andrea_beaumont | You really can't go home again

You really can't go home again

Gotham hadn't changed much in five years. Why she thought it might she had no idea. There was still the same thickness in the air, a perpetual gray November afternoon. Didn't the sun shine here anymore?

She remembered sunshine, warmth and happiness here once. But that was before...

Before everything. Before they took it all away from her and she'd taken anything left and destroyed it. She'd left this place before, escaped she told herself, but there was never an escape from her own mind, from her own heart.

It took five years before she came back this time. She told herself it was to collect the last of her father's holdings. The few stashes of money and sentimental items that remained in his safe deposit box. She knew it was risky, and she surely didn't need the money. It was about dad's things, about a piece of home and what little of mom she had left. Sure, that was what she told herself.

Why was she really back though? A shadow flickered across the passenger window of the taxi and her heart leaped. Was it..? No, even he wouldn't know she was here. She was flying under the radar quite literally. Her flight in had been privately chartered, even this taxi had been prearranged to get her to the hotel. Had she been careless though? And if she was, was it subconsciously intentional?

Andrea Beaumont had left Gotham before, once swept away by her father and then by her own guilt. Why had she gone back to leave the locket though? Had he even found it... would he even care?

It didn't matter, she chided herself as the taxi pulled up alongside the hotel. "Here we are Miss." She nodded her thanks and got out as he removed her bags from the trunk. Short stay but she needed room for what was going back. The doorman greeted her, "Welcome to the Gotham Plaza, may I take your bags Miss..?"

Andi looked at him and nodded to her bags. "Benson, Angie Benson. I believe room thirty fourteen is reserved for me. If you would take my bags up." The doorman nodded and escorted her inside to get her key at the desk while he loaded her bags.

Ten minutes later she was standing at the window overlooking Gotham. It was turning night with the hazy gray of Gotham's own brand of sunset. The rain was just beginning to fall. She let her forehead press against the cool glass, her eyes sliding shut. "Welcome home Andi."

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Oh, but it was. Few things escaped the Batman's watchful eye. Andi may have slipped into Gotham once without his knowledge, but he'd be damned if he let it happen again. She was here for something, all right--and he was going to find out what.

The glass pane of the corner window moved almost silently as the Bat let himself in. He allowed the window to make the faintest amount of noise--he didn't want to startle her, after all.

Seconds later, he'd moved swiftly and silently into the dark shadows of the corner. He, technically, was a guest, albeit uninvited. He rarely cared about manners when the cowl was on, but it seemed impolite for him to address her first. So he waited. He was very good at that . . .

How many people could say that? The Batman waited for them to make the first move? Few she'd guess, but with the soft sound, the louder down pour of the rain, the slight movement of the curtains...she knew.

"What gave me away?" She knew it wasn't the payment, cash by a third party through an agency that specialized in keeping things secret. She flew in during the commuter rush for sheer numbers to be her cover. Wig and glasses had been her disguise, the latter discarded. Blond on her? Was it becoming? Her gloves were pulled off and tossed to the bed, no obvious weapons, what she did have were in her bags and those were closer to him than her.

She did want to know how he'd found her though, and so quickly. Almost as if he'd been waiting for her.

"Your alias wasn't very subtle." Honestly, it was as if she wanted him to find her. A small part of him hoped--no, no, no. Whatever feelings they had shared were in the past, like their relationship.

Or were they?

Business, he reminded himself. He was here for answers, not to take a stroll down Memory Lane.

"Why are you here? Come for the Joker again?" A minuscule part of him wished he could just turn a blind eye and let Andi complete her revenge as the Phantasm. Vengeance was what drove him to the cowl to begin with, right? So who was he to deny someone else the satisfying pleasure of revenge? But the Phantasm crossed a line--a line that was virtually sacred in his eyes.

Had she intentionally wanted to be found? Maybe, who else would be looking for her like this? "Wanted to be sure it was something I wouldn't be able to forget." Not like she could use her own name, or his. "Mind if I fix a drink?"

She didn't really wait for an answer, just dropped ice in a glass and poured two fingers of scotch. She needed the drink, but regretted the ice as the soft clinking of it was a clue as to how bad her hand was shaking. She dared a look at him now, tall dark and threatening. Just as she remembered and every bit as attractive.

"There are things, my mother's and father's. I came back to collect what's left of my life. My days of vengeance are done. They blew up that night at the fairgrounds." She lost a lot, she'd suffered severe internal injuries and made a slow recovery..emotionally even more than physically. "So, where does that leave us..." Us? She winced at the word. "The hero and the villain." Maybe he'd gloss over that..no this was Bruce wasn't it? It missed nothing.

He was silent for a minute, just listening to the clinking of the ice cubes and wondering why on earth Andi was so jittery around him. He hadn't meant to make her return to Gotham any more unpleasant than it already was. Maybe she thought he was going to arrest her . . . surely she realized that if he really wanted to do that, he'd have already done it.

"As long as you're not up to your old tricks, I have no business with you." As soon as the words escaped his lips, he regretted how cold and indifferent that sentence must have sounded to her.

And with that, he, too, was suddenly uncomfortable. Unlike last time, he didn't have to wait to be asked to leave, instead slowly making his way over to the window he'd entered through earlier. He hesitated for a moment, half of him wanting her to stop him, and the other half screaming for him to leave as quickly as possible.

He'd be shocked to know it was Batman who made her nervous, the man under the cowl held far more power over her. She didn't fear him, but she feared what he might do or say. That would cut her far deeper.

"No, no tricks." She turned away at that tone. It dashed her like a slap to the face or a bucket of cold water. Well Bruce, score for you, cruelty was working for you.

She heard his movement, which could only mean he wanted her to. He didn't just leap away, vanish into the night, he could have but he didn't. "Bruce," It wasn't loud, but there was a note of pleading in it. The fake blond lock falling to cover her face as she slumped forward, her back to him. "I didn't want it to be like this."

His fingers had already been working the latch on the window, but they stopped at the sound of her voice, pleading and desperate.

"Then why?" His own voice came out somewhat strained, at some mid-octave between Bruce and the Bat. "Why'd you lie to me? Why didn't you tell me what was going on? I could have helped you! You don't think I would've done that for you?! If it would--" He stopped, not wanting to finish that sentence, although he knew Andi could very well finish it herself: "If it would mean Mr. Beaumont would still be alive."

He paused and took a deep breath, surprised at his outburst--he normally would have kept all of that to himself. His hands lowered from the window latch, slowly disappearing into the folds of his cape.

"Dammit, Andi, I loved you!" He almost followed that up with, "Maybe I still do," but something, some small part of him, held that back--at least, for now.

Did he even have to ask? But that change of tone, it meant he was talking to her, Bruce not Batman. "Bruce how could I ask you that? I didn't even know till that night. I had planned on spending the rest of my life with you, I even begged daddy to run and leave me here to be with you."

Could he understand how much it broke her heart to leave? "Daddy said," She chocked and turned around, shedding the wig and folding her arms over herself, the last of her defenses gone. "Daddy said if we didn't leave that night both of us would get killed. He said we couldn't contact people or they would be targeted. The last thing I wanted was to see you hurt Bruce, I thought you'd move on a maybe be happy someday."

She gasped when he said he loved her. That past tense cutting deeper than a knife. "I loved you Bruce, more than anything in the world. I never stopped."

"You could have asked me because I was your fiancé and soon-to-be husband! You could have called! Sent a telegram! Anything! I would've protected you--I would die for you!" He can't entirely blame her, of course. Everything that happened was due to circumstances outside of both of their control. And all of this, he knew he didn't need to say it; but somehow, saying it was almost therapeutic.

"How long are you going to let your father dictate your actions?" No, no, Bruce. That wasn't the correct way to phrase that question. "How long are we going to let the deceased control us?" A bold statement, especially from him, but if Andi only knew what he would have for her. All she had to do was ask and he would do his best to fulfill whatever whim she had.

He was silent for a long moment before continuing. "After you left . . . the first time . . . I had Alfred search for you. He wasn't able to find you. I thought that maybe--maybe we could start a new life somewhere, and leave everything behind . . . " Of course, he realized how foolish that sounded, and chose that point to shut up.

"That's exactly why I couldn't ask you!" Now she was lashing back at him with her words, finding the willful backbone that had always been the cornerstone of her personality. She moved forward, closing that distance between then as if in accusation. "You think I wanted you dead? That it wouldn't have killed me to find out something happened to you?"

How could he know that she had the Gotham Gazette delivered to her computer daily? Bruce would never have been aware that she'd kept tabs on him through ever article and news report that ran his name. She'd followed his career, the public one at least, for years until she'd come back. Then she knew both his day and night jobs, and only followed him all the more intently.

"My parent's are dead." Well there now you're evenly matched, aren't you Bruce? "I don't have anyone now, or anything. I don't even have a cause. So no one controls me anymore Bruce. I'm just trying to survive, like a rat. A rat with a good bank account to fund it."

"There is no magic wish Bruce, no button that makes everything ok. We can't run away from our problems or our past." She was still not backing down, but suddenly she looked exhausted. "I'm just tired of running, tired hiding, tired of the lies." And there was one more big one she was holding back on.

"I think, I think I came back for you."

Ah, there was that feistiness that had originally drawn him to her. He should've known it wouldn't lie dormant for long. As she got closer, his more rational side told him to leave, or at least, back away, keep the distance between them. Yet his feet stayed firmly rooted to their current position.

"I'm not saying to run away from it all. I'm saying to put the past behind us. Try to live a normal life. They would have--" That sentence was almost too much for him to complete; and the words died on his tongue. Still, he took a breath and tried again. "They would have wanted us to be happy, even if it wasn't with each other."

He liked to think that as Batman, he was always prepared for the unexpected. But nothing could have prepared him for the curveball that Andi had just thrown him. His eyebrows raised almost reflexively as he realized what she was implying. And just as quickly, he had his defensive walls back in place.

"Not again. If you--if you leave again, it'll kill me." He realized how ridiculous that sounded--after all, he should be used to people going in and out of his life. But he was tired--tired of losing people he loved and cared about. He'd gotten tired of it that night in the alley, standing there amidst his parents' bloodied bodies.

She wasn't known for bringing out the rational side in anyone. It was a wonder Bruce had lasted this long with it. She was in front of him now, back straight, shoulders slightly slumped as if weighted down by the sins of her past.

"Put the past behind us? Like you have?" Her hand moved, but deftly avoided his skin, no her fingers only traced the edge of the cowl above his cheek. "You can't stop being who you are, and I wouldn't ask you too. People need you." I need you.

"There are ways of making sure I didn't leave, of making it so I didn't have to run anymore." Her hand slipped down to rest against his chest, her other joined it as she took a deep breath. "You do it everyday, bring in the bad guy."

Perhaps he was just used to dealing with people who taxed his logical side to its limits. For the time being, he was so stunned that she was this close to him that he couldn't even do anything. Eventually, though, a gloved hand found its way to Andi's shoulder.

"This? I can stop at any time I want. I would have, if we . . ." But Andi knew that, didn't she? She knew he wouldn't have ever become Batman if she had stayed in his life. Gotham could have gone to hell in a handbasket, and he wouldn't have given a damn.

"No." Was she asking him to arrest her?! Incredulous! He couldn't. He knew he couldn't. It would just be too much for him to bear.

"Bruce, I don't want to hurt anymore, and I don't want to hurt you. I want..." Something normal? Her life back? Him?

"I don't want you to change, except maybe to be happy. I'm not sure I can change, the things I've done..they we're horrible, I know that. And I know that nothing can make that right."

Could anything ever be right for her again? Aside from the feel of his hand on her, gloved and all. It was a familiar,comfortable weight, it felt right.

"That afternoon, when you proposed to me, it was the happiest day of my life. I wish I could take everything back to that day. I would have told Daddy he had to fix his own mess, and gone away with you. I never thought it would end like this."

He was silent, just letting Andi pour her heart out to him. Maybe this was what she needed. And if listening was what she needed, well, he'd do his best to give her that much.

Slowly, slowly, the hand on her shoulder made it way up to cup her cheek. She felt soft and familiar, even through the thickness of his glove, and a part of him that he'd long neglected was filled with a sudden, deep desire to touch her anywhere she'd let him. Everywhere, if he could manage it. But now was not the time to heed any stirring in his loins, so he quietly ignored that longing.

"Tell me what you want." His voice came out in an unusual pitch: not quite Batman, but not quite Bruce Wayne, either. It was somewhere in the middle--suitable for his feelings, at least, which remained unchanged despite which mask (or cowl) he chose to wear.

Her head slowly tipped up, leaning into his hand. "God, I've missed your touch."

Ok that was pushing it too far Andi, she pulled back. She needed to think clear and when he was around that didn't happen easily. She wanted too much from him, more than he could give and more than she was worth.

"I don't have the right. What I want, what I always wanted was to be with you. I want what I can't have Bruce." How could she even make him understand?

"I thought you'd moved on. I read the papers, saw pictures of you and a different girl every month. I saw that and I thought you'd honestly moved on and forgotten about me. I thought you were happy." Could he see her wince at that? Jealousy stiffened her back. "It hurt, but Daddy said it was for the best, and after what happened to him I think it was. I lost everyone else, but you'd still be alive, somewhere." It was the sort of logic that only made sense in desperation.

She realized now how wrong all of this had been. "I shouldn't have come back. I'm sorry Bruce, I'll book the next flight out." And this time maybe she'd be strong enough to not come back.

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You really can't go home again

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totally digging your icons

Thanks! I took my time capping the movie and being picky, I thought they came out well.

I think they did too ♥

This makes me happy!

^_^ ♥

Bruce and Andi also make me happy!

Me too. (:

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I did not forget you oh no :P Sorry so late though :/

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