Chapter Text
For a belated birthday celebration, Harvey takes Jim to a baseball game at the arena just past Gotham’s south bridge, incidentally the same one that must be taken to reach Oswald’s without having to meet the often congested road between the south and east bridges. Harvey jibes Jim on the way out of Gotham that it’s almost as if he’s driving Jim home, to which Jim says somewhat despondent, “We haven’t moved in together yet.”
“I ain’t gonna lie and say I ain’t somewhat relieved about that,” Harvey tells him. “A little bit rash with all things considered…”
“Yeah,” Jim half heartedly agrees, very much aware that the rapidity with which he and Oswald had moved, to truly be together before Jim was sober for a year and after so few dates, could be considered toying with fate. Still, whenever he muses on this point, he always remembers the change of heart he had for Oswald when Gotham was cut off from the mainland, when he saw the goodness in Oswald. Those memories serve to tell Jim that nothing about his and Oswald’s relationship, or their connection, was formed under normal circumstances so why should he put so much emphasis on propriety? “It will happen soon enough, though,” he tells Harvey truthfully, because Jim and Oswald have already discussed moving in together during sleepy, lazy mornings.
“I thought you were gonna propose, Jimbo. Don’t tell me you have and kept it a secret from me,” Harvey says amusedly. “I was planning on getting you something special as an engagement present… a set of fluffy handcuffs or a book on what to expect on your wedding night with another man.”
Jim gives Harvey a good natured punch on the thigh in response and laughs alongside his friend. “A card will do fine,” Jim says. “And yeah, I thought I was going to propose at Christmas, and I think he expected it too cause Barbara told him I planned to propose-”
“Barbara?!” Harvey exclaims. “When?”
“She used her one phonecall before she was taken to Arkham to call and threaten him. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, Jim, I can.”
“I suppose it isn’t too much of a stretch to believe,” Jim agrees. “I don’t know if she told him that I was planning on doing it at Christmas time-”
“When did you tell her?” Harvey interrupts. “And why?”
Jim is silent for a moment as he remembers their last proper encounter, and as it always does, he feels a sense of pride and a prickle of guilt. Pride always wins out these days.
“She was goading me about him when she attacked me, and I told her that I loved him and was going to propose at Christmas. I suppose that might have poked the bear a little.”
“No shit Sherlock,” Harvey says sympathetically. “So why haven’t you proposed to the little bastard yet?”
Jim looks out of the window as they come up to the south bridge, the lights of Gotham bright and garish in the nighttime landscape around them whilst the world on the other side of the river is hauntingly dark in comparison. He likes that darkness, the way when he is at Oswald’s the stars can be seen and how Oswald will sometimes point out the stars to Barbie on clear nights. “I just can’t decide on where to do it,” he admits. “Nothing seems right.”
“Can’t you just be normal for once and do it at a restaurant?”
“I thought about that and at first it seemed the most logical… somewhere that he enjoys, with a bit of class and pomp you know? But I just feel he isn’t going to enjoy it being done in public.”
“Do you know that for sure?” Harvey asks, which puts a complete spanner in the works for Jim, his resolve on not doing it in public now wavering.
“No,” he replies gruffly.
“What are the other options?”
“I thought about it on Christmas day, but I just couldn’t do it… I know he’s going to say yes, you know. But what if he doesn’t? I don’t mean to say he’d say no because he doesn’t want to be with me anymore or he doesn’t want to marry me, but he wanted us to go slow when we started seeing each other and he might want us to wait a while to get engaged. I couldn’t bring myself to chance ruining Christmas because it was Barbie’s first Christmas with me.”
“Wise choice, Jimbo. I always knew you had brains somewhere in there,” Harvey says, ducking out the way of Jim’s second playful punch. “Does she like him?”
Jim smiles widely. “She loves him,” he says joyfully. “She’s convinced he’s a pirate-”
“He is.”
“-and he’s really good with her. I hadn’t realized how much Barbara had neglected to teach Barbie things she should know… numbers and things like that. Oswald has helped her so much and she’s one of the most advanced kids at her preschool now.”
Harvey nearly crashes the car he laughs so hard. “Of course he’s good with numbers,” he says. “He’s a fuckin’ mob boss… his whole world revolves around making sure the numbers add up.”
Jim joins in the laughter. “Yeah,” he agrees soon after, “I suppose it does. But it’s not just teaching her how to balance the books,” he says. “He’s also reading to her when he stays over, and now her reading is the best in the class, and she was always a polite kid but her manners are amazing.”
Harvey shakes his head in disbelief. “I never, and I mean never thought that I would hear Oswald Cobblepot referred to in any way as a good father.”
That brings Jim up short, thinking about Oswald as a dad. It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it before, but it’s the first time someone from Jim’s personal life has talked about Oswald in such a way, apart from Barbie. “You know what she said to me last week?” he asks rhetorically. “That her friend Pickle has a cousin with two dads and that she would like to have two dads.”
“Well, he sure has your daughter’s seal of approval.”
“He does… he really, really does. But it isn’t just that… she told me that she wants him to be her dad-”
“Then why the fuck haven’t you just proposed to him already?” Harvey asks bluntly.
Jim lapses into thought for a few moments, watching the end of the bridge come into view and then they’re over it, into that dark, haunting world. “What if it’s not the right time for him?”
“Oh come off it, Jimbo,” Harvey tells him, punching Jim’s thigh this time. “That man has been in love with you from the moment he saw you. You could propose to him at the end of that dock and he’d say yes.”
“You know,” Jim tells Harvey seriously, “I really want to do it where we had the barricade.”
“Why the fuck on earth do you want to do it there?” Harvey asks with disbelief. “You really are an absolute nutcase, you know that?”
Jim rolls his eyes. “It’s because that’s where I fell in love with him,” Jim tells him truthfully.
“Then do it there,” Harvey tells him. “You could shut the street off for a couple of hours… make it look all pretty with some fairy lights-”
“It would be great, but it still doesn’t sit right.”
“You’re overthinking this, Jim,” Harvey says firmly, and for a moment Jim sits stunned in the revelation that he has Harvey, of all people, one of Oswald’s staunch critics, encouraging him to propose to Oswald. “You just gotta do it. He’s going to say yes, I promise you.”
“I know. But what if…?”
“Jim, there’s no time to waste buddy. I know I said that it’s a bit rash moving in together but when I come to think about it, you two did go through a war together and you keep on coming back to each other. The only thing to really do is keep Barbie safe… anything other than that is just chance and circumstance anyway.”
“Hmmm…” Jim hums, thinking about it, his mind whirling now. He appreciates Harvey’s encouragement, he really does, even though it means that for the rest of the night he is distracted with thoughts of proposing right away.
-
Lee has held fast to her assertion that she would stay a presence in Barbie’s life, and Jim has not denied it to her. He trusts Lee and Barbie loves her so much she nearly bounces off the walls with excitement every time Lee comes to pick her up. Their ongoing playdates and sleepovers have meant that Jim and Lee have managed to find some equilibrium, and Jim would be lying if he said that it didn’t soothe some of the ache he still feels from their breakup. More specifically, from his actions.
She isn’t ready to let him make amends yet, so this step in his 12 step recovery remains unfinished, even though he has completed all the others. His sponsor told him that it takes time for some people, and some people might not ever come round to it, but Jim still holds out hope that she might one day be willing to sit down with him and hear him out.
Still, he feels as if they are making progress which is a relief, but that is until she comes to pick Barbie up on saturday to go to the soft play center and Oswald is still at Jim’s apartment. It is, to Jim’s knowledge, the first time Oswald and Lee have seen each other since the war. Jim would have liked to ask Oswald to hide away when the doorbell rang, but that would have been so offensive to his man that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So he lets Lee come up to collect Barbie and braces himself for the look on her face when she sees Oswald sitting in the living room, peacefully sitting with a cup of tea and the newspaper in hand, his house glasses on.
Lee pulls up short and then eyes Jim with a flash of contempt. To his surprise, Oswald stands immediately when he notices her and locks eyes with Lee. “Ms Thompkins,” he greets. “You’re looking well.”
Jim holds his breath. He expects Lee to snarl or roll her eyes, to spit an insult or to outright ignore him. But she doesn’t.
“As do you. He’s making you happy, isn’t he?” she asks Oswald.
“More than anything.”
“It’s a lot more than he ever did for me,” she says. “You look all the better for it, Oswald. Keep your nose clean and we won’t have a problem.”
“I hope we won’t,” Oswald tells her with clear sincerity and Jim can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
“Be good to him,” she tells Oswald sternly, her eyes hard and shrewd. “For all his faults, of which he has many, he is still one helluva man.”
“That he is, Lee,” Oswald agrees with a smile. “I’ll just go and get Barbie,” he says, and leaves the room to give Jim and Lee a little bit of space.
Lee makes a sound of surprise. “Well, he looks different.”
“He is different.”
“Aren’t we all?” she says with a small smile. “He’s good with Barbie?” she asks him and then shakes her head. “I know he is. She tells me every time I see her how much she likes her pirate dad.”
Jim’s entire being comes to a halt for a moment and he gapes at Lee. “She says what?”
Lee gives Jim a look of pure mischief. “You didn’t know she called him that?”
“No,” he confesses seriously. “I did not. She’s told me she wants him to be her dad…” he trails off, aware of how inappropriate it might be to openly discuss such things so frankly with Lee and feeling like right now, of all times, is not the place to test the waters too much.
Lee chuckles at him. “It seems so unfair that you two are so happy together,” she says lightly. “But I suppose I am happy for you, Jim. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t find it incredibly strange that you are with him, but I am glad you are happy.”
“Thank you,” he says with a small smile, dropping their conversation the moment Barbie launches herself into the room and at Lee, all hyper and enthusiastic about her aunt picking her up. “Would you like me to pick her up later?” he asks her before she leaves, but she shakes her head and says that she will bring Barbie back. And then they go, and it is just him and Oswald left in the apartment alone.
“That went rather well,” Oswald says to Jim when he comes back into the living room, and Jim wraps Oswald up in his arms and kisses him. “I thought you said she’s scared of me.”
“She was,” Jim tells Oswald truthfully. “It would seem she is no longer.”
“I honestly couldn’t see what she sees,” Oswald teases, “I am as harmless as a kitten.”
Jim giggles and pulls Oswald tighter. “Did you know that Barbie calls you her pirate dad?”
“I didn’t,” Oswald replies, lighting up. “Since when?”
“I don’t know… Lee just told me that’s what Barbie calls you.”
“She asked me last weekend when I would be her dad,” Oswald confesses. “She said her friend’s cousin has two dads.”
“Mmm,” Jim hums happily. He holds Oswald for a moment, kisses him sweetly and then takes a mental tour of the apartment.
The living room is a little chaotic with Barbie’s toys, and his bed is unmade. There are bowls in the sink that need washing, and Jim is still in his sweats, perfectly content on staying in them all day if he can. He hasn’t showered yet this morning, and Oswald is unstyled, wearing his house glasses (which he says makes him feel a little too casual) instead of his monocle and his hair is flat. Jim even has stubble. The setting is entirely unperfect, except for the rays of sunshine that bathe the living room in the beautiful winter sun.
“I’m just going to go grab a coffee,” Jim lies. “Sit down and I’ll be with you in a moment.”
He is out of the room before Oswald can reply, and then he’s rooting around in his closet for just a brief moment before he turns back and nearly runs down the hall. He practically skids into the lounge and to Oswald who hasn’t even managed to sit yet, and who turns in surprise at the clatter Jim makes as he approaches. “Oswald,” Jim says to get all of his attention, dropping to one knee the moment Oswald is fully turned around. Oswald’s hand flies to his mouth in surprise. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Oswald declares, his eyes keen and bright as he watches Jim open the velvet box. “Of course I will,” he says, holding out his hand for Jim to slide on the ring, but Jim just holds it up and tells him to look on the inside. “‘Love, Jamie’,” Oswald reads aloud. “You had it engraved?”
“I did,” Jim tells him, slipping the ring on and standing to gather Oswald into an embrace once again, his heart pounding in a way it never did with any of his other proposals before. He thinks that means something, that it means he really wants it this time rather than it being out of duty or being drugged, freshly woken from a coma. Or, naively hopeful, as was the case with Barbara. No, this wild excitement is the only sign he needs to confirm how true his intentions are this time, and how precious a moment he has just had, and most of all how important this is to him and how much he means to spend the rest of his life with Oswald.
His man cries with happiness in his arms, and Jim sits them both down on the sofa, Oswald in his lap, and they stay like that for a long time. Sweet, tender caresses and loving words pepper the private moment they share until Jim can’t help himself by saying, “I would marry you tomorrow if I could.”
Oswald slowly grins. “Not tomorrow,” he tells Jim seriously. “Next Saturday.”
“Really?” Jim asks with delight.
“Yes, Jamie,” Oswald whispers, kissing Jim shortly after. “Let’s get married next weekend…”
-
On the following Monday, Jim skips out on work at lunchtime and meets up with Oswald to visit a tailor and to purchase Jim’s ring. It’s a surreal experience, to be rushing so quickly into this, with the last two days spent discussing nothing other than where they are going to live (“We will buy a brighter, nicer home!” Oswald had declared uncompromisingly), how quickly they can move in, and all the fine details of the small wedding they will have with their immediate friends.
“You smell divine,” Oswald says as they walk down Devlin Street in Uptown, to the bespoke jeweler that Oswald plans on purchasing Jim’s ring from.
“Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m wearing your cologne?” Jim replies, having taken to using the one Oswald leaves at Jim’s in an effort to always be near the intoxicating scent of his man.
“Yes,” Oswald agrees. “That would be it.”
He looks at Oswald, who he’s never seen so jubilant before, wearing those orange glasses and nothing else of color, just this dark and menacing figure cutting through the flowery Uptown streets. And Jim just wants to keep looking, to keep studying Oswald’s beauty. “Holy fuck,” he finds himself saying, “how did I get so lucky?”
Without warning, Oswald stops him, pulls him into an empty doorway. “It’s not in my fashion to be so hesitant about things that I am set on, but I need you to remember that I’m a bad man, Jim. That this city and everyone you know and love is going to lose their sensibilities when we announce that we’re married.”
“I’m a bad guy too,” Jim tells him vehemently. “I mean it, Oz… I’ve killed for you and I’d do it again.”
“A bad guy?” Oswald near cackles. “Bad? Honestly… Jim, you’re morally ambiguous at best.”
“I mean it, Oswald,” Jim presses, making Oswald look at him. “I’m a bad-”
Oswald cuts him off with a kiss. “Come on, bad boy… let’s go choose your ring,” he says.