16,961 (as of curent chapter)
Summary: Three years after the events of The Dark Knight and Bruce finds Dr. Jonathan Crane somewhere he least expected...Georgia.
Previous Chapters: Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI.
Chapter Seven: Boys Will Be...
"It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons." ~Friedrich von Schiller
Jonathan sat at the kitchen table, slowly and methodically banging his head against the stack of paperwork covering it. Bruce watched him for a moment, before pulling a file free as he straddled one of the kitchen chairs, ignoring his boyfriend lowering his intelligence level as he studied the tax form. "I don't see what the problem is, making money is usually a good thing,"
Jonathan paused, forehead imprinted with his earnings for the past year as he turned his head to glare at Bruce. "Rich people," he muttered before returning to banging his head.
"Oh look, Jeremiah's stripping naked," Bruce said, hiding his smirk behind Jonathan's household deductions as the doctor's head shot up, staring out the windows frantically, finally finding his son and Richard carrying a ladder across the yard along with a stack of buckets, heading for the peach trees.
"Not funny," Jonathan muttered, gathering up his scattered paperwork. "Just because you have someone to do your taxes and don't actually pay attention to things," Jonathan sighed, resting his head on his hand. "I'll sell you Jeremiah for two hundred dollars, he's only slightly damaged..."
"I'm not buying your son off of you," Bruce said, leaning over to kissing Jonathan's pouting lips before sipping his coffee. "It's only August, why are you so worried about this?"
"Better to know how screwed I am now then later," Jonathan muttered, resuming banging his head.
"Look, I'll call my accountants and the bank, we'll figure this out," Bruce said, holding Jonathan's head back from banging. "Relax, deep breaths and all that,"
"I'm not borrowing money from you," Jonathan muttered, but accepted the plan, gathering up his paperwork, eyes darting to the side as he followed his son's progress through the small orchard. He darted away as Bruce leaned in for another kiss, knocking some papers onto the floor. "M'not in the mood," he muttered, standing. "I'm going to put this away,"
Bruce watched Jonathan all but run up the stairs in an effort to get away from him and he lowered his head to the table, giving it a little bounce. Ever since that night with Scarecrow, Jonathan had pulled away anymore, barely tolerating Bruce being in the same space as him, let alone touching or anything else. It was slowly driving the man insane.
And Jonathan didn't seem to be fairing much better.
-
"So why do you call Uncle Bruce, Bruce?" Jeremiah asked, setting his ladder next to a tree and climbing halfway up it, snagging a peach and inspecting it before dropping it into the bucket Richard held, reaching for another.
"Because that's his name?" Richard said questioningly, ducking the peach Jeremiah tossed over his shoulder with the word wormy , catching the next one Jeremiah deemed good enough to eat.
"I mean, why don't you call him dad? That's what he is, isn't he? Well, like Dad's my dad, not your actual dad,"
Richard shrugged, and almost missed catching the next two peaches, causing Jeremiah to snicker. "It's never come up...I don't think Bruce cares that much," Richard said softly, staring vacantly at the tree, not really seeing it. "I'm just some kid he picked up at a circus, not like you and Doctor Crane."
Jeremiah paused in his examination of a peach, blinking down at his friend. "Do you miss them? Your mom and dad I mean,"
"Yeah, of course. I miss my dad's laugh most though...some nights, I can still hear it...don't you miss your parents?"
Jeremiah shrugged, dropping the peach. "Not really, they weren't...dad yelled a lot and mom cried and screamed all the time. It's...quieter now, and papa's gentler then they were. He doesn't hit or trip me,"
Richard winced, just imagining the life Jeremiah had before the "Event". "I'm sorry,"
Jeremiah shrugged again, dropping another peach into the bucket. "It's okay, not like we can change it...and if I hadn't had mom and dad for parents, I wouldn't have met Uncle Bruce." Jeremiah smiled at that, a hand going down to the night vision viewer he had strapped to his shorts.
Richard snickered, setting down the full bucket and grabbing another, this time climbing the tree to sit in the crook of the trunk, making the loading easier. "He is kinda cool, isn't he?"
"So are you! I've seen the news reports on the internet! All those flips and the flying, it's amazing to watch you,"
Richard colored faintly, hiding behind the bucket. "S'just what I do," he muttered, embarrassed. He had never really met a Robin fan (though, he knew they existed...some of those girls online were creepy), and thus, was ill-equipped to handle praise...although it felt rather good. "I could teach you some of it, if you wanted, it's not that hard."
"Really?" Jeremiah asked, bouncing so much he almost fell off of the ladder.
"Sure, though we might want to try it on the ground, first," Richard said with a laugh, holding the ladder steady.
-
"This isn't funny anymore, Jonathan."
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he tilted his chair back, looking into the living room to see Sarah, tears staining her face, jabbing a finger into Jonathan's chest.
"You want to know why I gave up and married Marcus? It's because of this bullshit! You kept fucking around like this and I couldn't take it. Do you know how many nights I sat by my phone, waiting for Arkham to call and tell me you ended up killing yourself? Every time it rang I was sure it was them, or the Gotham police, or even a hospital asking me to go identify a drug overdose who had my name in their pocket. I couldn't...I can't keep watching you destroy yourself! I love you, dammit, and you don't care!"
Bruce stood, intending on breaking up the fight, even if Sarah had a point, a few seconds too late to stop Scarecrow from shoving the smaller woman against the wall, slamming her wrists against the wall with an almost sickening crunch, keeping her sharp nails away from his face.
"You married him because you were too pathetic to actually care when it came down to it," Scarecrow hissed, leaning in so close his nose brushed Sarah's. "You were too scared that the man you claimed to love actually had something wrong that you couldn't solve with milk and cookies. Hell, I'm surprised you didn't run the second Marcus was conscious, it seems to be your track record."
"Let go of me!" Sarah yelled, struggling.
"Let her go, 'Crow," Bruce said in warning, grabbing the other man's arm, only to be shoved back as Scarecrow moved, glaring at both of them.
"Pathetic little fools! Pretending to care about him only to flee the first chance you get. You can't have him! He only needs me anyway,"
Bruce moved closer to Sarah, edging around Scarecrow, ignoring the rambling spilling from his lips as he checked her wrists. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine...nothing new," she muttered, rubbing her wrists, glaring at Scarecrow. "He never actually tries to hurt me, just shake me up," She moved closer to Scarecrow, only to be stopped by Bruce's hand on her upper arm. She turned to say something to him, not seeing the front door open.
"Papa, something's wrong with Di-" Jeremiah's sentence was cut off by a hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.
"Wormy little piece of shit, Papa doesn't care! Hate you, hate her, too possessive, thinking he belongs to you." Scarecrow threw Jeremiah to the side and promptly collapsed face first on the floor. "Not touching my son," he muttered to the hard wood.
Sarah ran to check on the boy who had thankfully landed on the couch while Bruce grabbed Scarecrow's arms, holding him against the floor, ignoring the blood spreading around his head from he man's nose. "Is he alright?"
"Fine, shaken," Sarah said, gently stroking Jeremiah's hair. "It's alright, honey,"
Jeremiah blinked, staring at Bruce and his father, repeating silently to himself that the straw man Bruce was shoving into the floor wasn't real, that it was his father and that his father loved him. The bugs crawling u and down the walls weren't real either...he hoped."Dick," Jeremiah whimpered, drawing his knees up to his chest, rocking back and forth slightly.
"Get. Off. Me." Jonathan gasped, trying to buck Bruce off his back, failing miserably. "I need to see him!"
"I'm not quite comfort-" Bruce was interrupted by a pained scream from outside and four heads jerked around, remembering Jeremiah's words before Scarecrow had cut him off. "Richard!" Bruce abandoned Jonathan to race outside, finding his ward curled up at the bottom of the porch, left wrist twisted oddly and his ankle visibly broken.
"Took you long enough," Richard gasped, rolling onto his back, biting a scream back as the movement disrupted his ankle. "What's going on?"
"Nothing to worry about, what happened?" Bruce asked, kneeling next to his ward.
"Fell out of a tree," Richard muttered, blushing faintly.
Bruce looked around, confused. "There are no trees near here,"
"Was over there," Richard said, gesturing with his good hand towards the peach trees. "I heard noises,"
"So you thought it appropriate to drag yourself over here?" Bruce said, gaping at his ward.
"I was worried," Richard said softly, whimpering as cool hands touched his ankle. He glanced down at Jonathan, relaxing slightly at the sight of the other man, something that worried Bruce himself. Richard should not trust the other man.
"How, exactly, did you fall out of a tree?" Bruce asked, distracting Richard from what Jonathan was doing, holding the boy's hand.
"I was teaching Jeremiah some tumbling and went to show him an easy falling trick from the small grapple," Richard said, panting softly as Jonathan wrapped his sprained wrist. "It was going great until I hit the retracter by accident and ended up at the top of the tree, it jerked, I slipped and landed wrong,"
"This is why you wear gloves with it, idiot," Bruce said, gently brushing his fingers through Richard's hair.
"Yeah, yeah, lesson learned, ow fuck!" Richard fought the urge to kick Jonathan who was touching his ankle again.
"Language, Richard. Where did you pick up a word like that anyway?"
"Roy," Richard muttered, yelling as Jonathan started wrapping a sock around his leg.
"We need to take him inside so I can cast this...and preferably knock him un-concious," Jonathan muttered.
Bruce nodded, easily scooping up his ward and carrying the boy after Jonathan. He placed Richard in one of the dusty hospital beds in the downstairs clinic, returning to holding his hand as Jonathan filled a syringe with sedative, slipping it easily into Richard's arm, watching as the boy's eyelids started to flutter.
"M'sorry for getting hurt, dad," Richard whispered as the sedative took effect, curling up on his side.
"It's alright, son," Bruce whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Richard's temple.
Jonathan ignored the pair's touching family moment, getting the plaster bandages ready, a small smile on his face. He turned to get a pair of scissors and paused, looking at his own son who was standing nervously in the doorway, red bruising ringing his neck.
"Can I help?" Jeremiah asked softly, looking up at his father.
Jonathan swallowed thickly and nodded, offering the scissors to his son, who accepted them and all but threw himself onto Jonathan, holding him tightly. "It's alright, papa," he whispered, and Jonathan collapsed to his knees, clutching tightly at the boy, face buried into Jeremiah's neck as he cried.
Universe: Heavy Nolan with influences by others
Characters: Dr. Jonathan Crane, Bruce Wayne, Jeremiah Crane (Kid from the Narrows), Dick Greyson, Original Female Character, Original Male Character
Pairing: Jonathan/Bruce
Rating: NC-17 (full story)
Warnings: Graphic medical procidure, Romance, sex, snark, mentions/descriptions of psycological disorders, graphic depictions of animal testing.
Word Count: 16,961 (as of curent chapter)
Summary: Three years after the events of The Dark Knight and Bruce finds Dr. Jonathan Crane somewhere he least expected...Georgia.
Previous Chapters: Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI.
Chapter Seven: Boys Will Be...
"It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons." ~Friedrich von Schiller
Jonathan sat at the kitchen table, slowly and methodically banging his head against the stack of paperwork covering it. Bruce watched him for a moment, before pulling a file free as he straddled one of the kitchen chairs, ignoring his boyfriend lowering his intelligence level as he studied the tax form. "I don't see what the problem is, making money is usually a good thing,"
Jonathan paused, forehead imprinted with his earnings for the past year as he turned his head to glare at Bruce. "Rich people," he muttered before returning to banging his head.
"Oh look, Jeremiah's stripping naked," Bruce said, hiding his smirk behind Jonathan's household deductions as the doctor's head shot up, staring out the windows frantically, finally finding his son and Richard carrying a ladder across the yard along with a stack of buckets, heading for the peach trees.
"Not funny," Jonathan muttered, gathering up his scattered paperwork. "Just because you have someone to do your taxes and don't actually pay attention to things," Jonathan sighed, resting his head on his hand. "I'll sell you Jeremiah for two hundred dollars, he's only slightly damaged..."
"I'm not buying your son off of you," Bruce said, leaning over to kissing Jonathan's pouting lips before sipping his coffee. "It's only August, why are you so worried about this?"
"Better to know how screwed I am now then later," Jonathan muttered, resuming banging his head.
"Look, I'll call my accountants and the bank, we'll figure this out," Bruce said, holding Jonathan's head back from banging. "Relax, deep breaths and all that,"
"I'm not borrowing money from you," Jonathan muttered, but accepted the plan, gathering up his paperwork, eyes darting to the side as he followed his son's progress through the small orchard. He darted away as Bruce leaned in for another kiss, knocking some papers onto the floor. "M'not in the mood," he muttered, standing. "I'm going to put this away,"
Bruce watched Jonathan all but run up the stairs in an effort to get away from him and he lowered his head to the table, giving it a little bounce. Ever since that night with Scarecrow, Jonathan had pulled away anymore, barely tolerating Bruce being in the same space as him, let alone touching or anything else. It was slowly driving the man insane.
And Jonathan didn't seem to be fairing much better.
-
"So why do you call Uncle Bruce, Bruce?" Jeremiah asked, setting his ladder next to a tree and climbing halfway up it, snagging a peach and inspecting it before dropping it into the bucket Richard held, reaching for another.
"Because that's his name?" Richard said questioningly, ducking the peach Jeremiah tossed over his shoulder with the word wormy , catching the next one Jeremiah deemed good enough to eat.
"I mean, why don't you call him dad? That's what he is, isn't he? Well, like Dad's my dad, not your actual dad,"
Richard shrugged, and almost missed catching the next two peaches, causing Jeremiah to snicker. "It's never come up...I don't think Bruce cares that much," Richard said softly, staring vacantly at the tree, not really seeing it. "I'm just some kid he picked up at a circus, not like you and Doctor Crane."
Jeremiah paused in his examination of a peach, blinking down at his friend. "Do you miss them? Your mom and dad I mean,"
"Yeah, of course. I miss my dad's laugh most though...some nights, I can still hear it...don't you miss your parents?"
Jeremiah shrugged, dropping the peach. "Not really, they weren't...dad yelled a lot and mom cried and screamed all the time. It's...quieter now, and papa's gentler then they were. He doesn't hit or trip me,"
Richard winced, just imagining the life Jeremiah had before the "Event". "I'm sorry,"
Jeremiah shrugged again, dropping another peach into the bucket. "It's okay, not like we can change it...and if I hadn't had mom and dad for parents, I wouldn't have met Uncle Bruce." Jeremiah smiled at that, a hand going down to the night vision viewer he had strapped to his shorts.
Richard snickered, setting down the full bucket and grabbing another, this time climbing the tree to sit in the crook of the trunk, making the loading easier. "He is kinda cool, isn't he?"
"So are you! I've seen the news reports on the internet! All those flips and the flying, it's amazing to watch you,"
Richard colored faintly, hiding behind the bucket. "S'just what I do," he muttered, embarrassed. He had never really met a Robin fan (though, he knew they existed...some of those girls online were creepy), and thus, was ill-equipped to handle praise...although it felt rather good. "I could teach you some of it, if you wanted, it's not that hard."
"Really?" Jeremiah asked, bouncing so much he almost fell off of the ladder.
"Sure, though we might want to try it on the ground, first," Richard said with a laugh, holding the ladder steady.
-
"This isn't funny anymore, Jonathan."
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he tilted his chair back, looking into the living room to see Sarah, tears staining her face, jabbing a finger into Jonathan's chest.
"You want to know why I gave up and married Marcus? It's because of this bullshit! You kept fucking around like this and I couldn't take it. Do you know how many nights I sat by my phone, waiting for Arkham to call and tell me you ended up killing yourself? Every time it rang I was sure it was them, or the Gotham police, or even a hospital asking me to go identify a drug overdose who had my name in their pocket. I couldn't...I can't keep watching you destroy yourself! I love you, dammit, and you don't care!"
Bruce stood, intending on breaking up the fight, even if Sarah had a point, a few seconds too late to stop Scarecrow from shoving the smaller woman against the wall, slamming her wrists against the wall with an almost sickening crunch, keeping her sharp nails away from his face.
"You married him because you were too pathetic to actually care when it came down to it," Scarecrow hissed, leaning in so close his nose brushed Sarah's. "You were too scared that the man you claimed to love actually had something wrong that you couldn't solve with milk and cookies. Hell, I'm surprised you didn't run the second Marcus was conscious, it seems to be your track record."
"Let go of me!" Sarah yelled, struggling.
"Let her go, 'Crow," Bruce said in warning, grabbing the other man's arm, only to be shoved back as Scarecrow moved, glaring at both of them.
"Pathetic little fools! Pretending to care about him only to flee the first chance you get. You can't have him! He only needs me anyway,"
Bruce moved closer to Sarah, edging around Scarecrow, ignoring the rambling spilling from his lips as he checked her wrists. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine...nothing new," she muttered, rubbing her wrists, glaring at Scarecrow. "He never actually tries to hurt me, just shake me up," She moved closer to Scarecrow, only to be stopped by Bruce's hand on her upper arm. She turned to say something to him, not seeing the front door open.
"Papa, something's wrong with Di-" Jeremiah's sentence was cut off by a hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.
"Wormy little piece of shit, Papa doesn't care! Hate you, hate her, too possessive, thinking he belongs to you." Scarecrow threw Jeremiah to the side and promptly collapsed face first on the floor. "Not touching my son," he muttered to the hard wood.
Sarah ran to check on the boy who had thankfully landed on the couch while Bruce grabbed Scarecrow's arms, holding him against the floor, ignoring the blood spreading around his head from he man's nose. "Is he alright?"
"Fine, shaken," Sarah said, gently stroking Jeremiah's hair. "It's alright, honey,"
Jeremiah blinked, staring at Bruce and his father, repeating silently to himself that the straw man Bruce was shoving into the floor wasn't real, that it was his father and that his father loved him. The bugs crawling u and down the walls weren't real either...he hoped."Dick," Jeremiah whimpered, drawing his knees up to his chest, rocking back and forth slightly.
"Get. Off. Me." Jonathan gasped, trying to buck Bruce off his back, failing miserably. "I need to see him!"
"I'm not quite comfort-" Bruce was interrupted by a pained scream from outside and four heads jerked around, remembering Jeremiah's words before Scarecrow had cut him off. "Richard!" Bruce abandoned Jonathan to race outside, finding his ward curled up at the bottom of the porch, left wrist twisted oddly and his ankle visibly broken.
"Took you long enough," Richard gasped, rolling onto his back, biting a scream back as the movement disrupted his ankle. "What's going on?"
"Nothing to worry about, what happened?" Bruce asked, kneeling next to his ward.
"Fell out of a tree," Richard muttered, blushing faintly.
Bruce looked around, confused. "There are no trees near here,"
"Was over there," Richard said, gesturing with his good hand towards the peach trees. "I heard noises,"
"So you thought it appropriate to drag yourself over here?" Bruce said, gaping at his ward.
"I was worried," Richard said softly, whimpering as cool hands touched his ankle. He glanced down at Jonathan, relaxing slightly at the sight of the other man, something that worried Bruce himself. Richard should not trust the other man.
"How, exactly, did you fall out of a tree?" Bruce asked, distracting Richard from what Jonathan was doing, holding the boy's hand.
"I was teaching Jeremiah some tumbling and went to show him an easy falling trick from the small grapple," Richard said, panting softly as Jonathan wrapped his sprained wrist. "It was going great until I hit the retracter by accident and ended up at the top of the tree, it jerked, I slipped and landed wrong,"
"This is why you wear gloves with it, idiot," Bruce said, gently brushing his fingers through Richard's hair.
"Yeah, yeah, lesson learned, ow fuck!" Richard fought the urge to kick Jonathan who was touching his ankle again.
"Language, Richard. Where did you pick up a word like that anyway?"
"Roy," Richard muttered, yelling as Jonathan started wrapping a sock around his leg.
"We need to take him inside so I can cast this...and preferably knock him un-concious," Jonathan muttered.
Bruce nodded, easily scooping up his ward and carrying the boy after Jonathan. He placed Richard in one of the dusty hospital beds in the downstairs clinic, returning to holding his hand as Jonathan filled a syringe with sedative, slipping it easily into Richard's arm, watching as the boy's eyelids started to flutter.
"M'sorry for getting hurt, dad," Richard whispered as the sedative took effect, curling up on his side.
"It's alright, son," Bruce whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Richard's temple.
Jonathan ignored the pair's touching family moment, getting the plaster bandages ready, a small smile on his face. He turned to get a pair of scissors and paused, looking at his own son who was standing nervously in the doorway, red bruising ringing his neck.
"Can I help?" Jeremiah asked softly, looking up at his father.
Jonathan swallowed thickly and nodded, offering the scissors to his son, who accepted them and all but threw himself onto Jonathan, holding him tightly. "It's alright, papa," he whispered, and Jonathan collapsed to his knees, clutching tightly at the boy, face buried into Jeremiah's neck as he cried.