The Undiscovered Country (Bruce/Jim, 4/4)
Title: The Undiscovered Country (4/4)
Continuity: The Dark Knight Rises
Pairing/Characters: Jim Gordon/Bruce Wayne
Warnings: None
Summary: While Jim and Bruce weather a cold Northeastern spring, Batman returns to Gotham, and both of them are forced to consider their options.
Rating: Light PG-13
Word Count: 3600
The next day, after the morning news and a half-hour meditation, Bruce returned to his Shakespeare and Jim to his Tolkien. The sleet and snow had stopped, but the wind was scudding across the lake in small whitecaps, the sky still dark and gray. Jim was still feeling twitchy, wondering if he should drive out again to where he could get a signal and check his mail, but the warmth and companionable silence of the cabin were difficult to leave. He was finishing up Merry and Pippin meeting the Ents when Bruce put down the book and went to the window, looking out. When he didn't come back to his chair, Jim picked up the book and opened it to the bookmark: the end of The Tempest.
"Interesting play," Bruce said, still looking out at the gray sky. "Prospero, giving up his magic forever, returning to the world as a normal man." He chuckled slightly, not looking at Jim. "Do you think he found it hard? Going on?"
"Probably," Jim said.
"I don't want another frozen pizza," Bruce said, letting the curtain drop. "Show me how to make something else."
They made pasta bolognese. Bruce cut the onions again, and even branched out to stirring the sauce as it simmered.
: : :
That evening, they turned on the late-night news to find the news anchor with a manic gleam in his eye. Before he even said anything, Jim felt Bruce's muscles tense.
"Tonight, WGBS has exclusive footage that would seem to confirm that the Batman, presumed dead these last three months, is once again working in Gotham."
The video was blurry: a cell phone camera in heavy shadows. But for a brief moment, the unmistakable silhouette--predator's ears against the moon--was clear for all to see.
The dark figure plummeted into the night and left behind three men trussed up and hanging from gargoyles.
The anchor was saying something else, but Jim was aware only of Bruce beside him, breathing very carefully, as though he had been struck in the ribs. Or deeper. "Are you okay?" Jim asked after a moment.
Bruce inhaled, held it, let it out again. "Was I that..."
"...Awe-inspiring?"
A gust of laughter that trembled a little. "I would have said melodramatic."
"You always were. Both, I mean. You still are," Jim said, the words clumsy in his mouth.
The screen cut elsewhere, saving Jim before he could say anything else stupid. "Acting Commissioner Sawyer," said the reporter, shoving a microphone up to her face, "What's the word on the Batman?"
Maggie Sawyer looked as if she were resisting the temptation to slap the microphone out of the way. "The GCPD is looking into the situation."
"Is there still a warrant for his arrest?"
"Everyone knows," Sawyer enunciated carefully, "That Batman died saving Gotham from terrorists. Therefore, this is a different person. We have no warrant for this person's arrest at this time."
"All of which," the WGBS's "expert criminologist" intoned from a different window as Sawyer stalked away from the camera, "Is Sawyer's way of dodging the question and letting Batman off the hook, obviously. And I think I speak for all the citizens of Gotham when I say, 'Welcome back, Batman!'"
A commercial started playing, something about incontinence pads, because only old people still watched the evening news. Bruce turned off the television and stood up, stretching. A chorus of crackling joints echoed through the living room. "I think I'll take a shower and head to bed," he said.
That night, Jim came alert from a deep sleep at a sound, a muffled cry. It came again, and Jim found himself at the door of Bruce's tiny room. Bruce twisted under the covers, making the small noises that mark shouts in nightmares, his arms flung up as if to ward something off.
"Bruce," Jim said, taking his shoulders in his hands. "Wake up."
With a gasp, Bruce opened his eyes, wild and dark with apparitions. "Where's--where's the--"
"You're not in Gotham," said Jim. "No one is in danger here. You don't need to save anyone. It's okay." He held on to Bruce, murmuring reassurance until the panic went out of his eyes, until his muscles relaxed and his face was lucid again.
"How did you know?" Bruce muttered, turning his face away. "What I was dreaming."
Jim's hands were still on Bruce's shoulders; he shook them slightly. "What else would you be dreaming of?" he scoffed.
"It could have been--Bane," Bruce said into the pillow.
"That's not what terrifies you," said Jim.
Instead of responding, Bruce grimaced and reached down to touch his legs. "Charley horse," he said.
Jim reached under the blanket and grabbed his calf, sliding the pajama leg up. "My father used to get those." He dug his knuckles in, kneading, and Bruce hissed. "He taught me how to get the spasms to die down. Just lie still."
He could feel coarse hair under his fingers, and a jagged scar with raised and puckered flesh, hard-edged. Bruce had closed his eyes, wincing now and then, and silence fell in the little cabin, broken only by gusts of wind.
"Councilman Watson wants me to run for mayor," Jim heard himself say into the hush.
Bruce's eyelids flickered. "Really?"
"There's a lot of support for the idea."
"A lot of pressure, you mean."
Jim dug his fingers into the scarred flesh and Bruce made a sound somewhere between pain and satisfaction. "I guess."
"You don't want to be mayor of Gotham."
"I didn't want to be commissioner." Jim was distantly surprised at the vehemence in his own voice. "I only fell into it because everyone else qualified was dead and there was a madman on the loose and someone had to take charge."
"You're good at it."
"Good at going to functions? At filling out paperwork?"
"At leading your men and women. At inspiring them."
"At lying to them."
Now Bruce's eyes were open and he was glaring at Jim. "Your people didn't follow you because of a lie. They followed you because they believed in a better Gotham, they wanted to make that dream a reality. And you--all of you--did it." He banged the blanket with a fist. "Gotham is a better place because of all you gave up, all you did for it. You stepped up when you needed to and you hired the best in the world to protect the city. You lost your freedom and your time--damn it, Jim, you lost your family--and now they want to kick you upstairs to be mayor?"
Jim looked away. "It's an honor."
"It's a death sentence for a man like you. Haven't you given enough?"
Jim realized he was still holding on to Bruce's leg, that he had stopped kneading the muscles at some point. He started again. "The GCPD can get by without me now. Maggie's the right person for the job, I've known it for a long time. She shouldn't have to work in my shadow. And I can help people more by--"
"--Jim, listen to me. You can't let them do this to you." Bruce sat up in bed with a struggle, yanking his leg away. "You deserve to have a life of your own."
"I want to help people."
"This is not the way! Life in politics will eat you up inside, I know it will."
Jim felt himself bristle. "Are you saying I'm too soft?"
"I'm saying you're too good. You'll come to hate yourself."
"I already--"
The words cut off as Bruce's hand clapped across his mouth, not gently. "Don't say that," Bruce rasped. "Don't ever say that."
Their eyes remained locked over Bruce's hand, a look that wasn't quite a glare. After a long moment, Bruce pulled his hand back. "Thank you for the massage," he said, not sounding terribly grateful. "And for waking me up."
It was a dismissal; Jim stood up. "No problem. See if you can get some sleep."
He was at the door when Bruce's voice stopped him. "By the way, you're wrong."
Jim couldn't help chuckling. "About what specifically?"
"When you woke me up, you told me there was no one I still had to save."
Jim looked back at Bruce, but he had rolled over onto his side and away from him once more.
: : :
The days fell into a rhythm: they'd wake up and watch the morning news while eating breakfast (messy, earnest omelets or pancakes when Jim was cooking, Pop-Tarts when it was Bruce), then do odd jobs around the cabin, as it was still too cold to work outside: fixing pipes, scrubbing woodwork. Just before lunch Jim would walk out to the end of the dock, shivering in the cold, to check his mail with numb fingers. In the afternoon they'd usually read; sometimes Bruce would whittle, adding another little wooden animal to his collection. The evenings were taken up with cribbage or whist and the late-night news, watching breathless news reporters update the East Coast about the Batman. Maggie Sawyer showed up often, brusque and efficient, to answer questions.
If anyone was concerned about when Jim Gordon would return to work, they didn't show it.
For a few days it warmed up until it almost felt like spring, although their breaths still smoked in the air as they cleaned the gutters of rotting pine needles and cleared some underbrush. They walked out on the dock, checking which planks needed to be replaced. Far off on the lake, a loon howled like a lost soul, and Bruce shivered, hunching his shoulders in his down jacket.
"We'll get these fixed up and then get to work on the porch swing," Jim said, although he wasn't at all sure they could finish it before he would have to return to Gotham. He hadn't decided yet when he would be doing that--if there were some emergency he would head back immediately, of course.
So far Blake and Sawyer didn't seem to need his help, however.
He pulled out his phone when they reached the end of the dock, grimacing when he saw a new mail from Councilman Watson. "I have to give him an answer," he muttered.
Bruce plucked the phone from his hand, ignoring his protest. His fingers tightened on it, and for a moment Jim thought he was going to hurl it into the lake. But he just sighed and returned it to Jim, shaking his head. "It's your decision," he muttered, looking out over the lake.
"I'll tell him tomorrow."
Bruce shivered again. "There's another storm coming."
"The forecast didn't say anything."
"I can feel it." He looked at Jim, his face abstracted. "In my bones."
As it turned out, Bruce Wayne's bones were more reliable than the meteorologist, because the next morning the temperature had dropped again and sleet was hammering against the windows. Jim paced the room, holding his phone and glaring out at the storm. "I've really got to get this email out."
Bruce looked up from his book. "What are you going to tell him?"
"Running for mayor is the next logical step," Jim muttered. "I don't have any choice."
"You always have a choice," Bruce said, and looked back down at his book.
Jim couldn't read, couldn't relax. The mail was written, it was sitting in drafts, he had to send it today. He couldn't put it off any longer, couldn't keep shirking his responsibilities and sitting in a cabin reading and enjoying life with--with a friend. No matter how good it felt to just do the little chores that kept life moving ahead, no matter how much he enjoyed discovering that he liked Fitzgerald and disliked Hemingway, that he could make good omelets but his French toast was abysmal, like he was finding something lost and buried for years.
No matter how much he wanted to fall asleep hearing Bruce Wayne's breaths nearby at the end of a day together.
"I'm going out to the dock," he announced, grabbing his parka.
"What? But--" Bruce gestured out the window at the howling storm.
"I have to get this mail out, damn it." He pulled up his hood and left before Bruce could say anything more.
The wind buffeted him as he made his way down the icy stairs to the lake, needles of sleet stinging his face. He got out his phone as he stepped onto the dock, fumbling with the screen, looking at the signal meter. He'd just get a signal and hit send and that would be it, he'd be committed. He could probably even win the election, he was apparently a hero of some sort in Gotham. He'd be mayor by the beginning of next year. He'd be back in the city where he should be, glad-handing supporters and sitting in committees and--
He felt the rotten plank give way under his foot with a wrench and then there was nothing but icy air and icy shock.
His head connected with something, an explosion of light and sound behind his eyes, and when he gasped there was water in his throat and his nose, he couldn't tell which way was up anymore. It was strangely silent underwater, only his own heart hammering and a very distant sound like someone shouting. He tried to orient himself, to move toward the dim and snow-washed light, trying not to breathe any more water through his ice-burned lungs.
It was very quiet, and he realized there was a good chance he might die here, and little reason not to.
And then something grabbed him by the back of the jacket, yanking him out of that silent moment and into a maelstrom of howling wind and lashing waves and Bruce Wayne yelling his name. But there was air in his lungs again, and he could tell which way was up. Bruce's face was a pale blur broken with two dark hollows, he was saying something but Jim couldn't seem to make it out over the wind and his own racking coughs. They floundered toward the shore; Jim's numb feet slipped on the rocky ground and he went down in the water again, almost dragging Bruce with him, but Bruce braced his feet and pulled him to the shore, where they collapsed on the pebbly strand, icy waves still licking at their sodden clothes.
"Get you inside," Bruce said. His teeth were chattering. "Get you warm. Come on. You can do it." He kept talking, short phrases like rungs of a ladder that Jim could cling to and drag himself up the hill back to the cabin, back to light and warmth.
He stood in the middle of the living room, dazed and blinking, water running down his legs and pooling on the floor. Everything was hazy and blurred--he'd lost his glasses. Bruce was fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, he'd grabbed a towel and was drying his hair and torso. "Rub the chest," he said and Jim realized he couldn't stop shivering. "The arms will take care of themselves." He dabbed at Jim's forehead. "Head wound. They bleed a lot. They look worse than they are. Look worse than they are," he murmured. He didn't seem to be talking to Jim. "Oh God."
Soon he was sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapped in their warmest blanket, his feet sticking out of the bottom, pale and blue-veined. There was gauze wrapped around his head. Bruce pulled him forward a little and Jim felt something warm settle around his shoulders: Bruce's down jacket. Bruce pulled it more tightly around him; Jim could see the faint blur of his mouth curving, a distant smile.
"Jim," he said, "Don't...don't scare me like that." His voice and smile wavered, his hands tightening on the lapels of the coat. He leaned forward and rested his head on Jim's shoulder and Jim could feel him trembling.
"I'm sorry," was the only thing he could think of to say. He put his arms around Bruce, unsure if he was the comforter or the comforted, and they sat there for a long, quiet moment.
Then Bruce suddenly stood up. "Hold on," he said, and disappeared, leaving Jim blinking at the hazy light, holding the down jacket around himself. The world seemed very far away and small. Shock, perhaps, a part of his mind supplied.
Fifteen minutes later, Bruce returned, breathing heavily and freshly soaked. "Got them," he said, holding up a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Jim settled them on his nose and the world sprang back into focus around Bruce's worried face. "Um," said Bruce, and held up a little oblong. "I got this too, but..."
Jim took the phone from him, looking at the water patterns like lichen under the blackened screen. Drops oozed from the silent, dark rectangle.
"I'll put it in with some rice," Bruce was saying. "I hear that can draw the moisture out and--"
"--It's all right."
"What?"
Jim handed the phone back to Bruce. "Let it go," he whispered. The room kept tilting sideways, and it finally tipped a little too far.
He felt Bruce's hands on his feet, swinging his leaden body onto the bed, pulling a second blanket over it. His glasses were eased off his face, and Jim held onto the edges of the jacket as if he were afraid someone might take it away.
"Get some sleep," said Bruce's voice.
"I figured it out," Jim said. "Why you came back to Gotham."
A short silence. "Did you?"
Jim let go of the jacket and caught Bruce's hand in his like a lifeline. "Yes."
Bruce's cold fingers tightened on his. "Good."
"Don't leave me," Jim muttered.
His voice was blurry with fatigue in his ears and he wasn't sure if Bruce would understand him, but after a moment he felt the bed tilt with a new weight.
"Never," said Bruce.
Jim held Bruce's chilled fingers in his, warmth returning to them as slowly and surely as the spring. He felt the steady pulse of life beneath his fingers, and he held on and let Bruce lift him past the cold and silence, onward to that undiscovered country, knowing that his dark knight would never let him go.
: : :
Bruce finished carving the second tusk on the little wooden boar in his hands. A quick flurry of strokes to create a hairy texture, and the carving was done. He put it on the porch railing next to the other eleven animals.
"That's the whole zodiac," he said, dusting off his hands and settling down next to Jim on the porch swing. The sun was setting over the lake, long orange ribbons of light stretching across the water like a road leading to the west.
"Mm," Jim said, taking a sip of his coffee. "What's next? Will you loop back around to the beginning?"
"No," said Bruce with an elaborate shudder. "I'll be stepping off that karmic wheel, thank you."
The June air was anything but chilly, but Jim decided to misinterpret Bruce's shudder and move closer, until their legs were touching. Bruce smiled and kicked the ground enough to set the swing swaying a bit, gazing out at the lake.
"What is next?" Jim said after a reflective silence. The deck was fixed, every odd job completed. The cabin's store of books were read, and they had taken to raiding the local library for more reading material. Bruce was now able to cook pasta bolognese and beef stew. There was even a straggling border of pansies and marigolds lining the path to the lake.
Also, one of the upstairs beds had remained unslept-in for a long time now, and Jim still found himself breaking out in a grin at random moments when he remembered that fact.
Bruce made a thoughtful humming noise. "I hadn't really planned much further--no, really," he protested as Jim snorted.
"We can't just stay up here in the woods forever."
"Would it be so bad?" Bruce's voice was a touch wistful, but he shook his head. "I know. Neither of us is really the kind of person to just retire to do gardening and read books for the rest of their life." He took one of Jim's hands in his and kicked the swing back into motion once more. "Whatever we do with our lives, though, it's our choice. Not someone else's."
Until recently, Jim had never realized that the plural pronoun could be so delightful. "Does Evan Macintosh need a partner?"
"Evan Macintosh thought you'd never ask," Bruce said, with an oddly shy smile. "You can deal with clients, while I can be the reclusive technical genius. White hats, of course. Security systems for libraries, museums. Women's shelters."
"Not too much money in that," Jim said lightly.
"But we'll have each other." Bruce's tone managed to be ironic and sincere at the same time. "My only request is..." He hesitated a moment. "No Gotham jobs." He looked away from Jim. "It's just easier that way."
"Is that possible? Gotham is...not an easy city to walk away from."
"It's necessary," said Bruce.
If Jim noted that "possible" and "necessary" were not mutually exclusive, he decided that now was not the time to mention it.
Bruce was looking at him again, that wry look on his face once more that made Jim's heart turn over. What are the odds, that look said, That we'd both be alive and together? What were the chances?
"Besides," Bruce said, "I've found that being dead increases one's options exponentially."
Continuity: The Dark Knight Rises
Pairing/Characters: Jim Gordon/Bruce Wayne
Warnings: None
Summary: While Jim and Bruce weather a cold Northeastern spring, Batman returns to Gotham, and both of them are forced to consider their options.
Rating: Light PG-13
Word Count: 3600
The next day, after the morning news and a half-hour meditation, Bruce returned to his Shakespeare and Jim to his Tolkien. The sleet and snow had stopped, but the wind was scudding across the lake in small whitecaps, the sky still dark and gray. Jim was still feeling twitchy, wondering if he should drive out again to where he could get a signal and check his mail, but the warmth and companionable silence of the cabin were difficult to leave. He was finishing up Merry and Pippin meeting the Ents when Bruce put down the book and went to the window, looking out. When he didn't come back to his chair, Jim picked up the book and opened it to the bookmark: the end of The Tempest.
"Interesting play," Bruce said, still looking out at the gray sky. "Prospero, giving up his magic forever, returning to the world as a normal man." He chuckled slightly, not looking at Jim. "Do you think he found it hard? Going on?"
"Probably," Jim said.
"I don't want another frozen pizza," Bruce said, letting the curtain drop. "Show me how to make something else."
They made pasta bolognese. Bruce cut the onions again, and even branched out to stirring the sauce as it simmered.
: : :
That evening, they turned on the late-night news to find the news anchor with a manic gleam in his eye. Before he even said anything, Jim felt Bruce's muscles tense.
"Tonight, WGBS has exclusive footage that would seem to confirm that the Batman, presumed dead these last three months, is once again working in Gotham."
The video was blurry: a cell phone camera in heavy shadows. But for a brief moment, the unmistakable silhouette--predator's ears against the moon--was clear for all to see.
The dark figure plummeted into the night and left behind three men trussed up and hanging from gargoyles.
The anchor was saying something else, but Jim was aware only of Bruce beside him, breathing very carefully, as though he had been struck in the ribs. Or deeper. "Are you okay?" Jim asked after a moment.
Bruce inhaled, held it, let it out again. "Was I that..."
"...Awe-inspiring?"
A gust of laughter that trembled a little. "I would have said melodramatic."
"You always were. Both, I mean. You still are," Jim said, the words clumsy in his mouth.
The screen cut elsewhere, saving Jim before he could say anything else stupid. "Acting Commissioner Sawyer," said the reporter, shoving a microphone up to her face, "What's the word on the Batman?"
Maggie Sawyer looked as if she were resisting the temptation to slap the microphone out of the way. "The GCPD is looking into the situation."
"Is there still a warrant for his arrest?"
"Everyone knows," Sawyer enunciated carefully, "That Batman died saving Gotham from terrorists. Therefore, this is a different person. We have no warrant for this person's arrest at this time."
"All of which," the WGBS's "expert criminologist" intoned from a different window as Sawyer stalked away from the camera, "Is Sawyer's way of dodging the question and letting Batman off the hook, obviously. And I think I speak for all the citizens of Gotham when I say, 'Welcome back, Batman!'"
A commercial started playing, something about incontinence pads, because only old people still watched the evening news. Bruce turned off the television and stood up, stretching. A chorus of crackling joints echoed through the living room. "I think I'll take a shower and head to bed," he said.
That night, Jim came alert from a deep sleep at a sound, a muffled cry. It came again, and Jim found himself at the door of Bruce's tiny room. Bruce twisted under the covers, making the small noises that mark shouts in nightmares, his arms flung up as if to ward something off.
"Bruce," Jim said, taking his shoulders in his hands. "Wake up."
With a gasp, Bruce opened his eyes, wild and dark with apparitions. "Where's--where's the--"
"You're not in Gotham," said Jim. "No one is in danger here. You don't need to save anyone. It's okay." He held on to Bruce, murmuring reassurance until the panic went out of his eyes, until his muscles relaxed and his face was lucid again.
"How did you know?" Bruce muttered, turning his face away. "What I was dreaming."
Jim's hands were still on Bruce's shoulders; he shook them slightly. "What else would you be dreaming of?" he scoffed.
"It could have been--Bane," Bruce said into the pillow.
"That's not what terrifies you," said Jim.
Instead of responding, Bruce grimaced and reached down to touch his legs. "Charley horse," he said.
Jim reached under the blanket and grabbed his calf, sliding the pajama leg up. "My father used to get those." He dug his knuckles in, kneading, and Bruce hissed. "He taught me how to get the spasms to die down. Just lie still."
He could feel coarse hair under his fingers, and a jagged scar with raised and puckered flesh, hard-edged. Bruce had closed his eyes, wincing now and then, and silence fell in the little cabin, broken only by gusts of wind.
"Councilman Watson wants me to run for mayor," Jim heard himself say into the hush.
Bruce's eyelids flickered. "Really?"
"There's a lot of support for the idea."
"A lot of pressure, you mean."
Jim dug his fingers into the scarred flesh and Bruce made a sound somewhere between pain and satisfaction. "I guess."
"You don't want to be mayor of Gotham."
"I didn't want to be commissioner." Jim was distantly surprised at the vehemence in his own voice. "I only fell into it because everyone else qualified was dead and there was a madman on the loose and someone had to take charge."
"You're good at it."
"Good at going to functions? At filling out paperwork?"
"At leading your men and women. At inspiring them."
"At lying to them."
Now Bruce's eyes were open and he was glaring at Jim. "Your people didn't follow you because of a lie. They followed you because they believed in a better Gotham, they wanted to make that dream a reality. And you--all of you--did it." He banged the blanket with a fist. "Gotham is a better place because of all you gave up, all you did for it. You stepped up when you needed to and you hired the best in the world to protect the city. You lost your freedom and your time--damn it, Jim, you lost your family--and now they want to kick you upstairs to be mayor?"
Jim looked away. "It's an honor."
"It's a death sentence for a man like you. Haven't you given enough?"
Jim realized he was still holding on to Bruce's leg, that he had stopped kneading the muscles at some point. He started again. "The GCPD can get by without me now. Maggie's the right person for the job, I've known it for a long time. She shouldn't have to work in my shadow. And I can help people more by--"
"--Jim, listen to me. You can't let them do this to you." Bruce sat up in bed with a struggle, yanking his leg away. "You deserve to have a life of your own."
"I want to help people."
"This is not the way! Life in politics will eat you up inside, I know it will."
Jim felt himself bristle. "Are you saying I'm too soft?"
"I'm saying you're too good. You'll come to hate yourself."
"I already--"
The words cut off as Bruce's hand clapped across his mouth, not gently. "Don't say that," Bruce rasped. "Don't ever say that."
Their eyes remained locked over Bruce's hand, a look that wasn't quite a glare. After a long moment, Bruce pulled his hand back. "Thank you for the massage," he said, not sounding terribly grateful. "And for waking me up."
It was a dismissal; Jim stood up. "No problem. See if you can get some sleep."
He was at the door when Bruce's voice stopped him. "By the way, you're wrong."
Jim couldn't help chuckling. "About what specifically?"
"When you woke me up, you told me there was no one I still had to save."
Jim looked back at Bruce, but he had rolled over onto his side and away from him once more.
: : :
The days fell into a rhythm: they'd wake up and watch the morning news while eating breakfast (messy, earnest omelets or pancakes when Jim was cooking, Pop-Tarts when it was Bruce), then do odd jobs around the cabin, as it was still too cold to work outside: fixing pipes, scrubbing woodwork. Just before lunch Jim would walk out to the end of the dock, shivering in the cold, to check his mail with numb fingers. In the afternoon they'd usually read; sometimes Bruce would whittle, adding another little wooden animal to his collection. The evenings were taken up with cribbage or whist and the late-night news, watching breathless news reporters update the East Coast about the Batman. Maggie Sawyer showed up often, brusque and efficient, to answer questions.
If anyone was concerned about when Jim Gordon would return to work, they didn't show it.
For a few days it warmed up until it almost felt like spring, although their breaths still smoked in the air as they cleaned the gutters of rotting pine needles and cleared some underbrush. They walked out on the dock, checking which planks needed to be replaced. Far off on the lake, a loon howled like a lost soul, and Bruce shivered, hunching his shoulders in his down jacket.
"We'll get these fixed up and then get to work on the porch swing," Jim said, although he wasn't at all sure they could finish it before he would have to return to Gotham. He hadn't decided yet when he would be doing that--if there were some emergency he would head back immediately, of course.
So far Blake and Sawyer didn't seem to need his help, however.
He pulled out his phone when they reached the end of the dock, grimacing when he saw a new mail from Councilman Watson. "I have to give him an answer," he muttered.
Bruce plucked the phone from his hand, ignoring his protest. His fingers tightened on it, and for a moment Jim thought he was going to hurl it into the lake. But he just sighed and returned it to Jim, shaking his head. "It's your decision," he muttered, looking out over the lake.
"I'll tell him tomorrow."
Bruce shivered again. "There's another storm coming."
"The forecast didn't say anything."
"I can feel it." He looked at Jim, his face abstracted. "In my bones."
As it turned out, Bruce Wayne's bones were more reliable than the meteorologist, because the next morning the temperature had dropped again and sleet was hammering against the windows. Jim paced the room, holding his phone and glaring out at the storm. "I've really got to get this email out."
Bruce looked up from his book. "What are you going to tell him?"
"Running for mayor is the next logical step," Jim muttered. "I don't have any choice."
"You always have a choice," Bruce said, and looked back down at his book.
Jim couldn't read, couldn't relax. The mail was written, it was sitting in drafts, he had to send it today. He couldn't put it off any longer, couldn't keep shirking his responsibilities and sitting in a cabin reading and enjoying life with--with a friend. No matter how good it felt to just do the little chores that kept life moving ahead, no matter how much he enjoyed discovering that he liked Fitzgerald and disliked Hemingway, that he could make good omelets but his French toast was abysmal, like he was finding something lost and buried for years.
No matter how much he wanted to fall asleep hearing Bruce Wayne's breaths nearby at the end of a day together.
"I'm going out to the dock," he announced, grabbing his parka.
"What? But--" Bruce gestured out the window at the howling storm.
"I have to get this mail out, damn it." He pulled up his hood and left before Bruce could say anything more.
The wind buffeted him as he made his way down the icy stairs to the lake, needles of sleet stinging his face. He got out his phone as he stepped onto the dock, fumbling with the screen, looking at the signal meter. He'd just get a signal and hit send and that would be it, he'd be committed. He could probably even win the election, he was apparently a hero of some sort in Gotham. He'd be mayor by the beginning of next year. He'd be back in the city where he should be, glad-handing supporters and sitting in committees and--
He felt the rotten plank give way under his foot with a wrench and then there was nothing but icy air and icy shock.
His head connected with something, an explosion of light and sound behind his eyes, and when he gasped there was water in his throat and his nose, he couldn't tell which way was up anymore. It was strangely silent underwater, only his own heart hammering and a very distant sound like someone shouting. He tried to orient himself, to move toward the dim and snow-washed light, trying not to breathe any more water through his ice-burned lungs.
It was very quiet, and he realized there was a good chance he might die here, and little reason not to.
And then something grabbed him by the back of the jacket, yanking him out of that silent moment and into a maelstrom of howling wind and lashing waves and Bruce Wayne yelling his name. But there was air in his lungs again, and he could tell which way was up. Bruce's face was a pale blur broken with two dark hollows, he was saying something but Jim couldn't seem to make it out over the wind and his own racking coughs. They floundered toward the shore; Jim's numb feet slipped on the rocky ground and he went down in the water again, almost dragging Bruce with him, but Bruce braced his feet and pulled him to the shore, where they collapsed on the pebbly strand, icy waves still licking at their sodden clothes.
"Get you inside," Bruce said. His teeth were chattering. "Get you warm. Come on. You can do it." He kept talking, short phrases like rungs of a ladder that Jim could cling to and drag himself up the hill back to the cabin, back to light and warmth.
He stood in the middle of the living room, dazed and blinking, water running down his legs and pooling on the floor. Everything was hazy and blurred--he'd lost his glasses. Bruce was fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, he'd grabbed a towel and was drying his hair and torso. "Rub the chest," he said and Jim realized he couldn't stop shivering. "The arms will take care of themselves." He dabbed at Jim's forehead. "Head wound. They bleed a lot. They look worse than they are. Look worse than they are," he murmured. He didn't seem to be talking to Jim. "Oh God."
Soon he was sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapped in their warmest blanket, his feet sticking out of the bottom, pale and blue-veined. There was gauze wrapped around his head. Bruce pulled him forward a little and Jim felt something warm settle around his shoulders: Bruce's down jacket. Bruce pulled it more tightly around him; Jim could see the faint blur of his mouth curving, a distant smile.
"Jim," he said, "Don't...don't scare me like that." His voice and smile wavered, his hands tightening on the lapels of the coat. He leaned forward and rested his head on Jim's shoulder and Jim could feel him trembling.
"I'm sorry," was the only thing he could think of to say. He put his arms around Bruce, unsure if he was the comforter or the comforted, and they sat there for a long, quiet moment.
Then Bruce suddenly stood up. "Hold on," he said, and disappeared, leaving Jim blinking at the hazy light, holding the down jacket around himself. The world seemed very far away and small. Shock, perhaps, a part of his mind supplied.
Fifteen minutes later, Bruce returned, breathing heavily and freshly soaked. "Got them," he said, holding up a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Jim settled them on his nose and the world sprang back into focus around Bruce's worried face. "Um," said Bruce, and held up a little oblong. "I got this too, but..."
Jim took the phone from him, looking at the water patterns like lichen under the blackened screen. Drops oozed from the silent, dark rectangle.
"I'll put it in with some rice," Bruce was saying. "I hear that can draw the moisture out and--"
"--It's all right."
"What?"
Jim handed the phone back to Bruce. "Let it go," he whispered. The room kept tilting sideways, and it finally tipped a little too far.
He felt Bruce's hands on his feet, swinging his leaden body onto the bed, pulling a second blanket over it. His glasses were eased off his face, and Jim held onto the edges of the jacket as if he were afraid someone might take it away.
"Get some sleep," said Bruce's voice.
"I figured it out," Jim said. "Why you came back to Gotham."
A short silence. "Did you?"
Jim let go of the jacket and caught Bruce's hand in his like a lifeline. "Yes."
Bruce's cold fingers tightened on his. "Good."
"Don't leave me," Jim muttered.
His voice was blurry with fatigue in his ears and he wasn't sure if Bruce would understand him, but after a moment he felt the bed tilt with a new weight.
"Never," said Bruce.
Jim held Bruce's chilled fingers in his, warmth returning to them as slowly and surely as the spring. He felt the steady pulse of life beneath his fingers, and he held on and let Bruce lift him past the cold and silence, onward to that undiscovered country, knowing that his dark knight would never let him go.
: : :
Bruce finished carving the second tusk on the little wooden boar in his hands. A quick flurry of strokes to create a hairy texture, and the carving was done. He put it on the porch railing next to the other eleven animals.
"That's the whole zodiac," he said, dusting off his hands and settling down next to Jim on the porch swing. The sun was setting over the lake, long orange ribbons of light stretching across the water like a road leading to the west.
"Mm," Jim said, taking a sip of his coffee. "What's next? Will you loop back around to the beginning?"
"No," said Bruce with an elaborate shudder. "I'll be stepping off that karmic wheel, thank you."
The June air was anything but chilly, but Jim decided to misinterpret Bruce's shudder and move closer, until their legs were touching. Bruce smiled and kicked the ground enough to set the swing swaying a bit, gazing out at the lake.
"What is next?" Jim said after a reflective silence. The deck was fixed, every odd job completed. The cabin's store of books were read, and they had taken to raiding the local library for more reading material. Bruce was now able to cook pasta bolognese and beef stew. There was even a straggling border of pansies and marigolds lining the path to the lake.
Also, one of the upstairs beds had remained unslept-in for a long time now, and Jim still found himself breaking out in a grin at random moments when he remembered that fact.
Bruce made a thoughtful humming noise. "I hadn't really planned much further--no, really," he protested as Jim snorted.
"We can't just stay up here in the woods forever."
"Would it be so bad?" Bruce's voice was a touch wistful, but he shook his head. "I know. Neither of us is really the kind of person to just retire to do gardening and read books for the rest of their life." He took one of Jim's hands in his and kicked the swing back into motion once more. "Whatever we do with our lives, though, it's our choice. Not someone else's."
Until recently, Jim had never realized that the plural pronoun could be so delightful. "Does Evan Macintosh need a partner?"
"Evan Macintosh thought you'd never ask," Bruce said, with an oddly shy smile. "You can deal with clients, while I can be the reclusive technical genius. White hats, of course. Security systems for libraries, museums. Women's shelters."
"Not too much money in that," Jim said lightly.
"But we'll have each other." Bruce's tone managed to be ironic and sincere at the same time. "My only request is..." He hesitated a moment. "No Gotham jobs." He looked away from Jim. "It's just easier that way."
"Is that possible? Gotham is...not an easy city to walk away from."
"It's necessary," said Bruce.
If Jim noted that "possible" and "necessary" were not mutually exclusive, he decided that now was not the time to mention it.
Bruce was looking at him again, that wry look on his face once more that made Jim's heart turn over. What are the odds, that look said, That we'd both be alive and together? What were the chances?
"Besides," Bruce said, "I've found that being dead increases one's options exponentially."