Fic: 15th June 2010
“You’re just going to do this until you end up dead.”
It isn’t the voice of concern. There’s a scathing quality to it, a level of disgust, and most of all it’s clear now, it’s very clear, Talia doesn’t understand.
In his mind, in his memory, she’d understood him. When he thought of her, and it wasn’t as if it was often, but when he had thought of her, whatever their differences in the ideological, he had felt that she had at the least understood. Understood what he was doing, understood him.
He couldn’t say that of Vesper or Julie. Those relationships had always been a fragment of his life populated with more pretence than authenticity and even if in the end, if asked to justify himself, his actions, all of it, if in the end he would plead that for all the lies that for all of that his feelings had been real - well, there was no getting around the fact that he had more than lied to them, he had used them as part of an elaborate charade he’d constructed them as unwilling, unknowing participants of, which as a sum was a greater betrayal than the lies themselves. The lies could be understood as a necessity but implicating them as actors in the lie - that was perhaps a different story. And if in the end he was able to somehow plead his case that at least his feelings had been real he had to wonder if those feelings would offer much consolation anyway. What good is love if all that love has brought you tears and suffering and your place in a mahogany box?
There had never been space for Julie or for Vesper to understand. Neither of them had ever really known him, not for all the nights that turned into months, not for all the pain he had caused them that both had mistaken for passion, they hadn’t known him. Vesper in the end had caught that final glimpse but how could she have been expected to reconcile what she had discovered with the person she had known? The person she had known had never existed he was a fabrication, and so was their relationship.
And so his brain had started to disconnect from Vesper, it had started to disassemble the relationship until it had really been nothing at all. Until it became another man’s relationship, something completely fictitious, and something that could be analysed - but not too much, this should not be taken too far, to do that was to enter into dangerous territory - something that could be understood intellectually. And so when his mind did wander to Vesper this is what his mind did, it slowly pulled her apart, piece by piece she became dismantled so that he could then reconstruct her, reconstruct them, piece by piece.
Into this world there were parts of her that wouldn’t fit. Her smile, her laugh, her heart - they were all too immense to fit into the box she had gone into. Into this world there were parts of them that wouldn’t fit. Those things had no place in a shiny mahogany coffin -
“Sometimes when you don’t know I’m watching, I look at you and… you look so fucking sad.” She’d said to him.
“I’m just tired tonight.” He said to her and he smiled, he made sure he smiled. But she didn’t smile back.
And he dreams of her, of course, night after night he dreams of her. Since childhood his dreams have betrayed him, since childhood those dreams have refused to be dictated to and controlled, they’ve rebelled and fought and refused to be reasoned with, they know only anarchy. They refuse to accept his supremacy - in his dreams there is no control, in his dreams he feels emotions that have been gone for decades now, in his dreams she comes and she is not a fiction, she is not a lie - in his dreams she has impossibly beautiful skin and a mess of red hair and glasses that fall down on her nose and in his dreams he pushes them up before he kisses her and she tastes like more than he knows he deserves and in his dreams he loves her and in his dreams she is his lover and for a moment there is happiness and warmth and something other than this.
And he dreams that they’re sitting in Wayne Manor. Sitting together on the floor of the family room that, truth be told, he’s not sure they had ever used much as a family, but he and Vesper sit together on the floor and she plays with a collection of small matchbox cars that she arranges with careful precision only to watch as he moves his large plastic dinosaur amongst them, causing havoc, causing confusion, creating catastrophe.
“When I grow up,” He tells her. “We’ll live here together.”
“You’re never going to grow up, Bruce.” She tells him. “And neither will I.”
And Talia stands there behind him, watching in silence, as he pulls his shirt away from his arm, pulls skin off, she watches as he reveals the war wounds from that night, from the night before, from the week before, from the month before that.
She doesn’t understand. Her father had understood. Bruce knew that much. Henri and he - Ra’s and he - had understood each other.
But Talia did not understand and that felt like a betrayal, perhaps a more significant one than the many that had passed before. It felt like a betrayal to find that the understanding he had banked on all these years, even if he’d never had the intention to cash it in, did not exist, it had never been there at all.
“You’re just going to do this until you end up dead.” She says to him.
“That’s the way we all end up, Talia.” He replies.
It isn’t the voice of concern. There’s a scathing quality to it, a level of disgust, and most of all it’s clear now, it’s very clear, Talia doesn’t understand.
In his mind, in his memory, she’d understood him. When he thought of her, and it wasn’t as if it was often, but when he had thought of her, whatever their differences in the ideological, he had felt that she had at the least understood. Understood what he was doing, understood him.
He couldn’t say that of Vesper or Julie. Those relationships had always been a fragment of his life populated with more pretence than authenticity and even if in the end, if asked to justify himself, his actions, all of it, if in the end he would plead that for all the lies that for all of that his feelings had been real - well, there was no getting around the fact that he had more than lied to them, he had used them as part of an elaborate charade he’d constructed them as unwilling, unknowing participants of, which as a sum was a greater betrayal than the lies themselves. The lies could be understood as a necessity but implicating them as actors in the lie - that was perhaps a different story. And if in the end he was able to somehow plead his case that at least his feelings had been real he had to wonder if those feelings would offer much consolation anyway. What good is love if all that love has brought you tears and suffering and your place in a mahogany box?
There had never been space for Julie or for Vesper to understand. Neither of them had ever really known him, not for all the nights that turned into months, not for all the pain he had caused them that both had mistaken for passion, they hadn’t known him. Vesper in the end had caught that final glimpse but how could she have been expected to reconcile what she had discovered with the person she had known? The person she had known had never existed he was a fabrication, and so was their relationship.
And so his brain had started to disconnect from Vesper, it had started to disassemble the relationship until it had really been nothing at all. Until it became another man’s relationship, something completely fictitious, and something that could be analysed - but not too much, this should not be taken too far, to do that was to enter into dangerous territory - something that could be understood intellectually. And so when his mind did wander to Vesper this is what his mind did, it slowly pulled her apart, piece by piece she became dismantled so that he could then reconstruct her, reconstruct them, piece by piece.
Into this world there were parts of her that wouldn’t fit. Her smile, her laugh, her heart - they were all too immense to fit into the box she had gone into. Into this world there were parts of them that wouldn’t fit. Those things had no place in a shiny mahogany coffin -
“Sometimes when you don’t know I’m watching, I look at you and… you look so fucking sad.” She’d said to him.
“I’m just tired tonight.” He said to her and he smiled, he made sure he smiled. But she didn’t smile back.
And he dreams of her, of course, night after night he dreams of her. Since childhood his dreams have betrayed him, since childhood those dreams have refused to be dictated to and controlled, they’ve rebelled and fought and refused to be reasoned with, they know only anarchy. They refuse to accept his supremacy - in his dreams there is no control, in his dreams he feels emotions that have been gone for decades now, in his dreams she comes and she is not a fiction, she is not a lie - in his dreams she has impossibly beautiful skin and a mess of red hair and glasses that fall down on her nose and in his dreams he pushes them up before he kisses her and she tastes like more than he knows he deserves and in his dreams he loves her and in his dreams she is his lover and for a moment there is happiness and warmth and something other than this.
And he dreams that they’re sitting in Wayne Manor. Sitting together on the floor of the family room that, truth be told, he’s not sure they had ever used much as a family, but he and Vesper sit together on the floor and she plays with a collection of small matchbox cars that she arranges with careful precision only to watch as he moves his large plastic dinosaur amongst them, causing havoc, causing confusion, creating catastrophe.
“When I grow up,” He tells her. “We’ll live here together.”
“You’re never going to grow up, Bruce.” She tells him. “And neither will I.”
And Talia stands there behind him, watching in silence, as he pulls his shirt away from his arm, pulls skin off, she watches as he reveals the war wounds from that night, from the night before, from the week before, from the month before that.
She doesn’t understand. Her father had understood. Bruce knew that much. Henri and he - Ra’s and he - had understood each other.
But Talia did not understand and that felt like a betrayal, perhaps a more significant one than the many that had passed before. It felt like a betrayal to find that the understanding he had banked on all these years, even if he’d never had the intention to cash it in, did not exist, it had never been there at all.
“You’re just going to do this until you end up dead.” She says to him.
“That’s the way we all end up, Talia.” He replies.