Title: See not what they see (Reference) (5190 words) Fandom: DCU (Batman, not quite OYL) Summary: It's not every day you get to celebrate being yourself again, Harv. Pairing: Bruce/Harvey Rating: Adult. Warning: Content some readers may find tragic. I threatened to do this when I first read Batman #653 and I wasn't kidding. Notes: Thanks to LC and Chevauchee for listening and to Bettyfor beta reading. Harvey is getting accustomed to walking through the nice parts of Gotham as well as the parts where nobody admits to going. Sometimes he thinks about the time he held up the Second National Bank, or the time the BinaryCorp. profits went missing. He's used to ignoring people in the bad parts of town because they call the wrong name. In the good parts, no one knows him. So when somebody yells, "Harvey!" in the midst of the skyscrapers, he pauses for a second before he turns. It's Bruce Wayne, grinning at him like they've been going out for drinks every Friday night since college. "Hi," Harvey says, feeling a little bit at a loss. He's himself, whatever that means, but he's not always sure who everyone else is. Bruce is shaking his hand and pounding his back in that rough approximation of a hug that's the best guys can do in extreme emotion. "I heard you were out, but -- you look great." Harvey shrugs and smiles at him. "Not half as good as you do." It's only the truth -- Bruce is as smooth as ever. Bruce squeezes his shoulder again. "Oh, well, that's no big deal; my hardest vacation was that quake a while back, but -- you -- let me take you to lunch." He has some money, still, from what little he was allowed to earn in Arkham. Nothing that would get him anywhere near any of the restaurants where Bruce is willing to eat. "I'd love to," Harvey says, "but I've got an appointment." Bruce puts an arm around his shoulders and shepherds him toward a car, handing him a cell phone. "Call them. Reschedule. It's not every day you get to celebrate being yourself again, Harv." He calls his own answering machine and fakes it, moving his imaginary appointment ahead three days by talking to a receptionist that's not there. While he's doing it, he can hear the quiet voice of Dr. Leibowitz talking about the symptoms of schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, but he takes a deep breath and reminds himself he's just lying. Nothing crazy about lying. "Thanks," he says, handing the phone back after he hangs up on his answering machine. "Oh, no problem, no problem at all." Bruce leans back in the seat of his godawfully expensive car and crosses his legs, putting one foot up on his knee. "What have you been doing with yourself, anyway?" Harvey shakes his head. He can't bring himself to relax that much. "Finding a place to stay. And -- well -- it's not like I can get a normal job." Bruce makes an exaggerated moue and it makes Harvey blink at him. "Oh, what a shame," he says, like it hadn't occurred to him before that there might possibly be a problem with a criminal record the length of the Sprang Bridge, dotted with felonies and murders. "I'm sure we could do something about that." "No," Harvey says, shaking his head. "No -- I really -- I'll be all right." Bruce reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. "You're not going it alone," he says, suddenly earnest again. "You've done the hard part." The really hard part is facing life on the outside without a direction. Without Gilda. Without a job. "Yeah," Harvey says, and makes himself smile a little. "I guess so." Bruce nods and sits back again. "If you need anything, Harv --" Harvey shakes his head, waving off the charity. "I'll be fine." Bruce pats his shoulder again and gives him the most acutely focused look he's managed so far. "You're not alone in this," he says again. The problem has been that he was never alone in anything, but Harvey knows better than to say that out loud. "Thanks." He's not sure what to say next, how to change the subject away from being really poor and really lost, but fortunately the car's stopping. "Ah, we must be there," Bruce says, and Harvey stares at him again. He never used to state the obvious, and he'd quietly make fun of people who did it. Something is off about Bruce, but Harvey's only got ten minutes of interaction in the last -- too many years -- to base it on. Besides which, he's not in any position to tell anybody else they're acting weird, even an old friend. "Master Bruce," the chauffeur says, opening Bruce's door, and then, with hardly a pause, "Mister Dent." He knows that voice -- that sharp British accent -- and he smiles. "Gosh, Alfred, I would've thought you'd retired by now." Alfred gives him a little nod and says, "Duty is immortal, I fear." Bruce laughs and puts his arm around Harvey's shoulders again. For a second, they could be back in college, on their way to a poetry reading or some kind of new jazz performance. Then Bruce says, "I'll give you a call, Al," and makes a little gesture, and the illusion breaks again. Harvey's good enough at controlling his reactions to completely wacko things that he doesn't turn and stare at Bruce. Al, of all things -- but Alfred takes it calmly, nodding to him. "Very good, sir," he says, and he gets back in the car. "You've probably been denied a lot of fine dining lately," Bruce says, guiding Harvey into the restaurant and leaning on him a little as if he's already drunk. He doesn't smell of alcohol at all. There's always the possibility that Bruce is abusing some kind of prescription drugs, but his eyes look clear. "I can't say that I've eaten well, no," Harvey says. The maître d' glances at them once and says, "Your table is available, Mr. Wayne." "Thanks," Bruce says, and they follow a waiter whose suit costs more than Harvey has in his bank account to a table against the windows. The only view is of the city street. Harvey takes his seat, betting with himself that there won't be prices on the menu. "Nice place," he says. "What?" Bruce says, looking at him with too-wide eyes. "Oh, the restaurant?" He shrugs. "It's nice enough." It looks like the kind of place Two-Face wouldn't get near except to blow up, but Harvey's good at not mentioning him. He's not real anymore. Or he's not important anymore. "Not like Mahoney's, back in school," he says. It gets him a quick glance from Bruce that makes him look familiar again. "No, not at all." Bruce laughs and says, "God, remember the wet t-shirt contests they used to have?" That was Mulligan's, three blocks away. "No," Harvey says, frowning at him. Mahoney's was quiet every night except Saint Patrick's, and they tolerated the boys in the back who read case law and poetry aloud to each other and argued, so long as they occasionally bought a round. "I -- I really don't." "Those were the days, weren't they," Bruce says, his eyes misty with memories of times Harvey knows damn well he never experienced. He can't take it anymore. He asks in a fierce undertone, "Bruce, what the hell are you talking about?" Bruce reaches across the table and pats his hand. "It's all right if you don't remember everything, Harv." That makes him dizzy for half a second -- but he knows what he knows, and the memories of Mahoney's are as clear as anything. Before he can frame a reply, a waiter comes over with menus and a bottle of wine. "If this is acceptable, sir?" Bruce peers at the bottle and says, "Yes, that will be fine." Harvey glares at the menu. No prices. It's all in French and he never liked French to begin with. Menu French is even worse. "I'll have the chicken," he says, handing the menu back. "Very good, sir, and for you, Mr. Wayne?" Bruce hems and haws and makes his order in flawless French, which means Harvey has zero idea what he just said. The waiter seems to know, and he nods. "An excellent choice." Then he bows himself away from their table and Harvey's left with just Bruce to glower at. "Are you all right, Harv?" Bruce asks. "Better than you are," Harvey says, leaning over the table so he can talk more quietly. "Look -- I remember -- I remember what it was like. And there were no damn wet t-shirt contests. There were ballad recitation contests and you won, three years running, until they decided to make you do Robert Burns, and then you won even though no one had a damn clue what you were saying." Bruce shakes his head. "Are you sure it was me?" Harvey closes his eyes and takes ten deep breaths, just like he's supposed to when he gets angry. It gets him far enough away from screaming that he can say, "Yes. I'm positive," in a quiet voice. "Harv," Bruce says, sounding maddeningly calm, "you know -- they've done studies that show there can be memories kind of implanted during therapy --" "No," Harvey says, staring at him. He looks like Bruce Wayne, sounds like him, but he might as well be a completely different person. "No, I don't have fake memories of you reciting goddamn poetry, because no one would fake that. Fake memories are for trauma," he says. He glances around to make sure no one is nearby, and he still lowers his voice to say, "Not for remembering your first love. Dammit." Light completely fails to dawn over Marblehead. "Harvey," Bruce says, giving him a sappy look, "that's so sweet." If Harvey doesn't leave, he's going to punch Bruce right between his beautiful, clueless eyes. "I'll be right back," he says, getting up and stomping through the restaurant. One of the waiters catches him and says, "Sir? Can I help you?" "Bathroom," Harvey says, though he'd be better off if he just left. "The restrooms are right over here, sir," the waiter says, and points him helpfully in the right direction. He locks himself in one of the stalls and sits, putting his head in his hands and trying to sort through memories. If there were any lack of clarity about any of them, he'd be willing to doubt them, to doubt himself, and to believe that Bruce is actually as stupid as he's pretending. He can still smell the floor polish they used in the bar on Sundays. He's not sure how long he's there before someone else comes in. It's probably getting late for lunchtime, and somewhere out there Bruce thinks he's fallen in. Or he's standing in the bathroom saying, "Harvey?" Harvey rubs his eyes one more time. "I didn't drown." Bruce mercifully doesn't laugh at that. "Good." It takes an awful lot of willpower to stand up, pretend to pull his still-fastened pants up, and flush before he opens the door. "I --" That's all he manages to say before Bruce kisses him, leaning on him hard. He stumbles back a step, even more confused than before, and lets Bruce lock them in. "It's complicated," Bruce says, and he's back to sounding like himself, even more so when he talks in Harvey's ear in a quick, careful whisper. "I can't possibly be out, and I can't pass off what we had as a fling." He puts his arm around Harvey's shoulders again and Harvey can't help leaning into it. Bruce is even more solid than he used to be. "I still -- dammit, I could never let you go -- but -- publicly -- please --" Harvey takes a deep breath, telling himself again that false identities aren't evil if they're simple lies for a purpose. He's good at being closeted, has plenty of practice. The thought of telling lies hurts less now that he has some certainty that Bruce isn't completely insane. "You could've said something in the car." Bruce's smile is still a little dazed. "Habit, Harv -- habit and inertia." Harvey winces at the strangeness of the smile and reminds himself that just because Bruce admits he's acting dumb doesn't mean he's still -- all there. So few people are. "When can we talk?" Harvey says, stopping himself from fisting his hands in Bruce's jacket by main force of will. "Six. Tonight." Bruce kisses him, too quickly, too lightly. "Where are you staying?" Harvey gives him the address and expects Bruce to wrinkle his nose -- the place is frankly a dive, but it's cheap. Bruce just nods and says, "I'll meet you there," like Harvey said he was moving into Bristol just down the street. More than anything, Harvey wants to kiss him again, but they don't have time. Any second now some other guy's going to come in and wonder what the hell's going on. So when Bruce turns and opens the latch, Harvey lets himself fall back, keeping his distance. He washes his hands -- once, just once, though he wants to do it twice for good measure -- and joins Bruce at the table with a decent interval between them. They talk about things that don't matter, after that -- sports teams, which Harvey doesn't give a damn for, recent business deals which are a lot more interesting, and general desultory politics. The food is excellent, as it ought to be for the price. Not that Harvey sees the total on the bill, or cares to. He's having a lot of trouble reconciling the Bruce who can say blithe things about the Knights' chances in the playoffs with the Bruce who kissed him. Neither of them entirely fit the man he remembers, who was passionate about being himself despite the difficulties -- not that they did anything to make big announcements, but they were together without apologies to anyone for three and a half years. Longer than Gilda -- It still hurts to think about Gilda. "I should be getting back to the office," Bruce says when they've finished a second glass of wine each. "Oh." Harvey gets up. "Don't let me keep you." Bruce stands, too, smiling at him. "No, not at all." Another manly back-pat, and they're on their way out the door. "Shall I have Alfred drop you somewhere?" If he had anywhere to go, he might not have had this lunch. "No, the walk will do me good." Bruce nods and says, "Six," quietly. Harvey waves and heads off in no particular direction, trying to put it all together in a way that makes some kind of sense. Bruce wanting to keep things quiet is fine, but going to the lengths he'd have to go to in order to seem that stupid is a little -- crazy. "Oh, man," Harvey says, not meaning to say it out loud, and stops at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk. He tells himself, carefully silent, not to throw stones because that is one glassy house he's got. His actual residence has smears on all the glass from the previous occupants, never wiped away by tenant or landlord. It's a good long walk, a subway ride, and another good walk from the ritzy end of town. When he looks at it and tries to imagine Bruce in his immaculate suit walking through the door, he sees too many things wrong with it to even start fixing them all. Instead, he writes down the weirdest things Bruce said -- what he can remember of them -- and looks for a pattern. There's another list, too, of the things that might be suspect, and then the last one of the things that made good sense. None of it makes him feel any better about what to expect at six o'clock. He goes out again and walks to learn the neighborhood better and to stop himself from staring at the wall. At five-forty-five he gets back and opens a window. It doesn't make the place smell better, just different, trading mildew for street, but it's a relief anyway. He's half convinced Bruce will walk in, take a good look at him, and walk right out again. Another part of him -- and he hates it when he disagrees with himself, hates it so much -- thinks that might be the best possible option. When the knock on the door comes, he's trying to read <u>Newsweek</u> and failing pathetically. He's on his feet in a second, saying, "Just a minute," and giving the cracked, dingy plaster one more irritated look. He opens the door and Bruce is there, wearing sunglasses and a overcoat that makes him look paradoxically smaller than he really is. "Can I come in?" he asks. "Of course." There are two chairs at the flimsy table in the closet that passes for a kitchen. Harvey offers him one and Bruce takes off his sunglasses and his coat and sits. "You're -- you're all right." Bruce stares at him -- no, he's not looking at just one thing. Bruce studies his face and it makes the list in Harvey's notebook seem like a complete waste of time. This is Bruce, focused to the point where maybe it should make him uncomfortable but -- it never has. Not really. Harvey smiles at him. "Hey, so are you. You scared me back there. Wet t-shirt contests?" Bruce waves a hand dismissively. "Misdirection." "Yeah?" Harvey takes his hand and blinks. He was expecting soft, unworked skin with straight fingers. Bruce's hand feels like a mill worker's, rough with calluses and rehealed bones. He wills himself not to look down, not to look too curious. But everything stops fitting again, just that fast. "I -- I wanted to thank you. For -- they told me you paid for the doctors. God knows the state didn't care if I got better." Bruce squeezes his hand. "It was the least I could do." "No -- no, it wasn't. You could've pretended you didn't know me. That everything was water under the bridge, that --" Harvey shrugs. "I don't know how to make it up to you. What could be worth all that trouble." Bruce gets up and pulls him to his feet, pulls him into a fierce hug. "This is enough." "That -- no, no, it's not. Jesus, Bruce -- look at me, look at this place -- I'm as washed-up as it is." He lets Bruce go and backs away, but it doesn't make the apartment any less claustrophobic. Having the window open isn't helping enough. It doesn't make the apartment somewhere anybody could live for very long. "You're starting over." Harvey shakes his head. "From where? I -- there's so much I did, god, nobody could ever forgive me --" Bruce moves towards him again and he takes a step back, trying to avoid being bearhugged again. He's not sure how things are between them, yet, but god knows he's spent enough time leaning on Bruce. Bruce puts his hands on Harvey's shoulders and kisses him. He takes half a step back, trying to balance, and runs into the wall in the bedroom. It knocks the breath out of him. Bruce kisses him again and it's even harder to get his breath back after that. "All you used to need was a lever and a place to stand," Bruce says against his ear. He's unfastening Harvey's pants. Maybe that's where they are, with this. "That was a long time ago," Harvey protests, but his hands are on Bruce's hips, and it's comfortably familiar. "We were --" "Not that long," Bruce says, petting him through his briefs. "You're not stuck. Not anymore." The words are more seductive than the feeling, and that's going some. "Bruce," he says. It doesn't sound like 'stop,' or even 'maybe we should think about this.' Thinking is for people who haven't lost a decade out of their lives. The last time someone touched him this tenderly -- not gently, there's nothing gentle in it -- He wasn't entirely himself then, either, but this is better. "Everything's going to be all right," Bruce says, and it's the words, again, that make Harvey shudder. Bruce is falling to his knees, wrecking his pants on the filthy, awful floor, and Harvey wants to tell him there's a bed, but it's not like the bed would be any better. And if he tried to get there, right now, they'd both end up on the floor. As it is, he's leaning against the wall with his hands on Bruce's shoulders, trying not to lose his balance. "God," Harvey says, "I missed you." Bruce laughs against his hip. "I can tell," he says, and he takes Harvey's left hand and laces their fingers together. There's something in Bruce that's always been wilder than he'll admit out loud, some rampant hope that no amount of stress or time can kill. That he's even within ten blocks of this place -- that hope's still got to be there, that rock-hard belief that he can change things just by wanting to. In anyone else it would be crazy, but Bruce has money and power and charm, and he can accomplish shit like saving Harvey from himself. Just in time to bring him back and kill him all over again with a blowjob, because that same certainty and focus that gets him places is getting Harvey's brain melted so much it wouldn't matter right now who's doing it. Anybody's mouth, anybody's tongue doing that would be more than enough. Except Bruce is still squeezing his hand with those many-times-healed fingers, and that's why he moans when he comes. Bruce gets up again and hugs him harder than before. Maybe he thinks Harvey's going to freak out. Harvey takes a deep breath when he can and says, "Like I needed to owe you any more." "No," Bruce says, "I'm sure I owed you that one." It's possible that Bruce was in the habit of keeping score, back then. Harvey certainly wasn't, and even if he was, he's pretty sure prison's supposed to count as clearing debts -- even mental institutions, he amends in his head, because he's damn sure Bruce doesn't think he's spent that long in prison. "I don't get it," Harvey says. Bruce's frown has all that same intensity and it's a little scary, but it fades in half a second and Harvey wonders if it was the light or just a memory. "You don't owe me anything." He knows that expression from a dozen arguments and a hundred debates. Equally, he knows the only weapon that'll work against it, and he grins. "If I agree with you, do I still get to suck you off?" He doesn't want to smile -- doesn't entirely want to trust that this is real -- but the only way to tell is to push it a little and find out if it collapses. The grin Harvey remembers as effective still makes Bruce lose that impossible edge and smile back. "If you must." "It's not like I'd die, or anything, but it could be fun." Harvey kisses him and runs his hands down Bruce's back, getting all the good memories out where they belong to hold onto and tell him who he's supposed to be right now, and who Bruce is supposed to be. He's pretty sure he's got his part down, but he's not so clear on Bruce picking up his cues. This isn't how he usually gets treated by ex-lovers, however amicably they parted. "What do you say?" Bruce shakes his head slightly. He's shivering. "I'm not sure I could say no to that." "No?" Harvey kisses his cheek, his ear, his neck. Then again -- if anybody could believe they weren't all the way ex, never mind a few psychotic breaks and Harvey getting married, it'd be Bruce. "Not even if I said you could fuck me instead?" "Mmn," Bruce says, rubbing his shoulders. "I'm not sure I can wait that long." Harvey laughs. "Getting impatient in your old age?" "I've been waiting for you," Bruce says, and underscores the roughness in his tone with a kiss that makes Harvey's mouth tingle, harsh and quick and desperate -- and he believes Bruce means it, and it's not the kind of thing anybody should ever wait for. "Oh fuck," Harvey says, and gives him a push toward the bed. The one plus of having a tiny apartment is that the bed is only a couple steps away. Bruce pulls him down on top of himself and kisses him again, pulling Harvey's hand down to his fly -- as if he was going to do anything else. Bruce shivers at the first touch and Harvey wonders what he's been doing with himself -- he always used to be so controlled, so quiet, but he's desperate and obvious now. "Harvey, god --" Bruce says, his voice shaky, and that's when Harvey realizes it could be another act, protecting god knows what. If Bruce is scared enough to make up wet t-shirt contests, then moaning and tangling his fingers in Harvey's hair is nothing. It could be real, too. He's supposed to be a playboy these days, so maybe he's picked up more obvious habits. Most of the socialites would give up on Bruce the way he used to be. Now he arches gratifyingly when Harvey licks him and makes a choked sound like he's already losing it. "God, yes," and his hips buck. He's running his hands through Harvey's hair. Over his forehead and cheeks, too. Bruce isn't losing a thing, here. The best way to say, 'I'm still okay,' is to get as much of Bruce's dick in his mouth as he can. He's out of practice but enthusiastic as hell. This taste, this smell are things Harvey remembers as firmly as anything from the days when he didn't have to wonder who was doing the remembering. He can't laugh at himself with his throat full, but he wants to. All the times people called him a cocksucker, both with and without cause, and it makes him feel whole and sane. If they only knew. "Harvey --" Bruce says, and he sounds lost. Found. Foundering. His thumbs are brushing Harvey's temples in time to his breathing, and he's holding on lightly, loosely, but he isn't letting go. "God --" Harvey squeezes his hips and tries to remember the right angles, the right way to move, but before he has any sense of getting it right Bruce has stopped making any noise -- and it's a good sign, another thing that would throw anyone who doesn't know Bruce, but he's not breathing. He can make himself talk if he has to, before this moment, but it's too late, now. He's coming and he presses hard enough that Harvey can feel his inexplicable calluses again. Bruce gasps for breath and says, "God, god, I missed you." Harvey rests his cheek on Bruce's thigh for a second or five and smiles. "Yeah." He feels something weird under his cheek when he talks, so he pulls back to look -- just as Bruce reaches down and grabs him by the shoulders to tug him into another hug. He's damn sure he saw at least three scars on Bruce's thigh. Deep ones. "Harv," Bruce says, smiling at him. "Were you in a car accident?" Harvey asks. "I -- I would've thought that would make the papers." "A while back," Bruce says -- but Harvey knows from scars, and those weren't all the same age. He's not going to push it right now. The newspapers are always available. So he clucks his tongue. "Looks pretty bad." "It wasn't pretty," Bruce says, his smile going lopsided and a little stupid. "I'm just lucky I had anything left, if you know what I mean." Harvey makes himself chuckle. "I guess so." Bruce kisses him lightly and pulls his pants up. "I should get going." "Money to earn?" Harvey asks. "To give away. Benefit for the Leukemia Society, and I have to squire Brittany Fowler -- not that you'd know her, of course." The Bruce who pushed him against the wall and kissed him has left the building. This one's eyes just don't focus the same way. "Sounds like a blast." Bruce laughs and stands. "I hope not." Harvey doesn't say, 'When will I see you again?' He gets up, fixing his clothes, and says, "Thanks for dropping by." It gets him a flicker of the guy he recognizes and Bruce squeezes his hand. "Dinner tomorrow?" Harvey makes himself hesitate a breath. "Where?" "The family pad, Harv." How he ever saw Bruce under this mask of stupidity is beyond him. "Even I can't go out to dinner every night." It's not necessarily any less expensive, but Harvey can't offer to pay, either. He weighs it for a second and says, "All right." "I'll call you after I get out of work." Bruce kisses his cheek -- both his cheeks, like Harvey's just as rich and dumb as he's pretending to be. "See you then." "Watch out for gold diggers," Harvey says, and Bruce laughs. "I'll be careful, I promise." He puts his sunglasses back on and grabs his coat, then tosses Harvey a fake little salute and goes out the door. Harvey sits back on the bed heavily and takes out the notebook again. There's a lot more to add -- more he doesn't understand, and more that he does. His diagrams get a lot of question marks and possible connections. After he's done transcribing everything he can remember Bruce saying, he does his prescribed journal entry in the standard format in a totally different notebook. Keeping his thoughts separated like this isn't weird, he knows that, even though sometimes he feels guilty about wanting the deduction separate from the narrative. By the time he finishes, it's full dark out, and the party for the kids dying of cancer is probably in full swing. If Bruce were there -- If Bruce were Bruce, they'd find a place to listen to music and have a drink, but he doesn't seem to be that person anymore. Harvey ends up going for a walk by himself, then into the subway when he realizes he's not going to find anywhere in the neighborhood that will take away the sting of nostalgia. He gets himself a glass of wine at this newfangled place called a wine bar -- set up like a Starbucks on quaaludes, gas fireplace and pretty chairs and all -- and has another, staring into the fake flames and thinking over his diagrams and contradictions about Bruce again. There's some kind of explosion in the street and the other people run out, to watch, to get away, to be in the pictures that will hit the Gazette tomorrow. Gotham, town of interested bystanders. Harvey sits by the fireplace a while longer and he's getting up to find out if that siren will ever stop when there's a dark motion that he knows as well as his own name, and Batman says, "Hello, Harvey."
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