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The first time Jeremiah is approached by the CIA, he doesn’t realize who they truly are straight away, at least, he thinks it’s the first time they’ve approached him. He’s not so sure now that he thinks about it. It was an older man he bumped into at his favorite coffee joint. He had seen him before—grey hair going white, a dazzling smile, and a strong physique that gave the impression he played football or basketball or soccer or some kind of sport when he was younger—but never took any special notice of him. He always ordered a coffee black, until his even-toned ordering became part of Jeremiah’s background noise in the morning. He was familiar enough to be safe but strange enough that no one would not have been able to describe him, the mark of a true professional, Jeremiah learns much later.But that morning he and the Man From the CIA, who Jeremiah would later find out was named Alfred, ran into each other while getting in line. Their polite civilities over who should go first gradually led them into a conversation and then came an offer that Jeremiah was not quite sure he even had a chance to refuse.They discuss safe topics at first—the economy, Jeremiah’s dislike of Boston weather, some made-up story about Alfred’s daughter’s prom disaster. By the end of it, Jeremiah feels a little warm and fuzzy inside, like he found a favorite uncle or godfather or something nice like that, one with a British accent to boot. He should have figured out then that good old Alfred wanted something from him because his sense of trust is off and everyone wants something from him until they don’t and then they just throw him away because obviously, he felt more in that connection than they did.So when Alfred starts his spiel about what do you want to do with your life, and traveling the world, and being able to be a different person, and all the good he could do, he could really make a difference, Jeremiah schools his features into neutrality and only half-listens.“We’ve been watching you for a long time,” Alfred finishes, taking another sip from his now-cool black coffee. “You have talent. We want you.” He smiles and spreads his hands across the table. “You’re already approved.”Jeremiah waits until he’s sure Alfred is done before answering. “Thanks for the offer,” he begins, because no one ever told him the proper protocol when one turns down an offer from the freaking CIA, but he mother taught him to always say “please” and “thank you”, “but I’m really not interested.”“Uh-huh. And what are you interested in? A starting position at some nameless company lost in New York somewhere, working your way up the company slowly, ignoring the whispers about what happened to you when you had so much potential? No, you want more. You’ve tasted what life can be like when you’re at the top.”Alfred’s right, but he doesn’t want to admit it. “Why would the CIA want me?”“You helped build Wayne Enterprises into what it is at only twenty-three. A bit extraordinary, don’t you think?”He feels a pang of anger because he’s more than Wayne Enterprises, Wayne Enterprises is a source of hurt and trouble and people who you thought were friends but pushed you out cause of the silly advice of some asshole with an odd sounding name.“Why aren’t you recruiting Bruce?” he spits out, more than a little irrationally jealous even if he will never acknowledge that.“We don’t want Bruce.”This strikes him as odd since Bruce is a genius and brilliant and rich enough to make an excellent spy. “Why not?”“Bruce is grounded. Bruce is established. Bruce has his whole life to look forward to. You,” Alfred leans forward and the first genuine smile Jeremiah has seen him sport spreads across his face, “you don’t. You’re connected but free, you have no company to run, no people to look after. You have nothing to lose.”And that, despite being slightly offensive, he prays it was despite, not because; he has enough issues to deal with, thank you very much, compels him to extend his hand and say, “When do I start?” Jeremiah goes through basic training, Special Ops training, mind-resistance training, and some training that’s so classified he was never told the name of it but they still ran him through the drills and pushed him to his breaking point and probably messed with his mind but at least he’s stronger for it. His body was never really meant for bulk or super strength but after countless nights controlling his breathing so his muscles don’t sting unbearably by just laying there he does notice abs that are more defined, and his arms and thighs grow a bit thicker. It feels almost like he became a superhero overnight, and he can’t help but spend an extra few minutes in front of the mirror every morning.He learns how to shoot gun pistols and rifles and even a machine gun – which is not as fun as the movies would have you believe, and learns how to fashion a weapon out of a ballpoint pen which is much more fun than the movies would have you believe. He hardly recognizes himself anymore, which he supposes is a good thing. No longer is he the Jeremiah Valeska of his youth. He’s stronger, more agile, and most importantly, he’s no longer naïve. He can almost forget those years of laughing and drunken nights and celebratory highs and Bruce’s rare but oh-so-breathtaking smile that will always be etched into the dark corners of his memories.They finally decide he’s ready for the field and they send him to Hong Kong to set up a cover. He tells his remaining friends that it’s a fantastic opportunity and while there are a few tears from James, but no one tries to stop him. On the flight over, he ponders how easy it was to extract himself from his life as Jeremiah Valeska. It’s a little insulting, really. In fact, the most heartfelt goodbye he received was from James of all people, leaving him a drunken voice mail the night before.“Miah, Miah, Miaaaahh. Why…WHY ARE YOU LEAVING, MAN? Miaaaaahh. IS IT ‘CAUSE YOU LIKE ASIAN GIRLS? WE GOT A LOT HERE, COME LIVE HERE. Miaaah.”“James, how did you find the phone?” Lucius’s voice was tiny and small in the background.“SHHHH. YOU DON’T GET TO TALK TO ME, YOU HID MY PHONES. SSSSSSS. PLURAL. I HATE YOU. I ONLY LOVE Miah.” He giggled. “Miah. THAT’S A FUNNY NAME. MIAAAAAAAHHHH”A shuffle and lots of banging later, Lucius’s voice came onto the message. “Um, hi, Jeremiah. Sorry, James’s a bit drunk right now. Um, have a good flight tomorrow. Sorry.” He paused before saying quickly, “We’ll miss you.”Jeremiah saves the message permanently. His first assignments are small and seemingly meaningless. He almost feels like a gopher. All he does is watch people and report their really excruciatingly boring comings and goings. He becomes agitated over the months, though the trips to Pakistan, Germany, Belize, Tibet help to keep his mind active. He feels duped yet again will he ever learn to never take what people say at face value? As instead of working in a starting position at some nameless company and slowly working his way up the ranks, he’s working in a starting position in some company he can’t tell anyone about and he sees no room for him to actually work his way up the ranks. Which really sucks, because when his mind isn’t challenged, he has too much time to think. To think about how he wound up here and what Bruce would think if he knew he was a spy. And then his thoughts turn angry because okay, maybe he isn’t over it just yet.Still, he finds ways to amuse himself, like humming the Mission Impossible theme song to himself and maybe kind of sometimes breaking in and “borrowing” documents from the targets when he wasn’t exactly authorized to do so. And he finds himself enjoying it at some level, even when he knows he can do so much more.That is until they send him to Peru as a background intelligence agent, his job is to watch a certain mistress of a certain assistant to a certain manager of a division that works for the head of a drug ring. Or something. The mission is compromised and he hears frantic calls to retreat from his earpiece the lead agent has been shot, the secondary has been captured. He makes a face because he dislikes failing at anything, and the whole mission is a bust now. He starts to pack up his equipment when he sees a small dark car with tinted windows and too much chrome on the hubcaps pull up to his target’s house. The target, long hair loose and dressed in a silky robe, runs out and meets the individual in the car. They converse for a couple minutes before the car door opens and, to his shock, it’s the drug lord. The mistress ushers him into her abode, checking behind her for spies or gawkers futilely, because he’s right there, documenting the whole thing with his expensive camera.And that is when Jeremiah does something he and everyone around him would think out of character, but some wouldn’t. Bruce would think it was a logical progression because Bruce always saw something in Jeremiah that he never saw himself. It is a stupid and completely insane risk, but he rips out his earpiece, stomping it out with his foot, before hunkering down to wait. Because as much as he likes to take cautious, well-thought-out risks, he hates to lose, and he’s used to facing his battles alone.When the mistress emerges later that afternoon for her daily jog, Jeremiah happens to be walking in the opposite direction, appearing lost and confused his face lends him more than enough help here. He’s never been so happy for his large soft eyes. He stops her for directions, strikes up a conversation, complete with a shy blush and a dazzling smile. He supposes he looks attractive but unthreatening because she takes his arm and writes her name, phone number, and email with a ballpoint pen, the same kind of pen he could use to kill her in under twenty seconds.His case manager is going insane and sending threatening emails because he won’t answer his phone, with words like “reprimand” and “eliminate” and eventually “high treason” but Jeremiah is soaring and his mind is finally, finally engaged. He’s created an entirely new persona—a young Ivy League graduate who’s a little shy but brilliant and eager to earn as much money as quickly as possible, no matter the legality of it. The mistress introduces him to the drug lord within two weeks. He has his hands on the information he needs to take the ring down within four months.His case manager buys him a BMW and Jeremiah is promoted to secondary field agent with a team of his own.He doesn’t think about Wayne Enterprises or James or Lucius or Bruce. He rarely even thinks about Jeremiah Valeska.He’s not just surviving now. Now he thrives. He is part of a five-person team. The primary agent is Ivy Pepper and Jeremiah has to restrain himself from making Poison Ivy jokes but sometimes he can’t help it and he tells Ivy to use the plants when they’re in a difficult situation. Ivy is annoyingly unamused. As primary agent, Ivy is the one who deals directly with the targets and is in the most peril. She is also a team leader and is supposed to bring everyone together, though he generally does not do a very good job of it. The team has taken it upon themselves to build comradery through late night binge drinking while watching really awful television.The team has two computer analysts—Jonathan and Selina. Jonathan is a whiz kid just the right side of legal, with thick glasses and a small voice, kind of like Jeremiah used to look. He fits the stereotype of a nerd living in his mother’s basement except this nerd lives abroad and is a freaking spy for the CIA. Jeremiah takes a liking to him and tries to draw him out of his shell whenever possible. Selina, on the other hand, is strong, confident, dangerously sharp, and scathing in her retorts. She makes sure people know when she is upset and when they screwed up she will and does give them a verbal beat down and occasionally a physical one too.Ecco is the team’s engineer. She builds whatever they need on site out of whatever they can provide her. She’s resourceful, optimistic, and always quick to smile. She’s also a bit oblivious to people and events around her and Jeremiah sometimes wonders how she ever made it into the CIA but knowing her, she probably stumbled through the doors and just stuck around until they sent her on a mission.As the secondary agent, Jeremiah trails Ivy and provides whatever help he can. He follows the high ranked persons around their primary target. He gets to break in and steal documents or plant bugs now completely authorized. He finds himself so engrossed in his roles that he forgets to think about his old life—to the point that he believes he’s gotten over what happened. He can look back with a bit of nostalgia, and maybe even he doesn’t want to kill Ra's al Ghul anymore okay, that he knows is a lie, but the rest of it is true. But life is pretty freaking amazing and he’s not sure he would even be here if it wasn’t for what he went through.He tries to remember why he loves his life so much when he gets shot on an assignment in Portugal. There’s searing pain all through his body and he’s crumbled onto the ground. He had seen blood everywhere but now his vision is all blurry and hazy and he’s not quite sure if the world hasn’t actually turAlfred to various hues of red. He manages to fire his weapon from the ground, effectively immobilizing his enemy he wonders if he killed the man. He wants to have killed at least one person before he dies. What kind of spy would he be otherwise?.“I’m down,” he rasps into his headset. “I’m dying. I’m dying, shit!” There’s so much pain and he can’t think straight anymore and he’s cursing Alfred, the bastard. He started this whole stupid thing.Jonathan and Selina are frantically trying to calm him down, to pinpoint his location and he can hear Selina yelling through the static in his earpiece, “Where the fuck is Ivy? Ivy, you motherfucker! Jeremiah, I swear I will kill you if you die.”Ecco simply demands his coordinates before there is silence on her end.He tries to smile but he doesn’t quite manage. He groans instead and focuses on keeping his eyes open because he thinks they taught him that in his training. Or maybe it was something he saw in a movie. He’s going to die. He knows this with one hundred percent certainty. There’s no way all this pain could not mean imminent death. He thinks of all his regrets and of course, there’s only one affair he can dredge up. He wonders if he should forgive it completely or hang onto all the hurt and haunt Bruce for eternity.Eternity doesn’t sound too bad.And then he feels firm hands on his body and an intense amplification at the source of his pain when palms press there. He can hear a woman that sounds like Ecco telling him it’s all going to be okay which, no, he’s dying, can’t she understand that?. He tries to tell her but all he hears is some mumbling.Then he stops trying to make sense of anything and just thinks about who was going to attend his funeral and how the hell they were going to explain this to James and Lucius. So apparently he didn’t die. He wakes up in a king-size bed with fluffy pillows and the thickest comforter he’s ever seen in his life. The room is dim but some rays of sunlight sneak through the curtains and onto the floor and highlight the cream color of the bed. He starts to move only to find his right shoulder is bandaged and incredibly sore. He lets out a little whimper in protest which he will always deny.“He’s awake,” a male voice says quietly from the side of his bed. He turns his head because it hurts less than turning his body. He squints a bit before Jonathan comes into clear view, the boy’s face sick with worry.He smiles at the analyst.“What happened?” he asks, voice a little rough but strong and he feels relieved for it.Before Jonathan has a chance to answer, a pillow hits Jeremiah squarely in the face with more force than he thought the feathery concoctions could muster. He stays perfectly still, allowing the pillow to follow gravity and land softly in his lap. He blinks several times. “What the hell?”Selina stands with her arms crossed at the foot of his bed, a stormy expression on her face. “You said you were dying.”“And you’re mad I didn’t follow through? I think you’re swell too,” he ends sarcastically.“The bullet didn’t even hit an artery. You got hit in the shoulder. What kind of agent are you?”“Hey! It could have easily been my heart!”“On your right side?” She’s glaring at him, annoyed and frightening.Jeremiah has the decency to look sheepish. “It hurt. I dunno.”“Pathetic.”Before Jeremiah can flash back to how pathetic he is, how weak, how unprepared, Ecco chirps from the window, “What Selina means is that we’re glad you’re alive but maybe next time you could not be so overly dramatic?”“I wasn’t overly dramatic,” he pouts. “I think I had just the right amount of drama.”This draws a laugh from Jonathan and Jeremiah breathes a little easier because he doesn’t want to be the reason why the boy has so many dark circles under his eyes, it already looks like he’s ready to charge a football field. They fill him in on what happened, they retrieved his target and no, he’s not a murderer just yet but give it some time, they’re sure he can put that license to kill to good use someday. They lost the main target though.“Where’s Ivy?” Jeremiah finally asks, noting the absence of their supposed team leader.Selina shares a look with Ecco, and then with Jonathan. Finally she says, “We’re no longer working with her.” Her eyes look murderous but before he can muster up the courage to press for more information, she tugs on Jonathan’s arm. “Come on, we have a meeting with the director.”The analysts leave, shutting the door quietly behind them. Jeremiah turns to Ecco and raises his eyebrows expectantly. She rolls her eyes but smiles and pounces on the bed, sidling up to him and stealing several pillows.“Where’s Ivy?” he repeats.“Ivy defected.” She sighs and snuggles into the pillows, her hair in a chaotic mess and tickling Jeremiah’s cheek. He swats it down as she continues. “She was an asshole anyways.”He can’t say he’s surprised. He actively expects people to leave or throw him away. He’s not really torn up about it. Ecco’s right, Ivy was an asshole, a real asshole, not one that you just call an asshole because you’re hurt and want to hurt him back and maybe he doesn’t understand emotions but he speaks English, he should understand that. “Where did she defect to?”“Mongolia. Or Bolivia. Or Russia. Actually, I have no idea.” He laughs a little to himself because that’s just so Ecco, until she asks, “Who’s Bruce?”He chokes on his own breath and ends up coughing for a good minute. Ecco smacks his back and he nods his thanks to her. When he calms down, she repeats her question, eyes now wholly intrigued instead of vaguely curious. He berates himself for being caught off guard because now he can’t brush it off. “W-why do you ask?”“Because you were babbling about him when you were ‘dying’,” she uses air quotes for the last word. “A brother? A friend?” She snuggles closer to his side, eyes dancing with excitement. “A lover?”He clears his throat and nudges her with his good shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous.”He starts to say Bruce’s just some guy he knew, but somehow he can’t make his mouth demote the best friend he ever had like that. So instead he settles for, “It’s complicated.”“I think I can keep up.”He’s desperate now, he doesn’t want to get into this. “It’s a really long story.”She gives him a Look like that’s the most pathetic excuse he could have come up with, and he acknowledges she’s right but he still holds onto the hope that she’ll let it go. She squashes that hope with extreme malice. “You’re not going anywhere for a while. And I’m entirely too comfortable to move.” She stretches a bit to emphasize her point, adding, “This really is the most amazing bed ever.”He relents and retells the tale, of them going to their Ivy League together and the first time he met Bruce and the instant connection they had. Of cram sessions and thinking he found a brother and engineering. Of creating something so huge and important out of Bruce’s parent's company, so full of life that he could not even believe it came from their hands, and he wanted so badly for it to grow, to thrive. To be a testament of everything they were. Of how he tried, he really did want what was best and maybe he was young and didn’t know what was best but he thought it had all worked itself out. He told of betrayals and the hurt and anger and how he could hardly believe something so right turned out so wrong. It was all very cathartic and he found he could tell the story straight through, without having to pause and collect himself like before when he had attempted it.In the end, Ecco has her arm around his shoulders and is patting the right one, which hurts like a bitch but the gesture is sincere and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her to stop. She breathes out a little before saying, “What an asshole.”He wants to defend Bruce and he doesn’t understand why, but something makes him feel like only he can label Bruce an asshole. Instead, he settles for, “I might have been a bit biased.”“Oh, you were completely biased. And you should probably have apologized for withholding the plans for the generators. That was a dick move.”He can’t help it. He starts to laugh, and his eyes are tearing up, but it’s like he has no control over his emotions anymore. When he can breathe again and stop the giggles erupting from his stomach, he leans his head against her shoulder and smiles. “You’re a good friend, you know that?”“I’m an excellent friend.” She reaches for the room service menu while trying to stay as perfectly still as she can. “And for that, you have to buy me food. Lots and lots of food.”He nods and closes his eyes. He half listens as she orders a copious amount of food and only opens his eyes when she turns on the television. A thought suddenly occurs to him and he laughs again though this time it’s less I’m-having-an-emotional-release-and-can’t-stop-myself and more like this-is-way-too-fucking-ironic. “Landa. Did you realize? Ivy went to the dark side.”Her eyes widen before she bursts out in a fit of giggles. Jeremiah is not really upset with Ivy’s defection for three reasons. First, they promote him to primary agent and he’s just about bursting with glee he gets to strategize and make judgment calls and he feels like he’s beaming the golden light of innovation from his fingertips. It’s intoxicating. Although now the director is on his ass about every little thing that goes wrong and even when a mission is a success why didn’t they get it done sooner, with fewer expenses, and no, they cannot have a new Audi with built-in weapons and maybe some lasers for good measure.Secondly, Ivy really was an ass, and the trust and morale they all feel for each other has grown exponentially, even now that they’re short an analyst because Selina was promoted to secondary agent and it’s nigh impossible for her to find a suitable replacement that can do her job as well as her. So she rejects everyone and Jeremiah lets her because he does not want her pissed at him on the field even if Jonathan looks close to a mental breakdown.And finally and most importantly, Ivy becoming a villain will never not be funny.His team quickly finds a new rhythm. He works well with Selina in the field. He knows she’ll be there to protect him and she knows he’ll make decisions with her in mind. Jonathan hangs onto his sanity somehow and handles the job of two people quite admirably. Jeremiah pays even more attention to the shifts in his mood though and often schedules short breaks for the boy genius. Ecco hardly notices a difference but she does get new equipment to play with on Jeremiah’s word to the director that it was vital to their next mission it wasn’t, but when the top dogs at the CIA are on the director’s case about something, Jeremiah quickly found out he could get just about anything the team wanted. Except for a brand new Audi with lasers built into the headlights, no matter how much it would protect the good people of America.Jeremiah is shot and injured several more times over the next few months because apparently the primary agent really is in a lot more peril. He manages not to be overly dramatic unless he’s close to unconsciousness verbally at least. He still kicks up a fuss in his head because he’s dying again, how does no one understand this?. He much prefers knife fights or hand-to-hand combat to gun fights. He can deal with bruises and cuts, with the prolonged nature of an intimate battle. Adrenaline fuels his body and he feels alive, he feels accomplished afterward and he’s pretty sure he looks freaking cool while the fight goes on. Gun battles are too quick and most often start before he even realizes what is happening though Selina has noticed this and has taken it upon herself to guard him against it. It’s odd and slightly unnerving, but he kind of likes that he’s being taken care of in Selina’s bizarre way.His body, now even more slick and agile, is littered with scars and indentations, proof of his new life and of the distance from his old one. He takes the extra time every morning and evening to remind himself of that until he forgets what he used to look like, act like, be like. He is a completely new Jeremiah Valeska and he revels in it.They’ve been pulled from active duty for the moment so everyone is going their separate ways to enjoy a little vacation. It feels very strange to Jeremiah since he’s been surrounded by his team for years and now they’re countries apart. Jonathan flies back to Nebraska to presumably hide in his parents' basement until they call him back again. Selina plans an extensive series of trips, visiting old friends and family and maybe a few ex-lovers she’s been meaning to get revenge on, but she pretends this isn’t her actual goal and the team pretends they aren’t terrified she’ll wind up on the news. Ecco heads to some tropical climate and she won’t tell anyone where because they’re spies and spies like to spy and she wants to sunbathe in private.Jeremiah finds his way back to his rarely used apartment in Hong Kong. The furniture is clean and the suite looks lived in, courtesy of the CIA because what if his mother stopped by unannounced and noticed a thick layer of dust coating everything?. He throws his luggage on the couch, not his couch, just the couch, since he hardly recognizes anything in the furnished space as his. It’s empty and devoid of any meaning, a sad reflection of his old life and old relationships, and sighs. He’s not quite sure he has the strength to endure an extended vacation, and he feels ridiculous because he’s supposed to wish the vacation would never end as a normal person would.He spends his first few days just sleeping and familiarizing himself with what should be his home, he hasn’t had a real home since he’s had best friends and a career he could actually tell people about. He cooks and does his laundry and finally bores himself into a near coma. So he explores the city and gets lost more than anything, but at least he has a few amusing stories to relate to his team once they all get back together which he prays is soon, please, please, he can’t take this much longer.He finally succumbs to temptation and dials the number that occurs most frequently on his missed call logs. The phone rings three times before a cheery voice answers, “James Gordon.” Before he can say a word, James continues, “Who would wish to converse must answer me these questions three, 'ere the genius he sees. What…is your name?”Jeremiah laughs and tries to remember why he didn’t call James sooner. The man is a genius at entertaining. “Jeremiah Valeska,” he answers, a smile in his voice.“No way! No freaking way! Miah?”“I thought there were three questions?”“SHUT UP. No, wait, Miah stay on the line, I gotta get Lucius, hang on.” Jeremiah can hear some clattering and more than a few muffled curses. “Hang on!”It’s a bit awkward at first, well, Jeremiah and Lucius find it awkward; James is somewhere in Jamesland and is head over heels with joy, but they eventually find their dynamic again. Jeremiah makes up stories about his work and relates some real adventures only slightly modified. James bemoans the fact that he hasn’t seen him in years and either Miah has to come to Gotham one day soon or James will hop a plane unannounced and kidnap him. Jeremiah laughs and hopes it’s an empty threat. Lucius lets something slip into his tone when he tells James that Miah is probably just really busy with something really important like he knows something he shouldn’t and it’s not just Jeremiah’s paranoia.He’s trained to notice small differences like that. But he brushes it off because he does not want Lucius to know his double life, that would be a major problem and one he would rather not have to tell his superiors about. Or Selina. Selina would kill him.They end the call on a good, non-threatening note, James only accidentally mentioned Bruce five times, and not at all in the last half hour of conversation. And Jeremiah is able to let his worries subside when later that week they all Skype and Lucius seems jovial and carefree and completely willing to accept whatever lies Jeremiah feeds him. He feels a bit of guilt but is comforted by the knowledge that no good would come from Lucius or James knowing his secret.And just as he’s starting to actually enjoy his vacation, the CIA calls him in for a meeting in Washington. They tell him to assemble his team. Jeremiah contacts Jonathan first since he’s the easiest to find. He tells him to track Ecco down and meet him and Selina at the Washington International Airport Jonathan lets out a thankful breath and tells him how awesome Jeremiah is, really, thank you. He’s not sure if Jonathan is grateful for getting back to work or for being spared tracking Selina down when she’s on a warpath. Probably both.He finds Selina in Houston and she’s not exactly happy to see him. “You couldn’t wait one more week? I would have gotten everything done in one more week.” She holds up her revenge notebook.“How did you find me?” she inquires as they head to her hotel room to pack.“You made the paper.”“I made several papers.”“There’s more than one?” he cringes.She snorts. “Some agent you are. I made four papers and two radio programs, and one televised newscast.”“You know, a good agent won’t get herself or her actions published publicly.”“Are you questioning my competence?”“All the time, Lina. All the time.”She sends a fist into his stomach but he knows she’s being soft on him because he only doubles over her full strength would send him sprawling onto the ground, vomiting and in severe agony.It isn’t until they’re waiting at the airport for their flight to Washington that Jeremiah realizes this is the first time he’s set foot in the United States in years. It’s weird but so easy to fall back into place, almost like he never left. Selina seems to read his mind and says that it’s because this will always be their home, regardless of how many years they’re abroad.He spends the flight listening to Selina relay her accomplishments, a grin plastered to her face in triumph. He makes a mental note to never, ever date her. She’s even more insane than lighting beds on fire.When they land in Washington, Jonathan and Ecco are waiting for them. Jonathan rushes to hug Jeremiah like he’s a lifeline and he’s surprised but returns it anyway because human contact is something he forgot he needed.After Jonathan extracts himself with an embarrassed laugh and his eyes staring pointedly at the ground, he shoves a Tupperware container at both Selina and Jeremiah. “My mom made you guys lemon squares.”Jeremiah smiles and thanks him, but Selina gives him a dirty look. “Are you trying to make me fat?”“If you don’t want it, I’ll take them,” Ecco chirps, making grabby hands for the dish.Selina clutches the Tupperware tightly to her. “No, these are mine!”Jonathan smiles and clasps his hands behind his back, his eyes roaming over the team with a happiness Jeremiah shares. He doesn’t have much time to dwell on his mushy, gooey feelings over the reunion because Ecco starts to hand out souvenirs from her trip and looks expectantly at them, waiting for them to open the presents.He unwraps his to find a black necklace with a shell pendant. “Thank you, it’s lovely.” Selina got a similar necklace and he can see Jonathan wearing a bracelet of the same style. It’s almost like their team has their own official jewelry now. So he attaches the necklace right away, even though it clashes with his sleek suit and tie combination because it shows team unity and camaraderie and it’s definitely not because he feels like they’re family and wants to broadcast it to the world that he belongs somewhere.“So what did you bring me?”All his warm and fuzzy feelings end abruptly and his face falls comically. He guiltily looks over at Selina, then back to Ecco and Jonathan. “I, uh, didn’t think. Uh.”Ecco is scandalized. “You didn’t bring any souvenirs?”“I was at home the whole time! It’s not like I was on a trip!” He looks around for any support he can find. “You’re not supposed to bring gifts when you just go home.” He’s losing this battle even though it’s perfectly logical. He didn’t go anywhere. He points in desperation at Selina. “She didn’t get you anything either. And she’s been everywhere.” He flutters his hands at the “everywhere” to emphasize his point.“I brought barbeque sauce from Texas.” She’s smug and Jeremiah kind of hates her a little at the moment.He opens and closes his mouth a few times before he hangs his head in defeat. He waves his hand vaguely at the duty-free shop. “Go pick out something you want.”Ecco squeals with excitement and tugs Selina and Jonathan along with her. Suddenly Jeremiah feels like a very single, very harried parent. The drive to Langley is short and Jonathan is only part way through recounting his epic disaster in babysitting his cousins when their SUV stops in front of the CIA headquarters. They’re quick and efficiently ushered into a conference room painted stark white with dozens of computer screens littering the walls and a glass conference table in the center. They sit near each other and lean in to talk in hushed tones as they wait.“Isn’t it a bit odd that they called us all the way back here?” Selina whispers.“Is it odd?” Ecco asks as she twirls in her chair.“Have you ever been to the CIA headquarters before?”Her eyes widen. “No.” She scoots her chair closer to the group. “Do you think they’re going to kill us?”“What?!” Jonathan grips his hands on his chair.“They’re not going to kill us,” Jeremiah comforts, though he’s not entirely sure why they were called in either. All he knows is that it was absolutely vital.They have no more time to speculate because the door to the conference room is yanked open and their director, a woman who Jeremiah has never seen before, and Alfred of all people enter the room. The director and Alfred take a sit directly across from the team, while the woman takes a seat at the wall a few feet away from the table. She immediately pushes on her reading glasses and starts reading through a stack of files on her lap.“Thank you for coming in on such short notice,” the director starts as if they even had a choice in the matter. “First, I want to tell you all what a great job you’re doing. Really top-notch.”“We’re proud of our children,” Alfred adds with his disarming smile. The director shoots him a look. “What? I recruited most of them, didn’t I? I can feel like a proud father.”“You also recruited Pepper.”Alfred cringes. “That was not my fault.”“The forest called her back,” Jeremiah comments before he can stop himself.Alfred laughs heartily and the director rubs the bridge of her nose. “Let’s move on, shall we?”“Please do,” the woman at the wall voices, not even looking up from her papers.The director seems to get a little nervous before continuing. “Right, yes. Where was I?”“We’re awesomesauce,” Ecco supplied helpfully.“Right, thank you. Seeing as you’ve proven yourself capable, we have a new assignment for you. This one is very big and unfortunately, we do not have as much information as we’d like, but time is of the essence. We don’t have the luxury of detailed analysis this time.”“How big?” Jeremiah asks.“Code Orange.”“More like Vermillion,” Alfred supplies.The director ignores Alfred. “You’ll be joining a terrorist task force. You’ll meet up with them in Gotham—”Jeremiah stops breathing. “Wait, what?”“We’ll brief you on the strategy and background into the night and you’ll leave first thing in the morning—”“Hold on…” Jeremiah can’t believe what’s he’s hearing. It can’t actually be what he’s thinking. Gotham has a lot of organizations, right?“Now Wayne Enterprises is difficult to infiltrate so most of you will be working at a distance.”Shit, shit, shit, it’s real. It’s really happening. His worst nightmare that he never even knew existed. He can’t deal with this, it cannot be happening. “Just what the fuck do you think you’re talking about?” he shouts.The room falls into a heavy silence. The director is taken aback, obviously not expecting one of her top agents to have an emotional outburst in his conference room, whatever. Alfred looks confused and curious and Jeremiah hates that because it’s none of his or anyone’s damn business what happened at Wayne Enterprises and why his heart can’t beat properly right now.His team is looking at him strangely because he never yells, even when he’s dying. And yes, they know his connection to Wayne Enterprises, Selina isn’t an idiot, she knows who and what she’s working with and Jonathan lives, eats, and breathes tech, of course, he would know who Jeremiah Valeska was, but they don’t know the pain, the betrayal, the vow he made to never speak to Bruce again. Except for Ecco. And she’s looking at him with worried eyes, and that’s almost worse than the curious and confused stares because she knows what’s happening under his skin right now like she can see his scars, those blemishes he swore to never reveal.The woman at the back of the room takes her glasses off and looks pointedly at Jeremiah. They stare at each other for a while, Jeremiah doesn’t even know who the hell she even is but he supposes she could have everyone in the room killed and no one would question her reasoning. Finally, she speaks, “What my subordinates are so insensitively trying to convey is that you, Jeremiah Valeska, will infiltrate the Wayne Enterprises offices. Wayne Enterprises is changing the world right now. Entire nations are planning revolutions over it, and that’s good for our government because we don’t like the old regimes. We would like to keep that going. Some regimes, however, do not like it and instead of shutting down science in a failed attempt to stop the revolts, they’ve decided to shut down the source. We have reason to believe the offices of Wayne Enterprises have been compromised. There’s a mole or several moles. Frankly, we don’t know. That’s your job.“You will swallow your pride, go back to Gotham, and act like Jeremiah Valeska: Shareholder. You will find the mole, find who he or she is working for, take them out, and remember that you are an agent of the United States of America. You no longer have any emotions to yourself. Your thoughts and feelings are those of this agency and this agency is informing you that you’re thrilled to go to Wayne Enterprises and do your damn service to this nation.” She replaces her glasses and goes back to her files, apparently done with the group.Jeremiah lets his mouth hang open for a second before he responds. “I won’t do it, I can’t do it. I sued them, what the hell do you think B—” He can’t even say Bruce’s name, not right now. “What will they think? I’m not exactly welcome there. Why can’t you plant a programmer? They’re always hiring programmers.”“We’re working on placing Selina as an analyst, but, as I said before, time is of the essence.” The director clears his throat. “And you have a better chance of getting access to what we need. If you don’t do this, Wayne Enterprises will be destroyed.”It sounds a bit dramatic but Jeremiah responds well to drama and he knows the director is right. Wayne Enterprises strength is its trustworthiness. If governments can track people down with inside information from Wayne Enterprises, people will eventually stop buying from them. And that would destroy it and that’s all Bruce has, that’s all he has to remind him that losing a best friend had some meaning, and without it, Bruce wouldn’t exist. He feels panic racing through his blood.He glares at Alfred like this is all his fault, it is, he would never be in this position if Alfred hadn’t recruited him. He will curse him until the day he dies. But he knows he has no real choice in the matter. So he’s going to back to Wayne Enterprises. Back to the old Jeremiah. He’s not sure he can survive.“I want an Audi,” he finally bites out.The director sighs with exasperation. “You’re not getting an Audi—”“Give him an Audi, Tabitha,” the woman says.“With lasers,” Ecco adds.“No lasers.”“One laser,” Selina counters.The director glares at Jeremiah, then his team, then at Alfred, because he also knows this is all Alfred’s fault, before silently nodding his head. “One laser.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Everyone makes it seem so easy, like going to Gotham is just another assignment. It is, just not to him. To him, it’s exactly the reason he joined the CIA to begin with.Which means he’s the only one kind of freaking out on the plane ride and he’s incredibly sour and snapping at everyone and everything. And even that would be fine if Jonathan didn’t look terrified that a few hours alone with Selina turned Jeremiah darling Jeremiah into her clone, and if Selina could let a bad tone go.So Ecco extracts herself from her bubble of oblivion, tucks her novel back into her bag and sits next to Jeremiah. She pats his hand lightly and leans her head on his shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”He scowls and faces the window. He sorely regrets telling her what happened, he must have been high on pain medication. “No.”“Are you sulking?”“No.”“Mmm-hmm,” she hums skeptically. “Look, Miah. We’re going. You can’t change that. But, you’re not the same person you were back then. You’re stronger, tougher, and—dare I say it?—sexier.”A smile tugs at his lips but he does not want to smile right now, he’s enjoying his sulking. “I’ve always been sexy.”“Yes, yes. But now you have, like, scars and stuff. Very manly. Like a really skinny gladiator or something.”Jeremiah curls his lips. “Gee, thanks Ecco. You’re really helping.”“Hmm. It’s not like you hate everyone there. You’re still friends with that Kip guy and that Doug guy, right?”He raises his eyebrows. “You mean Lucius and James?”She purses her lips. “No, I’m pretty sure that it’s Kip and Doug.”He rests his head against the window with a thump. It’s a welcome cold against his skin and he feels his jitters subside if only a little. “You’re insane.”“I’m eccentric. And you’re a coward.”“Am not.”He isn’t. He just prefers to avoid certain things. Like ex-best friends who are the very definition of a traitor. But Ecco is right about one thing: he isn’t who he was all those years ago. And he can act and pretend. He’s good at that. He’s played so many roles as a spy, so many different personas. He can play this one. He’ll be quick. Just until they can place Selina or some other brilliant programmer, or until he can find the mole. Whichever comes first, he really doesn’t care.And after it’s all over, he’s going to get drunk and stay drunk for several days, call his brother to tell him exactly what he thinks of the guy he shared a womb with and tried to kill him, and forget forever that this whole affair ever happened.And if there’s still a tiny part of him that hopes the plane will crash, well, so be it. They meet up with the terrorist task force at some seedy motel in Gotham. They have five members apparently that’s the magic number with these government policing organizations, all ex-military, all incredibly threatening to look at. Jeremiah realizes they’re in two entirely different circles. He’s used to subtle, smooth, calculating operations. They’re used to brute force and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants ventures. He feels over- and under-qualified simultaneously.He introduces his team before he and the task force’s leaders convene in another room. The task force leader Eduardo Dorrance is his name, is tall and bulky and Jeremiah is certain he could lift a car if he had to. He smokes cigarettes and always has a pair of sunglasses somewhere on his body but never over his eyes. He takes a liking to Jeremiah and calls him “little buddy” which is ridiculous because okay maybe he doesn’t have muscles the sizes of boulders but he’s still tall and that has to mean something.Apparently, the CIA believes Jeremiah will be here longer than he intends because they’ve rented him a house ten minutes from the Wayne Enterprises offices. It’s a substantial size, with large pane glass windows and hundreds of hidden spots for his weapons and tools. Technically he’s supposed to inhabit it alone—to keep up pretenses that he’s in town by himself—but he’s feeling rebellious and just a little lonely so he invites orders his team to move in. He sincerely doubts anyone at Wayne Enterprises is going to follow him home to find three strangers living with him.The girls take the master bedroom “You don’t even have a choice in the matter,” Selina tells him and Jeremiah gives the guest room to Jonathan. He sets his luggage up in the living room and flops onto the couch for the night. It’s narrow and just barely fits his frame if he bends his knees a bit, but it is comfortable. He doesn’t plan on sleeping there too long anyway and he spent many nights curled in awkward and highly uncomfortable positions before after midterms when he was a little tipsy and Bruce was writing up plans and he leaned his head onto Bruce’s knees, shutting his eyes when he felt a warm hand comb through his hair.He spends the next few hours wide awake and staring at the ceiling, contemplating all the ways this could wind up in failure. He wills time to slow down because come morning, he has to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast whatever he can stomach and head to a shareholder’s meeting. Where he will probably see Lucius and James and…other people.He runs a hand over his face and sighs. He’s changing his internal theme music to James Bond, because he’s not sure even Tom Cruise could handle tomorrow. Jeremiah wakes up to high-pitched squealing. He’s up and off the couch in two seconds flat, hand wrapped firmly around his gun and eyes clearing quickly to scan the room. Ecco is standing by the window, a toothbrush hanging loosely in her mouth and her slippered feet bouncing up and down.He sends her a look between “what the hell” and “shut up, I hate you” but she ignores him and points outside. “It’s here!” she exclaims around her toothbrush.He peers outside and a grin spreads across his face. His Audi. His beautiful, magnificent, laser-equipped Audi is here. In dark red with leather seating and he’s out the door before he realizes it. He shouts as he virtually skips to the door, “Selina, Jonathan, get out here now!”They all stare at the car for a few minutes, peering through the windows and underneath and overtop it. Finally, Jonathan says, “Where do you think they put the laser?”“It should be in the headlights, right?” Ecco reasons.Selina huffs and crosses her arms. “Not if it’s just one. It has to be somewhere you’d never expect it.”Jeremiah runs his hands over the top—careful, loving caresses like he’s found a lost lover. “I love you,” he murmurs to it under his breath, but Selina still caught it and she rolls her eyes.“Oh for crying out loud, it’s a fucking car.”“And you can’t drive her,” he retorts, never looking up.“Can I drive her?” Ecco pips up.“Only if my life is in serious peril.”“Selina, can I borrow your gun for a moment?”He laughs. But sooner than he would have liked, Eduardo pulls up into the driveway in his Hummer, calling out the window, “You about ready?”Jeremiah grimaces before holding his hand up. “Give me a bit.”He showers quickly and spends a little too much time on his hair he has never been so dissatisfied with the thick locks. It’s like his entire body decided to rebel against him. He selects a gray three-piece suit and a white dress shirt. His cufflinks are platinum and his shoes shined to perfection. He tucks Ecco’s necklace under his collar and almost forgets to apply his cologne because as an agent he’s learned to not leave any evidence of his presence, including his scent. But they’ll expect him to be the same Jeremiah. Even if the detail is small, he finds it comforting to apply the scent like applying the mask of the Jeremiah he knows he isn’t.He skips breakfast but sips his coffee while the others eat. They have a short briefing about the plans. Jeremiah is going in to the meeting and then will somehow find a reason to stay and preferably obtain access to one of their computers so they won’t have to resort to hacking in which would more than likely alert the staff that someone unauthorized is in their system/ Selina has a meeting with the Wayne Enterprises recruiters at the end of the week so until then, she’ll run surveillance and document everyone going into and out of the offices. Jonathan will assist her in background checks while he waits for Jeremiah’s computer access. Ecco will join the task force and prepare for any attacks or inconveniences that might occur.And just like that, Jeremiah is shipped off to his car and makes the short drive to the office the last time he was here, it ended with the destruction of private property. He really hopes Bruce doesn’t want revenge because he just got the Audi and hasn’t even had time to find the laser yet. He almost expects security to stop him at the door like they have his picture posted by the entrance with a large “NO ENTRY” under it. But they let him through and he releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He goes to fill out a visitor’s form but oddly enough, the moment he flashes his ID, they usher him through. He’s confused and wants to know why he was never taken off the permanent visitor’s log like he was Lucius or James or Ra's al Ghul and Bruce didn’t hate him, but he knows he doesn’t have the time to ponder it.He finds the shareholder’s conference room easily enough it’s been years since he set foot here, and he blocked most of that from his mind, but he’s studied the blueprints over the last couple days. He could find his way through the entire building with the lights shut off. There’s a reception desk before the room where he has to sign in. He stops there and the girl smiles welcomingly. He wonders how long that smile will remain on her face once he utters his name.“Good morning, sir,” she greets with professional cheer. “Name please?”“Jeremiah Valeska.” He says it with false confidence and he’s already starting to panic. He doesn’t know where all his talent went but he doesn’t think he’s fit to be a spy anymore. Nope, he should find another career. Like ice fishing or something. He could do that but he hates the cold.But the receptionist only types away at her computer. “Alright, you’re representing Jeremiah Valeska. And your name is?”He remembers now that he always sent a representative to the shareholder’s meetings to act on his behalf. “Jeremiah Valeska,” he clarifies.“Yes, but I need your name as well.”He wants to laugh because this is really kind of funny. It’s like they’re performing their own twisted version of Who’s On First. He pulls his ID from his wallet again and tosses it on the desk, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’m Jeremiah Valeska.”She picks up the ID tentatively before her eyes widen and she snaps her head back up to him, her mouth slack. “M-Mr. Valeska. Uh, I, uh, apologize. You’ve never been to a…” she trails off as if she realized it might not be a good idea to prod too much. She stands abruptly and comes out from around the desk. “Let me show you to the room.”She gestures around the hall as they walk to the room, pointing out where the bathroom is and what that corner is like he doesn’t already know he’s not supposed to know. He has to remember he’s playing a role, even if it’s with his own name. Finally, she opens the conference room door for him and ushers him in.It’s a large, airy space, with more windows than walls. It’s just a room, he has to remind himself when he finds his breath a little irregular. There are already other people in the room people he only recognizes from the photos in the case file, conversing amongst themselves. He takes a seat by the back and declines the receptionist’s offer of a beverage because the only drink he wants right now is a gin and tonic. Without the tonic.He pulls out his phone and starts texting Selina more because he feels self-conscious rather than the need to relay any important information.He gets a text back from Ecco.'Say hi to Doug for me.'He chuckles and texts back.'What about Kip?''Who the hell is Kip?'As his fingers fly over his phone, he hears a strange noise, like a meep or stifled gasp. He glances up without moving his head and locks eyes with a very surprised-looking Lucius. He steels himself and launches into his persona. He places his phone lightly on the table and smiles. “Hey, Lucius.”“Miah. You’re here. At Wayne Enterprises.”He nods and stands, holding out his hand to his old friend. “Your powers of deduction are impeccable.”Lucius releases a strangled laugh and steps forward, grasping Jeremiah’s forearm and tugging him into a half-hug. “It’s good to see you.”Jeremiah tries not to tense, tries to remember that he used to be free with his touches and affections it’s been so long since he initiated human contact. He returns the hug and gives Lucius a couple friendly pats on the pat. “Yeah, it’s good to see you too.”Lucius pulls back and grabs the seat next to where Jeremiah had been. “What…I mean. I don’t want to be rude, but…”“What am I doing here?” Jeremiah finishes for him with an amused lift of his eyebrows.“Yeah, basically.”“I had some business I had to attend to.” Which isn’t a lie. He doesn’t want to lie to Lucius, at least not any more than he has to. “Hey, can we grab lunch after this? I have some things I’d like to discuss with you.” He needs an office, complete computer access, and no questions asked. But he’s pretty sure he can’t say it like that.“Yeah, sure, of course.” Lucius is nodding his head up and down at an alarming rate.They start to talk about anything but Wayne Enterprises and how odd it is that Jeremiah showed up completely unannounced. Jeremiah finds it difficult to find the line between what’s real and what’s fabrication. He’s too much like this role, he can’t find the divide. He’s afraid of sinking so far in that he can never find his way out and it’s dark and terrifying and he knows he’ll drown so far this time that he’ll never find his way out. Not with false pretenses and pretend personas, not with makeshift families and nights spent playing I Never. He’ll lose himself again, so far, so deep, so gone that he’ll fade away into invisibility and no one will ever find him, and save him, and see him.But soon he catches a glimpse out of the glass doors of two people talking animatedly and walking towards the conference room. One a little tall and gesturing wildly with his hands and his head and even a little with his feet, James hasn’t changed a bit. The other a little shorter with dark hair atop his head and hands dipped in his slacks and dark eyes that Jeremiah knew could cut through his ribs and to the left where his heart used to lay.They open the door like it’s an ordinary day, like it’s not a collision of two worlds like it isn’t the most difficult thing in the world because they don’t know, they can’t see him yet, Bruce never saw him, never saw, never.James starts to wave a little at Lucius when his eyes stop short on Jeremiah and he’s left with his hand stupidly locked mid-wave and his jaw hanging wide open. “Shit.”Jeremiah doesn’t want to look at Bruce, but he feels the heavy weight of his gaze. He can feel the skin under his suit burn maybe Bruce really is a robot and has laser eyes. That would make sense. But he’s on the job, he has to save Wayne Enterprises, save the American public, save the world he has to save Bruce, he has to save himself, and for once it’s all connected. So he shifts his head and locks eyes with Bruce the eyes that drove daggers through his heart across the legal table, like he brought this all on himself, like he didn’t even matter, disdain and displeasure so familiar to Jeremiah that he can conjure up the image in a split second—though it used to be reflected in green eyes, the same green as his own.And he doesn’t have to worry about sinking too far into his role anymore, because he’s gone. All his growth, all the years, every good he’s ever done is gone and now he’s standing on the porch in the middle of the night, soaking wet, water dripping down his neck and past his shirt collar to his back. He’s standing there, humiliated and rejected and desperate for Bruce to see, to know but Bruce doesn’t and never will because Bruce is a prophet and prophets don’t waste their time on people like Jeremiah.Yeah, he’s not going to survive this. Neither Jeremiah nor Bruce make a move to break eye contact and it’s starting to freak the others out in the room. Jeremiah can clearly make out several conversations.“What’s going on?”“That’s the guy who sued Wayne.”“And he thinks he can just show up?”No, he doesn’t think he can just show up. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to remember this. He in no fucking way, wants this deep, scorching pain to resonate through his body. His stomach is cramping, his head is throbbing, and he’s pretty sure his eyes are wide and shining with tears he will hold back by any means necessary even if it kills him.It might have been easier if Bruce looked different but he looks roughly the same. He looks like he did when they were building up Wayne Enterprises, together, his eyes glowing and his mouth moving a mile a minute. He looks like he did when he met Ra's al Ghul for the first time, mouth in an awed smile even Jeremiah had never pulled from him. He looks like he did when he kicked him out of the company and didn’t even bat an eyelash.Of course, nothing about Bruce was ever easy. Not for Jeremiah.He doesn’t realize how long they stay locked in each other’s gaze. He can see James in his peripheral vision trying to shake Bruce into action. He thinks Lucius is doing the same to him because his hand is vibrating.Why is his hand vibrating?He frowns and he can see Bruce flinch like his facial expression even matters to the man, which doesn’t make any sense because Jeremiah doesn’t matter to Bruce. He finally breaks eye contact to figure out why his hand is still vibrating. It’s his phone. He’s getting a call.Well. That would explain it. He shifts his eyes back up to Bruce who still hasn’t looked away. Why isn’t he looking away? before pressing the answer button.“Valeska.”“You are a fucking agent of the fucking Central Intelligence Agency. Get a fucking hold of yourself.”He makes a small noise of surprise. “How did you – ”“You have a fucking camera in your tie clip, remember? How did you ever make it to primary agent?”He lets out a breath and suddenly the tightness in his chest is tolerable. He still wants the floor to open up beneath him and make him disappear, but he can deal. He feels grounded like he can think again. “Thank you Lina.”“Don’t screw up.”“Love you too.”He ends the call and slips his phone into his suit pocket. His eyes search for Bruce, he doesn’t know why, he should be happy they’re not locked in an eternal battle of wills and glares, who has finally taken a seat near the door, laptop open and fingers flying over the keyboard like it’s a lifeline. There’s a dark look on his face that Jeremiah was expecting from the beginning. And he realizes that just because he was expecting it, doesn’t make it hurt any less.“Miah!” James slams his palms against the table by Jeremiah’s side.He looks up and smiles. “Hello, James.”James leans down and awkwardly tries to hug him, nearly falling in his lap in the process. “You are an awful, horrible person. You should have told me you were coming. Why didn’t you tell me?” He still hasn’t let go and Jeremiah is patting his back and mouthing “help me” to Lucius.Lucius takes pity on them both and extracts James from Jeremiah’s neck, whispering about this being a shareholder’s meeting and can you try to act professionally? He pulls James across the room to sit next to Bruce. James mouths to Jeremiah, “We’re going for lunch.”Jeremiah nods, shifting to look at Bruce quickly. Their eyes meet again but this time Bruce only holds the stare for a minute, squinting slightly like he’s trying to figure something out and he can’t quite do it with all the clutter around so he narrows his frame of vision. Jeremiah wonders if he figured it out when he turns back to writing up plans or updating or something to do with the company, in some ways he’s come to hate this company. He hates how some abstract and thing could be more important than him.He pretends to pay close attention to the meeting because that’s presumably why he’s here, taking notes and looking inquisitive. He only half listens and scans the faces around him, analyzing if any of them are the threat, unlikely, but he has to start somewhere. That is, until he hears something that could very well be his in at the office. The presenter some woman he’s never seen before is talking about their statistics projection interfaces and how they’re branching out to different areas to improve it. And that, that could be useful.The meeting ends, it had to end eventually, and James is grabbing Jeremiah’s wrist and won’t let it go like he thinks Jeremiah will run away if he does, he wouldn’t. He’s sixty percent sure he wouldn’t run away. They leave the room quickly before he has a chance to give in to temptation and speak to Bruce because he’s a masochist, he can admit that.The whole affair is rather anticlimactic and he can almost hear Ecco’s sigh of disappointment. James and Jeremiah walk to a little diner a couple blocks down from the office, which James insists has the best chili cheese dogs available in the whole town. They sit and order a couple of beers while they wait for Lucius. Jeremiah listens to James recount his most amusing stories. He smiles and laughs and his stomach is aching because he’s not used to laughing this hard and this much. He feels like he’s back in university like they’re skipping class and trying to order alcohol without getting carded. It hurts how much he misses it.Lucius finally joins them. He falls heavily into the chair between James and Jeremiah and immediately lays his head on the table.“Lucius?” Jeremiah asks while James prods his co-worker’s side.Lucius holds up a hand but doesn’t lift his head. “I hate you. I hate you so much.” Finally, he shifts and peers up at Jeremiah from the table. “You do not know what I just went through with Bruce.”“Luc-ius,” James teems, his eyes darting from Lucius to Jeremiah quickly. “Ix-nay on the Uce-Bray.”Lucius squints at James for a full thirty seconds in disbelief. “He came to Wayne Enterprises. I think he was expecting Bruce to be there.”“Lucccciusss”“James, it’s okay,” Jeremiah finally interjects. “I knew he’d be there. He, uh. He…” Jeremiah doesn’t really know where he’s going with this line of thought and he trails off awkwardly. He prays his team doesn’t notice but they will and he’ll have to avoid a lot of questions when he gets back.Lucius lifts his head and grabs James’s beer, downing half of it before James even has the chance to protest. “Bruce wants to know what your plans are. I want to know. James is plotting ways to kidnap you and keep you here forever. What are you doing here, Miah?”Jeremiah prays his explanation will work. “I propose a trade. I have some data. A lot of data. And I’d like to run it through the Wayne Enterprises projection interfaces. I need the technology. In return, you can keep the data. It’s marketing information from my business interests in Asia.”“Deal!” James sticks his hand out quickly to confirm with a handshake.“James, we have to run it by Bruce first,” Lucius reminds him.“On it!” He stands and fishes out his phone, he taps on it a bit before walking away for the conversation. “Get me another beer, Lucius!”“So.” Lucius sets his attention back on Jeremiah. “How’s Hong Kong?”“Good, it’s good. How’s life here?”“Good.”They stare at each other for a few seconds before it becomes apparent that Lucius will not make the first move. Jeremiah clears his throat and leans forward. “You don’t have to pretend to be happy to see me if you’re not. It’s okay if you still hate me.”His eyes go wide. “What? W-we don’t hate you. We never hated you. I never hated you.”Jeremiah raises his eyebrows in skepticism. “I hated you,” he offers.Lucius opens his mouth and gapes. “Excuse me?”“I hated you a while there. You and James both signed contracts. Neither of you signed the same one as me. Bruce must have told you something, you weren’t completely ignorant. And yet neither of you gave me even a clue as to what was going down, even though I was your friend too.”Lucius leans forward eagerly. “We didn’t know he’d do something like. And you were always gone and—”Jeremiah places his hand over Lucius’ jittering wrist to still him. “It’s okay. I understand. I don’t know what I would have done in the same situation. You did what you felt was best.” He smiles. “I’m over it.”Lucius plays with James’s beer then tilts his head. “We might have hated you for a little bit. But only for like a day,” he reassures Jeremiah quickly. They share a quiet laugh and suddenly it’s okay with them again.Jeremiah smiles. “I’m sorry if this is uncomfortable for you. With Bruce,” he adds.“Yeah. I mean no. I mean.” Lucius sighs and places his palms flat on the table. “I’m glad you’re here. And James is,” he looks over at James practically jumping up and down with his phone plastered to his ear. “James is just a little happy too.”“Only a little,” Jeremiah agrees.“I need to know that you’re not going to cause any…” He clears his throat, visibly uncomfortable with what he’s planning to say. “Bruce is in a delicate situation right now.”Jeremiah tenses and his eyes sharpen. “Is he okay?” And why he needs to know if Bruce is okay, he can’t quite figure out. He shouldn’t care. Bruce doesn’t care if he’s okay. But he’ll always care. He might be hurt, humiliated, betrayed, but he’ll always care. It’s like he’s been placed under some magic spell and he’ll never be free.“Yeah, yeah. He’s just a little stressed right now. There have been some…security issues at the company and it’s just really stressful. I swear, he slept only ten hours in the last five days.”“What the hell, Lucius? He’s going to burn himself out.” Jeremiah is angry and worried and he feels like he did before when he was in love with Bruce and it’s screwing with his brain. But he was never in love with Bruce. He loved Bruce. Like a brother. Yeah. That’s it.“I know.” Lucius runs a hand through his hair. “He doesn’t listen to me. You know that.” Jeremiah doesn’t say anything but nods knowingly. “Just promise me you won’t do anything to make things worse.”Jeremiah raises his eyebrows, slightly insulted even if it was expected. He leans forward, looks Lucius straight in the eye, and tells the truth. “I would never do anything to harm Wayne Enterprises. I’m here to help Wayne Enterprises. And Bruce. You have my word.”Lucius nods. “Okay, thank you.”James flops down into his seat again, his grinning from ear-to-ear. “So, Miah, what do you say to a corner office?” They help him set up in an empty office. It is entirely surrounded by glass panes and has a beautiful view of the city. The furniture is sleek and modern like the rest of the building. Jeremiah stands by the window and stares a little at the view, the cool Gotham sun flooding into the room.His office is directly under Bruce’s and he can’t help but think Bruce is trying to send a message, he’s beneath him, always beneath. Never good enough. But Bruce doesn’t know Jeremiah knows the blueprint to the building so maybe he’s just making things up again. He’s pretty sure his mind is going to break if he spends any more than two weeks here. He’s already clawing under his skin to get out.There isn’t much to do until the mole tries something, or maybe the mole could just come up to him and say, “Hey, I’m the mole, you can take me in now.” That would be really nice, so Jeremiah finds himself doing the actual work he pretends he’s there for. He had hoped to see as little of Bruce as he could, but apparently, the boy genius is a very hands-on boss. He lost count of how many times Bruce came down to talk to the accounting teams or the public relations teams both of which he could see from his office. Bruce, in particular, has a lot to discuss with an accountant named Silver, who always looks so confused and nervous and seriously confused whenever Bruce stops to chat with her, several times a day. He sympathizes with her. And every time Bruce passes by his office, they lock eyes and Jeremiah can’t breathe properly and he curls his fingers and he wants to look away but he physically cannot break contact.It takes an incredible toll on his mood and by the third day at the Wayne Enterprises offices, Jeremiah is moody and snappish and cross at everyone and everything. When he reaches his accommodations that night, he is ready to kill a puppy. Not a cute one, but one of those ugly ones that breathe heavily. He isn’t a monster.“Miah, I need you to write out a progress report for the director,” Selina informs him from the kitchen table where she’s shuffling through her notes on the case.“Why can’t you do it?”“I’m not the team leader.”“Never stopped you before,” he answers curtly, opening the fridge for a beer. “We’re out of beer.”She points to the cupboard idly with her pen. “There’s some in there.”He scowls and yanks out a case of beer. “It’s warm.”“Yeah. It’s been in the cupboard.” The duh goes unsaid but remains clear in her tone.“Why the hell didn’t you put it in the fridge?”She finally spares him a glance. “Because I don’t drink beer. What, are you on your period or something?”“Fuck you.”She throws her pen down on the table and stands abruptly. “Excuse me?”He twists the top off a beer and takes a large gulp. He grimaces and sticks out his tongue in disgust before answering more slowly, “Fuck. You.”“I’m going to kick your puny little ass, Valeska.”“I’d like to see you try.”She throws a punch at his face that he barely dodges. He glances to his right to see her hand embedded in the wall where his face used to be. “Shit, Lina.”“What, what, what’s going on?” Ecco comes running into the room, followed by Jonathan. Ecco takes one glance and immediately places herself between Selina and Jeremiah. “Hey, hey, we’re all friends here, right?” She places her hands carefully on Selina’s shoulders. “Why don’t we get pizza and get drunk and watch America’s Next Top Model? I hear Tyra Banks is going to go crazy. It’ll be fierce. Yeah?”Jeremiah scowls and turns to leave the kitchen. “I’m going to bed.”“But our stuff is still set up in the living room—” Jonathan interjects.“I’m taking the fucking guest room.”“Where is Jonathan going to sleep?” Selina demands.Jeremiah is already down the hall. “He can sleep on the fucking roof for all I care!” he shouts before slamming the door closed to the guest room. He tears his suit off and almost rips it to shreds before throwing it across the room. He’s angry and he thinks maybe if he throws enough inanimate objects he won’t be angry anymore. He flops onto the bed and stares at the ceiling angrily.He can hear them outside the door. Ecco is comforting Jonathan and Selina is cursing him and his family and every pet he ever owned to an eternity of hell. He feels guilty but he’s also really, really pissed off right now and he deserves some alone time.But when, by midnight, he can’t sleep and his muscles feel like they’re going to jump out of his skin, he sighs in defeat and alights from the bed. He throws on a shirt and a pair of gym shorts, grabbing his iPhone and securing a knife to his upper thigh. He opens the door quietly and sees Jonathan sleeping fitfully on the couch. And now he feels very guilty, he’s a very bad person.He shakes Jonathan’s shoulder and whispers. “Hey, Jonathan. Hey, wake up.”Jonathan blinks his eyes open. They look fuzzy because he can’t focus properly without his glasses. “Miah?” he asks.“Hey, Jonathan, go back to the room.”Jonathan takes in a breath but shifts his blanket closer to his body. “No, it’s okay, you deserve the bed.”Jeremiah moans a little and shakes his head. “No, no. Take the bed. I was upset tonight and took it out on you. Sorry.” He smiles apologetically.Jonathan smiles back slowly and sits up. “Yeah, no big deal.”“We’re good?”Jonathan nods. “We’re good.”Jeremiah ruffles his hair before grabbing his keys and heading to the door.“Where are you going?”“I’m heading out for a jog. I feel like I have too much energy pent up.”Jonathan laughs a little. “Yeah, you’re not used to just sitting all day, are you?”“Nope.” He holds up his phone. “I have my phone so just text me if there’s a situation. I should be back in an hour.”“D-do you want the bed when you get back?”“Take the damn bed, Jonathan. That’s an order.”“Thanks.”Jeremiah gives him a wave goodbye and heads out into the cool Gotham night. His thighs and legs have reached that good burn and he finally feels spent and pleasantly empty as his feet pound on the pavement, left, right, left, right, patterns and orders and equations stomping into the ground beneath his feet, centering him, reminding him there is always an answer. He controls his breathing and matches his pace to the rhythm of his music. He feels good.So why, when he was feeling so good, so right, he ends up at the Wayne Enterprises office, he does not even want to know. It’s like his body took control and is seeking revenge on his heart.The office is dark except for a few random rooms and the sporadic flicker of a security guard’s flashlight pacing up and down the halls. He wonders if he should take a quick look around since he’s already here you know, for espionage purposes. It’s not like he wants to revel in this nice proud feeling or anything.A security guard lets him in. “Evening, Mr. Valeska,” he greets like this is a normal occurrence and Jeremiah nods gratefully.He explores the area, marveling at the sleek design and splashes of color. It is all inherently Bruce and he wonders how much input he made with the design team or if he brushed them off and let James and Lucius takes the reins.He wipes his forehead of cooling sweat with the bottom edge of his shirt and glances down. There’s a light on in Bruce’s office. He frowns. It’s almost one in the morning now, and he’s pretty sure Bruce hasn’t been home in a couple days, because his suits have all but molded to his frame, even if he does alternate them every other day. He pauses momentarily at the door, telling himself this is a really bad idea, just walk away, Valeska. You’re not here to take care of him anymore. But he can admit he’s been on edge, okay, he’s been a horrible, cranky person. He kicked Jonathan out of his room. Jonathan. And he admits to himself it has more than a little to do with the man in the next room.He takes one more moment to remember he once took down a drug cartel by himself before knocking lightly at the door. He doesn’t get a response and he almost walks away. He actually shifts his foot to move away but his hand, traitorous hand, has grasped the doorknob and he’s in the office before he can bring it under control.Bruce is locked in on his works headphones blaring some music Jeremiah knows Bruce likes, but Jeremiah hates. He has been watching Bruce for the last three days but it’s still a shock to his system to see him here, working again. He releases a shaky breath and opens his mouth to speak, but he pauses again because he’s not sure what he should call him now. Mr. Wayne sounds too formal and Asshole is a bit antagonistic. He opens his mouth again and goes with instinct.“Bruce.” It’s weak and even he can hardly hear himself. “Bruce,” he tries again, louder and stronger, but Bruce still doesn’t look up. He walks to Bruce’s desk and lays his hands on the flat surface, leaning down to say even louder, “Bruce.”Bruce jerks and glances up. His fingers stop abruptly and he stares, unmoving.Jeremiah gestures to the earphones. “The earphones, Bruce.”Bruce blinks a couple times before tugging the devices out of his ears and laying them on the desk, still holding Jeremiah’s gaze.Jeremiah is afraid this will turn into another one of their let’s-not-talk-but-just-stare-at-each-other moments so he starts, “Hey, um—”“I have friends,” Bruce interrupts.Jeremiah squints and raises his right brow. “What?”“You said I had one friend, that you were the only person left in my life. That’s not true. I have friends. I have a lot of friends.”“And that’s…Bruce, that’s the first thing you’re going to say to me after all these years?”Bruce tilts his head. “Is there something more appropriate I should discuss with you? Like maybe why you’re back here when you sued me?”Jeremiah groans and runs a hand through his hair. “This was a bad idea.”“Why are you dressed like that?” Bruce continues forward, ignoring Jeremiah. “You always wear suits.”“I was jogging.”“You don’t jog.”“I do now.”“Why?”“Because I felt like it.”“That’s not an answer.”“Oh, God forbid an answer isn’t sufficient for Bruce Wayne.”“I don’t believe in God.”Jeremiah lets out an angry hum and flairs his hands in frustration. He casts his eyes around the room because this conversation is ridiculous.“When was the last time you had a proper meal?”Bruce scoffs and turns back to his work. “Don’t tell me you’re going to play mother again.”He should let this go. He should say goodnight and turn around and walk away and maybe get some ice cream from the corner store on his way back to the house. He should— “What do you mean, ‘play mother’?”Bruce peers up briefly at him before returning to the computer screen. “You really should get a therapist to deal with your incessant need to take care of everyone. Like when you’d do my laundry, you were feeding your own selfish desire to feel wanted.”“I did that because I cared about you.”“Please, you did that so you could forget you had no father and your mother sent you away.” Bruce opens his mouth and stills his hands like he wasn’t expecting that to come out.Jeremiah stares at him. His eyes have started to water. He can feel himself start to break. He can’t believe Bruce brought that up, he needs to learn that Bruce does this to him. Bruce breaks down every wall, every fortitude, every safe haven he builds to protect himself. Bruce has a master key to his heart. He knows he looks hurt and betrayed all over again and he wishes he could pull off the stony expression Bruce is so good at. “Go to hell, Bruce.”He stomps to the door and has his hand on the cold knob when he hears Bruce say, “I don’t believe in hell, either.”He lifts his middle finger and slams the door shut behind him. He is breathing fast and blinking ever faster.Bruce never changes. Bruce is always the same. He’s still the same insensitive jerk he always was. Which isn’t true, he isn’t always like that, he wasn’t always that way. But, he still doesn’t take care of himself. He still has dark circles under his eyes and he’s going to collapse if he doesn’t get some sleep soon.“Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit.” He strides back to Bruce’s office, opening the door in a rush and stopping at the desk again. “When was the last time you saved your work?”Bruce’s eyes have widened slightly and Jeremiah inwardly cheers that he finally pulled some semblance of expression out of him. “What?”“Your progress, when was the last time you saved it?”“A minute ago?”“Good.” He slams the laptop closed.“What the fuck, Miah?” Bruce backs away in his chair, an incredulous look on his face.Jeremiah ignores the familiar tone in the way Bruce calls his name and moves around the desk to loom over Bruce. “Get up. You’re going home.”Bruce rolls his eyes. “No.”“Get up.”“No,” Bruce repeats with more force.Jeremiah scoffs before grabbing his arm and tugging him up to his feet. “Where are your car keys? I’m taking you home and you’re going to sleep. For at least six hours.”“My coat pocket,” Bruce supplies helpfully. Jeremiah reaches over to grab Bruce’s jacket while still holding his arm. They’re impossibly close and he can hear Bruce’s inhalations and exhalations. His fingers falter momentarily and the keys jingle out but Bruce catches them before they hit the floor. They stay like that for a moment longer. Jeremiah can smell the detergent from Bruce’s suit. He’s pretty sure Bruce can see his pulse thump in his neck and he swallows.“I can drive myself,” Bruce whispers softly and it feels too intimate like his statement was a sweet nothing shared between lovers.Jeremiah releases Bruce and seizes the keys. “I’m playing mother. Deal with it.”He tries not to feel butterflies in his stomach when Bruce tilts his head slightly and lifts the left corner of his mouth in a ghost of a smile. He tries not to see the soft expression, tries not to feel warm and happy and safe because “Bruce” and “safe” should never appear in a sentence together unless “is not” occurs between them.He needs to get used to failing. Jeremiah is somewhat surprised that Bruce follows him without so much as a remark, but when he glances behind and sees Bruce’s steps are slow and tired, he knows Bruce is too fatigued to offer much resistance. He slows and falls in step with Bruce without a word. Bruce sends him what was probably meant as a glare but comes off as a blurry squint. It’s kind of all sorts of adorable and Jeremiah has to remind himself of the awkward situation and no, laughing would be really bad, he doesn’t want to explain that, and Bruce isn’t adorable. Bruce is a horrible, mean, insensitive jerk. And if Jeremiah was still five years old, also a poopy-head.Bruce almost walks into a glass door but catches himself and takes two tiny half-steps back, okay, maybe Bruce is adorable. Still a jerk though.They settle into the car without a word. Bruce sinks into the passenger’s seat and leans his head against the back as if he finally realized how tired he was. Jeremiah starts the car and backs up when Bruce makes a confused noise in the back of his throat. He looks over at him.“Your seatbelt.” Bruce points his finger and he’s frowning.Jeremiah curses in his head and buckles quickly. He used to always get on Bruce’s case for not buckling his seatbelt, but with high-speed chases and every-second-counts getaways, Jeremiah has gotten in the habit of forgoing the safety device, he goes at speeds so fast that it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. He lets out a little awkward laugh. “Guess I’m a bit tired too,” he offers and hopes Bruce forgets the slip, but Bruce’s brain is a computer and that’s hardly likely.He does, however, remember to ask how to get to Bruce’s house, which he already knows in case the threat against Wayne Enterprises became a threat against Bruce. Which is ridiculous because a threat against Wayne Enterprises is a threat against Bruce. Not that the idiots at headquarters understand that. He resists a fist pump of victory for remembering how to do his job. He really is a fantastic agent, he commends himself in the silence of the car ride.The drive is short and they arrive at Bruce’s house quickly. It’s extravagant, but not unwelcoming. Jeremiah likes it, cause for some reason it brings to mind sleepy Sunday mornings and leftovers Tuesdays. He wonders how Bruce decided on it since he can’t envision Bruce would care if it reminded anyone of sleepy Sundays or any other idealized fantasies Jeremiah has always kept quiet in his mind.“It was my parent's house,” Bruce answers like he was reading Jeremiah’s thoughts.Jeremiah jumps and realizes he had been staring at the house, half his body still in the car. He clears his throat and exits the vehicle. “It’s nice.”Bruce looks at him, the seconds ticking away in some other dimension. “Thanks,” he finally answers, walking up the steps to the door. He pauses and turns around to stare at Jeremiah again.Jeremiah frowns. “What?”“You have my keys?”“Oh.” Shit. Well. He hums in embarrassment and trots to the door, climbing the steps two at a time. Instead of handing Bruce his keys back, he unlocks the door himself and lets Bruce in to turn off the security. He closes the door softly behind him and scans the area with the speed and efficiently he learned in his various assignments, committing the layout and fixtures to memory.“What are you doing?”Jeremiah somehow manages to maintain a neutral expression, belying the rapid increase in his heart rate. Bruce doesn’t know, does he? No, he couldn’t. Shit, he could. Bruce is like magic sometimes. “Hmm?”“Why are you following me?”He gives him a look of patronizing censure as his heartbeat slows down to a normal pace. “Because if I don’t literally see you to bed, you’ll end up coding all night and this whole exercise will be moot.”Bruce takes an odd breath like he was interrupted mid-intake. “You…” He stuffs his hands in his hoodie and holds Jeremiah’s gaze they’re doing it again.“You’re insane. You might think I don’t know much about human behavior, but I observe a fucking lot. I’ve lead Wayne Enterprises for fuck’s sake. This isn’t normal behavior.”Jeremiah nods but he’s stopped listening and is lightly prodding Bruce up the stairs to his room. He doesn’t stop to think about the warmth seeping through Bruce’s jacket onto his fingers, hot, his fingers burn and tingle with a poison he will never grow immune to, or how domestic and familiar this all feels guiding Bruce to bed after a working binge, falling into bed beside him to make him stay, waking up with legs entwined, both pretending to still be asleep for another hour.Bruce has stopped his not-quite rant by the time they enter his room, spacious with a large bed and essential fixtures but hardly a touch of personality to be seen and shrugs out of his clothes, flinging them to the ground carelessly before crawling into bed.Jeremiah picks up the discarded suit and folds it over a chair before he walks to the nightstand beside the bed and drops Bruce’s keys on it. “I’m leaving your keys here. Make sure to sleep at least until seven. And shower when you get up, please.” He pulls out his phone and starts to leave the room. “Goodnight,” he says out of habit.“There’s a guest bed.”He stills but does not turn around. He can’t have heard right. “’Cuse me?”“Down the hall, on the right. The bed is probably made up, but if not there’s a closet…somewhere with sheets.”He spins on his heel and stares incredulously at Bruce. “I’m not staying the night.”Bruce lifts himself up on his elbows, and frown creasing his brow. “You’re not?”“No. We’re not – ” friends, he almost says but catches himself. “I have to get back.”Bruce’s frown deepens and he’s scowling. “How are you getting home?”Jeremiah waves his phone. “Cab.” It was only because of years seriously, fucking years of combat training and running on instinct and acting in a split second that he catches the keys Bruce so unceremoniously threw right at his face.“Take my car.”He opens and closes his mouth a few times, stares down at the keys in his hand, then back at Bruce. “Wh...How will you get to work tomorrow?”Bruce adjusts the pillows behind his head and shifts beneath the covers. “You’ll drive me.”“Wha-what? I’m not, what. The fuck, Bruce. I’m not driving you to work.”“Why not? You drove me home.” He slumps back into the bed and pulls the covers over his shoulders to tuck under his chin. “’Night, Miah.”He hates that he doesn’t have a retort. He hates that Bruce does this to him. He hates his incessant need to continue, to put himself in this position over and over because he hates himself, apparently.Bruce is right, he needs to get a therapist, he hates it when Bruce is right. He used to love it, because it meant he was on the winning team and he could watch everyone around him in awe and he was best friends with the guy who was so brilliant, a bona fide genius. But now it all it means is that Jeremiah is wrong, again, always, forever. He settles for a frustrated groan and rubs his hands over his face.“Why can’t anything be easy with you, Bruce?”“If it was easy it wouldn’t mean anything.”He doesn’t want to touch that, doesn’t want to analyze it and overthink it and dissect it, and make it into more than a sleepy retort from a man with little regard for social convention. Seriously, how can he say things like that when they’re…whatever they are. He scowls one last time at Bruce’s still form on the bed. “I’ll be here at eight. Shower.”“This is so screwed up,” he mutters to himself repeatedly on the drive back to his house.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Selina is in the backyard when Jeremiah finally reaches base. He can hear her punishing some poor tree or punching bag or something. He approaches her tentatively because it’s dark and late and she’s in the zone and even if she does realize it’s him, she might just throw a punch his way anyway. He grimaces but admits he kind of deserves it.
“Lina,” he calls from what he thinks is a safe distance.
She glares over her shoulder but does not stop her assault on the free standing punching bag. “What?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Still mad?”
“Have you apologized yet?”
He pouts because he hates to apologize first. It’s like admitting he was wrong, which he was.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
She seems to accept it, paltry as it was. “Spar with me.”
Jeremiah raises his brows in slight suspicion.
“Ivy here isn’t putting up much of a fight,” she says, referring to the punching bag they had named Ivy, Jeremiah, and Ecco referring to her as Poison Ivy.
“I need to work off some energy,” she says beckoning him closer. “Come on, spar.”
He places his phone and keys by the patio window and stretches quickly, “Don’t touch the face. This,” he twirls a finger at his face, smiling seductively, “has gotten us out of a lot of trouble," in saying so he thinks back to when he was just a skinny kid with red hair and glasses who kept entirely to himself, who wanted to do nothing but create, your typical run of the mill science nerd. Back then he'd never even think of saying such a thing, this job giving him the confidence of which he never had before.
Selina rolls her eyes in response before saying, “These,” she lifting her breasts briefly, “have gotten us out of more.”
“Ecco’s are bigger. I mean, yours are nice, but hers are like,” he exhales and cups his hands in front of his chest, “magnificent.”
“You’re going to die.”
He barks out a laugh. “Eventually.”
They spar, with quick hits and sleek maneuvers. Jeremiah can’t remember the last time he felt so challenged in a one-on-one fight. Selina doesn’t have as much strength but she’s far more strategic and agile than him. It’s like her mind and body meld together as one in a fight and the moment a thought occurs to her, she acts. Jeremiah relies more on instinct. He shuts his mind down and just feels, flows. Which is how Selina managed to out move him and he landed flat on his back, breath choked from his lungs.
She smiles smugly and collapses next to him on the grass, gulping in air rapidly. “You suck.”
He just moans because he hasn’t gotten his voice back yet.
They stare at the sky for a few minutes until both their heart rates slow to a relaxed pace. She turns her head to stare sideways at him. “Hey, where were you so late at night?”
“I went for a run. Wound up at Wayne Enterprises.”
She hums. “Get any new leads?”
“No, just drove Bruce home.”
He doesn’t know why he told her that. It’s not like he wants to broadcast the very odd behavior he was exhibiting tonight. But he has always been extremely honest with Selina, he found out early on that if he wasn’t, they would both get hurt in the field. So he said a wistful farewell to his filter around her.
She sits up on her elbows and looks alarmed. “You engaged the target without backup? Without even informing me?”
He curls his upper lip in distaste. “Bruce isn’t the target.”
“Wayne is part of the target.”
“He’s not. He’s just…” He sighs and stares up blankly in silence. “It’s complicated.”
“Hey. Are you okay?”
And he must be losing it if Selina is asking about his well-being.
“You’ve been acting weird. Tense. Jonathan’s really worried, you know.”
“And you’re sure it isn’t you that’s worried about me?”
She glares. “Why would I care about you? I just, you know, care about the team dynamics.” She clears her throat. “But you’re okay, right? You can handle this.”
He closes his eyes and nods. “Yeah. I can handle this.”
He can handle seeing Bruce every day, can handle driving him and making him sleep and monitoring his health, but he can’t handle Bruce’s eyes and voice and scent, that of which can simultaneously suffocate and comfort him.
He feels a cool hand pat his, lying flat on the grass. “You’re not twenty anymore. You should show them that.”
He opens his eyes and stares.
“Your persona isn’t who you used to be. It’s who you are now.” She shakes her head. “Come on, Valeska. This assignment is a cake walk.” She stands and stretches her arms over her head. “I need to get some sleep. I have an interview in the morning.”
“Make sure you ace it, Lina. I need you in the office.”
She smirks. “Who could say no to this face?”
“I thought it was your breasts?”
She kicks him lightly in the stomach and he clutches it in mock pain. “You made it clear Ecco has that particular asset.”
“No, no. You have the nice ass.” He quirks his mouth to the side. “Though I do think Jonathan’s is a bit better than yours.”
The kick this time is real and he has to lie on the ground for a couple of minutes before following her back inside.
In the morning, he arms himself with coffee and bagels and a couple apples, because he’s pretty sure Bruce hasn’t seen a piece of fruit in months.
Ecco is grinning at him from the other side of the kitchen like she knows something he doesn’t like she thinks something that didn’t happen.
“What?” he asks because he can’t resist, even if he knows this will be wrong, so wrong.
“Hmm?” She continues to grin at him. “Nothing.”
He narrows his eyes.
“Why are you driving Bruce’s car?” she asks in a sing-song voice.
He points his finger at her. “No. No, I’m not getting into this with you.”
She pouts. “Why not?”
“No. Respect your superiors, Ecco.” He walks briskly to the door.
“Why do you have a hickey on your neck?”
He skids to a stop and his upper body folds over a bit in inertia. He whips his head over his shoulder, eyes wide. “What?”
Ecco grins even wider and skips up to him. She taps two fingers against his neck and he feels a shot of pain when she applies pressure. “You’ve got a bruise there.” She peers closer and her grin falters a bit. “But looking at it closely, it’s oddly shaped. What kind of weird mouth does Bruce have?” She gasps and places a hand over her mouth before leaning close to him and whispering, “Is he a vampire?”
He backtracks to the fridge, which has a reflection so pristine it’s almost a mirror. He sees a dark bruise on the side of his neck, near the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He curses. “Selina must have hit me there last night.”
Ecco gapes at him. “You slept with Selina?” She looks appalled and slightly hurt. “What about Bruce?”
“No, I did not sleep with Selina,” he grits out quickly between his teeth. He adjusts his shirt collar to try to hide the mark. Then he pauses and shoots her a glare. “And what does that have to do with Bruce?”
“He wants in your pants.”
“What?” His voice is higher than it should be.
She rolls her eyes and pats his shoulder. “I watch the video surveillance.”
He points his finger at her again. “No. This discussion ends here.” Selina trudges into the kitchen, yawning and stretching her hands above her head, a very convenient target for Jeremiah’s ire.
“You! I told you not to hurt the merchandise.”
She tilts her head and blinks at him. “What the hell is he talking about?” she directs to Ecco.
Ecco points to Jeremiah’s neck and tsks. “You gave the poor boy the closest thing to a hickey he’s sported in years.”
Selina leans forward for a second, then bursts out in laughter. “That is amazing!”
Jeremiah stares at them both and feels his authority as leader slipping away, it was never there, to begin with, but he likes to lie to himself sometimes. “I hate you both.”
He arrives at Bruce’s sharply at eight, where Bruce is showered and dressed in clean clothes and looks refreshed and almost happy, there are even ghosts of a smile and a light that flickers in his eyes.
Jeremiah remembers now that Bruce’s eyes always expressed more in a split second than his entire body ever could. He feels a weight lift off his shoulders, because okay, maybe he was concerned about Bruce for a bit. But it was for the operation. Bruce is Wayne Enterprises and Wayne Enterprises is officially a protected entity of the Central Intelligence Agency. Yup.
Bruce reaches for the coffee but Jeremiah hands him an apple instead. “Vitamins first, then caffeine,” Jeremiah informs him with a mock stern expression, crunching into his own apple.
Bruce stares at him for a couple of moments, but it’s not at his eyes now, so he doesn’t know what to do, and his pupils seem to grow a little wider.
Jeremiah shifts his feet and wipes the apple juices off his mouth with the back of his hand. This seems to jolt Bruce back to reality and he glances down at the apple before biting into it with a little roll of his eyes.
“Good?” Jeremiah’s eyes twinkle a little at how obliging Bruce has been this morning.
“It’s an apple. They all taste the same.”
Jeremiah makes a face. “Hardly.”
They talk for a few minutes more about safe, innocuous topics, which aren’t the normal types of harmless topics. Weather, for instance, is strictly avoided because any mention of rain in Gotham will lead to unpleasant memories of Jeremiah and Bruce's last argument in the pouring rain outside of Wayne Enterprises just before Jeremiah withheld the plans and Bruce kicked him out of the company.
So they talk about the company and engineering and Bruce lights up when he starts explaining his newest idea for the company. Jeremiah listens, drawn in and fascinated, and whether it is because he’s genuinely excited for Wayne Enterprises or if he can’t help but be enthralled when Bruce gets like this, he has never been able to tell. Probably a combination of both.
Jeremiah’s phone pings an alarm that alerts them it is time to leave so they reluctantly throw out the remnants of their breakfast and take their coffee to go. They settle in the car easily, this time Bruce is at the wheel.
Jeremiah and Bruce both reach to put their coffee in the cup holders at the same time and their hands brush lightly. Jeremiah intakes a sharp breath and feels a flush work up his neck, the act far more intimate than it should be.
A mere brushing of hands and his body rebels against his mind. Okay, well, maybe his mind is rebelling a bit too and remembering when he would tug at Bruce’s hand to bring him closer on the couch. He feels like a fucking Victorian, but Victorians didn’t fantasize about almost kisses and gasping your best friend’s name into your pillow while you jerk off.
He manages to withdraw his hand without spilling his coffee and reaches for the seatbelt, smiling apologetically at Bruce who seems unaffected by the entire sequence. His fingers fumble a bit so he has a good excuse to turn away and crane his neck to locate the damn thing. He finally finds it and clicks the device into place.
When he looks over to his left, Bruce’s eyes have narrowed and there’s a dark contortion on his features.
Bruce continues to glower until Jeremiah finally says, “What?”
He ignores Jeremiah though, and pulls out of the driveway, a little faster and a lot less smoothly than Jeremiah would have imagined.
If anyone notices that Bruce and Jeremiah arrive together, in the same car, they don’t mention it, they notice though. James practically has his face infused with the glass watching them pull up to the parking area. But Bruce sends a clear “if you mention this, you’re fired and you’ll never find another job so help me I will get my revenge” message when he all but storms to his office, because Bruce is a five-year-old boy and suddenly Jeremiah feels really good about his own sometimes shaky level of maturity.
Bruce seems content to stay in his office all day, and Jeremiah cannot decide if he’s relieved or disappointed, and his head is really in a weird place right now, this cannot be happening. He does not miss Bruce. Not at all. Right? Thankfully, Lucius comes to distract him at lunch with a bag of Chinese take-out.
“Hey, I thought you might be hungry,” Lucius says from the door frame, holding the offered food.
Jeremiah breaks into a grin. “Yes, thank you, you’re amazing.” He alights from his chair and usurps the bag, sniffing greedily at the opening. He gleefully clears his desk and arranges the cartons strategically for the best eating experience, waving Lucius to sit beside him in the guest chairs.
Lucius smiles and sits beside him, reaching for the ginger beef. Jeremiah slaps his hands with his recently procured chopsticks. He points them at Lucius sternly. “Ginger beef is mine.”
Lucius rolls his eyes. “You’re worse than James.”
Jeremiah feigns outrage before swallowing a mouthful of beef and rice and all things good in the world. Lucius asks him how his work is going and Jeremiah has to make up some story about how the data isn’t cooperating and he needs to alter his algorithm and he just hopes that Lucius doesn’t figure out he’s just making stuff up as he goes along.
The cartons are all but picked over and cooling significantly, and their conversation is flowing easily and naturally, they’ve moved on to favorite movie quotes, somehow, when Lucius’s phone chimes. Lucius continues to speak, “No, seriously, nothing will ever top Inigo Montoya. I can’t believe I even have to justify this!” and pulls the phone out, glancing down at the text he got. He stops talking and clears his throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable and just a little harassed.
“So, um. What quotes does your…” Lucius groans and rubs his face, slumping against the chair.
“Lucius?” Jeremiah asks, leaning forward in concern. “You okay?”
“No, not really,” he whines. “To be honest, I didn’t just show up with Chinese food out of the goodness of my heart. I was sent here to find out certain information.”
Jeremiah stiffens inwardly but maintains an outward appearance of natural curiosity. Years of training. Years. “And that information would be?”
Lucius peeks his eyes hesitantly over to Jeremiah. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Jeremiah opens his mouth to answer no, no he does not. He’s a fucking spy, the occupation doesn’t exactly lend itself to commitment and sustainability. But then he remembers he’s not Jeremiah Valeska: CIA Agent. He’s Jeremiah Valeska: Wayne Enterprises Former Vice President/Engineer/Guy With All the Crazy Ass Family and Associates, it’s not the first time he forgot he was acting. He’s not even sure he should be acting. This is more confusing than he cares to think about. So he lets his mouth hang open while he tries to formulate an answer.
Lucius interprets this as Jeremiah being aghast and hastily offers, “I’m so sorry. I tried to avoid this whole thing but you know how difficult he can be. He just wouldn’t leave me alone until I found out – ”
Jeremiah manages to snap his mouth shut and he raises his left brow indignantly. “Who is ‘he’?”
“Nothing, no one, I didn’t say he, did I say he? I should go.” Lucius stands but Jeremiah extends his leg, effectively trapping him between Jeremiah and the desk.
“Fess up.”
“James?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, did Bruce put you up to this?” He asks as he clenches and unclenches his hands, fury building behind his expressive eyes. “That socially incompetent little – ” His phone chirps and he blindly grabs at it out of habit. He’s still spurting in agitation when he reads the text from Jonathan.
‘Security leak in sector fourteen. Could be the mole.’
He swears and grabs his blazer jacket hanging on his chair, when he looks up and realizes Lucius is still there, staring at him in concern. Crap.
“Ah, it’s fine. I – ” He needs an excuse. He needs to get out and to sector fourteen, which is way way way across the building and he’ll have to run if he has any hope of catching the mole in the act. He can’t think of an excuse, he’s drawing a blank. Shit, he’s good at excuses. What the hell is wrong with him?
“I, uh, have. I think I left my phone in the break room.”
Lucius furrows his brow, “The phone you’re holding in your hand?”
Crap.
“Um, no, my old phone?” he ends it like a question and curses fluently in Romani in his head, “I have two phones. For business and personal use. Yeah. Yeah.”
Lucius is staring at him like he’s grown two heads, and maybe he has. He could star in the medical journals. It would be brilliant, but he high-tails it over to sector fourteen before he can grow a third one.
He dials Jonathan’s number as he skirts around the offices, galloping down a flight of stairs.
“Talk to me, Jonathan.”
“A feed has been streaming to an external source for about three minutes. The good news is that it’s slow. Bad news is I can’t track the destination.”
“Where’s it located?”
“Um, from my calculations, it’s a computer in the marketing conference room. Port number three.”
He slows down as he approaches the marketing department. “Stand by,” he tells Jonathan and slips the phone into his front pocket without disconnecting the call.
He steps carefully toward the conference room, padding his footsteps so that he does not make a sound. He scans the halls and adjacent rooms, committing the members to memory in case the mole has just left the room and quickly evaluates what weapons he has at his immediate disposal.
He has a small revolver strapped to his right calf under his suit pants, he has two knives sheathed and secured to his lower back, and he has a ballpoint pen, with blue ink in his suit pocket.
When he is satisfied that he has memorized the layout, he peers into the conference room and performs a rapid scan of the room, which is disappointingly empty. He makes a face but heads to the computer marked “PORT THREE” and reaches for his phone again.
“Jonathan, no one’s here but the computer is still running data.”
Jeremiah hurries forward and quickly puts a tracer on the outputs.
“Okay, it’s in place,” Jeremiah says.
“Depending on how many misdirections they have in place, we should have their destination in about two minutes," Jonathan replies.
Jeremiah nods even though he knows Jonathan can’t see him. Once they have the destination, finding the mole will be child’s play and he will be out of the country almost immediately. No more Wayne Enterprises, no more Bruce. He feels just the slightest bit disappointed.
Jeremiah jumps when he hears rapid footsteps approaching the conference room and immediately drops his phone under the table, and starts to peer around like he is looking for something when James enters the room, huffing a little.
James makes a startled noise when he sees Jeremiah. “Huh?!”
Jeremiah widens his eyes in genuine surprise. “James, hi, uh…”
“What are you doing here? This is the marketing department." James informs him.
“I lost my phone.” He pretends to look around before bending and picking it up. “Here it is.” He laughs awkwardly and prays he is convincing.
James furrows his brow. “Why was your phone here to begin with?”
“I…right. It was, uh.” Jeremiah clears his throat. “James, what, what are you doing here?” Misdirection training at its finest.
James tenses slightly. “I, uh. There’s a problem with one of the computers here.” He steps quickly to the computer at port three and starts typing frantically on the keyboard. “Shit.”
Jeremiah doesn’t know why he’s surprised, of course, Wayne Enterprises would detect a leak in its security. Jeremiah quickly disconnects his call to Jonathan and texts him instead.
'Abort trace.'
Jonathan texts back quickly.
'Already working on it. Need you to stall.'
Jeremiah grimaces but takes a deep breath and reminds himself this is his job. “They, uh, they sent you to deal with a little IT problem?”
James lifts his head and darts his eyes to Jeremiah. He looks guilty and scratches the back of his neck. “Well, you know, I don’t like to delegate.”
“Since when?”
“Since now!” James cringes at his raised voice. “Sorry, it’s just. We’ve been having a few problems with leaks and – ” he sighs and Jeremiah feels incredibly guilty for his role in the matter. “Sorry. We’re all a little stressed about it.” James says.
“Does Bruce know?”
James virtually whimpers. “Unfortunately.” He turns back to the computer and continues to type, hands flying over the keyboard. “There’s a leak right now and I’m trying to shut it down before Bruce hears about it.”
Jeremiah makes affirmative noises and texts Jonathan again.
‘Done yet???’
‘We’re in the clear,’ he answers back.
Then a few seconds later, ‘& y do u suddenly suck @ ur job???’
Jeremiah makes a startled noise, staring at his phone because, a. he does not suck at his job, b. since when did Jonathan talk to him like that?, and c. he has never ever seen Jonathan use chat speak.
Jonathan’s a bit of a purist.
Thankfully James is too busy trying to stop the threat, before Bruce goes on a rampage, locks down the building, and personally interrogates everyone present to notice Jeremiah’s shocked and slightly hurt countenance.
He rapidly shoots back a text, ‘I do not suck at my job. And what’s up with you?’
‘then y do all ur excuses suck balls? & ive always been like this.’
Then a few seconds later he gets another text from Selina’s cell.
‘Sorry sorry sorry, this is Jonathan. Selina stole my phone. Sorry!!’
Jeremiah tsks under his breath and types out another text lightning fast to Jonathan’s phone.
‘Stop torturing Jonathan. Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for your interview?’
‘they should b getting ready 4 me’
Jeremiah smiles and starts to type out a new response when he notices James has stopped typing and is staring at him, like really staring and there’s this look on his face between delight and officiousness.
“What?”
James hems and shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing really.” He leans closer and can’t help the tug of his lips. “Is that your girlfriend?”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows, and maybe his face is a bit hotter because no one has asked so much about his dating life until this very day.
“Is she from the area? Did you come out here for her? Does this mean you’re back for good?” James looks delighted.
Jeremiah knows big denials are the least believed. He knows this very well. He’s seen it happen in real life. Fucking Shakespeare wrote about it. So when he flails his hands in frustration and groans, stammering out a very large and drawn out no, he lies to himself, he denied the girlfriend thing very subtly. Yup. Subtle.
“No, no, I don’t – why does everyone think I have a girlfriend?”
James pouts, actually pouts.
“But Br – ”
Jeremiah cuts him off.
“Tell Bruce he doesn’t have to worry about a crazy ass girlfriend burning down the Wayne Enterprises office, okay?” He storms out, calling over his shoulder. “And Bruce should mind his own damn business.”
“I thought you guys were talking again!” James shouts back.
Jeremiah thinks he hears “Bunch of fucking babies!” but he ignores it and heads back to his office, hopefully, empty and sans-Lucius by now.
Jeremiah manages to avoid human contact the rest of the day and is able to calm his frustrations with the failed trace, and failed…Bruce…something. They almost had it, but operations were rarely that easy and clean-cut.
He would just have to refocus his energy and attention on finding the mole when he or she was inactive.
He’s formulating strategies on a notepad, all in code, obviously, he isn’t an idiot, and when he glances up he sees Selina with two managers, one he recognizes from the engineering department, and one he thinks works in human resources.
The managers are showing her stations and introducing her to key people. She’s nodding emphatically, a pleasant and professional smile adorning her lips, he can practically hear her cheeks cracking under the pressure. She only smiles on missions. Her natural countenance is a smirk.
He tilts his head and considers her. She’s gone with stylish and outgoing if her red stilettos are anything to go by. She looks out-of-place in an office filled with more appropriate business attire, but that’s what she wants. She wants to draw attention to herself and away from him so he can do the job they sent him here to do. He feels a burst of affection for her, to have someone place themselves in a precarious situation, to have someone to rely on, he appreciates and treasures it now instead of expecting it, and he grins lazily at her when her glance falls on him through his office windows.
She maintains her professional air, but he can see her smile brighten just the smallest bit.
The human resources manager seems to have noticed as well because she whispers something to Selina and they both laugh a little.
The rest of the day goes by smoothly and he even manages to finalize his next strategy, the initial look at all employee’s bank accounts did not turn up anything suspicious. He’s decided to look at significant others and family members’ accounts and cross-reference to the employee’s computer log-ins.
It’s a much better plan than wait and hope the mole shows up. That wasn’t working very well. He notes it’s already six and he should be heading home to brief the team, and maybe chastise Selina for torturing poor Jonathan.
He stretches and grabs his suit jacket, placing his laptop in his bag and pushes out of his office, locking it behind him. He gets about three feet away from his office when the receptionist they loaned him rushes up to him.
“Mr. Valeska!” he exhales, his expression a little frazzled.
“Yes, Oswald?”
“Are you heading home now?”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows but nods slowly. “Yes. I thought I would. It being the end of the day and all.”
Oswald laughs absently and nods. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. But there’s, um, I have some papers for you to sign.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“No, no, I need them today.”
Jeremiah frowns but extends his hand. “Alright, hand them over.”
“Oh, uh, they’re on my desk.”
He narrows his eyes. “You didn’t bring them?” He’s suspicious now because from what he knows of Oswald, the receptionist is extremely capable and on top of things. Something isn’t right.
“Yeah, sorry.” Oswald hits his forehead. “Doh, right?” More awkward laughter. “So why don’t you go back to your office and I’ll go grab the papers and then you can be on your way.”
Jeremiah purses his lips. “How about I leave now and you put the papers on my desk and I’ll sign them first thing tomorrow morning? It’s already past six. You can’t need it signed right now.”
Oswald’s face falls and he’s starting to panic his eyes dart back and forth and Jeremiah can see him trying to find a logical argument against what he said.
He leans forward and looks up pleadingly at Jeremiah. “Can you just do me a really big favor and wait in your office for like five minutes?”
Jeremiah leans down to level with Oswald. “Why do you want me to wait so badly?”
Before Oswald has a chance to answer, Jeremiah can hear hurried sounds of footsteps on the stairs and he sees Oswald relax in relief.
Jeremiah knows who is behind him before he turns around, but he needs to confirm it. He turns just in time to watch Bruce almost trip and stumble forward a few steps, skidding to an awkward halt a couple inches into Jeremiah’s personal bubble, because despite what others might think, he does know what a personal bubble is. He just usually forgoes it in favor of the ease of friendly contact and Bruce lost that privilege a long time ago.
Jeremiah doesn’t have to worry about it too long, though, since Bruce has to look up to see Jeremiah and hastily takes a few steps back, Bruce never really liked to be reminded of the height difference between them. He was always finding ways to compare the two of them, to find a difference and try to outdo Jeremiah, like if he wasn’t better, Jeremiah wouldn’t be around anymore.
Jeremiah decides he wants to see where Bruce is going to go with this so he remains unhelpfully silent, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. Bruce shuffles his feet and clears his throat before saying in the worst affectation of a casual tone Jeremiah has witnessed, “You’re heading home now?”
Jeremiah nods but still remains silent.
Bruce nods with him. “Yeah, I was thinking of heading out, too.”
This Jeremiah knows is a lie as Bruce has to be dragged kicking and screaming from his office. He raises his brow in mock surprise, still painfully silent, in fact, he’s starting to enjoy this.
“Why don’t I, uh, drive you home? You know, since you don’t have your car here." And Bruce looks a little proud of himself like he’s five whose just made a sandwich for the first time all by himself. It’s deplorably adorable and Jeremiah has the bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.
He manages to get a hold of his facial muscles, which is surprisingly difficult and returns to a neutral expression. “No, I’m going to walk.” He shoots Bruce a confined smile. “But thank you, though,” he adds as an afterthought.
He circumvents Bruce but is stopped with a hand on his arm. “It’s really no trouble.”
Jeremiah presses his lips together in a thin line but manages not to jerk away from Bruce’s hand, hot and tight and sending so many sensations through the fabric of his suit.
“I can walk. It’s not far.”
They lock eyes and the area has achieved a rare heavy hush of silence. They’re both aware of it but Jeremiah for the life of him cannot and will not, look away.
“Let me drive you,” Bruce repeats in a deceptively neutral tone.
Jeremiah flits his eyes over Bruce’s face, shifting back and forth rapidly, trying to capture and analyze every small detail, every minute divergence. Bruce is firm but his face is soft and almost vulnerable if he was anyone other than Bruce Wayne.
But his eyes are confident, not cocky or arrogant like he’s seen far too many times, and has played in his head and hyperbolized until they were caricatures of the man he used to know.
He must have made a sign of affirmation in the ensuing moments of intense study because Bruce lets out small happy breath and tugs Jeremiah’s arm to the exit.
And Jeremiah lets him because he wants to see those eyes focused on him again, in confidence and assurance and recognition, if only for a moment.
It isn’t until they reach the parking garage that Jeremiah notices Bruce’s hand is still on his sleeve, touching lightly now, guiding, tentative and soft and everything that Jeremiah has come to think Bruce is not.
He moves away from him, putting a considerable distance between them, harder than he thought. For years he assumed it was all his effort to stick close to Bruce, but now he’s starting to realize Bruce might have been more active than passive in that regard. It’s humbling and unnerving and Jeremiah isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
They settle into Bruce’s car for the third time in twenty-four hours and Jeremiah sighs, and wonders how this became his life. Shouldn’t he be taking down terrorist groups, or at the very least, seducing beautiful women for information?
He glances sideways at Bruce and thinks, maybe he’ll have to seduce Bruce. He widens his eyes when the thought occurs to him and shakes his head, no, not thinking about that. Nope.
Bruce looks at him expectantly.
Jeremiah wonders if Bruce can read minds now but he represses the flush on his neck as much as he can and clears his throat. “What?”
“I need your address.”
“Oh. Right.”
Jeremiah punches the address into the car’s GPS system, some state-of-the-art innovation Jeremiah is sure isn’t even on the market yet. The moment he presses ENTER, though, his muddled mind finally manages to inform him that Bruce is driving him home. To base. Where he has two women and one very adorable young man living with him and Eduardo might even be over there too.
Shit.
“You know, on second thought, I really think I’ll walk.” He reaches to unbuckle his seatbelt but Bruce locks the doors and is staring at him with those piercing eyes, he wishes that was a cliché, but Bruce’s eyes really do pierce. Right through his eyes and into his heart, stabbing and patching it back together just to stab at it once again.
“I said I’ll drive you.” And with that, he apparently decided the conversation was over because he starts to pull out of his parking space and Jeremiah is reaching frantically for his cell phone.
‘Code green, ten min tops,’ he types silently, staring straight ahead and hiding his phone behind his right thigh.
He prays it isn’t laundry day, because Ecco tends to leave her bras drying in the yard, she says something about fresh air being good for her breasts but he usually tunes her out by that time.
He looks over to his left, ascertains that Bruce is focused on the road and has not yet detected his texting. He sends another, ‘take evrythg w u.’
It only takes his mind about twenty seconds, his responses are improving, after he hits SEND, and has safely secured his phone back into his pocket, that he realizes his team could probably misinterpret that text.
Code green stands for full evacuation, “Take everything with you” could result in them gutting the entire house.
His mind bounces between two worst-case scenarios: Bruce finding an entire fucking family living with him, or Bruce finding Jeremiah’s house, the one he’s supposed to have been living in for at least a week now, completely empty.
But he can’t really focus on formulating any excuses right now because Bruce is talking to him. What is Bruce talking to him about?
“Sorry, what?”
Bruce makes a face but keeps his eyes on the road.
“I asked how your family was doing. It’s a common question used to engage a comfortable feeling from the respondent. People like to talk about their family. How’s your family?”
Jeremiah stares blankly and says, “What family, you know better than anyone how things are. Father non-existant. Mother code of silence, brother absent and murderous most likely.”
“Right,” Bruce says, fingers drumming on the steering wheel nervously.
They drive in silence, the only noise coming from the hum of the air conditioning and the occasional sudden directions from the GPS system, loud and artificial.
“I didn’t mean it," Bruce says at random.
Jeremiah cranes his neck to his left. “Didn’t mean what?”
Bruce is shifting his eyes more than the road requires and Jeremiah can see his hands tighten on the wheel, tensing all the way up to his shoulders. “Last night. About your family. I didn’t mean it.”
Jeremiah gapes his lips open in shock so long that his mouth starts to dry out. “Are you – ” He lets out a small breath that sounds similar to a subdued laugh. “Are you actually apologizing?”
Bruce makes a noncommittal noise and shifts his head ever-so-slightly in a nod, so minuscule that only Jeremiah would consider it an actual movement. His hands are still tight on the wheel and Jeremiah is starting to be concerned about his circulation.
Jeremiah laughs, a little in disbelief, a little in awe, and a lot in amusement. “Bruce Wayne apologizing to me, huh...” He nudges Bruce’s shoulder with his hand. “Thank you.”
Bruce jumps at the contact and swerves the car momentarily, but the road is clear and the atmosphere is pleasant so Jeremiah doesn’t mention it.
He can see Bruce’s lips lift up slightly, not in a smile, because those are rare and have to be earned, but that in Bruceism means happy.
They arrive too quickly at Jeremiah’s house, the sudden ease and half-smiles they had shared seep into the stilted uncertainty they have been dancing around for the last week.
Bruce pulls the car to a stop and unlocks the doors as Jeremiah nods his thanks and exits the car, and he breathes a little easier when he sees the house looks empty of only people and their personal effects. He turns to wave goodbye but Bruce is already out of the car and walking up to the door.
“Bruce?”
Bruce ignores him and comes to a halt in front of the door. He tries the knob but finds it locked and turns to Jeremiah, hands stuffed in his slacks, an impatient expression on his face.
“Well? Are you going to unlock the door or do I have to find an object around here to break your windows? I don’t think that would reflect very well on your insurance rates.”
“You…” Jeremiah blinks and points at Bruce. “You want to come in.”
“I thought that point had been made obvious.”
Jeremiah scratches the back of his neck and half-grimaces. “And what, exactly, are you going to do? Once you come in.”
Bruce shrugs his shoulders. “We could order Chinese. Watch a movie. Discuss how to take down Kim Jong Un.”
“You want to hang out...”
Bruce just looks at him as if to say duh.
“We’re not friends anymore.” He has to say it, he can’t stop it from spilling out of his mouth. Because they aren’t friends anymore.
“We’re not enemies.” There’s a hesitant quality in Bruce’s voice like he’s not entirely sure if what he said is the truth, but he took the risk anyway.
They’re at a precipice. If Jeremiah denies this, there will be no room for anything else. They will be enemies for the rest of their lives. And he’s tired of hating, tired of being hurt and avoiding thinking about it and having to repress his memories, those fun and wild and precious times he should be able to fall back into when he’s in a bad situation.
He lifts the corner of his mouth and nods. “I’ve already had Chinese today. Which was all your doing.”
He holds his hand up when Bruce starts to protest against his accusation.
“No, we’re not going to talk about that. Ever.” He pauses as he walks to the door. “And stop using your employees as spies. Especially Lucius.”
Bruce shrugs. “I pay them, they should do what I want.”
“Don’t do it,” Jeremiah repeats firmly like he had to so many times, and lightly nudges Bruce out of the way so he can unlock the door. “I’ll make Italian.”
Bruce bites his lip. “Whatever.”
Jeremiah opens the door and gestures to Bruce to enter.
“I pay them a fucking lot,” Bruce adds as he passes him.
“Yes, yes. You’re an amazing boss, I’m sure.”
Jeremiah cooks pasta and garlic bread and steams some frozen vegetables, which he insists Bruce is going to eat. Bruce retrieves his laptop from the car and sets it on the breakfast bar, working while Jeremiah chops and dices and maybe twirls his knife a couple times because he can and he doesn’t want to get rusty. It has nothing to do with looking cool, okay? They continue in relative silence, Bruce’s typing and the sizzle of oil on the pan is far more pleasing than any music Jeremiah can remember, but he’s always preferred the soundtrack of life.
It’s a little cheesy. But maybe that’s okay, and maybe he can enjoy this, maybe for a little while.
His cell phone rings with multiple texts from Selina: ‘im going 2 shop. im going 2 gym. im going 2 eat dnnr. u hve til then’,
and Ecco: ‘!!!! and Play nice! Or naughty. Do you like to play naughty? DETAILS LATER, YES???’,
several from James of varying degrees of ‘DID Bruce KIDNAP YOU? HE DID, DIDN’T HE? Miah?’,
and even from Eduardo, he must be talking to Ecco, the little blabbermouth.
Bruce ignored the first few but finally lifts his head from his computer to raise his brows at Jeremiah.
Jeremiah smiles apologetically and shrugs, finally turning off the phone just as his director, the director found out, and sends him another text.
“I’m a little busy sometimes.”
Bruce purses his lips but seems satisfied that the phone is off now and bends his head back to his screen.
When the food is done, they take it to the living room and Jeremiah turns on the television. Bruce usurps the remote control and fiddles with the settings, ones that Jeremiah didn’t even know he had and doesn’t really notice the difference once they are adjusted to Bruce’s satisfaction. Bruce finds Jeremiah’s Netflix subscription, which, wow, the CIA was really nice, setting him up with all that. He’ll have to send the accommodations coordinator a thank you card or something, and they decide on The Terminator.
They don’t talk, just watch and laugh at the appropriate, and inappropriate junctures. And maybe that was their problem, to begin with, they relied so heavily on unspoken communications that when they finally articulated something, neither could understand it over the cacophony of intense looks and barely concealed frustrations.
But for now, Jeremiah decides it’s cathartic and even enjoyable and fun in a way he thought was impossible with Bruce at this point.
It’s almost identical to when they were at college, but now there’s a charge, an underlying self-awareness that promises more than a simple plate of pasta and steamed vegetables and Arnold Schwarzenegger could ever hope to provide in principle.
So when Bruce slumps down in his seat – relaxed and pliant – and Jeremiah throws his arm against the back of the sofa – fingers draping down to rest lightly on Bruce’s shoulders – they reach a certain understanding. They’re not friends. But they’re so much more than the nothing they have been for years.
They say in fluttered eyes and absence of fidgets more than words could ever form. They can’t go back, but they will move forward.
It’s enough to stick a slightly inane smile on Jeremiah’s face, well, that and the way Bruce’s eyes slip closed because he’s five and fell asleep during the movie.
They’re half-way through The Terminator 2: Judgment Day when Bruce jerks besides Jeremiah.
He blinks and takes a couple seconds to glance around, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
Jeremiah glances at the clock and feels his heart rate spike, Selina and the gang will be back soon. He turns the movie off and switches a lamp on.
“It’s late,” he offers.
Bruce rubs his eye still. “Hmm?”
Jeremiah starts to collect the plates. “We should probably call it a night.”
Bruce stares at him with disquieting intensity, but finally, he seems to nod, stretching before lifting off the couch.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll just use the bathroom first.”
Jeremiah nods and heads to the kitchen. “Yeah, it’s right down the hall there.”
Bruce heads to the hall. “Which door?”
Jeremiah places the dishes on the counter and pokes his head around the door frame into the hall. His eyes widen and he feels a spike of adrenaline in his system when Bruce reaches for the master bedroom door, w
ith all the girly things, like lotion, and make-up, and Selina’s panties.
He shoots forward without a moment’s hesitation, and
slides down the hall and manages to squeeze between Bruce and the door before Bruce has opened it.
“Not, uh. Not this door.”
Jeremiah flattens his hands against the wood, trying to ease his intake of air, face mere inches from Bruce now.
Bruce stares at him unflinchingly. “What’s behind the door, Miah?”
“Not the bathroom.”
Bruce’s eyes narrow into deep slits but Jeremiah holds his ground.
“Bathroom is the next door,” he breathes, nodding his head to the right.
Bruce’s eyes flicker over his face, lingering in places they should not be lingering, and Jeremiah’s face is hot and his breathing is getting worse, why can’t he calm the fuck down?
Bruce shifts his feet and he’s even closer, any semblance of a personal bubble gone and vanished.
Jeremiah’s lips are suddenly dry, very dry, how did they get so dry? He licks them unconsciously and before he even has a chance to place his tongue fully back in his mouth, Bruce’s hand is on his jaw and his thumb –
His thumb is brushing his bottom lip, slow and tugging a bit and Jeremiah’s tongue sneaks back out just a millimeter and he can taste salt and a bit of pasta sauce and Bruce and it’s all dancing on his tongue and invading his blood.
Bruce’s pupils are dilated and his entire focus is on him, on Jeremiah, and it’s intoxicating. Jeremiah forgot how to breathe a long time ago, forgot he had to breathe. Bruce drags his thumb down, bringing Jeremiah’s bottom lip down with it. Jeremiah follows Bruce’s movement with his head, bending to chase his thumb and Bruce smiles. Full and wide and sparkling. It’s soft and sincere and adoring, that rare, almost nonexistent smile that has always been burned into Jeremiah’s mind but it’s better, so fucking better than his memory ever allowed him to recall.
And it’s all for Jeremiah, because of Jeremiah. He makes a low, keening sound in his throat and bends forward, leveling with Bruce’s face –
Bruce’s phone fractures the heavy air, thrilling sounds of the Super Mario Brothers. Bruce jerks back and curses fluently, fishing it out of his pocket and glowering. “It’s James,” he sneers, voice a little more hoarse than Jeremiah ever remembers hearing it, and sending tingles and shudders down his body, and dark with the promise of James’s decapitation.
But he answers it anyway because it might be important, and stalks over to the next door, to the actual bathroom, and slams the door behind him.
Jeremiah can hear him reaming James out, but he just sags against the door behind him, suddenly grateful for the solid form of wood, it’s so nice and solid and how did his legs work before? He could swear he used to be able to stand on them properly.
He rubs his hands over his face and stumbles into the kitchen, to the sink, and splashes cold water over his overheating face and remembers how to breathe.
“I’m dying,” he moans into the sink, slumping over the steel contraption when he hears Bruce’s shuffling footsteps behind him and he straightens immediately, instinct kicking in and a mask over his body.
Bruce stands at the doorway of the kitchen, scratching the back of his left hand idly. “So, um…”
“Yeah, goodnight. I’ll see you Monday,” Jeremiah says quickly. He needs to sit down and stop looking at Bruce and remember why he’s here in Gotham, to begin with, it has nothing to do with seducing Bruce, he’s pretty sure, but it might have something to do with Bruce seducing him.
Bruce’s back straightens and he frowns, the smile, that rare and fleeting occurrence is long gone and Jeremiah almost wonders if he ever really saw it to begin with.
“Sure.” His voice is tense and he’s a bit jerky when he gathers his laptop.
Jeremiah walks him to the door, keeping a safe distance of about three feet between them as he opens the door for Bruce and nods goodnight. It isn’t until Bruce has his hand on his car door that Jeremiah calls out, impulsively, because he plans and overthinks and makes sure he’s prepared for every possibility except when it comes to life-changing moments, “Let’s eat lunch together on Monday.”
Bruce turns his head and his eyes are analyzing Jeremiah again, sharp and intense and everything Jeremiah has ever wanted.
“What time do you eat lunch?”
“Uh…I don’t know, one?”
Jeremiah makes a face. “You don’t eat lunch, do you?”
Bruce shrugs. “I never really notice.”
“When I come with food, then you’ll know to eat. Okay?”
Bruce nods and quirks his lips in acknowledgment, it isn’t a smile but it’s close and Jeremiah etches it with his eyes until he knows it’s carved behind his eyelids.
Bruce leaves and Jeremiah slumps again, this time against the entryway wall.
He’s content to sit there and run his hands through his hair until his team shows up.
“Is lover boy gone?” Ecco chirps, bending to level with Jeremiah. “Hey, what’re you doing down here?”
“I’m dying.”
“What?! Miah are you okay?” Jonathan is panicking, again. They really should get him some counseling or something. That can’t be good for his mental health. Jonathan bends and places a warm hand on his shoulder. “Miah?”
Jeremiah shakes his head and makes a whining sound. “I’m dyinggggggg.” He extends the word by about ten syllables and rubs his hand over his face for the umpteenth time that night.
“For fuck’s sake,” Selina kicks his shin. “He’s being a drama queen again.”
“DYING.”
Selina tugs Jonathan’s arm until he’s standing and pushes him toward the guest room, “Don’t encourage him.”
“But Selina – ” Jonathan starts to protest but stops cold at her glare, “Yes ma’am.”
“Hey.” Ecco shakes Jeremiah’s arm. “Hey, what happened?” She looks entirely too delighted.
Jeremiah stares at her, narrows his eyes, opens his mouth, then thinks better of it and closes it again. “Nope. Not up for discussion.”
“Why not?” Ecco whines. She even kicks her legs in protest.
Jeremiah struggles to his feet, wobbles for a split second, before finding his balance. He clears his throat and holds the back of his hand against his lips for a moment like he’s trying to feel the heat of Bruce’s thumb again.
He drops his hand and smiles wistfully. “Because it’s mine.”
He walks off, ignoring Ecco’s whining, “this is so not fair” and Selina’s sneers “don’t you fucking get soft on me!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah manages to not die over the weekend but somehow does not manage to avoid having a Team Discussion about the varying levels of appropriateness he has been neglecting as of late.
They’re in the living room on Sunday, the new status review from the director laying ignored on the table and Eduardo munching on some kind of cracker or chip or something really, really loud in the kitchen.
Jeremiah scowls across the room from his position in the reclining chair. “This feels like an intervention.”
“It is.” Ecco flashes a smile, patting her hand over her crossed knee.
Selina sits on the couch arm closest to Jeremiah and leans towards him.
“Tomorrow morning I’ll start work at Wayne Enterprises. We will work together, you will keep communication open, and you will stop inviting the target on dates.”
“One, it wasn’t a date.”
“Then why were you dying?” Ecco wants to know.
He makes a vague disapproving hemming noise. “Unrelated toe-stubbing incident.”
“Please, even Jonathan doesn’t believe you.”
All three faces turn to look at Jonathan, who shoots his head up and stares wide-eyed at them. “Why are you looking at me? Stop looking at me!”
Ecco snuggles closer to Jonathan on the couch. “You’re so adorable sometimes.”
Jonathan flushes and freezes, his entire body tense. “Please stop using me as a pillow.”
“How about no?”
Jeremiah stands up because now seems like a good time to leave when they’re all distracted. Selina extends her foot, placing it on Jeremiah’s shoulder and pushing down, forcing him back into the chair. He glowers at her.
“As I was saying,” Selina glares at Ecco and tugs her off Jonathan. “Please remember your professionalism.” She turns back to Jeremiah. “Ecco told me about you and Bruce. Way back when.”
Jeremiah gapes at Ecco. “You!”
Ecco has the gall to shrug. “Team needs outweigh individual secrets.” She shakes her head. “You’ve really been acting horribly not like yourself. We’re worried this assignment is too close to home for you.”
“This is nothing like how it was before with Bruce, okay?” Bruce never rubbed his thumb over his mouth before and Jeremiah flushes at the mere memory of it. “I know the line between my role and my job. I’m handling it.”
Selina looks like she wants to say more but Eduardo blessed Eduardo who is almost too broad to fit through a proper door frame, pops his head in. “Hey, you just about wrapped up here?”
Selina throws a rolled up magazine at him, hitting him squarely between his eyes. “Did I say we were done?”
Eduardo rubs his nose. “Feisty.”
“I’m going to fucking kill something. OUT!”
Eduardo retreats to the kitchen again, but not before waggling his eyebrows conspiratorially at an extraordinarily uncomfortable Jonathan.
Selina turns back to the matter at hand. “Somehow, the director has got it into her screwed up little red-tape, warped mind that you should get closer to Bruce. She’s pleased with your unsafe, unprofessional, and completely unscripted behavior.”
Jeremiah flinches but remains silent.
“So you will do as the director mandates. But you need to keep me in the loop.” She leans forward more. “And let me know when your play-acting becomes real.”
“I think you should sleep with him,” Ecco pips.
Jonathan stands abruptly. “Do I have to be here for this?”
Ecco tugs him down by his wrist. “Sweetie. If you wore a suit, I’m sure Miah wouldn’t mind going on a date with you, too.”
Jeremiah makes a strangled sound and rubs his face. “I hate my life. I hate it.”
Selina integrates with great ease into the Wayne Enterprises office. She settles in quickly and manages to complete both the work they dump on her and for the rookie, it’s quite a lot, and the work she’s really there for.
Jeremiah can’t help but feel a little proud.
They set up their roles easily enough. On Monday morning Selina is pretending to be overwhelmed and lost in the offices, and Jeremiah pretends he’s in a heated business discussion on his cell phone and paying little attention to where he’s headed. They collide in front of the entire accounting department, papers flying everywhere and Selina ends up sprawled on the floor.
Jeremiah hastily hangs up, on Ecco, who manages to squeak in a short, “This is gonna be good!” and runs an anxious hand through his hair.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” He bends to level with Selina. “Are you okay?”
Selina rubs the small of her back and grimaces. “Yeah, I – oh crap, my papers!”
Jeremiah stills her hand with his own and smiles at her. “Let me help you up.”
Selina seems to stop and take in just who she really ran into. She smiles coyly, she’s really playing it up this time.
“I’m going for siren this time. If I wanted to snag myself a billionaire, I would totally play the siren,” she had said earlier.
She accepts his hand before saying, “Thank you.”
Jeremiah grins down at her. “My pleasure.”
She flips her hair over her shoulder and thrusts her chest out just the slightest bit, but Jeremiah knows the drill so he lets his eyes fall to that region and lingers for a few seconds longer than he would have normally. “I’m Holly. Holly Robinson. I work up in engineering,” she points upwards to the floor above them.
“Jeremiah Valeska.”
Her eyes go impressively wide and a wider smile creeps over her lip, he can almost see dollar signs in her eyes and he has to stop himself from laughing. They should sell tickets, Selina is amazing.
They collect her papers and he walks her up to her desk, the accountants got enough of a show, it’s time to put the performance on the road. They flirt and laugh and Selina places her hand on Jeremiah’s arm and shoulder and chest, playfully hitting. Jeremiah likes it, likes the human contact that has no meaning and no obligations. He likes to touch people, to flirt. He doesn’t get to do it very often but he thrives on it when he gets the chance and it’s basically the only time Selina will ever compliment him. So he milks it for all he’s got.
“This is my desk,” Holly/Selina says, placing her papers down and smiling a little smugly at the person across from her desk.
Jeremiah makes a small disappointed sound but pulls out her chair for her. She accepts with a throaty chuckle and peers up at him, angling her neck to emphasize her long throat and sharp collarbone.
“I’m sorry for knocking you over,” he says, bending at the waist to lean closer.
“If you’re always there to help me up, I wouldn’t mind laying on my back half my life,” Selina offers back, fluttering her eyes.
Overreaching, Jeremiah warns with his eyes but Selina laughs at him because she’s just starting to have fun. “So long, Ms. Robinson.”
“Please, call me Holly. Or Gorgeous. Either works fine for me.”
Jeremiah throws his head back and laughs. “What a coincidence. My name is also Gorgeous.”
“We must be fated.”
“Hm, something like that.” He takes a few steps back and waves goodbye.
She winks at him and twirls around in her chair to boot up her computer.
And with that, open communication has been established. No one will think twice when they see them lock eyes in silent understanding across a room, pass notes in the halls, whisper quietly in dark corners. People are entirely too easy to fool.
So when Jeremiah turns around and finds Bruce standing ten feet away, arms crossed and eyes dangerously narrowed, he wonders if they weren’t convincing enough and Bruce figured out something was wrong.
Jeremiah approaches Bruce with a small smile and pretends he doesn’t remember what happened the last time he saw the genius.
Bruce is scowling, first at Jeremiah, and then more pointedly in Selina’s direction. There’s a charged, angry, almost tangible black swirling aura around Bruce, and Jeremiah has a moment of fear that he figured out they are lying to him, for his own good, but Bruce never did take well to lying, whatever the intentions.
He looks almost murderous.
“Bruce,” he says, trying to direct Bruce’s attention onto him and away from Selina, who he could see had detected Bruce’s death glares and her hand was twitching in restraint, trying not to reach for her weapon. Selina really, really hates death glares, the hypocrite.
Bruce finally settles his eyes onto Jeremiah and it’s not any less intense than that night and the thumb and maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He glowers for a few moments longer before he says, “I’m hungry.”
Jeremiah blinks, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.
“I haven’t eaten since Saturday,” Bruce elaborates, arms still crossed tightly over his chest and his mouth forming into an almost pout.
“You, what? Fuck, Bruce!” He grabs Bruce’s arm and starts to drag him to the cafeteria. “You can’t do that. Do you want to collapse?” Jeremiah swears in Romani as the head down the stairs to the cafeteria. Bruce is surprisingly pliant under his fingers, actually, the fact that Bruce pointed out – voluntarily – he hadn’t eaten in days was suspicious, but Jeremiah files it away to think about later.
Jeremiah sits Bruce down at a large table in the corner of the nearly empty room and goes to order food. He brings back with him three sandwiches, one for him, two for Bruce, because Bruce hasn’t eaten in days, a large plate of fries, two fruit cups, and two cokes, and pushes the food close to Bruce.
“Eat,” he gestures, grabbing a fry and popping it in his mouth.
Bruce glowers at the Jeremiah, ignoring the food his arms crossed again. “We have a strict no-dating subordinates policy here at Wayne Enterprises.”
Jeremiah chokes on his fry and gulps down half of his coke to settle himself. Bruce just continues to glare, eyes so narrowed they lost all semblance of color and are now black slits of anger, no, something a bit more petty than anger.
“I would appreciate it if you would uphold the standards of professionalism when you’re here and follow our policies. Or I’ll have to inform Lucius.”
Bruce lifts a brow like that’s a really horrible threat and to Bruce, it is because it means nagging and distraction from work and not getting everything he wants, but to Jeremiah, it means talking to someone not insane.
Jeremiah settles back in his chair and opens his mouth a little when he realizes what’s going on. Bruce is, somehow, for some reason, jealous. He smiles and doesn’t even try to contain the little thrill of delight that bubbles up from his stomach into his chest, because Bruce is thinking about him, and Bruce doesn’t want his attention drifting elsewhere, and maybe now Bruce knows what it felt like when Ra's fucking al Ghul was always hanging around and maybe Jeremiah is going to torture Bruce. Just a little. He needs to put his psychological training to use sometime.
Jeremiah shrugs. “I’m not an employee of Wayne Enterprises if you’ll recall.”
Bruce’s scowl deepens. “You’re a shareholder. It’s close enough.”
Jeremiah smirks and throws his arm over the back of his chair. “Nice try. Now eat your food.”
Bruce remains stubborn and silent.
Jeremiah leans closer. “Do I need to feed you myself?”
Bruce quirks his lips and shrugs his head to the side in challenge.
“Eat the damn food, Bruce.”
“Abide by our policies, Miah.”
“It’s not a crime to flirt.”
“It’s sexual harassment,” Bruce sneers like he even cares about public relations and lawsuits and like Ra's al Ghul had always behaved with professionalism.
“You used to idealize that kind of behavior,” Jeremiah spits out before he can stop himself and okay, maybe this conversation is turning a bit ugly, but Bruce started it.
Bruce always started it.
Bruce shifts his eyes uncomfortably. “Ra's is no longer a valued member of this company.”
Jeremiah scoffs. “He’s still a shareholder. Just like me.”
“I said he wasn’t a valued member.”
“And I am?”
“Yes,” Bruce says it with an overtone of duh and Jeremiah slumps against his chair in defeat. “What don’t you understand about that?”
“I don’t understand anything about the way you think.” Jeremiah flails his hands in frustration.
He pauses and stares at Bruce, trying to convey his annoyance and vexation, and yes, his chagrin, he has a lot of chagrin, buckets full. He’s never before felt so much chagrin and okay, that’s a really funny word, he needs to stop thinking it before he starts to smile because that would totally undermine his glare.
“Just…eat your food.”
Bruce picks up his sandwich but doesn’t break eye contact with Jeremiah. “I’ll have Lucius brief you on our policies. There’s no dating. Clothes must be worn at all times.”
Jeremiah throws a fry at Bruce.
It becomes the norm for Jeremiah to pop in at Bruce’s office every day. Once in the morning to bring him breakfast and make sure he’s wearing fresh clothes, and then at lunch.
They talk and eat together like old times and Lucius soon joins in on their mini-hang-outs and eventually James too when Bruce decides his exile is over, “I still don’t even know what I did!” James whines.
Jeremiah coughs and unconsciously rubs his lips with the back of his hand.
It also becomes Jeremiah’s very enjoyable habit of waving to Selina when he reaches the engineering level. Especially in view of Bruce, who can see them through his glass pane office, why most of the offices in Wayne Enterprises have so many glass panes and so few walls, Jeremiah will never be able to figure out. Sometimes he even stops by to chat with her, and maybe he leans really close and laughs with her.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Miah?” Selina hisses with false cheer through her teeth locked in a grin.
Jeremiah’s eyes twinkle. “I’m enjoying the fringe benefits of my job.” He bops Selina’s nose and listens with delight when he hears James curse and try to restrain Bruce.
“You’re making my life a living hell.” Selina glances beside her and then tilts close to Jeremiah’s ear. “Wayne stands at my desk and tries to stare me down, you know. I can’t get any real work done. He has a trace on my computer activity.”
Jeremiah smiles and tilts his head back-and-forth. “Not my problem.”
“It’s going to be. Because I’m going to kill the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and you’re going to have to explain how you let that happen, Mr. Team Leader.”
“Now, now. Violence is never the answer.” He pats her knee before lifting off her desk and waving goodbye. “See you around, Holly.”
“Always a pleasure, Miah~”
He stops by Bruce’s office one day and pauses at the door to listen to the heated conversation already underway.
“You can’t fire her for no reason.”
“I have very good reasons. She’s not a good fit for Wayne Enterprises. I don’t like her. They wear the same necklace, James.”
“I don’t care if they have the same fucking hairstyle, she’s a fucking fantastic engineer.”
Jeremiah peers across to Selina and finds that she is, in fact, wearing their team family necklace. He curses their slip, reluctantly unhooking the jewelry and dropping it into his pocket. He catches Selina’s eyes and gestures to his neck.
She glances down at her neck and seems to realize what he’s getting at. She looks genuinely sad for a moment before she disengages the hook and shoves the necklace into her bag.
It was a bad slip. They should have known better, they do know better, but somehow it hurts to draw that line, to divide who they are from who they play. It’s selfish and stupid, but they want people to acknowledge that they’re a family, to legitimize the one bond they were able to maintain over the years. They’ve all been betrayed and used but now they have each other, they’re not alone.
Jeremiah prays their cover isn’t blown, that Bruce will notice the absence of the necklaces and let it go. Because he wants to stay here, he wants to follow this through. It’s more than just saving the world, trivial matters, or saving Wayne Enterprises, a little more than trivial.
Jeremiah doesn’t want to lose this, doesn’t want to lose afternoons discussing who would win in a fight between Chewbacca and The Hulk and if Bruce could become Batman. He doesn’t want to lose easy laughter and high-fives from James in the halls. He doesn’t want to lose the ability to pretend this is how they ended up, that he was never pushed out of Wayne Enterprises, that Bruce was always his best friend, that this was what they were supposed to be.
He’ll have to leave one day, and move on to Italy or Brazil or Nigeria. But he can hang on here, for a little while longer. When he says goodbye to Bruce for the last time, he’ll be ready. Just not yet.
Not now. Please.
They’re all eating lunch together again. Bruce is working and ignoring them for the most part, but Jeremiah is content because Bruce will pause and take a bite to eat every time he nudges him with his foot, and James has long ago stopped being amused by this, especially when he figured out only Jeremiah’s foot would cause the pause-eat-resume occurrence.
“How the hell can he tell?” Lucius asks when they experiment, everyone crowding behind Bruce’s desk chair, Jeremiah and James alternating their kicks from different positions.
James and Lucius are engaging him in a lively debate about whether Eye of the Tiger is more motivating than The Imperial March.
“No, no, you’re not getting it,” James whines, flailing his chopsticks at them and ignoring his plate of sushi. “The Imperial March is like a freaking bazooka of motivation. Darth Vader is coming. DARTH VADER. What else do you need?”
“Um, maybe something that will actually motivate me and not make me terrified for my life?” Jeremiah answers. “Eye of the Tiger makes you feel like you can do it, you know? You’re starring in your own fucking boxing movie.”
“DARTH VADER, Miah.” James looks disgusted.
“You’re an idiot, James,” Lucius chimes in, siding with Jeremiah. “What does Star Wars have to do with real life?”
“I don’t even know you.”
Bruce chuckles silently but the others don’t seem to notice, he’s wearing his headphones but Jeremiah has noticed that he turns the music off during their extended lunches, a fact he keeps to himself like it’s precious knowledge shared only between the two of them. It’s nostalgic and oddly thrilling.
Jeremiah grins and nudges his knee. “Eat.”
Bruce doesn’t look away from his screen but hums his consent, pausing-eating-resuming.
Jeremiah’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he reaches down to retrieve it, a smile still playing on his lips. It doesn’t last long, though, because the text is from Selina.
‘suspicious activity in PR. going 2 check, sit tight.’
Jeremiah frowns and shifts anxiously in his seat.
He doesn’t like it when Selina goes off on her own, but he knows he has to maintain appearances. It would look really bad if he left right now, what with the CEO of Wayne Enterprises looking at him intensely right now, whoa, when did Bruce look up from his computer?
“Everything alright?” Bruce asks quietly, and slightly awkwardly like the words are foreign on his tongue.
Jeremiah throws on a fake smile and waves his hand in dismissal. “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.” He places his phone beside him on the arm of his chair. “Did you finish your grapes?”
Bruce makes a face and resumes his work. “Sorry, didn’t catch that, I’m locked in,” Bruce says pointing to his headphones.
“Sure you are.”
Jeremiah fidgets for a couple more minutes, joining half-heartedly in Lucius and James’s next squabble, and really, he doesn’t know who the best My Little Pony is, so he chooses the one with rainbow hair because, shit man, she has rainbow hair. His phone vibrates again and he snatches it up before the first notification ends.
‘u need 2 c this’
He’s out of his chair in half a second, heading out the door.
“Miah?” Bruce looks anxious, his fingers hovering awkwardly over his keyboard. James and Lucius are silent and look confused.
“No, it’s fine, I’ll be right back.” He waves his hand. “Continue.”
“What’s wrong?”
Jeremiah makes a face. “Bathroom, okay?”
Bruce doesn’t look convinced but James scrunches up his face. “Ew, dude, I’m eating.”
Jeremiah leaves before there are more questions, jogging down to the public relations department. He finds Selina typing furiously at a computer, cursing loudly, eyes flitting rapidly across the screen. People are squawking at her but she ignores them valiantly. He shares a look with them like “what the hell, crazy woman!” before he approaches her.
He places a soft hand on her back to alert her to his presence. “What’s up?” he whispers.
“They’re live. Right now. They gained access from the inside but I’m battling someone from the outside. Fuck.” She hits a combination of keys in a blur, a pattern repeated two or three times.
“Jonathan’s on but they’re blocking him at every turn.” She glances up at him quickly, fingers still typing frantically. “They know we’re here. They’ve detected us.”
“Shit.”
“I’m afraid they – ” She stops short, attention drawn back to the screen. “Shit, shit, shit, we’re losing them!”
Jeremiah rubs her back encouragingly.
The computer screen goes blank and Selina swears and picks up the keyboard to smash before Jeremiah catches her. “Hey, hey, hey, we don’t need you fired.”
She bounds from the chair and paces away, “Shit.”
Jeremiah takes her arm and directs her outside to a terrace quite lovely, with trees and flowers and benches. No one would ever say Wayne Enterprises was shabby.
“Hey, calm down.”
“I can’t fucking calm down, Miah.” She runs a hand through her hair, her eyes manic.
Jeremiah’s heart is starting to pound a little faster. He’s only ever seen Selina like this three times before, and each time her life had been in serious, immediate danger.
“What’s wrong? Tell me, I need to know.”
She stills and looks him in the eye, her eyes wide with terror. “They knew who I was, Miah. They knew.”
His heart literally stops beating before it goes into overdrive. “What, what do you mean they – ”
“Every hacker has their own style. Their own preference. There are many similarities, but not with me. I made mine up myself. It’s complicated and plethoric and I’ve been told many times I need to change it. No one in their right mind would do it my way. But I like it and it works, and as such, no one blocks for it. It has the element of surprise.”
She’s started to hyperventilate so Jeremiah makes her sit on the bench and he runs for a water bottle. He returns quickly and finds Selina with her head on her knees, rocking back and forth. He clears his throat to alert her and she lifts her head. She takes the proffered bottle and drinks half of it in one go.
“Miah.” Her voice is smaller than usual but it sounds calmer now. “Miah, they coded in such a way that – they only blocked for two styles, Miah. Mine. And Jonathan’s.” Her eyes are almost watering, almost. “They know.”
Jeremiah’s mind takes off and he’s formulating strategies and what-ifs at lightning speed. His phone is by his ear before he even has a chance to think of it.
“Ecco, are you at base? Yeah, no, I need you to check the grounds, check the area, check fucking everywhere. I need an all-clear and I need it now. If you cannot guarantee it, we’re moving out immediately.” He pauses for a split second. “Stay safe.”
He hangs up and dials the director’s emergency number. He explains the situation in code and as quickly as he can. “I need to evacuate my team, ma'm.”
“I cannot authorize that without solid proof.”
“They fucking planned for us, in specific Selina and Jonathan. It’s a set-up.”
“You do not have permission to evacuate. Keep an eye on the situation and report as usual.”
“Sir – ”
“These are top orders, Valeska.”
Jeremiah curses and stuffs his phone back into his pocket. He turns back to Selina and she looks a lot calmer. She looks calmer, but he knows her mask is in place and that scares him more.
She keeps her head diverted from him but she stands and flips her hair over her shoulder. “I’m going back to work.”
She starts to walk past him but he grabs her arm and guides it under his. “We’re taking the rest of the day off. Let’s go get your things.”
She stares at him blankly. “Our cover will be – ”
“We’ll say you felt light-headed and I was being a perfect gentleman and offered to drive you home. No big deal.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m not. Take me home?” Jeremiah has gotten her to the stairs and she stares at him for a few seconds more.
She finally nods. “Okay. Fine.”
They enter the engineering department and Bruce is standing in his office, hovering near his office door. When he sees them, he bolts out and towards them, Lucius and James trailing after him.
Jeremiah grimaces but pushes Selina to her desk and walks toward Bruce and the gang.
Bruce is glowering again and his eyes are narrow, judgmental slits, penetrating with a force only he can muster.
Jeremiah is tired and worried sick and he’s not quite sure he can deal with Bruce being Bruce right now.
“What were you doing? With her?” Bruce nods pointedly to Selina.
“Nothing. I met her on my way back. She’s not feeling well, I think she might have the flu. I’m going to drive her home, okay?”
“No, that is not okay. You can’t just do that with female subordinates, Miah. Right, Lucius? I will not have you bring another lawsuit down on my company.”
There are so many things wrong with that sentence, another lawsuit, my company, Bruce ordering his life like he always has, but Jeremiah cannot deal with it right now so he only lets out a mirthless laugh – hollow and grim – and shakes his head.
“Not now, Bruce.” He paces to Bruce’s office to grab his suit jacket, throwing it on quickly.
“Bruce’s right. Relationships between employees and shareholders are a PR nightmare, Miah,” Lucius tries to reason, his voice deliberately soft and unimposing, he’s good at his job.
“There’s no relationship and I’m driving her home.”
“Like hell you are,” Bruce spits out, stalking past him and towards Selina, who’s holding her purse by her side limply and staring blankly ahead.
“Bruce!” Jeremiah knows that face. He knows that Bruce is teeming with scathing insults and is ready to rip right into Selina. And Selina would be more than willing to give as good as she got, except not now. Not when she’s been discovered by the mole, targeted, taunted. Not when they don’t know how Jonathan is coping if he’s safe. Not when they don’t know if Ecco has been discovered yet, or if a sniper has entered the base and she’s lying there cold on the floor.
There’s so much he doesn’t know, so many people he needs to protect right now, he can’t let the minutes tick away like this because Bruce is feeling petty and jealous and wants to yell.
He runs after Bruce, catching up quickly, and grabs his arm tightly. He spins him around to look directly in his face, breathing hard and unevenly. “Not now, Bruce.”
He squeezes Bruce’s arm tighter, and he knows his eyes must appear wide and desperate but he doesn’t care about his mask right now. He cares about protecting his family and keeping Bruce out of this mess because if Bruce became the next target he’s not sure he would be able to handle more of the scorching panic that’s burning a hole through his stomach. “Please,” he adds.
Bruce is frozen in shock for a moment, before he nods numbly, expression closed-off and void.
Jeremiah releases him quickly and bounds down the stairs, Selina hot on his heels.
Ecco is biting her nails and pacing the entryway when they arrive. She immediately enfolds Selina into a tight hug, and Selina struggles but Ecco is having none of it.
“Jonathan told me everything.” She pats Selina’s hair and leads her into the living room.
The task force is there, making the room seem small and confined.
Jonathan is sipping a cup of tea, looking uncomfortable but alright.
Jeremiah immediately goes to him and crouches in front of him.
“Are you alright?”
Jonathan locks eyes with Jeremiah and smiles reassuringly, “I wasn’t. For a bit there, I wasn’t. But I’m okay now. H-how’s Selina?”
Jeremiah sighs in relief and ruffles Jonathan’s hair. “She’ll be alright.”
Jonathan smiles and nods. “Okay. Good.”
They start the briefing. It seems as though the mole has figured out Selina, but they are unsure about Jonathan. Jonathan’s default style is more common and straight-forward, he’s a purist, and runs his lines with efficiency and finesse. It’s incredibly useful when they’re pressed for time but easily blocked if the someone takes the time to reinforce their method.
For now, they decide that Jonathan should continue his work but modify his style, and Selina will shift her focus off of the computer analysis and more onto field work. She protests violently at first because now she’s calmed down and is angry as fuck, she really might kill someone, until Jeremiah reminds her that she’s a secondary agent and her objective is surveillance, not hacking.
Jeremiah concludes the meeting and draws Eduardo aside quieting in the kitchen.
“What’s up, little buddy?”
Jeremiah reaches in the fridge for a beer and ignores the “little buddy” remark. “I want to thank you for all your support and cooperation.”
Eduardo punches him in the shoulder and Jeremiah almost reels back into the stove before catching himself. “It’s a pleasure working with you guys.”
“I just wanted to let you know…” Jeremiah sighs and gulps his beer. “For now we’re sticking where we are. But if there’s another slip, if I feel for one second that we’ve been compromised, I’m going to defy orders.” He looks Eduardo straight in the eye.
“It might get messy and I want to warn you. You might be ordered to subdue us. And if that happens, Eduardo. We’re not going to show any mercy.”
Eduardo blinks at him for a moment before he throws his head back and laughs. “I like you, Jerri. You’re okay.”
Jeremiah cringes at the nickname but manages a smile. “Yeah. You too.”
The next morning Jeremiah does not even have time to pop into Bruce’s office with breakfast before he comes across Lucius, looking anxious and harassed waiting for him.
“Good morning, Lucius,” Jeremiah starts, unlocking his office and allowing Lucius inside.
Lucius nods and follows him in, taking a tentative seat at his desk. “I, uh.” He sighs and looks up at Jeremiah, swallowing before putting on a professional face. “Look, I know you’re only here for a short amount of time, and you’re not directly working for Wayne Enterprises, but there are some behaviors that are still really inappropriate.”
Jeremiah rubs his face and falls into his chair. “Yesterday was the exception, okay? I just drove her home, that’s all.”
“To your home.”
Jeremiah freezes and drops his hand from his face. “What did you – ”
Lucius sighs and throws an envelope onto the desk. “It’s all in there. Miah, really, I expect more from you. Do you know how bad this would make Wayne Enterprises look if it got out?”
Jeremiah’s hands are shaking when he reaches for the envelope. He opens it quickly and dumps the contents out on his desk. A series of pictures of him with Selina, in his car, at the office, at his home.
He feels cold invade his veins, flow through his arms and legs, numbing his body, except for his mind. His mind is racing and won’t slow down long enough for him to identify one thought clearly. He can’t hear what Lucius is saying something about policies and discretion and signing an agreement or something.
“Where.” His voice is dry and cracks and his lips can’t form words properly. He swallows and tries again. “Where did you get this?”
Lucius shifts and diverts his eyes. “It’s really not a big deal but we need to be careful – ”
“Who hired the PI?” Jeremiah tightens his hold on the pictures, crumpling them in his hands. “Was it Bruce? Of fucking course it was Bruce.” He bolts out of his chair, racing up the stairs and heading straight to Bruce’s office. “Bruce!” he calls out and it’s so familiar, that sick feeling in his stomach, that whirring chant in his head no no no Bruce no why why no please no.
“Bruce!” he calls even more loudly because that’s what he did last time and it feels appropriate, even necessary.
He pushes through Bruce’s office door. Bruce peers up and disengages his headphones this time, and maybe he’s learned over the years that you have to face confrontations, you can’t ignore it and work and pretend it’s not happening.
His face is blank and unapologetic and just a little challenging, and it really, really feels like all those years ago.
Jeremiah flings the photos at Bruce’s face and he doesn’t care if it’s a tad overdramatic, he is livid and just a little terrified.
If the wrong people saw those photos, if anyone mentioned those photos to the wrong people, they would irreversibly damage him and his team, at best it meant separation from the team who had become his only home. At worst, they could all die. For all he knew, these photos were the reason why the mole had detected Selina.
His hands shake by his sides but his voice is deadly calm. “What the fuck is this, Bruce?”
Bruce blinks at him slowly before glancing down at the photos, like he didn’t know what they were. He arranges them idly on the desk for a moment before locking his eyes with Jeremiah, voids so cold they glimmer.
“I think maybe you should be the one to answer that question.”
“You had me followed, Bruce.”
“For good reason, apparently.”
Jeremiah wants to yell, to scream, to hurt Bruce just like how he’s hurting right now. Bruce doesn’t get it, doesn’t realize that he’s taking Jeremiah’s life away from him again, wrenching away every good and beautiful thing he’s ever created on his own. Like it wasn’t even his, to begin with.
Instead, Jeremiah looks straight at Bruce, ascertains that he has his full attention, focused and intoxicating and so electrifying he feels it through his blood.
He lays his hands flat on Bruce’s desk and leans close. He says very clearly, very slowly, pleading with his eyes, “Bruce. I need you to trust me. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s nothing. Let it go, Bruce. Trust me for once in your life. I think I’ve earned that. Just once. Please.”
Bruce seems frozen, but there’s a change in his eyes, a softening of his expression. He blinks several times, glances away for a few moments before going back to Jeremiah. He clears his throat quickly and nods very slightly. “Yeah, okay.”
Jeremiah huffs out a disbelieving breath. “Okay? Bruce, really?”
Bruce shifts away from his gaze and starts to type on his keyboard again. “Yeah. I’ll call it off.” He peers awkwardly at Jeremiah before returning to his screen quickly.
Jeremiah smiles, relief and something entirely too close to happy bubbling up from his stomach and into his chest. He rounds Bruce’s desk and turns his chair around to face him.
Bruce is startled and his hands are hovering mid-air like there’s an invisible keyboard in front of him. Jeremiah thinks he looks adorable and he laughs and grabs Bruce’s face between his hands. “Thank you,” he utters and before he can even think about what he’s doing, he leans down and plants his lips on Bruce’s.
It’s quick and brief and he hardly has the chance to process the feeling, cold and softer than he imagined, but so solid and safe and welcoming, before he pulls away, shocked at his own actions.
He places a hand over his lips, his eyes wide and apologetic. “I – Sorry, I – ”
Bruce is just staring at him, his mouth having fallen open and he’s gaping at Jeremiah like Jeremiah is from another planet and what has he done, he’s ruined a perfectly good almost-friendship with a stupid thank you gone wrong and he needs to leave. Right now.
He spins on his heel, hand still placed firmly over his lips, but stops when he feels Bruce’s hand grab tightly onto his wrist but neither moves to look at the other. Before either has the chance to muster up enough courage, Lucius enters the room and glares at them in exasperation.
“The entire fucking engineering department and half of accounting are watching this little drama you’re putting on,” he bemoans. “James is twitting about it like a madman.”
Bruce’s fingers slip from Jeremiah’s wrist and he turns back to his computer silently. Jeremiah clears his throat and murmurs a quiet apology, escaping the office quickly.
He pointedly ignores Selina’s Look and urns his phone off when Ecco starts to text him. He can take down entire nations but he doesn’t think he has the mental maturity to deal with what just happened.
No, Jeremiah is an awkward twelve-year-old and he’s going to stay that way, thank you very much.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s cliché and predictable, but Bruce and Jeremiah avoid each other. It’s also quite hilarious according to James and Ecco and Jeremiah prays fervently that they never, ever meet, like, ever. It will lead to the end of civilization, he just knows it.
Thankfully he doesn’t have much time to dwell on…what happened, his lips on Bruce’s, wondering what Bruce’s skin under his hands would feel like, what if Bruce had opened his mouth…
They’re closing in on the mole and have narrowed down the suspect pool considerably.
Selina and Jeremiah spend their time at the offices watching the people high on their suspicious list.
Ecco trails people after hours and spends her days building new hiding places for weapons at the Wayne Enterprises offices, and no one seems to notice her lurking about because she genuinely looks lost all the time.
Jonathan is making slow progress on his traces but he’s ruled out several dummy IP addresses.
Life is going well and he finds it within himself to gather his courage and see Bruce. He buys a copious amount of food for lunch and heads up to Bruce’s office, except when he gets there, the office is empty. He can’t even find James or Lucius on the floor. It’s disconcerting and he sets the food on Bruce’s desk, leaning against a chair and frowning.
Something is wrong, something is so terribly wrong that he isn’t surprised when his phone rings. It’s his regular ringtone, not the one for texts, and he feels a deep sense of dread settle in his stomach when he sees Jonathan’s name on the display. He searches for Selina quickly outside of Bruce’s office, but she’s there, typing and working as usual.
He answers the phone. “What is it?”
“I hope you’re at your computer right now,” Jonathan sounds anxious and heartbreakingly hopeful, like an answer in the negative would shatter him.
“Why, what’s wrong?” Jeremiah is already out of the office and heading down to his own. He shakes his head as Selina stands to follow him.
“Please tell me you’re at your computer.”
“I’m not. Jonathan, what the fuck is going on?”
“Shit,” Jonathan curses and Jeremiah stops abruptly on the stairs because Jonathan never swears. “They’re in your system. The mole is in your computer and leaking and shit, Miah. Someone’s shutting it down from the inside – ”
Jeremiah takes the rest of the stairs three at a time, hoping against hope that what he suspects isn’t true, but when he reaches the accounting department, he can see James and Lucius and Bruce there. Bruce is frantically typing at Jeremiah’s computer, James and Lucius over his shoulders, James pointing ever so often and yelling something.
Jeremiah closes his eyes for a split second, blocking out what is happening, blocking out what will happen, blocking out what he has to leave far before he was ever ready to. He gathers himself and opens his eyes, now distant and steely strong and liquid copper. He enters his office. “What’s going on?”
Lucius and James look up at him, faces shocked and he doesn’t know how he does it, but he keeps his eyes strong and unwavering betrayed.
“How.” James opens and closes his mouth, his cheeks are heated and his eyes are watery. “How could you? It was you? It was you all along?”
“What are you – ”
“The leaks, Miah! The fucking leaks! You’re trying to destroy Wayne Enterprises.” James’s voice cracks and he chokes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob. “All the weird behavior, why you showed up here so suddenly! You just wanted fucking revenge!”
Jeremiah swallows slowly, his worst fears confirmed. The mole set him up, made it look like he was the source. And there was no way he could explain away his behavior. It was brilliant, he could admit that.
James charges toward him and grabs his collar. “What the FUCK, Valeska? Do we mean that little to you?” He shakes Jeremiah harshly. “Valeska!”
Jeremiah holds James’s gaze, he knows he will regret this, that he’ll see those eyes wide and watery with betrayal when he closes his own, when he tries to sleep, etched into his mind to spring up whenever he thinks he’s forgotten.
He says quietly and softly to James, “I didn’t do it.”
But there’s nothing he can do, no one he can appeal to. He has to accept their rebukes, has to sacrifice, always sacrifices, always selflessness, always giving when no one can appreciate just what he gave up on.
Lucius is beside him, disengaging James’s fingers from Jeremiah’s now wrinkled suit. “I think you should leave now, Jeremiah.” Lucius’s voice is tight and controlled and so very distant, so unlike the Lucius Jeremiah’s known for years.
Jeremiah backs away and nods slowly. He glances one last time at Bruce, still typing furiously at the keyboard, like this is another assignment he has to complete before the deadline, like this is a drunken bet as to how fast he can hack the security of their college servers, like this isn’t his life on the line, like Jeremiah isn’t walking out of his life for good, forever or maybe that’s what gives him that sense of calm, that controlled frost.
“Bruce,” he calls out quietly, almost unconsciously. Bruce freezes for one split second, unnoticeable to everyone but Jeremiah because only Jeremiah knows Bruce as he does, his eyes shift to Jeremiah’s direction but do not lift to actually see him. Jeremiah feels a deep hollow of regret but maybe it’s for the best. Maybe Bruce is sparing him hours of penitence, maybe it’s best that he will never be able to conjure up what Bruce looks like when he’s been utterly and completely destroyed, abandoned.
And then Bruce has focused on the screen in front of him again and Jeremiah is being escorted out of the building, but this time Lucius takes him and they spare him the humiliation of security guards. One last kindness to end their friendship with.
Selina has come down to find out what is happening. She goes to approach them but he shakes his head at her. They need her there. She’s the only link left to save Wayne Enterprises, to save Lucius and James and Bruce and all they used to be but will never experience again.
And then he’s in his car, speeding down the highway, away from Wayne Enterprises, away from what his life could have been, should have been. He muttering under his breath and he doesn’t even comprehend what it is like his mind is broken and the various parts of his body are working in isolation of each other.
His hand is firm and solid on the gear shift and his foot is like lead on the accelerator. He wants to go, go fast and blinding and maybe if he goes fast enough he can reverse the rotation of the earth and undo all of this.
He’s racing down the freeway, weaving between cars that won’t move. What the fuck is their problem? He knows there is pavement and sky and civilization in front of him but all he can see is James’s eyes, betrayed and hurting and broken, and Lucius’s stiff expression, closed and distant and dismissive, and Bruce, bent over the computer, frantic, focused, frozen and shifting and he will never look at Jeremiah again.
“Fuck.” Jeremiah pulls over to the side of the road, swerving to a sudden stop, dust flying around the Audi. He’s reaching for his phone, which has been ringing non-stop since he left the offices, and dials the director’s number and exits his car because it’s suddenly stifling and small and he can’t breathe anymore.
And apparently not only does the director know about the set-up, but the director had also known about it for hours before it even took place.
Jeremiah’s voice is incredulous when he says, “You knew? You fucking knew and you let it happen?”
“There’s more at stake here than you realize. We took a calculated risk.”
“And did it pay off? It didn’t, did it? Do you know why? BECAUSE IT WAS A FUCKING SET-UP TO GET ME OUT OF THERE.”
“It was an official decision. You are an agent of the CIA, you should remember that. If you need to debrief, we have psychologists available for your – ”
“Fuck off, Tabitha.”
“Excuse me?”
He runs a hand over his face and kicks his tire in frustration. “You don’t even know what you did. I’m not there anymore, ma’m. Wayne Enterprises is exposed. Selina is alone in the field and you don’t even fucking care, do you?”
“We’re working on sending in a supporting operative for her but in the meantime – ”
“In the meantime, she could die. No. I’m not following your orders anymore.”
“That’s high treason, Valeska.”
“Yeah, well, it won’t be the first time.”
And he throws his phone into incoming traffic because that’s so much more satisfying than touching a small button on the touchscreen and he has a habit of breaking electronics when he’s enraged. Several cars pummel it to itty bitty pieces and it’s just a little magnificent. He slumps against his car, hip resting on the hood, finding his breath again.
He tries not to think that, just a few weeks ago, he would have welcomed this development with open arms.
The first thing Jeremiah does when he gets back to base is inform his team that he is, in fact, committing treason and while he would love their support, he doesn’t want them involved.
“Screw you,” Ecco spits out at the same time that she wraps Jeremiah into a suffocating hug. “I will never ever leave you, my squishy. You will always be my squishy.”
Jeremiah smiles and pats her back, glancing over to Jonathan who is sitting on the couch. “You let Ecco watch Finding Nemo again?”
She shakes her head against his chest and blindly reaches her hand up to awkwardly cover his mouth. “Shh shh sh, Squishy must not talk.”
Jonathan glares at him, though it’s an unfamiliar expression on his baby face so it looks closer to constipation, but Jeremiah has too much tact to mention that. His arms are crossed. “No. We’re a team, right? We’re a family. Screw the Agency, this is where my loyalty lies.”
Selina is still at the office but she’s glued to her phone, hissing quietly into the room through the speakerphone function on their landline, “I will kill you if you cut me out right now, you fucking bastard.”
Jeremiah’s throat catches with something he does not know how to articulate something about trust and family and finally being there, finding it, giving and receiving unconditional love. Instead, he says, “Watch your language at work, Lina.”
“You’ve gone rogue, you’re not team leader anymore.”
“I will always be the team leader. And going rogue gives me cool points which means I still get to boss you around.”
“He’s right, you know,” Ecco muffles into Jeremiah, arms still tight around his torso.
“Ecco, stop hugging him. He doesn’t deserve it and your breasts are probably suffocating him,” Selina orders because she lost and she’s grumpy.
“Well if he has to die somehow, I think that’s the way he’d want to go.” She smiles up at Jeremiah. “Right?”
Jeremiah bops her nose and grins all the way into his eyes. “Right.”
They quickly set to work. Jonathan traces the feed and tries to find any other secrets the Agency has been keeping from them. Ecco does a sweep for surveillance throughout the base and the Audi, gleefully bidding goodbye to Big Brother before stomping them under her booted feet. She also runs into the house declaring at the top of her lungs that she found the laser in the Audi. “No no! Don’t tell me!” Jonathan moans, covering his ears and yelling “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.” He wants to find it himself.
Selina stays at the office, monitoring the situation, the leak stopped fairly quickly because it was never meant to be a source of data. It was meant to kick Jeremiah out of the offices, but Bruce and James are still camping out in Jeremiah’s old office, fiddling with the computer and cursing loudly.
Lucius apparently pops in every once in a while, a frown permanently creasing his brows
“Do you have to be so descriptive, Lina?” Jeremiah asks in a tight voice.
`Once most of the office goes home, she will sneak Jeremiah back into the office, they need to retrieve the cameras he hid in his office and place some extra tracers in the computers before they go off the grid.
They received a text from Eduardo informing them that they have about twelve hours before he had to exterminate their operation. He made it very clear that for the next twelve hours, Eduardo and his team would be way, waaaaay over on the other side of town. Practically in the next city over. And totally not moving from that spot for twelve full hours.
It’s two in the morning when Jeremiah waits by the back door of the Wayne Enterprises offices for Selina. He’s dressed in a dark navy suit because, despite popular belief, pure black is actually very noticeable. Navy, on the other hand, blends perfectly into the night background and feels for his gun tucked into the small of his back. Selina opens the door very slowly, muting any creaks it makes and ushering him in quickly.
“I was only able to disable the bottom two floors’ security cameras. Your good friend James interrupted my work. He was going through the footage from earlier today last thing I checked.”
Jeremiah frowns at her. “Why is he going through the footage?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Selina checks around a corner before waving Jeremiah forward with her. “Maybe they’re making you a goodbye montage.”
Jeremiah sighs. “Can we not joke about that?”
Selina pauses and catches his eye. She clears her throat. “Sorry,” she says awkwardly because she doesn’t apologize and she’s not entirely sure how to go about it.
Jeremiah nods and they continue on.
“Wayne is still on your computer. I would say he’s searching for previous leaks but he should be done with that by now.” She pauses again. “I think he might—”
“Yeah, no, we’re not going to speculate on him right now. Please.”
Selina nods and they creep up the stairs to the top floor. “I don’t know how we’ll get into your office but I think a wait-and-see approach will suffice. The only wildcard is Fox, who I haven’t seen for a couple hours. Logic dictates he went home.”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows. “You disagree?”
“Logic is a bitch sometimes. Logic dictates that you’re the mole.”
He frowns. “I get your point.”
They sneak down a hallway, heading to a workspace where they can plant a tracer since the workspace is shared between all the programmers, there’s less of a chance for discovery. They hear someone shuffling down the corridor around the corner and Jeremiah and Selina freeze, planting themselves at the side of the wall. Selina shakes her head because no one was supposed to be in that area. Jeremiah reaches behind his back to grab his gun, holding it taut and pointed at the ground, and he prays that it’s the mole so he can kick his ass and then shoot him and then kick him again. Provided the mole is a man. If not, repeat the same process with her.
Jeremiah lifts his gun and points it directly at the unknown assailant as they round the corner. “Stop right there.”
The assailant freezes and Selina flicks on her flashlight, shining it onto the unknown individual.
“What the, fuck Miah, why do you have a gun, oh shit - ”
Jeremiah’s eyes widen because it’s Lucius, he’s pointing his gun at Lucius, and does that mean Lucius is the mole? That doesn’t make any sense, Lucius would never do anything like that.
Lucius is saying something about workplace violence and Jeremiah really doesn’t need to do this, they can work something out and Jeremiah realizes he’s still holding his gun up, and that’s not good, that’s the opposite of good, that is very bad indeed.
He somehow musters up enough mental cognizance to lower his gun but he’s still staring blankly at Lucius and Lucius is still rambling about how violence is never the answer and his voice is going alarmingly high.
So they’re both extremely grateful when Selina swears low under her breath and pushes them both into the nearest room, locking the door behind her. She grabs Lucius by his shoulders, tells him to shut up, and forces him into a chair.
She turns to Jeremiah and grabs his gun away from him. “What the fuck is your problem? Why the hell did you draw your gun?”
Jeremiah gapes and says in a very petulant voice, “I thought it was the mole.”
“You don’t even know what the mole looks like, and it could have been anyone walking down the hall. Oh yeah, it was.”
“Mistakes were made,” Jeremiah starts.
“You call yourself a fucking agent?”
“I, um, sorry to interrupt but can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Lucius finally speaks up from his chair. He’s staring, lost and wide-eyed, at them both.
“Why does Miah have a gun? What is Miah even doing back here? And, uh, Holly, was it? What. Just…what?”
Selina sneers at Jeremiah and gestures to him dramatically. “Go ahead. Explain yourself.” She leans her hip onto the conference table and crosses her arms.
“Okay, obviously you’re not impressed with me at the moment but really? I don’t have a fucking explanation!” Jeremiah runs his hands through his hair and clenches them there.
“How about the truth? I’d kinda like that version please,” Lucius chimes.
Jeremiah purses his lips, looking from Selina to Lucius, then back to Selina. He groans when he figures out that no, Selina really is not going to help him right now, and maybe she’s enjoying this a little bit, the sadist.
He takes a seat opposite Lucius and explains the whole story from the beginning. How he was recruited shortly after he signed the lawsuit papers. How he trained and they set him up in Hong Kong. He skips over most of his missions, another story for another time.
He relates to Lucius the threat against Wayne Enterprises, how it’s more than just a hacker or someone with too much time on their hands. It’s serious enough to involve the CIA. Lucius stares at him almost unblinkingly but seems to take in most of what Jeremiah tells him.
“So…” Lucius holds up hand up in a stop position to make Jeremiah pause in his tale. “You’re…You’re an agent for the CIA. Like, the Central Intelligence Agency. You’re a spy.”
Jeremiah nods eagerly. “Yes.”
“And…” Lucius points to Selina behind Jeremiah. “And she’s your teammate.”
“Yeah, that’s Selina. Say ‘hi’ Selina.”
“No,” Selina responds, narrowing her lips into a thin line.
“She’s an absolute delight.”
“Shut up, Valeska.”
Jeremiah smiles slightly before it fades, resting his eyes on Lucius again. “I know this sounds so unreal and I don’t expect you to believe us but please give it some thought before dismissing it.”
Lucius holds his gaze a few moments longer. “No, uh. I believe you.”
“You do?” Jeremiah’s face lights up with hope.
Lucius smiles a little. “Yeah. To tell you the truth, I was kind of wondering if you got into something like that. Not the CIA, mind you, but, well, I went to Hong Kong one day, to visit you. And really, Miah? You should work on your cover, your office building doesn’t exist, and whoever is taking care of your apartment is doing a really bad job of it.”
They share a quiet laugh together and Jeremiah did not realize how heavy he felt before because now his shoulders are light and things don’t seem quite so bad. He locks eyes with Lucius. “Thank you.”
Lucius smiles and nudges Jeremiah’s shoulder with his hand. “You’re welcome.” He leans forward. “I still can’t believe you’re a spy, though. That’s so fucking cool.”
Jeremiah smirks and leans back in his chair, checking out his nails absently. “Hm, yeah. I guess.”
Selina kicks the back of his chair and he has to flail his arms to maintain his balance. He glares at her over his shoulder. She shrugs. “So cool, Mr. Spy Man.”
Lucius laughs and rubs his cheek with his hand. “James is going to freak out.”
“You can’t tell James,” Jeremiah says quickly.
“How the hell do I reinstate you if I can’t tell James?” Lucius narrows his eyes. “Or Bruce?”
Jeremiah rubs a hand over his face. “They can’t know, alright? I’ve put you in enough danger as it is.”
Lucius crosses his arms. “I don’t like this. Bruce needs to know. He at least needs to know about how serious the threat is.”
Jeremiah groans but Selina takes over for him. “We’re taking care of it. Wayne can’t do anything we can’t, and would, in fact, hinder our investigation.” She hops off the table and sidles up beside Lucius, leaning down slightly. “We also need your help with something.”
Lucius lifts an eyebrow.
“We need you to retrieve the surveillance cameras Miah has in his old office.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wayne seems content to stay there all night and we only have a few hours before we go off the grid.”
Lucius whips his head to Jeremiah. “You’re going off the grid?”
Jeremiah nods, leaning his head on his hand.
“Does that mean what it sounds like?”
Jeremiah nods again. “Looks like this is goodbye.”
Lucius swallows. “You’re sure you can’t stay here like you have been? Maybe we can figure out an explanation about what happened today…”
Selina sighs and places her hands on Lucius’s shoulder. “You’re going to miss Miah, I know, I get it. But the best way you can help him is to get us those cameras. Now.”
Lucius nods. “Okay. Where are they?”
“There’s one in the pot of planted mums I keep on my desk. That’s the one I need the most,” Jeremiah explains.
Lucius raises his eyebrows. “You want me to walk into that office and take your mums.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“With Bruce in that mood?”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of secret agents.”
Lucius sighs and stands. “Fine. Can I at least take your gun?”
“Sure,” Jeremiah agrees easily at the same time Selina sternly replies, “No.”
She glares at Jeremiah. “No.”
Jeremiah purses his lips and tilts his head apologetically at Lucius. “No,” he pouts, mouthing “sorry”.
Lucius laughs before schooling his features and opening the door.
He doesn’t get very far because James barrels through the door, eyes alight. “Lucius! Lucius WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” He enfolds Lucius in a hug.
Jeremiah and Selina immediately hide and they can see Lucius looking frantically around the room for them before he turns back to James, disengaging his arms. “I thought we had a talk about personal bubbles.”
“Lucius you’re always such a downer but I don’t even care, everything is wonderful again.” He tightens his hold on Lucius before finally letting him go. He bounces on his heels, face splitting with a grin. “Guess what, guess what, guess what??”
Lucius rubs his temple. “What? James, I really don’t – ”
“Miah is innocent!”
Lucius opens his mouth wide and Jeremiah has to swallow a surprised sound in the back of his throat. Was James listening in on them? That would be very, very bad.
“What – ”
James leans close to Lucius and claps his hands together in delight. “You see, just when the leak started, you know, when Miah had to have been the computer to set it up, he was nowhere in the building! He was getting lunch down the street. We have security footage of it!”
Lucius breaks into a huge grin. “So…you’re saying Miah is in the clear? And we don’t have to make up some ridiculous explanation like he works for the CIA or anything?”
James laughs. “Like Miah could work for the CIA. You’ve been up too long, Lucius, my dear friend.” He slings an arm around Lucius’s shoulders. “But dude, it was so brilliant. Bruce just wouldn’t let up. He had to work at it for hours, but he finally cut through the false starts and misdirections. He was brilliant, absolutely fucking genius.”
He starts to walk Lucius out of the conference room but pauses. “Oh, right. Bruce doesn’t want Miah knowing he was the one who figured it out, though.” James frowns. “Frankly he’s acting like a tool. Just between you and me?” He leans closer to Lucius and whispers very loudly, “I think he’s in love with Miah.”
Lucius pushes James’s face away from his ear. “Dude, personal bubbles. We talked about this.”
James takes Lucius’s rebuke in stride and skips happily down the hall. “I’m going to call Miah and let him know he can come in tomorrow morning. The fab four rules again!” He fist pumps the air, laughing as he retrieves his phone.
Selina turns quickly to Jeremiah. “Is your phone off?” she whispers hurriedly.
“Not exactly,” he answers.
“I hate it when you talk in riddles,” she warns him.
“It was on when I kind of threw it into oncoming traffic,” Jeremiah answers sheepishly.
She stares at him before shaking her head. “You’re such a fucking baby.”
“Miah?” Lucius whispers tentatively, breaking their conversation.
They reappear in front of Lucius and he jumps slightly. “Shit, that’s cool. And a little creepy. How did you guys disappear so fast?”
Jeremiah smirks. “It’s a spy thing.”
Lucius smiles. “So, you heard James. You can come back.” He looks hopeful and just a little too young to have gone through what he has. “Are you…can you stay and help us figure this whole thing out?”
Jeremiah turns to look at Selina but she shrugs. “Your call.”
Jeremiah grins. “Yeah. I think I’ll stick around a bit more.”
Lucius almost fist pumps. Almost
Once they have confirmed that Bruce has retreated back to his own office to presumably work for the rest of the early morning, and they talk Jeremiah out of kidnapping him and making him sleep for at least eight hours.
“He’s been up for far too long. You guys! Seriously, I can’t watch this!”
Jeremiah, Selina, and Lucius retrieve the surveillance footage from Jeremiah’s office.
Lucius bends and squints at the potted plant. “Where’s the camera? Seriously, I can’t see it anywhere.” Jeremiah smirks and overturns a leaf to reveal the camera, disguised as part of a stem. Lucius breathes out and runs his fingers lightly over it. “That is amazing.”
Jeremiah shrugs. “Benefits to being a super spy.”
They start talking animatedly about technology and gadgets and how it’s so damn cool that Jeremiah is a spy until Selina’s sneering reaches audible levels.
She grabs the plant and tugs Jeremiah by the ear. “We’re leaving. Now.”
She gets as far as the doorway, Jeremiah trailing obediently behind her, before she stops and glares over her shoulder. “Are you coming?” she demands impatiently towards Lucius.
Lucius jumps and his eyes widen slightly. He points at his chest. “Me?”
Selina glowers. “Is there someone else in my fucking eyeline?” She turns to Jeremiah.
“Your friends are delightful. I’ve never met such brilliant specimens,” she drones sarcastically, before marching out.
Jeremiah turns to Lucius, a little bemused. He shrugs and quirks his lips. “I think you just got invited over to my place for a sleepover.”
Lucius laughs, almost hysterically. “Will I be safe over there?” he asks, walking with Jeremiah down to the parking garage, both of them keeping a few feet behind Selina.
Jeremiah grins. “Most of us don’t bite. Only Selina.” He leans close to whisper, “She’s not so bad, though. She’s a lot like Bruce. But more violent. Much more violent.”
“That makes me feel so much better, Miah, thank you,” Lucius deadpans.
But Jeremiah just grins because Lucius is coming over to his place and he’s going to meet the team, and it’s like his two worlds are colliding together into one big awesome world, they should have a party to celebrate. With beer and balloons and pizza.
He can talk about that time they got lost in the middle of the desert, and they started to try to figure out where the hell they were and Ecco just stuck her headphones in her ears and drove them to civilization, like she was going to the 7-11 down the street, or that time where some guy tried to pick Selina up while undercover at a night club, and Selina just came up to Jeremiah five minutes later and told him they needed to hide a body. The guy didn’t die, but Selina still believes that’s a mere technicality and even that time where Jonathan disappeared for three days while in Belgium, and he still won’t tell them what happened but maybe now Lucius will wheedle it out of him. Ecco’s money is on a chocolate binge.
And maybe, just maybe, he can have some semblance of a normal life again, he doesn’t care to think about when he started wanting a “normal” life. He’s spent all of his time and energy since childhood into becoming something extraordinary.
Lucius is a people person despite his prolonged exposure to Bruce and James, they could ruin a man for polite society; but then again, Jeremiah’s team is far from polite. Or society, so Jeremiah isn’t too worried about his team’s reaction to one of his oldest friends. Ecco and Jonathan are surprised that Jeremiah has brought home a stranger, but he quickly reassures them that Lucius can be trusted.
Selina disappears into the office with the mums while Jeremiah makes introductions. “Lucius, this is Jonathan. He’s one of the most brilliant programmers I’ve ever met, and he can sing the element song, while drunk. It’s amazing. Jonathan, this is Lucius. Say hello.”
“H-hello,” Jonathan says to the ground and fidgets his hands.
Lucius smiles and shakes hands with Jonathan, who avoids his eyes and ducks his head a lot, retreating back into his shell. Jonathan looks to Jeremiah for guidance but Jeremiah smiles softly at him.
Jonathan nods and manages to make eye contact with Lucius. “I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s really nice to meet you.”
“And this,” Jeremiah says, gesturing to Ecco, “is our jewel, Ecco. She’s an engineer, she’s absolutely brilliant, and she owns Mario Kart. Seriously, she will ruin you. Ecco, this is Lucius Fox. My friend.” He beams so brightly at the “friend” comment but manages to contain himself.
Lucius holds out his hand but Ecco laughs and envelopes him in a hug. “Hi-ya, Fox! It’s nice to meet you.” She pulls away and studies him for a moment. She leans in close and whispers loudly, “But you know, Jeremiah hasn’t mentioned you before.”
Lucius furrows his brow. He looks over her shoulder to Jeremiah who mouths, “She’s also crazy.” Jeremiah circles his finger around his ear in the universally recognized gesture of CRAZY and Lucius bites his lip to keep from smiling too widely.
They order a pizza and settle down at the kitchen table, drinking beer and talking and choking out the punchline to stupid stories through their laughter when Selina walks into the room grim-faced.
“Heeeeey, Lina,” Ecco slurs slightly because she is a lightweight. “Wan’ som’ pizza?”
Selina ignores her and jerks her head at Jeremiah. “Care to join me for a moment?”
Jeremiah narrows his eyes, wondering if she’s sulking because she has no social skills, but realizes she is serious and follows her quietly into the hall. “What’s up?” he asks quickly because he does not like the sinking feeling that’s forming in his stomach.
He’s had far too much of that in the last few days, there should be a limit on how much life tortures him. He’s pretty sure he’s made up for whatever horrible sin he’s committed in another life by now. Now the universe is just getting her jollies, which is decidedly unfair.
Selina hesitates, crossing her arms and clearing her throat, which is very unlike her, she’s usually straight to the point. “You should, uh. You need to see the surveillance.”
He follows her mutely into the office and takes a seat at the desk. She presses PLAY on the laptop and he watches footage of his empty office from earlier. He peers at her curiously but she gestures for him to keep watching.
He focuses back onto the laptop screen and is rewarded with a view of the mole, dressed in a maintenance uniform with the nametag Gina. Except he knows Gina the maintenance lady, he knows every single person who goes in and out of the entire building, and the surrounding buildings, he’s almost obsessive about it and this is not Gina. Gina is short and plump and has curly dark hair.
This person is fit and has strands of red hair sticking out of her cap. The Gina-who-is-not-Gina does not look at any of the cameras and manages to avoid having her face captured by any of them like she knows what she’s doing like she’s had the same fucking training that Jeremiah did.
She walks over to Jeremiah’s computer and starts to type, with gloved hands, of course, there would be no fingerprints, that would be too easy. The universe hates him, remember?
“She’s a professional,” Jeremiah says, glancing over at Selina. “That’s expected, right?”
“Keep watching.”
Jeremiah frowns because no, he does not want to keep watching, he wants to go back to the kitchen and drink beer and listen to Lucius laugh in disbelief when Jonathan explains how they escaped a never-to-be-named country on a donkey with only the clothes on their backs and a satchel full of porcelain dolls, and Lucius will ask what the dolls were for and they’ll tell him it’s classified and they’ll all laugh until the sun comes up. But he turns at Selina’s insistent tapping on his shoulder and he waits. Until he sucks his breath in.
Because the mole is holding up a sign to one of his cameras, so he obviously knew where the cameras were and it wasn’t some stupid stroke of luck. The sign is typed, clean Arial font on white paper, spelling out an unsettling challenge.
It reads: bye bye Miah
He shuts the laptop closed with a speed that surprises him. He stands abruptly, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s nothing,” he declares, more to himself than to Selina.
Selina’s face is far more gentle than he’s used to and it’s not making him feel any better. “He knows who you are. He knows you’re Jeremiah Valeska, shareholder, and secret agent.”
“Yeah, so what? They detected you too.”
“They didn’t hold up a sign at my desk with my name. This is serious, do you realize how much danger you’re in right now?”
“What are you getting at?”
She pauses, catching his eye and makes sure she has his full attention before she continues. “You shouldn’t go back to the office. You should remove yourself from this location and work from afar for a while – ”
“Absolutely not.” His voice is rough and a little harsher than he intended but he can’t find it in himself to care at the moment. “I’m not backing down. I’ve been in danger plenty of times before.”
“Never specified danger.” Selina is no longer calm and the gentle look on her face has been replaced with impatient anger. “Safety and survival is always our primary objective. Fuck, Miah, you’ve repeated it to us so many times Jonathan mutters it in his sleep!”
Jeremiah ignores her, pacing to the bay window and looking out into the brightening sky, navy fading to blue, stars still dancing though perhaps not as vibrant as before. Like weathered souls and old friendships. He wonders idly what that makes the moon in his simile.
“I’m going to tell the team. And we’re going to remove you from – ”
“No.” Jeremiah still won’t look at her, still has his hands shoved down into his pockets and his back straight as a rod. “I won’t abandon Wayne Enterprises. I won’t abandon it again.”
“It or him?”
Jeremiah tilts his head and makes a vague sound. “Both,” he decides to answer truthfully after a minute.
“Is it worth your life? Whatever nostalgia or guilt or regret you feel, whatever the fuck you still haven’t gotten over, is it worth your fucking life?” She’s livid, he can hear it in the way her voice quivers, like she can hardly control her own voice.
He reaches to touch the glass and it feels cold under his fingers, so cold it almost feels wet, an erroneous interpretation of his sensations in his mind.
“Why did you join the CIA, Selina?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He draws invisible patterns on the pane with his finger.
“My best friend betrayed me, cut me out of everything we worked together for. I sued him for my share, and the entire time I kept thinking, ‘Please, just say you’re sorry. It’s okay, I’ll forgive you, we’ll be best friends again, please.’ And he just looked across the table like it was all my fault like I was the biggest fucking idiot in the world. My best friend.”
“No,” he corrects himself, frowning, “he was more than that. I took care of him, I protected him, I was there for him every step of the way. And he didn’t just watch me fall, he pushed me down.”
“Exactly. Why are we even arguing about this?”
Jeremiah turns around and sits on the bay window seat, clasping his hands together. “Today I did everything wrong. I looked incredibly guilty. I had every motive, every opportunity to leak all that information, to destroy Wayne Enterprises. But Bruce,” he shakes his head and laughs a little, “Bruce spent the whole day and night trying to clear me. I think he would have spent days on it. He abandoned all his work, all his concerns about the most important thing to him, to save the man who, for all accounts and purposes, tried to ruin everything he held dear.
“I loved Bruce first. And I loved him strongest,” Jeremiah smiles even though he thinks there is a suspicious amount of water in his eyes, “But you know what I found out? Bruce loved me longest. So yeah. Yeah, it’s worth my life. If it came down to that.”
Selina’s face contorts in anguish. “I won’t go to your funeral.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“Fuck you.”
“Is that your acquiescence?”
She shakes her head at him in disbelief. “I have never been more livid at you than I am now.” She spins on her heel. “At least get a new cell phone so we can communicate in the field.”
“Thank you, Lina,” he says because he knows how difficult this is for her.
“It’s not my problem if you’ve suddenly gone suicidal.” She leaves in a storm of stomping feet and slamming doors.
Lucius pokes his head in a couple minutes later. “Hey.”
Jeremiah smiles at him. “Hey.”
Lucius looks down the hall, then back at Jeremiah. “Is everything okay? Selina seems kind of upset.”
Jeremiah nods and alights from his seat. “What are you talking about? That’s her happy mood.” He throws an arm around Lucius’s shoulders and leads him the living room. “Now tell me. Do you want to get a miserable three hours of sleep, or would you rather watch Tron with me?”
Lucius snorts. “Is my reply even necessary?”
“Not in the least.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The really great thing about the CIA is that they’re all about the results. So even though Jeremiah has technically gone rogue, he’s still entrenched far deeper into Wayne Enterprises than any other operative, and the CIA decides to let the situation play out, a true sink or swim manifestation, and Jeremiah is used to that, his brother practically wrote the book on tough love. He’s still not sure though if his brother ever viewed love as a requirement to family. If it’s a success, Jeremiah will probably be promoted again. If it fails, well, he’s not going to think about that right now.
After Jeremiah settles back into his office and arranges more cameras in inconspicuous hiding places, James appears, hovering hesitantly around his door. James fidgets and peers every-so-often through the glass panes, looking away quickly when he meets Jeremiah’s gaze, after three minutes it gets boring and Jeremiah walks over to the door, opening it.
“James?”
He peers up at Jeremiah, eyes wide and apologetic. “Are you mad at me?”
“Wh – ”
“You won’t answer my phone calls or texts and I know I accused you yesterday, but I was just stressed out and please don’t hate me, everyone hates me, Bruce and Lucius are always so mean to me, you’re the only one who’s nice. Miaaahh.”
He has to stop to breathe and Jeremiah takes that time to smile, his eyes crinkling in the process. “James, dude. My phone broke, I had to get a new one.”
James pauses a moment, before switching to apprehensive belief. “Really?”
Jeremiah holds his arms open. “Do I have to hug you to convince you?”
James chortles, peering around the area because now everyone is staring, and when Jeremiah’s life has turned into a daily soap opera for the employees of Wayne Enterprises he doesn’t know, but he can probably guess it started when he first set foot on the premises. Give or take a minute.
“Shut up, Miah.”
Jeremiah shrugs. “You first.”
James giggles and punches his shoulder lightly. “You busy with anything important?”
Jeremiah kind of wants to say, “Yeah, I’m saving the world but I could use a break,” but he remembers he has Lucius to talk about spy stuff to now and he shouldn’t be so greedy, but he is greedy, he always has been. He wants everything life can give him and he’ll fight to get it.
Instead, he says, “What do you have in mind?”
James clasps his hands together and bounces on his heels. “There’s a Playstation in the executive break room. And I need to kick someone’s butt before Bruce wakes up again.”
Jeremiah blinks at James several times before he says, “Bruce’s asleep?” James nods. “At Wayne Enterprises?”
James nods again. “Yeah, he’s crashing on the couch.” He flaps his hand dismissively. “He does it all the time, it’s no big deal. That’s why he has a couch in his office.”
Jeremiah gapes at him. “What the hell is wrong with everyone in this company? Bruce is not a robot!”
He pushes past James who yells back to him, “That has yet to be disproven! JUST SAYING.”
Jeremiah bounds up the stairs to the engineering department, skirting around the desks and computers and the unusually quiet analysts. He slows when he approaches Bruce’s office, lights off and blinds drawn. He nods in acknowledgment to Bruce’s receptionist.
“Is he asleep?” he asks, pointing to the office. The receptionist nods and Jeremiah resists the urge to scold her. She probably has no choice in whether Bruce stubbornly decides to crash at the office or not, but she should, he thinks irrationally, because Bruce needs to be cared for, it’s an insistent knowledge that overtakes Jeremiah’s mind.
He sighs and creeps quietly to the door, opening it slowly and with no noise, spy training at its finest. This was totally what they envisioned he would use it for. Totally.
The room is dark, the only light from slivers of noon light sneaking through the gaps in the blinds. Bruce is curled up on the couch, limbs awkwardly balanced on the edge of the couch and a blanket falling precariously to the floor. Jeremiah crouches in front of him, taking a moment to consider him.
Bruce can stay awake for days, but when he crashes, it’s almost like he’s dead Jeremiah checked for a pulse in a panic the first few times he witnessed it. His arms and legs are relaxed, his lips slightly open to breathe in soft, shallow puffs of air. But his brows are furrowed and they twitch every so often.
Jeremiah reaches out a hand but hesitates, lets his hand hover awkwardly. If this was years ago at college, he would have no qualms with touching Bruce while he slept, it went with the territory of best friends and arms thrown around shoulders and eyes meeting over the heads of other people like they were sharing a secret, communicating in code.
But now it feels so intimate like it’s a privilege that needs to be earned like he needs – wants – Bruce’s permission, like it, means something more than it should.
Jeremiah decides he’s being ridiculous again and closes the gap between his hand and Bruce. He presses his fingers softly to the crease created by Bruce’s eyebrows, smoothing it gently, rubbing his thumb firmly and with precise care across the middle of Bruce’s forehead. Bruce’s brows relax and his lips lift slightly for a second, an almost chuckle escaping on his exhalation.
It is one of the most beautiful sights Jeremiah has ever seen.
And suddenly Jeremiah can’t breathe properly anymore, his thighs can no longer support his weight and he topples the small distance to the ground, limbs spread out awkwardly. He’s staring at Bruce, mouth agape and eyes shifting back and forth over Bruce’s face rapidly. Because he knows, he finally recognizes and he knows, in the depths of his soul, with the same certainty that he knows of his own existence, in the same way, he knows one plus one is two.
He wants this. He wants to watch Bruce sleep, he wants to have stupid movie marathons, he wants to argue and throw things to get Bruce to react. He wants to share looks over James’s head, he wants to take photos with him and never post them, because they’re for them only. He wants to touch Bruce freely and have Bruce touch him, he wants to make him dinner, to make him sleep and to be the only one who can pull him away from his work. He wants to protect Bruce and rely on him and lean his head next to his on Sunday afternoons.
He doesn’t want college back, or a time when they were creating something beautiful, something that changed the world. They had something back then, something close to what he wants now, and maybe he has always wanted it, but he never let himself consider the possibility. Maybe it was because they were best friends, and so close to that perfect something that he never allowed himself to want more, to even imagine more.
But now he sees, because they aren’t friends, but they’re still them and it feels liberating and terrifying and he can finally see it all clearly, so fucking clear and it’s blinding.
He wants them. Together. He wants Bruce to himself, to claim him forever and always. To tattoo Bruce onto his heart, inject him into his blood, etch him into his body so deeply that he’ll breathe out little bits and pieces of Bruce with his exhalations. And he wants to be the first thought Bruce has in the morning, to be the one face he searches for in a crowd. To have his voice echo through Bruce’s mind, like a melody only Bruce can hear, to be the one Bruce calls when something good or bad, or amusing or stupid happens, to imprint so strongly on Bruce that sometimes Bruce will forget they are two separate people.
It’s a heady realization and Jeremiah falls onto his back, staring blankly up at the ceiling and focuses on regaining his breath. He does not notice how much time passes but eventually the slits of light shift on the carpeted floor and he hears Bruce shifting on the couch.
“Miah?” Bruce asks, sleep still heavy in his voice.
Jeremiah isn’t sure he can speak properly yet. He’s pretty sure his face is displaying every single emotion he’s still trying to understand right now and he can’t seem to wrangle control of anything, and finally he understands the sentiment of falling, because there’s no place to hold onto and he’s soaring and plummeting and he can’t get a grip on any of it. He holds up his hand and waves it a little, refusing to sit up and meet Bruce’s eyes, because Bruce is observant and Jeremiah’s skin is paper thin and Bruce has never had difficulty seeing his heart.
“What time is it?”
Jeremiah checks his watch habitually. “It’s one.”
“Morning or afternoon?”
Jeremiah laughs because only Bruce would have to clarify that. “Afternoon.”
“Why are you lying on the floor?”
“I’m considering the ceiling.”
“Oh.” He hears Bruce shift but he cannot tell in which direction. “And how are you finding it? Unique, isn’t it? This ceiling, I have been assured, is above the floor, and attaches to the walls. Quite rare, I would imagine. Did you know that –”
“Bruce,” Jeremiah interrupts because he recognizes Bruce is nervous.
“What?”
“Um. Thank you. I know you were the one who cleared me from the leak yesterday.”
Bruce makes a dissatisfied grunt. “It was James, wasn’t it?”
Jeremiah hems. “Yes and no. He didn’t realize it.” He nudges his foot into Bruce’s shin. “Give him a break this time.”
“Why are you always siding with my employees?”
“Because it’s fun.”
“Apparently.”
They remain in silence for a few minutes more. Jeremiah still refuses to sit up and face Bruce, and Bruce makes no move to dissuade him.
“Why did you do it?” Jeremiah asks, not sure if he’s expecting an answer or not. He’s almost ready to give up and move when he hears Bruce answer quietly, hesitantly.
“You asked me to trust you.” Bruce sighs. “I owed you that much.”
Jeremiah has to close his eyes because he’s not certain he can contain the well of emotions that simple sentence opened up. He’s filled with regret and righteous anger and nostalgia and love and everything he felt, every moment he experienced, every thought he had at that exact moment when he knew he’d been kicked out of the company, all erupting behind his eyes. He intakes a shaky breath and runs a hand over his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says because he is. He’s sorry for what happened, he’s sorry for not being there for Bruce, he’s sorry for being here under false pretenses. He’s sorry he can’t go back, he’s sorry they can’t move forward, he’s sorry they met, and he’s sorry they lost so many years.
“I…I don’t regret suing you, you shouldn’t have kicked me out like that. You should have fucking talked to me. But…” He groans and squeezes his eyes even tighter, like that will help him control the pitch of his own voice. “I made mistakes. And I’m sorry. For withholding the plans and not moving to Gotham when you asked me to. And for letting it go so far.”
He listens in horror to the heavy silence that permeates the office. He hears hushed typing outside the room, and a clock ticking extremely loudly somewhere, and why Bruce has a ticking clock and not a digital one puzzles him but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it because his stomach is dropping and his arms feel like lead.
Finally, he hears a sound, a small shift, an intake of breath. Bruce says in a voice that Jeremiah recognizes as overly calm and slow, because when Bruce is emotional, he’ll either speed up to get out of the situation as quickly as possible, or slow down like he knows this is the only time he will be able to handle the situation and he needs to do it right, “You were the wrong Vice President for Wayne Enterprises at the time.”
Jeremiah lets out a shaky breath and wills himself to not open his eyes, to not let those emotions spill out in the form of salt and water.
“But you were always the right friend for me. I…” He groans and shifts more. “I should have handled it differently.”
Jeremiah moves his hand, opening his eyes and sitting up finally. He looks at Bruce and sees his eyes are wide and sincere and maybe just as scared as his feel at the moment. Bruce tilts his head and tries to smile but it comes out crooked and lopsided and all sorts of adorable. Jeremiah smiles back at him and chuckles.
“Yeah. Okay.” Jeremiah nods, his sign of accepting the apology.
“Okay,” Bruce repeats before he laughs and falls against the back of the couch.
“You can never tell James we had this conversation. He’ll make a collage of it or something.”
Jeremiah laughs with Bruce in a burst of humor and happiness he cannot contain. “Are you serious?”
Bruce nods somberly. “He keeps glitter in his desk drawer for ‘emergency arts-and-crafts needs’. Please remind me why I haven’t fired him yet.”
Jeremiah’s eyes dance with amusement. “Because every village needs an idiot?”
“That was on a level of cattiness that I would expect from one of the many women I’ve offended. Congratulations, you should feel very proud of yourself.”
Jeremiah laughs and rolls back onto the floor, holding his stomach. Bruce smirks and toes his stomach playfully.
“Miah, I can’t have you like this. This is a serious place of business.” There’s a lilt in his voice, a silent chuckle that exists only in his eyes if it’s possible for a sound to reside in a physical space, but Jeremiah isn’t too concerned about that right now.
He’s happy and light and happy, truly and honestly free of regret and worry for the first time in years. He wants to enjoy that for a moment longer. He deserves that much, and Bruce seems more than content to assist him in that regard.
There’s a shift in the way they communicate with each other. They share Looks, Jeremiah let’s his mouth quirk in That Way, the way Bruce knows means he’s sharing a joke or amusement of sorts.
Jeremiah lets his hands brush against Bruce’s, and Bruce shifts ever-so-slightly to lean into Jeremiah if the gap is small enough. Lucius and James notice the change and whisper loudly amongst themselves.
“Do you think they made up?” James whispers with exaggerated secrecy gestures to Lucius one evening when they’re working late on an update in Bruce’s office.
Bruce and James have set up a station of five computers at Bruce’s desk, while Lucius and Jeremiah lounge on the couch with their own laptops. Jeremiah was invited in for the late-night session even though he really has nothing to do there, which is probably what set James’s suspicious mind aflutter in the first place.
Lucius raises his eyebrows and smiles a little. “I do believe you’ll need to retrieve your emergency arts-and-crafts supply.”
“Okay, first? It’s ‘arts-n-crafts’. ‘Nnnnnn’. Not ‘and’. I don’t know why everyone finds that so hard to remember,” James answers in a huff. “Second?” He squeals. “Yay! It’s like college again. You guys! You guys! We should get stoned!”
Jeremiah chuckles and Bruce sends him a death glare. “James, I know you. You do not have the ability to work and gossip at the same time. So shut up.”
James just grins. “You’re so adorable, Bruce!” He pulls out his phone. “I need a picture of this for my collage.”
Jeremiah lolls his head back and tries to suppress his giggles. He finally alights from his position on the couch when Bruce is half-way through his rant about why James is single-handedly holding back the advancement of mankind and Lucius is enabling him. He closes his laptop and walks over to the desk, setting it down carefully. He catches a pause in Bruce’s speech to say, “I’m going to get some dinner. Anything you want?”
Bruce shrugs. “Whatever you pick up is fine. Maybe some more Red Vines.”
“I want Thai food,” James pips up. “Make it extra extra spicy.”
Jeremiah looks over to Lucius who nods his assent. He smiles. “Thai food it is.” He walks towards the door, letting his hand brush through Bruce’s hair lightly on the way. He grins when James squeals again and slips out of the room just as Bruce sends him a look that says “I hate you. I hate you so much, how could you do that and leave me here with this idiot?” It’s very amusing and he has to bite his lip to control himself.
But his smile does not last very long because once he reaches the second floor, he spots Selina, creeping quickly along a corridor with her pocket knife ready in her hand. She stops when she sees Jeremiah and sighs in defeat. She jogs quickly up to him.
“What the hell is going on?” he asks in a hushed whisper.
“There’s suspicious activity. Several sources of suspicious activity, actually. I’m handling it.”
“With your weapon? And you didn’t bother to inform me?”
She glares at him. “There is only one of us here who has a problem with fucking avoiding unnecessary danger. And it’s not me.” A beat. “It’s you.”
He grips her arm and looks straight into her eyes. “I don’t care if you disagree with how I’m handling this, you need to tell me about these things.” She rolls her eyes but he tightens his grip. “Understand?”
“Do you understand that this is an assignment and not a fucking role-playing therapy session?”
He ignores her. “Bring me up to speed. Now.”
She sneers but quickly relates what Jonathan told her. There are several pockets of low but strange activity in the network. It’s all within the system, though, so they know the mole is active in the building at the moment.
“Which is why they set up several spots of activity,” Selina explains. “So I can’t go to one location and kill them. Noooooo, I have to run around. In my heels.” She sighs. “Ecco’s here and she’s clearing the top floors. I’m clearing the bottom ones.” She pushes him towards the exit. “And you should leave now and not come back until we tell you it’s safe.”
“Like hell you will.” He’s already heading back up the stairs. “I’ll clear the next floor. You finish here and then meet up with Ecco to help her clear from the top down.”
“Why the fuck would I do that? You’re the one in more peril. The mole knows who you are, remember?”
His voice is stern and authoritative when he answers. “Because Ecco has very little experience with potentially armed targets and if you were anywhere near the kind of agent you think you are, you would have realized that before sending her off on her own.” He bounds up the rest of the stairs before he can say any more and already guilt is clawing at his chest because maybe he was a little harsh on Selina but she needs to know they are a team and they work together.
He gets Jonathan to send him the coordinates of the sources. There are three on his floor and he quickly clears the first two. He enters the third location cautiously. It’s a break room with several computer terminals set up for games and probably twitting and youtube and illegal downloading. He checks the entrance and around the room but he doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, not one of the computers is on.
Which is what makes him pause and he scans the terminals carefully. His patience is rewarded when he notices all of the monitors are off, but one of the desktops still has a bright blue light on, hidden hurriedly under scraps of paper. He rushes to the terminal and presses the button on the side of the monitor to turn it on.
And suddenly there are streams of code, one after another, racing across the screen, numbers and activates the default company spy software installed on all computers, Lucius insisted on it in case they needed to keep tabs on any employee but Bruce keeps it deactivated for the most part. He wants the engineers to feel free to create however they can, and if that means browsing porn on company time, he doesn’t give a fuck, as long as his company works.
He’s so absorbed in chasing the streaming data, in retracing its steps that he hardly notices a shifting shadow behind him.
He swears and tries to evade the strike but his assailant has already plunged a knife into his side. He lets out a pained cry and grabs at the assailant, a dark mass of limbs and no distinguishing features. He manages to knock the person onto the floor with him. They struggle, throwing punches and strategic kicks until Jeremiah starts to feel faint and dizzy. He’s disoriented and there’s so much pain radiating from his side. He groans and clutches his side, his fingers instantly soaking wet with blood his blood.
The assailant takes the opportunity to wrap his hands around Jeremiah’s throat, leaning close to whisper in a disguised voice, “You’ve always been so pathetic, Jeremiah.” She says Jeremiah’s name like it’s a taunt and chuckles.
Jeremiah chokes air into his lungs but manages to smile. He grips his cell phone and presses the emergency panic button on it before he gathers what is left of his strength and reaches for the knife in his side. He steels himself before pulling it out quickly and driving it into the assailant’s thigh. “Fuck you,” he wheezes when the assailant falls over in agony.
“Shit!” The assailant somehow manages to stand and hobbles quickly out of the room, trying to escape.
Jeremiah tries to follow her, but only manages to stand before he doubles over in pain.
It seems like forever before Ecco and Selina charge into the room, and Ecco cries out in horror at Jeremiah’s state. He’s breathing harshly and has balled up his shirt, pressing it against his wound to stop the bleeding. His head is bent low and he peers beneath his lashes at him, he tries to smile to reassure them but it ends in a grimace.
Ecco is rushing to his side, pressing her hands with little mercy on his wound, stopping the bleeding. “Miah, shit, Miah, hang on. It’ll be okay, breath with me.”
He scrunches his face up but nods. He knows the drill. This isn’t the worst cut he’s gotten, but it isn’t the best either. “I’m dying,” he manages to choke out and Selina looks like she’s going to kill him.
“I told you,” she mutters. “I told you, you no good, stubborn asshole!” She balls her hands into fists and stifles a scream.
Ecco has her arm wrapped around his middle and she looks over to Selina. “We need to get him out of here. Selina, you can yell at him later when he’s healing. Right now we need to sew him back up.”
Selina nods, refusing to look at Jeremiah. She goes over to him and wraps her arm around his back on the opposite side of Ecco. “I hate you. I hate you, I wish I never met you.”
Jeremiah nods, biting his teeth together to keep quiet as they walk him from the room, his legs drag a bit but he somehow manages to advance forward. His knees give way a couple of times but Ecco and Selina are strong and he’s never been so grateful for them before in his life.
“You should – ” He has to gasp in a breath and it sends pain shooting through his left side. He takes several calming breaths before he continues. “You should go after her. She’s here, she was at least.”
“Not going to happen,” Selina grits out between her teeth.
“She’s wounded, I got her in the thigh. You can still catch – ”
“Miah, no! Shut the fuck up and let someone take care of you for once,” Ecco hisses.
Jeremiah and Selina stare at her in shock for a moment because she only ever yells at video games. Jeremiah bends his head down. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Not sorry enough.” Ecco stops when they pass a bathroom. “Here, I can stitch him up in here.”
They lead him into the bathroom. Selina turns the lights on and they slide him down the wall by the sinks so he can sit. He groans, clutching his side and squeezing his eyes shut.
Ecco turns to Selina. “My first aid kit is in the car, I’ll run and get it. Stay here and keep pressure on the wound. I don’t think Miah can manage by himself.”
Selina kneels by Jeremiah and presses with her considerable might against his side. He jerks and lets out a sharp cry.
“Fuck! Lina. Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow ow.” He takes several shallow breaths and bangs his head against the wall. “Too hard.”
“You fucking deserve it.” But she relents and shifts, straddling him so she can keep the pressure even and effective.
“You need to call Lucius, we need to run the data. There’s blood all over the break room. Fuck, oh fuck! What if Bruce finds out?” He opens his eyes and they’re wide with terror. “They’re expecting me back any minute now. Shit, shit. Bruce can’t know!” His breathing is quickening and Selina slaps his face lightly to snap him out of it.
“Calm the fuck down. Calm down.”
He nods and moans at the action and reaches a hand up to Selina’s waist to steady his now-swirling head. “Fuck.”
The door creaks open and Selina snaps her head up quickly.
“Is there anyone in here? Oh, shit! Sorry! Oh, shit, Mr. Valeska, sorry! So sorry!” It’s James’s receptionist, Ed or Edward or something like that.
Selina glowers at him and bends over Jeremiah further so as to hide the blood-soaked shirt at his side. “We’re busy.”
Ed or Edwin, nods and hurriedly leaves the bathroom.
Jeremiah tries to get up but Selina pushes him back down. “Selina, shit. I have to stop him. He’s going to tell James and – ” He moans as the pain intensifies for a very long moment. “They can’t find out I’m hurt, they can’t – ”
“Valeska! Ed saw a billionaire in the bathroom with his shirt off, moaning, with the hot girl he’s been flirting with for weeks on top of him. I think his mind jumped to other conclusions.”
Jeremiah manages a crooked twist of his lips that was meant as a smile. “Ha. Yeah. Okay.”
Ecco returns soon with her first aid kit, which is a little more than the recommended first aid kit. She sends Selina out to rid the break room of any evidence of Jeremiah’s presence as she preps Jeremiah for what she calls “minor surgery”.
She pulls back the shirt and cleans the skin around the wound. She breathes a little easier than she had been before. “Oh, it’s not so bad.”
“Not so bad?” Jeremiah repeats in disbelief. “I’m going to die. Shit.”
“Yes, yes. You’re dying and you can’t feel your legs and I should say goodbye to your family, I know the drill.” She pulls a bottle of scotch from her satchel. She pours a healthy amount onto the wound, takes a few gulps for herself, before shoving the bottle into Jeremiah’s hands. “Drink up.”
He nods and gulps the alcohol as quickly as he can without choking, closing his eyes when he sees Ecco run a needle through her lighter. He makes a keening noise in the back of his throat. “Shit, do I really have to get stitches?”
“Just a few.” She pats his cheek lightly and says in a baby voice, “I think you’ll be okay.”
He’s halfway to drunk by the time she sticks the needle into his skin, sewing him closed like a fucking quilt. He can’t watch so he turns his head away and downs more of the scotch, which is really a terrible brand, too. Ecco went for the cheap kind. He tells her his opinion but she hums dismissively and squints in concentration.
Before Ecco finishes, Selina reappears with Jonathan and Lucius. Jeremiah cringes and glares at her as best as he can which is a very paltry attempt, so it turns into more of a pout.
Lucius’s eyes are wide with terror and he’s running his hands through his hair repeatedly. “Miah?” he breaths out. “Oh my g – ” His breathing quickens and he grips his hair tightly. “How – are you going to be okay?” He turns to Selina. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Until I kill him.” She glares at Jeremiah. “I’m going to fucking kill you. I told you, I fucking told you.”
Jonathan kneels next to Jeremiah and puts a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jeremiah answers. He quirks his lips. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” Jonathan doesn’t look convinced but he repeats with more sincerity, “I’m fine. Don’t let Lina scare you.” He turns to address Lucius. “Really, I’m fine.”
Lucius is leaning against the door and nods numbly. “Shit. Miah, shit, you just got knifed. In real life. And you’re getting fucking sewn up in a bathroom and you’re fine?” He grips his hands at his sides. “I don’t even. How are you even? This is going to be so cool when I think about it tomorrow but right now I’m freaking out. Okay?”
Jeremiah chuckles but it hurts his side so he sobers quickly and settles for a nod. “Did – ah! Ecco, seriously!”
Ecco is tying off the stitches. “You’re all done.” She fishes out a lollipop from her satchel and hands it to him with a grin. “And here’s your reward.”
Jeremiah frowns at her patronizing tone but pops the lollipop into his mouth anyway, because it’s cherry and he likes cherry, okay?
He manages to stand by himself despite Jonathan’s offer to help him up. He turns to Selina. “Did you take care of the room?”
Selina rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I cleaned up your mess.”
He gives her a half hug. “Thank you.”
“You are so in for a lecture tonight. And once your wound is healed, I’m going to kick your ass.”
He nods against her head. “I figured.” He hobbles over to Lucius. “So, uh. What are we going to tell Bruce and James?”
Lucius rubs his face. “I don’t know.” He sighs and takes in Jeremiah’s appearance. “It’ll probably be more convincing if you just tell them you’re tired and want to go home. Say you have a video conference or something you have to get up for really early in the morning.”
Jeremiah grins. “Whatever Bruce is paying you for your public relations services, it isn’t enough.”
Lucius sighs again but manages a small smile. “You’ll need a shirt.”
Jeremiah glances down at himself and smirks. “Yeah. I guess I will.”
“Come on, I have some spare clothes in my office.”
Jeremiah borrows one of Lucius’s spare polos because Lucius has to pull all-nighters at Wayne Enterprises too, but unlike Bruce, he actually cares about the image he presents to others.
Ecco and Jonathan have gone to get the Thai food Jeremiah promised on Lucius’s reminder because Jeremiah was gone a long time and it would look overly suspicious if he didn’t come back with at least the food.
Jeremiah takes a seat by Lucius’s desk and breaths out a little as Lucius helps him into the shirt. “I swear, I’m usually really good at making up excuses.”
Lucius pulls the shirt over Jeremiah’s head and Jeremiah swats him away, adjusting the fabric himself. “It’s just when I get in front of you or James or Bruce, my mind goes blank and there’s nothing. It’s really frustrating.”
Lucius tilts his head and smiles kindly. “You’re not used to lying to us. That’s a good thing.”
Jeremiah scoffs. “Yeah, brilliant.” He stands experimentally and manages to repress a groan.
“Does it hurt?”
Jeremiah smirks a little. “Not nearly as much now that Ecco poured alcohol down my throat.”
“Did someone order Thai food?” Ecco asks, entering the office with two large bags of food.
Lucius tries to take them both but Jeremiah grabs one. “I can carry one. Seriously, it’s not that bad. I’m used to it.”
Ecco smirks. “He dies all the time, it’s really not a big deal.”
Lucius looks disbelieving but relents and helps him over to Bruce’s office.
Jeremiah manages to walk almost properly into the office and presents the food with a wide grin. He ignores the way Bruce’s eyes glance, then focus intensely on Jeremiah, sweeping over his mussed hair, lingering on his lips, now red from his lollipop, and squinting at his new shirt.
He repeats what Lucius suggested he say about having an early morning conference call and he really has to leave, but it was fun and he’ll see them tomorrow. James pouts a little but seems to buy his excuse.
But Bruce is staring at Jeremiah, eyes piercing straight through him, compelling him to tell the truth, to admit what’s going on. He retreats out of the room with a short farewell before he succumbs to it.
Ecco drives him home because he promised she could drive the Audi if his life was in peril. He promised, she has witnesses.
They march him straight to bed despite his protests, he has to go over the data and call Eduardo and they should run tests on the blood because he did stab the assailant, he isn’t completely useless.
It’s Jonathan of all people, the sweet, innocent, adorably bespeckled Jonathan who slips a sleeping pill into his cup of chocolate milk. He should have known it was strange to be given chocolate milk, the traitors.
He slips into restless unconsciousness, mind ablaze and body exhausted.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When he wakes up, the sun is high and hot in the clear sky, flooding the room, Jonathan’s room, they forced him to take the damn bed. He squints and blinks his eyes several times to clear the sleep from them.
He is grateful to find a large glass of water waiting for him on the nightstand and takes several gulps, he is less than grateful to find it’s warm and kind of gross but he’ll take it, and downs the couple painkillers that have been left for him.
He gets up slowly from the bed, and finds the wound is sore, but he can stand and walk, kind of. Not important. He creeps to the bathroom, checking around for his team. Thankfully it seems that Selina went to Wayne Enterprises already and Ecco’s car is gone. Jonathan is in the office on his computers, tapping his feet to his music blaring from his speakers. Jeremiah spares a moment to scowl in Jonathan’s general direction because he is a traitor and he will never take a glass of anything from him again. Well at least for a couple days.
He finally hobbles to the bathroom and goes through his routine as quickly as he can manage. He hesitates slightly when he reaches to change his bandage, but peeling back the gauze shows that the wound really isn’t as bad as he had thought, so Ecco was right, again, he still thinks he was dying though. It’s not his fault he was blessed with killer good looks, intelligence and apparent immortality.
He dresses and slips out of the house before Jonathan can realize he’s awake. He refuses to feel guilty about it, because they all betrayed him, the traitors, they’re going to have to have a team meeting again to discuss how he is the team leader.
When he arrives at Wayne Enterprises it is well into the afternoon and surprisingly empty on his floor. He frowns as he drops his things in his office before heading back out and stopping by the reception desk where he thankfully finds Oswald.
“Oswald, hey!”
Oswald jumps and widens his eyes. “Mr. Valeska! You’re here.”
He leans lightly on the reception desk. “Yeah, it looks like it. My question is, where is everyone else?”
Oswald tilts his head back and forth like he’s deciding on how to best answer that before he points up to the next floor. “You should probably go upstairs. Like now.”
Jeremiah raises an eyebrow but nods his thanks and heads up the stairs. By the time he gets halfway up to the top floor, he hears indistinct murmuring and Bruce saying very loudly, “Leave. Now.”
Well shit, this doesn’t bode very well.
Jeremiah enters the engineering department and holds his breath. Because this is a disaster. A complete and utter disaster. Most of accounting, public relations, and marketing are crowding around the department, trying to get a better view of the show Bruce is so graciously performing for them.
Bruce is standing in front of Selina, arms crossed, body stiff, with a death glare on his face. Selina has swiveled in her chair to face him, her legs crossed and stilettos tapping impatiently. She has a death glare to match Bruce’s. Great.
James and Lucius and a woman Jeremiah recognizes from the human resources department are trying to diffuse the situation, with very little luck.
Selina arches one brow perfectly tossing her hair a bit with a shake of her head, “I have no reason to leave,” she enunciates clearly, rebelliously.
“I fired you. You longer work for Wayne Enterprises or its subsidiaries. You need to leave now. Is that enough information to make you understand?” he shoots back quickly, voice as cold as ice.
“You have no grounds to dismiss me.”
Bruce scoffs. “I have grounds. I have plenty of grounds.”
“Bruce,” Lucius tries to interject but is promptly ignored.
“You’re never at your desk when you need to be, you dress inappropriately for the office, frankly I haven’t ruled you out for trying to sabotage the company, but most importantly you slept with Miah at the office last night, which is entirely inappropriate and against several of our company policies. You have three minutes to leave the premises.”
“What the fuck?” It’s out of Jeremiah’s mouth before he can process it, his voice high and cracking in shock and embarrassment. It’s almost comical how everyone in the room cracks their neck in his direction, almost but not really because it’s happening to him and he really wishes he had one of those mind-erasing devices from Men in Black, but he’s no Will Smith so he just has to move on.
Bruce glowers at him, eyes sharp and focused and swirling with anger and disappointment, and something that looks suspiciously like betrayal. He tilts his head challengingly. “Yes, fucking. At the office.”
Selina glares at Jeremiah as well, but it says something more along the lines of 'oh you are so dead, I cannot believe you came in here when you’re still recovering, I am going to chain you to a bed, and not in a fun way.'
Jeremiah grimaces and makes his way over to the cluster of crazy, nodding his head at everyone who’s watching.
“Great day, isn’t it? Thanks for joining us for the matinee. Be sure to catch the show after dinner.” His comments succeed only slightly, some decent people leave, most pretend they have very urgent business that involves standing and shuffling papers, they’re all very convincing.
He comes to a stop between Selina and Bruce. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hisses.
Bruce meets Jeremiah’s eyes and will not back down, a righteous sense of anger and right surrounding his entire body. “Maybe you’d like to explain why you were sleeping with her – ” he points a finger bluntly at Selina – “last night. In the bathroom of the Wayne Enterprises offices, Jeremiah.”
“I didn’t, who, how would you even think I did that?”
Bruce jerks his head at James but refuses to break eye contact with Jeremiah.
“James’s assistant told us all about it. And it’s not like you’re exactly a stranger to bathroom sex,” recounting the one night at a club in college, where the two of them each received blow jobs from girls in the bathroom, in the stalls next to one another.
“Neither are you!” Jeremiah exclaims before he catches James’s jaw dropping.
“You guys had sex in the bathroom?” James asks, aghast that they would keep this vital piece of information from him.
“It was during college,” Bruce supplies absently.
“You guys were hooking up and never told me? I thought we were friends!” James whines.
“It wasn’t with each other,” Jeremiah moans, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
“Will someone please explain what you’re all talking about?” Lucius asks, his eyes wide and just a little apprehensive.
“No one bothered to have sex with me in the bathroom,” James mutters.
Selina groans in frustration and finally stands from her chair. “This wouldn’t be an issue if it wasn’t Miah, would it?”
Bruce smirks at her. “Oh, you caught me! I don’t want my best friend involved with another crazy ass person again. Good job there, really.” He raises his voice to announce to the entire room, “And just for the record, anyone who sleeps with Miah will be fired.”
“Will you shut up?” Jeremiah exclaims, fury building in his voice. “I can sleep with whoever the fuck I want to. And it’s none of your damn business.”
Bruce frowns and glares at him. “No.”
“No?”
“No,” he repeats. “It’s every bit my business. Especially if it happens in my building, at my company.”
“So I can fuck Jeremiah in my bed?” Selina offers, a malicious smirk playing on her lips.
Jeremiah is starting to panic because her eyes have glazed over. That means she’s beyond pissed off and has entered her vicious and lethal stage. This is not good, she’s losing view of the objective, not that Jeremiah is one to talk, but everyone is a hypocrite once in their life and he’s damn well earned the privilege.
Bruce has also reached critical mass and fists his hand against his side, his back straight and stiff. “You’re admitting you slept with him?”
Her eyes brighten because she’s found Bruce’s weak point. “Yeah. And it was amazing.”
Bruce tilts his head in anger. “I hope it was worth it because you will never find work ever again. Where the fuck is security?”
Selina opens her mouth to taunt him more but Jeremiah steps next to her, jerking her, and whispers harshly in her ear, “Stop it, Lina!”
The use of her name, her real name jolts her back and her eyes clear. She holds his gaze, her eyes wide and apologetic. But their eyes are jarred quickly because Bruce grabs Jeremiah’s arm and tugs him callously back to his side.
Jeremiah lets out a sharp cry and bends in pain, clutching his wound which he prays did not open. Bruce drops his hand hurriedly like it burns and his eyes have softened and are now wide with worry.
“Miah? Miah are you okay?”
Selina bends and tries to steady Jeremiah but he holds her at a distance, not wanting to complicate the situation any more than it already is. He clenches his teeth but manages to straighten himself. “Lucius, do you think you can handle this mess?” he asks.
“Yeah, I can.” A beat. “James, close your mouth.”
“I can’t even, dude,” James answers. “I can’t even.”
Jeremiah glares at Bruce. “Come with me.” He doesn’t look behind him to see if Bruce is following him. He opens the door to a conference room, one of the few with solid walls, and sits on the table and takes in a few deep breaths to ease the pain radiating from his wound.
Bruce follows and closes the door behind him and considers Jeremiah for a moment before advancing on him, displacing Jeremiah’s hands over his wound. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
Jeremiah shakes his head. “No, I’m fine.”
Bruce stares at him, raising an eyebrow.
Jeremiah grimaces and bows his head. “I spilled coffee on myself this morning. I burned myself pretty badly, but I’ve bandaged it and it’s fine. I’m fine, okay?” He meets Bruce’s eyes and pleads with him to let this go.
Bruce narrows his eyes, hands still pressing lightly at Jeremiah’s side.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Jeremiah says, redirecting the conversation away from his wound.
Bruce scowls and backs up a few paces, crossing his arms, effectively cutting himself off from Jeremiah and the conversation.
“Sure.”
“I really didn’t.”
“She said you did.”
“She was trying to rile you up.”
Bruce ignores him and Jeremiah tilts his head. “And it worked.” He waits for a beat before continuing. “Bruce, why did it work?”
Bruce frowns, shifting his feet. “It didn’t work.”
“Do you like me? Like like me?” He doesn’t even question why that came out of his mouth. It’s something he’s been wanting to know for days, weeks, maybe years if he’s being quite honest. He knows what he wants now, he wants Bruce, he wants them. He just needs to know what Bruce wants.
Bruce stares at him incredulously. “Are you in junior high?”
Jeremiah grins, eyes bright and mischievous and there’s a bubbly feeling in his stomach. “You do!”
Bruce steps back, jerking his head. He glares at Jeremiah who continues to grin inanely at him, laughter dancing through his green eyes. Bruce purses his lips, contemplating before his eyes sharpen in resolve.
He strides to Jeremiah, grabbing his dress shirt in his hands tightly, tugging him forward.
Bruce’s lips are cold and firm like that time so many days ago, but they’re wide and on Jeremiah’s and Jeremiah closes his eyes, lifting his hands to clutch at Bruce’s waist, his shirt soft and warm under his fingers. He makes a small, happy sound in the back of his throat, opening his mouth to catch Bruce’s bottom lip.
Bruce groans and presses into Jeremiah more, and suddenly there’s a shift, an urgency that takes hold of them both. Bruce’s hands are moving into his hair and Bruce’s tongue is in his mouth and doing fucking fantastic things. Bruce should keep doing that forever. Yeah, that would be good.
Jeremiah presses forward, needing Bruce closer, needing more. He clutches Bruce’s shirt, tugging him closer, opening his legs to fit Bruce between them. Bruce swears and jerks Jeremiah’s head to the side, his mouth trailing down his jaw to his throat.
Jeremiah moans and manages to open his eyes. “Bruce,” he breathes out before he’s silenced again by Bruce’s mouth on his, Bruce’s hands trailing down his stomach to his waistband and suddenly he realizes just how long it’s been since he last came, the answer is too fucking long.
He jerks forward but recoils sharply when his wound, his stupid, stupid wound, reminds him that he is injured and should probably not be engaging in any strenuous activities, he is going to fucking kill the mole. He’s going to torture him and then murder him and then revive him so he can do it all over again.
With more than a little regret, he grabs Bruce’s hands and stills them, pulling back enough to disengage their lips.
“What?” Bruce manages to breathe, trying to follow Jeremiah’s lips, to regain the blissful contact they had just seconds ago.
Jeremiah takes a few seconds to regain his ability to breathe, pressing his lips against Bruce’s neck, smiling against his pulse point. “Bruce, we’re at the office.”
“So what?” Bruce says working his hands out of Jeremiah’s grip and wrapping them around his waist, stroking around to the small of his back.
Jeremiah makes another keening noise, scraping his teeth down Bruce’s throat lightly. “You just informed the entire company of Wayne Enterprises how much you disapproved of such behavior. Plus I think you’ll need to fire yourself.”
“I’m the head of the company, I can do whatever the fuck I want.” He pulls Jeremiah’s mouth back to his.
“Bruce,” Jeremiah scolds into his mouth, even as he catches Bruce’s bottom lip lightly between his teeth and tugs playfully.
“Miah,” Bruce moans, fingers digging into Jeremiah’s hips, pressing him against his erection.
And fuck, that feels good. That feels really good. A handjob would be fine, that’s not strenuous, Jeremiah assures himself.
“I need this,” Bruce whispers into Jeremiah’s ear and Jeremiah nearly comes in his pants.
He makes a strangled noise and brings his hands to Bruce’s waistband, tugging the zipper on his slacks down. Bruce helps him lower the slacks and boxers until Jeremiah can grip Bruce, stroking. Bruce shudders and moans, pressing his face into Jeremiah’s neck and tugging impatiently at the zipper on Jeremiah’s dress pants.
“Fuck, Miah, fuck, fuck,” he breathes, sucking at the juncture between Jeremiah’s throat and shoulder.
Jeremiah nods silently against Bruce’s hair, gasping in gulps of air when Bruce finally frees him from his pants and starts to stroke him slowly and deliberately, circling his thumb over the head of Jeremiah’s cock.
Jeremiah jerks into Bruce’s hand. “More,” he gasps. “Bruce, more.”
Bruce lifts his other hand to Jeremiah’s hair, tugging him back, eyes dilated and sparking with intense satisfaction at the sight before him. He smiles, lips full and swollen from Jeremiah’s attention.
“You look so good, Miah.” He brings Jeremiah’s head down again for another kiss, licking his lips. “So good, and I made you look this way.”
His hand pumps faster and Jeremiah groans, jerking his hips, focusing whatever energy he can on keeping his hand firm on Bruce’s cock, stroking faster and with less finesse than before. Bruce licks into his mouth, tongue encircling his own and now Bruce is invading all of his senses, all of his thoughts, everything. His head is dizzy with desire and the incessant need to bring Bruce closer, to get more of him.
He’s close to the edge, close to losing himself completely when Bruce groans low against his mouth. “Come for me, Miah.”
“Fuck!” Jeremiah squeezes his eyes shut and comes all over Bruce’s hand, hips thrusting erratically. He moans against Bruce’s throat, still stroking Bruce, faster, harder.
“Miah! So good, so good.” Bruce jerks his hips into Jeremiah’s strokes, fusing his mouth against his when he finally comes. Bruce melts into Jeremiah’s frame, gasping in breath, clutching the edge of the table to support himself.
Jeremiah lets out a breathy laugh and kisses the top of Bruce’s head. “I hope this room is soundproof.”
Bruce smirks and pulls away slightly, his eyelids drooping and his face relaxed. He looks so satisfied and it’s doing all sorts of strange things to Jeremiah’s stomach to know that he did that to Bruce. “Do you think James is making us a ‘congratulations for hooking up’ collage?”
Jeremiah groans. “I will hurt him if he does. I will seriously fucking hurt him.”
Bruce laughs, ducking his head to peck Jeremiah chastely on the lips. He shifts almost shyly before removing his jacket and wiping himself clean with it. He offers it to Jeremiah but Jeremiah’s eyes dance with devilish delight.
He shakes his head and brings his hand, the hand covered in Bruce’s come to his mouth, licking the come off of it slowly and deliberately.
Bruce’s eyes widen before they grow dark and he jerks Jeremiah’s head down to his again, smashing their mouths together in a fevered kiss. “Are you trying to ruin me?” he finally asks, trying to catch his breath.
Jeremiah smiles innocently and shoves him away playfully. He zips his pants back up and slides down from the table gingerly, finally aware of his wound again. “You have no idea how badly I can ruin you.”
Bruce chokes on his breath.
Jeremiah advances to the door, smoothing down his mussed hair but stops when he feels Bruce tug on his arm. He looks over his shoulder expectantly.
“Dinner. Tonight. Yeah?”
Jeremiah grins. “Yeah.”
Jeremiah tries to sneak down to his office, avoiding as many people as he can. Unfortunately, he’s cornered by Selina in the back stairwell, damn her instincts, she knew he would take the back stairs.
He tries very valiantly not to smile that stupid, inane, completely obvious smile, but apparently, he has lost all control of his facial muscles.
“You slept with him?” she accuses.
Jeremiah feigns righteous indignation. “What? Why is everyone accusing me of sleeping with someone today? Is it the way I dress? It’s suggestive, isn’t it? You know what, you’re right. I’m going to go through my wardrobe tonight. I’m glad we had this talk.”
He tries to brush past her but she stops him with a hand on his chest. She looks less angry and more concerned, there’s even a hint of pity in her eyes and Jeremiah’s stomach drops because this thing with Bruce is new and fragile and something he wants so badly and he knows, he just knows Selina is going to ruin it with her logic.
“You promised me you would let me know when you were too far gone.”
“Lina, I’m handling this.”
“But you’re not!” she explodes at him. “You’re inching closer and closer to the edge and you don’t even realize you’ve fallen off of it three steps ago!” She looks away from him and swallows, crossing her arms.
When she speaks again, her voice is back at a normal level. “It’s not like I don’t know what it’s like. You fall for someone and it’s fresh and new and you think they’re the only one who gets you, that they’re your whole world. But they’re not. He’s not.” She gestures.
“We, us, the team, we’re all we have in this world, Miah. Don’t jeopardize that for a fling.”
Jeremiah feels anger rise through his stomach, boiling through his blood, clouding his mind. “It’s not a fucking fling, okay? It’s Bruce. It’s everything I’ve been wanting, what I waited years for. This was before you. Before the team, before everything.” His voice cracks but he continues, pointing his arm in the direction of Bruce’s office. “He is my point of origin.”
Selina steps back, hurt and disbelief and so much righteous anger swirling through her eyes, it’s a familiar expression but he’s used to seeing it reflected back at him in a mirror.
“Your point of origin broke you.”
Jeremiah opens his mouth to defend Bruce, to explain that it was both of their faults, and Ra's and the pulsing, living entity that was Wayne Enterprises that intangible life that grew bigger than anyone ever imagined.
But Selina continues on, anger sharpening her voice like a thousand little knives sent past his skin and into his heart. “What happens when it’s all over? Who’s going to pick up the pieces of your life then?”
His expression hardens. “My life shattered once and I managed to put it back together without anyone’s help.”
She jerks as if she’s been slapped, stiffening quickly. “If you think you weren’t a shattered shell of a man when we met, you’re deluded.”
She walks past him, purposely shoving him over to make way for her. “Don’t come crying to me when he breaks you again.”
He slumps against the cold concrete wall and closes his eyes, feeling a heavy weight settle in his chest, to the left, in that empty hollow that pulses Bruce’s name, shooting it down his veins, mixing with that blue liquid until it circles around again, so perfect in its circulation he forgets where it started.
He wants to ignore everything Selina said. He wants to reassure himself she’s bitter and she just doesn’t understand and she doesn’t.
Bruce won’t break him again, he knows with a sinking feeling.
Jeremiah is the one who can break Bruce.
Fortunately for Jeremiah, he doesn’t have to dwell on Selina’s unwelcome words for long, as
James finds him in his office, plopping down opposite Jeremiah and grinning slyly.
Jeremiah peers up at him from his computer screen. “Did you need something, James?”
James tilts his head back and forth, that grin still plastered on his lips.
“What?”
“Mmm.” James’s eyes are twinkling now.
Jeremiah sighs and pushes back slightly from his desk, turning his full attention to James. “Is there something you’d like to get off your chest?”
“You guys totally hooked up, didn’t you?”
Jeremiah bites his lips to restrain a smile that threatens to overtake his face and shrugs his shoulders, making a noncommittal sound.
James leans forward intently. “Are you dating?”
“I – ” Jeremiah squints and purses his lips. Are they dating?
“I’m having dinner tonight with Bruce. I think that’s a date. That’s a date. Is that a date?” He turns his eyes hopefully to James.
James grins and nods. “Bruce seems to think so.” He whispers conspiratorially, “He’s sent his assistant to his house to get him a new suit. I think he made reservations at some fancy restaurant, too. Prepare to be wooed.” James flairs his hands in an overly dramatic fashion.
Jeremiah laughs and ducks his head shyly.
“Text me the details later tonight, yeah? You know, if you’re not busy.” James waggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly.
Jeremiah throws a pencil at him lightly. “You’re as bad as Ecco.”
“Who’s Ecco?”
Jeremiah freezes, the smile falling from his lips momentarily before he forces back to its previous position. “Ah, she’s a girl I know in Hong Kong.”
James raises his eyebrows, expecting more. “That’s all? Just a girl you know?”
Jeremiah clears his throat. “I worked with her on a few projects. She always tried to get me laid.” He smiles fondly and hopes James will accept this explanation. He doesn’t want to lie to him, doesn’t want to cross that unwritten rule of friendship further than he has to.
James scowls. “How very unprofessional. She shouldn’t have tried to get you laid.”
“You’re trying to get me laid.”
“With Bruce. It’s completely different.”
“Ah, vastly different.”
James grins again. “Exactly!”
Jeremiah smirks and makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Alright, you got your bit of gossip. Now let me do my work.”
James tries to pout but his smile shines through. “Have fun on your lovely-dovey date, Miah.”
Jeremiah swears he heard a heart in James’s tone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah works in relative silence and solitude for the rest of the afternoon, and early evening. Selina refuses to speak to him and she seems to have placed a similar ban on communication with the other members of the team since he hasn’t heard a thing from them all day, except Ecco’s text that simply said, :(.
He checks to make sure it’s not due to anything, you know, dangerous, but the only evidence he finds is that Selina has imposed a cold front and she’s coerced the others into it with her.
He sighs and tries to remember what he did last time she implemented one of her bouts of ‘The Silent Treatment’, but last time she did that, he was coerced into the cold front against Ecco because she had the gall to borrow Selina’s prized Prada shoes.
He pushes it out of his mind and instead decides to contemplate his date with Bruce tonight.
That turns out to be a mistake because instead of happy, blissful thoughts of dinner and wining and dining, he gets thoughts of every terrible thing that could go wrong.
What if he isn’t dressed appropriately? Should he take a shower? He should take a shower. What time was dinner supposed to be at? What if Bruce forgot? What if during dinner he discovers he has some sort of bizarre allergy and starts to swell up and die?
At twenty minutes past seven, he decides he’s going to go insane. So he shoots to his feet and bounds up the stairs to Bruce’s office. About half of the department has gone home, because they, you know, have lives, while the other half are still typing like adorable little robots because they idolize Bruce and stay as long as he does. It’s cute and also horrifying.
Selina isn’t at her desk but he doubts she has left the building because he can sense her glaring at him through the walls like she has freaky x-ray laser eyes or something.
He skirts around to Bruce’s office, nodding at his assistant. “Bruce in?” he asks because the shades are down in his office again.
Bruce’s assistant nods and smiles at him. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Jeremiah cannot suppress his smile because he can go ahead, he has access to Bruce and he can just waltz in there without an appointment or running it through his people, and maybe Jeremiah wants to be his people again, and maybe he can’t let himself admit that just yet but he can still feel it and revel in the warm response it earns him.
He knocks lightly at the door and enters quietly. He stops at the door and stares for a moment at the sight in front of him. Bruce is dressed in a suit and he looks so fucking attractive. He’s attempting to fix his hair in the reflection in his window, unfamiliar, jerky movements of his hands in his hair.
Jeremiah feels a warm bubble of happiness and smiles. He’s pretty sure he looks overly adoring, but that’s not really a new expression around Bruce, he wore that same silly face for the first months he was in Bruce’s acquaintance.
He leans his head against the doorframe and calls out lightly, “Hey hot stuff.”
Bruce jerks and spins around and raises his hand in slight acknowledgment. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jeremiah repeats again, eyes crinkling. “You look good.”
Bruce shrugs, then adds like an afterthought, “So do you.”
Jeremiah laughs. “I look the same as I did at the beginning of the day.”
Bruce smirks. “Yeah, I know. I believe I expressed a similar sentiment earlier in the day as well.”
He shrugs and there’s a spark in his eye like he knows exactly what memory is playing through Jeremiah’s mind right now, breathing labored, mouths hot and wet and hands all over and the slight pleasure-pain of his hair being tugged just the slightest bit too hard.
“It bears repeating, though.”
Jeremiah lets out a choked laugh and groans lightly. “What are you doing to me?”
Bruce advances toward him, an amused curve on his lips. “And here I thought you were going to ruin me.”
Jeremiah straightens at the challenge and points his finger faux-menacingly at him. “I will ruin you. Just you wait. I have plans. Dirty, naughty, disgustingly sexy plans.”
“Alright, buttercup.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are.” Bruce pats Jeremiah’s shoulder condescendingly and bites his lip to keep from smiling.
Jeremiah takes advantage of Bruce’s proximity and tugs him forward, planting his lips firmly on Bruce’s. He feels Bruce respond almost instantly, stepping into the kiss, shifting his head to get a better angle. He slides his hand to the back of Jeremiah’s neck and urges him closer, just a little closer, and even closer, with that intense need to touch skin-to-skin, to share each other’s warmth, to fuse so close they’ll share the same breath of air, lungs half-starved but bodies so on fire neither will care.
Jeremiah sighs into Bruce’s mouth before breaking away, his eyes wide and staring, capturing, recording everything about Bruce right now, the way his lips are redder than usual, the way he tilts his head just a fraction backwards, the touch of his smooth fingers against the back of Jeremiah’s neck, the feel of Bruce’s hips barely brushing against Jeremiah’s, the way their feet intersect – Jeremiah’s left, Bruce’s right, Jeremiah’s right, Bruce’s left, a simple pattern like a basic algebraic equation, where x will give them the answer to this, to them, to everything they need to know.
Bruce steps back and straightens his jacket. “So,” he starts, voice a little rougher than it had been just minutes ago, “ready to go?”
Jeremiah licks his lips and nods, shifting his eyes away from Bruce, to try to ease the sudden pressure he feels in his chest. He’s not so sure anymore where his feet are and what he’s doing, but he knows every thought and emotion from the past few weeks, staring at Bruce from across the shareholder’s meeting, driving him home in the middle of the night, eating Italian and watching The Terminator, Bruce’s thumb on his lip, pleading with Bruce to trust him this one time, smoothing Bruce’s furrowed brow while he slept. All those desires and urges and undeniable impulses that he hasn’t been able to work his head around have all accumulated into one reality.
He’s in love with Bruce Wayne.
They drive to the restaurant in Bruce’s car, stealing sideways glances at each other, pretending to listen to the music from Bruce’s car radio. Jeremiah absorbs himself in watching Bruce’s face, tinted shades of blue and green and red changing over his skin, reflections from the traffic lights and the clear night sky commandeering Bruce for their own artistic purposes.
The restaurant has no windows and looks more akin to some secret society’s meeting place and less like an establishment that serves food. Jeremiah knows the type of place, has eaten at several of them over the course of the last few years. The odd tables and closed-off private rooms and freaking uncomfortable chairs all blur together and his mind races back to missions and pretending he’s an investor, an attorney, a security guard looking for just the right bribe. He almost instantly slips into his persona, affecting an easy smile, leaning back too casually in his chair. But when he looks across the table to Bruce, to his best friend, this man who has occupied Jeremiah’s mind from the moment they were awkwardly introduced at a frat party, he’s shocked back to reality and he doesn’t know how to act. His body is moving in two different directions like he’s a stranger in his own skin.
Bruce doesn’t look any more comfortable than Jeremiah feels. He keeps shifting and cracking his neck, tapping his feet impatiently. He tugs at his clothing, crinkling the sleeves of his suit up to his elbows before they fall down to their original position, a little more wrinkled and disheveled than before. He looks completely out of place and just a tad miserable, which is really not a good sign for a first date. He should have known this would be a disaster.
Jeremiah distracts himself by perusing the menu, a highly pretentious menu in Jeremiah’s honest opinion, with obscure foods and no prices listed. It’s not like the whole experience is new to him, and he assumes Bruce has had to attend several dinners at similar establishments over the years. But this isn’t them.
They have always been cold pizza and beer and Jeremiah sneaking a multivitamin into Bruce’s ice cream while Bruce gives him that resigned look because he Jeremiah is nagging and mothering him again, but he eats it anyway for reasons Jeremiah never took the time to analyze. It just happened and it was just them and that’s just how things were. And yet here they are, avoiding each other’s eyes in the dimly lit private room that Bruce probably had to pay someone very highly for on such short notice.
It feels cold and distant and Jeremiah almost expects a stenographer to appear at the end of their table at any moment transcribing carefully chosen words and ignoring the heavy silences and all the words they share that aren’t expressed verbally across the table.
The waiter approaches them, all false smiles and pleasant conversations. He asks if they have decided on a drink and Bruce frowns, eyes shifting quickly to the wine list, and maybe Jeremiah is projecting, but Bruce looks a little overwhelmed at all the choices.
Bruce finally relays his choice, quickly and sharply like he’s almost challenging the waiter to doubt that he knows exactly what wine he ordered and if it was a good year or not.
The waiter, of course, just smiles and compliments Bruce’s good taste, leaving them to fall into silence again. They catch each other’s eyes in the dim lighting after a few tense moments.
Jeremiah smiles in an attempt to ease his discomfort. Bruce nods in response, a stilted movement of his head tilted a bit too far back to be an actual full nod.
Jeremiah restrains a sigh. He leans forward and starts, “Bruce.”
Bruce blinks at him. “What?”
Jeremiah gestures his hand around the room. “What is this?”
Bruce tilts his head to the side slightly. “A restaurant. People tend to consume food at these establishments but alcohol is really where they make their profit.”
Jeremiah resists the urge to roll his eyes. Almost.
Bruce is being ridiculous again, okay, and maybe he’s a little hungry and maybe he gets a little cranky when he hasn’t eaten. “I think I got that.”
Bruce shrugs. “Couldn’t tell.”
Jeremiah clears his throat and plays with the edges of his menu. “It’s just, you know. Bruce, this isn’t…” He sighs and waves his hand dismissively. “Never mind.” He forces a smile on his lips. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
Bruce frowns at him, refusing to look away from Jeremiah. “It came highly recommended.”
Jeremiah nods. “Yeah.” He tries to relax, tries to remember who he is and who he’s with. This isn’t an assignment, but it is, this isn’t a clever ploy, and he’s starting to wonder if this progression he’s made with Bruce is just some kind of subconscious motivation to become close to the target, that maybe this is all still part of the mission, the thought terrifies him.
The waiter returns with the wine, thankfully interrupting Jeremiah’s thought process. He pours them both half a glass of the rich red liquid, but Bruce keeps his eyes focused intensely on Jeremiah.
Jeremiah avoids Bruce’s gaze and smiles his thanks to the waiter. He orders the duck and Bruce absently orders a steak, eyes still only on Jeremiah. As soon as the waiter leaves, Jeremiah grabs his glass and downs the contents in one gulp, suppressing a cough as it burns down his throat.
He wishes he could enjoy this, wishes he didn’t feel like he was play-acting, like this isn’t some sort of prerequisite to advancing in his mission, like this isn’t on his checklist, like he didn’t feel so in and out of his element all at the same time.
Bruce, of course, has noticed Jeremiah’s extreme discomfort and frowns before decisively pushing his chair back and standing abruptly. He comes over to Jeremiah’s side of the table and grabs his arm, hauling him up with little ceremony and no explanation.
“Bruce, what are you doing?”
“You don’t like it here. I don’t like it here. I’m not going to sit through an entire fucking meal like this. Let’s go.”
Jeremiah stares at Bruce before a smile emerges and he laughs lightly. He nods. “Okay.”
They slink out of the restaurant, past the waiters and other patrons enjoying their highly overpriced meals. When they finally make it outside, Jeremiah cannot contain his giggles.
“Bruce, fuck, did we just dine-and-dash?”
Bruce quirks his lips in thought. “We didn’t eat anything.”
“I drank the wine.”
Bruce smirks. “Are you ready for your mug shot, Miah?”
Jeremiah gapes and points a finger at Bruce. “You’re my accomplice, if I’m going down for this, I’m taking you with me.”
Bruce laughs, short and restrained but still so clear and amazing. Jeremiah plays it over in his head, trying to memorize the exact pitch and tone, how Bruce’s breath rumbled out and drifted between them.
Bruce fishes his keys out of his pocket and nods his head in the direction of his car. “We should probably make our getaway then.”
Jeremiah readily agrees and they half-jog to Bruce’s car, both a little out of breath and failing miserably at containing their laughter by the time they peel out of the lot.
“I can’t believe we did that.”
Bruce smirks and shifts his shoulders in a way Jeremiah assumes was supposed to be cool and badass, but was really kind of cute and he has to resist the urge to ruffle his hair. Bruce really, really hates when people ruffle his hair, probably something to do with the treatment of the board of Wayne Enterprises when Bruce inherited it at twelve years old, he's always had to prove himself, avoid looking like that little boy who'd just lost his parents and now had more power than the sixty year olds that were on the board.
“Welcome to my world, Miah. It’s a wild ride.”
Jeremiah shoves Bruce’s shoulder lightly and bites back his reply, because dining-and-dashing? Yeah, not quite like jumping off the roof of a building onto the adjacent roof to escape a target. Similar, but not quite the same.
“You hungry?” he asks instead.
Bruce makes a noncommittal sound. “You?”
“Starving.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“How about your place? I can cook something,” Jeremiah suggests.
“I don’t have any food.”
“I can just throw something together,” Jeremiah starts before he realizes when Bruce says he has no food, he probably literally has no food in his place.
“Wait, Bruce, do you literally have no food at your house?”
Bruce keeps his eyes strictly on the road, hands at ten and two on the wheel and back straightening. “I’m never there and I don’t cook anyway.”
Jeremiah stares at him incredulously. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I really shouldn’t.” He smiles a little to himself.
Bruce glances sideways at him. “I’m a functioning adult. I don’t care what you or Lucius or James say. And James really has no right to criticize me, to begin with. He’s not exactly the paragon of healthy development.”
Jeremiah just stares at him, eyebrows raised and lips pressed together to keep from laughing.
“I run a multibillion-dollar company. I’m capable of providing for my needs.” Bruce insists.
“And you have no food in your house.”
Bruce scowls but finally admits, “No. No I do not.”
Jeremiah’s control slips momentarily and he laughs, quickly trying to cover it up with a cough. “Ha, um, excuse me. Alright, we’re going grocery shopping. Where’s the nearest market that’s open this late?”
Bruce raises an eyebrow at him. “Miah, I just finished explaining that I have no food in my place. Why would I know where any market was, let alone the closest one?”
Jeremiah makes a petulant face. “You’ve never gone to a supermarket? At all? After all the years you’ve lived here?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I have. I just…didn’t pay attention to where it was.” Bruce glances pointedly at Jeremiah. “And I manage to survive just fine. Miah, stop looking at me like that.”
“You don’t even go to buy laundry detergent?” Bruce purses his lips and moves his head slightly to the right. “You don’t even do your laundry, do you?”
“I have more important things to think about then how clean clothes end up in my closet.”
“You don’t even know how it gets done?”
Bruce shrugs. “I assume it’s my assistant. Or James.” His eyes narrow in concentration. “It might be James. He’s a lot like you.” He taps his fingers on the wheel in a deliberate rhythm. “It smelled nicer when you did it though.”
Jeremiah exhales softly, shifting his eyes between Bruce and the window, feeling suddenly very warm and bashful all at the same time, and he should have remembered this is what being with Bruce is like. It’s equal parts awe and pride and he never knows if he should bask in it or bury his face in his own sleeve.
He clears his throat instead and pulls out his phone, trying to find a market and ignoring the flush working up his neck.
He finally finds a suitable market that Bruce somewhat knows how to get to. They only get lost twice even with the GPS.
“Why are you turning here?”
“It’s a shortcut.”
“Bruce, seriously, you’re going to get us lost.”
“Relax, I know what I’m doing.”
“Bruce –”
“Miah.”
“Bruce.”
“Miah.”
“Ha, ha, you’re so funny.”
“I have a highly sophisticated sense of humor.”
“I weep for intellectica.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It is now.”
“You can’t just make up words. That defeats the entire purpose of language. What’s the point of a dictionary if we can just make up random sounds and say they’re words?”
“I’ll send my apologies to Webster.”
“The postage will set you back quite a lot. Delivery to the dead is pricey. You’ll have to hire a zombie or something.”
“Okay, maybe that was a little funny.”
“There’s hope for you yet. Ah, there’s a market!”
“That’s a convenience store.”
“Good enough, right?”
“We’re buying vegetables.”
“Why does everyone think it’s necessary to shove vegetables down my throat? I might die of Vitamin C overdose one day. What will you all say then?”
“Here lies Bruce Wayne, the oldest five-year-old who ever lived?”
“Tsk, there goes all hope I had for your sense of humor.”
“You smiled.”
“Did not.”
“Yeah, you did. Come on. You smiled.”
“Maybe you need glasses.”
“My vision is perfect, just like the rest of my body.”
“That has yet to be proven.”
“You’ll get enough of a chance tonight to evaluate it to your heart’s content.”
“…”
“Bruce. Bruce, eyes on the road! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What did you expect? You just propositioned me in the car.”
“I am never doing that ever again.”
“Let’s not be hasty now.”.
Bruce parks near the shopping carts which Jeremiah grabs for.
“Do I really need that much food?”
Jeremiah ignores him and grabs the cleanest cart available.
“Do I need to reiterate that you have no food at your house?”
Bruce rolls his eyes but doesn’t offer any more protests. Jeremiah grins and pushes the cart toward the store, Bruce trailing behind him with his hands stuffed into his jacket.
The entire process feels wholly domestic and Jeremiah cannot keep the grin off of his face for too long. The simple experiences of daily civilian life were occurrences Jeremiah did not realize he wanted until he knew he could never have it.
Despite all the travel and glory and intrigue of working for the CIA, despite the make-shift family he found, and who found him when he needed them most, he never had this. A quiet evening buying food, asking the man he loves for his opinion on whether he wanted cheddar or mozzarella cheese, and it's a treasure he wants to keep safe and secure in his heart. Because one day he will have to leave all this and he won’t be able to turn his head and see Bruce sneaking seven bags of candy into the cart. Because one day he’ll be long gone and he’ll know he can never see Bruce again, and maybe this night will flash through his mind when he reaches for a beer in the aftermath of a mission, warming his blood and reminding him that one time, he wasn’t alone. Because one day he might lie bleeding on the ground and this is the memory he wants to relive in the last lonely seconds of his life.
They reach the cereal aisle when Jeremiah asks Bruce which kind he wants. Jeremiah is partial to Fruit Loops but Bruce argues for the qualities of Cocoa Puffs.
“Chocolate for breakfast, Bruce?”
Bruce raises his eyebrows. “And Fruit Loops is just like a bowl of fiber?”
“It’s Fruit Loops.” Jeremiah holds the box between his hands and shakes it enticingly at Bruce.
“If I’m going to have sugar for breakfast – and I am, by the way, even you can’t stop that – it’s going to have chocolate in it.” Bruce places the box of Cocoa Puffs in the cart before pausing and grabbing an extra box.
Jeremiah gapes at him. “Why are there two boxes now? You do not need that much chocolate cereal!”
“The first one is for me. The second one is to spite you.” Bruce smirks and leans against the cart.
Jeremiah pouts. “I’m not going to eat that. I need my Fruit Loops in the morning.”
Bruce’s form slips slightly on the unstable cart. “You’re having breakfast with me?”
Jeremiah pauses, trying to gauge Bruce’s suddenly blank face, but he can see Bruce’s eyes and they’re searching his own face quickly, analyzing, absorbing as much information as they can. Jeremiah nods slowly. “I thought that was the plan.”
He splays his arms and holds one hand up in a stop motion before continuing, “But, you know, if you wanna take it slower that’s fine too.”
“No!” Bruce sort of jumps with the utterance and quickly schools his features to neutrality again. “I mean, I like the pace we have now.”
Jeremiah nods. “Okay.”
“The pace where we have sex, I mean.”
Jeremiah laughs and checks the aisle to make sure they’re alone. “Maybe you shouldn’t say that where, you know, children could be.”
Bruce ignores him and tugs the box of Fruit Loops from him, throwing it into the cart and claiming Jeremiah’s now-free hand in his own. Jeremiah looks down at their hands, fingers entwined, and his heart almost stops.
Bruce rarely initiated physical contact with anyone, let alone something so intimate and personal and affectionate, especially in public. But here he is, running his thumb over Jeremiah’s and squeezing a little too tightly like he doesn’t know how much pressure to apply.
Jeremiah glances up again and finds Bruce is watching him with those intense eyes again and his heart still will not start up, and he wonders if he even needs a heart of his own. It seems to have found its way into Bruce’s eyes and Bruce’s smile.
He breathes out – a huff of air, a precursor to a chuckle or a happy sigh, he never finds out because he leans down and captures Bruce’s lips in his own. It’s chaste and restrained because they’re in public and he doesn’t want to get hard in the cereal aisle of the supermarket, because that’s a story only James would think was entertaining. But when he pulls away, Bruce is smiling and tugging him back to the cart.
“Come on, we need milk if we’re going to have cereal,” Bruce supplies, taking hold of the cart and pushing around to the dairy department.
Jeremiah doesn’t let Bruce pull his hand out, but places it on the bar of the cart so that they’re both pushing it.
“And I’m not drinking soy milk, no matter how long you stare with those Puppy-Dog eyes at me.”
“I do not have Puppy-Dog eyes. Who’s been saying I have Puppy-Dog eyes?”
Bruce chuckles and shrugs. “Everyone ever.”
“I have very manly, very non-puppy, very sexy eyes.”
Bruce hems and refuses to make any sort of noise or motion in agreement with Jeremiah.
“Bruce. Bruce! Seriously, I do.”
They spend an hour longer in the store than they need because Jeremiah can’t find it in himself to let this end. He wonders if Bruce feels the same, if his smile is anything to go by, the answer is a resounding yes.
Bruce immediately goes to change from his suit the moment they reach his house. He expects Bruce to grab his laptop and work while Jeremiah puts the groceries away and cooks, but Bruce enters the kitchen – now dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants – and grabs a bag of bananas from Jeremiah’s hand. He glances around the room for a moment before decidedly placing the bananas on the countertop beside the fridge.
Jeremiah smiles and raises his eyebrows. “That’s where you’re going to put the bananas?”
Bruce shrugs. “Where else?”
“Do you have a fruit bowl, maybe?” Jeremiah asks but Bruce stares at him blankly and with a little long-suffering sigh barely detectable to the untrained eye. But Jeremiah is highly trained in Bruce so he spots it almost instantly.
“Right, you wouldn’t know.” He throws open several cabinets to examine the contents, he finds pots and pans and several types of plates, making a mental note where everything resides.
“How do you even have this much kitchenware?” He pulls out a small device. “You have a Slap Chop. When have you ever used a Slap Chop? Why would you even buy it?”
Bruce peers momentarily at the device. “It came with the house,” he states simply.
“A house does not come fully furnished with kitchen supplies.”
“It does when your parents leave it to you.
Jeremiah purses his lips but cannot find much fallacy with that logic and returns to the cupboards to locate the elusive fruit bowl, which he is now absolutely certain resides somewhere in the vicinity. He makes a triumphant shout when he procures not one but two. He hands them to Bruce. “Fruit goes in there, please.”
They put the groceries away, grazing past each other and maybe sometimes occasionally bumping into each other – shoulders touching, backs brushing, hands reaching out to steady themselves on each other’s arms, elbows, hips.
They flow seamlessly into conversation about nothing in particular, but somehow Jeremiah finds he can’t stop laughing and Bruce keeps prolonging it, adding little snarky remarks and observations that Jeremiah never realized he missed so much. That’s a lie, he knew he missed it like he missed everything about Bruce and what they were together. Jeremiah is a master of denial and repression, learned from an early age to protect, to push forward, to survive, to achieve.
They cook dinner together, Jeremiah directing Bruce to chop and stir, and no, Bruce, you have to stir from the bottom, it’s going to burn.
They end up with burnt tomato sauce all over the stove and adjacent counters, several dirty pans, and a mess of utensils neither are quite sure they actually used, but the end product of sloppy joes and cold potato salad looks entirely appetizing so they ignore the mess and go to the living room.
It isn’t until they have long since finished dinner and have almost finished the second episode of their spontaneous Doctor Who marathon that Jeremiah notices the way Bruce’s eyes shift to him every time Jeremiah takes another sip from his third beer bottle.
Jeremiah thinks it’s just his imagination at first, or maybe a quirk of Bruce’s, because he remembers now that Bruce used to do the same thing back in college, and maybe that was a very small reason why he developed the habit of taking slow, small sips from his beer to prolong the attention he wasn’t supposed to be aware of. But it was honestly a very small motivation, he just wanted to savor his beer, his cheap, tasteless beer. Yeah.
But Jeremiah is a man of science, so of course, he decides to experiment.
He keeps his eyes focused completely on the television screen and his right arm relaxed against the back of the couch, slowly drawing his left hand with the beer to his lips and pausing. He watches from the corner of his eye as Bruce’s eyes shift from the screen to peer sideways at him, in what Jeremiah suspects Bruce thinks is stealthy. Somehow – and he’ll never really know how – he maintains enough self-control to not burst out laughing. But come the Doctor’s next witty line he’s going to explode, he just knows it.
Bruce follows Jeremiah’s hand until the pauses at his lips. Jeremiah lets his hand drop back down to the sidearm of the couch and notes Bruce thin his lips and quickly return his attention back to the screen like he’s been deprived of something. Interesting.
Next, Jeremiah takes a very quick gulp of his beer, reaching his hand up and down within a couple seconds. Bruce makes a kind of disgruntled noise that he belatedly tries to suppress. Very interesting.
Jeremiah bites his bottom lip to stop from smiling and swirls his beer bottle, highly amused and feeling a definite thrill of empowerment. He’s starting to realize just how much of an effect he has on Bruce and it’s intoxicating, he probably should have figured this all out before but to his defense, Bruce has a pretty massive effect on him too so he’s been busy dealing with that. So, in fact, it’s totally not his fault but entirely Bruce’s fault. Entirely. He raises the bottle to his lips again, playing with the lip of the opening against his lips.
“What are you doing?” Bruce demands suddenly, his body shifted to face Jeremiah fully with no pretense of disinterest.
Jeremiah turns his head and innocently raises his eyebrows. “Hmm?”
“Stop doing that.”
Jeremiah tries to hide the smirk playing on his lips so he rubs his free hand over his mouth. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Bruce stares at him with narrowed eyes, a disbelieving tilt to his lips. He leans over and grabs the beer bottle lodged between Jeremiah’s index and middle fingers and places it solidly on the floor beside them. He shifts to hover over Jeremiah, imposing and suddenly very masculine, his hands on either side of Jeremiah’s head, and Jeremiah can see from the corner of his eye Bruce’s impressive and strangely erotic forearms and when forearms became so damn sexy he will never know but he’s certainly not going to complain.
All Jeremiah can see is Bruce’s stark eyes, all he can smell is that essence that he could never describe but that he’ll always know is Bruce, all he can hear is Bruce’s breathing and the steady beat of his heart, or maybe his own heart, he really cannot tell the difference at this point, or even why that would be important because Bruce is hovering above him like a freaking tease and he won’t touch him and there is no training any high-class government agency could teach him that would prepare him for the pleasure-torture that is Bruce Wayne.
The good taxpayers’ money has been wasted, completely and totally wasted.
Jeremiah keeps Bruce’s gaze for what seems like an eternity, his nerve-endings growing heated with anticipation and want. He takes several deep breaths but they’re getting faster and more shallow with every expansion of his chest.
Impatient, he clutches the front of Bruce’s shirt in his hands and tilts his head up to kiss Bruce. But Bruce retreats slightly, their lips mere fractions of an inch apart but still maddeningly not touching. Jeremiah tries again but Bruce mirrors Jeremiah’s movements so they remain in relatively the same position.
Jeremiah makes a frustrated noise in his throat, and it’s most definitely not a whimper. It’s not, honestly, a pout forming on his lips which are decidedly bereft of a certain genius billionaire.
“Bruce,” he drawls, tugging slightly at Bruce’s shirt. “Don’t be a fucking tease.”
Bruce reaches a hand up and trails his thumb over Jeremiah’s bottom lip in a move similar to one so many days ago, but now Jeremiah knows what Bruce’s mouth on his and Bruce’s hand on his body feels like, which makes the whole situation a thousand times more excruciating. And no, he doesn’t think he’s being overly dramatic.
Bruce’s eyes are sparkling with amusement and smugness and oddly even a little bit of awe. His full lips lift in a self-assured smirk, Jeremiah’s favorite expression on Bruce, the one he would watch and trace and wish he could inspire every second they’re together.
Bruce moves his head to the left, still keeping the distance between their lips, and whispers, “Look who’s talking. The fucking bottle, Miah?”
Jeremiah makes a whining sound and quirks his lips sheepishly. “I was just drinking.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Okay, fine.” Jeremiah licks his lips, feeling the need for some sort of stimulation on them. “I was conducting an experiment.” When Bruce remains silent, Jeremiah continues.
“Interestingly, you seem to find my drinking habits fascinating.” He smiles in amusement. “Does that turn you on?”
Bruce purses his lips momentarily, his thumb still resting on Jeremiah’s chin, unmoving but applying a pleasant sort of pressure. “Yup,” he answers bluntly.
Jeremiah’s eyes widen. “Shit, Bruce.” He tightens his hands in Bruce’s shirt and roughly pulls him forward, their lips finally smashing together, hot and wet and not incredibly skilled but full of passion. Their tongues tangle, breaths mixing together.
Bruce nudges Jeremiah to lie down, edging his knee between Jeremiah’s thighs, hands settling on his hips. Jeremiah runs his hands into Bruce’s hair, shifting him not-so-gently to get a better angle, to get more, to get closer, he needs more, more, always more with Bruce. He wonders if he’ll ever be satisfied, or even if he wants to be.
Bruce breaks from Jeremiah’s lips to trail hot, biting kisses down his throat, tilting Jeremiah’s head back for better access. Jeremiah readily assists him, arching slightly and working his hands under Bruce’s tee shirt. He scraps his nails softly against Bruce’s stomach, up to his chest, grinning at Bruce’s ensuing shudder.
Bruce presses down on Jeremiah, undulating his hips once, twice. Jeremiah squeezes his eyes shut at the sensation.
Jeremiah is so engrossed in everything Bruce is doing to him and everything Bruce will be doing to him that he doesn’t notice immediately when Bruce stops dead in his tracks.
But after several seconds of a suddenly rigid Bruce above him, Jeremiah opens his eyes and turns his head to peer more clearly at Bruce.
“Hey,” he starts, voice thick and unnatural. He clears his throat and tries again. “Bruce, what’s wrong?”
Bruce doesn’t turn to meet Jeremiah’s eyes but remains motionless and terrifyingly silent.
“Bruce?”
Bruce applies pressure to Jeremiah’s shoulder and it’s only now that Jeremiah realizes Bruce has worked his shirt off his shoulders which, okay, that was expected, and is staring with chilling intensity at the left-over scar from the bullet wound Jeremiah suffered that time Ivy went to the dark side. “Miah, what is this?”
Jeremiah feels a spike of adrenaline shoot through his system. This cannot be happening. No, no, not this, not now. Bruce can’t know, he can’t know, he’s not entirely sure why but he feels a deep certainty that whatever happens, Bruce can never know.
His mind is already fuzzy but now he’s working purely on instinct because his mind has shut down.
He sits up, dislodging Bruce, and starts to rebutton his shirt. “It’s nothing –”
“It’s a fucking bullet wound,” Bruce seethes between his teeth.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Bruce grabs Jeremiah’s hands to still them, forcing Jeremiah to meet his gaze. “Don’t lie to me.”
Jeremiah holds his gaze and says slowly with careful deliberation, “It’s nothing, Bruce.”
Bruce frowns, eyes narrowing dangerously. A thought seems to occur to him and he’s pulling Jeremiah’s shirt up quickly, uncovering his knife wound covered in a bandage, blood seeping through the stark white gauze. “What the fuck–”
Jeremiah stands abruptly, wincing at the sudden movement, pacing several steps away from Bruce, his mind in a broken loop of no-no-no-no and Bruce-can’t-know-he-can’t-know like it’s a cardinal rule.
“What’s going on, Miah?” Bruce asks, his voice settling into that overly-controlled, frigid tone, the one that bites and leaves scars far deeper than skin, straight through to the bone.
“It has nothing to do with you,” Jeremiah lies.
“Like hell it does. Why the fuck do you have a bullet wound? And what looks like a fresh one?” He tries to catch Jeremiah’s gaze again but this time Jeremiah refuses to cooperate. “Are you in trouble?”
Jeremiah lets out an ironic laugh, though it sounds a bit bitter and always hysterical. “I’m fine, Bruce.”
“Stop saying that!” Bruce stands and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “Would you stop trying to handle things by yourself for one fucking minute? You’re not very good at it. You’ve never been any good at it.”
Jeremiah feels a thread of anger bubble up from his stomach because Bruce has never trusted him because Bruce is all-knowing and never acknowledged him, never saw that he could, he can change the world.
And Bruce will never know because Bruce has never allowed himself to see that part of Jeremiah, because that means Jeremiah might be worthy of Bruce and that means he can leave, he can get it into his head that he can do better, that maybe, just maybe, they’re equals.
“You don’t have a right to know,” he finally answers between clenched teeth, slowly and almost tauntingly he wants to hurt Bruce like Bruce hurt him.
Bruce jerks back momentarily before stepping forward a few steps and uttering, “I have every right to know. I love you.”
Jeremiah scoffs, disbelief immediate and effectively killing any symptom of happiness the statement might have invoked. “You have never loved me.”
Several emotions cross Bruce’s usually guarded face but Jeremiah doesn’t want to categorize them, he’s sick of analyzing and interpreting and piecing together the parts of Bruce he so infrequently gets to call his own.
“You have no idea what I’ve done for you, what I’ve felt for you over the years.”
“Oh yeah, a hell of a fucking lot, I’m sure,” Jeremiah replies sarcastically.
“You think you know me so well but you don’t have a fucking clue,” Bruce spits out and tilts his head up.
Jeremiah leans forward and drawls out slowly, “You wanted me for my skills. And when you didn’t need it anymore, you threw me away.”
Bruce makes a jerky movement with his head and steps back. “That’s what you think?”
“That’s what I know. Why the fuck do you think I sued you?”
Bruce nods in determination. “Fine, great. You need to leave.”
“Gladly.” Jeremiah storms to the door, grabbing his jacket on the way.
Bruce follows him through the halls and says coldly, “Don’t bother coming back to Wayne Enterprises.”
Jeremiah ignores the sudden clenching of his heart, kicked out of Wayne Enterprises again, kicked out of Bruce’s life again, kicked out of everything he used to define himself by, and yanks the front door open.
He peers behind his shoulder and replies, “Goodbye Bruce.”
He slams the door on Bruce, on his heart, and on all the stupid, unrealistic fantasies he deluded himself into believing were true.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah is still fuming in his rapidly growing swirl of self-righteous anger and misery when he reaches his home or rather the four walls and roof that he inhabits while on this mission. He doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have Bruce. He’s nothing, he has nothing, again, again, again. Selina is sulking in her own bubble of self-righteous anger, holed up in her room. Jonathan is in the living room with Ecco, watching a cheesy, unrealistic, disgustingly sweet romantic comedy. It makes Jeremiah sick.
“Hey, lover boy, you’re home early,” Ecco coos, turning around on the couch to rest her elbows on the back of the couch and cup her chin in her palms. “Details please.”
He stares at her, numb and unsure what to say, how to formulate words. His mind isn’t working, not like it should be but he can hardly remember a time when he could think straight, so maybe he’s just an idiot, a fuck-up, and those rare moments of brilliance were a fluke. “We broke up,” he replies finally, voice shaky and raw.
Ecco’s face drops and instantly she looks concerned and bewildered. “What?”
And now Jonathan is staring at him with worry and pity in his eyes and the damn romantic lead on the screen is making a declaration of love and it’s all so fake and unreal and stabbing at his psyche because he heard those words tonight, he heard them, iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou echoing through his veins like a poison and he doesn’t know how to make it stop, the world is spinning too fast and he wants off of this ride.
“Shut that crap off,” he snaps, edging his way to the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him and turning the lock with a quick flick of his wrist. He turns on the faucet and bends over the sink, hands braced on either side of the structure, taking in slow, deep inhalations of air. It hurts like his chest isn’t meant to expand that far, like this is an unnatural manipulation of his body like his body is rejecting the oxygen he needs to survive, like he rejects everything that would keep him alive.
He still isn’t exactly sure what just happened, how everything went from absolutely perfect to the end of the world again, and why is he always on the precipice of heaven and hell, bypassing that elusive, imaginary middle ground where he wants to live, to be?
He splashes cold water on his face in hopes of reviving his cognitive functioning but all he can see behind his closed lids is Bruce’s face telling him I love you, that hurt and vulnerability and anger and hope combining in his eyes watching, waiting, daring, pleading for Jeremiah to know, to believe, to finally hear him, just this once.
He presses his lips into a firm line, afraid of the moisture that lurks behind his eyelids, afraid of the words like ‘love and I’m sorry and I never deserved you, why couldn’t you see that?’ He might let slip out, even if for his own ears only. If he lets those thoughts form into tangible sound, with vibrations and wavelengths and meaning and significance, that would mean it was real, this was real and he had to live with it, there’s no third chance, the universe has been more than generous to him.
There’s a light but insistent knock on the door. Jeremiah tries to ignore it but he hears Ecco from the other side, “Miah, are you okay sweetie?”
He hesitates before he answers, afraid of breaking down the moment he forces air through his throat, but the words come out like words do, normal and dry and void of emotion. “I’m fine.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are. Can I come in anyway?”
He scoffs, drying his face on a towel and muffling a groan in the terrycloth. “No, Ecco.”
“Okay, yeah, that question was more a polite formality. I’m coming in.”
He lifts his head from the towel and double-checks that the door is locked. “Good luck.”
There is silence for a couple minutes and Jeremiah allows himself to resume his wallow in self-pity when he hears clanking noises and Jonathan shrieking, “This is a rental, we’ll never get the security deposit back!”
“It’s not even our money, sweetheart.”
“It’s someone’s money. Please, Ecco, oh dear. Miah can you please just come out?”
There’s a pounding on the door and he hears Selina yell, “Valeska, stop acting like a fucking fourteen-year-old girl and get your ass out of the bathroom.”
He lets out a large huff of air, steeling his shoulders and throws open the door. “What?” he snaps, a little more loudly than he anticipated but he’s most certainly not going to apologize for it.
Selina scowls at him, arms crossed under her breasts, her hip jutted to the side in annoyance. “Care to explain why you’re acting like a teenage girl? Again.”
“You have your own bathroom,” he replies, ignoring her antagonist question, and points to her, then to Ecco, who looks the slightest bit disappointed that she has to put away her tools and a– “Is that a laser?”
Ecco whips the object behind her back. “What? No, what? No. No….What?”
“Where did you even–”
“From your Audi,” Jonathan supplies helpfully.
“Johnnyyyy, shut up you little tattletale,” Ecco whines, bouncing from side-to-side in a mini-tantrum.
Jeremiah stares numbly at them, leaning heavily on the door jab, blinking his eyes occasionally. He feels out of place, distant like he’s observing someone else’s life and dreaming someone else’s dreams and living someone else’s heartbreak because there’s no way he can go through this again, there’s only so far he can bend until he breaks.
“Is that all?” he prompts, wanting nothing else but to shut himself back in the bathroom, run the shower and pretend the water on his face is from the stream above his head. He starts to close the door but Selina catches it and forces it open again.
“What happened?” Selina finally asks, exasperated and trying to ignore the antics that are occurring because Ecco has decided to invade Jonathan’s personal space again.
He flexes his hand on the side of the door, eyes tracing the painted grains in the wood. He swallows before turning his eyes up defiantly. “It’s over, okay? You were right. And I was wrong like I always am. Happy now?”
Selina shifts her eyes guiltily before awkwardly placing her hand on his arm in an attempt to comfort him. “I’m sorry.”
“You aren’t.”
“I did warn you.”
“Stop being a bitch, Lina,” Ecco sneers, hitting her arm. “Miah has a broken heart.” She grabs his hand and tugs him out of the doorway into the kitchen. “We need booze and ice cream.” She gasps. “Do you think they make alcoholic ice cream?”
Jeremiah tries to resist, tries to hole himself back into the bathroom so he can be alone and wallow in his own misery but Ecco’s grip is firm and Selina is actually collecting ice cream from the freezer. Before he can really realize how it happened, they’re assembled around the kitchen table, eating copious amounts of ice cream straight from the pail and mixing alcohols. Jeremiah reminds them that he’s on pain medication so he forgoes the drunken portion of the evening. He almost asks them why they’re drinking when he’s the one who should be drowning in booze, but he lets it slide.
“We should go over there and break his kneecaps,” Selina suggests, more than a little tipsy and gorging on chocolate ice cream. She frowns down at her spoon. “I’m going to be so fat in the morning, aren’t I?”
Ecco waves her hand dismissively. “Nah, it’ll run right through you.”
“Fuck you, you have the metabolism of…something that’s really fast. I hate you,” Selina muffles around her spoon.
“I thought we hated Bruce Wayne?”
“Oh yeah!” Selina slams her hand on the table and turns back to Jeremiah. “Let’s go break something of his. Like his kneecaps.”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “We’re not doing anything to Bruce. It’s my fault. He did nothing wrong.” He sighs and rests his head on the table. “I fucked it up. Again.”
Ecco hums sympathetically. “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
Selina nods vigorously. “That’s exactly it. We’re not normal, Miah.” She bends her head down to rest on the table so she can look him in the eye. “We can’t have normal relationships. That’s why we joined the CIA.” She whispers loudly in what she thinks is stealthy, “We’re fucked up, you know.”
Jeremiah squints at her but Ecco continues where Selina leaves off.
“That is so true, Lina. So fucking true. Like, my longest relationship is…with you guys.” She grins at them and wrangles an arm around Jonathan’s neck beside her. “I love you guys.”
“We love you too!” Selina exclaims and Jeremiah laughs into the table because a drunk Selina is a surprisingly affectionate one and that’s incredibly strange and priceless all at the same time. He glances to Jonathan to share his smile, but Jonathan is staring contemplatively at his beer bottle only his second because Jonathan doesn’t like drinking. “It hurts my stomach,” he resisted earlier but Ecco all but poured the first beer down his throat.
Jeremiah frowns and reaches a hand across the table to poke at Jonathan’s. “Hey. What’s up?”
Jonathan looks up and stares pensively at Jeremiah for a moment before shaking his head. “Nothing.” He shifts his chair back and stands. “I have some work to finish up.”
Jeremiah sits up straight in his chair, watching Jonathan’s retreating back before his attention is once again directed on the two very drunk and now cuddling women at the table. They spend the next hour relating their worst break-ups and wallowing in self-pity. Jeremiah feels able to function by the end of it, and he wonders how he ever got through life without them before but he supposes during his last break-up with Bruce, he paid for the companionship of his lawyers. Which is a little pathetic and quite a bit more than sad and definitely explains why he feels the need to send a nice Christmas present to Harvey every year.
He decides the girls are drunk enough and helps Ecco and Selina to bed, wrangling them into their bathroom to brush their teeth before placing them haphazardly on the bed. Jeremiah is only partly successful in avoiding Ecco’s groping hands, she gets very grabby when drunk, though Jonathan is usually her victim, but he manages to get the covers over them and shuts the door behind him.
Jeremiah settles into the living room, thumbing through his phone while his laptop boots up. He needs to plan, to re-strategize now that he’s banned from Wayne Enterprises. He cringes at the thought but he has enough sugar in his system now to handle it. For tonight at least.
He glances up when he hears the guest room door open and smiles at Jonathan standing tentatively in the doorframe. “Going to bed?”
Jonathan shakes his head. “I was just getting some water.” Jonathan walks quickly by Jeremiah, footsteps padding across the hardwood to the linoleum in the kitchen.
Jeremiah taps his fingers against his laptop, frowning and ill at ease about Jonathan’s standoffishness. He waits until Jonathan is tip-toeing back to his room behind the couch where Jeremiah is sitting. “Jonathan, take a seat.”
Jonathan freezes.
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows and nods to the recliner perpendicular to him. “Please.”
Jonathan shifts his eyes away from Jeremiah to longingly stare at his open bedroom door before nodding in defeat and sitting down uncomfortably in the seat indicated. He sets his glass of water down carefully on a coaster on the coffee table, shoulders stiff and unnatural but this is Jonathan so unnatural is usually his natural and avoids looking directly at Jeremiah. He keeps his hands clutched perfectly still on his knees and looks so miserably nervous that Jeremiah just wants to envelop him in a great big hug except Ecco will find out because she always does somehow and will whine that no one fetched her for that particular moment of family affection.
Instead, Jeremiah bluntly asks, “What do you want to say to me?”
“Huh?” Jonathan jumps, confusion and a bit of guilt written clearly on his face.
“You’ve been debating whether to tell me something or not all night.” He leans back and spreads his hands in an attempt to appear open and accepting. “So what is it?”
Jonathan shifts his eyes quickly from his knees to Jeremiah and back to his knees. He looks like he is about to say something before he shakes his head. “It’s not my place,” he finally whispers.
Jeremiah huffs out a sigh that he’s ashamed to admit is impatient. “You’re my teammate and more importantly my friend. I can assure you, it’s your place. Spit it out.”
Jonathan takes several breaths before he squeezes his eyes shut and fires out rapidly, “I think you set yourself up for destruction and this thing with Mr. Wayne could be easily fixed and generally you’re being an idiot.”
Jeremiah makes a squawking sound of surprise and gapes at Jonathan. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Jonathan moans, rubbing his hands nervously on his knees.
“No, no, it’s okay.” Jeremiah is unsure why he’s reassuring someone who just called him an idiot, but it’s Jonathan. “I, uh. Just a little exposition would be appreciated.”
Jonathan looks apprehensive and moves to stand. “I should go to bed—”
“Explain, now.”
Jonathan sighs and slumps back into the chair. “Okay, well, it’s just. I mean, I don’t want to offend you. You’re the nicest, best, most amazing man I’ve ever met. Seriously.”
Jeremiah quirks the side of his lip up. “Yes, of course. I’m fabulous, go on.”
“Um. And you really like Mr. Wayne, right?”
Jeremiah’s smile turns a little sad and regretful. “Yeah.”
“And he, um, he likes you too. A lot.”
Jeremiah looks down at his hands, intertwining them and avoiding Jonathan’s hesitant gaze. “Maybe.” I love you sings through his veins, invading his heart and polluting his cells so he can’t fight this infection, his immune system has turned against him.
“So why can’t you just explain it to him? Tell him you’re an agent and okay, maybe you lied to him but you’re doing it to save Wayne Enterprises. To save the world. That has to count for something, right?” Jonathan looks so hopeful, so eager to fix this when it isn’t even his problem, to begin with.
Jeremiah frowns and shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. We need to be careful. Even if Bruce won’t say anything, we’re putting his life in danger by letting him know about our assignment.”
“You told Lucius.”
Jeremiah blinks. “This is completely different.”
“How so?”
“Because Lucius is Lucius and Bruce is Bruce and I’m not telling Bruce, he can’t know, alright?” He’s breathing faster and maybe freaking out a little bit about the possibility of Bruce finding out about his new life, about the CIA and being a part of that world and he doesn’t know why this is affecting him so much.
Jonathan obviously is sensing Jeremiah’s confusion because he blurts out, “This is it, this is the problem. Miah, you’re an amazing man but you’re self-limiting. You put these arbitrary borders around your life like you aren’t allowed to try for something, to want something. And I can’t understand why because you’re always pushing the rest of us to be better, to achieve whatever we can imagine.”
Jeremiah is shaken. There’s a truth he recognizes in Jonathan’s words, resonating those unfelt, unconscious thoughts and behaviors into significance. There are things in his life that are like that because they just are, his mother constantly compares Jeremiah to his brother because that’s the way it is, that’s how mothers are, and fathers leave and fail to defend their only sons in the face of it. He’s not supposed to expect more from life. He goes to the best college because that’s where he’s supposed to go because that’s the life he decided he wanted, the life he’s forced into once his mother sends him away, becoming an engineer because that’s what’s expected from him, and that’s it. He dates some girl because she likes him and he’s supposed to have a girlfriend and that’s the way it is. He doesn’t go to Gotham because he needs to finish college, it’s in the plan, he can’t change the plan because it doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t have the power to change the formula. Only Bruce could ever accomplish that feat because Bruce is the most amazing person to ever breathe.
He wants to say something, to refute what he’s hearing, but Jonathan continues. “Look, I want to be selfish and say this is okay. That you can stay with us and we’ll be a globe-trotting team forever. But that’s not what’s going to happen. People move on, people grow apart. One day we’ll part and I don’t want you to regret leaving the man you love for a job no one will ever give you recognition for. And maybe it won’t work out with him. And maybe I’m completely wrong.”
He exhales heavily, avoiding Jeremiah’s gaze and squeezing his hands tightly but he presses on. “If I’m wrong, and you actually don’t want to pursue this thing with Mr. Wayne, then okay. But I don’t want you to give up because your mother and brother taught you that you deserve a finite amount of happiness.”
Jeremiah still has no words, he has nothing to say, his mind is shocked into a blank canvas but it’s not blank, just free of the clutter he’s gathered to hide under. There are strokes of light blue at the corners, where he hides the memory of the first time Bruce smiled at him, just for him. There are blotches of red at the top where he tacks the memory of his brother threatening him with a knife, forever, why can’t I be normal, you were never supposed to be born. There is a rainbow of colors and forms, shapes and shades that tell the story of his life. And he wonders for the first time if he can extend that canvas if maybe he doesn’t have to color in the lines.
Jonathan, apparently unaware of Jeremiah’s epiphany, clutches his glass of water and stands. “I-I’m sorry I said that. I’ll just go to bed now. Goodnight Miah.”
Jeremiah stares blankly at the air in front of him for several minutes before muttering, “Well shit.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah doesn’t exactly know what to do with all these new thoughts and feelings and epiphanies floating around in his head, so he does the only logical thing he can think of: he throws himself into work and hopes the thoughts work themselves out, or go away. Either works for him.
He clears his Wayne Enterprises office out in the wee hours of the morning, making sure Bruce is nowhere to be found. He leaves a vague note for Lucius explaining that he will no longer be coming into Wayne Enterprises and no, he does not want to talk about it, and that Selina will be taking over as the field lead if he needs to contact them. Judging by the state of his email and his voicemail inboxes, though, Lucius is most definitely ‘Not Impressed’ by his behavior or Bruce’s, because apparently, Bruce is being tight-lipped about the whole thing as well.
He feels sort of bad leaving Lucius in the dark but he’s not in a place to even think about any of this, let alone discuss it with Lucius in great detail because Lucius is one of those really annoying people who make you dissect your feelings when you’re being irrational and that’s really bad for his whole denial plan.
James, however, is less subtle in his attempts to figure out ‘what the fuck just happened’, ‘you can’t do this to me Miah’. It takes three days of constant harassment and finally a threat that James is going to come over unannounced and kidnap him before Jeremiah finally agrees to meet with James. Alone he cannot stress this part enough. In no way, shape, or form is James to bring anyone, especially anyone whose name begins with a “b”.
They meet at a coffee shop a few blocks from Wayne Enterprises. James arrived early and is bouncing his knee against the underside of the table, hands spinning his coffee cup around and around in his fingers, staring intensely and silently at Jeremiah for several long seconds. Jeremiah remains defiantly silent, a blank expression settled onto his face, his slightly raised eyebrows his only sign of interest.
Finally, James purses his lips and blurts out, “You know, sometimes you need to work on the sex aspect before it gets good.”
Jeremiah chokes, hands grasping blindly for his mocha frappe an unfortunate side-effect of the ice cream binge since now he simply cannot function without a steady supply of sugar in his system. He takes a few sips and tries to remember how to breathe before he finds James’s very serious eyes again. “What?” is all he manages, his jaw slack in shock.
James leans forward and says entirely too sincerely, “You know, you’ve built up this thought of how great the sex will be and it’s a huge disappointment and you think you made a big mistake. And maybe you’re a little embarrassed and so you blamed Bruce and Bruce blamed you. But it’s okay. It takes a while to find the right rhythm in a new relationship.”
Jeremiah opens and closes his mouth several times before he asks tentatively and in a pitch just a smidgen higher than he normally speaks, “You think Bruce and I aren’t talking because the sex was bad?”
“Obviously.”
“No. No. That’s completely. No. No.” It’s really all Jeremiah can think to say. Because no. Seriously, that is the least of their issues.
James smiles sympathetically and pats Jeremiah’s hand. “It’s okay. It’s me, James, your BFF. You can trust me, I just want you and Bruce back together. I hardly got to tease either of you and now Bruce is being a bitch and you’re running away again. So not fair.”
Jeremiah holds up a hand and takes a few breaths before he says slowly and as clearly as he can so that James can understand without a single shred of doubt, “Bruce and I did not break up because the sex was bad. We were hardly going out anyway. It was a stupid idea on both of our parts.”
“No, it was a brilliant idea that should have happened years ago.” James leans forward even more and Jeremiah is suddenly concerned that he’ll tip the table over with the force of it.
“What’s a stupid idea is you two breaking up. Again. And then you’re going to leave again for some overly hot foreign land and not reply to my emails and I’ll have to go to five more years of therapy. Who’s going to pay my therapy bills, Miah? Are you? Are you going to pay my therapy bills?”
Jeremiah remembers now that conversing with James has always been, and always will be, insane. “What?” he manages, tilting his head in confusion.
James ignores him and continues on his rant. “And I don’t give a crap how delusional Lucius seems to think I am, I am akin to a child of divorce and it’s not fair, you hear me? You cannot get my hopes up like this. So you are going to march back to Wayne Enterprises with me and apologize to Bruce, or he’ll apologize to you, I don’t know who’s at fault because no one will tell me anything and if that isn’t proof that I’m a child of divorce, I don’t know what is. You should tell that to Lucius, then he’ll have to believe me. I swear he’s conspiring with my therapist to make me think I’m crazy. I’m not.”
“There are too many things wrong with what you just said, I can’t even begin to reply,” Jeremiah responds, a hesitant smile quirking his lips up.
“This is no laughing matter, Miah. Are you going to at least tell me what happened?”
“I wasn’t planning on it, no.”
“You owe me,” James pouts. “You were all BFF with Lucius in college and didn’t even acknowledge any of my texts or emails or phone calls or letters after the lawsuit and then you up and left for Hong Kong – and seriously, Miah? You didn’t have to go halfway across the freaking globe to avoid us, I’m still a little offended – and you didn’t call for years and then you come back and don’t tell us anything—”
“Alright, alright.” Jeremiah sighs and gently coaxes James back off the table a little because yeah, he’s starting to tip it and Jeremiah spent seven dollars on his frappe, okay? He sighs and peeks at a surprisingly patient James. “So we – Bruce and me, I, Bruce and I – had an argument.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“I always thought I would be a better Watson. You know, capable of human emotion—”
“Moving along, Miah. Jeez, you’re as bad as me.”
Jeremiah smirks but continues. “So, we had an argument and one thing lead to another and now I’m banned from Wayne Enterprises and we’ll never talk again. The end.”
James attempts to throw a paper napkin at Jeremiah’s face but it waffles pathetically in the air for several seconds before landing on the edge of the table, two inches from where James launched it. He makes a face at the traitorous napkin before settling back onto Jeremiah. “More. Details. What was the fight about?”
Jeremiah clears his throat and wonders just how he should and can answer the question. He decides to be as honest and vague as he can. “We. Uh. He wanted to know some things.” James raises his eyebrows and tilts his head forward to indicate he was listening. “Some things about what I’ve been doing since the whole lawsuit thing.”
“You’ve been inventing, right?”
“Uh, sort of?” Jeremiah waves his hand. “It’s not important. The fact is I can’t really discuss it with him. Or you. Or anyone. Not right now. And Bruce didn’t really like that. And I might have gotten frustrated and we started yelling. And he might have told me he loved me and I might have said he only wanted me for my skills and that he never loved me.”
“Oh Miah, you didn’t.” James moans and lowers his forehead to the table, shaking it against the hard surface.
Jeremiah clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably in his chair, hands growing cold where they clutch his frappe.
“You don’t really believe that do you?” James asks forlornly, his head still plastered to the table. “Because if you do you’re an idiot and there’s no hope for you and I really will have to kidnap you and lock you in my basement until you can think straight.” His head pops up quickly, eyes pleading.
Jeremiah frowns and considers the situation carefully. In his head, he knows it’s a very illogical thought. He knows, as much as it pains him he has always known, that Bruce cares for him. That Bruce held him in higher regard than anyone else. But then Bruce had betrayed him like no one ever had and those two diametrically opposed truths played havoc inside his heart.
“I think,” Jeremiah finally ventures, “I think I know it in my head. But it will probably take some time to know it. Um. In here,” he taps his chest to the left where his heart beats because he feels silly saying it out loud.
James appears not entirely satisfied if the exaggerated eye rolling is anything to go by but he doesn’t push further. “Fine, wallow in self-pity. See if I care. But.” James pauses and leans on the table again, causing Jeremiah to rescue his frappe in a hurry. “You’re coming back with me to Wayne Enterprises and you’re apologizing or Bruce will or you can skip it and just kiss and make up, okay?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“HOW IS ANY OF THIS NOT SIMPLE, I JUST SPELLED IT ALL OUT FOR YOU.” James huffs out an annoyed breath. “Don’t make me switch places with my twin and mess with your lives until we all go on a fantastic camping trip together.”
“Are you seriously rehashing the plot of The Parent Trap?”
“Whatever it takes, Miah.” James’s eyes are blazing with excited intensity. “Whatever it takes.”
“You don’t have a twin.”
“Whatever it takes,” James repeats vehemently.
“Stop repeating that.”
“Start believing I will fuck up your life if you don’t listen to me.”
Jeremiah purses his lips and glares at James, battling with himself in his mind. James’s and Jonathan’s words are circling around in his mind, broken into segments by Bruce’s stilted iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.
He closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths. He tries to dissect the issue logically, to figure out just what he should do, what he wants and what he needs. But this isn’t an algorithm and Bruce has never been a math problem for him to figure out try as he might, starting over and over, until the lead from his pencil cuts through the paper, worn thin and useless under every brush of his eraser. He wishes this was like readjusting the data and circuits to get one of his inventions to work. But hasn’t he been studying Bruce like he would the accuracy of one of his inventions, noting minute changes in the hunch of his shoulders and speed of his fingers like the shifting of gears? But his inventions don’t scare him to his very core.
He opens his eyes and splays his hands, noting the condensation on his frappe and the way James is thrumming his fingers on the table impatiently. He doesn’t want to face the truth, he doesn’t want to try for happiness and Bruce and everything he ever wanted and have it fall flat and fail, again. But he cannot stomach the thought of letting Bruce go, of Bruce getting married and having a family and loving someone the way he should only love Jeremiah. Finally, he comes to a conclusion that doesn’t make him want to vomit.
“I have some things to take care of. But after that. I’ll tell Bruce. I’ll tell him everything.” He tries to convince himself that it’s because he wants to finish the mission first, he wants to make sure Bruce and Wayne Enterprises are safe before he broaches the whole ’I’m-in-the-CIA-and-only-came-here-and-got-close-to-you-for-an-assignment thing.’ But he knows he’s fucking terrified to the very root of his being that Bruce won’t forgive him, that this will become real, that he will be hurt, and rejected again. So he’s buying some time before his world gets turned upside-down again.
“How long will that take?” James whines, clearly not happy with this turn of events.
Jeremiah shrugs, much like Bruce would like he’s imitating him, like his body misses everything that is quintessentially Bruce and is trying to make up for it on its own.
“You’ll keep in touch? I know where you live, you know,” James warns.
Jeremiah smiles and relaxes a little. “Yeah. I’ll keep in touch.”
“Every day?”
“Every other day.”
“Okay.” James smiles and takes a large gulp of his coffee before pausing and asking with a raised eyebrow, “You sure it wasn’t the sex?”
“It wasn’t the sex!”
So Jeremiah dives headfirst into work. He has meetings with Hugo’s team and runs surveillance around Wayne Enterprises and if he gets a couple extra shots on the rare occasion that Bruce actually leaves the office, so what? No one is checking. Except Ecco is and she’s giving him all these pitiful looks like he’s the sixteen-year-old never-going-to-get-the-girl sidekick in a teen drama and he has to send her off to fix something or build some type of super spy weapon they don’t need so she’ll stop.
One of Hugo’s most trusted team members, a dashing gentleman named Jervis, takes a job at the Wayne Enterprises office financial department so that there is at least one more agent in the field.
“I hate him,” Selina informs Jeremiah mere moments after their first meeting with him.
Jeremiah scoffs. “You hate sunshine and puppies. He’s a perfectly nice human being.”
“And that’s exactly what’s wrong with him. This is an international situation. We’re trained assassins. We’re not nice!”
“I’m nice,” Jeremiah defends, pouting slightly.
“You’re bipolar.” Jeremiah gapes at her but she continues. “And Ecco is psychotic and Jonathan is one panic attack away from agoraphobia. And Jervis held the door open for me.”
Jeremiah feigns disgust. “Off with his head!”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Never.”
“I will kick your puny little—”
“Ass. Yes, yes, I know.”
Once Jeremiah is sure Selina won’t dismember Jervis, he takes his Audi the love of his life, to speak with the CIA team that infiltrated the Ace Chemicals headquarters. He wonders how they never spoke before since they’re most likely looking for the same source of funding these moles have if not the same mole even. It’s more than a little suspicious.
Jeremiah spends the drive pondering just how distracted he’s been over the course of the last few weeks, he’s too close to the target. It’s one of the first rules they taught him in all his training. Emotions blind the senses and oppress the mind. How could anyone in the head offices of the CIA think he was the right man for this job?.
He meets the Ace Chemicals team, headed by a woman who goes by ‘Fish’ she refuses to supply any more information about her name than that because it’s none of his damn business and she shouldn’t even be talking to him because the director certainly did not okay this and doesn’t he have a history of disobeying orders?
He somehow convinces her to share information, he would like to thank his good looks but he knows it’s because they’ve hit a dead-end on their investigation and they need his information as much as he needs theirs. Still, his charming smile might have a little something to do with it.
“It doesn’t,” Fish informs him, almost reading his mind. He decides she’s terrifying, in that I’m-your-mother-you-can’t-hide-anything-from-me sort of way.
Through careful consideration of the evidence both parties have gathered, they conclude there are two moles – one at Wayne Enterprises and one at Ace Chemicals, but they are most definitely working together. Jeremiah’s team has gotten further in their investigation simply because Jeremiah had been able to infiltrate at the top levels of Wayne Enterprises, whereas the Ace Chemicals team had to work their way up.
The Wayne Enterprises mole started one month before the Ace Chemicals mole, and they comb through payroll accounts in painstaking detail to try to find a link, to see new hires or a fluctuation in employee bank accounts. There were several new hires at Wayne Enterprises and Ace Chemicals in the specified time frame but none of them match up to any suspicious activity.
Jeremiah spends the better part of a week in with them before heading back down to his team. He and Fish make an agreement to not inform Ned or the director of their little conferences as a precaution. Neither wants to voice their concern over their less than consistent behavior but they’re far too competent in their jobs to jeopardize their teams due to their denial. For now, they’ll proceed slowly and without any assumptions.
The drive back takes longer than he expected and it starts to rain as soon as he leaves Ace Chemicals. He frowns and concentrates on the road in front of him, unused to driving in the rain. He shifts in his seat and turns the radio up so he doesn’t have to listen to the incessant patter of the rain against the car a downpour he never expected.
He should go back to his house, to his team, to debrief and eat something other than fast food. He should go home and shower and settle down in his pajamas and not pay any attention to the rain. But as soon as he nears, the sky dark and obscured with heavy rain, he heads for Bruce’s house like it’s a habit like it’s ingrained somewhere in his psyche and he’s too far gone to analyze or care about it. He needs Bruce and that’s the only truth he knows anymore.
He parks just down the street from Bruce’s driveway, hands gripping the steering wheel tight and watching rain blur his windshield, pouring down in rivers. He stares straight ahead, simultaneously trying to convince himself to get out of the car and talk to Bruce because he misses him and his stupid face and his typing and biting remarks and the way his tongue slides over Jeremiah’s lips and into his mouth, among other things. But he’s also trying to convince himself to turn this car around and go away right now because he’s terrified and Bruce is probably still very angry at him and what right does he have to ask for more than he’s entitled to and he needs to focus on saving Wayne Enterprises and how does he even know if Bruce is home right now? But he knows because they have that weird sort of connection where Jeremiah just knows where Bruce is.
So he decides in the only logical fashion he can think of. He flips a coin. Heads-up, he’ll get out of the car and talk to Bruce and maybe fix this whole mess. Tails-up, he’ll head back home and focus on his job like he should be doing anyway. He takes a deep breath before throwing the coin up in the air. He catches it quickly, flipping it onto the back of his left hand. He grips his fingers around the palm of his left hand for a moment before carefully peeling them back and revealing the coin.
Heads.
Heads.
Okay, okay, he can do this. Heads. Okay. It’s fate, right?
Okay.
Heads.
He throws open the door and alights from the car before he can change his mind. He is immediately assaulted by cold, hard drops of rain, flattening his carefully styled hair and plastering his clothes to his skin, tight and uncomfortable and leaking water down his neck to his back. He lets out a cleansing sigh, watches his breath condense in the air for a moment, and takes a step toward Bruce’s house.
And freezes.
Because backing out from Bruce’s driveway is an overly large, overly pretentious black SUV Cadillac with tinted black windows so totally pretentious. And no, an Audi is not pretentious, okay? Because Jeremiah fucking earned his Audi. He doesn’t need to see into the windshield to know who’s driving the fucking pretentious SUV. He doesn’t need to, but he’s a masochist so he looks and of course, it comes as no surprise that it’s Ra's fucking al Ghul. With his Armani jackets and douchey face and that smirk he’s always wearing like he’s won some sort of life contest like he deserves any recognition for Wayne Enterprises, he doesn’t. It’s Bruce’s and Jeremiah’s and James’ and Lucius’. It doesn’t belong to Ra's, no, no, never, he will die before he acknowledges Ra's’ part in everything.
Jeremiah stands absolutely still, shivering and dejected, feeling anger radiate off his arms and cheeks and fuse with the cold rainwater hitting his skin like little needles, biting. It’s all so familiar like everything like he’s stuck in some fucking time warp and he has no idea what he did to deserve this. Because no matter what his brother told him, he is better than this, he can have better than this, he can have what he wants that he wants to throw up.
It takes all his willpower to get back into his car and drive away because if he stays here, he’ll end up confronting Bruce and saying more hurtful words he doesn’t mean and he just cannot risk that. Not now. Besides, a thought has taken root in his mind and he needs to see it through now.
Because if his hunch his malicious, illogical hope is right, Ra's fucking al Ghul is the mole and maybe that means he can punch him in the face.
The team is alerted to his arrival at the base by the squealing of his tires. He exits the car immediately and heads to the front door before pausing with his hand on the doorknob. He sighs and curses in Romani, running back to the car to grab his suitcase because he knows Ecco is going to want her present from his trip to Ace Chemicals and apparently anywhere that takes more than thirty minutes by car to get to requires him to bring souvenirs, according to Ecco’s logic.
He runs back to the house and skids inside, depositing his suitcase by the door and shucking off his dripping jacket.
Ecco skips to the foyer to meet him. “Hiya! Whadda bring me?”
Jeremiah nods to the suitcase. “It’s in there. Where’s Jonathan?”
Ecco claps her hands in delight and lunges for the luggage. “He’s in his room.”
Jeremiah nods his thanks and walks briskly to the guest room, running on a manic sort of energy. Selina peers at him from her position on the couch, painting her toenails. She raises an eyebrow. “You’re completely soaked.”
Jeremiah glances down and notices water squishing out onto the carpet, trailing from his pants and shoes. He shrugs. “Yeah.”
Selina squints at him. “How was Ace Chemicals?”
“Great. Informative. We think Ned's acting weird. And guess what? Ra's al Ghul is in town.”
Selina blinks. “Yeah, he’s been in town for a few days now.”
Jeremiah freezes and turns to stare at her, shock and righteous indignation clearly spelled across his face. “What?”
“He arrived a few days after you left.” She dips the brush into her nail polish bottle and pulls it out again, tapping the excess polish on the side of the bottle before brushing it carefully across her nails.
“He hit on me.” She throws her head back and laughs. “Like, like he actually—” she laughs harder and has to hold the brush up and away from her feet—“like he actually had a chance with me.” She shakes her head. “Idiot.”
Jeremiah stalks over to the couch and braces his hands on the back. “Ra's al Ghul has been in town for days and no one bothered to tell me?”
Selina raises an eyebrow and purses her lips. “We handled it. Eduardo’s team put a tail on him and Jonathan’s been monitoring his computer activity at Wayne Enterprises. There’s really nothing out of the ordinary.”
Jeremiah shakes his head in disbelief. “Ra's is the fucking mole, can’t you see that?”
She pauses before placing her nail polish brush back in the bottle and shifting to face him more directly. “No. You want Ra's to be the mole. We checked the records, he was in the Bahamas during a large chunk of the mole activity.”
Jeremiah frowns, reluctant to let this epiphany go so easily. “He could be working with someone.”
“Yeah. And so could anyone else at Wayne Enterprises. You’re being delusional. Again.”
“You don’t know how manipulative Ra's is. He’s already got you all twisted up against me!”
“You don’t know how crazy you are!”
“What’s going on?” Ecco asks, peering around the corner into the living room.
“Miah is being a delusional fucking jealous teenage girl. Again,” Selina seethes, staring Jeremiah dead in the eyes.
Jeremiah scowls. “Bruce is weak against Ra's. Ra's is a smarmy, manipulative bastard with high ambitions and no morals. He has access to fucking everything. He is a perfect fit.” He turns to Ecco because she is more likely to believe him.
But Ecco is shaking her head sadly. “You should have fucked Bruce when you had the chance. Now you’re sexually frustrated and crazy.”
Jeremiah gapes and points his finger at her. “I, I’m crazy?”
Ecco nods rapidly. “But don’t worry, we still love you.”
Jeremiah groans into his hands. “Jonathan!” he calls out in desperation because he can’t be the only sane one left among the four of them.
Jonathan pokes his head out of his room, his eyes widening in terror that Jeremiah doesn’t understand, until Jonathan cries out, “The carpet! You’re ruining the carpet! We need towels.” Jonathan rushes to the linen closet to leave Jeremiah in his misery.
Jeremiah sighs and slumps into the loveseat beside the sofa, ignoring Jonathan’s horrified moans that now they’ll have to replace the loveseat, they’ll never get their security deposit back, this is horrible, they are the worst tenants ever.
He spends the next few days following Ra's closely but not obsessively, because he’s completely sane. He is. Shut up. Somehow he manages not to just draw his gun and shoot the bastard because he’s James fucking Bond, not Indiana fucking Jones. He chooses stealth and suaveness over pure power and awesomeness and only wonders briefly if it’s a fair deal. But the only footage he gets is Ra's being a douche and picking up far too many women than his looks should allow for. It is highly disappointing.
By the sixth day, Jeremiah has come to the sad conclusion that okay, maybe he was a little delusional but who could blame him? Ra's is like the worst type of human being ever. If he is, in fact, a human. So he decides it’s the last afternoon he will spend his valuable time following Ra's around the Gotham area and really? For all of Ra's’ paranoia, he’s shit at figuring out when someone really is tailing him. This gives Jeremiah a strange and completely false sense of accomplishment.
He follows Ra's to the Wayne Enterprises offices in his pretentious SUV wearing his pretentious Armani jacket. Ra's parks in his reserved parking spot and alights from his vehicle, checking over his shoulder suddenly.
Jeremiah ducks quickly behind a car, making sure to position himself by the tire so as to hide his feet if Ra's has enough brains to look under the cars. He doesn’t, instead heading into the office a little more quickly than Jeremiah has observed over the past week.
Jeremiah hopes Ra's thinks he’s being targeted by the mafia or something, whatever Ra's’ crazy little mind can make up because Jeremiah is a nice guy but he’s also kind of evil to those who have crossed him and he delights in the suffering of his enemies probably another reason the CIA wanted him.
He waits for a few beats, listening intently to Ra's’ retreating footsteps, before he straightens, adjusting his suit back into place. He’s about to move outside and run surveillance outside the office when something makes him pause.
It’s nothing, really, but there’s something overwhelmingly familiar about the car he found himself crouching behind. It’s just an ordinary car, in an ordinary color, that an ordinary employee at Wayne Enterprises would drive. And yet there’s something about it that is so comfortable and accepted in his mind that his instincts are screaming at him to take a closer look. He’s learned over the years that it’s what you accept without question that comes back to bite you in the ass.
He squints and peers inside the vehicle, noting the air freshener – lemon scented, quite common he hasn’t had a lemon-scented freshener in years, Jonathan doesn’t like the strong acidic smell of it, and the neat organization of the objects left in the back seat his back seat is either completely wiped clean of anything due to Selina’s insistence of leaving absolutely nothing personal behind or full of junk he doesn’t know the origin of because Ecco uses it as her own personal storage on wheels.
He makes a note of the license plate, make and model of the car, and the parking spot it’s in, before heading out to the café across the street from Wayne Enterprises. He texts Jonathan and asks him to run a check on the license of the owner and to cross-reference it to the employees’ financial information they’ve gathered. Just to be on the safe side.
He orders an overpriced frappe and sits near the window while he waits. He doesn’t have to wait long before his phone is chiming, but he is surprised to see it’s a voice call from Jonathan, not just an answering text.
“What’s up?” he answers, thumb playing with the end of his straw.
“Okay, so I ran the license plate and the car is registered to a Pamela Isley, a thirty years old, divorced mother of two.”
Jeremiah makes some notes on a spare napkin, nodding into his phone. “Alright. Anything unusual in her accounts?”
“No, nothing out of the ordinary. But, uh. See, she’s not on the financial records.”
Jeremiah frowns, pausing in his notes and twirling his pen between his fingers. “We missed someone?”
“No, she isn’t on the payroll.”
Jeremiah’s eyebrows rise considerably. “She’s in Wayne Enterprises-employee-only assigned parking.”
“Maybe he parked there by mistake?”
Jeremiah’s mouth thins and his dark eyes spark with intensity. “I’ll call you back Jonathan.” He shoves his phone into his suit pocket quickly, abandoning his drink and jogging quickly over to Wayne Enterprises.
He’s not entirely sure if he’s been blacklisted by security but he doesn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself, so he slips around the building to a side entrance.
He easily picks the lock and slides into a rarely used staircase. He takes the steps two-at-a-time until he reaches his desired floor. He pauses for a moment to calm his breathing and fix his hair, it’s for the assignment, really, he’s not vain, before exiting the staircase and walking briskly to the human resources department, careful to avoid anyone who would raise concern at his presence like Bruce or James or Ra's al Ghul.
He slips around desks and carefully avoids the office of the head of human resources because she’s kind of evil and hates him.
Instead, he finds her assistant, a kind woman called Leslie whose eyes never really reached his eyes when he talked to her, but remained slightly unfocused on his lips.
She is, thankfully, not at her desk in plain sight of her boss, but in the copy room a few paces away. She’s frowning down at the copier, scolding it for some infraction he wasn’t privy to. He sidles next to her smoothly, reaching a hand up to lay two fingers on her arm.
“Hey Leslie,” he drawls, a grin wide on his lips.
She jumps and stares with wide eyes for a moment before a nervous laugh escapes her throat. “Mr. Valeska!”
“Please, I told you to call me Jeremiah.”
“Jeremiah, right.” She smiles and bows her head shyly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I, uh, I thought your business here had concluded.”
Jeremiah makes no outward sign of surprise, but he’s pleased to know Bruce and Lucius downplayed his sudden absence from the office but he shouldn't have been worried, to begin with, he’s the one that likes to cause a scene. He tilts his head and says, “Oh, not quite. Actually, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Anything,” she breathes and Jeremiah has a second of guilt for using her crush on him to his own advantage but then he remembers his job and what’s at stake and it’s not as if he’s leading her on or anything.
“My computer crashed, and I have some really important information saved on the private office server. Do you think I could borrow your computer, just for a second?”
Leslie hesitates and shifts her eyes uncomfortably. “Um. I, I would like to help you. But with the security breaches, we’re not allowed to loan our computers to anyone.”
“Please? Just for a second?” He widens his eyes to look more endearing.
She bites her lip and looks like she’s debating fiercely in her mind before she sighs and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. My boss would kill me, you know her.”
Jeremiah swallows his disappointment and nods cheerily. “Ah, it’s okay,” he says, waving a hand in dismissal before switching tactics. He moves to leave the room, pausing at the door like something just occurred to him. “Oh, by the way. I saw an accident in the parking garage just a little while ago. Some jerk hit a car and just drove off.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s horrible!”
“Isn’t it, though? I took down all the information I could, but I’d like to give it to the victim in person. You know, if they have any questions for me. They were in spot number one-hundred and twelve.”
Leslie’s eyes light up. “That I can help you with! Follow me.” She ushers Jeremiah out of the copy room and leads him to her desk. Jeremiah positions himself in a blind spot where the department head cannot see him and waits as Leslie runs through a couple screens on her computer. Finally, she makes a distressed noise. “Oh no!”
Jeremiah peers over her shoulder. “What is it?”
“It’s Pam’s car. Oh, poor Pam.”
“Pam?” Jeremiah prompts.
“She’s in this department. Sweet girl. Sort of distant. I’ll show you to her.” She stands and leads Jeremiah through the department, talking happily about how helpful Pam had been when she was having computer issues. She spent her entire lunch break fixing it, insisting that she go out and enjoy her lunch.
Jeremiah feels electric energy surging through his veins, closing in on his prey. He suddenly feels the very real weight of the knife strapped to his calf and the pistol tucked into the back of his pants.
“Oh, she must have stepped out for a moment,” Leslie notes when they reach an empty desk.
Jeremiah frowns but nods, advancing to the desk to analyze its contents. It is filled with random bits of postcards and knick-knacks that gave the illusion of a personality but were completely void of feeling. There is no theme, no special placement, it is all cold and affected. He’s running his fingers gingerly over a few loose papers when Leslie makes a happy noise.
“Oh! There she is. Pam!” She waves to her happily.
Jeremiah turns around, following Leslie’s gaze, and freezes instantaneously, his eyes widened comically.
Before him, in a pencil skirt and a button up blouse, red hair slightly shorter than he last saw it, with an all-too-familiar pair of harsh green eyes and a condescending tilt of lips.
Of course, it had to be the fucking Poisonous Plant he’s been chasing for weeks. Of course.
Jeremiah watches Ivy’s eyes widen in recognition and there’s a moment where they just stare at each other, evaluating the situation, Ivy with probably a lot less emotion and more evil thoughts than Jeremiah.
“Pam, Jeremiah here saw—” Leslie begins somewhere in the background but Ivy is already taking off down the hall with an incredible burst of speed.
Jeremiah has a one tiny moment to decide what to do. He can either chase after Ivy and draw way too much attention to himself, running the risk of blowing his cover with no guarantee of capturing Ivy. Or he can let Ivy go, try to track her down later, and maintain cover. The safe choice is the latter. He knows what they’ve trained him for. He should choose the latter.
“Fuck it.” Jeremiah starts off after her, whizzing past desks, papers flying behind him in his wake. “Ivy!”
Ivy is still paces away and ducking around corners in an attempt to lose Jeremiah.
“Stay fucking still you poisonous bitch!” Jeremiah yells at her.
This finally gets a reaction from Ivy who whips her head around, still racing around the office and now people are plastering themselves to the walls with looks on their faces that range from what the fuck? to WHAT THE FUCK???????
“Stop with the fucking Poison Ivy jokes, okay? They were never funny.”
“They were always funny,” Jeremiah rebuffs, personally offended.
Ivy spots the stairs and smirks, leaping over the railing and taking three at a time up to the next level. Jeremiah curses and rushes to follow her.
He grabs his phone from his pocket and hits the emergency panic button. He desperately needs Selina to back him up because he might be agile, but Ivy has always been able to out-run him with her stupid lithe athletic body.
He watches from several feet below as Ivy enters the top floor. Which is good because that’s where Selina probably is and she’ll subdue her in no time if they cross paths. But it’s also really fucking bad because that’s where Bruce is and oh shit, oh no, if Ivy so much as thinks about hurting one single dark hair on Bruce’s beautiful head, he will draw and quarter the bitch himself.
He bounds up the remaining steps as quickly as he can, bursting through the door and into the engineering department. He stops and scans the open layout quickly, barely aware of the heaving breaths he is exhaling and inhaling. He can’t find Ivy, shit, shit.
His body remains perfectly still but there’s energy circulating inside of him, replacing his blood with a power he only feels when he’s on a chase. He takes in every detail, every minute difference in the area that he can, with his eyes and his ears and sense of smell.
He spots Selina across the room, walking briskly with a false sense of calm, her stilettos clicking on the floor a little faster than normal. She catches his eye, brows raised in question.
He starts toward her when her eyes widen and she yells out quickly, “Miah, down!”
He barely manages to react in time before a ninja star whizzes past his head. He straightens and spins around, catches sight of a red jet of traitorous hair.
“A fucking ninja star, Ivy? Are you fucking kidding me?” He bursts forward again, tracking Ivy around a sharp corner.
“What the fuck, Ivy? It’s Ivy?” Selina yells from behind him, heels in a fast click-click-click, gaining on him.
“Right?”
They weave between unsuspecting employees and people are freaking out and someone’s crying. They’ve probably called security by now. Great.
He needs to maintain as much of a cover as he can, he needs to get these people out of here, he needs to kill Ivy, he needs to find Bruce and make sure he’s safe. There are too many thoughts and worries swirling around in his mind, so he closes his eyes momentarily, feet still pounding the floor one after another, and lets instinct take over because planning and thinking and analyzing is good and safe and completely useless when something this important is on the line. It’s terrifying and freeing at the same time to just do exactly what comes to his mind first. He opens his eyes and reaches a hand out to a passing fire alarm. He tugs it down, lips lifting in satisfaction at the instant shrill of the siren.
“What the fuck, Valeska?” Selina yells at him, having finally caught up with him. She shoves him harshly in anger. “We’re going to lose her in the panic.”
“We need to get these people out of here. Head over to the west exit, I’m going to search the floor. Where’s Ecco?”
Selina smiles slightly, an upturn of the corners of her lips. “It’s nice to have the competent Jeremiah back.”
“Shut your mouth. Ecco. Location. Now.”
“She called when you sent the alert. She should be in the building.”
“Good. Go.” Jeremiah shoos her off, watching her take a sharp left to head to the west exit. He takes his phone again and calls Ecco, weaving through the semi-panicking crowd of people trying to get down the stairs and out of the building.
She picks up on the first ring.
“What’s happening, my liege?” she answers, breath slightly shallow like she’s running. He can hear the sirens throb in echo on her end of the line.
“You’re in the building?”
“Second floor, north side, about to be trampled to death, no big deal. Where are you?”
“Third floor. I need you to evacuate everyone, make sure the building is empty as soon as possible.”
Ecco hums in acknowledge. “Aye aye, capt’n.”
“You’re mixing up your references.”
“I am an English pirate from the feudal times, how is that confusing?”
Jeremiah dodges a man barreling around the corner, his laptop clutched against his chest and eyes wide with severe panic. “Forget I mentioned it. Oh, and Ecco?”
“Hmm?”
“Be careful. It’s Ivy.”
There’s a pause on her end before she asks, “Ivy who?”
He actually pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it incredulously for a moment before repositioning it against his head again.
Now is not the time to be concerned seriously fucking concerned about how Ecco’s mind works. Just. What. “Ivy, our former team leader. Poison Ivy?”
“Her?”
“Yeah, her.”
“Huh. That’s a new one.”
Jeremiah sighs and nods even if Ecco can’t see it. “She’s on this floor, I’m tracking her down.”
“If she shoots plants at you, you need to take video.”
“Go evacuate people!”
“I’M SERIOUS, Miah—”
He cuts her off and ends the call, replacing his cell phone back into his pocket. The floor is thinning of people, most employees crowding each other at the staircases. He takes the opportunity to check under desks and behind fixtures. Then he remembers he’s dealing with Ivy, who has the same training as he does and he swears under his breath. This isn’t going to be easy.
He slows to a jog, looking up at the ceiling as he runs, then back down and he probably looks really fucking stupid but he can’t take any chances. He runs a hand down the small of his back to make sure he has his gun secured there, breathing out a relieved sigh when he finds it tucked exactly where he remembered putting it in the morning when he had been envisioning shooting Ra's with it.
It seems that dream, is destined to never come true.
He notices a slightly muted shuffle to his right over the piercing siren, ears trained to block out the obvious and magnify the concealed. He jumps over desks and chairs, feet stomping over wood and papers and scattered knick-knacks and if he feels a slight moment of guilt for stepping on someone’s beanie baby, he’ll deal with that later.
He is just about to hop down from someone’s desk, one foot dangling in mid-air and arms flared out to keep his balance, when he looks down and staring owlishly up at him is Bruce, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a stern line. He can hear James somewhere around the corner yelling about how they’re all going to die in a huge inferno because Bruce couldn’t be bothered to stop working to leave a burning building right away.
Lucius responds with something Jeremiah can’t hear but he doesn’t have much time to figure it out because he can clearly make out Ra's’ voice. His expression darkens before it falls back on Bruce.
He smiles stiffly. “Hey. Bruce.”
Bruce is still glaring at him, unflinching and more terrifying than any bullet or knife could ever be.
“Whoa, whoa, Miah, what’re you doing?” James demands as the group rounds the corner and takes in the scene in front of them.
Ra's blinks at Jeremiah on the desk for a moment before cocking his head and saying, “What’s he doing here?”
Jeremiah scowls at Ra's and jumps down from the desk. He looks quickly to Lucius who mouths ‘what is happening?’ to him, clearly concerned. Jeremiah nods in acknowledgment. “You should get out of here,” he tells them before advancing forward, hoping he hasn’t lost Ivy in the delay.
“No.”
Jeremiah stops, fists clenching at his sides while Bruce’s two-letter utterance echoes through the near-empty space. He peers over his shoulder, eyes pleading. “Bruce, you need to leave.”
Bruce crosses his arms and cocks his head in defiance, mouth twisting with scorn. “This is my building.”
“Bruce.”
“No.”
“Maybe we should listen to Miah,” Lucius pips in, anxious eyes on Miah. “There’s a fire—”
“There’s no fire,” Bruce answers pointedly, nodding to Jeremiah. “Right?”
“Can someone let me in on all this tension here?” Ra's asks, gesturing with his hands between everyone.
James is all-too-happy to fill in the details, immediately rushing out, “Basically Miah came back and Bruce was super jealous of all the attention everyone was paying him, and then they made out and got together and then they broke my heart and divorced again and now there’s a fire and Bruce wants us all to die a very horrible death because he won’t leave and Miah has taken up tap dancing on tables? Maybe? I don’t know, the last part is still a bit unclear.”
“Okay, everyone needs to leave right fucking now,” Jeremiah spits out, frustration and fear leaking out through his voice.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Bruce answers, unmoving, eyes sharp and hopeful and how they can still be hopeful, after all the lies, after all the times Jeremiah has rejected him in the harshest and strongest of ways, Jeremiah does not understand.
It shocks him, twists his stomach in guilt and regret and something akin to jealousy because Bruce can do what Jeremiah has always wanted. He can come back over and over, make himself open and vulnerable to Jeremiah because Bruce is invincible. Jeremiah wishes he could be as strong as Bruce has always been.
Jeremiah opens his mouth to lie, to rattle off some unbelievable excuse and find Ivy, to leave Gotham and Wayne Enterprises and his old friends and Bruce forever. But there’s something in the way Bruce is watching him, like he’s the only person in the room like his answer is the only one that matters like Jeremiah matters to him, to this genius, this man who changed the world. Jeremiah is important to him. It feels heavy and intoxicating in his body, his lungs shuttering under the radiant pressure of it like he can steal a bit of Bruce’s magic for his own like Bruce bestows his magic on Jeremiah, like Jeremiah is worthy of it.
He takes two steps forward towards Bruce before pausing, unsure of if he can advance further. He reaches his hands out and retracts them almost immediately, warring with himself.
“Miah,” Bruce repeats, leaning forward, eyes shifting quickly over Jeremiah’s face now, anticipatory and so achingly tentative.
“Oh fuck, screw it,” Jeremiah mutters before answering, “I’m in the CIA. I’m a spy. In the CIA.” Bruce recoils, expression darkening in disbelief. “Yeah, you don’t believe me, it sounds ridiculous. It is fucking ridiculous. I hardly believe me.” He points to Lucius. “Ask Lucius.”
Everyone turns to look at Lucius immediately. Lucius looks concerned, eyes wide and questioning. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Miah?”
Jeremiah nods, eyes locked on Bruce’s profile, willing Bruce’s eyes back to his, willing Bruce to believe him.
“WHAT THE FUCK?” James shrieks, mouth completely agape and looking back and forth between Jeremiah and Lucius.
“CIA? Lucius, you knew? Miah? What? I. I need to sit down.”
“This is ridiculous,” Ra's supplies unhelpfully and very smugly.
Always so smug. And that is totally not a biased observation on Jeremiah’s part. No. Even the way Ra's breathes is smarmy. “James, call security. James.”
James is shaking his head numbly. “Why does no one tell me anything? I don’t want to be friends with any of you. You all suck. I’m putting an ad on craigslist tonight.” A pause. “Are you really in the CIA? You're fucking serious?”
Jeremiah is still pleading silently for Bruce to at least look at him. “Bruce,” he whispers.
“Valeska!”
Jeremiah jolts at the very vocal arrival of a very pissed off Selina. He peers over his shoulder and winces, belatedly registering that his phone has been vibrating almost non-stop for the past few minutes in his pocket.
Her expression is on par with Bruce’s and he idly wonders if he is being punished for something he did in another life which is totally unfair because he has no control over that and hasn’t he suffered enough already?
“Your phone is to fucking answer, not—” She stops short when she is able to see Bruce and James and Lucius and Ra's, but it’s probably Bruce she’s worried about if that flash in her eye means anything.
She slows down to a controlled walk and plasters a smile on her lips, a bit too stiff to be credible. “I was trying to contact you,” she finishes, her voice disgustingly sweet and unnatural and completely unconvincing to anyone within earshot. She seems to notice it and tries again, pitching her voice slightly higher than normal. “We, uh. We should have lunch sometime.”
The group continues to stare at her and Jeremiah wonders if he should fill her in on the last couple of minutes. He decides no, no this is too much fun. And she’s going to beat him up later anyway, so he might as well earn it.
“I mean, uh, what are you doing here? When the building is on fire,” she amends lamely, adjusting her clothes and avoiding direct eye contact with Bruce.
Jeremiah suddenly feels very smug about his own failings as a spy because Bruce is like a human lie detector and now it’s not just Jeremiah under his scrutiny.
“Shit, she’s part of the CIA too, isn’t she?” James breathes, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Fuck, she was a brilliant engineer.”
Selina whips her head to Jeremiah and glowers in righteous indignation at him. “You fucking told them?”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows and scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “Maybe?”
She launches at him, attacking any part of his body she can bring into contact with her fists and feet and occasionally her head. “You fucking incompetent pansy, the first thing we learn is to never tell anyone and you fucking tell everyone? What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Jeremiah does his best to block against Selina’s attacks, dodging and ducking until he can wrap his hands around her wrists. “Would – fuck, would you stop already?”
“Why didn’t you call the local radio station and announce it to the entire fucking town, huh, Valeska?”
“He deserved to know!” Jeremiah blurts out, entirely ignoring everyone watching with intent stares and focusing on avoiding Selina’s nails.
Selina’s eyes narrow dangerously. “It was Wayne? Again? Are you fucking serious?” She glares at Bruce who jolts slightly before narrowing his eyes at her to match glares. “I hope you’re proud of yourself. You have single-handedly destroyed a prime agent to a flailing piece of fail.” She turns her eyes back to Jeremiah. “Fail.”
Before anyone can respond, Ecco trots around the corner, short, quick steps that sound entirely too happy for the current situation and how Ecco’s footsteps can have any sort of emotion is beyond Jeremiah to explain, but they do, and happy is what they are.
“Oh, oh!” she pips and Jeremiah notes in bemusement that she has somehow procured a fire marshal uniform like the time they were undercover at a circus in Hungary and she had somehow in the space of thirty seconds changed into a lion tamer outfit. Sometimes he thinks she’s a magical fairy or something.
“People! Who should not be in a burning building!” She trots past Selina and Jeremiah like their battle is an everyday occurrence it is and grabs randomly at James and Lucius, nodding her head at the others. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
“He fucking told them, Ecco.” Selina extracts herself from Jeremiah’s grasp because it never held much of a threat for her and even in her anger she was humoring him and grabs Ecco’s shoulders. “Jeremiah told them and now we have to kill them all and hide the bodies. Did you bring any lye?”
Ecco tilts her head in consideration. “No, but I know where I can get some. How many bodies?”
“We’re not killing anyone,” Jeremiah sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut, trying to ward off the impending headache building behind his eyes. If only everyone would shut up for a second and someone would turn off that damn siren that keeps throbbing throbbing throbbing, why is that siren still going?
“Oh shit.” Jeremiah snaps his eyes open again. He swears proficiently in Romani. “Ivy, fuck, we need to find Ivy.”
Selina’s eyes widen and snap to Jeremiah. “Oh shit. We are the worst agents in the history of ever.”
“Ivy who?” Ecco inquires again.
“Ivy, Poison Ivy, what the hell is wrong with everyone?” Jeremiah explodes, hands flailing slightly.
He takes a moment to look at Bruce confused and eyes racing over everyone like he’s tracing over their forms in order to make sense of what’s going on, and maybe slightly amused and just the tiniest bit hopeful, but that could be Jeremiah projecting. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“I’ll explain all of this later, I swear I will,” he tells Bruce, pleads with Bruce before turning to Ecco. “Ecco, get them out of here. Selina, she was headed to the back staircase a couple minutes ago.”
Jeremiah and Selina take off running, Jeremiah dialing Jonathan quickly and praying they haven’t lost Ivy for good. He hears Ecco coaxing Bruce down the stairs with her and ignoring James’s thousand and one questions.
“She’s probably halfway to Mexico by now,” Selina grumbles, heels clicking at an alarming pace.
“She only had a couple minutes head start.”
“Fuck you, Valeska. None of this would have happened if you had done your damn job.”
Jeremiah huffs in annoyance because this is not his fault not entirely. He cannot be to blame for everything, okay?. “Why don’t you just shut up?” he suggests to her the moment Jonathan answers the phone.
“Wh-what?” Jonathan stutters, suddenly terrified that Jeremiah has been replaced by a Selina clone. Again.
“I was talking to Selina, who’s acting like an ogre again,” Jeremiah pointedly enunciates more to Selina than to Jonathan, placing his phone on speakerphone.
“Yes, because Miah lost Ivy because he is a fourteen-year-old girl with too many feelings,” Selina yells in Jeremiah’s general direction.
“Do I need to be on the line for this?” Jonathan pleads.
“Yes,” they both answer decisively. Jeremiah thinks he hears Jonathan whimper but he can’t be sure.
“Has there been any activity in the last ten minutes? Safes opening, doors, anything?” Selina prompts, finally remembering her professionalism and the task at hand.
Jonathan does a quick search and rattles off a handful of locations that require works to open that have been activated in the timeframe Selina supplies.
Selina immediately takes off for the first-floor activity, texting Ecco the basement locations to investigate once she is finished escorting “Miah’s stupid boyfriend and his stupid friends with their stupid faces and their stupid questions” outside.
Jeremiah ignores Selina’s not even mildly veiled insults and starts to head to the second floor when he notices the service staircase door is slightly ajar. It’s only by an inch but he pauses in front of it, biting his pinky nail in consideration.
It’s highly unlikely that Ivy would have gone up when she had the opportunity to go back down, the door was probably left open by someone escaping during the fire alarm, and his team is counting on him to go to the second floor, where they’re expecting him to be. But Jeremiah is curious and doesn’t mind risking his own skin, especially if it will only take a couple minutes to clear the area and get back to the task at hand with a mind at ease.
Besides, he’s pretty sure Jonathan has planted several GPS trackers in his clothes and his rings and Selina’s clothes and Ecco’s, but Ecco seems to have noticed and is in a silent internal war with him, pointedly burning specific items of clothing and jewelry and once a bra, making sure Jonathan can see exactly what she’s doing. Selina thought they were staging a feminist revolt. That had been an interesting two weeks.
Jeremiah pushes through the door and finds himself in a solid cement staircase, metal steps painted a light grey leading up to the roof. He takes them two at a time, wincing slightly at the dull thunk thunk his steps make on the hollow structure, bouncing off the walls in a seemingly endless echo. He takes a moment to adjust his suit sleeves when he reaches the top of the stairs before placing his hand on the cool metal knob. He half expects the door to the roof to be locked but it slips open, the knob turning in pliant obedience under his hand.
He has to squint his eyes at the sudden rush of sunlight but his other senses alert him to another presence on the roof. He has enough foresight to duck before another ninja star cuts at the fabric of his suit by his shoulder.
“What the fuck is with you and the fucking ninja stars?” he demands, eyes open and glaring at Ivy.
Ivy sneers and balances a cell phone between her shoulder and ear, using her hands to dig out another damned star. “I bought in bulk, okay? Haven’t you ever had an impulse buy?” Ivy rolls her eyes before Jeremiah can respond. “No, I’m not fucking talking to you, for fuck’s sake,” she grumbles into his phone.
Jeremiah grabs his pistol from behind his back, releasing the safety and pointing it directly at Ivy’s head. “This can be easy. Just put down your weapons and come with me peacefully.”
Ivy lets out a mirthless laugh. “Really, Jeremiah? Really? Has that ‘come with me peacefully’ crap ever worked?”
Jeremiah shrugs. “It was worth a shot. There’s no way you can get out of this.”
“What, you’re going to shoot me?” Ivy asks incredulously like she knows what Jeremiah is capable and incapable of. Like she has evaluated Jeremiah evaluated him and found him lacking because Jeremiah could never measure up.
“If need be,” Jeremiah grits between clenched teeth, eyes narrowing. He takes a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart and quell the burst of panic and inferiority that has crept up to his chest.
Ivy scoffs and directs her attention briefly to her phone. She speaks quickly in another language Jeremiah suspects French. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, you were making empty threats and I was leaving.”
Jeremiah shifts his hand slightly askew and pulls the trigger, watching in satisfaction as Ivy jerks and widens her eyes when the bullet barely misses her. “Oops,” he shrugs smugly.
Ivy’s eyes narrow in determination and suddenly she has closed the distance between her and Jeremiah, wrenching the gun in Jeremiah’s hand to the ground. Jeremiah lets it slip easily.
Some part of him doesn’t want to kill Ivy, who used to be his teammate, who despite being an asshole still taught him what he needed to know to survive. Besides, he prefers the very real and very satisfactory feeling of a fist to the stomach or face region. Much more fitting for an asshole.
They wrestle with each other, throwing punches and reeling to avoid blows. Jeremiah tries to recall Ivy’s fighting style, to predict hits and anticipate her moves, but Ivy had never been keen to spar with him or any other member of their team.
“You really are an asshole,” Jeremiah breathes, wrapping a hand around Ivy’s wrist and twisting.
“Me? I was the asshole?” Ivy exhales sharply, dragging Jeremiah around and attempting to elbow him in the stomach. “You’re the one who kept making those ridiculous Poison Ivy jokes.”
“Your name is Ivy Pepper. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“That’s why you’re an asshole.”
“I am never the asshole. Everyone else is the asshole.”
Ivy sneers and succeeds in hitting Jeremiah, sending a fist harshly into his jaw. Jeremiah staggers back quickly, slightly dazed and tasting the iron tang of blood in his mouth. He swears and holds his cheek, willing the intense throbbing to go away. Ivy starts to run to the side of the roof and takes a leap onto the roof of the adjacent building.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Jeremiah grumbles under his breath before following Ivy, landing on the roof with a drop-roll and tearing at the finely woven fabric of his suit. “They’re never going to be able to fix this suit. It’s finished, that’s it,” he laments aloud to himself, barely resisting a flail with his whining.
Jeremiah follows Ivy through the building until the third floor, breezing past shocked employees and several people wondering out loud if they’re filming a movie or something. Two people actually try to stop him for an autograph. The delay is just enough time for Ivy to slip onto the fire escape and jump onto a passing truck on the street. Jeremiah jumps down as well but misses the truck and is left standing in the middle of the road, trying to catch his breath and cursing fluently.
His face is throbbing, his lungs are about to collapse, his favorite suit is ruined, Bruce is pissed at him, Selina is pissed at him, Ecco and James are probably plotting a world revolution or the resurrection of the Furby phenomenon which is basically the same thing anyway, and he just lost the man responsible for nearly destroying Wayne Enterprises. He wishes he was dying, it would make things a whole lot more pleasant.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The throbbing in his cheek has spread to that space between his skull and the skin covering his forehead. That space right there, like there’s a ball bouncing back and forth and back and forth. He’s lost control of his eyebrows, they will now and forever be in a permanent furrow because at least then that ball is restricted in movement. Not that his cheek has stopped throbbing, though. But at least Ecco was kind enough to bring him ice for the swelling and pain.
Not anything to actually, you know, hold the ice in, though. She brought it to him with bare hands and a giant grin on her face, patting his back soothingly with her wet hands. He managed a small smile because that’s the polite thing to do, before ripping a chunk of fabric from his button-down shirt to form a makeshift ice pack. His suit is ruined anyway, might as well look completely wrecked.
Which is how, he supposes, this horrible day ends up like this: in one of the rare boardrooms with actual walls on the top floor of Wayne Enterprises, locked in the small confines with his team, Lucius, James, a terrifyingly silent Bruce, and Ra's, a Ra's Jeremiah cannot legitimately kill or even hit, all scattered around the large table. Ecco and James are twirling in their chairs in what Jeremiah can only suppose is a how-many-times-can-you-spin-around-with-one-push competition. Jonathan has arrived and is nervously glancing around the room, then back to his laptop, then back around the room like he’s expecting someone’s freaking head to explode and he’ll have to clean up the mess.
Lucius is rubbing slow circles into his temples with two fingers, contemplating out loud how long it would take to sell his house and move far, far away from Gotham.
Selina is making frantic notes on her iPad and presumably contacting the Ace Chemicals team with their new information, leaning over to whisper to Jeremiah every minute or so about how fucking stupid he is and also never to go after a target alone again, and he’s fucking lucky he only got a fist through the face, which is ridiculous because his clothes have been massacred too, and that’s a big deal, but Selina doesn’t seem as torn up about it as he is but he will never get over this suit, okay?
Bruce stares blankly at Jeremiah, eyes flicking over his team every so often before settling back to him, expression closed off, but there’s a hint of exasperation and annoyance in the way his mouth pinches just the slightest bit. Jeremiah supposes he should be happy he can detect that much about Bruce’s mood, but it really does not help him with the situation at all so no, Jeremiah is not thankful. He’s fucking unthankful and pissed and tired and really wishes this was not his life.
And of course, there’s Ra's. Ra's who’s ranting and pacing up and down the boardroom on Bruce’s side of the table. It appears as though Ra's has forgone the idea that Jeremiah is putting on some sort of elaborate show to fuck with them, and now firmly believes Jeremiah is, in fact, an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. Which is so much worse because now he won’t stop ranting about government conspiracies and how he knew Jeremiah sent that girl to that party last weekend to set him up because Jeremiah is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Ra's’s life apparently, and he’s reminded eerily of another enemy, one who has his exact face.
Jeremiah conveniently forgets he has blamed Ra's for every evil that has happened at Wayne Enterprises though. Because Ra's probably is responsible for it. That’s just logical, okay?
Ra's is on his seventh straight minute of interconnected conspiracies and has somehow linked Jeremiah to the JFK shooting and Jeremiah’s head is just about ready to explode, and maybe Jonathan wasn’t too far off in his fears because really, if anyone in this room is going to clean up Jeremiah’s brain matter off the walls, it’s going to be Jonathan.
Ecco stops spinning in her chair and tilts her head at Ra's like it’s the first time she’s seen him. She squints her eyes and purses her lips before pointing at Ra's and turning to Jeremiah.
“Who’s that?”
Jeremiah lifts an eyebrow but isn’t really surprised. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “That’s Ra's al Ghul.”
Ecco gapes and turns back to look at Ra's. “Nooooo. Really?” She turns to James on her left. “Is he really?”
James nods, still spinning from side to side in his chair. “That’s Ra'sy boy.”
Ra's stops his pacing and focuses in on Ecco, eyes flicking her up and down in a way that makes Jeremiah want to throw up because no, Ra's did not just check Ecco out, ew. Ew ew ew ew.
Ew.
Ecco leaps up from her chair and stalks straight to Ra's, an awed look in her eyes. “The Ra's al Ghul?” she clarifies unnecessarily, and Jeremiah feels betrayed at the way her face lights up, maybe Ra's has a magic spell that makes every one of Jeremiah’s friends like him instantly or something.
Ra's smirks, cocky and self-assured, extending his arm to grab Ecco’s hand and holding it between both of his own. “The one and only,” he crones, thumb stroking Ecco’s hand.
“Ew, what are you doing?” Selina blurts out, voicing Jeremiah’s thoughts. Jonathan and James look mildly perturbed as well.
Ecco ignores them, eyes never leaving Ra's’s face, her face practically glowing. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long.”
Ra's shrugs in fake extremely fake modesty. “Here I am. The Ra's al Ghul.”
Ecco nods before removing her hand from Ra's’s grip and slamming her fist straight into his face, watching in glee as he stumbles to the floor in agony with one blow. “Miah’s glasses are not ugly.” She barks out a delighted laugh, as she rejects one of the comments Ra’s said to him years ago. Quickly she turns to grin at the team, pointing down at Ra's. “Look what I did!”
Selina gapes at her before her face breaks into a matching grin and she gets up to envelope Ecco in a rare hug. “That’s my girl!”
Jonathan bites his lip to keep a straight face before ducking his head back down to his laptop. Jeremiah can’t believe what just happened. He collapses his upper body onto the table, head hitting the cold surface with a loud thump and shoulders shaking with the force of hysterical laughter.
He can vaguely hear Ra's indignant and complaining that he’s bleeding, look, he’s going to sue them, this is police brutality, he is not crazy, okay?
Bruce seems impassive to Ra's’ distress, blankly informing him that he should clean himself up in the bathroom, and if he breathes a word of what has happened in the last hour, he will find himself dismembered tomorrow morning. Or something to that effect, Jeremiah is having some difficulty making out the words over the wave of hysteria still shaking off his shoulders. This isn’t real life. This cannot in any way, shape, or form be real life but it does resemble a soap opera his mother used to watch obsessively.
Ra's leaves, muttering about how the CIA is trying to get into his head or something like that and the room is blessedly quiet for exactly ten seconds before everyone explodes at the same time.
Jeremiah can’t make out any specifics but Lucius is bemoaning the PR disaster this has become because at the very least now he’ll have to explain why the entire freaking building was evacuated, and James is bouncing between hyper-curious awe and self-righteous offense that Jeremiah has stolen the title of Paid Assassin from him.
Selina is trying to teach Ecco her favorite punch-kick-decapitate move, but Ecco has moved onto more entertaining, shinier things like who the hell James is and does he know Doug? To which James stares with a confused expression for a beat before demanding an explanation of how she knows Doug from his third-grade class.
Jonathan has started to resemble a chicken, poking his head up to observe the group in wide-eyed curiosity and a slight bit of horror before ducking back down to find solace at his computer screen.
Jeremiah, head resting in his arms on the table, flicks his eyes up to land on Bruce directly across from him. Bruce is picking his nails, mouth in a tight line and eyes boring blazing holes into Jeremiah’s own, defiance and anger and relief all culminating together into an emotion Jeremiah can only describe as betrayed optimism which is fucking ridiculous because that’s a paradox, but they’ve always been the best and worst kind of paradox, so maybe it does make some sense. The intensity of his stare reminds Jeremiah of the serious task at hand.
He straightens until his back is flush against the back of his chair and he says quickly and with a great deal of authority, “Everyone quiet.”
The room stills immediately and Selina lifts her chin and defiantly sits down beside Jeremiah like it was her idea in the first place.
Ecco frowns but sits down next to James, both of them mouthing to each other something Jeremiah interrupts as “Miah’s so bitchy when he isn’t getting laid,” but he refuses to allow that into his reality so he ignores it.
Jonathan dips the edge of his laptop down and locks onto Jeremiah with rapt attention. But all Jeremiah can see is Bruce.
He clears his throat before starting, “I believe I owe everyone here an explanation.” He takes a deep breath. “And an apology,” he says to Bruce, praying his sincerity is visible in his eyes and his voice, but Bruce remains impassive and unreadable.
“Can we start with how the hell you got into the CIA and when and have you ever shot anyone?” James asks eagerly.
“It was a dark and stormy night in Baton Rouge,” Ecco starts, hands flaring in dramatic storytelling fashion. “‘I can give you everything your heart desires,’ the woman said to him, whispering and yet not moving her mouth, like the words existed by sheer will power. ‘All I require is your soul—’”
“Shut up, Ecco,” Selina sneers, eyes narrowed and incredibly annoyed.
“You shut up! I am telling a story, okay?”
“I will kick your ass.”
“Come at me, bro,” Ecco answers, standing with her arms spread.
Jeremiah grabs Selina’s arm and forces her back into her chair. “We have bigger issues to deal with,” he reminds her before turning his gaze to flick over James, Lucius, before settling on Bruce.
“You’ve been having security leaks over the past few months.” James nods. “It’s not some hacker with too much time on his hands. I’m afraid it’s a lot more serious than that.”
Jeremiah explains the situation to them, answering their questions when they interrupt and trying futilely not to read anything into Bruce’s tone on the rare occasions he voices something. Bruce gets progressively more angry, that terrifying, hair-raising kind of angry Jeremiah has never felt the full force of, even during the lawsuit.
Jeremiah clenches his fists and presses forward with his briefing, because he knows he lost Bruce or maybe he never had Bruce, and maybe they were never meant to be because it shouldn’t be this hard, should it? But this is important and whether Bruce hates him or not, they need to work together to save Wayne Enterprises, the only entity left that bears witness to what Bruce and Jeremiah had, what they were to each other, what they could have been in some other time, some different reality.
“What do we do now?” Lucius asks after Jeremiah is done.
“We cleanse the system. Yes, Ivy is still at large and we don’t know who she was working for, but at least now we can stop the leaks and protect the system,” Jeremiah answers before looking over at Selina.
“Selina is our most experienced analyst. She knows better than me what needs to happen to the system.”
Selina takes over immediately. “We need to go through all the work, every single fucking server, every computer needs to be checked with a fine-tooth comb. You can probably get your lower-level employees to check the computers for spyware and hidden traps. I assume they can do that much,” she adds condescendingly.
“We only hire the best,” James retorts proudly, slightly offended.
“Right,” she drawls, unconvinced. “You should probably start checking Salvatore Maroni’s work, then. It’s sloppy and appalling and if I had to sit beside him for one more day he wouldn’t exist.”
James frowns. “Okay, besides Sal.”
“While they do that, Jonathan and I will go over the work and clear the servers.”
Bruce frowns and leans forward in his chair, elbows landing on the table and eyes dark slits. “I’ll go over the work and clear the servers.”
Selina stops and glares. “This isn’t child’s play, Wayne. We’re trained professionals.”
“And this is my company. Mine.”
“This is a case for the CIA.”
“The CIA cannot even fathom what I’ve done to the world. I have greater access, greater control over information than they could ever hope for. The CIA can go fuck itself.”
“Bruce, maybe we should let them—” Lucius starts but is cut off by Jeremiah.
“Would you two stop being such fucking immature assholes? We need as much manpower as possible to clear everything before Ivy has a chance to creep back into the system. Which, may I add, she could be doing right this moment? Jonathan, James, Bruce, Selina, you will all be going over the site. And if you can think of a few high-ranking, highly capable and trustworthy employees to help, that would be good. Understood?”
Selina sighs and slouches back into her chair. “Fine.”
Bruce glares but nods just the smallest bit in agreement.
“We’ll need to take the system offline,” Selina says.
“We run the entire city with our generators and system,” Bruce answers tightly back.
“This is more important than that—”
“Our systems never got down, that’s our reputation,” Bruce reiterates and Jeremiah has to close his eyes because he can hear the panic in Bruce’s voice, can hear it echoing from all those years ago over the phone, admonishing him, demanding to know why Jeremiah didn’t get it, this is more than his petty jealousy, this is changing the world, he can’t withhold the plans for the generators.
He can feel that same empty pit in his stomach churning, knowing that he’s gone too far, this will never be okay again, even when Bruce’s telling him they succeeded.
Selina starts to argue but James speaks up quickly, “We’ll do as much as we can with the system online, okay? Then we’ll work offline as quickly as possible.”
Selina nods reluctantly, though she does cross her arms and swing her chair away from Bruce.
“One hour,” Bruce supplies, flicking his eyes between James, Selina, and Jonathan. “You have one hour of downtime. That’s it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me—” Selina starts.
“Okay,” Jonathan agrees readily. “We’ll get it done in one hour.”
Bruce narrows his eyes in Jonathan’s direction. He stares for a moment or two, causing Jonathan to shift uncomfortably under his intense gaze before he flicks to back to Jeremiah who very valiantly does not shift uncomfortably. Much.
Jeremiah stands, nodding at Ecco. “Ecco and I will clear the building of any physical threats. Call me if you need anything,” he adds, hesitating at the door.
But Bruce has already procured a laptop and is completely engrossed, fingers flying over the keyboard in a rhythm only he can produce. Jeremiah tries not to think about the distance between him and Bruce now, tries to push aside that sinking feeling that tells him when he leaves the room, he will lose his last connection to Bruce.
He sets his lips in a firm line and follows Ecco out when she tugs at his sleeve. He never was any good at controlling his feelings.
Jeremiah and Ecco split the search between themselves and Eduardo’s team. Everyone is required to pair up with someone in case of emergency on Jeremiah’s orders and yes, he is a big fat hypocrite, but he feels like crap right now so shut up.
He teams up with Ecco because he doesn’t feel like playing nice and Ecco rarely takes offense when he gets sulky.
He starts to wonder if that was a mistake because he forgot that while Ecco doesn’t take offense, she also doesn’t like to shut up when she smells something juicy.
“Miaaaahh. Hey, hey, Miah.”
“What?” Jeremiah asks absentmindedly, running his fingers over a wall and knocking occasionally to detect any abnormalities. He frowns when his knocking produces a hollow sound. He repeats his movements, sharp taps on the flat surface.
“You’re sulking. Again. When you really have no reason to,” Ecco initiates. “Miah. Hey, Miah, are you paying attention to me?”
“Ecco, there is an abnormality in wall that could very well be a bomb, so no. Not really.”
Ecco tugs Jeremiah’s hands away from the wall. “That’s one of mine. Two shotguns and a flamethrower. Or maybe it was the grenade. I don’t remember.” Ecco frowns and shakes her head, grabbing at Jeremiah’s shoulders. “Not important. We need to talk about your feelings.”
“You are insane. Legally insane.” He shrugs his shoulders to dislodge her hands. “Get back to checking for bugs or bombs or something.” He points randomly around the area they are in to distract her.
“I am checking,” she drawls, rolling her eyes. “Ever heard of multitasking?”
“Never.” Jeremiah shakes his head in fake sincerity.
“I’m going to bug you until you tell me something,” she answers in a sing-song voice and Jeremiah groans because he knows it’s true.
“Okay, fine, what? What do you want to know?” he asks, checking under a potted plant.
“Oh, absolutely everything. But for now, I’ll settle for why you’re acting like the world has ended when, actually, I can only see good things in your future. Brucey knows you’re in the CIA now, it’s all good, argument over, problem solved, yeah?”
Jeremiah sighs and doesn’t look up from his investigation when he answers her. “It’s not that simple and you know it. I still lied to him, I still didn’t tell him until I had to, I still came here under false pretenses. I still—” he swallows but continues, “I still denied that he loved me.”
“Your point?”
He looks up at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“What’s so difficult about saying sorry and moving on?”
“I lied to him, took his heart in my hands and crushed it,” he mimics crushing movements with his hands.
“Stop being dramatic,” Ecco waves at him. “You lied to him, and he booted you from his life when he didn’t get what he wanted, and you told him he didn’t love you, and he kicked you out of the company. And you withheld the plans, and he ignored you, and you nagged him too much and he showed up late when you were supposed to meet. Love is not a scorecard, Miah.”
Jeremiah glares at her. “I’m supposed to take relationship advice from you?”
Ecco nods. “I’m an excellent observer of the human condition.”
“You?”
“Why is that everyone’s reaction when I tell them this?” Ecco frowns, more to herself than to Jeremiah, before focusing back on him. “Anyway. Take my advice. Pursue something you want. Someone you want.”
Jeremiah purses his lips. “Jonathan gave me that same speech.”
“Aw, really?” Ecco claps her hands together in delight. “He’s grown up so well, hasn’t he?”
Jeremiah places his hands on her shoulders and spins her around, nudging her slightly to the other end of the room. “Work. You have some.”
“Multitasking, Miah. You should try it sometime.”
They finish the sweep of the building, including the exteriors, several hours later. They find a few various weapons that Ecco did not plant, or at least she doesn’t remember planting them, but sometimes she forgets to note things down in her journal so who knows?
And several recording and surveillance devices, which they quickly deactivate. Jeremiah hands them over to Eduardo and his team to analyze before thanking them for their hard work and bidding them a good night.
Jeremiah attempts to send Ecco home to rest but she gives him a Look and follows him back to the conference room which has been commandeered for Bruce and everyone to check the work.
They’ve added a few engineers Jeremiah knows by profile only, but James and Bruce seem to deem them worthy so he decides to trust them. Lucius is slouching in a chair in the far corner of the room, leaning his head against the cold glass window, cell phone and iPad still clutched in his grip even though his jaw is slack with sleep.
The engineers are zoned in, completely focused and driven on their task at hand. Even James barely acknowledges their entry into the room, lifting his eyes for a split second and smiling, tense and exhausted, before returning back.
Jeremiah takes a seat behind Bruce and suddenly realizes how tired he is. He almost collapses into the chair but catches himself on one of the arms and eases down gently.
Ecco attempts to curl up in Selina’s lap but is pushed quite violently to the floor. She offers a series of very loud protests to the analyst, that draws the attention of two engineers Victor and Bridgit, if Jeremiah recalls correctly and James momentarily.
“Ecco,” Jeremiah starts, nodding his head to the chair beside him. “Let them concentrate.”
Ecco pouts at him but trudges over to him, plopping down dramatically next to him and crossing her arms. “I’m mad at Selina. And Jonathan.”
“Why Jonathan?” he asks out of habit.
“He failed to defend my honor.”
“Mm,” he hums, leaning his head close to hers, using her hair as a pillow. “Shh, Bruce’s working, okay?”
He feels rather than sees Bruce shift in his chair, as if Jeremiah can sense the tiny differences in the composition of the air based solely on where Bruce is in relation to him, like they’re relative, like they exist without comparison until they are brought together and only then can they find some kind of tangible meaning.
Bruce presses his lips in a tight smile and nods at Jeremiah. Jeremiah smiles back, tired and worried and still happy to just be in Bruce’s presence, to listen to his fingers on the keyboard, the rhythm he can pick out and isolate from the spinning cacophony of typing-tapping-pecking that swirls around the room.
“Do you need anything?” he finds himself asking before he can help himself, lulled into familiarity and letting his guard down, allowing himself to test, to dip his toe into the deceitfully calm waters that is Bruce and Jeremiah and them together.
He knows the response already but he smiles when Bruce answers, “We need more coffee And candy.”
Jeremiah knows he probably has a stupidly fond look on his face but he can’t bring himself to care, it’s one in the morning and he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in days, he’s expended all his energy earlier that morning chasing down – and ultimately losing – Ivy.
His face is still tender to the touch, and the crazy notions that Jonathan and Ecco told him are starting to make some kind of ridiculous sense in his head. “Of course you do,” he tumbles out, lifting tiredly from his chair, nodding. “Alright, I’ll be back.”
Bruce makes a distressed noise at the back of his throat, spinning in his chair to face Jeremiah fully. “No, I—”
“I’ll be right back.”
“You don’t have to take care of me, Miah,” Bruce states clearly, eyes so open and powerful, asking Jeremiah to listen, to see that there is no work in Bruce’s words, they are as they appear, please know that.
Jeremiah smiles and steps close to Bruce, placing a hand on the back of Bruce’s neck and bending at the waist slightly. “I know. I like to. I want to.”
Bruce’s eyes flicker but he offers Jeremiah a barely-there upturn of his lips and spins back to his computer, fingers flying once again over the keyboard like they never stopped, to begin with. “And some beer for when we’re done.”
Jeremiah breathes out a noncommittal sigh and nods. “Yeah, okay.” He squeezes his hand on Bruce’s neck before turning to leave the room. Ecco stares owlishly at him before trudging to her feet and following him silently to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep behind the wheel and also she really wants pizza and she doesn’t trust his choices in toppings.
They return with cases of beer and coffee and everyone is a bit too tired to differentiate them at first before Jonathan literally has to place the beer outside the room to avoid confusion, various forms of candy, and a copious amount of pizza.
The supplies seem to revive the engineers who apparently thrive on little sleep and a constant supply of caffeine in their systems.
Perhaps it’s because he’s tired, or maybe he’s gaining confidence and he wants to test the waters a bit more, or maybe it’s some bizarre happenstance or the red string of fate that he read about in high school when he wondered if there could ever be a person out there so connected to him, so vital to his own existence and he to theirs, that the gods had to tie them together. A perfect fit too precious to be lost in the chaos of life, in the slings and arrows of human nature, but Jeremiah takes the chair directly beside Bruce, scooting it close enough to feel Bruce’s heat, but far enough they don’t touch. He waits, tense and alert, for a few moments but Bruce’s only reaction is to tilt his chair ever-so-minutely into Jeremiah’s direction. Jeremiah smiles and reaches for a piece of pizza.
Somewhere between his first and second slice of pizza, he falls asleep, eyes sliding shut, lulled by the quiet murmurs of Selina asking for an update on their progress and Bruce’s tap-tap typing that he isolates in his ears.
Tap tap tap echoes through into Jeremiah’s mind, almost deafening in its amplification. Jeremiah frowns and squeezes his eyes shut in protest, nuzzling deeper into the warmth on his cheek.
He wonders if he’s been transported to that room with those infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters and one of them has finally written King Lear because everyone is yelling.
“We have five fucking minutes,” someone snaps, typing still keeping pace.
“We wouldn’t have to rush if you’d allow the system to be offline for ten more fucking minutes,” someone else snaps back and Jeremiah’s lips upturn, because he can tell Selina, is gritting her teeth.
“The system has been down for fifty-five minutes, that’s way too fucking long.” Jeremiah’s smile widens because Bruce is being incredibly stubborn and adorable again.
“Maybe if everyone would shut up, we could actually do this.” And that’s James, surprisingly mature and probably pushed past even his bullshit tolerance level.
Jeremiah snaps his eyes open when he finally remembers where he is and what’s happening. He sits straight up and realizes in horror that he’s been sleeping on Bruce’s lap. Sleeping. On Bruce’s lap.
He groans and rubs a hand over his face, but thankfully the rest of the group seems to be engrossed in their work. He takes a couple moments to blink and take note of his surroundings.
Victor and Bridgit seem to have been dismissed, and Lucius is once again awake and frowning at his iPad, but considerably less tense and worried so Jeremiah takes that as a good sign.
Ecco is curled up in a chair, drooling on her arm and making little sounds of annoyance every once in a while.
Bruce, James, Selina, and Jonathan have huddled together, fingers flying and eyes flicking dangerously quickly over their screens.
“Three minutes,” Bruce breathes, hands moving in a blur Jeremiah has never seen before.
“We’re never gonna make it. Five more minutes, Mr. Wayne, please,” Jonathan pleads, hands shaking but consistent.
“Stop calling me Mr. Wayne and no.”
“Done!” James lifts his hands from the keyboard and grins, arms raised in triumph. “What’s my prize, good people of Wayne Enterprises?”
“There’s beer,” Selina answers absently, eyes narrowed at her screen and fingers deceptively slower than Bruce and Jonathan.
“It’s six in the morning,” Jonathan replies, aghast, but James is already out of his seat and bouncing to retrieve the beer.
“It’s drinking time, my man,” he says cheerfully, dragging the cases into the room.
“Are you done yet?” Bruce asks Selina.
“Finishing, give me thirty seconds.”
“Twenty.”
“Fuck you, Wayne.”
Bruce tilts his head and smirks, the left side of his mouth lifted up a sign Jeremiah recognizes as approval, and something very warm blossoms in his stomach.
They all finish one minute before Bruce’s self-imposed deadline, and Wayne Enterprises is back up after a very long hour of downtime. Lucius is already working on a press release full of word manipulation and half-truths to explain it.
He advises them all to go home and sleep looking pointedly at Bruce and Jeremiah before he grabs a beer and heads to his office.
Ecco is roused from her nap by James’s loud chattering at Jonathan and soon she joins in the drinking, which can only be a bad thing because she knows very embarrassing stories about Jeremiah and James loves listening to embarrassing stories.
Jeremiah, Bruce, and Selina confer together by the window, orange morning light streaming in from between the blinds and warming Jeremiah’s chilled skin. They found a few abnormalities that more than likely belonged to Ivy, but they were successful in eliminating them all. Apparently, Ivy had not been counting on being detected and didn’t make it very difficult to remove her traps.
“What about the Ace Chemicals team?” Selina asks Jeremiah.
“They don’t have any new information just yet,” Jeremiah answers, peering cautiously at Bruce. “It’s a waiting game again.”
Bruce is staring out the window, expression back to blank, dark circles forming under his eyes and Jeremiah has to resist the urge to wrap him up in a blanket and feed him hot chocolate. But that would probably be inappropriate. Mostly because that’s ridiculous, but also because Jeremiah isn’t sure where he stands with Bruce right now and it’s killing him. He would speak up, he would try to clarify but he’s already asked so much of Bruce that he can’t help but think he isn’t entitled to ask this slightest bit more. He resolves to let Bruce take the lead on this.
Bruce nods to the dawning sun and shifts away from the window, eyes passing over Selina for a moment before he settles and lingers on Jeremiah. He remains silent but trains his gaze on Jeremiah’s eyes, large and pleading and a billboard to all his thoughts, or at least it feels like it to Jeremiah, stripped bare and vulnerable and so desperately needy for Bruce that he can’t even bring himself to care. He moves past them and out the door without a word.
Jeremiah slumps against the cold glass and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, but now he does, and he’s greeted back to reality by a sharp pain in his chest and behind his eyes. He feels Selina tentatively pat his shoulder.
“It, um, it’ll be okay.” She clears her throat and furrows her brow. “Just, uh, let him cool off?”
He laughs and rubs a hand over his eyes, suddenly tired again. “You’re shit at comforting, by the way.”
“Fuck you, Valeska.”
“Oh, so original, Lina. Like I haven’t heard that one from you before. Go get drunk.” He nudges her towards the group now sprawled out on the floor, James and Ecco giggling uncontrollably and Jonathan smiling down into his untouched beer bottle.
“I don’t like beer,” she scrunches her nose in distaste at the group and Jeremiah suspects it has more to do with the company than the beverage choice.
“I got Schnapps too.”
Selina smiles and her eyes dance. “That’s my boy.” She strides over and grabs the yet untouched Schnapps bottle. “Alright, children. We’re going to play a little game.”
Ecco claps excitedly, poking James with her elbow in the process, while Jonathan widens his eyes. “Selina,” he starts. “Let’s not get out of control—”
“For fuck’s sake, Jonathan, why are you always terrified?”
“Because you have a bottle of Schnapps in your hand! History dictates that now is the time to panic.”
Jeremiah watches them for a few seconds before pushing off the window and slipping silently out of the room. He’s going to go home and crash and maybe wallow in his own self-pity, but that’s his own damn business. He’s halfway down before he hears someone behind him.
“Miah.”
Jeremiah peers over his shoulder to Bruce who has his laptop bag over his shoulder and is somehow trying to shrug his jacket on over it.
“Let’s go,” Bruce announces, jerking his head to the right.
Jeremiah stares in bemusement but nods slowly and strides toward Bruce, taking several double-steps to catch up to him because of course, Bruce doesn’t wait for him, just barrels through the hallway, expecting him to follow. Jeremiah wonders if he should be annoyed.
They head down to the garage and settle into Bruce’s car without a word, the only sounds that obscure the void is the gentle swish of Jeremiah’s suit when he walks.
Jeremiah wants to ask where they’re going, but Bruce’s face has that determined look that he knows means it doesn’t matter if Jeremiah knows where they’re going, they’re going there anyway.
He doesn’t have to wait long for the answer, however, as Bruce pulls into his driveway soon enough and shuts the car off. Bruce keeps his hands gripped loosely on the wheel and frowns ahead of him, refusing to meet Jeremiah’s intense gaze.
Jeremiah shifts uncomfortably in his seat and finally can’t take the silence anymore. He’d rather having an all-out screaming fest than have Bruce ignore him for one more minute.
“Bruce, I’m sorry, I was totally in the wrong—”
“I have two questions for you,” Bruce interrupts him, fingers now tapping the wheel in what Jeremiah recognizes as binary.
“Two…Maybe three.” He quirks his lips, pondering. “Two and a half.”
Jeremiah breathes out in relief because Bruce is talking to him again and nervous anticipation because he’s not entirely sure he has the answers Bruce wants to hear. “Yes, fine, two, three, a hundred, whatever. Just ask them already, please.”
Bruce peers curiously at Jeremiah at his tone. He licks his lips and nods. “Not here. Let’s, uh, let’s go inside.”
Jeremiah groans in frustration and flares his hands. “Stop changing locations just to stall for a few fucking minutes and get to the point.”
Bruce turns to face Jeremiah fully now, a dark scowl on his face. “I hardly think you’re in any position to criticize me.”
“Oh, yes, because I’m always wrong, I know, I get it.” Jeremiah lets out a sharp, exasperated breath and stares determinedly out the window. “Why do you always have to push me past my breaking point, huh? Does it make you feel superior to have that much control over me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the one who’s been playing with me. For weeks, Miah. Weeks. Baiting me and, and, fuck, why the fuck won’t you look at me?” Bruce demands, gripping Jeremiah’s shoulder and forcing his eyes back to Bruce’s, angry and defensive.
“I’m fucking terrified, alright?” Jeremiah forces himself not to look away, to face Bruce and his eyes cutting right down into his soul because he wants. He wants Bruce and this and them and he doesn’t know how to get it. He doesn’t know how and he keeps screwing up and getting angry and saying things he shouldn’t be saying, things he doesn’t even really mean, like some kind of ridiculous self-destructive impulse is buried deep into his bones. He’s desperate and needy and everything this world tells him not to be but he can’t stand it anymore so he’s throwing caution to the wind and casting all his ugly and pathetic thoughts down, for the world, for Bruce to see.
“I have—” He sighs and swallows. “I have faced countless assassins. I’ve infiltrated drug rings and fascist governments. I developed a generator that powers an entire city, Bruce. Who does that? No one does that!”
Jeremiah grabs one of Bruce’s hands from his shoulder and grips it tightly in his own. Bruce’s fingers curl instinctively into Jeremiah’s grip. He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. Jeremiah takes that as a sign to continue.
“But, Bruce.” He sighs again. “You’re the only person, the only thing that consistently terrifies me. You’re the only person who has this insane power over me.”
Bruce’s eyes widen and there’s a flicker of something in them, something akin to possessiveness and desire and that want that echoes through Jeremiah’s whole being, more familiar to his body than the pulse of his heart or the touch of his fingers against his own skin.
Bruce wets his lips and leans forward. “Okay.” He nods to himself, biting his lower lip. “Okay. First question. Did you. Did you get close to me for your assignment?”
Jeremiah’s mouth drops in shock. “What? No. Bruce, no.” He tightens his hold on Bruce’s hand. “You’ve got to believe me, that was not how it happened. I was told to avoid you. And also, if you’ll recall, you seduced me.”
Bruce squawks. “Explain.”
“Bruce, you had everyone in the entire office spy on me. And you arranged far too many unnecessary car rides together. And you put your thumb on my lip, okay?”
“No.” Bruce points his free hand at Jeremiah, his face set in educating Jeremiah on how wrong that statement was. “No, you’re the one who showed up in your stupid suits with your stupid face and your stupid hair and do you have any idea how your ass looks in those pants? You seduced me first.”
Jeremiah gapes at him. “Oh, oh, like you have no idea how attractive you are and seriously, Bruce, thumb on lip. Not exactly subtle.”
Bruce inches closer to Jeremiah and he can almost feel Bruce’s breath warm on his lips. “Alright, second question. When I told you, uh. The last time we were together and I told you about what I felt—”
Jeremiah jumps in recognition and he cuts Bruce off preemptively. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Bruce twists his lips down. “What you said about me only wanting you for skills. That’s not true, okay?” He runs his thumb across the back of Jeremiah’s hand. “I could have partnered with anyone. I wanted it to be you. I wanted you.”
There’s a voice in the back of Jeremiah’s head that tells him it isn’t true, that of course, Bruce couldn’t want Jeremiah just for himself, just because he is who he is. But Bruce is looking into his eyes like he’s the only person in the world like Bruce can’t breathe if Jeremiah doesn’t take the next breath. Bruce is looking at Jeremiah the way Jeremiah looks at Bruce and he thinks maybe he can allow himself to have everything he wants, for once. “Yeah. I understand.”
Bruce flicks his eyes over Jeremiah’s face before smiling that smile that Jeremiah is addicted to, the drug he’ll never get enough of. He leans in to close the couple of inches between them and settles his mouth on Jeremiah’s, dry lips to dry lips, in a chaste kiss.
Or, at least it was probably intended as a chaste kiss. Jeremiah is pretty sure it was supposed to be a chaste kiss. But when he feels the still so unfamiliar pressure of Bruce’s lips against his own, he opens his mouth with a little sigh and scrapes his teeth lightly against Bruce’s lower lip, fluttering his eyes closed and just feeling.
Bruce makes a surprised noise somewhere between a grunt and a gasp and wraps his free hand around Jeremiah’s neck. It settles there for a couple moments – warm and firm and inducing goosebumps all the way down Jeremiah’s neck and back from the way his fingers play lightly with the hair at the nape – before he tightens and tugs down harshly, crushing their lips together with bruising force.
Jeremiah tries to gasp from the sudden movement but Bruce’s tongue is in his mouth before he has a chance, wet and hot and a little bit frantic. Jeremiah moans and leans closer into Bruce, tipping him down awkwardly against Bruce’s car seat and settling over him, and who the hell designed these things anyway, they are totally not conducive to making out, his mind chanting a mantra of want, want, want, mine, mine, mine.
He thinks he might have said it out loud until he realizes Bruce’s lips have disengaged from his own and are trailing down his throat, claiming his skin as they go along, “Mine. Mine. Mine.” Bruce punctuates each word with a small nip.
Jeremiah laughs into Bruce’s hair and shifts to straddle him, thighs bracketing thighs. He feels Bruce’s erection against his own and he wonders how they’ve both been reduced to having the libidos of sixteen-year-old boys not that he’s complaining, but really. How? Bruce lifts his hips up and into Jeremiah’s shift, hand still pulling his neck down.
“Mine,” he enunciates again.
Jeremiah hums in agreement, running his hands down Bruce’s chest until he reaches the hem of his shirt.
He slides his fingers inside and traces a line above his pants. “What was question two-and-a-half?” he asks idly.
“Huh?” Bruce slides his knee up so their hips brush together again.
Jeremiah lets out a shuddering breath and nips the shell of Bruce’s ear. “You had two and a half questions.”
“You really want to get into this conversation? Like, now?”
Jeremiah shrugs. “I’m a curious soul.” He pecks Bruce’s cheek and smiles. “Humor me?”
Bruce narrows his eyes at Jeremiah in half a scowl but sighs and runs his hand up into Jeremiah’s hair. “I wanted to know where this was going. Us. But I’m pretty sure it involves a bed in the near future so let’s continue, shall we?”
Jeremiah frowns as a thought occurs to him and sits up, hands balanced on Bruce’s chest. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” Bruce looks shocked and very put out.
“Well.” Jeremiah smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, where are we going with this?”
“A bed. Or maybe the car. Clothes will be shed,” Bruce answers succinctly and tries to tug Jeremiah down by his wrist.
Jeremiah shakes his head and hates himself for what he’s doing, his body really hates him. Especially his lower half. Yeah, his lower half wants to kill him at the moment, but this is too important to mess up again.
“Bruce. Think with your upstairs brain for a moment.”
Bruce raises his eyebrows and stares incredulously at him. “Did you just say ‘upstairs brain’? Did you seriously just say that?”
Jeremiah rolls his eyes. “We have things to discuss. You’ve been up for who knows how many days and probably aren’t thinking properly. I’m still kind of locked into my job. You know, the job that sends me around the world and doesn’t really leave me much room for a boyfriend?”
Bruce stills at this and sits up slightly on his elbows, frowning. “What are you—”
“I’m saying we have to figure things out. We shouldn’t rush things again. We have a very bad history of impulse decisions.”
Bruce’s ensuing shrug has just the smallest touch of arrogance and Jeremiah can’t help but smile at him. He leans down and cups Bruce’s cheek in his palm, running his thumb across the smooth skin. “This is really important. I don’t want to lose you again. Please.”
Bruce sighs and nods, bringing a hand up to his face to rub his eyes. “Yeah. No, you’re right.” He groans when Jeremiah climbs off of him and into his own seat again. “So, how long are we supposed to wait?”
Jeremiah shrugs and shifts uncomfortably. “At least until we have some perspective on what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.”
Bruce nods in agreement. "Okay."
They stay still in the car for a while, calming their breathing and racing hearts. Finally, Bruce turns his head to look at Jeremiah. “You wanna come in? To sleep. In the very literal sense of the word, of course.”
Jeremiah raises an eyebrow before his face cracks into a grin. “Bruce Wayne, are you asking me to cuddle?”
Bruce scowls at him and throws open the car door, stomping to the house. "You were right, we should think about this. We should break up, we're broken up. Bye Miah."
Jeremiah alights from the car and jump-runs after him, face still locked in a grin he can’t wipe off his face.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah borrows a t-shirt from Bruce to sleep in and if Bruce looks a little longer with pupils a little more dilated than usual, Jeremiah doesn’t mention it, and if Jeremiah happens to glance over at Bruce a little more than usual when he’s undressing, well.
Whatever, it’s been a long couple of days.
Bruce suddenly seems to realize just how exhausted he is when his back hits the soft surface of his comforter. He slides his eyes closed and squirms around until he’s worked his way under the covers without actually lifting them, murmuring in quiet, slurred words that Jeremiah should turn off the lights.
Jeremiah’s lips quirk up in a smile, amused, and he answers back that it’s a little difficult to turn off the sun, crawling in behind Bruce after he yanks the blinds down to block out as much light as possible.
“I’m sure you could figure out a way,” Bruce yawns, curling onto his side and yanking the comforter over his shoulders.
Jeremiah pauses, unsure, unsure of how much he can take, of how much room Bruce is allowing him. Unsure of Bruce’s confidence in him, of his confidence in Bruce, unsure, unsure, unsure.
He turns onto his side, facing Bruce’s back, and reaches out a tentative hand, uncurling his fingers and stretching them to brush Bruce’s shoulder soft and feather-light.
He runs them slightly over the cotton material of Bruce’s shirt, feeling the fabric—worn thin and near textureless from frequent washes—with a quiet reverence.
Bruce makes a small, annoyed sound in the back of his throat and blindly reaches behind him. He places his hand over Jeremiah’s and drags it to settle firmly just above his hip. His shoulders relax shortly thereafter, tension melting until they are slack with sleep.
Jeremiah’s eyes are wide and probably just the smallest bit wet, his lips pulled into a sickeningly lovestruck smile, but Bruce’s already asleep and his back is turned to Jeremiah anyway so Jeremiah doesn’t bother hiding it, lets it play on his mouth and up his cheeks, in the slope of his brows and the squint of his eyes. It transforms his face into a thousand whispers he never dared utter, into the multitude of thoughts that pass through his mind in such rapid succession that they blend into a continuous, unflinching reality, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce.
He lies motionless and completely enamored for a while, watching his hand above Bruce’s hip rise and fall with Bruce’s slow breathing, tightening and then releasing his fingers with the rhythm his hand squeezes with the upward motion of Bruce’s inhalation, grip gentle but sure, four fingers and one thumb clutching in devoted fidelity, refusing to dislodge with the movement, relaxing and elongating with Bruce’s long exhalation, confident in their position and reaching for more, where they belong, at Bruce’s side, inches below Bruce’s heart, skin and muscle and bone and everything Jeremiah loves in substantial form.
His eyes flicker up to the window, slits of sunlight beaming through the blinds in parallel patterns onto the floor and halfway up the bed. He remembers how he used to think that Bruce was the sun to his world, warm and impossibly large and the source, the very essence of life to him. And perhaps he was, in that overly poetic, incredibly trite sort of way, but the sun is a star, like all those twinkling sirens in the sky, beckoning him towards its beauty, veering closer to his world than any other star and making him feel, making him hope that yes, he could obtain that, yes, this was a star, but this was his star. He had fixed his rotation around Bruce, a constant revolution, spinning in Bruce’s gravity, defining himself and his seasons by him, blinded in the day under his full warmth. But stars didn’t last forever and when he veered too close, he got burned. The sun wasn’t meant to love or be loved.
Jeremiah frowns, fingers tightening with Bruce’s inhalation. He lost himself, all those years ago. Perhaps he had never known who he was, to begin with, not fully shaping himself because all he had been trying for was to be the opposite of Jerome, or who Bruce thought he could be, who his mother had forced him to be.
He bent and molded himself in so many directions, trying to be what he thought everyone else wanted him to be or what he had to be to feel safe in his own skin, to look himself in the mirror and not see a mere imitation of Jerome.
But somewhere between Wayne Enterprises and the lawsuits and anger and depression and wild adventures in the CIA, he lost whatever part of himself that was blinded by the sun, haunted by its reflection in the night sky. He had slipped through roles and guises and masks so often he didn’t know who he really was anymore.
He lost himself when he needed to. He drowned in assignments and prescribed behaviors because then it wasn’t him, he didn’t exist and if he didn’t exist he could never have disappointed anyone, could never have failed. But he doesn’t want to be lost anymore.
And he isn’t. He can feel it in his bones, in the way his blood warms his body, in the way Bruce locks his eyes on Jeremiah and sees him, wills him back into existence, breath and life and another point of origin, a new axis to spin on, his own axis because Bruce doesn’t want another satellite to orbit around him. Bruce never wanted that, never wanted Jeremiah to prove himself. Bruce has only ever wanted Jeremiah. Miah. The man Bruce always knew was there, hidden under years of trying too hard and fighting too long. Jeremiah wonders if, all those years ago, things could have been different. If he knew what he knows now. That Jeremiah doesn’t have to try for Bruce. Bruce loves him, not because he molds himself into what Bruce wants, but because Bruce loves him.
It’s a heady revelation, but it’s not a revelation, not really. Jeremiah has always known it, somewhere in the depths of his mind, waiting in the company of his true self. Waiting not for sun or light or a set of tasks to prove himself worthy, but waiting for faith and love and the gentle touch of hope.
His breath is heavy in his lungs and he curls into Bruce’s form, sliding his hand, a faithful guard atop Bruce’s hip further around Bruce to lay flat on his stomach, inching his ankle between Bruce’s. He sets his lips against the back of Bruce’s neck and slides his eyes closed.
“You are my oceans,” he whispers into Bruce’s skin, voice low and soft, breathless as if the words are too precious, too rare to be carried to Bruce by any means but the direct pressure of Jeremiah’s lips on warm skin.
“My rivers and seas. Lakes and streams and all sorts of bodies of water.” He smiles and runs his thumb back and forth over Bruce’s stomach. “You give me life and flow through me and around me and under me in places I can’t see. But you’re there, supporting me, nourishing me and my forests and grasslands and drowning my deserts.”
Jeremiah jumps when Bruce chuckles in amusement though to Bruce’s defense he tried to silence it. It’s Jeremiah’s hand on Bruce’s stomach, contracting and releasing, that clued him in.
“Since when did you start listening?” Jeremiah asks, lips still pressed against Bruce’s neck.
Bruce shifts his head against his pillow and hems but doesn’t answer Jeremiah. Instead, he asks, amusement ringing through his voice, “What does all that even mean?”
Jeremiah pouts. “Shut up. I was trying to tell you how much I love you.”
Bruce stills and Jeremiah’s hand on his stomach lies motionless, the steady up and down from Bruce’s breathing stopped. “Oh,” he finally answers, voice small and quiet.
Jeremiah sighs and shifts his head finally to fit his chin against the juncture between Bruce’s neck and shoulder but doesn’t say anything.
“You could have, like, said that,” Bruce says in stilted words. “About the love part. You could just say that.”
Jeremiah holds his breath for a moment but nods against Bruce. “I love you, Bruce.”
Bruce shifts his head to peer at Jeremiah, a smile stretched over his lips and eyes half-lidded in arrogant confidence. “Of course you do.”
Jeremiah laughs and presses a kiss to Bruce’s cheek before wrestling Bruce in retaliation, grinning when he attacks Bruce’s sides. “You love me too.”
“Love is such an ugly word,” Bruce pontificates, arms flailing to protect himself.
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Jeremiah manages to get Bruce underneath him, pinning Bruce’s wrists in his grip against the bed, thighs straddling Bruce’s hips, mouth laughing against Bruce’s jaw.
He presses open-mouthed kisses up Bruce’s sharp jawline, settling on his lips, slipping his tongue into Bruce’s mouth, sliding against his tongue. It’s slow and languid and very, very thorough.
Bruce slips a hand from Jeremiah’s grasp, slides it up Jeremiah’s forearm, up and over his shoulder until it brushes the hair at the back of Jeremiah’s neck. He splays his fingers, letting them drift into slowly up, cradling Jeremiah’s head and applying a slight pressure that says more, closer, more, more.
Jeremiah responds immediately, pressing down, fumbling his hands to touch somewhere, anywhere on Bruce his face, his knees, his hands, his hips. He falls in sync with Bruce, hands molding against him in perfect symmetry.
He slides down Bruce slightly, angling his lips at Bruce's still insistent pressure. He moans into Bruce's mouth because somehow Bruce's other hand has found its way to the small of Jeremiah's back and is pressing down, down, down until he can feel Bruce hard against him. He jerks his hips in desperate response.
Bruce laughs and breaks from the kiss to settle his lips against Jeremiah's neck, sucking. "I thought you wanted to wait." He sounds smug and full of himself and just a little hoarse from arousal and Jeremiah can hardly think properly anymore.
"We waited. Three hours. Give or take," Jeremiah manages, dropping his hands to Bruce's waist and slipping his fingers up his shirt and at this point, he doesn't even notice the near-textureless feel of the cotton against his hands that fascinated him earlier in the day.
Bruce's breath hitches when Jeremiah finds a nipple, rubbing his thumb back and forth over it. He jerks his hips up against Jeremiah's. "We're impeccable examples of self-control."
Jeremiah laughs into Bruce's hair and presses a small kiss into the dark, no longer gelled down curls.
"I love you. I've loved you for a long time now, I think. And I want to be with you. And even," he swallows and continues, "even if we can't work things out the way I'd like, I still want to try. That's all the thinking I need to do."
Jeremiah holds his breath when Bruce's lips still momentarily, wondering if he said too much, or not enough, or when he would ever learn to go with the mood and shut his mouth for one hour, sheesh.
Bruce raises himself on his elbows and with a sudden force, flips Jeremiah onto his back. Bruce looms over Jeremiah's body, arms bracketing Jeremiah's head and a thigh slipped between his own.
Jeremiah lets out a shuddering breath, staring up at Bruce, straight into those eyes that fascinate him, feels them pierce through his own eyes, dark and ocean-deep to the left of his chest that space that remained hollow and vacant for so many years where he feels a telltale thump thump, the return of his heart.
Bruce bends and places his mouth on Jeremiah's, teeth scraping slightly over Jeremiah's lower lip before pulling back to look at him again.
"I am never getting over you," Bruce confesses, his tone almost dull in confidence, like he was reciting a fact from an encyclopedia. "So we should probably never break up again."
Jeremiah can't breathe, can't speak, can't even blink his eyes, but none of that matters because Bruce is here with him and maybe they're still really young and still slightly stupid, and maybe they'll always be a bit stupid, because that's the price of brilliance, isn't it? But they're in this together they've always been in this together, even through the lawsuit and withholding of plans and refusal to acknowledge that they were lashing out because it hurt. They've always been tied to one another.
Jeremiah grins and grips Bruce's wrist beside his head. He tugs until he can bring Bruce's hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "I won't if you won't."
Bruce smirks that seductive lift of one corner of his mouth, the slight narrowing of his eyes. "Deal," Bruce affirms before tapping his fingers against Jeremiah's lips.
Jeremiah raises an eyebrow but Bruce supplies, “Open.”
“You have a strange fascination with my mouth.”
Bruce shrugs, unconcerned, and Jeremiah obediently opens his lips, sucking Bruce’s forefinger and middle finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around and between them, applying a rhythmic suction that makes Bruce’s nose flare and pupils dilated. It’s intoxicating so Jeremiah sucks harder, drawing them in further until he feels them slide against the back of his throat.
Bruce groans and drags them out, saliva-wet on the back of his hand and Jeremiah’s chin. Bruce flattens against Jeremiah, replacing his fingers with his tongue inside Jeremiah’s mouth.
Jeremiah moans, pushing up into Bruce’s frame when Bruce’s fingers, fingers wet with his own saliva brush under his shirt and across his nipples, squeezing with slight pressure. He’s hard and desperate for friction and skin on skin and Bruce inside of him.
“Bruce,” he breathes out, his hands working Bruce’s own shirt up, up, up until it bunches to a stop at Bruce’s shoulders. Jeremiah makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat, shoving Bruce away to get the shirt off the evil, evil shirt with no buttons down the middle, so he has to pull it over Bruce’s head. And this is why everyone should wear button-down shirts all the time. And by everyone, Jeremiah means Bruce.
Bruce makes a pouting noise and dives back onto Jeremiah’s mouth, crushing together with more force than before.
“Bruce,” Jeremiah tries again, hands bunched in the shirt.
“Not done kissing you yet,” Bruce somehow answers open-mouthed against Jeremiah.
“It’ll take two se—mmphf.” Jeremiah is cut off when Bruce crushes their lips together again. He forgets to retaliate immediately because Bruce’s hips jerk against his and their erections brush together through their underwear with delicious friction.
Arousal spikes through Jeremiah all the way down to his toes. He releases the shirt and scrapes his nails down Bruce’s back, spreading his legs and hitching his right thigh over Bruce’s left hip.
“Fuck,” Bruce swears, bending his head into the crook of Jeremiah’s shoulder and neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeats in rapid succession, hands tugging Jeremiah’s boxer briefs off in quick, jerky motions. He wraps his fingers around Jeremiah’s cock, stroking up and down briefly.
Jeremiah keens low in his throat, hips thrusting up into Bruce’s hand. “Lube,” he manages to say before he decides to do the sex thing later and come in Bruce’s hand again which, okay yes, that would be fucking fantastic and he plans on doing that again in the future. Frequently. But he wants Bruce, wants to feel Bruce inside, feel Bruce stretch and throb and come because he’s fucking him and he can’t think properly, because Jeremiah makes Bruce lose his rational thinking, makes him subhuman and desperate just like Bruce makes Jeremiah.
Bruce seems to agree because he’s flopped over the bed to yank open his nightstand drawer, throwing things around and out of it to find the lube. Jeremiah takes the momentary pause to shrug out of his shirt.
“Ah-ha!” Bruce exclaims holding the lube up in his hand and grinning triumphantly over his shoulder at Jeremiah. He throws the small bottle over to Jeremiah and goes back to the drawer, tossing things about again in his quest to find some other object that Jeremiah assumes is a condom.
Jeremiah picks the bottle up, twirling it between his fingers before shrugging and popping open the top, spreading a generous amount over his fingers. He rubs his fingers together momentarily before reaching down and inserting one finger in himself, slow and firm.
His breath hitches and he takes a moment to get used to the feeling before he inserts another finger and starts to scissor them, stretching himself in a slow burn that's so satisfying and yet still not enough because he needs Bruce and Bruce's fingers in him and Bruce in him and Bruce's eyes watching and oh shit when did Bruce turn around and start staring at him like that?
Bruce's mouth is slack delicious red and wet and swollen from Jeremiah, his eyes blown wide and full of awe and arousal and they're so fucking intense and hot and trained solely, directly on Jeremiah, on Jeremiah's fingers in his ass, on his cock that's hard and dripping pre-come helplessly onto his stomach.
Bruce's chest heaves and suddenly he flips himself over Jeremiah, growling against Jeremiah's ear, hands reaching down to replace Jeremiah's.
"So hot. You're so fucking--" Bruce doesn't finish his sentence but Jeremiah doesn't seem to be able to care because now Bruce's left hand in kneading the skin just below his stomach and the fingers on his right are inside Jeremiah.
Jeremiah moans, neck arching against the pillow behind his head, thrusting his hips into Bruce's ministrations. "Bruce, please, enough."
Bruce shakes his head into Jeremiah's shoulder, lips fused to his skin there. "Never enough."
Jeremiah wants to laugh but it comes out as a mangled gasp, breathless and shuddering. "Fuck, Bruce, get inside me now."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh." He can feel Bruce smile against him and he can't remember a time where sex has felt so urgent and yet so incredibly adorable at the same time.
But maybe that's what love does to people.
He doesn’t have much time to ponder his new-found philosophy because Bruce has somehow shed his clothing and acquired a condom in record time. He arranges himself over Jeremiah, hands hesitant now feather-light, barely-there touches that activate shocks and jerks and shooting, undulating currents of energy and what feels like pockets of pure sugar down his legs and arms and racing towards just below his stomach.
Bruce frowns and traces a finger over the healing scar from the knife wound Jeremiah suffered all those weeks ago when things were uncertain and Jeremiah didn’t believe happiness and love and everything good and wonderful were for him.
“You got this at Wayne Enterprises,” he says, a statement.
Jeremiah frowns but nods.
Bruce runs his finger over it again with more pressure this time. “This one is mine, then.”
“Shit,” Jeremiah breathes and nearly comes, eyes wide and heart racing at the calm possessiveness in Bruce’s tone, the set of Bruce’s brows, the way he runs his finger over the scar again, transfixed.
Apparently, Bruce is satisfied with that reaction because he leans down and seals his lips against Jeremiah’s and pushes his hips down and—
“Oh, fuck, you’re tight,” Bruce gasps, clasping his hands tight over Jeremiah’s hips.
Jeremiah breathes out a chuckle and shifts under Bruce, grinning when Bruce’s eyes squeeze tight. “Are you going to fuck me or just lay here for a while?”
Bruce opens his eyes and smirks and then he pulls back and bucks his hips forward and all Jeremiah can see and hear and feel and smell and taste is Bruce above and under and through him because Bruce is Jeremiah’s oceans and lakes and rivers and underground currents. And it’s so fucking good, so fucking right, and also really, really hot. Because it’s Bruce, lips wet and reddened, hands hot and sweaty brushing over the muscles of his stomach, hair a tousled mess and dark eyes alight with excitement and arrogance and love.
Jeremiah has to remember how to swallow when he realizes that yes, Bruce looks like a sex god because he bruised those lips and ran his hands through that hair and sucked that hickey into the side of his neck and it's Jeremiah who's making Bruce swear incoherently against his neck, a sinful chorus of fuck fuck, shit, Miah, I can't, Miah, fuckfuckfuck.
It's Jeremiah who's making Bruce's hands tighten on his hips with every upward thrust, with every downward pull, making his breathing labored and hot and wet against his skin.
And it's Bruce who's making Jeremiah forget how to function, forget every thought in his mind until all he knows is the steady hum of Bruce's swearing-breathing-baby-baby-so-good-oh-fuck-so-good-Miah.
It’s Bruce that’s stretching him, filling him, making him feel bolts of pleasure and fuck-yes-yes-fuck-that’s-it-right-there all the way down to the soles of his feet.
It’s Bruce who makes him buck his hips and arch his back off the bed when Bruce hits his prostate just so.
“Bruce,” he groans, hips thrusting up in no discernable rhythm. “Bruce, I’m gonna come.”
Bruce wraps his hand around Jeremiah’s cock and strokes in parallel with his thrusts. “Yeah, me too. Come on, just a little more.”
“Bruce, shit.” Jeremiah reaches his hands up, runs them down Bruce’s back, clutching. He comes with a strangled whine in the back of his throat, spurts of come leaking over Bruce’s hand and between their stomachs, wet and sticky.
“Fuck, Miah.” Bruce bites his bottom lip and stills against Jeremiah before collapsing over him, all loose limbs and heavy breathing.
Bruce gets his breath back first and turns his head to press a kiss against Jeremiah’s cheek, lazy and uncoordinated and perfect in every way.
“We should have been doing that earlier. Years earlier.” A pause. “Like the night we met.”
Jeremiah laughs and wraps his arms up and around Bruce’s neck, tugging him closer. “Shut up and go back to sleep.”
Bruce hems and shifts, yawning out something that sounds like “just because you give me orgasms now doesn’t mean I have to listen to you,” but his eyes are drifting closed so Jeremiah counts it as a victory before he follows Bruce’s example.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah wakes up in the late afternoon to an insistent banging outside. He cracks an eye open slightly and shifts, feeling a heavy pressure on his left side right above the space where his heart has returned to life, a steady thump thump he hasn’t felt since Bruce’s eyes were on him and they worked together on the company that changed the world.It’s a weighty and somewhat uncomfortable sensation like his veins aren’t used to the blood supply and are adjusting to the new development like he isn’t used to happiness like he doesn’t know how to contain this giddy feeling that threatens his demise.He’s not exactly sure how to breathe when he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. But the steady thump thump needs oxygen and he feels his lungs filling with it despite himself.He yawns and shifts again, tilting his head to see Bruce half-splayed over him, yet somehow managing to throw a leg over the edge of the bed. He lets out an amused sigh and nudges Bruce with his shoulder.“Bruce. Bruce, wake up.”Bruce frowns, his brows furrowing together. Jeremiah bends his head forward and kisses his forehead. Bruce smirks and tightens his arm around Jeremiah’s stomach.Jeremiah’s eyes narrow. “You’re awake.”Bruce hems but his smirk grows.“Asshole.”“The asshole you’re in love with.”“There’s no accounting for taste.”“As an insult, that was beneath your intelligence level.” Bruce opens his eyes and leans forward to kiss Jeremiah’s chin. “Good morning.”“Good afternoon,” Jeremiah corrects, running a hand up and down Bruce’s back.Bruce frowns and shifts his eyes to the hallway. “What’s that noise?”Jeremiah hems and lazily runs a hand over Bruce’s messy hair. “I think someone is at your front door.” He pauses and squints his eyes, noticing a slight discord in the banging noises. “Actually, I think two someones are at your door.”Bruce rolls his eyes. “No shit. Who’s at the door?”“How the hell would I know?”“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of elite super spy or something ridiculous like that?”Jeremiah rolls his eyes this time, huffing out an amused if slightly exasperated breath. “I’m an agent of the CIA, Bruce, not a psychic.”Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Your occupation is becoming less and less interesting by the minute.”Jeremiah lolls his head back onto the pillow and chuckles under his breath. He pushes Bruce’s chest. “Get off.”Bruce opens his mouth to reply but quickly closes it.“What?”Bruce shakes his head and rolls off the bed. “Nothing.” He grabs a discarded t-shirt and pulls it over his head. “I’ll get them to shut up.”Jeremiah frowns and contemplates the now empty doorway, running his fingers idly over the tangled comforter where mere moments ago his life was perfect where he had no doubts and he didn’t overanalyze every movement and shift of Bruce’s eyes.He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. He tries to remember that he is not the Jeremiah from all those years ago, the one who was needy and dependent on others for his self-confidence. The one who gave and gave until he was an empty shell, hollow and fragile and dying to crack because then someone would have to pick up his pieces. Someone would have to care, even if only because of the mess he made.He tries to remember that he is not the Jeremiah from six months ago the one who built walls with bricks of regret and mortar of bitter disregard. The one who doubted and closed himself off from the world because he knew now that when his fragile shell broke, no one would be there to pick up the pieces. No one would know what it was like to find the scattered pieces of himself and meld them together into a semblance of the person he thought he was.He tries to remember that he’s the Jeremiah with a future the one who’s a little less naïve, a little more worldly and self-sufficient. The one who can admit he needs someone, the one who knows what he wants. The one who knows he can have it. He tries to remember and he almost succeeds but his heart is a din of forgotten emotions that his head will have to sort through.For the moment he remembers that he’s the Jeremiah who is currently naked in Bruce Wayne’s very conspicuously rumpled bed and there are people in the house. A lot of people from what it sounds like through the open door, the quick patter of feet on hardwood drifting alarmingly closer.His eyes widen and he groans when he recognizes the scurry of feet against the backdrop of excited squealing. He has just enough time to throw himself under the comforter before Ecco and James burst into the room with the most idiotic grins on their faces as expected, arms linked together, should have been expected, they’re practically the same person. A fact Jeremiah decides he has to analyze at a much later date. Years from now. When he’s ninety. He has a lot of issues, okay? Surrounding himself with ridiculous people is the least of his worries. He hopes.And they have a cake which is rather unexpected. The cake is decorated in loud icing, spelling out on the top in stark blue letters “Congrats on the sex.”Jeremiah sighs heavily and prays they don’t start singing The Lonely Island.“Ah-ha! It’s true, look how rumpled he is!” Ecco gushes, nudging James with her elbow.James nods excitedly. “I think Mommy and Daddy are back together.”“Does that make us siblings?” Ecco’s eyes are wide and eager and she’s staring up at James like she’s just discovered him.James opens his mouth and stares at Ecco.He tilts his head and shoots his gaze in Jeremiah’s direction. “Mommy?”“Why am I the mother?” Jeremiah demands, voice a little higher and louder than he expected it to be. Because the parent analogy is ridiculous, but more importantly, why is he the mother? Seriously, why is he the mother?James and Ecco fix a Look on him and roll their eyes in unison, Jeremiah wonders if they practiced that or if he really did stumble upon the female version of James. And now that they’ve met each other, should he apologize to the world or just run away?“Wayne is obviously the dad, Miah,” Ecco says, the duh heavy in her tone. “That makes you the mom.” She pauses before adding, “Duh.” Just in case her tone wasn’t sufficient.Jeremiah narrows his eyes and points an accusing finger at her. “Selina will be having words with you about your sexist stereotyping.” He points at James. “And you too.”“You know, normally I would, but they’re right in this case,” Selina drawls, sidling into the room followed by Bruce, his laptop under his arm. “You’re the mommy.”Jeremiah scowls at her and looks to Bruce for help as Bruce climbs back into bed beside Jeremiah and opens his laptop. Bruce shrugs indifferently but Jeremiah can detect a smirk that he quickly hides. “I hate you all,” Jeremiah says, not for the first time.James makes melodramatic, gasping noises and clutches his heart, thrusting the cake into Ecco’s hands so he is free to perform at full capacity and Ecco rolls her eyes again.“You always say that darling and yet you never mean it.”“I assure you, Ecco. I mean it every single time.”“I don’t take assurances from naked men.”“I’m not—” Jeremiah starts to protest but stops himself because okay, maybe he is naked. But Ecco doesn’t know that and he doesn’t appreciate being falsely accurately accused of perversity.“I’m not naked,” he finishes because he’s a little defiant and brazen sometimes and he’s finally coming to accept and embrace that. And also seriously, how dare Ecco impinge on his pristine reputation.Ecco, however, is less than impressed with Jeremiah’s show of dignity. She rolls her eyes again. She’s going to get a nasty headache like that and Jeremiah knows he should probably warn her, but she also falsely accused him of being naked so he forgoes his usual display of civility. Almost.“You’re going to get a headache like that.”“I wouldn’t have to roll my eyes if you’d stop making me.”He points his finger at her. “I am not naked.” He looks to Bruce beside him, typing on his computer and ignoring the chaos that is Jeremiah’s life. “Right Bruce?”Bruce’s fingers slow momentarily before they resume their usual high paced speed. It’s hardly noticeable except that Jeremiah has tuned his ears to catch even the slightest difference in momentum and speed and acceleration long before he joined the CIA, back when he could detect Bruce’s opinion and mood and sometimes even his thoughts based solely on the speed of his fingers on the keyboard.“Right,” Bruce answers, eyes not leaving his screen, though his foot does inch beneath the covers and his toe runs down Jeremiah’s right calf.Jeremiah shoots him a look that he meant to be scolding but probably comes across as sulking. At least according to James and his new BFF Ecco, the world is doomed. Doomed.Bruce does not react, save for the nonchalant shrug and tiny smirk he directs at Jeremiah.Jeremiah sighs, defeated and decides to change the subject. “Where are Jonathan and Lucius?” He asks.Selina stiffens and shifts uncomfortably. “They’re at Wayne Enterprises.”Jeremiah narrows his eyes, suspicious. “Really? They’re at Wayne Enterprises? And missing all this?” He gestures around the room, particularly stalling on Ecco and JamesJames tilts his head. “Why are you pointing at me? What did I do?”Jeremiah ignores him. “You expect me to believe Lucius would let James out on his own. With his new partner in ridiculous crime?”“Was that a thinly veiled comment about me?” Ecco pips, shifting the cake uncomfortably in her hands.“I don’t think it was veiled,” Bruce supplies unhelpfully.Jeremiah glares at him momentarily before turning back to Selina. “What did you do to them?”“Nothing.” Selina inspects her nails, ignoring Jeremiah.“What did she do to them, Ecco?”Ecco tries to wave her hand dismissively but frowns down at the cake. She thrusts it back into James’s hands, freeing her hand so she can wave it unhelpfully in front of Jeremiah. “Nothing serious.”Selina smirks at Jeremiah, obviously thinking she has Ecco’s full loyalty.“She just knocked him out cold and Lucius insisted he stay with him to make sure he’s okay.” She turns to James. “He’s such a worrywart.”James nods enthusiastically. “I try to tell him it’s bad for his health.” Ecco makes a sympathetic noise.“What?!” Jeremiah exclaims.“Ecco you’re an idiot.” Selina scowls at her teammate.Ecco gasps and places her hands on her chest, affronted. “You’re the one who got me involved in this, meanie.” She pauses before adding, “And you smell.”“You wanna fight? Let’s go, I’ll take you here and now.”“Bring it on, bro.”“No one is fighting in Bruce’s house!” Jeremiah yells over the chaos.“I don’t mind,” Bruce voices from beside him.Jeremiah glares at him again. “You’re not helping.”Bruce shrugs. “I wasn’t trying to.”“Is anyone going to eat this cake?” James interjects. “It’s made with my love. My love!”Jeremiah raises his left hand and rubs his brow with the other. “Okay, just. Give me a minute here.” He takes several deep breaths before he continues. “Why did Selina knock Jonathan out?”“Do I need a reason?”“Yes! It’s Jonathan.”Ecco nods and cocks her head at Selina. “He’s right.” She leans closer to Selina. “It’s Jonathan.”Selina sneers down at Ecco. “You’re the one with the big mouth.”“Jonathan would have tattled on you anyway.”Selina pauses and tilts her head. “Touché. Okay, fine, but it was totally not my fault, alright? We were all drinking and having a good time.”Selina points her finger at Jeremiah, mimicking his melodramatic pose. “We were, okay? But then Jonathan had to butt his head into my business and he took my phone away from me. Like, who does that? That’s my baby.”“Why did Jonathan need to take your phone away from you?”“He didn’t. He’s just crazy.” Selina crosses her arms and Jeremiah just stares at her.“I was calling the Queen, alright?”“Please tell me you don’t mean the Queen of England,” Jeremiah groans.Selina scoffs. “Is there any other queen I have an issue with?”Bruce finally raises his head from his laptop and purses his lips. “Why—” He frowns and turns his head to Jeremiah. “Why does she have issues with the Queen of England?”“Please don’t start this—” Jeremiah begins but is hastily cut off by his insane teammates.“She’s been wearing the same kind of glasses for decades, okay? She’s loaded. She can wear the best, the newest styles. But noooooo,” she stretches out the word dramatically which isn’t fair because when Jeremiah does something dramatically, they all tell him he’s melodramatic but she can be as crazy as she likes and no one will say anything because they’re all afraid of her. Okay, maybe that’s fair.“She insists on showing up in magazines and television in those awful glasses. And the hats. The hats, those hats! Who does she think she is? Honestly!”“You started it,” Jeremiah sighs to Bruce.He turns to Ecco while Selina continues her rant obliviously. “Why didn’t you stop this?”“What, me?” Ecco points to herself, confused.Jeremiah nods at her.“I was making the cake.” She gestures to James, who has finally given in and is eating the cake with his hands.“What?” he asks. “If no one is going to eat my love, at least I can enjoy it.”“Ecco don’t you dare,” Jeremiah warns but she ignores him and reaches out, grabbing a handful of cake happily.Jeremiah shakes his head and sighs at Bruce. “Welcome to my life.”Bruce smiles at him and leans forward for a quick, chaste kiss on the lips. “Thank you for coming back,” he says quietly before pulling back and returning to his computer.Jeremiah can’t stop grinning for the next hour, even when Jonathan and Lucius arrive and Jeremiah’s team has to have a very serious discussion on, ‘Not Hitting Your Teammates 101’, it proves quite unhelpful, but Jeremiah can’t find it within himself to be bothered, Bruce’s words ringing through his ears and the memory of his smile blinding behind his eyes.They quickly ascertained that there have been no more attempts at infiltrating Wayne Enterprises, but Selina, Bruce, and Jonathan set about installing new security into the system. Even though Jeremiah doubts Ivy or her employers will make such a brazen move again, he takes Ecco and James around the office building, reinforcing security and adjusting surveillance.Jeremiah makes a note to name his first born child after Lucius because that man worked serious magic on the employees, not one of them mentioned one word about the rather dramatic series of events that have played out in front of their eyes for the past weeks.Lucius had shaken his head and said quietly to Jeremiah, “It’s not me. It’s their loyalty to Bruce.”Jeremiah’s chest had tightened in a mystifying discord of jealousy and relief, that constant contradiction that has been the undertone of his relationship with Bruce. The need to make sure Bruce is protected and safe, and the deepest desire to be the only one who can provide that.After they decide they’re in the clear—at least for the moment—Jeremiah basically moves in with Bruce. Which Bruce is extremely happy about or so Jeremiah assumes since Bruce keeps catching his eye and giving him secret smiles, like in college but better because now Jeremiah can sidle up to Bruce and nuzzle his neck or give him a quick kiss on the lips or even just grin like the idiot he knows he is.And Bruce will laugh under his breath and turn back to whatever he was doing. And this is the love Jeremiah never knew, the happy, gorgeous, worthy-to-be-alive kind of love that he’ll never let go of, except that means Jeremiah’s team goes with him so they spend a number of hours rearranging Bruce’s house to hold all their equipment and supplies and Selina’s hair products.By the end of the day, Ecco has fallen asleep snuggled between James and Jonathan on the floor in front of the sofa in Bruce’s living room. James keeps nodding his head in sleep and waking suddenly, only to resume his nodding, and Jonathan and Lucius have fallen into a quiet but intense discussion of world politics or something equally serious and scholarly.Selina reaches for the remote and lowers the volume of the television, leaving the last few scenes of Timecop playing without sound before nodding her head at Jeremiah and Bruce cuddled together in a chair, meant for one. She had curled her lip at them in disgust when Jeremiah sank into the armchair that Bruce had been occupying earlier that evening.“Would you two mind if you stopped constantly touching each other and joined me in the kitchen for a serious discussion?” she asks, but alights from her chair and walks toward the kitchen before either can answer her.Bruce makes a tsking sound and scowls in her general direction. “If I were to compare her to an animal—”“Bruce,” Jeremiah preempts.Bruce shrugs and splays his hands. “I’m not. I’m just saying, if I were, I don’t think anyone would be offended by it.”Jeremiah sighs and heaves up off the armchair, stretching his legs and reveling in the overly-warm feeling they possess. “You’ll get used to her.”Bruce raises an eyebrow, unconvinced.“You have a lot in common. Both of you have a complete disregard for civil niceties.”Bruce follows Jeremiah to the kitchen, clearly unamused. He walks past Jeremiah and takes a seat on the kitchen counter beside the fridge, swinging his legs and crossing his arms.He tilts his head expectantly at Selina.Selina leans against the stove, mirroring Bruce’s pose except she stays standing, her legs crossed and hip jutted out in defiance.Jeremiah sighs and resolves to stay between the two of them, taking a sit on an actual chair shocking, yes, to actually use chairs for things like sitting. Whoever thought of it?Selina glares at Bruce and Bruce glares at back in condescension for far longer than Jeremiah is comfortable with so he finally clears his throat and says, “We were going to discuss something?”Selina turns her head to Jeremiah and sighs, uncrossing her arms and placing her hands on the stove behind her.“You’re—” she starts, looks at the ground and clears her throat.Jeremiah leans closer, brow furrowed because he knows she’s trying to say something she really doesn’t want to, silently encouraging her.“You’re,” she starts again, twisting her mouth and breathing deeply before continuing. “So I assume you’re staying. With Wayne. After this mission is over.”She shifts her eyes and locks in on Bruce. “Right?”Bruce stills his legs and gives her a slight nod of acknowledgment. “If that’s what Miah wants.”“It’s what I want,” Jeremiah confirms quickly.Selina nods thoughtfully, not surprised.She contemplates Bruce for a few tense moments before saying with deadly calm, “If you hurt him again, I will destroy you.”Bruce keeps her gaze and says quietly but with an intensity that shakes Jeremiah, “If I hurt him again, you won’t have to destroy me.”Selina seems satisfied with his answer and even cracks half a smile at him.“Good.” She turns back to Jeremiah. “Have you talked to Alfred yet? This isn’t exactly the kind of job where you put in your two weeks’ notice.”Jeremiah frowns and scratches his neck. “Yeah, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Or the team, actually. I tried to tell Alfred but he wasn’t available.”Selina’s eyes narrow. “As in he was in a meeting and you chickened out—”“As in off on a mission,” Jeremiah supplies.Selina takes in a sharp breath. “Shit.”Bruce tilts his head in confusion. “And this is bad because?”Jeremiah runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Because Alfred is our handler on the case, and this is his mission. So either he doesn’t trust us and has taken matters into his own hands.”“Or he’s part of the problem,” Selina finishes, voicing the nagging doubt they’ve all been thinking for the past few weeks but none of them wanted to acknowledge.“Either way, we can’t count on the agency anymore. We’re officially cutting off contact with them.” Jeremiah blows out a long breath. “Shit, I’m going to miss their database.”Bruce scoffs and hops off the counter. “I run Wayne Enterprises, Miah. I control more information than they could ever dream of.”Jeremiah stares at Bruce, his mouth half open in shock. “You’d let us use your system?”Bruce shrugs. “If you need it.”“We need it.”“Okay, then.”Jeremiah lets out a half laugh, a little giddy that Bruce trusts him this much, and wonders how he ever let so many years go by hating this wonderful, amazing man.“I love you.”Bruce smirks. “I know.”Selina sneers at them, clearly disgusted. “Ugh, did you just quote Star Wars to declare your love for each other?”“Yup,” Jeremiah answers, grinning stupidly at Bruce.“That movie is officially ruined for me, I hope you know. You guys have killed it for me and I’ll kick your ass for this.”Jeremiah ignores her and swivels back and forth in his chair, unable to contain his happiness. “Wanna make out?” he asks Bruce.Bruce nods and smiles. “Yup.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah heads to Ace Chemicals with Jonathan and Eduardo to confer with the Ace Chemicals team about their new strategy. Ecco volunteers quite a bit too willing to go with Selina to the Wayne Enterprises offices while Jeremiah is away.
Jeremiah prefers to remain ignorant of what she does but he gathers from Selina that it involves James, the CIA’s operative in Wayne Enterprises who may or may not be against them, and an entire box of matches.
Jeremiah sighs and hands his phone to Jonathan when Selina turns quickly from explaining to ranting. If Jonathan’s horrified exclamations are anything to go by, Jeremiah is content that he made the right decision.
The trip lasts three days and after Fish reams Jeremiah out for his “idiotic, ridiculous, completely unprofessional behaviour, this is not a James Bond film” Jeremiah would beg to differ; he’s been playing the Bond Theme in his head for weeks now, they come to an understanding that they’re in this together until they figure out if they can trust Alfred or the director.
“Our sources tell us there’s going to be a meet up between our mole and their handler next weekend at the TWNNPH Society’s biannual charity event,” Fish explains to Jeremiah in hushed tones.
Jeremiah blinks at her. “What’s the TWNNPH Society?”
She stares back at him blankly. “You don’t know?” He shakes his head and she rolls her eyes.
“Typical. Regardless, your Ivy was on the guest list under the alias Paula Irving. Several Ace Chemicals employees are invited but we’ve narrowed our list down to five possible suspects for our mole.”
She flickers her eyes to Jeremiah and adds disdainfully, “We like to do things a little more subtle than you.”
Jeremiah bites the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting that at least he found his mole. And he also gets to have sex with a hot billionaire. Somehow he doesn’t think she would care too much about that aspect of his life.
“I don’t,” she answers back and Jeremiah remembers that she’s a fucking psychic or something and stops trying to imagine Bruce naked in his head just in case she can see images as well as read his mind.
Jonathan reminds Jeremiah to pick up gifts for everyone, which Jeremiah blanches at. “We’re a day trip away. Day trips do not require souvenirs.”
“We stayed overnight. Overnight means a gift.”
Jeremiah stares at him.
Jonathan shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat. “At least a postcard.”
“You are all ridiculous.”
Jonathan smiles shyly and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “We’re dysfunctional, like every good family.”
Jeremiah sighs but a smile sneaks through. “Fine, play the family card.”
When they return to Gotham, the trunk of the car full of presents, they find Ecco staring blankly at the television, flipping through the channels in a steady beat of three-second intervals.
Jeremiah tilts his head. “What are you doing here? It’s four in the afternoon, shouldn’t you be at the office?”
“Got kicked out.” She swivels her head away from the television towards Jeremiah and Jonathan but keeps her pace with the remote. “Did you bring me something?”
“Told you,” Jonathan supplies.
Jeremiah ignores Jonathan and takes a seat on the sofa arm, rubbing his temple. “Why did you get kicked out?”
“Do you really want to know or do you want me to lie?”
“Lie! Please, please lie,” Jonathan interjects, eyes widening by the second. “I can’t handle any more stress, please.”
“There were far too many puppies and cupcakes, we were all barfing rainbows. I was asked to leave because I’m like pure sunshine and it was blinding everyone.” Ecco smiles at Jonathan. “That good?”
“No, not really,” he answers before turning around. “I’m getting my laptop and I’m ignoring all of you until tonight.”
“I missed you, Johnny-poo!” Ecco calls after him. She swivels her head to Jeremiah. “So, what did you get me?”
“A pony.”
“Is it pink and sparkly?”
“It’s made of the purest fairy dust available.”
Ecco giggles and throws the remote on the coffee table. “I’m glad you’re back. Bruce’s been really grumpy and sulking and it stops being amusing after like three minutes.”
Jeremiah smiles. “That shouldn’t make me happy.”
“But it does.”
“Yeah, it does.” He sinks onto the sofa, pushing Ecco’s feet out of the way. “When did I get so stupid, Ecco?”
“Oh, honey. You’ve always been this stupid. You’ve just never been this happy.”
“Huh.”
Ecco grins at him. “Yeah, huh.” She pushes her feet into his lap. “I think my brilliant insight deserves a foot rub.”
He picks her ankle up between two fingers and pushes her off. “Sorry, didn’t you hear? I’ve got a boyfriend now, my massages are reserved for him.”
“Please, like he’s not the one itching to get his hands all over you. You get all the massages.” She pushes her foot back. “Gimme a foot rub, asshole.”
“He’s really jealous and controls half of the modern world.”
Ecco kicks Jeremiah in tiny pokes with her feet. “Stingy.”
“Shameless.”
“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” she whines but Jeremiah laughs and fends off her feet.
When Ecco finally gives up and it takes her a while, the little brat, they stare blankly at the television before Jeremiah lulls his head against the headrest in boredom. “Wanna spar?”
Ecco glances towards Bruce’s vast backyard and shrugs. “Okay.”
She rolls off the sofa, landing on her stomach on the floor with a loud oof. “I might be slightly out of practice.” She lifts her arm in the air. “Up.”
Jeremiah chuckles but finally pulls her up when she starts waving said arm back and forth. “How have I let you slack off so much?”
“Hey! I am the team engineer. Combat is not part of my job description.”
“You’re a spy. It’s implied.”
“Bah!”
They step out into the yard and Jeremiah toes off his shoes, cracking his knuckles against the ground. Ecco does elaborate and highly ineffectual stretches that she gathered from her years of watching martial arts movies.
“Basic rules?” he asks, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling his sleeves up his arms.
She nods. “No biting, no scratching, no insulting each other’s mother unless they really deserve it.” She pulls her hair back and up into a ponytail. “And most importantly—”
“Don’t damage the merchandise,” he finishes for her, gesturing to his face.
“I kinda meant my face.”
“It was meant for both our faces.”
Ecco shrugs. “Whatever.”
She throws the first punch because Jeremiah is a gentleman like that not that he’d ever tell Selina that because, well, he’s not a complete idiot. The niceties end there, though, and he quickly loses himself in the rush of power and adrenaline that sings through his body, working on instinct and that almost superhuman ability of foresight, blocking targeted fists and swiping feet in a lithe dance full of destructive power.
He focuses on tiring Ecco out rather than immobilizing her because he knows her weakness. But she knows Jeremiah’s weaknesses and she outwits him, catching his arm a few times and twisting it around painfully until he gives in.
They’re both so involved in their battle that they don’t notice when Bruce and Selina arrive at the house until Selina lets out a sharp, piercing whistle and shouts, “You two done slapping at each other? I need Ecco to fix my injector.”
Jeremiah and Ecco stop mid-step and Jeremiah almost loses his balance. He arches his back and manages to stay upright but Ecco tumbles to the ground. She pouts and rubs her backside. “Ow.”
“Ecco, injector, now!” Selina demands, walking briskly towards them.
“I’m hurt, Lina! Can I have some ice cream?”
Selina reaches them, nods briefly at Jeremiah, and pulls Ecco up. “We don’t pay you to eat ice cream.”
Ecco sighs and allows Selina to tug her away. “I’m sure someone would be more than happy to pay me to eat ice cream.”
Jeremiah chuckles and turns to the patio door, smiling when he sees Bruce looking at him, hands tucked in his hoodie pocket and chin tilted up and slightly to the right. Jeremiah waves before jogging up to meet him at the door.
“Hey,” he says, trying to catch his breath. He pulls at the collar of his shirt, sticky from sweating so much and dips down to kiss Bruce. “Missed you.”
Bruce runs his hands up Jeremiah’s chest and circles them around his neck, tugging him down for another kiss, this time much longer and intense than before.
Jeremiah makes a startled noise but it settles into a moan and he leans into Bruce, loving the feel of his long fingers cold and precise sinking into his hair. “M-Bruce,” he attempts to say but Bruce is dragging Jeremiah into the house and up the stairs to their bedroom.
“I want, I want—” Bruce finally says, moving his lips down Jeremiah’s neck. “I just—” He backs Jeremiah into the hallway wall a few feet from their bedroom, teeth scraping Jeremiah’s collarbone.
“Fuck,” Jeremiah breaths, hands settling on Bruce’s hips and tugging him closer, closer, as close as he can. “Why aren’t you naked yet?”
Bruce laughs, low and rumbling and far too arousing to be a laugh seriously, Jeremiah should not be so turned on by the sound of Bruce’s laughter but then again, everything Bruce does is a turn-on for Jeremiah.
“Why are you so hot when you’re fighting?” His fingers leave Jeremiah’s hair and start to quickly undo Jeremiah’s shirt buttons.
Jeremiah kisses his way up Bruce’s jawline and sinks his teeth lightly into his earlobe. “I’m always hot.”
Bruce rolls his eyes and pushes him into the bedroom, finally getting his shirt completely undone. His eyes follow the lines on Jeremiah’s chest, pupils blown with desire and an emotion Jeremiah wants to believe in love. “Why do you wear dress shirts for everything?”
Jeremiah scoffs as he works Bruce’s hoodie over his head. “I don’t wear them for everything.” He runs his palms down Bruce’s bare chest, idling on his nipples to rub them between his thumb and forefinger.
“I’ve seen you clean the bathroom in one,” Bruce gasps out before sucking a hickey into the side of Jeremiah’s neck.
Jeremiah shuts his eyes and moans, low and throaty, arching his neck to give Bruce better access. “There—oh fuck Bruce—there weren’t any other shirts around and the bathroom needed cleaning.”
Bruce backs Jeremiah onto the bed and kisses down his stomach, undoing his belt and dragging his pants down. “You could have borrowed one of my shirts.”
Jeremiah thunks his head against the mattress and squeezes his eyes shut when he feels Bruce’s breath hot and moist against his left thigh. “They smell like you.”
“So?” Bruce places his hands on Jeremiah’s ankles and pulls them apart slowly.
“So I don’t want to clean the bathroom with a hard-on.”
Bruce pops his head up and smirks at Jeremiah. Jeremiah knows he’s smirking before he opens his eyes but it’s so much more enthralling when he can see it, those lips red and wet from Jeremiah’s attention tilted up and to the left, Bruce’s eyes alight with arrogance and something purer, something like joy. “You get turned on by wearing my clothes?”
Jeremiah sighs and nods.
“Good to know.”
Jeremiah wants to retort and maybe recover some dignity but then Bruce’s mouth is on his cock and all thoughts of dignity are completely erased from his mind all thoughts are erased from his mind, actually, except for ohfuckohfuckohfuck and BruceBruceBruceBruce and Ilovemyboyfriendsofuckingmuch and all he can focus on is Bruce’s mouth and his hands clutching the sheets beneath him.
When they’re finally out of energy for the time being and stop going at each other like rabbits according to Selina, since apparently, Bruce’s bedroom is not soundproof, Jeremiah grins at Bruce from beside him in the bed.
“What?” Bruce asks, shifting uncomfortably in the bed.
“Nothing. I’m just happy.” He reaches for Bruce’s hand and entwines their fingers together.
“Oh.” Bruce stares at their joined hands eyes focused with that single-minded intensity that Jeremiah has memorized alongside running to Bruce’s dorm as the first snow of winter starts to fall and James’s succinct rendition of the opening scene of Back to the Future.
“Me, uh. Me too.”
“Hmm?” Jeremiah returns back to the present, old memories and past feelings vanishing from his mind.
“I’m happy, too.”
Jeremiah smiles softly and rubs Bruce’s hand with his thumb. “Yeah.”
Bruce tilts his lips, the ghost of a smile he rarely shows the ghost of emotion, he rarely allows himself to feel. “Yeah.”
It isn’t difficult to arrange for Jeremiah and his team to be placed on the guest list for the charity event of which Jeremiah still doesn’t know which society is hosting it, but Lucius has assured him it is worthy.
Selina takes Ecco and Jonathan up to Ace Chemicals to set up base and surveillance with the Ace Chemicals team and Jeremiah sticks around to keep an eye on Wayne Enterprises.
He spends his days at the office, chatting with Lucius and James and helping the engineering team meet pressing deadlines. It isn’t long before he notices that Bruce’s not the only one with a gang of minions who idolize him; Jeremiah gains quite a following of his own.
Several interns and long-time employees come up to Jeremiah to ask for his advice, to discuss a current topic in engineering, and sometimes to even bounce ideas off of him for projects in Wayne Enterprises.
It feels like he’s really a part of Wayne Enterprises, of this company, this phenomenon that he helped create and he remembers that this company wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. Not in this state, not in this form. There would always be the company, Bruce would always have been successful, he knows this with that superhuman knowledge that resonates deep in his heart, pumping out through his veins and circling his body. But he was there. He made Bruce just that much more unstoppable.
He was the cauldron where Bruce mixed his magic and maybe he was a little bit magical himself. Except this time he doesn’t have to justify his involvement in Wayne Enterprises. This time they know and they admire him and he knows he shouldn’t place so much importance in how others see him and he doesn’t, not like when he was twenty. Though he is still Jeremiah Valeska and that entails a little bit of uncertainty, but it’s a heady feeling nonetheless not as heavy as the feeling that shoots down his spine when Bruce rolls his head back and stops typing while Jeremiah’s sucking his cock in his office but that’s going off topic.
Jeremiah’s still not sure what he’s going to do with his life or even what he can do after he’s lived life as an agent of the CIA for the past several years, but he thinks that maybe coming to a conclusion right this moment isn’t as important as he once thought it to be and maybe he’s earned the right to stay and rest and be.
Maybe he can feel proud of who he is, not for what he does or how many success stories he has to his name or where he’s going to end up. Maybe he can feel proud for himself, basic and bare, and all that entails—red hair that stands up on end, the glasses that he stopped wearing, his faith in the ones he loves, and his earnest thirst for life—if only for a little while. It’s actually not so world-ending as he once thought it to be, he discovers.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s late afternoon before the charity dinner and Jeremiah is sitting half-dressed in an undershirt and his tuxedo pants, his button-up shirt open and his bowtie hanging loose and undone around his neck, going over the guest list one more time. He’s been sitting at his desk, he has a desk now at Bruce’s place. His place. Their place, yeah, that’s it for the last hour, memorizing faces and mapping out routes, eyes flickering between the various pieces of paper and other forms of media he has spread out across the hard surface in a seemingly haphazard fashion.
He feels a familiar rush of anticipation pacing through his veins, not quite adrenaline—not quite as urgent and exhilarating—but a slight quickening in his breath, a smug set to his smile because he knows. He knows he’s got this.
He can hear Bruce muttering in the bedroom a few feet away, complaining mostly to himself but deliberately loud enough for Jeremiah to hear how ridiculous and constricting a black tie dress code is.
“Didn't you grow up in this kind of dress, rich boy,” Jeremiah quips, unable to resist.
“I prefer the idea of being comfortable.”
“You totally missed my joke there,” Jeremiah calls, craning his head to project his voice better.
Bruce scoffs. “Yeah, I got it. It wasn’t funny.” A pause. “And it wasn’t a joke.”
“I thought it was funny.”
“There wasn’t even a punchline.”
“Hmm,” Jeremiah sounds, returning to his iPad.
Bruce curses fluently and with much more venom than is necessary. Jeremiah flicks his eyes toward the bedroom. “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad.”
“It is.” Jeremiah can hear Bruce’s scowl.
“You wore a full suit for our date,” he reminds Bruce, smiling a little at the memory.
“I was trying to get laid,” Bruce calls back.
“What if I guaranteed you’d get laid tonight?”
Bruce scoffs again. “Like that was ever in question.”
Jeremiah’s mouth gapes open and he stares indignantly at the wall that blocks Bruce from his view.
Jeremiah continues to stare, affronted until Bruce calls his name.
“Miah.”
Jeremiah refuses to respond with anything but more indignant staring.
“Miah?”
More indignation.
“I’m not going to pretend you aren’t easy.” Jeremiah can hear the exaggerated eye roll that follows.
“I’m not sleeping with you tonight,” Jeremiah decides, frowning with fierce determination down at the guest list on his desk.
“Sure you’re not.”
“I’m dead serious. Not even a kiss.” Jeremiah’s quite sure he sounds convincing but if Bruce’s disinterest and lack of further response is anything to go by, Jeremiah’s doing a very poor job of it. But he’s not going to sleep with Bruce tonight. No way, not happening. Even if he’s on a mission tonight. Even if missions build up an excess of energy and excitement that Jeremiah usually dispels through excessive drinking, excessive exercising, or excessive sex. Even if Bruce’s walking out of the bedroom, clad in a form-fitting tuxedo, looking suave and dominating and oh-so-very-delectable, a smug smirk affixed on his lips. Nope, not even then. Jeremiah’s going to die tonight, he’s sure of it.
Bruce breathes out an amused chuckle and tilts his head in that way that is entirely too arrogant and attractive to be humanly possible. “You were saying?”
Jeremiah blinks and somehow remembers how to close his jaw before he literally starts drooling. He snaps his head to his desk and gathers his iPad and a few other random papers that he’s not even sure if he needs. “I’m going downstairs.”
Bruce laughs but Jeremiah ignores him and races to the stairs.
“I’m gonna die tonight. It’s that simple,” he mutters to himself, taking the stairs two at a time. He heads to the kitchen, throws his armful of miscellaneous papers and electronics onto the table and grabs an ice-cold water bottle from the fridge. He takes several large gulps before his brows contract in pain and he clenches his teeth together. “It’s okay, I can do this. I did it for years. I can do this.”
There’s an abrupt knock on the sliding pane glass doors that lead out into the yard and Jeremiah jumps. He creeps quickly and quietly to the doors and peeks through the side of the curtains that block the fading light of dusk from the kitchen. He frowns deeply when he sees Eduardo of all people kneeling low to the ground and up against the side of the house, motioning with his hands for Jeremiah to let him in.
Jeremiah unlocks the door and lets Eduardo in. “What—”
Eduardo places a finger over his lips and hushes, “Shh!” He quickly closes the curtains and motions for Jeremiah to follow him to the hall where there are no windows.
Jeremiah follows. “What’s going on?” he whispers, not wanting to alarm Bruce before he knows what he should be alarmed about.
“Have you checked the house for bugs?” Eduardo responds, ignoring Jeremiah’s inquiry.
“Several times.”
“Do you have any of your own surveillance?”
Jeremiah quirks an eyebrow and frowns. “Why?”
Eduardo scans the hallway before stepping closer to Jeremiah. “I need to speak with you but there can be absolutely no chance of us being overheard.”
Jeremiah takes a step back, slightly affronted. “My team has the only access to the feeds. And I trust them with my life.”
“Nothing is one hundred percent hack proof,” Eduardo responds, his brows furrowing.
He looks serious, far more serious than Jeremiah has ever seen him before and it makes him uneasy because Eduardo is Eduardo and he should be joking and laughing and making up more ridiculous stories.
“Turn it off.”
Jeremiah’s mind stalls, momentarily blank, unable to process what he’s being told. He wants to follow and yet there’s a part of his mind that’s voicing the very real concern that he should never, ever turn his surveillance off at anyone’s request, even your most trusted ally. “Wh—”
“Please, Jeremiah, turn it off for five minutes.”
“My team will be alarmed.”
“And you can reassure them in five minutes.”
Jeremiah takes in a short breath, eyes focusing on Eduardo’s face so familiar and strange.
He pulls out his phone and taps the screen until he finds his remote for the surveillance. He looks back up at Eduardo, back to his eyes saying trustmetrustme the same way Selina’s asked him to let her take care of that group of would-be assassins in Athens on their first mission together.
He slides his thumb to the OFF option, hovering, two sides of doubt warring in his mind because he doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know the future and Bruce is upstairs and Eduardo’s eyes are asking him to trustmetrustmetrustme.
He brings his thumb down to touch the cool screen of his phone and watches the OFF button highlight for a split second before the screen goes back to his main menu. “It’s off,” he confirms softly, almost uncertainty because he’s still not sure who he should trust and when, and maybe he never will.
Eduardo nods and tugs Jeremiah closer with a hand on his arm.
Jeremiah doesn’t break free from his grasp but plants his feet firmly so Eduardo can’t move him any more than he has. “Have you heard from Alfred lately?”
Jeremiah raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “Not a word in weeks.”
“I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s has gotten far too suspicious. I think Alfred’s part of this whole plot against Wayne Enterprises and Ace Chemicals. He’s been acting strange for the last few weeks and now he’s suddenly disappeared, his bank accounts cleared out.”
Jeremiah nods eagerly. “Yeah, yeah, we came to the same conclusion.”
Eduardo sighs and rubs his cheek in an exaggerated motion. “I never thought it’d be Alfred.”
“My team is set up to catch the Ace Chemicals mole and their contact at a gala tonight. I was just about to go—”
Eduardo shakes his head. “He won’t be there. Alfred would never expose his plans in such a careless manner.”
Jeremiah furrows his brow and paces a few feet, trying to think. “What are we going to do? My team’s there. Everyone’s there.”
Eduardo cocks his head up and grins, wide and thrilling and like a Cheshire cat too wide and too brilliant and it sends alarms through Jeremiah’s blood, disturbing little pings, and pricks on his skin.
“We’ll just have to find him ourselves. Come on, I have my car outside, and I have a pretty good idea where he might be hiding.”
Eduardo heads to the door the front door, which is odd since he had seemed so keen on secrecy and privacy before but Jeremiah doesn’t follow. He frowns deeply and calls to Eduardo, “Why did you come here if you know where he is?”
Eduardo stops and peers over his shoulder at Jeremiah, slight irritation hastily hidden in his eyes. “I needed backup. I was expecting Selina to be here as well. She would be very valuable. But I work with what I have, right?” He turns fully to Jeremiah. “Look, it isn’t ideal but we have to move quickly. Who knows when he’ll make his next move? And we don’t want to lose track of Ivy again, do we? Trust me.”
And Eduardo’s eyes are pleading with Jeremiah again, trustmetrustmetrustme the same way Ra's’ answered his across the table at a restaurant far too pretentious to for a first meeting and Jeremiah wants to go, to get Alfred and Ivy and eliminate every possible threat to Bruce’s world and to their happiness.
Jeremiah nods and starts to follow Eduardo, their footsteps heavy and almost echoing through the empty quiet of the house it’s quiet, so quiet, why is it so quiet?
He feels adrenaline starting to pump through his veins, quickening his pace and his mind, thoughts, and strategies and checklists flying through at an alarming pace he has to call Selina, does he have any backup ammo in his pockets, why is it so quiet, he should tell Bruce he’s leaving, it’s so quiet, he’s going to punch Ivy right in the face and it’s going to feel so fucking awesome, it’s quiet like death, why the fuck is it so quiet, it’s quiet because Bruce hasn’t made a sound in the last ten minutes, Bruce is upstairs, Bruce was upstairs but now it’s quiet, quiet like death, where is Bruce?.
Jeremiah comes to an abrupt stop and spins on his heel, racing toward the stairs. He registers vaguely that Eduardo is following close behind him but he continues up the stairs. “Bruce. Bruce!”
There is no answer and that spikes more panic in Jeremiah, his mind going blank, his heart drumming nonononono against his ribs, a painful rhythm he thought he knew but could never have imagined would be this engulfing. “Bruce!”
He’s halted by a hand on his arm and for a split second relief floods through him because he thinks it’s Bruce and all his fears were stupid and imagined and he’ll have a lot of explaining to do about how stupid he was but it’ll be okay because Bruce will be there and Bruce will be okay. But just as soon as he tastes sweet relief, the panic returns because it’s not Bruce’s hand on his arm, it’s Eduardo’s.
“Miah, stop! What are you doing?”
“Where’s Bruce?” Jeremiah takes a step down on the stairs but still remains hovering over Eduardo. His eyes are furious, his mouth contorted and he says in a low, strained voice that promises great pain, “What the fuck did you do to him?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“It’s you!” Jeremiah demands wrenching his arm from Eduardo’s grasp and grabbing his collar, hauling him up. “You’re her accomplice?”
Eduardo sighs dramatically. “You couldn’t make this easy, could you?”
“Where’s Bruce?” His hands tighten on Eduardo’s collar and he squeezes, constricting Eduardo’s throat just enough to make breathing difficult.
Eduardo manages to laugh, a strained, wheezy sound. “I’d say Ivy took him, hostage, about ten minutes ago.”
Jeremiah swears and releases Eduardo, turning to race upstairs because this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. Bruce is upstairs, sitting at his laptop, hands flying over the keys. He has to be. After all, they went through, after all these years, after everything, it can’t end like this, not like this.
But Eduardo is quicker than him and he feels Eduardo grab his wrist and pull him back, using the momentum to hurl Jeremiah down the stairs. Jeremiah lands on his back, the air in his lungs rushing through his lips in a sharp blast. He moves his mouth, struggling to get oxygen back into his lungs to get Bruce back into his life, to get everything back in its place, short, gasping, painful pulls of his muscles but the air isn’t coming, it isn’t coming back Bruce is never coming back, this is the end.
Eduardo is kneeling over him and he wants to reach up, to smash his head into the floor, to crack his neck, to kill him in any of the hundreds of methods he’s been trained in, to do what he knows, what he’s good at something. But Jeremiah can’t move he can’t even breathe, can’t even protect what he loves so dearly and Eduardo is sighing dramatically again, using his revolver to poke at Jeremiah’s side.
“You just couldn’t make this easy, could you?” He pouts and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “But that’s alright, I suppose you have a right to fight back—or at least try. I’ll think up something else like I always do.” He smiles then and it’s gentle and practiced but Jeremiah can see the malice behind it now, can feel the betrayal that he should always have known was lurking just under the surface of Eduardo’s warm façade. “I’m quite the genius, you know.”
Jeremiah hears Eduardo’s gun click and he tries to move, tries to avoid the oncoming bullet but he’s paralyzed through fear or the shock his body is still recovering from after his fall, he doesn’t know, though it doesn’t really matter now, does it? He closes his eyes because he doesn’t want Eduardo’s face to be the last one he sees he’s supposed to see Bruce in the cereal aisle of the supermarket, valiantly defending his choice in sugary breakfast foods. He tries to bring back the image of Bruce that night but his mind won’t cooperate because this isn’t the end, draining away his doubts and fears and self-reproach why did he turn off the cameras? Why didn’t he see what was right in front of him? Why didn’t he know the future with perfect certainty? Until he is reduced to one thought, one purpose, one ultimate end reduced down to his point of origin and he knows he can never fade from this world until he secures Bruce’s safety.
He feels the beat of his heart in his chest, once, twice, three times and he rears up, grabbing Eduardo’s face in his hands and bringing him down with all the strength he can muster. He doesn’t have much leverage but he manages to break the bastard’s nose with a very satisfying smack.
Eduardo curses low in his throat and scrambles for a hold on Jeremiah. They struggle, Eduardo reaching for his gun again and Jeremiah trying to retrieve the one strapped to his leg. Before either can get the upper hand, or even draw their guns at each other, a shot sounds through the room, muffled severely by a silencer.
Eduardo slumps to the floor, slightly over Jeremiah’s body. Jeremiah scrambles out from under him and draws his gun, quickly pivoting his back to a nearby wall and scanning the room for the new shooter.
Alfred emerges from around the corner, tucking his gun by his side and crouching to turn Eduardo’s body onto his back.
“Alfred? Did you kill him?” Jeremiah asks, gun still pointed in their direction uncertain whether he’ll have to use it on Eduardo or even Alfred.
Alfred ignores him and begins to tie Eduardo’s arms and legs together, using quick and efficient movements of his hands to secure the agent to the stairway.
“You killed him, oh shit, he’s dead and only he knew where Ivy took Bruce. Do you realize what you’ve fucking done?” Jeremiah’s voice is rising, loud and thin with his building panic Bruce, Bruce, where are you, BruceBruceBruceBruce.
Alfred raises his head and tries to suppress an eye roll he’s wildly unsuccessful but at least he did try. “Don’t be so dramatic.” He nods to his gun. “It’s a tranquilizer. I have a few questions I’d like him to answer.”
Jeremiah steps forward, both hands gripping his gun. “Just whose side are you on, Alfred?”
The director stands and crosses his arms, managing to look extremely disapproving. “We can have the conversation now, over the unconscious body of a former agent of the CIA, wasting precious time and let you fuck this mission up even more than I thought you possibly could. Or we could find out where your boyfriend’s been taken, and possibly save this mission and both of our asses. Your choice.”
Jeremiah lowers his gun and places it back into the strap on his calf. “Where did Ivy take Bruce?”
“Hell if I know.”
Jeremiah lunges forward and grabs Alfred by his collar, shaking him with as much strength as he can muster which isn’t very much since half of his normal power is put to use trying to stop his hands and legs and entire body from trembling in fear. “I’m not very rational right now, Alfred. Tell me what you know now.”
Alfred frowns and places a hand over Jeremiah’s, tapping. “I just had this shirt dry cleaned, you know.”
“Where the fuck is Bruce?”
“There’s a reason why you aren’t supposed to sleep with the target, Valeska.” He clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “This is why.”
“Bruce is not the fucking target. Bruce is the man I love.”
Alfred’s face softens slightly before his dispassionate mask shifts back into place. “Love, Valeska?”
“With all my being.”
He sighs and pulls out his phone, spinning it between his thumb and middle finger. “I might have placed a tracker on Ivy’s car.”
Jeremiah lets out a sigh, heavy but hopeful. He releases Alfred, grabs his keys and races out the door. “Let’s go.”
“And during the ride, we can discuss your highly inappropriate conduct, how you compromised the entire mission, and how this isn’t a fucking James Bond movie,” Alfred sneers, sliding into the passenger’s seat in Jeremiah’s Audi.
“It has similarities to a James Bo—”
“Shut up and drive, only I get to talk.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jeremiah drives recklessly, taking turns too sharply and skidding past other cars and semi-trucks. He barely registers where he is or where he’s heading, all he feels is his hand on the steering wheel, all he sees is the flashing light on Alfred’s phone that tracks Ivy and Bruce. He vaguely hears Alfred complaining, first about his unprofessional behavior, but it quickly bleeds into how ridiculous it is for Jeremiah to have an Audi, do you know how much this monstrosity cost the government? You’ve never even used the laser, have you?
Jeremiah tries to absorb himself in small things, in the hum of the engine as he presses his foot heavy and dull onto the gas, in knowing just the right moment to shift his hands to make the corner leather growing hot under his hands, fingers sliding, sliding, sliding before they tighten and yank the wheel to the left, tires squealing in protest but the steady hum of the engine signalling it’s fine, it’s okay. He tries to clear his mind like he’s been trained. He tries to look at this objectively, he tries to plan and strategize but that’s never been his forte anyway. He’s always been a jumble of emotional decisions and split-second errors. It’s why he made so many mistakes and why he survived them all.
He tries to do anything and everything in his power to get himself under control because this isn’t just another mission. This isn’t just him screwing up. This is Bruce and he knows with heavy certainty that he will never recover if anything happens to Bruce. This is far worse than a nightmare. This is the reality he always deluded himself into believing wasn’t true.
Alfred is on the phone with Selina and the team. They’re heading back but it won’t be soon enough not enough, never enough. It’s just Jeremiah and Alfred and he prays that will be all they need.
“Valeska!” Selina yells through the phone, Alfred apparently placed the device on speaker.
Jeremiah opens his lips to answer but his throat is too dry and he finds that no sound comes out. He swallows and tries again. “Lina?”
“Valeska, I know you’re freaking out but you have to calm the fuck down.”
Jeremiah shakes his head, realizing belatedly that Selina can’t see him. “He has Bruce,” he supplies, hoping the desperation in his voice is enough to convince Selina of the severity of the situation.
“And Bruce has you.”
“What?”
“Ivy took Bruce, but Bruce isn’t hopeless. Bruce has you. Are you going to be there for him and man up and calm the fuck down, or are you going to panic and abandon him again?”
Jeremiah’s hands tighten on the steering wheel again. “I can’t screw this up, Lina. This isn’t just another mission—”
“And that’s why you have to be everything you fucking you know are. You can do this.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widen and he swallows slowly before he allows the panic to subside and chilling calm creeps through his blood. “Thank you, Lina.”
“I can’t wait until you retire, you asshole,” is her response but he can hear the smile in her voice. “Now, you’re coming up to a storage facility. According to the director’s tracking device, Ivy stopped there about three minutes ago. I hacked into a few video feeds in the area and from what I can tell, she has four goons posted outside.”
Selina details what she has learned from the video feeds. Ivy arrived with a very-much-alive Bruce and they’ve been holed up in the building since. Jeremiah stops the car about a block away from the building and quickly retrieves the ammo hidden under his seat. Alfred reaches for the gear stick and Jeremiah furrows his brow. Alfred twists the top off and pulls out a short metal stick that looks almost like a lightsaber.
“Wha—”
“It’s your fucking laser that cost the government an extra ten thousand dollars,” Alfred answers before Jeremiah can complete his question. He slips it into his suit jacket pocket. “And I intend to put the taxpayers’ money to good use.”
Jeremiah is torn between pointing out very maturely, that Alfred totally ruined the fun of finding out where it was hidden and wanting to snatch it away and play Star Wars.
He settles for a quick, “That’s mine.”
Alfred glares at him and exits the car.
They reach the storage facility quickly, feet silent on the gravel parking lot, and crouch behind a series of cars.
“There are at least three guards that I can see and they’re heavily armed,” Jeremiah notes, both to Alfred, and for Selina’s benefit he placed the phone in his pocket, but Selina made him swear to keep her on speaker.
“If I go in on the right and you on the left we should be able to take care of—”
Alfred draws his gun and pats Jeremiah on the back. “I’ll take care of them. You go get Ivy.”
Jeremiah frowns. “Alfred, you haven’t had hand-to-hand combat in years—”
“I am fully capable of taking care of a few useless guards.” He cracks his neck. “Let me have a little fun, I’ll catch up with you in a couple minutes.”
Jeremiah searches Alfred’s eyes for a moment, trying to find a reason to doubt his words. Finally, he nods and smiles. “Thank you, Alfred.”
“You owe me,” he says before he stands and saunters to the guards. He waves at them with a cheery flick of his wrist. “Hey, fellas!”
Jeremiah creeps around the cars while Alfred draws the guards’ attention. He slips into the large building, the door making a loud metallic click behind him as it closes. The sound echoes through the maze of storage units, traveling down dark corridors, recoiling off the units with decreasing intensity. He scans the area quickly as he runs up the stairs, praying fervently that he can find Bruce, that Bruce is safe, that he can put an end to this nightmare.
He worries that Ivy will be well concealed but apparently he had no need to be so concerned because it isn’t long before he hears sharp, echoing footsteps pacing in the corridor to his left.
He flattens his body to the cold metal containers back straight and rigid and tensing against the indentions of the unit. He fights to unlock his knees, to loosen his limbs and bring them under his full control, fear and instinct and training all warring against each other until he cannot distinguish a single clear thought.
He reminds himself that he’s a spy, a soldier, a coward, a failure; every role he’s ever played flashes through his mind and creeps through his blood. He tries to cling to all his experience and knowledge, everything he’s been taught but looking back has always been his downfall. It’s the future and uncertainty that lays the best traps, taunting and mocking him and beckoning him forward, daring him to believe, to take that leap.
“…think for one second this was ever a good idea, your intellectual capacity is far below what you estimate it at,” Bruce condescends, anger vibrating low and deadly in his tone.
It’s the sound of that familiar voice, strong and clear and brilliantly ruthless that stills his mind, a second, then two, and he’s able to stop, stop breathing, stop thinking, stop beating his heart that thrums, BruceBruceBruce, like rebooting a computer, like starting anew, like clearing his data and returning to his point of origin. He straightens his free hand from the useless fist it made against the now-warm metal behind his back and brings it down to his thigh. He presses two fingers into the flesh of his upper thigh and breathes out a sigh of relief when his legs respond, unlocking and bowing to his control yet again. He points his gun to the ground and unlocks the safety—ready to aim straight into Ivy’s heart—and rounds the corner.
His eyes immediately take in the scene in front of him. Bruce is sitting, leaning against a storage unit, his hands, and ankles tied by plastic binding, hands behind his back and his knees drawn up slightly. He taps his bound feet in unison, impatience, and annoyance radiating with his every muscle twitch. He’s glaring at Ivy as he glares at everyone who puts him through hell when they have no foot to stand on.
Ivy halts her anxious pacing and smiles when she spots Jeremiah. She leans against the metal wall opposite Bruce and tilts her hip to the side, tapping her gun against her thigh. “Ah, Miah. I see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.”
Jeremiah aims his gun directly at Ivy but shifts his gaze to Bruce. “Are you alright?” he asks, voice soft and gentle, so insistent that the sound trembles slightly as it leaves his throat.
Bruce angles his chin up and raises an eyebrow. He smirks, drawing the corner of his mouth up. “I’m fine,” he says, much in the same way he tells Jeremiah that yes, he ate lunch; yes, he went to sleep at a decent hour; yes, yes, yes, stop nagging me, Miah.
Jeremiah nods at Bruce, a grateful smile flashing over his face and he should have known Bruce would never let himself be hurt; Bruce has only allowed that once and Jeremiah was the one who did it.
“Miah, Miah, Miah. Are you ignoring me?” Ivy interjects, forcing Jeremiah to look away from Bruce and angle his eyes to Ivy.
Jeremiah tilts his head and shrugs. “It’s not hard.”
Ivy laughs, short and derisive. She lets his gun flop in a circle, flicking her wrist loosely until it points directly at Bruce. “You should learn to mind your tongue.”
Jeremiah swallows hard. “Let’s take it easy here, Ivy.”
Ivy purses his lips in mock thought. “Why don’t we start with you lowering your gun?”
“Don’t do it, Miah,” Bruce warns but Jeremiah sends him a small smile, pleading with him to trustmeonthis.
Jeremiah lowers his gun to the ground, clicking the safety back in place and raising his arms in surrender.
Ivy motions her head backward. “Kick it to me.”
Jeremiah does as Ivy asks.
Ivy picks up the gun and smirks, emptying it of the ammunition before tossing it over her shoulder. “Very good, Miah.”
“Why are you doing this? You can’t possibly hope to accomplish your goals by kidnapping Bruce.”
Ivy hems and lets the hand holding her gun flop again, laughing as Jeremiah’s eyes zero in on its aim. “And what, pray to tell, do you know of my goals? Are you a mind reader now, too? My, you must be tired, filling so many shoes. Spy, shareholder…lover.” She draws out the last word and smiles mockingly.
Jeremiah ignores her taunts and presses for information. “How is kidnapping Bruce and leading me here going to shut down Wayne Enterprises?”
“You’ll never shut it down,” Bruce supplies unhelpfully from the sidelines, anger, and pride strong in his voice.
Ivy glares at Bruce and presses a finger to his lips. “Shh, Mr. Wayne. This isn’t about you.”
“Sure,” Bruce answers, eyes narrowed.
“You’re making it very difficult not to shoot you.”
“Oh really, should I apologize?”
“Bruce, shut up,” Jeremiah hisses, eager to take Ivy’s attention off of Bruce and back on him.
“No.”
Ivy straightens her wrist and fires a shot before Jeremiah can move. A bullet penetrates the metal container a foot above Bruce’s head. “I would listen to your boyfriend if I were you.”
Bruce falls into a stunned silence, either from shock or from the panic on Jeremiah’s face or perhaps both, Jeremiah isn’t really in a place to figure that out right now.
Jeremiah steps toward Ivy but stops when Ivy lowers his gun again to aim at Bruce. “What do you want, Ivy?”
“Oh, it’s simple, really,” she answers. “I want you to suffer.”
Jeremiah blinks, confused and trying his best to get a handle on the situation. “What about Wayn—”
Ivy rolls her eyes. “That was a job I took. I just wanted the money.” He shrugs and pushes away from the wall, inching closer to Bruce.
“But what I really want, now, is to watch you burn. You see, I hate you. I hate your face and your suits and your slicked back hair. I hate that you came onto our team and destroyed the dynamic I spent years building. I hate your fucking Poison Ivy jokes.”
“Poison Ivy jokes?” Bruce asks.
Jeremiah glances at Bruce and shrugs, spreading his hands. “Her name is Ivy Pepper, how is that my fault?”
Ivy lets out a frustrated yell. “You’re fucking doing it again. You’re making light in a fucking terrible situation. I hate you so much.”
Ivy takes a deep breath and appears to regain her composure, though it is teetering on the edge of insanity now, her movements quick and jerky.
“So when the opportunity presented itself, I thought I’d take my revenge.”
Jeremiah takes slow, even breaths and tries to figure out a strategy.
Ivy is falling off into insanity and irrational thought, he knows he doesn’t have much longer before the ex-agent can’t be reasoned with. He holds up his hands. “Alright. So here I am. I’m here, you don’t need Bruce. Let him go.”
“Miah,” Bruce growls, disapproval and stubbornness heavy in his tone and the narrowing of his eyes.
Jeremiah ignores him and keeps his gaze on Ivy. “Let Bruce go.”
Ivy smiles. “No.”
“Please.”
“No,” Bruce repeats, scowling at Jeremiah, a scowl that promises a lot of Words when they’re out of this, which Jeremiah will gladly sit through with a smile on his fucking face if it means they get through this.
Ivy clicks her tongue and tilts her head. “I have to agree with your boyfriend over there. It’s much more fun seeing you panic over something outside of your control.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widen in fear, until he sees Alfred, silently creeping above them, inching his way to where Ivy stands. Jeremiah must have let relief show in his expression briefly because Ivy peers up and swears when she sees Alfred.
She fires a shot at Alfred but misses.
Alfred leaps down and tackles Ivy, knocking her gun out of her hand toward Jeremiah.
Jeremiah scoops it up and dashes to Bruce, pulling a knife free and cutting through the plastic binding Bruce’s hands.
“You’re a fucking idiot, what the fuck were you thinking,” Bruce scowls at him even as his eyes light in relief and gratitude and something far more meaningful something like love made up in Bruce’s eyes.
Jeremiah just grins and lets Bruce grab the knife once his hands are free, working on the plastic at his ankles. He wants to reach up and wrap his hands around the back of Bruce’s neck, wants to run his fingers up into the dark hair that sits atop his head and pulls him closer. He wants to press his lips to Bruce’s, feel the cool pressure that spikes passion through his blood and changes the rhythm of his heart.
He wants to do any number of things but he cannot because out of the corner of his eye he sees Ivy, still pinned and wrestling with Alfred, angle Alfred’s gun toward them, toward Bruce.
Before he can even think, before he can tell his body to move his mind is slow and stuck in inertia when action is needed most, resisting, resisting, resisting for no other reason than fear that disguises itself as pride, before Bruce can even finish cutting through the plastic that still binds his feet, a second or two and they could be on their feet, racing to safety, to the life they planned, to slow Monday mornings and movie nights on Wednesday, and hours spent under the sheets of their bed, tracing words that cannot be said onto skin, through lips and hands and soft puffs of breath, before any of that, Jeremiah grabs Bruce’s shoulders and flings him away.
Bruce slides across the floor just in time for Jeremiah to hear the muffled sound of a bullet sent speeding through the silencer on Alfred’s gun.
“What the fuck, Miah?” Bruce voices from a few feet away, but Jeremiah’s hearing isn’t working the way it should and his vision is starting to blur and all he can feel is deep panic, to get Bruce the fuck out and a thousand heartbeats at the end of every nerve.
He tries to tell Bruce to get out but his breath comes out wheezing and heavy. He tries again but finds he can’t breathe, not like he’s supposed to.
“Miah?” It’s Bruce’s voice but Jeremiah has a hard time focusing on his face or why it’s so close to his own now.
“Fuck, fuck, Miah.”
“What the fuck is going on?” It’s Selina, voice tinny and muffled through his cell phone.
Jeremiah wants to laugh because he forgot she had been on speakerphone, but it comes out like a panting gasp.
“Miah, we’re gonna get you fixed up, okay? You’re going to be okay. Miah!” Bruce presses his hands against Jeremiah’s stomach and Jeremiah’s eyes go wide with realization and pain.
Oh, he thinks.
“Wayne, you better tell me what the fuck is happening,” Selina demands.
“Miah’s been shot!” he snaps into the phone.
Selina sucks in a breath and Jeremiah thinks he hears Jonathan murmur something but it’s Ecco’s voice that comes through the phone. “Is he moaning that he’s dying? Don’t worry about it, he does that all the time.”
Bruce’s eyes are huge and wide with the strongest terror Jeremiah has seen, piercing shining with tears that threaten to escape at any moment.
Jeremiah wants to wipe them from his eyes, wipe away the terror and panic and dark fear that permeates Bruce’s features.
“You’re not going to die,” Bruce commands, pressing his whole weight into Jeremiah’s wounds to stop the profuse bleeding.
But that’s a lie and Jeremiah knows he’s slipping away, breath choking through lungs that no longer fight to expand. He’s dying and for once he isn’t terrified of it, visions of his life don’t pass through his mind and he realizes that he doesn’t even need that night in the grocery store to give him peace in his final moments. Because Bruce is here and always has been, in his heart and pumping through his veins, in his every breath and smile and tear, it’s always been Bruce, Bruce, Bruce.
He sends silent thanks to the universe for allowing him this beautiful piece of sunlight before he ends his days. He glances to Alfred and smiles to see that Ivy is contained, knocked unconscious when he wasn’t paying attention and Alfred is speaking rapidly into his phone, ordering an ambulance but it’ll be too late, much too late.
He’s in too much pain with too little breath and there’s stark red blood pooling around Jeremiah’s body, seeping into Bruce’s pants where he kneels as if even his blood is returning to his point of origin.
He tries to reach his hand to Bruce’s cheek but he can’t find the strength. Instead, he closes his eyes and says, “I’m not dying,” the lie soft and soothing.
Bruce smiles—panicky and thin but still a smile—until Ecco chokes out a breath and says, “Miah?”
“Where was he shot, Wayne?” Selina asks, fear making her voice low and still.
“Why isn’t he saying he’s dying? He should be complaining loudly. Lina, Lina, he’s—” Jonathan’s voice is getting stronger.
“Valeska, don’t you fucking die!” Selina yells but Jeremiah can’t find the strength to focus on the phone.
He contorts his lips into what he hopes is a smile. “Bruce,” he whispers and has to pause to draw in more breath, shallow and intensifying the pain that centers at his stomach.
“Shut up, Miah. You’re not giving me your dying words because you’re not dying. I’m not going back to that. I’m not going to back a life without you. Jeremiah!”
“Bruce,” he tries again, vision blackening at the edges and he has to fight to keep his eyes open, losing the battle quickly. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, to say he loves Bruce one last time, to leave him with something that will bring him peace, to thank him.
He doesn’t know and he never will because he slips into a dark unknown, spots of black and white and everything in-between with Bruce’s name on his lips.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When his eyes flutter open, he’s greeted with blinding white or maybe he’s blind and that’s what it looks like? He always thought it’d be pitch black and he immediately shuts his eyes to block out the intense source of pain. It takes him a couple seconds of deep breathing to realize the pain is not from the light but from his stomach and an intense stiffness in his limbs. He groans and refuses to open his eyes just in case he was wrong about the pain-light.“He’s awake.”Jeremiah’s breath hitches when he feels the hand—a hand that he only now realizes has been holding his own—tighten, warm and strong and as familiar as his own, Bruce’s thumb brushing up to skim his wrist.“Miah,” Bruce says. It’s not a question, not an inquiry to see if he’s awake. It’s a command open your fucking eyes, I’m so mad at you right now.Jeremiah smiles, small and thin, but he peeks his eyelids open.“Bruce,” he croaks as if finishing the last thought he had when he was dying.Oh yeah, he was dying. Why isn’t he dead?“Why am I not dead?”“Because idiots never die, you asshole.”It’s Selina and Jeremiah turns his head slightly to peek at her. She’s glaring at him, arms folded, great pain promised in her eyes.“Hello,” he smiles before turning back to Bruce. “Is everyone here?”“What? Miah’s awake and no one got me?” James’s sudden entrance answers Jeremiah’s question.“I knew it, I told you to tell me when he woke uppppp.” James bustles through the room, until he reaches Jeremiah’s bedside, opposite Bruce.He grins and pats Jeremiah’s shoulder with his free hand. “Hi, Miah. Don’t die again, alright? Bruce’s been impossible.”He sets down a tray of coffee on the nightstand and glares around the room. “And no one gets coffee because you all broke your promise. These belong to me now.”“You’re not going to drink six cups of coffee.” Selina glares at him, peering at the coffee with quiet longing.“Please don’t challenge him on this,” Lucius sighs, rubbing his brow.“I’m not talking to you, Lucius. You should have told me that Miah was up. I’m drinking yours first.”Ecco raises her hand. “I texted you.”James cocks his head and pulls out his phone. He smiles and hands her a large cup that Jeremiah knows is hot chocolate. Ecco grins and grabs the cup, eagerly sipping the whipped cream.Selina tries to reach around James but he bats her hand away. “No!”“For fuck’s sake, give me my fucking coffee, Gordon.”“Nooooooooo.”Jeremiah chuckles, quiet and weak and turns back to Bruce.He tightens his fingers against Bruce’s with as much strength as he can muster. “You okay?”Bruce holds his gaze before closing his eyes, a pained expression overtaking his face. He buries his head on their joined hands and presses his lips to Jeremiah’s wrist.Jeremiah’s eyes widen and he brings his other hand over to gently stroke through Bruce’s hair. “Bruce?”“I thought I lost you.”“I know.”“I thought I lost you.” He peers up, and Jeremiah can see the sleeplessness and dread and worry etched in every hollow, every dip and curve of his face.Jeremiah closes his eyes briefly and swallows. “I’m not sorry.”Bruce bites his lip and sighs. “I know.”“You guys are so fucked up,” Ecco voices, upper lip coated in whipped cream that she’s currently stealing from all the mochas and lattes James refuses to pass around.“Can everyone stop swearing for a minute?” Jonathan pleads, voice a little desperate. “There could be children around, you know.”Selina rolls her eyes at him. “It’s a hospital, not a school.”“Children are not unheard of in public hospitals.”Jeremiah smiles and leans his head closer to Bruce. “Love you.”Bruce smirks and presses his lips to Jeremiah’s cheek. “Yeah.”It is quickly determined that there are far too many people in Jeremiah’s hospital room and a nurse comes around to evict the majority of them.They take turns visiting and entertaining him.Selina fills him in on the end of the mission, Eduardo and Ivy have been taken into custody and the Ace Chemicals team finally unmasked their mole.The agency is tracking the instigators of the failed internet plot and has a team on the case, with hopefully less drama and more diligent work, or so Alfred says when he drops by to debrief Jeremiah.Jeremiah asks for his laser back, but Alfred replies it was never his and is owned by the government of the United States.Jeremiah interprets this as a clear indication that Alfred is playing Jedi Master with it in private.Team Valeska is officially on leave and it’s making Selina antsy. Jonathan, on the other hand, seems more relaxed, smiling and giggling more than he has in a long while. Ecco is completely unaffected because she hardly realizes when they are on a mission, let alone off of one.The nurses tried to evict Bruce from Jeremiah’s room several times on the first night, but Bruce is terrifying and stubborn and they’ve since learned to let him be.Jeremiah manages to convince Bruce to leave for brief intervals to grab them something to eat or take a shower, but he’s secretly quite pleased and relieved that Bruce stays with him most of the time and at night, if Bruce slips out of his chair and slides under the covers with Jeremiah, well, no one really needs to know about that, do they?It’s on the fifth day since he awoke that Alfred and the director, Tabitha arrive with their boss, the woman with sharp eyes and a sharper mind that sent him to Wayne Enterprises in the first place.She smiles briefly, a polite attempt at civility. “Good afternoon, Mr. Valeska.” She glances to Bruce and nods. “Mr. Wayne.”Bruce raises his eyes from his laptop and sweeps his eyes over the intruders. His hands still and he tilts his head. “Hello.” It is a cold greeting, civil but rife with distrust.Jeremiah bites his tongue to keep from calling her Madame. He nods instead. “Good day.”The woman positions herself in a chair close to Jeremiah’s bed but not so close that she can reach it. “Perhaps we could have a word. Alone.” She glances over to Bruce pointedly.“No,” Bruce answers quickly, lowering his laptop monitor until it clicks shut.“It wasn’t really a request.”“And my answer wasn’t really negotiable.”“Bruce,” Jeremiah intercedes. He sits up straighter in his bed and hopes his eyes are as pleading as he intends them to be. “I don’t barge into your meetings.”“Wayne Enterprises never tried to kill me.”“That’s a matter of perspective, isn’t it?” the woman muses, scanning idly through her phone while she waits for them to finish their conversation.Bruce glares at her but Jeremiah clears his throat and frowns at Bruce. “Give us five minutes, Bruce.”Bruce narrows his eyes, shifting them from Jeremiah, to the woman, and back to Jeremiah. Finally, he nods, short and stilted. He tucks his laptop under his arm and stands. “Five minutes.”Jeremiah smiles and watches him leave before turning his attention back on the woman.She turns over her shoulder and waves her hand dismissively at Alfred. “Be a dear and fetch me some coffee, Alfred.”Alfred blinks and frowns. “I’m not a butler.”“And you’re not part of this meeting.” She waves at him again. “Coffee. And some tea for Mr. Valeska.” She glances at Jeremiah. “Do you like tea?” Before he can answer, she turns back to Alfred. “Tea and coffee.”Alfred sighs but leaves, muttering that he has two Masters Degrees.Once Alfred closes the door behind him, the woman leans over and tosses a file into Jeremiah’s lap. “Your new mission.”Jeremiah drops his jaw and stares at her. “But I’m—I’m still recovering.”She shrugs. “You can start researching.”He pushes the folder aside and leans closer to her. “Look, I tried to do it before but things got complicated. I’m resigning—”“I know. Your resignation has already been processed. You’re officially unemployed.”Jeremiah furrows his brow and tries to understand just what is happening. “Then—”“You are no longer an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. You are in no way, shape, or form, a part of the United States government.”Understanding dawns on Jeremiah and he shifts the file back to his lap, opening it tentatively.Jeremiah nods and glances through a few pages in the thick file. “And my team?”“Will be reassigned.” He flicks his eyes up to the woman. She shrugs. “They would be regardless. You have resigned.”He swallows but nods. It’s a consequence that cannot be avoided. He sighs and closes the file.“I’m sorry, but I’ve decided this was my last mission. I’m done and moving on with my life.”“You and I both know you’ll never be done.”She shifts back into her chair and smiles when she sees doubt flicker through Jeremiah’s eyes. “It’s in our blood.”She is right; the adrenaline rush, the addiction to stealth and adventure and power that came with that life pumped through his veins, bringing nourishment as essential as the oxygen his blood carried, but so was the steady drum of BruceBruceBruce that beat from his heart, the force that kept blood flowing and streaming and coursing through his body.He’s about to decline again when he glances down and catches sight of the name. His mouth turns dry and he doesn’t remember how to blink.“He’s a monster that’s been untouchable for years,” she continues, then lowers her voice and adds, “I believe you’ve been acquainted with him.”He nods, remembers his youth, running only to trip over an extended leg and have the wind knocked out of him. Waking to him sitting on his stomach, knife in hand, holding him down. He remembers the sharp laugh and taunts, tugs on his hair, all so childish compared to the final straws. His bed on fire, a knife slipping across his throat. How he had come to fear not only him but his own reflection in the mirror.How after he was sent away the next night, leaving behind the only life he had ever known, now on his own and no longer a child.“You will not receive any help from the CIA. You will have to act fully and completely as a free agent. Do you understand? You will be off the grid.”“Why me?”“You’re not afraid to go against all the rules. And you’ve proven you can handle even the most stressful of…personal issues.”Jeremiah blinks and he stares at her. “That’s why you assigned me to the Wayne Enterprises mission?”“Everything I do has a purpose.” She smiles. “You handled it. Not well, mind you, but successfully.”They remain silent before Jeremiah asks, “And if I decline the mission?”She shrugs. “It’s your choice.” She stands and walks up to his bedside, placing a hand on the file and flipping it to the target’s latest crimes. “But I think you’d regret it.”Jeremiah swallows and nods. She’s right.When Bruce returns, the room is empty save for Jeremiah. He tucks the file under his sheet and watches Bruce settle back in the chair right at his bedside.Bruce smiles at Jeremiah, reaching to open his laptop. Jeremiah doesn’t smile back and drops his gaze to the hands in his lap.“They offered me another mission.”Bruce’s hand stills and he keeps his eyes on his computer. “You said no.” It’s small and hopeful and breaks Jeremiah’s heart, half beats of bru—ce—bru—ce—bru—ce, painful against his ribs, his lungs.“I accepted.”Bruce’s eyes flick to Jeremiah, his expression dark. “They can’t make you go.”“I want to.”“You’re leaving me again? Abandoning, abandoning us?” His voice is harsh and cold with accusation.“Bruce,” Jeremiah starts and fists his fingers into the sheets beneath him to remain calm, to be the voice of reason here.He doesn’t want to argue, doesn’t want to get into this again. He just wants Bruce to see, for once, what he needs.“No, we had an agreement. You were supposed to quit.”“I did quit. Bruce, they have no one else.”“They can fucking find someone else.”“I don’t want them to. This is my assignment, this is for me to avenge.” Jeremiah holds Bruce’s eyes, steel underlying in his voice and the way he holds his shoulders.Bruce tilts his head and his face remains stormy but he says nothing, so Jeremiah takes a deep breath. “I’m not leaving you, Bruce. I never left you—”“Bullshit. You wouldn’t come out to Gotham. I asked you—begged you—”“I never left you, Bruce. I was always coming back to you.” He softens his hold on the sheets beneath him and stares at Bruce, every wall and barrier and shred of false pride broken down until it’s just him, just Jeremiah, asking, pleading, demanding Bruce to not look away this time, see it from my eyes this time, please. “Not everything can go at your pace.”It seems to work because Bruce looks stricken. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth and asks, “How long?”“I don’t know,” and he wishes he did, wishes he could give Bruce a timeline, wishes he could give Bruce the world or at least their world, this perfect little blend of dreams and love and everything they’ve ever been together.But life isn’t dreams and he has this business he knew still stabbed through his gut, poisoning his blood against love and hope and the steady BruceBruceBruce.Bruce nods and blinks rapidly, breaking away to look out the window, stubborn. “You’ll come back?”Jeremiah closes his eyes and nods. “Always, Bruce. Always.”They spend whatever time they can together as Jeremiah heals, quicker than Bruce would have liked. They make up a story about Jeremiah visiting an old friend and throw one last bon voyage party.No one but Bruce knows where Jeremiah is truly heading off to and they manage to keep the façade up until night wanes into the morning.In the first awakenings of dawn, Bruce presses insistent kisses into Jeremiah’s skin, marking him, claiming him, making a map back to him, so deep that it resonates through his muscle and into his bone, a light shiver that reminds him this is where he belongs.Jeremiah returns the favor, etching lines and scratches with his nails in every dip and plateau of Bruce’s back, his stomach, his thighs, his calves, his neck. It is sweet and bitter and desperate and it permeates his thoughts even when he boards his plane, even when he sets foot on Romanian soil, a strange land he once called home. He loses himself in research and intelligence collecting and then he slips into his mask and he stalks his prey. It’s intoxicating and dangerous and rewards him with fresh air in his lungs and a mind that races with possibilities but in the quiet moments, his mask slips and his heart reminds him of what he left behind and all he has to fight for, to come back to.Ecco quits the CIA soon after she discovers Jeremiah’s deceit.She tracks him down and offers to join him, but he declines and asks only that she deliver a stack of letters to Bruce. She agrees but leaves him her new number in case, and calls him an idiot several times in ten different languages.He sees her name appear in the paper six months later; she wrote a children’s picture book about a little girl who wants to become a narwhal.She thinks it would make a fantastic Pixar film. No one agrees except James, according to her emails.Selina is promoted to team leader but quickly advances further, taking Alfred’s old job once he gets promoted. He spots her one day in downtown Slobiza, when he’s deep undercover, he’s convinced a few of Jerome’s group of assassins that he’s Jerome, but he’s quietly still working his way to the top.She smiles at him and stretches her neck. He grins when he sees a glimpse of the family necklace she still wears. He keeps his tucked under his shirt collar and scratches his neck to indicate to her yes, he’s wearing it. She bows her head and looks away, heading in the opposite direction.He doesn’t see Jonathan, but receives a weekly email from him, like clockwork. Jonathan left the CIA three months after Jeremiah did, to work for the MI5 in Great Britain.Selina swears she will never forgive him for jumping ship but Jonathan seems happier, more relaxed if the boy can relax.He reads emails from Lucius and James and reads about them in the news Lucius’s smiling face appears quite often on the business sections of the newspapers, and frequently in the World News section, taking on several more causes than he had in previous years.Time Magazine interviews Bruce and asks him why he thinks Wayne Enterprises is so vital. Bruce has answered this question innumerable times before but this time his response is different.“Because it’s all interconnected, it’s apart of everything and connects everyone. Whether they’re still next door or they move oceans away, Wayne Enterprises is a center where everyone is connected. We don’t have to lose our bonds, but we can grow and mature and stay tied to those we care for. And one day, the ones we care about most will come back.”Jeremiah cuts the interview out and keeps it in the breast pocket of his button-up shirts, over the left side of his ribs where his heart repeats the words back to him.It takes a year to finally get to Jerome and another three months to stop him.Jeremiah is determined and can sense freedom, he can sense home, and pizza on Friday nights and the strange second-hand taste of candy on his tongue when Bruce crawls into bed at absurd hours of the night.One year, three months, and seventeen days after he last kissed Bruce, Jeremiah makes his first kill not an assassination or casualty of the mission or any directive given to him by people he doesn’t know and never will.It’s a kill, backed by revenge and justice and executed solely according to Jeremiah. He knows with a deep certainty that it will be his last for this is the life he once loved and cherished, the life that brought him through the darkest period of his existence and dragged him back into it. It was the life he will always be grateful for, but it isn’t his life anymore. He’s ready to move on, for good.He takes a few days and visits his mother and just buried brothers grave and whispers a silent prayer “The monsters breathe no more,” he says and smiles. He arrives in Gotham before the next sunset and heads straight to Wayne Enterprises, because Wayne Enterprises has become synonymous with Bruce, and Bruce has always meant home.He sneaks past security and manages to avoid Lucius and James, as much as he misses them and wants to catch up, his heart is beating faster and faster, pushing him closer to only BruceBruceBruce.The office is still relatively busy, and engineers are engrossed in their work, sounds of typing flood his ears. He can’t help but smile with pride as he surveys Wayne Enterprises, this thing, this entity that was born from Bruce and James and Lucius and him.Bruce’s office door is slightly ajar. He leans against the frame and raps it with a knuckle. His breath shudders out and that space just to the left under his ribs stops thumping when Bruce’s head jerks up and his hands stop completely. Bruce’s eyes deep and powerful and filled with only MiahMiahMiah widen and a grin sweeps across his lips.“You’re back,” Bruce breathes.Jeremiah licks his lips and finds his heart beating again, a familiar rhythm, a melody he’s loved and hated and tried to deny but that consistently hums under his skin, unchanging. “Always, Bruce. Always.”