A/N: it’s avenging time for real now (+ the return of Bruce’s POV!!!) I’ve this in my drafts for a week, I just couldn’t decide if I wanted to post it or not
The box of all your untouched things sits in the bottom of his closet. He can’t bear to look through them anymore after catching the dried tears dotted around Richard Parker’s handwriting in his old journal, but he also can’t bring them down to the cave, where they’d be available to any prying eyes. Especially not with Damian here.
So they sit in his closet, in a hidden compartment behind his safe.
You are Spider-Woman. Were, he reminds himself, running a tired hand down his face.
You can’t be anymore, not without this stuff. At least, not until you find more things to use.
But what if you keep going out there anyways? Only this time, you have nothing to defend yourself with.
He understands the unyielding call for justice, the burning desire for revenge. All of his kids know it too. He was hoping you never would.
When your parents died, he worried it would trigger some kind of memory of your previous crimefighting. It didn’t. But there was still a part of him that was disappointed you don’t remember.
When Mary and Richard Parker died, he mourned. He mourned the final nail in the proverbial coffin—much like the one he almost had to bury you in—reminding him that you would never remember your childhood or your life with him.
Bruce Wayne is not a terrible father, but he’s also not the best. He’s accepted this in the way you accept the weather for the day, solemnly. That’s not to say he doesn’t strive to be better, he just isn’t always sure how. He rarely is, actually.
He told himself he’d do better, that he’d be present. He had it all planned out, he’d talk to your Aunt and make arrangements for you to spend time with him in Gotham. So you could be a family again.
But when he got to your house, you were gone, missing. And you weren’t answering your phone.
The cold, harsh reality settled over him once more.
He could only imagine your lifeless body, the same one he’d held for too long before your heart restarted. The first time was a miracle, keeping you alive long enough to get to the hospital.
As they rushed you through the halls of the E.R. that night, it stopped again. The second time was a miracle too, only this time, aided by medical professionals.
Your family never found out the truth, that he let you get hurt. Or that he let you join him on his nightly quests hunting down criminals.
You were only a kid when you died, and you came back wrong.
His heart burns as the thought crosses his mind, like it does every time he thinks it. And he’s thought about it a lot over the years.
You were such a happy child, always laughing and teasing your brothers with a mischievous grin that he’s certain you got from your mother.
After you woke up, you were cold, distant. Or maybe he was.
The doctors said to withhold any surprises, that your fully amnesiac mind couldn’t handle it, it would only do more damage.
He didn’t want to imagine you hurt anymore, so he kept his mouth shut.
After awhile, when no memories returned, he thought it might be for the best.
This way, you won’t have to experience loss like this, you won’t have to grieve a brother this young.
Maybe he should’ve told you. Every day that passes, he regrets not telling you. But the alternative is worse.
Either way, he kept his distance, letting you grow up with your family in New York. Maybe that way you could be happy again.
Any plans he might have had for you coming back to Gotham were thwarted by the arrival of his youngest son.
He wants nothing more than to introduce you, to have his family together again—as much as it could be without Jason.
But you’re mad at him, and he’s not sure you’ll be able to separate his own wrongs from his son.
Neither you or Damian are in the right headspace to meet.
At least, that’s how he rationalizes keeping you away.
Part of him worries that welcoming you back to Gotham will make you more invested in crimefighting. He still hopes you’ll give it up now, without your things.
But he knows you—at least, the part of you that is very much him.
Which is why he has to go back to New York. He needs to face his wrongs, something that Dick made very clear the last time he was here.
But maybe he needs to bring a peace offering, just in case.
Bruce Wayne stands awkwardly outside your doorway, looking every bit as anxious as a baby pangolin.
The door creaks as you try to shut it, wanting nothing more than for the man to not be here. Not now.
Why now? Why come when you have a box with Robin-colored tissue paper and a dead robin in it?
His foot catches in the door as you try to shut it, an accurate representation of him sticking himself in your business without asking.
He says your name gruffly, but you weren’t expecting anything less.
Bruce Wayne is rarely ever soft with you, mostly only cold and deflective.
“What do you want?” You spit out, crossing your arms as you step away from the door. He’ll get inside either way, because he’s Batman.
He sighs, sounding like the words are being forced out of him. “I just want to talk.” His eyebrows pinch together as he looks at you, staying just inside the doorway, like he’s waiting for permission to come inside.
“Fine. But I can’t promise I’ll listen.” Your eyes roll, almost of their own accord as you stomp back towards the kitchen. If you have to deal with him, you might as well have some icecream too.
A short huff of a laugh escapes him as he follows you, the door clicking shut as he locks it.
“Fair enough.” He shrugs, obviously holding back a comment about the state of your apartment as he looks around. His eyes settle on the empty boxes on the coffee table. “Pizza?”
“Only if you’re buying.” You retort, hopping onto the counter to sit on it, holding your bowl of icecream like a lifeline.
He stands beside you, a hesitant frown tugging at his lips as he looks like he’s about to pass out.
“I understand that you’re having a lot of feelings right now. As a young woman, you’ll begin to notice some changes—”
Your jaw drops, “I am not having this conversation with you.”
“Okay.” He leans beside you on the counter, his arm knocking against yours.
It’s quiet for a moment as he begins again, waving off your warning glare.
“I spoke with your aunt.”
That surprises you. You weren’t aware that they were on speaking terms.
“She knows you’re here?” Traitor.
“No.” That makes more sense. “But she said I should clear the air. Make amends.”
“Make amends?” Your eyebrows pinch together as he nods shortly.
“Yes, I figured I’d start by bringing this back.”
He reaches below the counter to grab a bag he brought in with him, one you’d been too distracted to notice.
He hands the satchel to you with a slight frown, waiting for your reaction. You snatch it from him as soon as you read the name on it.
A rush of relief runs through you, clutching the bag to your chest, all the anger leaving your body. You should scream or yell or shout, or throw something, but you don’t.
“Thanks.” For bringing back what he stole from you? Yeah, really grateful.
“I’m sorry.” He says the words like they’re unfamiliar, getting caught in his mouth as he forces them out. He sounds sad as he says it, shoulders slumping beneath your stare.
You sigh loudly, making a show of pushing a second bowl of ice cream toward him with a warning look.
He continues after taking a bite.
“Look, I don’t care how much you hate me or how upset I am with you, you’re still my responsibility.”
Your face hardens, unsure whether to tell him you don’t hate him, or focus on the fact that he just sees you as a responsibility. Your mouth flattens, tongue pressing against your cheek before you speak.
“I don’t hate you.” You mumble, shoulders dropping. You don’t, not really. You want to, sure, but you can’t.
But how can you hate someone you don’t even know?
He freezes, fingers stilling on his spoon before he looks at you, slowly, as if studying you. You don’t give him a chance to say anything else.
You can see the exact moment that your words register, his shoulders lock up as his eyes widen.
“Don’t lie to me. I thought that was your whole thing, me not keeping secrets from you. Now you want to lie? I know, okay? It’s pretty obvious.”
“It is not obvious.” He counters before, “How do you know?”
Of course that’s what he asks, always the detective. Or maybe he just wants to make sure you don’t remember being Batgirl.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Why does everyone else know, except me?
“You didn’t need to know.”
“But everyone else does?”
“I’d rather they didn’t.”
You stare at him, blinking, before shoving another spoonful of icecream into your mouth. “You are really bad at this.”
“Connecting with people? Not pushing them away? You’ve been here for like five minutes and you’re already trying to wave me off like I’m something you want to keep hidden.”
“Then what is it? I’m your responsibility?” You scoff, but a part of you is torn. You’re all too familiar with responsibility.
“Yes. And I have to keep you safe.”
His entire body locks up, the bowl of icecream dropping from his hands as his eyes glaze over. Is this what you look like when you’re thrust into a bad memory?
“Dad?” You poke him with your foot, not wanting to startle him.
His eyes drop to yours, dark and unrelenting like something is eating at him. “You remember?”
“Only bits and pieces.” You shrug, eyeing him warily.
Bruce Wayne doesn’t scare you, but he worries you. Maybe it’s because you’re worried you’ll end up like him. Orphaned, a vigilante, alone.
Not that Aunt May would ever let that happen.
“Elaborate.” It’s short, succinct. It gets the point across.
After a moment of contemplation, weighing your words, you let them spill out.
“I’ve been having flashbacks. Just the same memory every time. Sometimes there’s more of it, sometimes less. I don’t really know the context. But I’m in a warehouse. With The Joker.” You look at him, stomach churning with anxiety. “With Robin.”
The breath is knocked from his lungs as he listens with rapt attention.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” You ask after a moment.
He looks conflicted, mind reeling as he tries to process this new information. “I didn’t want to upset you.”
The words fall flat, they’re useless, annoying. You hate them. But you understand, regretfully.
“You upset me more by pushing me away.”
“I didn’t—” He breaths deeply, shoulders dropping. “I’m sorry.”
“The doctors were worried, that with your amnesia, any surprises might…cause you more harm.” He pauses. “I almost lost you.”
He stares at you, you stare back.
“But you did.” You argue.
He nods, slow and accepting. Like it’s coming the already resigned himself to.
“I didn’t want you to have to live with it. The loss, the pain, the grief. I wanted you to be happy. And safe.”
“I wanted to be with you.”
You stay there, neither of you able to bear looking at the other, but also not able to be apart.
He eats his ice cream slowly, setting the bowl down as he finishes. “I should go.”
He doesn’t leave that night, resolve strengthening when Aunt May texts to say she won’t be home until tomorrow, she’s crashing on a friends house to sleep off her hangover.
The past few hours have been spent showing your father everything he’s missed over the past few years. At least, everything that’s able to fit in the four walls of your bedroom.
Not including the box containing a dead bird. That is the last thing you need right now.
“This is from homecoming.”
“Is that Norman Osborn’s son?” He mutters something under his breath, “Was he your date?”
“He’s my boyfriend.” You glance at him, waiting for a reaction. His lips pull taught, not quite a frown but very far from a smile.
You laugh at his expression that tells you it’s anything but.
“How is that going?” He looks like he’s waiting for a go ahead to suggest you breaking up with him. You decide not to mention the argument earlier.
“Just fine.” You smile, “He’s my best friend, you know.”
“Hmm.” He just hums, flipping the page of the scrapbook. His face fills with immediate regret as he stares at the numerous photos of you and Harry from over the years. “I hate this.”
“Can we look at literally anything else?” He sighs, pinching his nose tiredly.
“Sure, I’ll show you some new suit designs I’ve been working on!”
You spent a full thirty minutes arguing about being Spider-Woman. Half of that wasn’t even spent shouting, just staring at eachother angrily.
Eventually, he gave in after you called him a hypocrite. Which he totally is!
And you had to tell him about your powers. All of them. He didn’t even seem surprised! Which you later found out was because he read your journal.
To say you were outraged would be an understatement. After threatening to never speak to him again, he said you could only deal with street level crimes.
You agreed hastily, figuring you could argue the rest later.
“Also,” you hesitate, waiting for him to look at you, “the Avengers said they’d train me.”
If the man was a robot, he’d definitely be short circuiting.
“The Avengers?" He looks appalled, “You can’t be an Avenger.”
“Relax! I’m not joining the team. They just want to make sure I’m ready to deal with the everyday criminal.” You shrug, feigning nonchalance in hopes it’ll stop another argument from developing.
He glares at you as you stick your tongue out, turning around to grab your laptop.
Before he has time to reconcile with your newfound mentors, you already have a slideshow pulled up, each slide detailing a different suit.
“Mr. Stark made this one. It has repulsors but that’s not really my thing. I guess it does have more protection which is a plus…” You trail off, flipping through the slides as he listens.
More protection is good, he thinks.
You peer at him between slides, suddenly certain that Mr. Stark will be getting a very interesting phone call later.
“You told on me?” Stark holds back a laugh, feigning annoyance when you walk into his lab.
You groan, webbing your bag onto the chair in the corner as you enter. “How bad was it?”
“He threatened my life. And I though Batman doesn’t kill.”
“You knew?” You pause, looking at him in betrayal as he scoffs.
“Duh, I’m Iron Man.” He waves you off. “Now go stand over there. I need to test your reaction time.”
Before you get the chance to question, he shoots a repulsor beam at you.
It’s going to be a long day.
Spending the afternoon with Tony Stark is not for the weak.
For the past four hours, you've been holed up in his lab with no contact to the outside world. In other words, you're knee deep in testing the suit Mr. Stark designed for you.
"The voice modulator will help conceal your identity." He taps a few buttons before nodding for you to test it.
"Halt villains! You face-"
"Don't ever do that again." He cuts you off with an eye roll. "Leave the catch phrases to me.
You huff, stepping out of the suit as it comes to a stop. "It's ironing time!"
"Then maybe you should start." You shrug, snatching a slice of cold pizza from the box.
In the past 57 hours that you've known him, Tony Stark has managed to design and build a new suit for you, complete with his own nanotechnology.
Well, the prototype doesn't have the nanotech yet, but the finished product will.
"Is all of this necessary?" You stare at the suit, tilting your head. "It's a little...bulky."
"Well, I'm Spider-Woman. That makes me look like an old man." You frown, "We'll kind of match."
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that." He grimaces. “The inside is designed to fit to your size, but the outside is to help maintain your cover.”
You frown at the suit again, scanning the gray metals. "Can we at least keep my colors?"
"Red and blue? You're like a mini capsicle.”
"Captain America, frozen for decades? Where have you been?"
You don't bother with a response, stuffing another slice of pizza in your mouth as Stark clicks more buttons on his tablet.
"Do you not know how to build a different shaped suit? I won't judge you if you can't, it's just.." You trail off, eyeing all the suits along the wall.
"I can build a different shaped suit!" He scoffs, shaking his head at you. "Why are you so set on this?"
He scowls at you, casting the suit schematics up on the wall. Using some sort of Stark branded software, he removes some of the excess bulk.
“Much.” You grin, nodding happily. “Although, maybe it would be better with more bulk, for identity reasons, you know?”
He groans, shooting another repulsor at you as you giggle, dodging easily.
“On your left.” Captain America passes you and Sam Wilson again. “Are you even trying?”
The question is directed at you but it makes Sam shout in offense, “Not everyone is a supersoldier! Some of us are normal, regular people.”
You glance between the two, attempting to muffle your giggles.
To answer the Captain’s question—no, you are not trying. If Sam weren’t here, you’d probably have lapped Cap at least twice by now, but you feel bad for the non-superpowered man.
Plus, keeping pace with him allows you to get all the insider gossip on the team.
The blond shakes his head, “One more lap then we’ll start the actual workout.”
“The actual workout?!” You and Sam shriek at the same time, exchanging a glance. “What was this?”
Steve Rogers grins, bright enough to rival the Sun, “The warmup.” And then he takes off again, leaving you to gape at his retreating form.
“Is he always like this?” You mumble, looking back at Sam as he falls a few paces behind. You slow your step.
He huffs, stopping to breathe. “You’re not even sweating.”
He peers at you skeptically, before laughing as he shakes his head. “How fast are you really? Faster than Cap? Please say yes.”
You hum, attempting to avoid the question. “Fast enough.”
He laughs again, breathing shakily. “Good luck with him. I’m sure he’ll notice that you’re not even out of breath.”
“Oh, the horror.” You giggle, wrinkling your nose as Steve passes again, slowing to a stop beside you.
He pats Sam on the back, “You can take a break.”
The shorter man mumbles under his breath about stupid blond super soldiers, knocking Steve’s hand away.
The Captain turns to you, seemingly unaffected by his 13 mile run. “Ready?”
“You just said we could take a break!”
He shakes his head, “I said he could take a break. We are not done training yet.”
He gestures behind him, back towards the compound, before starting towards it, expecting you to follow.
As Sam pats your shoulder in solidarity, you’re really beginning to wish you’d accepted your father’s offer of training in Gotham.
At least he isn’t a supersoldier.
Your favorite Avenger to work with so far, is definitely not Natasha Romanoff.
Most of the training you do with her is sparring. Constantly. With no break.
Which, with a normal person, would be easy. But with a trained Russian assassin that’s defected to the West, it is much, much harder.
“Are you sure you don’t want some water?” You suggest, dodging another punch. You want water.
You’ve been sparring for two hours straight.
It’s not too bad, you’ve gone longer without a drink or a snack during patrols, but your aren’t usually constantly dodging blows from an opponent.
“That’s actually a good idea.” She grins and you could breathe a sigh of relief, “Hey, Barton, step in for me, would you?”
You groan as the man approaches the mat, shifting between his feet as he gets closer.
You’re allowed a pause momentarily as they switch, but he immediately goes to lunge at you.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” You groan, ducking to the side.
He smirks, sticking his leg out to trip you. You sense it coming, obviously, and step aside.
He throws a punch, you dodge. He kicks, you dodge.
“Okay, you’re done.” Natasha calls after watching for a few minutes, stopping beside the mat with her hands on her hips, looking at you thoughtfully.
Barton shoots you a finger gun and goes back towards the treadmills.
“You don’t fight offensively. All day, you’ve been dodging my attacks and never hitting me. Why?”
You shrug, finally leaving the mat get a drink. “I’m not trying to beat you.”
“I’m not. You’re not my enemy.”
“You’re supposed to be training as if I am.”
“But you’re not. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
Sometimes, you notice it more. The underlying strength that exists inside your muscles, running beneath your skin, unnoticeable to anyone but you, who feels it constantly.
“Pretend I’m your enemy.”
She stares at you, head tilting slightly before she huffs, blowing a strand of red hair from her face. “You are not what I expected.”
“An adrenaline junkie, a reckless teenager that is just trying to make a difference.” She pauses, “Although, you might still be those things. You’re just not as violent as I anticipated.”
She looks at Barton before meeting your eyes, “Go shower. Then we’re getting coffee.”
Half an hour later, you’re sitting in a coffeeshop across the street from the tower, avoiding eye contact with the woman in front of you.
She has on a hoodie and sunglasses and she gave you a hat to cover part of your face. Just in case any prying eyes were around.
And they usually were, being right across from the tower and all.
“So, why do you do this?”
She sends you an unimpressed look, swirling her coffee before taking a loud sip. “Vigilantism? Heroics? Whatever it is that you call it.”
“Because I can.” You shrug, sipping your own drink as she watches you. “I’m able to, so why wouldn’t I?”
“And you’ve always done this?”
“No. Not at first. I used to box.” You pause, debating how much to say. “But it wasn’t right. Not when I’d win everytime. And not for money. My uncle made me stop.”
“And what happened to him?” You know she knows, she wouldn’t have phrased it like that if she didn’t.
She stares, unblinking as you avoid eye contact. “So you want revenge?”
Sometimes. When you catch Aunt May staring sadly at old photo books, when nobody is around to take you grocery shopping. Anytime you eat a grilled cheese that doesn’t taste right since he didn’t make it. But the feeling has faded, leaving behind only the desire to stop it from happening again.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody, that’s not why I do this. I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
For once, she actually seems surprised by your words, looking you over before she sits back in her seat. She hums, smiling slightly as she takes another sip of her drink.
“I was right, you are interesting.”
Maybe Natasha Romanoff isn’t so bad.
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