"I leaned against my door, struggling to catch my breath, and thought that maybe hell wasn't a place at all, but a thing. A contagious thing. A thing that could creep up the steps, seep through the crack under my door, grow horns and sprout fire - smelling faintly like sulfur. A thing that could sink its tendrils inside and take root, coloring everything gray and distorting a smile into a sneer." - Megan Miranda, Fracture
•••
"Starling?" Bruce questioned as he sat in the chair opposite of where his older sister was sitting, "Did you hear me?"
Slowly Bird raised her head and looked at him.
Her face was nearly expressionless and maybe it was the lack of response, of any readable emotion, that sent a chill down Bruce's spine.
Without a word to him, Bird stood up and started to walk away.
"Stop!" Bruce scrambled after her, grabbing onto one of her arms to stop her when she seemed determined to leave without speaking to him.
"Why?" Her voice was razor edged.
"Did you hear me?" His voice cracked, "You could be in danger. All of us-"
"I heard you." Bird interrupted, "Every damn word, Bruce. How Volk got killed and his brother showed up... how you went ahead with the plan to steal the weapon that could be use against The Court."
Her voice raised, "How could you not fill me in on this? How could you move ahead with the plan and not tell me any of it? What happened to being in this together, huh?"
Bruce shifted on his feet under her hard stare. Death by a thousand cuts.
The way she looked at him. The tone of her voice.
His face twisted, she was far from innocent and yet was laying all of this at this feet like it was all his fault.
It wasn't something he was used too; being looked at like like he was the guilty one.
A bitter pill he refused to swallow.
"You were the one hiding information from me!" He yelled back at her.
After all she'd done; he didn't see how she could stomach playing the victim in this situation.
"What are you talking about?"
"The day we saved Ivy." Bruce's voice was shaded in venom that he'd been holding in since they day in the tunnels.
The hurt and betrayal he'd felt had morphed into rage somewhere along the line.
"You called them The Court... long before The Whisper Gang told us about them." He argued, echoing her hurt and sentiment, "What happened to us being in this together?"
"A name!" Bird took a step back, "You purposefully went behind my back and hid things from me because I knew what name they used?"
"What else did you know?" Bruce stared her down.
It wasn't just the withholding of their name, more so that if she hadn't shared that, what else had she been hiding?
It doesn't take much for the seeds of distrust to bloom.
"Nothing!" She defended, "I asked Falcone about them and all he gave me was the name. I didn't tell you because it wouldn't have any good, Bruce. It wasn't a real lead, nothing that could help us."
"I asked you. After we were out of the tunnels, I asked if you'd been honest with me about everything and you said yes. You lied." He accused, "And I'm sorry, but I couldn't trust you-"
"That's the thing about trust." Bird's voice was muffled behind her clenched teeth, "It's a two-way street little brother -and now I don't trust you."
YOU ARE READING
Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •
Fanfiction"Sometimes you have to just sit back and watch people destroy themselves." Bird's own words after watching her biological mother die. Little did she know that apparently it was something she'd inherited. Maybe that's just part of the madness of life...
