Chapter Text
Bruce gets up the stairs first, all nine floors of them, reaching their new front door when Harleen is on the seventh floor and Harvey even lower than that. Close to buzzing in excitement at finally being out of their one room bedsit and in an apartment, he leans over the bannisters. “Come on,” he yells, “Teeth, you are not that old.”
“It’s okay for you two,” wheezes Harvey in response, “You’re fit.”
Harleen leaps the last few stairs, patting at her coat pocket for the keys. The door sticks at the top, meaning Bruce has to squeeze beside her in the cramped corridor to reach up shove at the door-jamb, and both he and Harls stumble over the old curled welcome mat lurking just inside the ledge of the door. Already the flat seems to be a health and safety nightmare.
“This place is tiny.” They stand and stare around them, slowly turning in a circle to truly take it in. The walls don’t look like they’re going to collapse, at least.
This is how Harvey finds them, and he rolls his eyes dramatically. “We both know it’s fine, even for all three of us.” He raises a dubious eyebrow at the two tiny bedrooms visible through unclosed fire doors. “Hey, looks like we’re sharing.”
“You snore!”
Harls glares over from where she’s crouched in front of the tiny fridge, which has suspicious grey fuzz lining the seals. At least the plug looks safe to use. “These walls are pathetic, if you snore you can sleep on the roof.”
“I do not snore.”
“You do,” assures Bruce, “I’ve lived with you more than long enough to know you snore.”
“Well now it’s your problem mate,” says Harvey sunnily, “Suck it up Robbie-boy.”
Harls kicks her boot at the freezer dubiously. “Reckon we can use Rob’s allowance to get a new one of these? Also. The oven. I refuse to cook in that.”
Harvey scrapes his finger down the inside of the oven door, lips twisting in distaste. “That’s genuinely disgusting, and I come from the Narrows.”
“You come from the Narrows?”
He grins at her, but says nothing more, leaning in to check the heating element.
“I think we need a few boxes of bleach,” says Bruce from the smaller bedroom. “Some wood too, maybe? I can borrow some tools from Mick on engineering.”
One of her nails cracks loudly, and she swears colourfully. It was the best one too, orange to pink sunset-hues that took her months to perfect. “How did you make a friend, anyway?” she asks. Bruce shrugs; she can’t see much of him, but she recognises that life of his growing shoulders. There’s a non-answer if ever I saw one, she thinks. “Please tell me you didn’t get in a fight.”
Bruce keeps silent, leaving the bedroom and turning to the windows, knocking his knuckles against the wood. “Surprisingly, not rotten.”
“Answer the question, Bruce,” orders Harvey quietly, eyes sharp and shrewd and knowing. This is the hard bit, knows Harls, making Bruce admit to fighting and finding trouble where he really shouldn’t be able to.
She stands up, brushing her hair out of her face before she notices the dirt on her hands and grimaces at the thought of it in her white hair. Soon as the shower is fixed, she’s redoing her hair. Pink again, maybe. Or blue and red? Half and half, that would be nice. “Bruce, you’re great, really, and I love you, but please stop fighting.”
He turns, pointing to himself dramatically. “Me, fight? I would never,” he swears, lip twitching.
Her mock-glare lasts as long as Harvey’s. “And I’ve never been in one either,” teases Harls, flicking blue nails in his direction. “You’re a moron, Bruce.”