Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-05-06 13:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *narrative, bruce wayne |
narrative: the dark knight returns
Who: The Bat
What: Getting zapped back.
Where: Gotham.
When: Now.
Warnings/Rating: Nah.
"Batman! Bruce-- get out of there! You--"
Familiar. He didn't want it to be, but after years and years even his efforts to maintain distance, walls, were undermined by a voice in his ear. But it was just the voice, sound and no sight; he didn't understand. Why couldn't he see? What lurked behind the voice, a dull roar, tremble and shake and heavy things falling. What--
"the explosives!"
--was it? Contact had been lost with those above. Not his family, not his people; he tried not to care. Pretend, pretend, to be a man with the same name, a man he'd heard so much about but never met. One day, maybe, pretense would blur and he'd become that man. That Bat. But not today, not today. Were they alive? Were they fighting while he was--
somewhere?
--this was wrong. Get up, Bruce. He needed to see. It took tremendous effort, and there was a blinding wash of white, lack of color, he managed to find his voice and shouted ("Penny-Two! What's going on?!") but there was no reply. He sucked in air, deep, deep, and all his senses flooded in at once, he sat up and his eyes snapped open to what he perceived initially as darkness. It hurt to move. Damn, had the blast knocked him back? Had there been a blast? He drew his knees up, rubbed his forehead and blinked. The darkness faded, and he could see where he was. He could hear, too, water, not like a river or a stream but wet. Damp. His brow furrowed.
The sewers. How had he ended up here?
"Come in, Penny-Two." He spoke as he struggled to his feet, bracing himself against the curved wall. No reply, so he tried again. "Bat to Penny-Two. What's happening up there? Say something."
Silence.
"Penny-One? Anyone?" Bruce slammed his fist against stone. "Damn it." Well, there was nowhere to go but up. He could survey the damage for himself and get his bearings, if he didn't end up in the thick of the chaos. Best to be prepared. He sloshed through the water, ankle deep, until he found an opening, and steeled himself for whatever he might find on the street.
Not what he was expecting. There was no fighting, no mass of infected with their grinning faces pitted against heroes and villains alike. The Joker's macabre parade was notably absent too. Gotham was never quiet, not really, but in comparison to where he'd just been... well, it was.
And his comm was silent. Like the channel he'd been on no longer existed.
Bruce blinked. His mind worked quickly, gears turning, and he sought higher ground. Much higher. To survey, to see. And in his belt? Something that hadn't been there before, a phone he hadn't seen in years.
It couldn't be. But-- yes, it was. He was back.
Of course, his immediate concern was how long and what had occurred between then and now. Not as much as he'd been through in that other Gotham, he hoped, but it was possible. Selina already seemed to be on the same path as her counterpart, something he very much didn't want to think about, so it wasn't necessarily a stretch to think that events there might be mirrored here. He thought of the Manor, of home, and hope spiked; maybe it still belonged to him. Maybe Arkham hadn't fallen here. The two worlds were separate, perhaps that was enough.
There was only one way to be sure.
Aches and pains be damned. Bruce didn't want to wait, he wanted to know everything now.