#there's gobblepot soulmate angst & a gratuitous amount of jonathan crane involvement

[jeromevalseka]

so i was going through my drafts (always a wild time) & i found the beginnings of a valeyne soulmate au & it's not terrible (always rare when going through my drafts) & since ive been in such an awful valeyne mood i thought i'd share it because tbh i don't know if i'll continue it but i do enjoy it & hope you will to!

cut the safety line

It's supposed to be condescending. Mocking. An imitation of comfort, an inversion of their relationship. Jerome pats him on the cheek, the pads of his fingers warm, and it shouldn't mean anything.

Instead, it means everything.

Bruce fractures the moment Jerome touches him, splits himself into two states of being: who he was before and who he is now. All of his pieces that felt jagged and out of place slot together. There's something weightless about this. Something intangible. Indescribable beyond his general refocusing that this is what it means to be whole. It's beautiful. It's frightening.

Jerome is looking at him with wide-eyes, wild-eyes, something fragile and shattered peeking through in his stare. His hand is still on Bruce's face. It's warm and calloused and Bruce has to restrain himself from leaning into it. There's a shift between them. Broken tension reformed into something new. They just look at each other. Everything is so much more vibrant now. Jerome's hair is red and his eyes are blue, and before these were just facts, but now, now that everything feels so much clearer, they're revelations. His skin is a mess, scarred and scabbed, blurring the line between man and monster, but all Bruce wants to do is press his fingers along his cheeks, follow the raised skin until he knows every indent on Jerome's face.

An eternity passed in three seconds.

Then, his hand is sliding down Bruce's face until it settled in the space between his shoulder and his neck, Jerome maneuvers them around, pushing himself between Bruce and the crowd of hostages, obscuring him from view entirely. Somewhere in that sea of people Jim Gordon cursed loudly. On the stage, neither of them cared.

"Well," Jerome said, his voice only meant for Bruce's ears. "This is certainly a… surprise. Who would of thought? A stick-in-the-mud like you, my soulmate." He laughed, his mouth stretching widely, pulling itself taunt, blister red, but there was no humor in it. It was cold. "What a joke."

Bruce felt something twist low in his gut. He wanted to move closer to Jerome, press himself against every tangible inch of him until he was absorbed completely, patching his way through all of his brittle and rotted parts. He wanted to move farther away. The haze that had fallen over him was lifting. Reality crashed back down. Harshly.

What did it mean for him that his soulmate was someone like Jerome Valeska?

Bitterness rose up in his mouth like he'd swallowed turmeric powder. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. Jerome's hand was still on him, distracting and grounding and Bruce thinks he might like the feeling. He didn't know what to do with that realization either.

He wet his lips. "What are you going to do?"

It's a valid question.

They can't ignore this — their bond. They're bound together now. Two halves of the same soul. Contact wasn't exactly necessary, of course, but being away from your soulmate caused discomfort, even pain, especially if the bond was new. Bruce didn't care about that as much as he did the fact that his other half was apparently a murderous psychopath who constantly terrorized the city and seemed to have a personal vendetta against him.

Something had to be wrong.

He knew it wasn't.

Absently, Jerome stroked his thumb against one of the tendons in his neck and Bruce unfurled, boneless for just a moment. It was a nice feeling. Jerome froze, his expression stuck between awed and suspicious, leaving an uncomfortably vast margin for interpretation.

"Don't you worry a hair on your pretty, little head," Jerome said, finally. His voice was rougher than usual.

Then, in a move that left Bruce off-balance, feeling like he'd been flung into the depths of Gotham River, he removed his hand entirely, twisting the pair of them around again so it was Bruce whose back was now facing the crowd of spectators. With his customary showman's flair, Jerome skipped backwards, pulling a knife out of nowhere and, in a blur of motion that Bruce had trouble following, threw it towards his brother who'd been watching silently from his seat on stage. Jeremiah let out a painful, choking sound, but Bruce only had eyes for his soulmate, who was quickly making his way towards the back of the stage.

Before he escaped completely, as slippery as water, a new franticness edging his movements, he looked back at Bruce, splintering, and called out, "Au revoir!"

With one last flash of his coattails, he was gone, leaving his hostages, his followers, and the members of the GCPD slowly pushing their way through the murmuring crowd, confused.

Bruce closed his eyes.

. . . . . . . . . .

There was a shock blanket around his shoulders. Was he in shock? Maybe. Probably.

The crowd had dispersed, a few stragglers pushing up against the police barricade, curious, too curious, about the spectacle they'd been forced to witness. They didn't even bother to whisper. Their voices carried, lamenting and syrup-thick as they chattered amongst themselves about the poor, unfortunate Wayne boy. He never catches a break does he?

He wished he could lament himself, but reporters were buzzing around like thirsty leeches and sitting in the back of an ambulance was no place to break down. Later, when he was back in the manor and after Alfred went to bed, he'd wrap himself up in one of his mom's old quilts and choke down some of his dad's old scotch and he'd force down the scream he could feel building in his stomach. He'd force it down until his hands shook and his vision blurred and everything in his head restored itself to sense. He'd sit until daylight started to peak behind the curtains. He'd sit until he knew for sure that he'd patched up all the cracks that formed.

The certainty in it soothed him. Not by much, but enough to keep him balanced on the knife-sharp edge of falling victim to a panic attack.

It helped when he didn't think.

So he didn't.

He just sat, wrapped up in the shock blanket. He looked like a victim in a way he hadn't managed to since his parent's death. A proper one with trauma stringing its way through his veins. There was something new in his veins, but he didn't think it was trauma. Or maybe it was. He was tired. All stooped shoulders and heavy eyes. Pathetic.  He hoped the paparazzi appreciated it.

The silence he'd built around himself was broken by Jim. He looked just as bad as Bruce did. It wasn't comforting. He sat down beside him, their shoulders knocking together, and Jim allowed the quiet to build up again, let the tension rise as he considered whatever it was he wanted to say.

"I think it's safe to say that this didn't go according to plan." Jim offered, apologetic.

Bruce thought that might have been an understatement. His eye twitched. Wildly, he thought about telling Jim. His fears were lodged high up in his throat, and his fingers curled into the shock blanket, and he felt his heartbeat pick up in anticipation. Jim would understand. He'd always helped him before, and, logically, Bruce knew that he'd continue to help him, even with something as complicated as his soulmate.

I met my soulmate. He's a monster. Am I a monster?

That felt childish. He couldn't force the words out.

Instead, he asked, "How's Jeremiah?"

It's what he was supposed to ask, after all. He's Bruce Wayne and he's supposed to care about everyone, all the time, because if he doesn't then—

Then what?

He wasn't sure.

Something cataclysmic settled itself on the edge of his tongue. He felt raw. Exposed. There was something painful and bruised carving a space for itself at the top of his throat. He might have been shaking.

Jim answered his question, unaware of emotions coiling through him. "The knife went through his shoulder, but missed the artery. The paramedics sounded pretty confident that he'd make a full recovery."

"That's," Bruce searched for a word, "Good. Could you let him know that I'd be happy to take care of any medical costs? Or, actually, I'll visit him myself. He shouldn't be alone right now, what with—"

He faltered, the words dying on his lips.

What with Bruce's soulmate on the loose.

He couldn't breathe.

He remembered how it felt when Jerome touched him. It was better than any high he'd ever had. Complete euphoria. A merging of selves. They were soulmates. For whatever reason the cosmos decided that of all the people in the world, Jerome Valeska was his divinely ordained other half. A murderer. A monster. And Bruce probably would have done just about anything to touch him again. Logically, he knew that was because of how new the bond was — a sort of failsafe to ensure you were around your soulmate to make sure the bond could really build itself up — but still. This whole situation was reaching an unparalleled level of bullshit that he hadn't been ready for.

Jim grabbed his shoulder. Concern was rolling off of him in waves. His stomach twisted. "Bruce what's wrong?"

He was shaking. He couldn't get the words out. He couldn't explain. He couldn't couldn't couldn't couldn't—

"I met my soulmate." Bruce said, crumbling in on himself.

"Your—" Jim started, confused, before understanding crashed over him. "Oh, kid."