FIC: The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World
by eggblue
Notes: Bruce/Jason crime drama from December 1999-January 2000. Happy New Century! Batman belongs to DC, not me.
*
The clouds seem to press down like a smothering blanket against the towering spires. I rest somewhere in between, the smallness of a warrior against nature and machine. It makes me remember what I am here for. A little boy was found dead tonight, on the last night of this frozen decade. I am waiting for the police to settle down. Perhaps I am anxious about seeing them on the scene. I wish I had their gallows’ humor, their belief in the job. Instead, I have open wounds, futile fists.
The rain is starting to pour, and the wind sends a chill down my back. The moon comes out to play. I take a deep breath through my nose and it burns. I suppress a cough. This world is dying.
A boy found stuffed in a cold furnace pipe. The only witnesses were the pigeons. Perhaps I should be glad, at least it wasn’t the carrion crows. At least they found a body to bury. Again, I don’t find reasons. But I will do what I have to do.
The moon hides its face again, turning the concrete monument into blue steel around me. I fade into it like a ghost, my eyes like slits, my bones like a gargoyle.
The rain warms around me, falling like melting ice. My cowl keeps it away from my eyes as I crouch on the roof. The snow won’t reach Gotham before the New Year comes, that’s certain. But there’s always room for rain.
The wind whips my cape around me in an embrace, almost toppling me over the concrete precipice. I remain steady. I know so many ways to keep from dying. If I were to fall now, how many chances would I get? One-hundred and ten stories to find out.
My, you are morbid tonight, Batman. Talking to myself can easily break a reverie, even if only inside my own mind. Robin was always good at doing that, sensing my moods and breaking them apart, if just for a moment. Batgirl was even better. Must have picked that one up from her father. I smile inwardly at the thought, but my mouth remains grim.
Why?
I try to answer. I suppose I cannot stop them from asking questions, from being detectives, even with those they love. It feels good somehow to say that, to know they love and are so loved in return. I want to profess that they didn’t learn that trick from me, a sense of joy muted-- self-deprecating, perhaps, but with a grain of truth behind it. I must have taught them well somewhere along the way. Even if we can’t admit it, even when we are alone.
Not for the first time, I wonder about my actions. If there are certainties in life, I haven’t found them. When I was younger, another person, another life, I believed in everything. Tell me, and I would be convinced. Life could be lived without judgments, without the need for questions. Then my parents...
Did I believe in that too? I must have, somewhere. I must have, because after it happened, I didn’t feel pain, or confusion, or questions. No, just the rain.
It was the shock, I know that now. The mind I’ve been trying so hard to figure out, the machine with the capacity of a God, it just shuts down. I learned that belief was just a grain of sand washed out with the tide. There is no Santa Claus. I started to believe in nothing.
I still do. Nothing gives me independence, nothing gives me freedom, nothing has infinite memory, nothing has grace. Dick believes in so much more than nothing. There are parts of himself that I don’t recognize in me when I look in the mirror anymore. What he considers everyday existence, I think of as taking things for granted. He would break my jaw if he ever heard me say such a thing. He probably already suspects that I do. There are very few things I can keep from him, in his deepest heart. But he does not suspect how far it can go, the secrets I keep to protect us all from myself.
I am good at compartmentalizing-- filing old memories away in locked storage spaces. If I can save them from the needless pain, I will. Their graces are so different from mine. Dick has flying, his way of defying fate. Barbara has self-assurance, her way of surviving among the doubt in the rest of us. Tim has romance, which gives him his energy and innocence. If nothing else, I’m convinced it will save him someday.
But I have something different. I have the dead little boys to keep me company. I can be their friend, like they are to Brucie. It is easy to say that he died with his parents that night. The truth is, he was dead long before.
On the night I was born, I kneeled in my parents’ blood and held my hands in fists against the concrete. I still have nightmares about that feeling of being trapped, drowning in a sea of blood, flooding through the mansion, staining the walls, trapping me inside, unable to escape...
On the night Brucie was born, his parents held him in their arms and swore that no harm would ever come to him. He believed them. On the night Brucie died, he bit his lip so hard it bled. He closed his eyes so tight he thought he would pass out, he prayed for it to stop. When no one listened, he prayed for his own death. When all he heard was silence, he prayed for theirs. Brucie got his wish the night he created me. His parents died, just as he’d asked.
Boys have powerful wishes. To remember that is to find a dangerous kind of grace. I have all of the power that he gave to me, enough power to fight against all of his fears and then some. When the only thing to believe in is a child’s wish, everything is worth fighting for. I still have not found anything to eclipse that, not love, not family, not society.
I died once too, but slowly. I died, am dying, am dead. I take another breath, almost choke. This city is dying with me. We keep our integrity in stone monuments, waiting for the year to turn, fighting for something so much greater than ourselves it stifles us. It is no longer a question of faith, it is the need to keep breathing.
The moon returns. Nothing eclipses us. Not even memory.
Harvey was an old friend of mine in college. One day he told me he was in love with me. He kissed me, held onto me with arms even stronger than my own. I could have told him the same, professed something I couldn’t guarantee in this world. Brucie asked too much, Harvey asked too little. Only love between two people.
I grimace. Harvey would understand that best now. The only thing that matters in his life is the needs of two people, his two minds. I like to pretend that it would have ended the same. I could never have given Harvey what he needed. Brucie never lets me give up, and I never want him to. It’s not guilt, it’s a purpose in the face of nothing.
I have a recurring dream. I am dressed as Bruce Wayne, the playboy in a tux, holding a flute of champagne. It is an image I hate, but I understand its necessity, if only for the sake of those I love-- Dick, Barbara, Gordon, Tim, Alfred. I would sacrifice that much for their sake, at least. If anything, it keeps them from asking for more. The scene is golden, lit up by a hanging chandelier. The chiming crystal invades my hearing, getting louder and louder. I can hear the rain falling on the glass ceiling, the bubbles breaking against the flute in my hand, the crystals singing. My polished shoes click on marble in the second story of the museum. The clear dome in the heart of the building arches over the central ballroom, opening the museum up like a snowglobe.
Then, in the back of my sleeping mind, I hear a crash of glass upon glass, and I turn around, facing the center. My movements are in slow motion. The frustration begins to creep into my conscious mind, calling me to wake up, move faster. As my sleeping eyes are told to open, I catch a glimpse of something falling from the sky, flashes of yellow, green, several shades of red. They are the colors of an opened body, falling violence amid raining crystals and champagne.
Nausea wracks my abdomen when I awake, fully aware of what I am still seeing behind my shut eyes. My photographic memory captures violence in wet snapshots. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I am waiting for the crime scene to die down. I never quite know what it will do to me, the nightmares that the image will bring on for weeks, months, decades to come. I still have that dream of Robin’s crushed body on the marble and the crystal ice, the same broken figure in a different setting. And it has been years.
I can’t tell Dick all of this. He might already have an idea, or maybe he just assumes I’m a lost case and nothing will change me. Either way, I’ll leave it alone. I’d rather be a monster than a martyr. It’s easier for all of us to take that way.
I look up at the sky. It is almost time. The moon is nowhere in sight. That blanket of clouds feels oppressive tonight. I push back with all the strength I have.
There is a moment in the air where it feels like flying.
I think of Dick when he’s flying, so graceful. He thinks I am lonely. He says I need someone. I give him a break, knowing that it is my fault. I’ve worked so hard not to teach him the value of loneliness, the burden of a promise. Something tells me he will never understand, but perhaps he can learn to forgive me one day for placing other things above him, dead things, ending things.
I start to fall, in perfect position, diving into the night. I can hear the countdown taking place... “10”...
I count faster inside my head, falling through seconds faster and faster, beating time at its own game. Onetwo threefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteen fourteenfifteensixteenseventeen... “7”...
When I reach twenty, I throw out my first line. It is foolish, stupid. I promised myself that I wouldn’t play it so close, but time has a seduction stronger than breathing, and twice as necessary. I fall from the suffocating clouds like a demon... “5”...
The claw catches and holds... “3”... I let out my breath, fogging the suddenly icy air... “2”...
As I descend onto the soot-covered roof below, I hear the crowd cry out in unison. “Happy New Year!”
I don’t think of champagne and chandeliers, I don’t think of Nightwing and Robin, patrolling together, I don’t think of loves I’ve lost. I look past the blue uniforms and cheap raincoats towards the rusted metal of the pipes. There I see the tiny hand in the shape of a relaxed claw, fingernails bloodied and raw, bone exposed. I was wrong, the pigeons are worse.
My feet, and the voices, bring me closer to the photograph. There’s more yellow, green, and red, as always. It is not one of my sidekicks, it is not a costume, this is not a play. As I look down into the rusted darkness, black holes upon black holes, a new voice joins the rest, and it is praying. Not for the first time, I am glad there are no imploring, glassy eyes left to ask me why.
I wouldn’t know how to answer.
*** January 1 ***
When I awoke in my bed, he was there beside me. I expected it, instinctively. That is how we work, our realm of the impossible. I shouldn’t have slept last night, and he is a reminder of that.
I need him to set me straight sometimes. Forgetting is a luxury I can’t even contemplate. I never forget that he is dead, I never forget that anyone is dead. My memory is photographic, ever aware. It is my memory that is seeing him now, crouched on my bed, with that smile somewhere between a laugh and a snarl.
That attitude. Jason always had too much. I call him by his given name, even though he is wearing that mask, that cape, those shorts...
“It’s dark already. Get up.”
A command. He is telling *me* what to do?? I call my Robins my partners, as if they had the pride, the control to match my own. Thank God they can’t match me in all respects. I’d never forgive myself for that. Then again, I never forgive myself for anything. Jason knows that much, he’s playing off it now. The little punk...
I suppress a smile. “Uh-huh,” I grunt. As I walk towards the bathroom, random thoughts of logic pierce the dream: Jason is dead, he is not here in your room. You have a murder to solve, and you’ve already slept too long. These fantasies have to stop. If you are not careful, you will fall back into the trap.
I start the shower and let my mind wage war on itself. It all depends on the memories, what I choose to remember and what I choose to forget. There are things about me no one knows. Well, Alfred knows, that was why he was hired. I’m not blind, I know he stays because of the guilt. He takes his duties seriously, it’s his life’s calling. Alfred wasn’t the first, though.
The water pours down on me at an almost scalding temperature. I feel like it’s numbing my senses with the hot shock. I resist the temptation to jerk my body out of the way.
Alfred wasn’t the first, there was another man before him. I was very young then, but my memory is still intact. We used to play games when my parents were away. Silly things, childhood things. And when it became something more, I didn’t even realize until it was too late. My memories with him became part of someone else, someone I didn’t recognize as being me anymore. When I was with him, I played the games without connecting them to the Bruce I knew. It was only later when I recognized myself in him. But by then, it felt like digging him out of a pit trap that kept growing deeper and deeper.
By the time he began to hurt me, it was easier to ignore the part of Bruce that I didn’t recognize, instead of digging to nowhere. That’s when the stomach aches began, and the nightmares. I don’t remember if that was when the bat dreams started, if the symbols went back that far or if I only imagine they did. The one memory that isn’t clear to me, and it has shaped my whole life.
I don’t remember when it stopped, either. Just that it did one day, and then Alfred was there. My mother started staying home with me after school, my father spent every moment he could by my side. They suddenly became the center of my life, where my life had lacked a center before. The nightmares even stopped, and there was only me again. No phantoms lurked in the corners, no secret selves hid in my body.
It wasn’t wholly true, I know that now. When my parents died, it all came back... but slowly. It wasn’t until my 15th year when the new dreams started. I can’t describe the fear then. Except... if there is a place I know fear, it is in those dreams. Dreams of boys, touching them, kissing them, telling them to do things... I can’t describe the feelings, I can’t even describe the actions. I don’t want anyone to know. No one should ever know, but that is why I am here, isn’t it?
If there was a way to stop it, Jason wouldn’t still be on my bed right now.
“Where do we go first? You know don’t you?”
I can’t tell if that is faith he has in me or a reflection of his own arrogance. I walk to my closet to get dressed, the giant towel wrapped around me as modestly as possible.
“First, we check the results of the tests I ran last night. Then, we visit Gordon. *You* know, don’t you?”
I should stop encouraging him. The more attitude I give him, the more he throws at me. We’re not good for each other, I realized that even before his death.
His feet hit the floor, like a cat’s paws. Damn, he’s following me.
“I think I might know what’s up. You want to hear it?”
I take the verbal bait, as if I could play guessing games with a figment of my imagination. Memories playing tricks on memories. “Sure.” I’m not going to play rough.
“I used to know a guy,” he’s jumping over the furniture now, “who had a thing,” and doing cartwheels, “for knife-play.”
I feel his eyes on my back when he peeks around the closet doorframe.
“And what did our kid have all over him last night? Knife wounds! And guess what else?”
“Hm?”
Jason practices some moves on an invisible assailant. “He lives... two... blocks... away... from the rooftop. Yah!” A kick.
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, ‘Are you sure?’? Of course I’m sure! I knew enough about him to never let him visit. And he tried, believe me! But even Ma had her limits. She was sick as a dog most of the time, but she didn’t like me bringing home psychos. Even paying ones.”
I gritted my teeth. Jason’s former life wasn’t pretty. His smack-addicted mother saw to that. Not like she forced him into turning tricks. He already had a knack for bringing home strange men when his parents weren’t around, which was often, considering their line of work. But kids have a way of doing anything for their parents’ sake, even if it just makes things worse. Jason didn’t have much, but he cared way too much for the little bit that he still had.
“We’ll research it down below. But first, we do things my way.”
I swear he almost stuck out his tongue. I forget how young he is sometimes. I have to work on not doing that...
Then he disappeared. I shrugged it off, knowing he’d return after I was through talking with Alfred. The old man may think I’m insane sometimes, but I wouldn’t want to supply him with evidence to support that. Crazy Bruce will just have to wait in the cave for awhile.
***
“So tell me... what is that scar on your back from?”
The touch on my shoulders makes my body go rigid. It’s not that I get lost in the computer research (which I do) as much as the shock of the touch itself. Especially when I’m supposed to be alone in the cave. But I was right, he was here waiting for me when I arrived, practically bursting with impatience. He’s so young...
I notice him notice my reaction, but he doesn’t remove his hands. I try to ignore for a moment that I am controlling every move he makes, and that I could take his hands off my shoulders right now. Thank God I ignore it.
“And I don’t mean that scratch above your shoulderblade. *I* remember putting it there. I guess the desert sand got it infected, huh? No wonder it’s still so dark.”
“Are you through musing aloud?” I say it with more attitude than I mean to. The uncomfortable memory got the better of me.
He smirks. “Why, don’t you like the souvenir? Oh that’s right, we can’t give into that memory, can we?” He’s bitingly sarcastic now, and takes my body language cue to remove his hands from my shoulders. “Too bad, because as I remember, it was pretty damn good.”
“Watch your language.” Automatic response.
We spend the next few moments in silence as we brood separately. Pathetic communication. By the time I get my pride in check, he’s circled the trophies twice.
“It’s from an accident two years ago. It won’t happen again.” I say it with finality. I sense that he’s been waiting for my response first all along. Arrogant prick.
“Oh, it *won’t* happen again, huh? Then which trophy here is from him?”
He hasn’t given up yet.
I give the response that I always use to signal a conversation is over. “It’s a long story.”
“Yeah right. I just died, you just got your back snapped in half, Babs just got a little gunshot wound, Harvey Dent just had a bad day once... it’s all such a long damn story. So tell me, when are you gonna have time to tell it? When you stop this little night hobby of yours? Oh yeah, maybe when your parents come back from the dead. We’ll *all* have time to talk then.”
It’s not him talking, I know that. How much of this is really him and how much of it is me I really have no idea. It would scare me if I knew. Not like talking to mental ghosts is within the realm of comforting behavior. But I’m willing to sacrifice a few boundaries to get this case down. I keep telling myself I’ll know to quit before it goes too far.
I don’t answer his verbal punch, but I let him stay. An hour later, when the searches turn up empty, I’m glad I kept him around.
“What’s the address?”
I can feel his smile from across the room.
***
It is all a matter of balance.
Knowing how to drive this machine through the streets, listening to its purr, listening to my warning instinct; speeding up, slowing up.
I’m on my way downtown, to some forgotten district. The woods run into houses run into concrete run into peeling paint and boarded-up windows. It’s like a tour of knowledge. This is how it begins, this is how it ends, this is how it begins again.
I open the car to the rancid air outside. It takes a conscious will to leave its frame, the power it shields me with. I will myself to take that power with me, transposing the alloy armor onto kevlar, flesh, and bone.
“No wonder I ripped her off. Didn’t take too much, either. I guess you figured no one would be stupid enough to try. But give me a chance and I’ll try anything once. Or as many times as it takes.”
Jason’s no master of irony, so I must have drawn the connection myself. No matter what my subconscious thinks, I’m not that hard to break into. And he only comes and goes when needed, nothing more. I can’t afford indulgences.
Ignoring him, I turn and begin to make my way through the city blocks. Nothing came up about Mr. Finch Johnson in the police records or any of my files. I can’t even trace his rent checks. I’m not expecting easy answers here. Good thing, too, because they’re not coming.
The Grove. A concrete block that makes the slums look domestic. This night wouldn’t lead me anywhere else. There’s not even a fire escape. I wonder how large the bribe was to take care of that little corner cut...
I know how to get in, and it’s not from the outside entrances. No, at The Grove you go where the rot starts: on the inside.
Just ignore the rats and crawl towards the light. It sounds like a mantra for a cockroach.
There’s a boarded-up hole in the reinforcement, and plenty of cheap construction behind it. Enough for me to slip in. The clues inside as to where I am are hard to read. Again, it’s instinct in here, and plenty of good guesses. If I press my back against the outer wall, I can use the moldy wood framing in front of me for footholds. It’s not great, but it’s the best I can do without placing all of my support on one or the other. I start to press with my arms, inching upwards...
The first rat nibbles at my thumb. No wonder Dick hates them. It’s not the creature itself, it’s the survival of its species. I wouldn’t mind the rats, if there weren’t so many of them. Give a disease a home, it will flourish. Give the cure a palace, it will wilt within the hour.
Brick by brick, Batman. Fifth floor, apartment number seventeen.
By the time I arrive at where I hope I’m supposed to be, the feeling has already set in. Disgust and revulsion swim in my gut like eels. Those sounds don’t make it any better. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not trying to be discreet. I can hear sex sounds that I’d recognize in animals, not people. And those eels my intestines have become are calling for escape. I ignore them too.
The wall breaks easily. By the time he notices me, I’ve already smashed the lightbulb. He was obviously distracted. If the dog skin on his back wasn’t enough to clue me in, the body on the bed should’ve been. I don’t think about any of that until after I take him down.
He feels like a sack of flour when I punch him.
“Check the dresser.”
The streetkid voice doesn’t surprise me. I don’t want to recognize the existence of our shared knowledge, the intimate gut reaction to this room. We are stuck knowing this room, the pieces of us that live here. Jason is dead too, like the boy on the bed, lying with his empty eye sockets pointed towards the ceiling.
Empty. I still don’t forgive the birds.
My stomach settles down. I guess I know what’s in the top drawer. The knives that haven’t been used on our boy on the bed, the ones already rusted with blood or broken on bone. It’s the bottom drawer that does it. At first they look like pearled marbles, laid out in rows...
“They’re eyes.”
“I know what they are. How did you know they were here?” I’m practically yelling now. I don’t care.
“Don’t ask me, ask the guy wearing the pet.”
“Leave. Now. I’m through with this.”
“But Bruce, there’s nowhere to go from here. Besides, I’m not going anywhere til it’s over.”
I tie up Mr. Finch, tighter than I have to. The place smells of chemicals. There are open bottles of bleach and industrial cleaner on the decrepit table. The only spots of white in the entire room.
“What came first? The fetishes or the need to blow his mind? I’m going with the fetish thing. Spot here was a childhood friend? Or maybe that’s just a little add-on. What’s one more kink, right? Despise the color white, collect a few eyeballs, sniff some glue, and find your inner puppy. Ha.”
Jason’s looking at the man like he’s discovered a new species. Brilliant. “Get the hell away from there!” He doesn’t listen, just keeps picking and picking. I can’t tell whose curiosity he’s trying to satisfy.
The chemicals are getting to me. My tired muscles make the argument for using the front door on my way out this time. This place feels as still as a museum, the violence frozen like a dead fish. I try to appreciate the moment for what it is, but I can’t. It always gets hot again, and violence has a low boiling point.
I leave Jason’s voice in the room and move through the hallway. The smell doesn’t improve out here, it just becomes more sinister, less obvious to my senses. It’s around the time when I reach the front door that I get the feeling something’s not right. Just a gut thing again, but subtle this time... No, this feels clean, I can tell. Tip the police, ride home, end it. And still, I hesitate at the wheel.
But only for a moment. I drive to the cave, alone. The armor surrounds me and it’s quiet.
*** January 2 ***
What is real? Or, even better, what is real enough? *He* certainly isn’t. This whole new year-- that isn’t either.
I’m almost afraid by the time I arrive at the cave. The fact that I’m even acknowledging my fear is enough to do me in. I think about where I’ve been the past 24 hours and I don’t recognize my actions. The excuse could be something as simple as fear gas... But that’s the problem isn’t it? Everything has been too simple. I could write this story forever, but it’s not mine to tell.
My story is about an architect. He came upon a green island by the shore, empty except for the breeze that blew in at night and out by day, combing the grasses with scent and salt. The first structure he built there was a bridge. It stretched for miles and miles, perpendicular to the horizon. He said that the bridge was a gesture of goodwill to the sea. No one knew what that meant, since they didn’t believe in superstition anymore. There was nothing to be afraid of in the sea that couldn’t be handled.
The second structure he built was a house no one could live in. Or, that seemed evident enough, considering where it was built. He claimed the house was a stone block, 25x25x25, and they had to believe him. Because the house was underground. The architect said it was safe down there. The people said it was unfit for living.
The third structure he built was a skyscraper. It was much more than that, though. The foundation stretched wide from the edge of the sea to the center of the island and towered overhead, black and steel. The architect said it was built for the people. The people never said a word.
For a year, the monolith was never used. The people waited for something to come along and mar the surface, find some flaw in its face, so they could enter. But nothing happened. Two months after that, the architect is said to have climbed to the roof. As the sun rose like a burnt coin, he slowly stripped off his clothes and dove naked into the sea below. That is the end of his story. Mine is not so simple.
I can’t let myself decay like this. If tonight was as it should be, then why all of the questions? Why am I doing this? What do my memories mean? I’ve learned never to ask questions like these.
“What are you doing?” Jason asks it innocently, but I know it’s not meant that way. So I don’t answer. Besides, I’m tired of the questions, the defense. I go back to shuffling around the cave, touching the concrete, the real.
“I said, what are you doing?”
He says it deliberately. I turn to face him. He’s across the cave, his arms crossed in front of his chest in a defense of his own. I stop moving for a moment, and just stare. He catches me.
“You know, fucking me won’t end the world.”
I don’t need the sarcasm. “It won’t save it either. As a matter of fact, it couldn’t even save you. And to tell the truth, it wouldn’t even brighten my day all that much. So drop it.” By now, I’m through staring. Eyes are more trouble than they’re worth sometimes.
He shifts on his feet, takes a few steps closer. “I guess you’re not the romantic type, huh, Bruce?”
I only half smile. “And you’re not the naive type, Jason. That was the problem.” I gaze at the ceiling trying to retrieve a memory. “‘Romance never saved anyone, only superheroes do’.”
“You’re still saying that line? Always were old-fashioned. There’s one problem--,” his tone turns to ice, “you’re not a superhero.”
Not for the first time tonight, I wonder what he’s doing here. “Goodnight, Jason.” I begin my way up the stone stairs, heading for my father’s clock.
“Escaping again?”
I hear him move, just the sound of air slicing air. It’s familiar to me. And when I feel my legs cut out from under me, I let myself fall. Then I’m turned around, on my back, with nothing to look into but his face.
I panic. In a split second I make a move, and then we’re kneeling a few feet apart on the ground, waiting for this to get any stranger.
He’s angry. “So I’m back to not being good enough, huh? Fuck you, Bruce.”
I have to shut my eyes. It’s too wrong right now. I can’t keep thinking in circles, going around and around. And I can’t look at Jason one moment longer. Sometimes decay is too beautiful to fight against.
I open my eyes anyways, and move to my feet. I have to believe it’s enough. “Goodnight, Jason.”
Either he doesn’t follow or I leave him there, it ends the same.
Alfred is waiting for me upstairs, ever with hot tea and three sugar cookies. “It’s almost one o’clock. Perhaps... you should retire early tonight, sir?”
I listen to his tacit suggestion, masquerading as a question. I don’t answer, and absently run my tongue against my teeth instead.
As we make our way up the staircase, he tries again. “Even superheroes need to rest sometime.”
I wonder if the feeling of living a waking dream will ever go away. Suddenly, this life seems so surreal. It must be me who has changed. It must be...
I look back at him, and the dream is begun now. “But Alfred, I’m not a superhero.”
The End
by eggblue
Notes: Bruce/Jason crime drama from December 1999-January 2000. Happy New Century! Batman belongs to DC, not me.
*
The clouds seem to press down like a smothering blanket against the towering spires. I rest somewhere in between, the smallness of a warrior against nature and machine. It makes me remember what I am here for. A little boy was found dead tonight, on the last night of this frozen decade. I am waiting for the police to settle down. Perhaps I am anxious about seeing them on the scene. I wish I had their gallows’ humor, their belief in the job. Instead, I have open wounds, futile fists.
The rain is starting to pour, and the wind sends a chill down my back. The moon comes out to play. I take a deep breath through my nose and it burns. I suppress a cough. This world is dying.
A boy found stuffed in a cold furnace pipe. The only witnesses were the pigeons. Perhaps I should be glad, at least it wasn’t the carrion crows. At least they found a body to bury. Again, I don’t find reasons. But I will do what I have to do.
The moon hides its face again, turning the concrete monument into blue steel around me. I fade into it like a ghost, my eyes like slits, my bones like a gargoyle.
The rain warms around me, falling like melting ice. My cowl keeps it away from my eyes as I crouch on the roof. The snow won’t reach Gotham before the New Year comes, that’s certain. But there’s always room for rain.
The wind whips my cape around me in an embrace, almost toppling me over the concrete precipice. I remain steady. I know so many ways to keep from dying. If I were to fall now, how many chances would I get? One-hundred and ten stories to find out.
My, you are morbid tonight, Batman. Talking to myself can easily break a reverie, even if only inside my own mind. Robin was always good at doing that, sensing my moods and breaking them apart, if just for a moment. Batgirl was even better. Must have picked that one up from her father. I smile inwardly at the thought, but my mouth remains grim.
Why?
I try to answer. I suppose I cannot stop them from asking questions, from being detectives, even with those they love. It feels good somehow to say that, to know they love and are so loved in return. I want to profess that they didn’t learn that trick from me, a sense of joy muted-- self-deprecating, perhaps, but with a grain of truth behind it. I must have taught them well somewhere along the way. Even if we can’t admit it, even when we are alone.
Not for the first time, I wonder about my actions. If there are certainties in life, I haven’t found them. When I was younger, another person, another life, I believed in everything. Tell me, and I would be convinced. Life could be lived without judgments, without the need for questions. Then my parents...
Did I believe in that too? I must have, somewhere. I must have, because after it happened, I didn’t feel pain, or confusion, or questions. No, just the rain.
It was the shock, I know that now. The mind I’ve been trying so hard to figure out, the machine with the capacity of a God, it just shuts down. I learned that belief was just a grain of sand washed out with the tide. There is no Santa Claus. I started to believe in nothing.
I still do. Nothing gives me independence, nothing gives me freedom, nothing has infinite memory, nothing has grace. Dick believes in so much more than nothing. There are parts of himself that I don’t recognize in me when I look in the mirror anymore. What he considers everyday existence, I think of as taking things for granted. He would break my jaw if he ever heard me say such a thing. He probably already suspects that I do. There are very few things I can keep from him, in his deepest heart. But he does not suspect how far it can go, the secrets I keep to protect us all from myself.
I am good at compartmentalizing-- filing old memories away in locked storage spaces. If I can save them from the needless pain, I will. Their graces are so different from mine. Dick has flying, his way of defying fate. Barbara has self-assurance, her way of surviving among the doubt in the rest of us. Tim has romance, which gives him his energy and innocence. If nothing else, I’m convinced it will save him someday.
But I have something different. I have the dead little boys to keep me company. I can be their friend, like they are to Brucie. It is easy to say that he died with his parents that night. The truth is, he was dead long before.
On the night I was born, I kneeled in my parents’ blood and held my hands in fists against the concrete. I still have nightmares about that feeling of being trapped, drowning in a sea of blood, flooding through the mansion, staining the walls, trapping me inside, unable to escape...
On the night Brucie was born, his parents held him in their arms and swore that no harm would ever come to him. He believed them. On the night Brucie died, he bit his lip so hard it bled. He closed his eyes so tight he thought he would pass out, he prayed for it to stop. When no one listened, he prayed for his own death. When all he heard was silence, he prayed for theirs. Brucie got his wish the night he created me. His parents died, just as he’d asked.
Boys have powerful wishes. To remember that is to find a dangerous kind of grace. I have all of the power that he gave to me, enough power to fight against all of his fears and then some. When the only thing to believe in is a child’s wish, everything is worth fighting for. I still have not found anything to eclipse that, not love, not family, not society.
I died once too, but slowly. I died, am dying, am dead. I take another breath, almost choke. This city is dying with me. We keep our integrity in stone monuments, waiting for the year to turn, fighting for something so much greater than ourselves it stifles us. It is no longer a question of faith, it is the need to keep breathing.
The moon returns. Nothing eclipses us. Not even memory.
Harvey was an old friend of mine in college. One day he told me he was in love with me. He kissed me, held onto me with arms even stronger than my own. I could have told him the same, professed something I couldn’t guarantee in this world. Brucie asked too much, Harvey asked too little. Only love between two people.
I grimace. Harvey would understand that best now. The only thing that matters in his life is the needs of two people, his two minds. I like to pretend that it would have ended the same. I could never have given Harvey what he needed. Brucie never lets me give up, and I never want him to. It’s not guilt, it’s a purpose in the face of nothing.
I have a recurring dream. I am dressed as Bruce Wayne, the playboy in a tux, holding a flute of champagne. It is an image I hate, but I understand its necessity, if only for the sake of those I love-- Dick, Barbara, Gordon, Tim, Alfred. I would sacrifice that much for their sake, at least. If anything, it keeps them from asking for more. The scene is golden, lit up by a hanging chandelier. The chiming crystal invades my hearing, getting louder and louder. I can hear the rain falling on the glass ceiling, the bubbles breaking against the flute in my hand, the crystals singing. My polished shoes click on marble in the second story of the museum. The clear dome in the heart of the building arches over the central ballroom, opening the museum up like a snowglobe.
Then, in the back of my sleeping mind, I hear a crash of glass upon glass, and I turn around, facing the center. My movements are in slow motion. The frustration begins to creep into my conscious mind, calling me to wake up, move faster. As my sleeping eyes are told to open, I catch a glimpse of something falling from the sky, flashes of yellow, green, several shades of red. They are the colors of an opened body, falling violence amid raining crystals and champagne.
Nausea wracks my abdomen when I awake, fully aware of what I am still seeing behind my shut eyes. My photographic memory captures violence in wet snapshots. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I am waiting for the crime scene to die down. I never quite know what it will do to me, the nightmares that the image will bring on for weeks, months, decades to come. I still have that dream of Robin’s crushed body on the marble and the crystal ice, the same broken figure in a different setting. And it has been years.
I can’t tell Dick all of this. He might already have an idea, or maybe he just assumes I’m a lost case and nothing will change me. Either way, I’ll leave it alone. I’d rather be a monster than a martyr. It’s easier for all of us to take that way.
I look up at the sky. It is almost time. The moon is nowhere in sight. That blanket of clouds feels oppressive tonight. I push back with all the strength I have.
There is a moment in the air where it feels like flying.
I think of Dick when he’s flying, so graceful. He thinks I am lonely. He says I need someone. I give him a break, knowing that it is my fault. I’ve worked so hard not to teach him the value of loneliness, the burden of a promise. Something tells me he will never understand, but perhaps he can learn to forgive me one day for placing other things above him, dead things, ending things.
I start to fall, in perfect position, diving into the night. I can hear the countdown taking place... “10”...
I count faster inside my head, falling through seconds faster and faster, beating time at its own game. Onetwo threefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteen fourteenfifteensixteenseventeen... “7”...
When I reach twenty, I throw out my first line. It is foolish, stupid. I promised myself that I wouldn’t play it so close, but time has a seduction stronger than breathing, and twice as necessary. I fall from the suffocating clouds like a demon... “5”...
The claw catches and holds... “3”... I let out my breath, fogging the suddenly icy air... “2”...
As I descend onto the soot-covered roof below, I hear the crowd cry out in unison. “Happy New Year!”
I don’t think of champagne and chandeliers, I don’t think of Nightwing and Robin, patrolling together, I don’t think of loves I’ve lost. I look past the blue uniforms and cheap raincoats towards the rusted metal of the pipes. There I see the tiny hand in the shape of a relaxed claw, fingernails bloodied and raw, bone exposed. I was wrong, the pigeons are worse.
My feet, and the voices, bring me closer to the photograph. There’s more yellow, green, and red, as always. It is not one of my sidekicks, it is not a costume, this is not a play. As I look down into the rusted darkness, black holes upon black holes, a new voice joins the rest, and it is praying. Not for the first time, I am glad there are no imploring, glassy eyes left to ask me why.
I wouldn’t know how to answer.
*** January 1 ***
When I awoke in my bed, he was there beside me. I expected it, instinctively. That is how we work, our realm of the impossible. I shouldn’t have slept last night, and he is a reminder of that.
I need him to set me straight sometimes. Forgetting is a luxury I can’t even contemplate. I never forget that he is dead, I never forget that anyone is dead. My memory is photographic, ever aware. It is my memory that is seeing him now, crouched on my bed, with that smile somewhere between a laugh and a snarl.
That attitude. Jason always had too much. I call him by his given name, even though he is wearing that mask, that cape, those shorts...
“It’s dark already. Get up.”
A command. He is telling *me* what to do?? I call my Robins my partners, as if they had the pride, the control to match my own. Thank God they can’t match me in all respects. I’d never forgive myself for that. Then again, I never forgive myself for anything. Jason knows that much, he’s playing off it now. The little punk...
I suppress a smile. “Uh-huh,” I grunt. As I walk towards the bathroom, random thoughts of logic pierce the dream: Jason is dead, he is not here in your room. You have a murder to solve, and you’ve already slept too long. These fantasies have to stop. If you are not careful, you will fall back into the trap.
I start the shower and let my mind wage war on itself. It all depends on the memories, what I choose to remember and what I choose to forget. There are things about me no one knows. Well, Alfred knows, that was why he was hired. I’m not blind, I know he stays because of the guilt. He takes his duties seriously, it’s his life’s calling. Alfred wasn’t the first, though.
The water pours down on me at an almost scalding temperature. I feel like it’s numbing my senses with the hot shock. I resist the temptation to jerk my body out of the way.
Alfred wasn’t the first, there was another man before him. I was very young then, but my memory is still intact. We used to play games when my parents were away. Silly things, childhood things. And when it became something more, I didn’t even realize until it was too late. My memories with him became part of someone else, someone I didn’t recognize as being me anymore. When I was with him, I played the games without connecting them to the Bruce I knew. It was only later when I recognized myself in him. But by then, it felt like digging him out of a pit trap that kept growing deeper and deeper.
By the time he began to hurt me, it was easier to ignore the part of Bruce that I didn’t recognize, instead of digging to nowhere. That’s when the stomach aches began, and the nightmares. I don’t remember if that was when the bat dreams started, if the symbols went back that far or if I only imagine they did. The one memory that isn’t clear to me, and it has shaped my whole life.
I don’t remember when it stopped, either. Just that it did one day, and then Alfred was there. My mother started staying home with me after school, my father spent every moment he could by my side. They suddenly became the center of my life, where my life had lacked a center before. The nightmares even stopped, and there was only me again. No phantoms lurked in the corners, no secret selves hid in my body.
It wasn’t wholly true, I know that now. When my parents died, it all came back... but slowly. It wasn’t until my 15th year when the new dreams started. I can’t describe the fear then. Except... if there is a place I know fear, it is in those dreams. Dreams of boys, touching them, kissing them, telling them to do things... I can’t describe the feelings, I can’t even describe the actions. I don’t want anyone to know. No one should ever know, but that is why I am here, isn’t it?
If there was a way to stop it, Jason wouldn’t still be on my bed right now.
“Where do we go first? You know don’t you?”
I can’t tell if that is faith he has in me or a reflection of his own arrogance. I walk to my closet to get dressed, the giant towel wrapped around me as modestly as possible.
“First, we check the results of the tests I ran last night. Then, we visit Gordon. *You* know, don’t you?”
I should stop encouraging him. The more attitude I give him, the more he throws at me. We’re not good for each other, I realized that even before his death.
His feet hit the floor, like a cat’s paws. Damn, he’s following me.
“I think I might know what’s up. You want to hear it?”
I take the verbal bait, as if I could play guessing games with a figment of my imagination. Memories playing tricks on memories. “Sure.” I’m not going to play rough.
“I used to know a guy,” he’s jumping over the furniture now, “who had a thing,” and doing cartwheels, “for knife-play.”
I feel his eyes on my back when he peeks around the closet doorframe.
“And what did our kid have all over him last night? Knife wounds! And guess what else?”
“Hm?”
Jason practices some moves on an invisible assailant. “He lives... two... blocks... away... from the rooftop. Yah!” A kick.
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, ‘Are you sure?’? Of course I’m sure! I knew enough about him to never let him visit. And he tried, believe me! But even Ma had her limits. She was sick as a dog most of the time, but she didn’t like me bringing home psychos. Even paying ones.”
I gritted my teeth. Jason’s former life wasn’t pretty. His smack-addicted mother saw to that. Not like she forced him into turning tricks. He already had a knack for bringing home strange men when his parents weren’t around, which was often, considering their line of work. But kids have a way of doing anything for their parents’ sake, even if it just makes things worse. Jason didn’t have much, but he cared way too much for the little bit that he still had.
“We’ll research it down below. But first, we do things my way.”
I swear he almost stuck out his tongue. I forget how young he is sometimes. I have to work on not doing that...
Then he disappeared. I shrugged it off, knowing he’d return after I was through talking with Alfred. The old man may think I’m insane sometimes, but I wouldn’t want to supply him with evidence to support that. Crazy Bruce will just have to wait in the cave for awhile.
***
“So tell me... what is that scar on your back from?”
The touch on my shoulders makes my body go rigid. It’s not that I get lost in the computer research (which I do) as much as the shock of the touch itself. Especially when I’m supposed to be alone in the cave. But I was right, he was here waiting for me when I arrived, practically bursting with impatience. He’s so young...
I notice him notice my reaction, but he doesn’t remove his hands. I try to ignore for a moment that I am controlling every move he makes, and that I could take his hands off my shoulders right now. Thank God I ignore it.
“And I don’t mean that scratch above your shoulderblade. *I* remember putting it there. I guess the desert sand got it infected, huh? No wonder it’s still so dark.”
“Are you through musing aloud?” I say it with more attitude than I mean to. The uncomfortable memory got the better of me.
He smirks. “Why, don’t you like the souvenir? Oh that’s right, we can’t give into that memory, can we?” He’s bitingly sarcastic now, and takes my body language cue to remove his hands from my shoulders. “Too bad, because as I remember, it was pretty damn good.”
“Watch your language.” Automatic response.
We spend the next few moments in silence as we brood separately. Pathetic communication. By the time I get my pride in check, he’s circled the trophies twice.
“It’s from an accident two years ago. It won’t happen again.” I say it with finality. I sense that he’s been waiting for my response first all along. Arrogant prick.
“Oh, it *won’t* happen again, huh? Then which trophy here is from him?”
He hasn’t given up yet.
I give the response that I always use to signal a conversation is over. “It’s a long story.”
“Yeah right. I just died, you just got your back snapped in half, Babs just got a little gunshot wound, Harvey Dent just had a bad day once... it’s all such a long damn story. So tell me, when are you gonna have time to tell it? When you stop this little night hobby of yours? Oh yeah, maybe when your parents come back from the dead. We’ll *all* have time to talk then.”
It’s not him talking, I know that. How much of this is really him and how much of it is me I really have no idea. It would scare me if I knew. Not like talking to mental ghosts is within the realm of comforting behavior. But I’m willing to sacrifice a few boundaries to get this case down. I keep telling myself I’ll know to quit before it goes too far.
I don’t answer his verbal punch, but I let him stay. An hour later, when the searches turn up empty, I’m glad I kept him around.
“What’s the address?”
I can feel his smile from across the room.
***
It is all a matter of balance.
Knowing how to drive this machine through the streets, listening to its purr, listening to my warning instinct; speeding up, slowing up.
I’m on my way downtown, to some forgotten district. The woods run into houses run into concrete run into peeling paint and boarded-up windows. It’s like a tour of knowledge. This is how it begins, this is how it ends, this is how it begins again.
I open the car to the rancid air outside. It takes a conscious will to leave its frame, the power it shields me with. I will myself to take that power with me, transposing the alloy armor onto kevlar, flesh, and bone.
“No wonder I ripped her off. Didn’t take too much, either. I guess you figured no one would be stupid enough to try. But give me a chance and I’ll try anything once. Or as many times as it takes.”
Jason’s no master of irony, so I must have drawn the connection myself. No matter what my subconscious thinks, I’m not that hard to break into. And he only comes and goes when needed, nothing more. I can’t afford indulgences.
Ignoring him, I turn and begin to make my way through the city blocks. Nothing came up about Mr. Finch Johnson in the police records or any of my files. I can’t even trace his rent checks. I’m not expecting easy answers here. Good thing, too, because they’re not coming.
The Grove. A concrete block that makes the slums look domestic. This night wouldn’t lead me anywhere else. There’s not even a fire escape. I wonder how large the bribe was to take care of that little corner cut...
I know how to get in, and it’s not from the outside entrances. No, at The Grove you go where the rot starts: on the inside.
Just ignore the rats and crawl towards the light. It sounds like a mantra for a cockroach.
There’s a boarded-up hole in the reinforcement, and plenty of cheap construction behind it. Enough for me to slip in. The clues inside as to where I am are hard to read. Again, it’s instinct in here, and plenty of good guesses. If I press my back against the outer wall, I can use the moldy wood framing in front of me for footholds. It’s not great, but it’s the best I can do without placing all of my support on one or the other. I start to press with my arms, inching upwards...
The first rat nibbles at my thumb. No wonder Dick hates them. It’s not the creature itself, it’s the survival of its species. I wouldn’t mind the rats, if there weren’t so many of them. Give a disease a home, it will flourish. Give the cure a palace, it will wilt within the hour.
Brick by brick, Batman. Fifth floor, apartment number seventeen.
By the time I arrive at where I hope I’m supposed to be, the feeling has already set in. Disgust and revulsion swim in my gut like eels. Those sounds don’t make it any better. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not trying to be discreet. I can hear sex sounds that I’d recognize in animals, not people. And those eels my intestines have become are calling for escape. I ignore them too.
The wall breaks easily. By the time he notices me, I’ve already smashed the lightbulb. He was obviously distracted. If the dog skin on his back wasn’t enough to clue me in, the body on the bed should’ve been. I don’t think about any of that until after I take him down.
He feels like a sack of flour when I punch him.
“Check the dresser.”
The streetkid voice doesn’t surprise me. I don’t want to recognize the existence of our shared knowledge, the intimate gut reaction to this room. We are stuck knowing this room, the pieces of us that live here. Jason is dead too, like the boy on the bed, lying with his empty eye sockets pointed towards the ceiling.
Empty. I still don’t forgive the birds.
My stomach settles down. I guess I know what’s in the top drawer. The knives that haven’t been used on our boy on the bed, the ones already rusted with blood or broken on bone. It’s the bottom drawer that does it. At first they look like pearled marbles, laid out in rows...
“They’re eyes.”
“I know what they are. How did you know they were here?” I’m practically yelling now. I don’t care.
“Don’t ask me, ask the guy wearing the pet.”
“Leave. Now. I’m through with this.”
“But Bruce, there’s nowhere to go from here. Besides, I’m not going anywhere til it’s over.”
I tie up Mr. Finch, tighter than I have to. The place smells of chemicals. There are open bottles of bleach and industrial cleaner on the decrepit table. The only spots of white in the entire room.
“What came first? The fetishes or the need to blow his mind? I’m going with the fetish thing. Spot here was a childhood friend? Or maybe that’s just a little add-on. What’s one more kink, right? Despise the color white, collect a few eyeballs, sniff some glue, and find your inner puppy. Ha.”
Jason’s looking at the man like he’s discovered a new species. Brilliant. “Get the hell away from there!” He doesn’t listen, just keeps picking and picking. I can’t tell whose curiosity he’s trying to satisfy.
The chemicals are getting to me. My tired muscles make the argument for using the front door on my way out this time. This place feels as still as a museum, the violence frozen like a dead fish. I try to appreciate the moment for what it is, but I can’t. It always gets hot again, and violence has a low boiling point.
I leave Jason’s voice in the room and move through the hallway. The smell doesn’t improve out here, it just becomes more sinister, less obvious to my senses. It’s around the time when I reach the front door that I get the feeling something’s not right. Just a gut thing again, but subtle this time... No, this feels clean, I can tell. Tip the police, ride home, end it. And still, I hesitate at the wheel.
But only for a moment. I drive to the cave, alone. The armor surrounds me and it’s quiet.
*** January 2 ***
What is real? Or, even better, what is real enough? *He* certainly isn’t. This whole new year-- that isn’t either.
I’m almost afraid by the time I arrive at the cave. The fact that I’m even acknowledging my fear is enough to do me in. I think about where I’ve been the past 24 hours and I don’t recognize my actions. The excuse could be something as simple as fear gas... But that’s the problem isn’t it? Everything has been too simple. I could write this story forever, but it’s not mine to tell.
My story is about an architect. He came upon a green island by the shore, empty except for the breeze that blew in at night and out by day, combing the grasses with scent and salt. The first structure he built there was a bridge. It stretched for miles and miles, perpendicular to the horizon. He said that the bridge was a gesture of goodwill to the sea. No one knew what that meant, since they didn’t believe in superstition anymore. There was nothing to be afraid of in the sea that couldn’t be handled.
The second structure he built was a house no one could live in. Or, that seemed evident enough, considering where it was built. He claimed the house was a stone block, 25x25x25, and they had to believe him. Because the house was underground. The architect said it was safe down there. The people said it was unfit for living.
The third structure he built was a skyscraper. It was much more than that, though. The foundation stretched wide from the edge of the sea to the center of the island and towered overhead, black and steel. The architect said it was built for the people. The people never said a word.
For a year, the monolith was never used. The people waited for something to come along and mar the surface, find some flaw in its face, so they could enter. But nothing happened. Two months after that, the architect is said to have climbed to the roof. As the sun rose like a burnt coin, he slowly stripped off his clothes and dove naked into the sea below. That is the end of his story. Mine is not so simple.
I can’t let myself decay like this. If tonight was as it should be, then why all of the questions? Why am I doing this? What do my memories mean? I’ve learned never to ask questions like these.
“What are you doing?” Jason asks it innocently, but I know it’s not meant that way. So I don’t answer. Besides, I’m tired of the questions, the defense. I go back to shuffling around the cave, touching the concrete, the real.
“I said, what are you doing?”
He says it deliberately. I turn to face him. He’s across the cave, his arms crossed in front of his chest in a defense of his own. I stop moving for a moment, and just stare. He catches me.
“You know, fucking me won’t end the world.”
I don’t need the sarcasm. “It won’t save it either. As a matter of fact, it couldn’t even save you. And to tell the truth, it wouldn’t even brighten my day all that much. So drop it.” By now, I’m through staring. Eyes are more trouble than they’re worth sometimes.
He shifts on his feet, takes a few steps closer. “I guess you’re not the romantic type, huh, Bruce?”
I only half smile. “And you’re not the naive type, Jason. That was the problem.” I gaze at the ceiling trying to retrieve a memory. “‘Romance never saved anyone, only superheroes do’.”
“You’re still saying that line? Always were old-fashioned. There’s one problem--,” his tone turns to ice, “you’re not a superhero.”
Not for the first time tonight, I wonder what he’s doing here. “Goodnight, Jason.” I begin my way up the stone stairs, heading for my father’s clock.
“Escaping again?”
I hear him move, just the sound of air slicing air. It’s familiar to me. And when I feel my legs cut out from under me, I let myself fall. Then I’m turned around, on my back, with nothing to look into but his face.
I panic. In a split second I make a move, and then we’re kneeling a few feet apart on the ground, waiting for this to get any stranger.
He’s angry. “So I’m back to not being good enough, huh? Fuck you, Bruce.”
I have to shut my eyes. It’s too wrong right now. I can’t keep thinking in circles, going around and around. And I can’t look at Jason one moment longer. Sometimes decay is too beautiful to fight against.
I open my eyes anyways, and move to my feet. I have to believe it’s enough. “Goodnight, Jason.”
Either he doesn’t follow or I leave him there, it ends the same.
Alfred is waiting for me upstairs, ever with hot tea and three sugar cookies. “It’s almost one o’clock. Perhaps... you should retire early tonight, sir?”
I listen to his tacit suggestion, masquerading as a question. I don’t answer, and absently run my tongue against my teeth instead.
As we make our way up the staircase, he tries again. “Even superheroes need to rest sometime.”
I wonder if the feeling of living a waking dream will ever go away. Suddenly, this life seems so surreal. It must be me who has changed. It must be...
I look back at him, and the dream is begun now. “But Alfred, I’m not a superhero.”
The End