faceless fall from this life and ah if you can't see the stars
Jean-Paul is uncomfortable with nudity, both his own and others, and this hospital gown is a breath away from being vapor as far as he's concerned. It's a matter of vulnerability above anything else; as obvious as it is, it's too...naked. He prefers to have layers of clothing, thick enough to protect him, and he doesn't think of it as armor. Armor is something else entirely. He knows armor when he's buried in it. That's how he remembers his time as a bat, the way the helmet would cover his head and his short-cropped hair and the claws would skitter on his metal skin and how he'd scream right down his arms and out of other people's mouths because every time he put it on he'd feel like he was locking a coffin. His. Specifically. It's important to be specific.
He tries to be precise these days. Wanda told him that he tries harder than almost anyone would. That she was proud of him. He's hanging on to that like a rope, like maybe it can stop him falling. He's taking his pills mostly for her sake, he thinks. The ones that help him keep food down, the ones that stop him from being dizzy, the ones that steady his heartbeat, and more. His doctor gave him a tiny plastic case to keep track of them. He's a friendly man, his doctor, though he looks at Jean-Paul a little like he's a fascinating insect. It's not like it's something he isn't used to. He promised him that he'd make him better, and thought Jean-Paul doubts it he thanked him politely. His doctor might heal him, but he doesn't think that will make him better.
He's not crazy. It's not that.
He's complicated. It's hard to share space with someone who hates you, especially when it's such a small space, and you're always fighting for control. It's why he needs to be so careful to keep track of the minutes and the hours; he needs to be sure no one else is using them, that no one but him is running the place. He won't - he can't - let himself be lost again. He couldn't bear it. This peace, this home that he has, is so fragile. He can see that. It's not just Wanda and him, either, he thinks that he can tell. He'll never say anything, but he can tell.
His new scars ache, but he understands it's psychosomatic, which means he's making up it. He knows why he'd do a thing like that. It's fair, or he thinks it's fair. If anything it's not enough.
He remembers what the bullets felt like, how different they were from every other time. They tore through his armor like it was barely there and stole the air from him, knocked him down and sent him tumbling, and as he fell all he thought was oh. Like this?
Like this.
But then it wasn't, and all the weight of his personal demon was gone and he was left bleeding in streets he'd never seen before with his mind, at least, restored. Reordered. And it wasn't like that, not at all, and every day since he's been startled to wake up. Even disappointed. He thinks it's disappointed.
He knows why it happened, sickness or no sickness; that was an excuse. It happened because he let himself get frustrated with things he couldn't alter. How could he have ever thought he could change the way they all looked at him? To them, he was a broken thing on the edges, fumbling at best and dangerous at worst. All he needs as proof is how quick they were to try to shut him down, to assume he was incapable. Maybe he was, but they wouldn't have done it to anyone else- and why would they? He is fumbling at best and dangerous at worst. All the trouble he's ever had came from not accepting realities. It doesn't matter that he wanted it to be different. He never could prove to them he could be trusted. It was too late the first time he met Bruce.
He is sitting here on a chilly metal bench in green and it's never going to be anything else. He's trying not to give up, but he doesn't know how much harder he can try, and what happens when he's tried as hard as he can? What if that's not enough, what if it's still too late? What will he do when he knows one way or another if he can be salvaged, somehow, if he can or can't put everything right that he made wrong? What if nothing can save him?
He's afraid to know. Once he knows he'll have to make a decision and he is afraid of choices. You never really get to know what would have happened if you'd done something else. He has regrets that feel heavy enough for the rest of his life already. First on the list is Barbara, because he let her down the farther; she'd believed in him when it was stupid to do so, and it had proved to be as stupid as it looked. Barbara doesn't make many mistakes. He might be one of her biggest disappointments since Dick. After that there's Lilhy.
He can't deal with Lilhy first, but he can't leave her until the last, though he usually doesn't make it past her anyway. He thinks about her more every day. Nisha reminds him of her, though she's not nearly as sharp or hard as Lilhy became, like a shard of the cathedral he tore down. He'd failed Barbara, but Barbara never needed him. Lilhy did. And what did he do?
The way he wants to remember her is in a thick sweater with bushy hair she could barely keep under control, smelling like a dozen perfumes she rubbed on her neck at the department store. Later, she was wrapped in shining dresses that clung like plastic wrap and made her seem impossible to touch, with perfectly curled hair, hard lipstick on an even harder mouth. He should have kissed her when there was still room to kiss her in, when he could have had time to make it softer, but now the only memories of that he'll have taste like silver pennies and faint alkaline bitterness. Talia was softer, and tasted like wine gums, or she did for him, and the girl he saved once when Gotham was still no one's city barely brushed her mouth over his. Remy just rasped. He didn't initiate any of them. He wanted to, sometimes, but he didn't.
But he could hit Lilhy. That's what he comes back to. When he wakes up surprised and disappointed he remembers that. God, he wishes he didn't; he wishes it had been a bad dream or something that someone else did so he could hit them until they stopped getting up, but it was him. He even knows why. He doesn't want to think about it-
So he disappointed Bruce even more, somehow, and confirmed everything Dick already believed about him, and scared Leslie, and misled people, and let Scratch and Biis do things he never should have allowed, and he'd destroyed everything he'd wanted so badly and had almost had, or could have had, if he'd kept working.
Now he has- what?
Wanda, Donna, Remy, a house in a place that doesn't make sense, a heart that needs help not to fail. This is a third chance, or a fourth, and he doesn't deserve it. How can he? He's ruined every other chance he had.
And yet he's still here. And he's trying. And someone is proud of him. He knows they see him mostly as something young or innocent or a combination of the two, and it's easier to let that be true. He doesn't want to show them that he's worse than that. This way reminds him of just before everything went wrong, when he wasn't a threat to anyone, and- he doesn't mind. Sometimes it's frustrating, but the truth is that when the bar is set any higher than this he always falls short and shows how inexperienced and foreign to this messy 'life' thing he is. But like this, well-
Maybe this time. (Though insanity is, supposedly, repeating yourself.) He can learn from his mistakes, he can be better, he can go back one day and tell them all that he's sorry. He has to hope, because it's all he has kept, that hope.
The hardest thing is that it really is all Jean-Paul's fault, this time, not his father's or Azrael's or Batman's. The reasons he broke this round were all his reasons, and there's no one else to blame, nowhere else to put some of the guilt, but maybe it's a sign that he's taking himself back, if he had any of himself in the first place. There are dirty fingerprints all over his heart, but at least a few of them are his. He is a flawed person; he's awkward and nervous and so fucking scared, every day, but he can live with it. If he couldn't he wouldn't be here. So today, that's enough.
He curls his toes and exhales, gripping the edge of the table he's sitting on, and he waits patiently for his doctor to come back with his latest test results.