No one can quite pinpoint when the heir to the wayne family went wrong. Some people speculate that he was wrong from the start, when his family came over to America, already ensconed in wealth that was ill-gained back in Palermo. Others speculate that something went wrong when his family was gunned down in front of him and Michael picked up the gun and shot the man himself. Still more speculate that if he would've been able to leave his family, leave Gotham entirely, he would've had a chance to be a normal man.

Instead, in 1939, Michael wayne is sentenced to a ten year sentence in Sing Sing for a prostitution racket, dealing heroin, and various other crimes. Crimes that should've unseated him from the Costra Nostra, that should've made him purely into a villain.

Instead, it merely alters how he rules, doing it from behind prison bars instead of from his home in the wayne Manor.

And in 1942, he isn't expecting the federal goverment to send in an agent to speak to him about an urgent matter, yet he graciously accepts the invitation, intent on using the proximity to force their hand, to bribe them.

He is not expecting a familiar face to look at him from the other side of the bars.

One he hasn't seen in years.

It's been twelve years since he's seen him. It had been February, in 1930 that he'd last seen him, at his birthday party. It had been a beautiful affair, thrown by his parents. It was extravagant, beautiful, and after the toast, after he'd talk to Joe, he'd slipped away. He was supposed to have come back on Joe's actual birthday. It was suposed to have been when they had some more time together, planned to meet at Joe's favorite diner that his parents were wholly unaware of.

Michael never showed up. Never wrote. Never called.

And Joe is standing before him, twelve years older, an inch shorter than him, in good clothes and looking for all the world that he's only grown more handsome in the years since and Michael feels himself cynically think only for a moment, if the government had an inkling of what they were.

And then the cynicism is pushed away, and he gives Joe the softest smile he feels safe to give in prison. "You finally got to touch the heavens, did you? Why'd you fall right back into my lap?"

For almost four impossible years, Michael had Joseph. All it took was one party, one cascade of unexpected rain, and Michael ducking in a rotunda built in Gotham Central Park. Joseph had the same idea, water droplets on his face, a little surprised to see someone else had bumped into him.

He wouldn't call it love at first sight; not when they could barely make conversation, when Michael had decided to press against the side when he heard Alfred calling for him, and Joseph had seemed quiet, with how he looked at him. The instant the rain passed though, when they both could hear the sound of birds, things changed. At first it was meeting there in the park, where they were just two kids, and then he'd been honest about who he was and Joe had too, and then it became a matter of simple meetings and then formal parties.

Some days he didn't see Joe because he was helping out with bootlegging, with figuring out routes to take, with unfamiliar crews. Times when he wasn't supposed to be there, with the men with guns and brains. All of that, he never told Joe. What he did do was listen to Joe talk about flying, about what it would be like to go up there. He'd share books with Joe in the garden and Alfred would seem relieved that someone else was in the Manor that wasn't Carmine.

They'd exchange cigarettes with each other sometimes or they'd shove each other or they'd lay next to each other with a chessboard, playing lazily between talking. Sometimes he'd sneak a drink in and they'd drink and talk until the words got slurry.

Then the stocks crashed. Then he could see people, life shifting around, could tell that the minimal involvement he had with the other side of him was shifting. More eyes on him, more expectations, more of a drive in him. Ideas started to shift, and one night at dinner, Carmine had said, You need to choose, Michael. You can't be half in and half out.

"Do you remember me?" The man says, his hat in his hand. Unlike the other mourners, he has on simpler clothes, and he addresses Michael in Sicilian.

He does. He remembers sitting on the steps and watching his father operate on the man, remmebers the sniping words between him and his father. It's the only time he ever heard his father raise his voice to anyone.

The man reaches out to tousle his hair when Michael mutely nods. "You did a brave thing. You took that gun and you killed that man. I know the police say that they think it was random. Do you believe that, Michael?"

He shakes his head. The man smiles.

"I didn't think so, either."

Later, Michael learns that his name is Carmine Falcone, and that he was the godparent that his mother selected to take care of him in her absence.

They don't talk much on the first day. Negotiations take time. They slowly circle each other, gauging the changes, the weight of a war, of years between them, obligations and logistics.

(So what, if he's being selfish with Joe's company? So what that even though Joe lets him know that he was hurt and angry that it feels good? So what, that when he leaves, Michael watches him on the grounds? He's careful. He never allows their fingers to touch, never bumps shoulders with him, never does more than a single, quick handshake that has him putting his hand into his pockets immediately, as if Joe's hand is foreign to him, as if they hadn't shoved at each other or grabbed for one another once upon a time.)

They send Joe every other day after that, to talk to him. To have coffee, cigarettes, to talk about nothing and everything at first. He can see that slowly, they're realizing what this prison is for him—transferring him from Sing Sing to Gotham State Penitentiary over a year ago had been more than a stroke of luck. Here, Michael knows who comes in, who goes out; he knows who's on shift and who isn't; he knows who can bring him fresh lobster that night and who can locate chocolate rations for him.

The OSS wouldn't have sent Joseph otherwise, and yet, one day he can see the OSS officer accost Joseph. Can hear him say, What are you two doing in there? We need those ports sooner rather than later. If you can't get this done in the next three weeks, we're sending someone else! We can't afford to waste precious time like this! with spittle flying.

It's not the first time he's seen the man glaring, has seen his spittle flying. More than once he's heard him utter the word mutie beneath his breath about and around Joe, knowing full well that half the time Joe can hear him. He's even heard it lob it to him, then they think they can't be heard. It's a word he's only heard whispered before, about Will when he'd come in or about Conan when he'd survived something he shouldn't have.

It wasn't what he'd thought when he was sixteen and had found the strange set of straps bolted together near Joe's bed one afternoon or when he'd found Joe, curled up in bed with the wings tucked around him. All he'd done was linger, confused, before quietly exiting, walking down the road to the payphone and called. By the time he'd come in, the wings weren't to be seen and he'd never thought differently of Joe afterwards, not like these men.

And he knows how to fix men like this.

Michael makes it a point when Joseph comes back to look over his shoulder at the man. The meeting place they've cleared out, the prison gymnasium, has been slowly outfitted with plans, with ideas, and there aren't prison guards inside. They're not cleared for this. Very few in the prison are, and when Joseph sits down at the table, Michael just points over his shoulder. "I don't want to see his face on these grounds again. I only want to see Joseph. Tell Stryker that himself—if he really wants those ports, he'll understand."

That's all it takes for Croc to saunter up, put a hand on the man's shoulder. His brother comes up silently, putting a hand on the other.

They escort him out. Michael pushes over a fresh cup of coffee to Joe, along with cigarettes.

"You're tired." It's not accusatory—it's a fact. Michael doesn't like that it is, rubbing at his eyes, going over some of the last few things. They've been working faster, arranging men, screening them, going back and forth.

Reflexively, in the darkness of the gym, in the tired hours of the night he says, "I'm not." Even though he's tired, even though he still wants to do a little more push and pull.

It's easier to concentrate on that than the slow dance they've been having around each other. Michael moving his hand away when Joe tries to grasp for something; Joe missing his shoulder by a millisecond when Michael moves around the room, hand clutching on nothing; Michael seeing him wanting to take something from him and adjusting his grip before any sort of skin can touch.

It's all he can do for himself to keep a measured distance. He can't get any closer, not when his dreams are occupied with Joe, not when he catches himself wanting to stare at him longer, not when he's been fighting every inch to keep his head above the water.

He is tired though, tired enough that when his eyes droop, he can't stop Joe from reaching over, gripping his chin to tip his head up. His fingers are finer than what he remembers, his grip sure, and Michael doesn't push him when he should. He's just made to look up at Joseph, forced to not pull away and he just stops thinking altogether when Joe says, "Michael."

His throat dries up. The universe narrows to Joe's hand on his face, and even though he'd never let anyone else have power over him, well.

Joe got there first.

The first cut is always the deepest, after all.

"How did you get into all of this?"

Michael doesn't have to look at him to know what Joe means. The fresh meals, the extra money, the lack of care over rationing, the grip he has on the prison. He leans back as Joe wipes at his mouth, apparently not too bother to not eat the expensive, hard to get food. "My Uncle Carmine," he says, knowing that no one could really tell at this point, that anything he says won't be recorded. With Stryker turning tail and the plans coming together faster now, Michael knows he has what he wants. It won't be that hard to get, and yet he spears his steak with his fork. "He was named my guardian after my parents were killed. He did more than what, I think, they thought he would."

Joe clearly remembers him, given the look on his face as he eats. "He seemed to like me well enough."

Michael lets out a laugh. "He thinks you're a good influence on me."

Whether Joe believes that or not, he can't tell. He doesn't know if he cares, able to see the part of Joe's back where he can see the wings against the lining of his uniform, able to see Joe's relaxed more, able to tell himself that he's feeling more attuned, better.

This is going to end. But not now. Right now he can stay here, talking about battle plans and connections. No one can catch him looking too long, no one can accuse him of anything that isn't serving his country.

It's Candy who gives him the news. He doesn't know what to think at first, when she tells him that Joe has been declared missing in action. Just stares at her from the other side of the glass, aware that even though he controls the prison, he can't control anything outside. He couldn't go out there into the war when Joe left, he couldn't walk with him down to the barracks, couldn't prevent someone from lifting a gun to him and —

Don't think about it, don't think about what it would be like to see someone you love shot in front of you, to have the last thing you remember about them being the taste of their blood in your mouth. Don't, don't, don't.

All he can do is take what she says, and to walk away. To dream about Joseph dying from a gunshot wound in the snow, think of him gasping for one more breath, think about his rosary in his hands. To add him to the carosel of people he's had nightmares about over and over again.

It doesn't make his early release or the Medal of Honor feel good to him. Not when he can't see Joe smiling at him from over a plate of food, not when he thinks about a moment stolen of arms on his waist, lips on his, not when he turns corners and hopes that Joe is there, standing in his coat, his wings out, waiting for him.

There is just a future hoping that some how, some way, for all the deeds he's done, that Joe will be the one that comes back to him, for a second time.

Miracles can sometimes happen twice. Sometimes, the person you love comes back to you again and again. Michael knows that as he runs his fingers through Joseph's hair, in the silence of the Manor. There is no fanfare, no party for a man returned from war with such a haunted look as his. There is just the warmth that he can offer to him, the safety and as long as Joseph is home—he doesn't care about anything else.

Sometimes, the Saints do just fine.

don't hide 'em from me. He wakes up next to Joe, to a wing wrapped around him. It's dark outside, and Michael knows that if something goes wrong, if anything goes wrong, he won't be able to walk away from Joe again.

He doesn't want to.

why was operation husky so successful? — we had a man inside.