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It’s like. It’s like victor always said. “I am nothing without you my sweet Nora”
Was he ever going to realise I am nothing without him too?
—— a few months earlier ——
It was long. Way too Long and arduous. victor laments, but it was finally over.
The love of his life was sitting before him in that stolen hospital bed, IV in her arm.
And the colour to her pale fragile skin slowly returned.
the gauntness of her cheeks was replaced with that smile…
that smile that lit up the room, the smile that made it all worth it.
Nora wasn’t exactly strong yet, she may never be exactly as strong as she once was but Victor had had his fair share of physical therapy. And thinks he can at least lessen the effects of the cancer medication and defrosting.
He had been studying everything he could get his hands on, everything he could find and need and waited every. single. day. for the last 10 years for this moment.
Nora. Oh Nora, his sweet Nora was alive. Alive and getting better, alive and well. Alive and here.
It was a miracle, if Victor even believed in them.
Victor had been waiting for this for a decade, the nights wailing tears that could not be shed, the days he spent half dead and running away from the authorities and the dreadful “Bat” and now after all of the hell they both lived through and together.
she was here.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it, Nora who was dying in his arms, Nora who had been through so much with him, Nora who had supported his dreams in cryogenics, Nora who took him ice skating on those cold December nights, who he had lost everything saving.
had been saved.
It’s like the coldness in his heart warmed over and he was finally seeing everything clearly.
Victor almost had forgotten The butterflies which he had been freezing for Nora, in the almost empty glass case he had put there over those lonely years. And Those lonely nights.
Back when he gandered to Robinson park and looked for the bright colourful flowers and the beautiful butterflies. Those nights where he caught and froze those beautiful things for Nora, so that when she woke she was surrounded by the things she loved.
And So he had slowly been unfreezing the beautiful flowers and butterflies thus leaving the small hideout filled with their beautiful colours. Vibrant blues of Ulysses butterflies, the deep amber oranges of monarchs, the whites of daisy’s and the blues of violets.
Those butterflies flutter and twirl in the air and fly like leaves on the wind in the room and rest on the flowers victor had been unfreezing for Nora.
-
Nora had been slowly regaining her ability to walk, the physical therapy regime he had her on was working way better than victor could have ever imagined, Nora had still a long way to go but she was laughing.
And victor almost started wailing on the spot. Not that the tears could ever come out, but she was laughing and smiling and the butterflies had made their small hovel all the more bearable.
But. Like all things Victor had started to feel the strain of the last decade on him, he was able to ignore it once upon a time when his only goal was to keep Nora safe, to keep her alive, to heal her. But with Nora here he couldn't help but be wounded, his hands had started to tremor, that was new. Was that new? Had he just not had the time to take notice of any minor maladies?
But victor pushed on, he had too for Nora. The weeks grew long and Nora was able to walk again, it had been a momentous occasion and Nora couldn’t help but scream in delight.
But she noted that there were quite a few patches of dead nerves on her, presumably from the freezer burn of when she was forcibly removed from her cryogenic slumber in gothcorp.
her forearms and legs had lost most sensation to the skin but other than that she was feeling better. And victor couldn’t be more happy.
-
Nora did ask about the suit sometimes, but For victor it was always a touchy subject.
He never thought of himself or even classified himself as disabled but.. the suit was the only thing between him and boiling alive. And sometimes Nora’s questions brought back horrible memories of Arkham.
Victor had once called its inadequate freezer room “hell on earth”. In which they insisted Victor stay in, without the need of his suit.
The heat of that dreadful place gave Victor Heatstroke 230 days a year. But for any normal person it would have taken 2? maybe 3? minutes until hypothermia Had kicked in. In that hell hole victor’s heat induced hallucinations of Nora would plague him, in that hell hole he had to be removed from the freezer to “socialise” whatever Jerry “Jeremiah” Arkham thought would “help” that day.
Victor’s body had changed, and no single person could have ever imagined the torture and suffering that they put him through. If he was any other man he would have let the blistering boiling heat of the earth take him. But Nora. Oh sweet Nora was counting on him.
And so night and day, the burns and scars and necrosis that nipped at his fingers and toes he shrugged it off. If they ever knew. How weak, they could make him.-
He snapped back into awareness and answered Nora’s questions with the love and care that none of those heathens at Arkham ever afforded him.
Nora asked why he never seemed to eat or drink, and it was hard to explain how frozen stomach acid can’t exactly digest things. It was hard to explain how water evaporated in his mouth and left liquid oxygen in its wake. It was hard to explain how it was a blessing in disguise he had gorged himself with food the day he became like he was. it just was hard. He was human. Yet, he was so monstrous and wrong. More like a machine than a man.
It was even harder to explain why he couldn’t touch her with his bare hands.
But those weeks got longer, and victor just started to slow down. He didn’t exactly notice it at first but day by day He was the one having a harder time getting up, day by day he was the one who was getting weaker, day by day he was the one who was in pain.
And Where. Where did the agony come from?
Nora had noticed it, Victor had tried to hide it but she started noticing she saw through his facade.
And oh Nora she was almost as well as she was when they first met. Walking and jumping, singing and smiling, Victor was reminded rather fondly of When she used to take them both ice skating. When they both walked and laughed about the most benign things.
Victor’s health had got to the point Nora had to help Victor up, every time he sat down.
Victor could barely stand straight without a wince, he was getting worse. And worse.
Was the suit not working? No , No! it was in top shape, victor couldn’t figure it out why was his body failing him?
Why was the myalgia getting so much worse, why the blood in his veins had started to flow like red hot agony, he tries to take a deep breath but he can only feel the condensation of liquid oxygen moist in his throat. Was he truly always this sick?
——❄——
She breathes, it’s um. A bit &%*$’d if she was being honest. The worst day of her life so far, and it was today! watching her husband just fall to the ground and rasp. Just like she used to do.
But, but.. he’s on the run from the law. It’s also not like they like victor or could even well-
treat whatever the hell is going on!
“Victor!” She rushes over to his side “YOU ASSHOLE DON'T YOU GO DYING ON ME!”
Victor looks over to Nora and chuckles a little before he starts wincing hard. “Oh my Nora, my darling Nora. I don’t know how much time I have left <my sweet Nora> I didn’t expect myself to even last this long.”
Nora cradles Victor's dome head in her lap. “You actually can’t be serious, I don’t..”
“Nora it is more than enough for me to see you well, on your feet and laughing. My dear”
“You actually.. Victor, I’m not going to let you die on me. We said til death do us part. And you defied death for me! I’m sure as hell going to do it now for you asshole!”
Victor looks at Nora with a pleading expression, one of fear and maybe sadness. “You're right. I have an idea it’s not a great one but.. an idea. We’d have to be fast- if you guide me I can set it up but you will have to carry me. Can you do that?” Nora shakes the tears out of her eyes and nods.
With Nora as his anchor Victor shuffles up from the floor over to the giant glass case’s instruments. And presses some buttons along with smacking and shaking the machine a fair bit. the modules bleep and light up in pretty blues and whites and he sighs hard.
“This. I fear it will only be so temporary, I hope. But I will be going in there and I may not come back out.”
“What.. what do you mean victor?” Nora says tense with tears and fear.
“I’m doing what I did to you. I'm freezing myself whole, but unlike you it will take much.. much more energy and power than before, freezing myself is something I never really thought of but. It’s so crazy it might work, I have a few things to tell you before I do this. I may never wake up, I won’t die. But I may be in a coma forever. And Unlike before, This time if the machine goes offline I do not know what will happen. I trust you with my life, but be careful I will be pushing the accel-a-freeze to its limits, the cryogenic case to its limits. I don’t know what will happen but I’m boiling and I think this is the only way to save myself” Nora listens intently and through tears she agrees, it’s like déjà vu.
They both, together. help victor out of the damned suit. For the first time in years victor is free of the damned thing and for the first time Nora can truly see the damage the years have done.
The scars, the blackened pieces of skin and the scars. They didn’t heal, they looked as fresh as the wound that made them, red and angry. Stitched up with thread and medical staples, and Nora sees truly how much her husband has been through to get her here, alive.
She pulls him out of the suit; he's lighter way lighter than she ever could have thought, and he burns like frostbite.
She lugged him over the side of the machine and without a second thought kissed her husband. She thought her lips would freeze like the rest of her body but he was so warm, so. so warm.
“Victor it’s going to be okay, trust me I’m going to fix this. I won’t stop until I can.” Nora says through gritted teeth the tears rushing down her face.
Victor doesn’t say anything but looks at her briefly and smiles.
Nora takes that as cue to close the large lunking machine, she clasps it closed and presses the start button.
The machine whirred into life it sounded like a distant memory, the machine filled first with a cloud of something Nora couldn’t identify and next it turned to a liquid that slowly coated her husband. It was strange watching the dark frostbite blue start to lighten and return with colour, her husband was still wearing that same undershirt he always wore under his lab coat, the one Nora got for him that Christmas. he looked so still. So sleepy like he had taken a nap.
And the machine continues to whirr, whirr and whirr like a white water rapids. So loud it’s overwhelming so loud she can barely think.
But she stares at her husband. The machine is pounding in her ears, louder and louder and louder like it’s going to pop a gasket. Louder and louder like cracking ice in an ice rink, louder and louder til she can’t take it anymore.
Then.
It stops, the machine finishes its program and stabilises, the liquid drains or evaporates or something she isn’t quite sure about and her husband is left there.
Not like he was before, but like he was all those years ago.
Back when this all started. when he kissed her to sleep.
But he’s there.
—- NOW —-
Nora well, Nora may be an idiot with cryogenics but. She was DOING IT yeah.. okay she wasn’t going to lie to herself. It was very bad science that she does, hell half of victor's notes were in GERMAN thank goodness she knew some, but the methods to the madness she did not have.
some of the notes were dated from before she went under, and they were next to ones victor wrote the day before he collapsed, this was a mess.
But she was slowly figuring it out, Nora had the thought to go out and well.. buy some of the stuff she needed but like the idiot she was that would probably alert the police hell even the “bat” whoever that was.
Victor though, like the weeks before had been sleeping. That’s the way she coped. He just was sleeping like he used to after those long days at Gothcorp and they’d lie in bed together.
Yeah, that’s what was happening.
She kept up with the whole physical therapy thing, and never neglected her meds. “Lest it all be for nought” she grimly speaks aloud. But Victor at least stocked the small hovel with some of the ingredients she needed, at least she thinks.
-
Okay it had been a few weeks of trials and so many failures. The flies had started to pile and multiply on the rotten discarded takeout.
This.. accel-a-freeze stuff, complicated as hell. Her husband was insane for even making the stuff, the materials and labour for even an ounce of the shimmering bluish liquid.
But Nora was slowly making her way through the notes, she had to get a German dictionary at one point and even then the words didn’t make sense. A cipher perhaps? When did Victor use ciphers!!!
Nora had still not gotten anywhere, the food kept piling up. It's not like she had the effort left in her to care about such things.
She continues with her physical therapy and her meds can’t ever stop the meds. But well. They were getting low.
“ Victor, how did you even do this?” she leans back dramatically in her crappy office chair.
“Why the hell did you encode? I don’t even know- half of these things, at least the accel-a-freeze I have the recipe for right?” She looks over to her still husband sleeping with that tired smile on his face.
She facepalms and drags her hands into her hair which she’s braided into a bun she had been neglecting over the last couple weeks, “god it’s been weeks” she hadn’t gotten anywhere and the butterflies had all died.
It was starting.. to get depressed in there, maybe she should go out for just a little while, pick up some meds and maybe have a proper drink or meal or something. Nothing alcoholic, but god she needed something.
—- two hours later —-
Well the place she wanted to go to was closed down. That sucked.
half of Gotham was weird she noticed and new and old and the sidewalk was cracked and missing in some places. It was honestly sending her through a loop.
Every few blocks she’d spot a memorial plaque, or the manhole covers hell even had memorials on them. Something about a “cataclysm” or as they called it. Some were dedicated to the emergency services who risked their lives saving those they could.
Some were dedicated to the victims of the “clench” , some were just mass graves that were hidden and paved over, the names on them long and incomplete.
It was weird walking around in Gotham again, so much had changed it was like a new world, she had to stop and ask for directions a couple times. Thanks to Victor at least she didn’t have to go through trying to forge a prescription, small wins.
Eventually after a few hours of walking and Wayne sponsored free bus rides Nora had made it to the chemist. Thankfully they didn’t ask any questions and just gave her the medicine.
Still she hadn’t eaten and the whole trek was a lot for her. She decided to just take a break in a cafe or something. A nice cold drink is what she needed, was Gotham in the summer always this miserable?