Tony finds Bruce sitting in front the fireplace on the couch, head in his hands. “What’s Wrong?” Tony asks softly, sitting beside Bruce and gently rubbing his back. Sometimes he got like this if a villain got away, or if someone got hurt or worse. Tony hoped that none of those things have happened because he liked seeing people hurt as much as Bruce did.
“She went back,” Bruce says in the same soft tone Tony used, sighing quietly.
“Who?” Tony asks, frowning.
“Harley. She went back. I just don’t understand why she keeps going back to the Joker when all he does is hurt her, use her for his own ends. God even knows what this’ll mean for Gotham with all that you’ve taught her,” Bruce says, sounding even more devastated towards the end.
If he was going to be worried, Tony thought, he should be worried about Harley knowing some very intimate details of his damn Batsuit, not the city, but Bruce had a habit of caring for others at the cost of himself. “She loves him, you know,” Tony says. And in his own way he probably loved her too, but that was a far more difficult conversation. One Bruce wasn’t ready for, one he would probably never be ready for but most people fell in the same boat.
“Well he doesn’t love her and she knows that, so why does she keep going back to someone who treats her like shit?” he asks angrily.
“Because we’re having this conversation,” Tony snaps back, unexpectedly angry and hurt.
Bruce looks up then, eyebrows drawn together, “what?” he asks.
Tony stands up and starts pacing, a nervous habit he never had gotten rid of much to Obadiah’s dismay. “I have a lot of experience with abuse, a lot of insight into why Harley acts the way she does. It’s funny the way people act, the way people treat us, because all it does is drive us back to our abusers. People used to tell me when I was younger that if I really hated Howard I wouldn’t care about his legacy, his opinions, the way he thought I should act. I’d hate him, and I did- I do- but I loved that man more than I’ve loved anything in my whole life except maybe engineering. All I wanted was his approval and I know it was impossible, and god knows the years of emotional manipulation from Obi using Howard as a weapon didn’t help. But I knew that I wasn’t going to get support elsewhere, not from a bunch of concern trolls who had no idea what the fuck they were talking about, giving advice from their cushy abuse free lives.”
He shakes his head, remembering the way people dismissed him as a child and as an adult too. The media used to make jokes about it until Tony snapped one day and then he was the bad guy. He was never the one who thought ‘haha abused kid’ was funny though.
“I do support you Tony, and Harley,” Bruce says. He looks almost desperate, like he was trying to will tony to understand with his mind but it was hardly working.
“No, you don’t. People rarely do, they say they do, but they don’t. People wonder why you stay, why you care about them, tell you you’re stupid for doing both of those things, act superior to you because of it. They tell you they support you but in the same breath they act like you’re the one abusing yourself. You know, the ‘you only accept the love you think you deserve’ bullshit. Never ever once have I ever heard someone ask why an abuser abuses. No one asks them why they hurt people; no one makes them answer to their own abuse. It’s always up to the victim to escape, and it’s their fault for thinking they deserve that kind of treatment. It’s all total shit, Bruce. Don’t say you support a victim in the same breath you ask them why they let their abuser abuse them. That isn’t her fault,” Tony snaps, ending his rant somewhat abruptly before he says something stupid that he might regret.
“Tony, that isn’t-” Bruce starts but Tony cuts him off.
“That’s exactly what you meant Bruce, whether you know it or not. And Harley knows it too. Ironically the Joker is the only one who understands their fucked up dynamic and he doesn’t judge her for it, that’s why she goes back. When you leave abuse you start to get comfortable, too comfortable. You kind of crave the chaos; it’s hard to live without it. It’s also hard to live with people who unknowingly blame you for your own abuse. It shouldn’t matter how many times she goes back, how long she stays, what she does, whatever. It’s never her job to make sure he doesn’t abuse her. It’s his job to keep his fucking hands to himself.” What people didn’t get was that abusers always picked someone new anyways. People acted like the story ended when the victim left, but that was rarely true. There was always someone else and the victim knew it, Tony once overheard his mom say that’s why she stayed with Howard when Peggy confronted her about it one day.
And then the cycle started again and someone new was responsible for leaving the abuser and once again no one thought to ask the abuser what made them so fucked up, they just expected the victim to leave. It was a dangerous cycle.
*
Harley isn’t even sure why she went back really. Maybe she missed her Puddin but she knew he didn’t miss her, sometimes he didn’t even notice she was gone. But something spooked her so she left, back to the life she’s known so long. Too long.
It’s Tony that finds her sitting on the roof of a building licking her wounds. He sits down beside her and for a long few moments neither of them say anything. “How’d you find me?” she asks, curious more than anything. She didn’t make herself easy to find for a few reasons.
“How could I miss you in that ridiculous getup?” Tony says and she throws back her head and laughs. It hurts the bruises on her face and her ribs but that was just so Tony.
“I like my boots, and my collar,” she says, adjusting the jester’s collar on her neck.
Tony snorts, “you look like a bad sexy clown costume, I know you can do better than that. Lets get out of here. And get you out of that collar, honestly, what the hell were you thinking?” he asks, eying the pointed collar doubtfully.
“Well if ya wanted me out of my clothes you coulda just asked,” she says sweetly, batting her eyelashes at Tony.
“Okay, Quinzel if you want to battle it out with Bruce, be my guest. Might actually be a confidence booster,” he says, just a little too honest on the last line. It was sad that someone that had so much didn’t really have much at all. She could relate, she could have all of Gotham if she wanted but what would that really get her?
“Screw battling it out, I’ll ask him to join. Think we can convince him to keep the cape on?” she asks, laughing at Tony’s reaction.
*
Bruce goes to move the flowers but Tony snatches them back and puts them back down. “How did he even know she was here?” Bruce snarls, glaring at the black and red roses that matched the outfit Tony found her in. smart move, honestly. Showed he paid attention to the details, and if he noticed the little things he cared, right? Wrong, but he wasn’t going to tell Harley that. Not outright anyways.
“Has it occurred to you that getting the shit kicked out of you might make you a wee bit more willing to give up information? Plus the Avengers have been riding your ass; Joker has had to have taken notice. All of Gotham has probably noticed honestly. It’s probably only a matter or time before everyone else figures it out,” Tony points out, snatching a black rose out of the bouquet because he’s always wanted one and no one bought men flowers. And something told him the only person he’s ever been in a long-standing relationship with wouldn’t appreciate the flowers like he would. And the closest thing to a flower that Rhodey has gotten him was this welded… thing that kind of looked like a flower that made them laugh way too hard at two in the morning. He sort of missed the days of drunk lab work and take out pizza every other night, but that was probably because of the lifetime of regrets that followed.
“Are those for me?” Harley asks, bouncing into the kitchen and grabbing the flowers Tony was holding. “They’re so pretty!” she says, smiling down at the flowers lovingly. Bruce gives Tony a look and Tony shakes his head at him just a little.
“They’re nice yeah,” Tony agrees, earning an unimpressed look from Bruce.
Harley looks surprised, “you like them? You know who they’re from, right?” she asks, head tilted to the side.
“Yeah I’m aware. He has taste in flowers at least,” Tony says. Bruce is glaring at him but it was true, he wasn’t going to deny it just because the guy who bought them was less than stellar. Harley turns back to her flowers and Tony gestures for Bruce to leave but he hesitates for a moment until Tony gestures for him to go again. He finally goes and Harley sets the flowers on the counter.
“He doesn’t understand,” Harley says sadly, leaning against the counter.
“They rarely do,” Tony agrees.
They both remain silent for a few long moments before Harley speaks again. “He’s always like this, after. It’s always the best part, where you see all the good that’s there. I know its there when things are bad too,” she says wistfully.
Tony nods, familiar with the cycle. “Things are always the best then, always so calm. I used to think those moments were the moments that defined Howard.” Child him was far more forgiving than adult him. Adult him knew what Howard was and resented him.
“Used to?” Harley asks.
“Yeah. I used to think he was a good person who sometimes did bad things, but once I got older and he died I realized he was a bad person who was really good at pretending he wasn’t. Didn’t stop me from caring about him though, and even after I realized what a piece of shit he was I tried so hard to be something that he wanted me to be. Lost myself along the way too, I’m not even sure I’ve found myself even now.” He wasn’t sure he ever even had himself, honestly, because he was always chasing after someone’s affections and failing. First there was Howard, then Obadiah, then Pepper, Steve. He failed every one of those people somehow and now he guessed he hoped that he didn’t fail Rhodey more than he already had, Bruce, or Harley.
Harley is quiet for a long time after that, looking down at the floor. “I lost myself too, when I met my Puddin’. I donno if I’ll ever get myself back either, if I even have a self to get back,” she admits quietly.
“I know the feeling. I haven’t really found what I’ve been looking for either and it’s been nearly a decade,” Tony says quietly.
“Why do you do it?” Harley asks. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It is, but it’s infinitely better than what things were like before,” he says. Anything was better than that.
*
Bruce doesn’t know how to handle abuse; he’s been lucky enough to avoid it thus far. Alfred has always been more than supportive with him his whole life, and his parents were loving too. He had a hard time believing any family could have been as dysfunctional as Tony’s was. For him family was home and safety, something that got taken away from him at a young age and shaped his whole life. To imagine home as something that was scary and painful was impossible for him, home has always been that safe space that was just out of reach because someone took that from him, the scariness came after.
But he hadn’t meant to insult Tony, or Harley, and he needed what little family he had now. Alfred once told him he was distant because he feared being a part of a family again, feared having that taken away and he was right. Family has always meant safety to him and since having that torn away in such a violent and traumatic way he had no desire to build something new because he never, ever wanted to go through that again. And then Tony came along and somehow he made being a family safe to him again and he hadn’t really known it until Tony got mad and Bruce panicked.
He had no clue what Tony was doing with Harley but in the end he figured he’d leave him to it, and after thinking about things and several looks from Alfred he figured he owned Tony an apology. He finds Tony in the Batcave as usual, going over designs for something or other. He had recently installed his AI into Bruce’s systems and FRIDAY freaked him out but he kept that to himself. Tony had been offended when Harley had called the AI creepy.
“Hey,” he says quietly, sitting down beside Tony. He looks up from his work briefly but he doesn’t say anything. Silence, Bruce knows, is a real danger zone with Tony. The man always had something to say about everything- once he went on a rant about screws of all things. So when he was quiet that meant something and it wasn’t good. “When I was a kid my parents were good to me, better than most parents I think. Certainly better than yours. I don’t have any idea what you’ve been through and to be honest its almost impossible for me to imagine that someone’s family could do the things that yours did to you. I’ve never questioned whether or not family meant safety or not because I always assumed it did. At least for me. so I’m sorry for being an ass earlier, I’m pretty far out of my element here and it shows.”
Tony sits there for a few beats saying nothing before he turns to Bruce, “and?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Bruce frowns, “and nothing. That was all I had to say to you,” he says, hoping he didn’t just screw up again somehow. He thought he had done well, but maybe not…
It catches him by surprise when Tony all but throws himself into his arms, pressing his face into his neck. Bruce hugs him back tightly, cherishing the moment.
“Thank you,” Tony says softly. “Usually when people apologize there’s some ‘but’ statement to make it my fault. Everyone always tells me I need to take responsibility for my actions and I’ve always found that funny given that they don’t really take responsibility for theirs.”
The Avengers, Tony means. Bruce liked them all less and less the more he heard about them and he knew he wasn’t alone. Harley seemed to notice something too because sometimes when Tony talked she frowned a little, head tilted to the side like she was thinking. The action used to set Bruce on edge because it usually meant an attack was to follow but that appeared to be Harley’s thinking gesture and her strategy gesture.
“There was nothing for you to take responsibility for, I acted like an ass because I don’t understand how abuse works. I don’t think I ever will, thankfully. Where in that could you have possibly done something wrong?” he asks more to himself than Tony.
“Oh I’m sure someone could find something. Steve once ‘apologized’ to me by essentially saying that he was sorry I didn’t agree with him so everything that followed was obviously on me. Well, he said that first bit, the last bit was more interpretation,” Tony admits somewhat sheepishly.
“That isn’t much of an apology then. Apologies mean no excuses,” Bruce says, repeating a phrase Alfred used to say to him as a child when he’d get into things. He wasn’t sorry he did it, Alfred would say, just that he got caught. Which was true and Bruce still snuck some of Alfred’s cookies when he wasn’t paying attention, except now he was a master of stealth so he rarely got caught.
*
Bucky sits on a park bench in Gotham of all places and he’s surprisingly comfortable with the place. The most crime ridden city in the world, or so the rumors went, made Bucky feel less dirty walking around in the world. He had no business being out and about but T’Challa managed to get rid of the trigger words and Steve wanted him back. Bucky went because he had nowhere else to go and he gathered that Steve would follow him anyways. To the end of the line, they always said, but Bucky was pretty sure the line ended awhile ago. Steve just didn’t get the memo.
At some point a blonde sits on the bench beside him, curling her legs into the lotus position and Bucky is tempted to move but she doesn’t say anything, she just watches the pond. Bucky figured she was harmless then and relaxed a little after awhile.
“You ever felt yourself be undone?” she asks after some time sitting in silence.
“Yeah,” he responds after a few moments of deliberation.
“Ever find yourself after that?” she asks.
“No. Not sure I even can now,” he admits.
“Been owned too long?” she asks, tilting her head at him. She’s pretty he realizes, with blonde hair that had pink and blue ends and sharp blue eyes. Something told him her pretty face held a lot more than the innocence she was trying to portray with those pigtails and long eyelashes.
“Yeah. Kind of hard to fine yourself when someone took it all away,” he says. The blonde hums in agreement and they lapse back into silence.
“I only wanted to know what made him tick, what made anyone tick. Instead he figured out what made me tick and now he kinda controls my clock,” she says quietly, shrugging like it couldn’t be helped.
Bucky knew what it was like when control couldn’t be helped. “I know how that is. It’s hard without that,” he says softly.
The blonde nods, “it’s easier to be owned, less thinking that way,” she says.
Bucky nods, surprised that someone understood that. HYDRA… they were horrible, but he missed the simplicity sometimes, missed having the ability to not have to listen to the background noise of… of… everything. “But then they make you do stuff you don’t want to,” Bucky says.
The blonde nods, “and you gotta do it or else. And ‘else’ really sucks.”
“You know what it’s like to be put back together again?” he asks.
His companion shakes her head, “nope. I got a friend who says he’s been trying for a decade to put himself back together but I don’t even know if he was ever whole to put back together. He’s probably the bravest man I know, walking around in this world broken beyond repair and all by himself. I’m not that kind of brave,” she admits.
“Me either,” Bucky says, thinking of Steve. He missed his friend, the one from before all of this, before the serum. He was gone though and Bucky knew it, but he refused to leave, terrified of what would happen if he was on his own. Things didn’t work out so well the last time he was alone.
“Think someone else can make you whole?” she asks.
“No. But it’s a lot less scary to let someone else try and hold your pieces together than to do it yourself.” Maybe that was why he still followed Steve around even though his friend was long dead, killed even before the war really started for him.
“But then they break you too. That’s almost scarier than being alone,” the blonde says in a soft tone.
“Maybe. But you’d fall apart anyways, what’s the difference if you’re falling apart because someone took out a piece?”
“Touché.”