Compromise (Batman: Arkham City fic)
Ooh, so exciting, this is my first foray into writing Batman fiction. I hope that this isn't too far out there in terms of WTF-ery, and I hope you enjoy!
Title: Compromise
Summary: There are a lot of things Commissioner Gordon dislikes, but most of the time, he learns to compromise, to accept. Most of the time.
Rating: PG
Characters: Batman, Joker, Jim Gordon
Warning: Massive spoilers for the end of Arkham City.
Commissioner Gordon was used to compromise.
He was used to accepting things that he did not like. He was accustomed to allowing himself to get used to those things. He tolerated them, became acclimatised to them, and it no longer rankled all that much that he should have to do these things.
It was a part of the job as integral as any arrest record, any blood, sweat and tears shed over the constant battle to keep Gotham afloat. You got used to things that you didn’t like.
Some of the time, you put up with them because you couldn’t fix them. Jim Gordon understood the bureaucracy game very well, and he was familiar with the rules. He played by them; he didn’t like the game, but he understood the rules. No play, no advance. What you cannot fix, you must stand.
Most of the time, however, he put up with those grievances, those irritations, those things that do not sit easy with an active mind when all else sleeps. He put up with them because they are vital. He put up with them because he was keenly, sharply, aware that he needed them. That without them, he would be nothing. That without him, they may have been slightly more than that.
Commissioner Gordon did not like Batman.
He had not liked the steely determination to do a job that he should have done, in ways that he could not do.
He had not, at first, liked the presumption that Gotham needed a maniac dressed as a bat - and now you shudder, because you know who first said those words, and you know just how far off the mark they may not have fallen. These hissing words in his mind, they never stop.
He had disliked the ever-present movement in the shadows which made him flinch in dread expectation whenever he so much as walked past a broken street lamp. Anywhere the light was not, he was there. Always waiting, watching - checking up on you - keeping the people of his city safe. Safe like he could not.
He had disliked the man’s necessity.
He had disliked the successes that made his own heart pound and his head swim with relief and crushing, grating gratitude.
He had not liked the look in his subordinates’ eyes when he looked around the station at zero hour of the latest disaster and impending loss of life, and seen the yearning for the option that no one was talking about.
He had not liked the fact that if he were to look into a mirror at those times, he would see that same cracked desire reflected in his own eyes.
He had not liked any of these things, but he had grown used to them.
He had even, after a time, grown to respect the madman in the cape. He had grown unused to secretly thinking of him in those terms. The darkest recesses of his mind may not have complied so utterly, but those shadowy corners remained unplumbed, a wilful ignorance Jim was all too happy to encourage.
He had grown to...’like’ was incorrect. Nobody could ‘like’ the Batman. He glided through the lives of others, gripped and twisted until, shrieking with dire protest, things began to change, and then he left as silently as he had arrived, without ever being noticed in the midst of what he had left behind.
Jim Gordon and the Batman could never have breached the borders of their two darkly mirrored worlds enough for any kind of recognisable feeling to be achieved. Even the occasional colliding of those worlds on a cold and windy rooftop sometimes threatened to smash and shatter both beyond repair.
Compromise, acceptance, had so far kept the world whole.
But then he saw him cradling the limp, languid, repulsively elegant form of that thing.
He saw the way he lifted it carefully, loosely clasping the long, draping limbs of the creature - now hanging still and ghastly, like the scattered limbs of a stained and twisted, torn-up doll - holding them securely, like a precious thing.
Something that must be kept, something that must not be allowed to touch the filth and common degradation of Arkham. Something that was different, set apart, set higher. Something valued, something special.
He saw that he did not embrace the thing like something loved, did not grasp it tightly to his chest, he saw the way the fists were curled loosely around the spindly, creeping thing; wanting to hold but not to touch. He saw the very slight distance that was attempted between his chest and the creature’s matted, ruined head. The heart and head, and the attempt to separate. To remain, perhaps, untainted.
But he saw the rest. He saw the bowed head, as though mourning this thing. He saw that however much the fingers did not want to caress, to touch, they held their place, they did not tremble. They did not want to release, to let the thing fall to the cold and icy ground. They may not have clenched, though neither did they waver. They did not hold it like a loved thing, and they did not push it away like a reviled one.
Who, he wondered, was the separation for? Which one needed protection from contamination? Which way would the contagion spread if those fingers clasped just a little bit tighter? And did it matter? Would it all have been too late, either way? The darkness of Jim’s mind came out into the light, and it said yes.
He saw him lay the creature down on the hood of a police car, those green, dirt-slicked strands playing in the wind, plastered against the oath, to protect and serve.
He saw the gentleness in those arms as they set their burden down - laying it to rest, placing it softly, silently against the cool metal, like a sacrificial virgin, even the hand cradling the head so softly, withdrawing so slowly, so reluctantly, that there was no crude, contemptuous sound of head hitting metal; and Jim still doesn’t know whether he actually saw the lightest feathering of fingers over scalp as they drew back from the thing, whether it was the caress he reviled, or simply the care that he feared - and he turned from it, his stomach churning, throat burning, everything in his mind protesting at this violent contrast, this black and white.
Black and purple.
Black and green.
Mixing, mingling in ways they should not, should never.
Compromising.
Accepting.
Title: Compromise
Summary: There are a lot of things Commissioner Gordon dislikes, but most of the time, he learns to compromise, to accept. Most of the time.
Rating: PG
Characters: Batman, Joker, Jim Gordon
Warning: Massive spoilers for the end of Arkham City.
Commissioner Gordon was used to compromise.
He was used to accepting things that he did not like. He was accustomed to allowing himself to get used to those things. He tolerated them, became acclimatised to them, and it no longer rankled all that much that he should have to do these things.
It was a part of the job as integral as any arrest record, any blood, sweat and tears shed over the constant battle to keep Gotham afloat. You got used to things that you didn’t like.
Some of the time, you put up with them because you couldn’t fix them. Jim Gordon understood the bureaucracy game very well, and he was familiar with the rules. He played by them; he didn’t like the game, but he understood the rules. No play, no advance. What you cannot fix, you must stand.
Most of the time, however, he put up with those grievances, those irritations, those things that do not sit easy with an active mind when all else sleeps. He put up with them because they are vital. He put up with them because he was keenly, sharply, aware that he needed them. That without them, he would be nothing. That without him, they may have been slightly more than that.
Commissioner Gordon did not like Batman.
He had not liked the steely determination to do a job that he should have done, in ways that he could not do.
He had not, at first, liked the presumption that Gotham needed a maniac dressed as a bat - and now you shudder, because you know who first said those words, and you know just how far off the mark they may not have fallen. These hissing words in his mind, they never stop.
He had disliked the ever-present movement in the shadows which made him flinch in dread expectation whenever he so much as walked past a broken street lamp. Anywhere the light was not, he was there. Always waiting, watching - checking up on you - keeping the people of his city safe. Safe like he could not.
He had disliked the man’s necessity.
He had disliked the successes that made his own heart pound and his head swim with relief and crushing, grating gratitude.
He had not liked the look in his subordinates’ eyes when he looked around the station at zero hour of the latest disaster and impending loss of life, and seen the yearning for the option that no one was talking about.
He had not liked the fact that if he were to look into a mirror at those times, he would see that same cracked desire reflected in his own eyes.
He had not liked any of these things, but he had grown used to them.
He had even, after a time, grown to respect the madman in the cape. He had grown unused to secretly thinking of him in those terms. The darkest recesses of his mind may not have complied so utterly, but those shadowy corners remained unplumbed, a wilful ignorance Jim was all too happy to encourage.
He had grown to...’like’ was incorrect. Nobody could ‘like’ the Batman. He glided through the lives of others, gripped and twisted until, shrieking with dire protest, things began to change, and then he left as silently as he had arrived, without ever being noticed in the midst of what he had left behind.
Jim Gordon and the Batman could never have breached the borders of their two darkly mirrored worlds enough for any kind of recognisable feeling to be achieved. Even the occasional colliding of those worlds on a cold and windy rooftop sometimes threatened to smash and shatter both beyond repair.
Compromise, acceptance, had so far kept the world whole.
But then he saw him cradling the limp, languid, repulsively elegant form of that thing.
He saw the way he lifted it carefully, loosely clasping the long, draping limbs of the creature - now hanging still and ghastly, like the scattered limbs of a stained and twisted, torn-up doll - holding them securely, like a precious thing.
Something that must be kept, something that must not be allowed to touch the filth and common degradation of Arkham. Something that was different, set apart, set higher. Something valued, something special.
He saw that he did not embrace the thing like something loved, did not grasp it tightly to his chest, he saw the way the fists were curled loosely around the spindly, creeping thing; wanting to hold but not to touch. He saw the very slight distance that was attempted between his chest and the creature’s matted, ruined head. The heart and head, and the attempt to separate. To remain, perhaps, untainted.
But he saw the rest. He saw the bowed head, as though mourning this thing. He saw that however much the fingers did not want to caress, to touch, they held their place, they did not tremble. They did not want to release, to let the thing fall to the cold and icy ground. They may not have clenched, though neither did they waver. They did not hold it like a loved thing, and they did not push it away like a reviled one.
Who, he wondered, was the separation for? Which one needed protection from contamination? Which way would the contagion spread if those fingers clasped just a little bit tighter? And did it matter? Would it all have been too late, either way? The darkness of Jim’s mind came out into the light, and it said yes.
He saw him lay the creature down on the hood of a police car, those green, dirt-slicked strands playing in the wind, plastered against the oath, to protect and serve.
He saw the gentleness in those arms as they set their burden down - laying it to rest, placing it softly, silently against the cool metal, like a sacrificial virgin, even the hand cradling the head so softly, withdrawing so slowly, so reluctantly, that there was no crude, contemptuous sound of head hitting metal; and Jim still doesn’t know whether he actually saw the lightest feathering of fingers over scalp as they drew back from the thing, whether it was the caress he reviled, or simply the care that he feared - and he turned from it, his stomach churning, throat burning, everything in his mind protesting at this violent contrast, this black and white.
Black and purple.
Black and green.
Mixing, mingling in ways they should not, should never.
Compromising.
Accepting.