IV: The Girl Who Ran: Red Eve

IV: Rotten Hearts Turn to Empty Caverns

Oriana leaned against the door, watching Steve watch Tati. She'd been standing here for twenty minutes and he still hadn't moved or noticed. His eyes were trained on her face, his expression pained. He'd barely left the old armchair in the three days since they'd come.

Lucia's old room was comfortable, but it wasn't that comfortable. That walls were practically plastered in old paintings and sticky notes. The desk had been untouched in the four years since she died, the small picture frame containing a photo of Lucia and Tatiana covered in dust.

How she'd wanted to destroy that picture. Grind the glass into dust and burn the picture of the woman who'd replaced Oriana as Lucia's favorite little sister. The woman who hadn't tried to prevent Lucia's death. But everytime she came in here to do it, she couldn't. Tatiana wasn't the only one in the picture, after all. If she destroyed that photo, she wasn't just renouncing her relationship with Tatiana, but with Lucia too.

A dark, bitter taste flooded Oriana's mouth and she frowned. Tatiana laid on Lucia's old twin bed, covered in a thin yellow quilt. Her chest rose and fell quickly, too quickly for recovery. Mama was getting more and more worried the longer Tati slept. Oriana could see why. She'd stopped shaking yesterday, and they'd gotten Tatiana an IV, so she wan't dehydrated now, but they didn't have the proper tools to feed nutrients to her through it. Her face was gaunt, her cheekbones prominent, even with the swelling down. Her skin hung over her bones and muscles in a disturbing way. They hadn't even been able to clean her entirely, for fear of breaking stitches.

Steve leaned forward and hesitated. Oriana didn't move, watching. He slipped his hand under hers and clasped it loosely. Part of Oriana knew she should be happy for her, but another part was angry. How could Tati just move on? Did Tim mean that little to her? Oriana could barely think about him without her throat closing up and tears coming to her eyes. Yet Tati had already found more family, only seven months after that night.

Oriana shook off all thoughts and frowned, "She's not going to wake up just because you hold her hand."

Steve jumped and twisted, still holding Tati's hand, "I didn't think--."

"Maybe she will, hmm?" A breathy, raspy, barely there, Russian-accented voice said from the bed.

Oriana's eyes snapped involuntarily back to the bed. Tatiana's eyes were slits, just enough to qualify as open. She paced toward the bed, ignoring Steve's astonished expression, "You need to eat."

But she was already asleep again.

Oriana sighed, "Well, she'll probably wake up for good soon."

Steve frowned, "How long were you standing there?"

"Long enough to know you need to come get something to eat too, Blondie. I promise she won't be stolen while you're in the kitchen," she said with a wry smile. Since the team had told her that Tatiana had been abducted while she was in their house, Oriana had taken every chance to pick fun at them for it.

"I don't need anything," Steve said, his eyes going back to Tatiana.

Oriana grimaced and searched her rotten heart for something to say. What came out was not what she'd expected. "Do you really think that she'd want to see you when she wakes up all the way, Blondie? You flippin' let her get kidnapped and tortured! I don't care if you're the Captain America or the d*** President! When you get down in the dirt like that, ain't no sane person on the planet who would forgive something like that!"

Steve's face went slack. He looked at the ground. He jerked back his hand from Tatiana's, his eyes clouded.

Oriana thought about stopping, but she still had sixteen years of anger to put into words, "I know all you big 'heroes' think you're all that and a bag of chips, and you think you're being all benevolent and stuff when you decide to help us lowly peasants. But you shoulda just prevented the problems instead of treated the symptoms. Sure, you rescued her and all that, but why did you let her get kidnapped in the first place? Do not expect forgiveness for a wrong that could have been prevented! You better be glad if she even has mercy on your dear souls!" Oriana tried to think of something worse to say, but she didn't have anything.

She turned and strode out of the room, not bothering to look at Steve's face. Oriana cursed herself, couldn't she just shut up? There was no point in going about and ruining other people's relationships. She stormed through the kitchen, not answering the squacked questions of the kids playing with puzzles on the floor. She slammed the back door shut behind her. Oriana finally slowed down by the dormant veggie garden. The rhubarb was the only thing almost ready to eat, the pink celery look-alike had grown like a weed for about a month.

She plopped down on the work bench in front of the garden and sighed. Oriana wished she could be like Lucia. The pretty one. The smart one. The caring one. The one everyone liked best, even though she was gone and she wasn't coming back. If only she could be like that. Oriana let a little current flow between her fingers, the electricity snapping viciously.

She shut off the connection and gazed around the yard. The tree line was just about the only thing separating them from the dirty slum that was the rest of Gotham Island. Oriana breathed deeply. In, out, in, out. She peered at the birds hopping around in the grass, looking for worms. Their bright red breasts were brightened by the filtered light peeking out through the clouds.

Robins.

Oriana smiled, but she didn't feel it. Of course those d***ed little birds would come around right now. Right when she had finally hoped that she might be able to recover. Right when she thought she might, just might, be able to ignore the cavern Tim had left in her chest. No, not only in her chest. Her entire body was hollow, no matter how much she ate or worked or smiled.

She stared at the clouds and sighed. She was all alone now. People had stopped giving their condolences by month four, day twenty-seven. By month five, day thirteen, she'd stopped getting pitying glances. By month six, day two, she'd stopped talking about it. Now, month seven, she felt like she was the only one in Gotham who remembered the smart, silly boy who loved a challenge and drank too much coffee.

But she knew she wasn't. Dick was just an hour away. Damian and Alfred were at the Mansion. Jason was... somewhere. Tatiana was inside. She remembered him. She'd been the only one to listen to Oriana that night. She loved him. If the Battle of the Bridge had proved anything, it was that.

She wished she could stop thinking about that night. But she knew she would never forget it. Not even when she was an old crone with no hair yelling nonsense at neighborhood kids from her front porch. Maybe then, seventy or eighty years from now, she would be able to talk about that night without tearing up. Tell about how he hadn't even walked on this earth for sixteen years. About his sleepy grin. About the way his eyes became so focused whenever she spoke to him.

Oriana scrunched her toes into the earth and drew her attention back to the words she'd spat at Steve. She considered an apology, but that would make her look weak. Like a dog coming back to its owner for food with its tail between it's legs. She'd make use of the most worn weapon in her arsenal. Silence. She'd ignore him and pretend it's never happened.

Maybe this would be one of the things she could only talk about seventy or eighty years from now.