Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-08-29 00:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics |
Who: Betty (feat. Carmine Falcone)
What: Narrative.
Where: Crime Alley.
When: Before Batmine ended (shhhhhhh).
Warnings/Rating: Violence.
She should have known it was a trap.
Betty was better than this. All her training, all her experience, this was a rookie mistake. Stupid. Careless. Damian would be ashamed-- her father would be. She could hear his voice now, clear as day, ringing off the wet-slick stone and brick that surrounded her. Disappointment. She pushed herself up shakily, wet hair plastered to her head and her cape tangled about her body. Raining. She blinked through the raindrops and looked up, away from where red mingled with water on the ground beneath her.
The others, Falcone's goons, had melted into the background. They might as well have become part of the stone itself. Carmine, however, stood out in stark contrast against the darkness, and Betty felt like a child, so young, stripped raw and bare beneath his cruel gaze and twisted smirk. "Did you think you could hide behind that cowl, Bets?" The nickname sounded vile on his tongue, and she flinched. Her mind frantically turned over past events, over and over, struggling to determine how he'd found out, but did it matter? She was at his mercy, now. She wasn't Batwoman. She was just Betty. Just a dead crime lord's daughter, on her way to sharing his fate. Hatred mingled with fear as she glared up at him, giving no response.
Carmine laughed.
"Oh, baby Wayne. What would Mommy and Daddy think of you, all dressed up like a bat and playing hero? Tsk tsk." He glanced up at the sky, brushing raindrops from his forehead as though they were nothing, as though he wasn't smack-dab in the middle of where the Waynes had lost their lives with their only daughter at his feet. "You were meant to die that night, you know. Three birds with one bullet. But, alas, you know what they say..." Carmine trailed off, giving her a mock conspiratorial look as he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a gun. "If you want something done, honey, you've got to do it yourself."
She tried to move and whimpered. It was all a hazy mess; the ambush, the taser. Now it was pain and copper, but she had to move, had to fight, or else Betty Wayne would die as her parents had; worse, even, since she was little more than a kicked puppy cowering beneath one bigger and stronger than itself. Carmine took aim, and tears mingled with the rain on her cheeks as she closed her eyes and looked away.
Click, went the safety. And then Betty mustered together all her strength and threw herself at his feet.
Catching him around the ankles, the gun jerked up and the gun went off but the bullet, fired into the air, was harmless. Carmine let out a choked cry as he went backwards, his balance completely thrown off-kilter, and Betty gritted her teeth and Betty fought through the pain--
the gun
--it was instinct, unthinking entirely, when she dragged herself over the stone and her fingers closed around the trigger. Carmine was cursing behind her, and Betty thought of her parents, only them, when she rolled onto her back and raised the gun with trembling fingers.
Carmine's expression, through the rain, was one she would never forget. Surprise, first, then laughter. He laughed, and laughed, as he used the wall to support himself and staggered towards her. "You won't do it," he goaded, "you're just like your father, the Waynes were all cowards."
She proved him wrong with a bang.
The gun fell from her fingertips and Betty didn't look back as she heard him fall. Didn't look to see if he was dead or alive; she sobbed as she staggered to her feet, and she reached for her grapple gun and managed to fire up, up, until it caught on the rickety metal of a fire escape, and then it was all dizziness and blur, as red mingled with red and the rain washed it all away.