almanac

[bossymarmalade]

Bruce finishes securing the last of the containers before moving them off the zeta pad and through the double doors. He doesn’t look down the hallway where the HSR is, but instead, up, where the temporary Monitor Womb is located, setting the cases down where Mar’i is.

Mari pops out of the half-daze she’s in, staring at pictures of tuxedos on her phone, and looks at the cases, then up at Bruce, then back to the cases. She pulls her hand away from her cheek, sitting up straighter. “Repair supplies?”

Bruce ’s voice is rough, as if he’s been shouting all day, all night. “Seeds,” he explains, and then pulls his WE mini-tablet from a pocket and hands it to her to sign off on them, with her finger.

Mari looks back down at the cases, this time actually taking in their size and capacities—lots of seeds, probably in every variety the Arboretum had and then some. Quietly, she takes the tablet, using her finger to awkwardly sign her name and looking more like a child finger-painting than an adult woman signing for a package. She hands it back, shifting her gaze from the canisters to Bruce’s immaculate Italian leather wingtips. “I was wondering…” she begins, voice trying to lift to a higher pitch, but floating back down by the end.

Bruce hums a low, affirmative noise that ends with him clearing his throat. Sore throat, perhaps. He arches his eyebrows a touch, before moving his mini-tablet into the inside pocket of his jacket, crossing his arms over his chest. After a moment, when he realizes, slowly, that it might be seen as a sign of aggression, unfolds them, and places them in his pockets. “What is it, Mar’i?”



Mari starts counting the tiny holes punched in the sides of Bruce’s shoes. “Would you happen to have a list of hospitals that are hero-friendly? Ones that aren’t gonna leak identities or anything, with good policies on masks and stuff…?” She knows the answer, because of course he does, but her tone still goes polite and inquisitive.

Bruce nearly nods at the request, before what she is asking actually sinks in. He takes a moment, and then, clearing his throat of any residual debris—night before, a fire meta had put him through the ringer, outskirts of New Orleans—he asks, softly: “Are you alright?”

Mari laughs a little, nodding and looking up at him. “You’re the one who has smoke inhalation,” she points out, because that much is obvious from the ring of his vocal cords and the tenor his voice has taken on.

Bruce doesn’t shift, even with her laughter, and frowns a tiny bit, as he pulls his hands from his pockets. The dark of his eyes moves over her face, taking in the color of her skin at her cheeks, the general quality of the sclera around the darkness of her own irises, the sheen of her hair. Then down, looking for hidden bandages, bruises, injuries (although it’s hard, but not impossible, to tell with her seated) and his frown deepens. Slowly, and with very deliberate care—she can pull back if she needs to—he settles a hand, just the tips of four fingers, against her shoulder. “..are you alright?” He repeats.

Mari doesn’t move. In fact, she goes even more still, hardly breathing, smile faltering the tiniest bit. “I just…” she pauses, shifting a hand up to scratch at the outside of her thigh absently. “I might have to have a…Adebayo calls it a ‘relatively simple procedure,’ but with the Watchtower’s medical facility still under repair, she thinks I need to go somewhere Earthside. Just for a day or two. I know I’m public, but…I don’t know, I don’t really want the nurses livetweeting it or anything.”

Bruce realizes that she doesn’t want to discuss it with him, and while it’s fine, it raises the internal alarm, red flag. He nods, and looks down into his jacket, pulling his hand away, and it’s not enough to go on, but it seems a reluctant motion. He goes back into his pocket, pulling the tablet, and quickly brings up a VCF contact that he sends to her Bat-family comm, heavily encrypted. “..You’ll ask for Thompkins. Speak to her and only her.” Bruce pauses then, and adds. “Unless you’d like Adebayo to perform it.”

Mari stares at the contract as it pops up on the comm. “Who…who would you suggest? It’s my…” she swallows heavily, “…it’s my uterus.”

Bruce watches her for a long moment, utterly silent. He does this, often, with the people closest to him, pushing the edges of comfortable and socially acceptable pauses to its limits. But, when the time is over, when it’s up, Bruce does something he hasn’t done with the young woman to date. He settles his hand against her hair, and pushes it back, over her shoulder, the gesture carrying a heavy sense of paternal concern. “..I would suggest whoever you feel more comfortable with, Mar’i.”

Mari nods and then breathes: “Adebayo, then. I don’t really know Thompkins that well and Adebayo…” she leans into his hand a little, like a child seeking comfort, “—she’s been really clear about everything. What it all means and the recovery process and all that.”

Mari re-upped for another tour of duty

Bruce doesn’t nod, but lets a small noise slide, of confirmation that he’s understood, and when she leans forward.. Bruce moves before he’s aware of what he’s doing, kissing the top of her head, softly. Desperately, haltingly slow. “..you’ll make it through it,” he rumbles, in a low command, his fingers trailing over the darkness of her hair, imaging the boy on another world that grew into the man she called father. Did he brush her hair, attempt to control it? The fanciful flight of his thoughts is almost alarming, but Bruce thinks to recent events, and settles this amongst the rest of them. He smoothes his hand over the crown of her head. “Have you told him?” The inquiry is soft, in Korean.

Mari If it were any other person, except possibly some of the Bats and the other sides of the WSQ triumvirate, Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman’s soft kiss at the top of her head would have been terrifyingly out of character. But for Mar’i, it feels like home. At least, the old home, not the new one. So she closes her eyes and pretends for a selfish and fleeting moment that it is her grandfather, old and braced by metal. “Yeah, I know,” she says after a long moment, reopening her eyes. “I’ve just never had surgery before. Like, a real surgery, I mean. Stitches and IVs and everything else, but never…” She purses her lips slightly. “No. He’s been busy. I’ve been…” Mar’i tries to find the right words, “—I’ve been trying to just focus on what we have instead of worrying about what we could have. Or can’t. I don’t know.” She looks up at him now, the movement causing his hand to shift a little lower, to the lowest round of her skull. “It’s kind of scary how easy he makes it for me not to worry when he’s around. You know that feeling?”

Bruce nearly doesn’t answer her, because the question slices through, somehow into the fog of his own sentiment and he blinks, idly brushing his hand down her hair. He nods, slowly, and inhales slowly as he murmurs: “..Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate, but also knows that he doesn’t have to, and it settles him, a touch more, around her. He doesn’t say that Mar’i should or should not. Instead, he just watches her, steadying his breaths.

Mari doesn’t say anything for a long time either, even though she hopes he knows her at least well enough to know she wouldn’t—couldn’t—keep​ a secret like that. She turns to look at the canisters again. “How many are there?” she asks, quietly.

Bruce clears his throat and moves his hand away from her hair, reading into her question as a hint for him to stop touching her. He nods, and replies: “Three hundred and sixty-one.”

Mari starts a little at the sudden removal of Bruce’s hand—his comfort—and stares at the oversized knuckles, the Wayne crest ring, the very small scars littered across the palms, for a moment longer, as if she’s trying to commit the feeling to memory. Then, when that’s done, she turns, shifting her upper body in the chair to hoist one of the canisters up. It’s densely-packed, with cool metal protecting the cargo inside, and she pulls it close to her body, tucked against her chest and stomach, looking down through the plastic top at the rows and columns of seed types. “Thank you,” she says, this time her voice barely above a whisper. “I promise I’ll protect them better this time.”

Bruce moves his hands to both his knees, rucking the material there so he can crouch in front of her. He settles his hands over the case, over her hands, and the size of them dwarfs her own. He shakes his head. “Not your fault.”

Mari nods her head a single time, then a second time a few lingering moments later. “Okay,” she agrees, almost reluctantly, looking down at his hands. “If,” she licks her lips, and looks up, straight into his eyes, “if he can’t be there, if he’s not there…would…could you come?” There’s something lingering there too, some deep-seated fear that Mar’i can’t quite name, so she doesn’t even try to put it to words.

Bruce responds without thinking. “Yes.” Later, he’ll analyze how quick he was to answer, how easy it came and with so little hesitation on his part. But right at that moment, it’s easier to hold onto the young woman’s hands and make a promise out loud, his dark eyes hooded, mouth set in a strong, firm line.

Bruce: “Mar’i.”

Mari nods a third time, repeating “okay” that precious second time. “Three-hundred-sixty-one​,” she murmurs, “I’ll plant one a day once the Arboretum’s rebuilt.” She looks up, blinking at him. “Yeah?”

Bruce licks his lips, the chapped surface only drying further with the motion, but he doesn’t much care. He exhales, his eyes shifting down to the ground, before he lifts his gaze to hers, and forces himself to remain fixated on the darkness of her own stare. His thumb slides over, slowly, the top of her hand, the babysoft skin. “..I’m sorry.” He exhales the words slowly, through the sudden siphon of his throat, and blinks, the corners of his mouth turning down. “For.. Before.” He looks away then, down and towards the cases, watching her from the corner of his eyes.

Bruce: “I should have—”

Bruce doesn’t finish the statement because, for once in a long, long while, he doesn’t know how to.

Mari freezes a little because she doesn’t immediately know what he’s apologizing for and the very first thought—an inexplicably goofy one, for certain—is ‘oh X’Hal he’s had Roy assassinated.’ But even as hilariously inappropriate as the idea is, Roy accidentally uploading one of her sexts to the League and Bruce setting a herd of hounds on him, Mar’i can’t bring herself to smile. Because she doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. For trying to send her home? For the Child? For never showing her the grave? Or for something else entirely, something Bruce’s fixated on in a way only Bruce can. But she decides that it doesn’t matter, and she chooses to leave the image of that Child—her child, his child, their child, everyone’s child—of that Child in the snow, bloodstained and wide-eyed, and the one of Bruce staring at Bruce, both trying to send/bring her home—Mar’i chooses to forgive all that. Only, she can’t quite find the words just yet, so she simply turns her hands underneath his, and grips them tightly.

Bruce doesn’t need the words. He never really has. Feeling her hand—it feels so tiny, just then, in his hand.. had it shrunk? Bruce tightens his hold over the perfect palms, ten fingers (ten toes)—tighten, his thoughts turn to the man that had wept at the sight of her. Just the knowledge that she was safe, and with.. him. With Bruce. Son Duk-Ga had wept, and he, broken and repaired, had demanded on his younger, alternate self to keep her safe. Had he been doing that? Bruce looks down, and opens his hands slowly, taking in the shape and state of her hands. He turns her fingers over, memorizing the slope of the tips of her fingers, the beds of her nails. Her palms, the direction of heart lines, life lines, veins thrumming just under the surface of skin. Rising slowly, slowly, Bruce leans forward and breath held, ghosts his lips against her brow, and nods, his touch evaporating as he rises to his full height. His voice remains a touch thin, the smoke still lancing his vocal chords when he speaks. “..their instructions are within the capsules, but I know you won’t need them,” he explains, quietly. “The kahira bulbs should remain within the capsule as long as possible.”

Mari ”Bulbs,” Mar’i repeats, her tongue lilting against the roof of her mouth as she holds the plural for longer than she should. Around the canister, her grip tightens. “Okay, I’ll save them for much later,” she murmurs, but she’s already delegating where they’re going to go, far in the future. If there are two, she’ll give them to her Harpers, three and she’ll keep one for herself. Or maybe… Mar’i’s smile softly blossoms back onto her rose lips, and her eyes follow Bruce’s ascension back to his full height. “Thank you,” she repeats, then after a beat adds: “할아버지.”

Bruce blinks, his expression smoothing out for a long moment. For a split second, it seems like he may fight it, pull away from the word and how she says it. But then.. A soft voice, deep within him, that shushes his hesitation and his posture changes, shifts incrementally, hands shifting to his sides and he bows, lower than the fifteen degrees of a formal greeting. It’s low, acknowledging and respecting the weight of the word, perhaps not so much to Mar’i herself, but to the man who held the name before, and when he rises from it, he curls his hand against the curved weight of the back of her skull, and kisses her hairline again. “..늦게 잠을로 이동하지 않습니다.”

Mari smiles and bows her head and shoulders back, as much as the canister will allow. “예,” she replies, “sleep well, Bruce.”

Bruce disappears.