Fic: "Catharsis" (The Dark Knight)
Title: Catharsis
Author: equustel
Rating: PG
Characters: Bruce, Alfred
Summary: A coda to The Dark Knight; picks up the last scene and runs with it. Sort of a companion piece to "Paralysis" - the fic I wrote for Batman Begins.
Disclaimer: Somebody owns Batman, but it isn't me.
Beta: krisology. Look! I finished something! Cookie?
Author's Notes: IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME.
* * *
Every time he stumbled, his vision narrowed.
It was easy enough to ignore the blood; he couldn’t see it on the black of the suit or his gloves, other than a faint gleam every once in awhile when he passed under a dim city light. The dogs and men creating night-horror sounds in the distance didn’t faze him, either. His own defiant confidence was with him - one born of purpose. He wasn’t much of a believer in fate or destiny, but purpose was different; it ran on a different engine, and that engine ran him. More importantly still, he had chosen it. No one (nothing) had made him choose. Not Joe Chill, not the cold anger that had slept with him for so many years - not the League. He’d chosen, and so the blood didn’t faze him. He paid it willingly.
But the pain was harder to ignore. He didn’t know why it cost him so much effort to recall the countless methods of relief he’d learned over the years. Burning coals and metal spikes in foreign places had listened to him. The deep, bloody wounds he stitched back together every other night taught him something, but their influence stopped there. They didn’t make him falter; they didn’t have that power. They could only sharpen his focus. He had learned to use his pain, in the same way he used his fear - honing it like the blade of a knife, until it was a weapon to be brandished, ready to cut through every obstacle in way of him. Batman has no limits, he’d told Alfred, and it was true.
But you do, sir, Alfred had returned - and he’d been right, too.
And yet right, in this case, didn’t matter. It meant nothing that Bruce Wayne had limits - fears, pains, burdens - because Bruce Wayne surrendered to the creature, night after night, and became nothing more than another blade in its hand.
But this new fire was challenging that authority. It was reaching for the knife, seeking to turn the blade on its master and twist it in deep.
We wouldn’t want to make things too easy, now, would we?
Harvey had good aim: right between the plates. Not that he’d been trying. It’d been too easy. Like snuffing out the life of a man - a good man, a great man - who had a gun cocked at a little boy’s head, who was caressing the cool metal with every intent of pulling the trigger. He couldn’t chase the sickening absurdity of the image from his mind. It followed him like a spectre, and he knew it would still be there after he had collapsed in safety (was there such a thing now?), after morning came - and the next day, and the next.
Could he call it an accident? No. When he’d barreled into Harvey he hadn’t held back. There’d been no consideration for anyone’s welfare but the boy’s. Everything else could break: his rules, his choices, himself (always himself). But not the boy, and not Gordon.
Not Gotham.
He focused on breathing and running, breathing and running, making it into a rhythm - a chant. The dogs in the distance might have advanced. He couldn’t tell. He could see Gordon’s face in his mind’s eye, bewildered and hesitant. He’d trusted Gordon to understand, and Gordon hadn’t let him down, despite what his face had showed. Will again: will over feeling. He was chasing. It was almost a comfort. He tried to remember that things were simpler now: stay alive. There was nothing left waiting for him to run toward, no more branches on the path he’d cut to choose between - no more outs. There was only something to run away from.
Too easy.
He reached the pod and shifted it into gear.
* * *
It happened quickly, as Alfred should have expected. One moment, the hall entrance was empty, glistening in the half-light; the next, a caped shadow leaned against the inner wall. His breath caught, and as he held it he heard Bruce’s own breathing: heavy and uneven. He was clutching something in his hand, and as he shifted into a patch of moonlight - just barely, as if reluctant to further expose himself - Alfred saw it was the cowl. Then he saw something dark stain the spotless white floor.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred whispered, and was at his side again, where he belonged. He heaved Bruce’s right arm over his back and rested it on his own shoulder, but this new suit was even heavier than the last, and Alfred feared his support wasn’t much help. Bruce’s other hand covered the wound, as if hiding it. Alfred didn’t bother trying to pry it loose and inspect the damage. Not yet. “We need to get underground,” he said. Bruce didn’t respond, just nodded, and kept breathing his slow, shallow breaths.
The building was so quiet: it made every step, shuffle, and grunt as they made their way to the elevator seem horribly compromising. The doors slid open with a slick hiss, nearly soundless, showing off their expense. Alfred watched the blood ink their trail every few steps, and dully wondered how he’d clean it up later.
The doors finally opened to a barren concrete floor. It was cold down here, the temperature regulation not as immaculate as the rest of the building, in order to keep company eyes from shifting toward a level with no officially-designated use.
Alfred didn’t bother trying to heave Bruce’s weight toward the center of the room; his own breaths were sounding labored, now. He settled for the edge. “Sorry,” Bruce muttered to him, the apology almost earnest.
“Quite alright, Master Bruce,” said Alfred, “I’ll be finer for it.”
The ground shuddered, splitting just a few feet from where they stood, and began to sink.
* * *
The stark light of the bunker made the blood shine brilliantly against the suit’s matte black. Just above Bruce’s stomach, a singed hole in the fabric between two metal plates offered only the barest glimpse of the damage done - but it was enough. Alfred had to exert exemplary self-control in order to stop himself from uttering the word “hospital.” He knew what to do; Lord knew Bruce had given him plenty of practice in the past year and a half; but when it came down to it, he was no doctor - and neither was his ward. This was going to be difficult, and messy.
But there was simply no story they could come up with that wouldn’t arouse suspicion - not with Gotham the way it was, not with Bruce the way he was. It had to be done alone. Besides, Alfred was fairly certain that any mask Bruce tried to put on in his current state would slide right back off. The line between his selves was more blurred than he’d ever seen it before. Bruce’s physical appearance only told half the story, but it was a good half: he sat hunched over on the cold metal table as if shielding himself, shadows still painted under his eyes (and in them); he had one foot in each world, and no traction in either.
Alfred pried Bruce’s gloved hand away from his stomach. As if wakened by this involuntary movement, Bruce began to methodically remove the upper portion of the suit, piece by piece. Alfred watched, but after a few moments, he noticed Bruce slowing, and saw that his arms had begun to shake, his fingers losing traction with the slippery rubber. He was finally succumbing to a state of shock; Alfred wondered how long his body had been asking for it.
Incredibly enough, Bruce accepted Alfred’s help in stripping the rest of the torso. It came off in sections, joining the black heap of cape and cowl already on the floor. Bruce’s arms dropped eventually, abandoning any pretense, and his eyes roamed the room, unfocused. Alfred wondered what he was seeing - what he had seen. He tried not to picture for himself the reality that lay behind what the dolled-up television reporters had announced earlier that evening: that Harvey Dent was dead; that Batman had killed him, and four other people.
He folded a strip of gauze and wet it with a liberal amount of alcohol, his hand hovering over the wound, hesitating. Old habits died hard: sometimes, Alfred still treated Bruce like Thomas’s too-young son, like someone to be protected from such absurd levels of pain. He liked to believe this was more than just an outdated instinct - that Bruce still needed a gentle hand like anyone else, if in smaller and less obvious ways than before. Alfred thought of Harvey Dent, and how he’d lost the one person that might have kept him safe, the same person Bruce had run after for comfort so recently. He looked at his own hands holding the wet bandage with new worry. He wouldn’t be here forever.
Chasing the thought, he braced one arm around Bruce’s back, took in a breath, and pressed the gauze hard against his stomach. Bruce’s body coiled sharply in reaction, his eyes squeezing shut. A muffled sound escaped him, but it was brief. Alfred felt his own stomach tighten. “I’m sorry, Master Bruce,” he whispered, cringing as he dabbed the edges of the wound and re-folded the gauze.
When Bruce opened his eyes again, the creeping exhaustion had fled them. They were sharp again, full of that pitiless anger Alfred was so familiar with, when Batman came in from the storm and forgot for awhile the man waiting inside of him.
But this fury was somehow more concentrated - rawer than it had been in awhile. In it, Alfred saw Rachel and Harvey and longing and hope whipped back like a stinging lash. The cut it made would leave an uglier scar than the others, but it would heal, just as Gotham would. Somehow.
Alfred disposed of the gauze, and when he turned back Bruce was holding his head up. Still not looking at Alfred - looking past him. But no longer seeing ghosts. “I’ll do it,” he said then, and he didn’t whisper; he spoke. It echoed in the wide, empty room.
Alfred looked up in surprise. “Do what, Master Bruce?” he asked, more protesting than inquiring.
“I’ll take it out.”
Alfred blinked, then shook his head, busying himself with the utensils. “I suppose it wouldn’t change your mind if I mentioned how utterly foolish I think that is.” He tried to keep his tone as even as possible.
“No, it wouldn’t.” Bruce’s voice didn’t hold a trace of the quiet bemusement that Alfred considered such a victory in their exchanges. It was taut and grim.
“Very well. I’ll get something for the pain.”
“No, Alfred.”
“Master Bruce,” he said, and his tone now was less even, “You can’t seriously be-”
“No.” For the first time that night, their eyes locked and held.
Alfred fell silent, and saw then that if this was going to leave a scar, Bruce fully intended to cut the scar to fit.
He shuddered, trying not to think of the Joker.
* * *
Bruce stood and watched his city through the glass walls of the penthouse. Dawn was a scant few hours away, but the dark outside did not look ready to leave. It had settled over Gotham, heavy and certain.
He placed one hand on the window and felt the city’s pulse, faint behind the glass. It was hurt, and angry. It didn’t understand: like a child, he had to let it go, let it learn what he’d learned.
His hand fogged the cold glass pane. He’d hoped for too much - for an end. It had seemed so close, and he’d run after it like it was already his. He’d tasted Rachel, making promises he couldn’t keep. He’d put away the cowl and the suit and the whole damn operation - denied the creature, only to feel it stirring more alive than ever inside of him. Deep down, where it mattered, he’d known what was being asked of him (everything), and had stumbled along the tunnel anyway, staring blearily into the distance for a light that didn’t exist. Because that was the sacrifice you made when you served an ideal. It took everything: anything less can’t change a man, and an unchanged man can’t save anyone. This was what Bruce had learned.
Harvey changed. He felt again the the cold, sick ache that had swept over him when he’d arrived not to Rachel’s voice but Harvey’s, Harvey’s horrible cries that were not from the fire and the gasoline but from the dizzying depths of human grief, where Batman was born and other men went to die.
He braced both hands against the glass, and dropped his head between his arms, feeling himself seethe. His stomach still burned - he shouldn’t be standing, he should be in the bed Alfred had prepared for him an hour ago - but it all felt so fake, so infuriating: the comfort that waited for him just steps away, this immaculate room that reeked of indulgence and apathy. Everything that marked Bruce Wayne to the world outside.
He wanted to break the glass in front of him, let it tumble to the street miles and miles below. Something needed to break. (People need dramatic examples.) It all needed to break; it was no good the way it was.
He turned away from the window, his hands shaking, longing to destroy something.
The mind of his enemy was close to him, then.
* * *
Alfred wasn’t sleeping, but the first ear-splitting crash that cut through the silence was enough to make him feel like he’d just woken to the world. For an instant, he was paralyzed, dreading that the worst had come to pass: that despite every painstaking precaution, Bruce had been found.
Then it came again: the sound of something shattering, and Alfred stumbled to his feet, abruptly deciding it didn’t matter.
The racket grew louder and more frequent as he entered the hall, until it sounded as if the entire room might be caving in. Alfred approached carefully, his heart clenched tight in his chest, and soon his eyes began to distinguish the lone figure silhouetted against the glassy, starless pre-dawn - the singular pair of hands reaching for everything that was breakable, and even things already broken.
He watched Bruce heave one of the couches over on its side and shove it crashing into a table, and wondered how much pain this must be causing him - how much worse his wound would be when he was finished. Or if that was the very point... that he was still cutting it to fit, still unsatisfied with the mark it’d left.
Alfred watched and waited, feeling utterly helpless.
Then Bruce saw him, and paused mid-destruction, as if caught in a spell. He stared at Alfred, his hands tightening around whatever it was that he held. The black overshirt he wore was torn in two places, and his hands were bleeding. He held them even with his stomach, gingerly, as if unsure what more to do with them. Then he placed one on the overturned couch beside him, sending pieces of something clattering to the floor, and looked down. He didn’t move.
Alfred could think of nothing to say - nothing that wouldn’t sound irreverent in the sudden silence. He felt Bruce’s fury emptying out as the moments passed, leaving the room. As it did, Bruce bent his head and covered his face with one bloody hand. Then slowly, as if it were taking every bit of energy he had left, he sank to the floor, braced against the couch.
Alfred moved over to him, sitting quietly by his side. He didn’t embrace him, didn’t speak any comforting words, as he might have once. There was perhaps a part of Bruce that would still respond to those things, but Alfred knew it was buried deep, and wouldn’t be dislodged so easily.
And so he simply sat, giving Bruce the one thing he never rejected: his company.
He thought of Thomas and Martha Wayne, of how much their son kept giving for them, and what they could never give him in return. He let the soundless interval linger, until Bruce’s hand fell away from his face onto the floor. Alfred couldn’t see, in the dark, if there were tears there to match the two short gasps that Bruce took, but he supposed it was for the best that the dark was separating them - giving his ward the privacy he needed.
Alfred remembered (was it so long ago?) those nights when, still a child, Bruce would run to him with naked fear in his eyes and so much else, flinging his arms around him and sobbing into his shirt until it stained - too much salt-water from too young of a soul.
By the time he was twelve, Bruce’s tears were in shorter supply, and Alfred gave him comfort by merely talking with him, being a warm voice in the night. He told stories about Bruce’s parents, never letting their names grow too sacred, in hopes that Bruce might one day think on them again with something other than hollow guilt and grief.
He did, now; Bruce was no longer so empty. Now, he was fueled by the things that had once drained him of life. Alfred’s opinion of this wavered. He was proud of Bruce, but also frightened. There was only so much neglect the man could take in favor of the monster. There was only so much Batman could do for Gotham before Bruce began to bleed out.
Alfred grasped the hand that lay on the floor beside him. Bruce did not draw it away.
* * *
“I shouldn’t be here, Alfred.”
Dawn had cast the room with a pale gleam, defining every shard of splintered glass and wood. It all looked somehow smaller, less mythic and terrible, in the light.
Alfred cleared his throat, testing the newly-broken quiet. “It seems so, sir.”
Bruce looked out at Gotham; he, too, seemed to have shrunken - a man again, seeing the world with a man’s eyes. “This one kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?”
“Not quite as easily as you burning down the Manor in a drunken fit.”
Bruce ducked his head, and Alfred caught a ghost of humor on his face before it was hidden from view. Then he shifted against the couch, stiffening as the black shirt he wore caught over his stomach; dried blood, fresh only a few hours before, pulled at it.
“Careful, sir.” Alfred stood, stretching his own weary limbs, and offered his hand to Bruce - who took it (always a wonder) and, using the couch as a brace, managed to get to his feet. He let out a shaky breath.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I know.”
The admittance surprised Alfred. He was used to Bruce waving away concern, spending the hours before nightfall filling his headspace with strategy, new leads, investigation - anything to ignore (defy) the fact that he was injured.
But there was an edge of confession to his voice, now. An awareness that hadn’t shown itself in a long time.
Bruce picked up one of the larger pieces of porcelain that lay scattered over the couch, examining it. After a moment, he looked over at Alfred, his expression curiously open. “Do you think it’ll work?”
Alfred was taken aback by the directness of the question; he hadn’t expected Bruce to touch this subject so soon. He turned an answer over in his mind, choosing the words carefully. “I think Batman knew what he was doing,” he said, finally. “I think the Joker didn’t plan for this.”
Bruce swallowed. “I want him dead, Alfred.” Another confession. “I want him dead more than anything.” He was perfectly still.
“I know, sir.”
“But he’s alive. And I killed Harvey.” The words dropped from him like lead weights. His voice was strained with the truth-telling.
“You saved a boy’s life.”
“I could have saved more than that.”
Alfred turned to face Bruce more fully, catching his eyes and holding them. “I would hope you’d know better, Master Bruce, where the blame here should be placed.”
Bruce looked away. He knew, but that didn’t change anything - as much as Alfred wished it would.
The morning was growing brighter; a glare formed against the marble floor. When it became clear that Bruce had nothing more to say, Alfred gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t suppose you’ll take some rest?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Bruce said, his brow furrowing. “Not here.”
Alfred nodded. He’d expected as much. “I’ll make certain no one misses you.”
And now it was Bruce who sought Alfred’s eyes, looking at him with unchecked gratitude and no small measure of wonder. “Thank you, Alfred,” he said, and grasped the old man’s hand in both of his.
* * *
The skeleton of the Manor had grown since he'd last seen it. It rose in front of him like a ghost: still too thin and insubstantial, missing walls and tiers and doors and so much else, sunlight from behind the hill filtering through each gaping space. This place is a mausoleum. His own words. And now? Now, what could he call it?
He greeted a few of the workers, not bothering to cover his face with a Wayne-patented smile. They didn't seem to notice or care. A few tipped their hats at him as he walked by. No one asked any questions; no one ever did. You're Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham. A prince without a castle.
It was green and grassy in the back; the new landscaping had taken hold quickly. But he did not stop to marvel. He walked with purpose toward the well, through the greenhouse, feeling memories tug at him like whispers as he went.
Only a few vines had grown over the boards. It hadn't been long. He stared at them, and drove away the urge to tear the wood to splinters. His hands had known enough abuse in the last few hours; they ached still. But more than that stopped him.
He had boarded the well with intent, making a clear statement to himself. A decision. To undo it would be to undo what had brought him here, and that could never happen.
He turned away. The grand arch that led into the Manor's rear courtyard yawned to his left. Carefully picking his way over, he followed what felt like a set path in front of him. It led him into the heart of the great mansion, through rooms still wall-less and doorless. The past lived here, in the half-rubble. He could see every inch of the halls and stairwells the way they used to be, though they were only bones now - ungainly plaster, wood and concrete.
He was unsurprised at his destination: the piano room. It was cleared of debris, but hadn't yet been restored. The walls were stripped white-gray, and the piano was covered with a dust-brown tarp. He loosened it, pulled it back just enough to reveal the keys. He let his right hand hover over them a moment, remembering the last time he'd punched out these three notes, when his world was burning down around him. The dissonant tones echoed dully - once, trice, thrice - and the empty bookcase ground forward, dim light spilling into the elevator behind it.
He took the clattering contraption underground. As usual, it slammed to an ungraceful halt at the bottom. The cave was barren. Alfred had done his work well. There was nothing here to compromise a soul. The bats chittered at their guest, but did not come to bother him. In the distance, he heard the waterfall's roar, and it quieted something in him. He stumbled toward it, as if in a trance - but the farther he went the more his legs seemed to give, no longer willing to hold his weight. Exhaustion hit him like a blow. He knelt on the ground, where the dark earth was blanketed in patches of soil. He clutched at the cool dirt. It felt and smelled like home.
Weariness overcame him then, gravity dragging his spirit. Rest. He squinted up, southeast, and saw thin bands of light falling from the well entrance, between the boards that marked it closed.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he lay down on the earth, letting its coolness soothe each burn and ache his body bore. In the din of his crowded mind, he remembered. You'd have to go a thousand miles to meet somebody who didn't know your name. But Falcone had been wrong. That fact rang truer than anything against against the haze of thought and feeling that covered him in the dark. He'd been a thousand miles away, and found no rest there. But here, he was nameless. Here in the dirt at the bottom of the well, beginnings and endings scattered around him, perhaps he could rest. For a time.
He closed his eyes.
Author: equustel
Rating: PG
Characters: Bruce, Alfred
Summary: A coda to The Dark Knight; picks up the last scene and runs with it. Sort of a companion piece to "Paralysis" - the fic I wrote for Batman Begins.
Disclaimer: Somebody owns Batman, but it isn't me.
Beta: krisology. Look! I finished something! Cookie?
Author's Notes: IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME.
* * *
Every time he stumbled, his vision narrowed.
It was easy enough to ignore the blood; he couldn’t see it on the black of the suit or his gloves, other than a faint gleam every once in awhile when he passed under a dim city light. The dogs and men creating night-horror sounds in the distance didn’t faze him, either. His own defiant confidence was with him - one born of purpose. He wasn’t much of a believer in fate or destiny, but purpose was different; it ran on a different engine, and that engine ran him. More importantly still, he had chosen it. No one (nothing) had made him choose. Not Joe Chill, not the cold anger that had slept with him for so many years - not the League. He’d chosen, and so the blood didn’t faze him. He paid it willingly.
But the pain was harder to ignore. He didn’t know why it cost him so much effort to recall the countless methods of relief he’d learned over the years. Burning coals and metal spikes in foreign places had listened to him. The deep, bloody wounds he stitched back together every other night taught him something, but their influence stopped there. They didn’t make him falter; they didn’t have that power. They could only sharpen his focus. He had learned to use his pain, in the same way he used his fear - honing it like the blade of a knife, until it was a weapon to be brandished, ready to cut through every obstacle in way of him. Batman has no limits, he’d told Alfred, and it was true.
But you do, sir, Alfred had returned - and he’d been right, too.
And yet right, in this case, didn’t matter. It meant nothing that Bruce Wayne had limits - fears, pains, burdens - because Bruce Wayne surrendered to the creature, night after night, and became nothing more than another blade in its hand.
But this new fire was challenging that authority. It was reaching for the knife, seeking to turn the blade on its master and twist it in deep.
We wouldn’t want to make things too easy, now, would we?
Harvey had good aim: right between the plates. Not that he’d been trying. It’d been too easy. Like snuffing out the life of a man - a good man, a great man - who had a gun cocked at a little boy’s head, who was caressing the cool metal with every intent of pulling the trigger. He couldn’t chase the sickening absurdity of the image from his mind. It followed him like a spectre, and he knew it would still be there after he had collapsed in safety (was there such a thing now?), after morning came - and the next day, and the next.
Could he call it an accident? No. When he’d barreled into Harvey he hadn’t held back. There’d been no consideration for anyone’s welfare but the boy’s. Everything else could break: his rules, his choices, himself (always himself). But not the boy, and not Gordon.
Not Gotham.
He focused on breathing and running, breathing and running, making it into a rhythm - a chant. The dogs in the distance might have advanced. He couldn’t tell. He could see Gordon’s face in his mind’s eye, bewildered and hesitant. He’d trusted Gordon to understand, and Gordon hadn’t let him down, despite what his face had showed. Will again: will over feeling. He was chasing. It was almost a comfort. He tried to remember that things were simpler now: stay alive. There was nothing left waiting for him to run toward, no more branches on the path he’d cut to choose between - no more outs. There was only something to run away from.
Too easy.
He reached the pod and shifted it into gear.
* * *
It happened quickly, as Alfred should have expected. One moment, the hall entrance was empty, glistening in the half-light; the next, a caped shadow leaned against the inner wall. His breath caught, and as he held it he heard Bruce’s own breathing: heavy and uneven. He was clutching something in his hand, and as he shifted into a patch of moonlight - just barely, as if reluctant to further expose himself - Alfred saw it was the cowl. Then he saw something dark stain the spotless white floor.
“Master Bruce,” Alfred whispered, and was at his side again, where he belonged. He heaved Bruce’s right arm over his back and rested it on his own shoulder, but this new suit was even heavier than the last, and Alfred feared his support wasn’t much help. Bruce’s other hand covered the wound, as if hiding it. Alfred didn’t bother trying to pry it loose and inspect the damage. Not yet. “We need to get underground,” he said. Bruce didn’t respond, just nodded, and kept breathing his slow, shallow breaths.
The building was so quiet: it made every step, shuffle, and grunt as they made their way to the elevator seem horribly compromising. The doors slid open with a slick hiss, nearly soundless, showing off their expense. Alfred watched the blood ink their trail every few steps, and dully wondered how he’d clean it up later.
The doors finally opened to a barren concrete floor. It was cold down here, the temperature regulation not as immaculate as the rest of the building, in order to keep company eyes from shifting toward a level with no officially-designated use.
Alfred didn’t bother trying to heave Bruce’s weight toward the center of the room; his own breaths were sounding labored, now. He settled for the edge. “Sorry,” Bruce muttered to him, the apology almost earnest.
“Quite alright, Master Bruce,” said Alfred, “I’ll be finer for it.”
The ground shuddered, splitting just a few feet from where they stood, and began to sink.
* * *
The stark light of the bunker made the blood shine brilliantly against the suit’s matte black. Just above Bruce’s stomach, a singed hole in the fabric between two metal plates offered only the barest glimpse of the damage done - but it was enough. Alfred had to exert exemplary self-control in order to stop himself from uttering the word “hospital.” He knew what to do; Lord knew Bruce had given him plenty of practice in the past year and a half; but when it came down to it, he was no doctor - and neither was his ward. This was going to be difficult, and messy.
But there was simply no story they could come up with that wouldn’t arouse suspicion - not with Gotham the way it was, not with Bruce the way he was. It had to be done alone. Besides, Alfred was fairly certain that any mask Bruce tried to put on in his current state would slide right back off. The line between his selves was more blurred than he’d ever seen it before. Bruce’s physical appearance only told half the story, but it was a good half: he sat hunched over on the cold metal table as if shielding himself, shadows still painted under his eyes (and in them); he had one foot in each world, and no traction in either.
Alfred pried Bruce’s gloved hand away from his stomach. As if wakened by this involuntary movement, Bruce began to methodically remove the upper portion of the suit, piece by piece. Alfred watched, but after a few moments, he noticed Bruce slowing, and saw that his arms had begun to shake, his fingers losing traction with the slippery rubber. He was finally succumbing to a state of shock; Alfred wondered how long his body had been asking for it.
Incredibly enough, Bruce accepted Alfred’s help in stripping the rest of the torso. It came off in sections, joining the black heap of cape and cowl already on the floor. Bruce’s arms dropped eventually, abandoning any pretense, and his eyes roamed the room, unfocused. Alfred wondered what he was seeing - what he had seen. He tried not to picture for himself the reality that lay behind what the dolled-up television reporters had announced earlier that evening: that Harvey Dent was dead; that Batman had killed him, and four other people.
He folded a strip of gauze and wet it with a liberal amount of alcohol, his hand hovering over the wound, hesitating. Old habits died hard: sometimes, Alfred still treated Bruce like Thomas’s too-young son, like someone to be protected from such absurd levels of pain. He liked to believe this was more than just an outdated instinct - that Bruce still needed a gentle hand like anyone else, if in smaller and less obvious ways than before. Alfred thought of Harvey Dent, and how he’d lost the one person that might have kept him safe, the same person Bruce had run after for comfort so recently. He looked at his own hands holding the wet bandage with new worry. He wouldn’t be here forever.
Chasing the thought, he braced one arm around Bruce’s back, took in a breath, and pressed the gauze hard against his stomach. Bruce’s body coiled sharply in reaction, his eyes squeezing shut. A muffled sound escaped him, but it was brief. Alfred felt his own stomach tighten. “I’m sorry, Master Bruce,” he whispered, cringing as he dabbed the edges of the wound and re-folded the gauze.
When Bruce opened his eyes again, the creeping exhaustion had fled them. They were sharp again, full of that pitiless anger Alfred was so familiar with, when Batman came in from the storm and forgot for awhile the man waiting inside of him.
But this fury was somehow more concentrated - rawer than it had been in awhile. In it, Alfred saw Rachel and Harvey and longing and hope whipped back like a stinging lash. The cut it made would leave an uglier scar than the others, but it would heal, just as Gotham would. Somehow.
Alfred disposed of the gauze, and when he turned back Bruce was holding his head up. Still not looking at Alfred - looking past him. But no longer seeing ghosts. “I’ll do it,” he said then, and he didn’t whisper; he spoke. It echoed in the wide, empty room.
Alfred looked up in surprise. “Do what, Master Bruce?” he asked, more protesting than inquiring.
“I’ll take it out.”
Alfred blinked, then shook his head, busying himself with the utensils. “I suppose it wouldn’t change your mind if I mentioned how utterly foolish I think that is.” He tried to keep his tone as even as possible.
“No, it wouldn’t.” Bruce’s voice didn’t hold a trace of the quiet bemusement that Alfred considered such a victory in their exchanges. It was taut and grim.
“Very well. I’ll get something for the pain.”
“No, Alfred.”
“Master Bruce,” he said, and his tone now was less even, “You can’t seriously be-”
“No.” For the first time that night, their eyes locked and held.
Alfred fell silent, and saw then that if this was going to leave a scar, Bruce fully intended to cut the scar to fit.
He shuddered, trying not to think of the Joker.
* * *
Bruce stood and watched his city through the glass walls of the penthouse. Dawn was a scant few hours away, but the dark outside did not look ready to leave. It had settled over Gotham, heavy and certain.
He placed one hand on the window and felt the city’s pulse, faint behind the glass. It was hurt, and angry. It didn’t understand: like a child, he had to let it go, let it learn what he’d learned.
His hand fogged the cold glass pane. He’d hoped for too much - for an end. It had seemed so close, and he’d run after it like it was already his. He’d tasted Rachel, making promises he couldn’t keep. He’d put away the cowl and the suit and the whole damn operation - denied the creature, only to feel it stirring more alive than ever inside of him. Deep down, where it mattered, he’d known what was being asked of him (everything), and had stumbled along the tunnel anyway, staring blearily into the distance for a light that didn’t exist. Because that was the sacrifice you made when you served an ideal. It took everything: anything less can’t change a man, and an unchanged man can’t save anyone. This was what Bruce had learned.
Harvey changed. He felt again the the cold, sick ache that had swept over him when he’d arrived not to Rachel’s voice but Harvey’s, Harvey’s horrible cries that were not from the fire and the gasoline but from the dizzying depths of human grief, where Batman was born and other men went to die.
He braced both hands against the glass, and dropped his head between his arms, feeling himself seethe. His stomach still burned - he shouldn’t be standing, he should be in the bed Alfred had prepared for him an hour ago - but it all felt so fake, so infuriating: the comfort that waited for him just steps away, this immaculate room that reeked of indulgence and apathy. Everything that marked Bruce Wayne to the world outside.
He wanted to break the glass in front of him, let it tumble to the street miles and miles below. Something needed to break. (People need dramatic examples.) It all needed to break; it was no good the way it was.
He turned away from the window, his hands shaking, longing to destroy something.
The mind of his enemy was close to him, then.
* * *
Alfred wasn’t sleeping, but the first ear-splitting crash that cut through the silence was enough to make him feel like he’d just woken to the world. For an instant, he was paralyzed, dreading that the worst had come to pass: that despite every painstaking precaution, Bruce had been found.
Then it came again: the sound of something shattering, and Alfred stumbled to his feet, abruptly deciding it didn’t matter.
The racket grew louder and more frequent as he entered the hall, until it sounded as if the entire room might be caving in. Alfred approached carefully, his heart clenched tight in his chest, and soon his eyes began to distinguish the lone figure silhouetted against the glassy, starless pre-dawn - the singular pair of hands reaching for everything that was breakable, and even things already broken.
He watched Bruce heave one of the couches over on its side and shove it crashing into a table, and wondered how much pain this must be causing him - how much worse his wound would be when he was finished. Or if that was the very point... that he was still cutting it to fit, still unsatisfied with the mark it’d left.
Alfred watched and waited, feeling utterly helpless.
Then Bruce saw him, and paused mid-destruction, as if caught in a spell. He stared at Alfred, his hands tightening around whatever it was that he held. The black overshirt he wore was torn in two places, and his hands were bleeding. He held them even with his stomach, gingerly, as if unsure what more to do with them. Then he placed one on the overturned couch beside him, sending pieces of something clattering to the floor, and looked down. He didn’t move.
Alfred could think of nothing to say - nothing that wouldn’t sound irreverent in the sudden silence. He felt Bruce’s fury emptying out as the moments passed, leaving the room. As it did, Bruce bent his head and covered his face with one bloody hand. Then slowly, as if it were taking every bit of energy he had left, he sank to the floor, braced against the couch.
Alfred moved over to him, sitting quietly by his side. He didn’t embrace him, didn’t speak any comforting words, as he might have once. There was perhaps a part of Bruce that would still respond to those things, but Alfred knew it was buried deep, and wouldn’t be dislodged so easily.
And so he simply sat, giving Bruce the one thing he never rejected: his company.
He thought of Thomas and Martha Wayne, of how much their son kept giving for them, and what they could never give him in return. He let the soundless interval linger, until Bruce’s hand fell away from his face onto the floor. Alfred couldn’t see, in the dark, if there were tears there to match the two short gasps that Bruce took, but he supposed it was for the best that the dark was separating them - giving his ward the privacy he needed.
Alfred remembered (was it so long ago?) those nights when, still a child, Bruce would run to him with naked fear in his eyes and so much else, flinging his arms around him and sobbing into his shirt until it stained - too much salt-water from too young of a soul.
By the time he was twelve, Bruce’s tears were in shorter supply, and Alfred gave him comfort by merely talking with him, being a warm voice in the night. He told stories about Bruce’s parents, never letting their names grow too sacred, in hopes that Bruce might one day think on them again with something other than hollow guilt and grief.
He did, now; Bruce was no longer so empty. Now, he was fueled by the things that had once drained him of life. Alfred’s opinion of this wavered. He was proud of Bruce, but also frightened. There was only so much neglect the man could take in favor of the monster. There was only so much Batman could do for Gotham before Bruce began to bleed out.
Alfred grasped the hand that lay on the floor beside him. Bruce did not draw it away.
* * *
“I shouldn’t be here, Alfred.”
Dawn had cast the room with a pale gleam, defining every shard of splintered glass and wood. It all looked somehow smaller, less mythic and terrible, in the light.
Alfred cleared his throat, testing the newly-broken quiet. “It seems so, sir.”
Bruce looked out at Gotham; he, too, seemed to have shrunken - a man again, seeing the world with a man’s eyes. “This one kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?”
“Not quite as easily as you burning down the Manor in a drunken fit.”
Bruce ducked his head, and Alfred caught a ghost of humor on his face before it was hidden from view. Then he shifted against the couch, stiffening as the black shirt he wore caught over his stomach; dried blood, fresh only a few hours before, pulled at it.
“Careful, sir.” Alfred stood, stretching his own weary limbs, and offered his hand to Bruce - who took it (always a wonder) and, using the couch as a brace, managed to get to his feet. He let out a shaky breath.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“I know.”
The admittance surprised Alfred. He was used to Bruce waving away concern, spending the hours before nightfall filling his headspace with strategy, new leads, investigation - anything to ignore (defy) the fact that he was injured.
But there was an edge of confession to his voice, now. An awareness that hadn’t shown itself in a long time.
Bruce picked up one of the larger pieces of porcelain that lay scattered over the couch, examining it. After a moment, he looked over at Alfred, his expression curiously open. “Do you think it’ll work?”
Alfred was taken aback by the directness of the question; he hadn’t expected Bruce to touch this subject so soon. He turned an answer over in his mind, choosing the words carefully. “I think Batman knew what he was doing,” he said, finally. “I think the Joker didn’t plan for this.”
Bruce swallowed. “I want him dead, Alfred.” Another confession. “I want him dead more than anything.” He was perfectly still.
“I know, sir.”
“But he’s alive. And I killed Harvey.” The words dropped from him like lead weights. His voice was strained with the truth-telling.
“You saved a boy’s life.”
“I could have saved more than that.”
Alfred turned to face Bruce more fully, catching his eyes and holding them. “I would hope you’d know better, Master Bruce, where the blame here should be placed.”
Bruce looked away. He knew, but that didn’t change anything - as much as Alfred wished it would.
The morning was growing brighter; a glare formed against the marble floor. When it became clear that Bruce had nothing more to say, Alfred gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I don’t suppose you’ll take some rest?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Bruce said, his brow furrowing. “Not here.”
Alfred nodded. He’d expected as much. “I’ll make certain no one misses you.”
And now it was Bruce who sought Alfred’s eyes, looking at him with unchecked gratitude and no small measure of wonder. “Thank you, Alfred,” he said, and grasped the old man’s hand in both of his.
* * *
The skeleton of the Manor had grown since he'd last seen it. It rose in front of him like a ghost: still too thin and insubstantial, missing walls and tiers and doors and so much else, sunlight from behind the hill filtering through each gaping space. This place is a mausoleum. His own words. And now? Now, what could he call it?
He greeted a few of the workers, not bothering to cover his face with a Wayne-patented smile. They didn't seem to notice or care. A few tipped their hats at him as he walked by. No one asked any questions; no one ever did. You're Bruce Wayne, the prince of Gotham. A prince without a castle.
It was green and grassy in the back; the new landscaping had taken hold quickly. But he did not stop to marvel. He walked with purpose toward the well, through the greenhouse, feeling memories tug at him like whispers as he went.
Only a few vines had grown over the boards. It hadn't been long. He stared at them, and drove away the urge to tear the wood to splinters. His hands had known enough abuse in the last few hours; they ached still. But more than that stopped him.
He had boarded the well with intent, making a clear statement to himself. A decision. To undo it would be to undo what had brought him here, and that could never happen.
He turned away. The grand arch that led into the Manor's rear courtyard yawned to his left. Carefully picking his way over, he followed what felt like a set path in front of him. It led him into the heart of the great mansion, through rooms still wall-less and doorless. The past lived here, in the half-rubble. He could see every inch of the halls and stairwells the way they used to be, though they were only bones now - ungainly plaster, wood and concrete.
He was unsurprised at his destination: the piano room. It was cleared of debris, but hadn't yet been restored. The walls were stripped white-gray, and the piano was covered with a dust-brown tarp. He loosened it, pulled it back just enough to reveal the keys. He let his right hand hover over them a moment, remembering the last time he'd punched out these three notes, when his world was burning down around him. The dissonant tones echoed dully - once, trice, thrice - and the empty bookcase ground forward, dim light spilling into the elevator behind it.
He took the clattering contraption underground. As usual, it slammed to an ungraceful halt at the bottom. The cave was barren. Alfred had done his work well. There was nothing here to compromise a soul. The bats chittered at their guest, but did not come to bother him. In the distance, he heard the waterfall's roar, and it quieted something in him. He stumbled toward it, as if in a trance - but the farther he went the more his legs seemed to give, no longer willing to hold his weight. Exhaustion hit him like a blow. He knelt on the ground, where the dark earth was blanketed in patches of soil. He clutched at the cool dirt. It felt and smelled like home.
Weariness overcame him then, gravity dragging his spirit. Rest. He squinted up, southeast, and saw thin bands of light falling from the well entrance, between the boards that marked it closed.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he lay down on the earth, letting its coolness soothe each burn and ache his body bore. In the din of his crowded mind, he remembered. You'd have to go a thousand miles to meet somebody who didn't know your name. But Falcone had been wrong. That fact rang truer than anything against against the haze of thought and feeling that covered him in the dark. He'd been a thousand miles away, and found no rest there. But here, he was nameless. Here in the dirt at the bottom of the well, beginnings and endings scattered around him, perhaps he could rest. For a time.
He closed his eyes.