. (spacecowboys) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-07-13 20:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | !hotel, !walking dead, *log, bruce wayne, selina kyle |
Narrative, kind of: Bat/Cat
Who: The Bat and the Cat
What: An unfortunate encounter (AKA, these poor bastards)
Where: Hotel → The Walking Dead
When: Nowish
Warnings/Rating: Emo
She'd been sick since the Chinatown lab, nausea and sweating and enough similarities to know it was from the blood that dotted her lip, from that absolutely mortifying encounter where she'd almost selfishly ruined a man's life just to make herself feel better about being rejected. It lasted a few days the previous time, the sickness, and she should've found a bed to sleep it off, someplace warm and safe. But the self-loathing was drowning her, and she didn't think she deserved safe or warm. She'd been feeling miserable since the wedding reception, mired in loss, and this had just taken that to a new level, turned it inward and she deserved to feel sick, she deserved to feel weak, and she didn't really care. And wasn't that pathetic? Once upon a time, she'd been strong, and nothing had gotten through the thick skin that Gotham had given her. But what was she now? Nothing, pathetic, alone.
And it was that last part that bothered her most. She wanted arms, kindness. She wanted to talk. She wanted things she didn't have. She needed, and that had never happened before. Needing people was stupid. It was the kind of thing that got rogues killed, and she was still a rogue. Despite it all, she was still a rogue. Homeless, because she wouldn't return to Gotham. Gotham belonged to the Bat, and he'd eventually go home, regardless of Damian's new view on the regime that was Gotham. Oh, he wasn't ready now, but he'd get there, and she was like the vestiges of an old administration, the leftover that had no place. She'd make Bruce uncomfortable when he got back, and there would be wince and pity in his eyes when he looked at her, and she didn't think she could live through that again. And that was weakness. That, and the fact that she still worried about him, still defended him, still fought his cause when he didn't even know she was doing it. And everyone knew, and everyone pitied.
It would be in every conversation she had, the awkward and deliberate non-mentioning of Bruce Wayne. And she couldn't do it, and so Gotham wasn't an option. And Marvel? That was hysterical. She'd attacked Robert, terrified him, used him, and he'd ended it, and it was the right thing for him. That had been fear in his eyes, and it had been fear that almost made him turn on her, and she could never do that again. Never, but she already missed him, and Pirates was fake, a falsehood, something that wasn't real.
She was alone. She was utterly and completely alone.
She wandered the hotel; up and down the halls, and up and down the stairs. The doors all looked the same to someone without a key, and she wondered if there was a door that would just make it all go away.
But, oh, forgetting, that she could do. She'd stopped home for one tiny thing, and the vial of Crane's drug was green and bright in her palm, warmed from her fingers. The needle was uncapped, and it had been that way for some time. It would be so easy to just jab it into her skin, but she'd made a promise once, and she was having a hard time breaking it, even if the man she'd made the promise to wasn't a part of her life anymore.
Everything hurt, but she wasn't sure she wanted to forget. Everything hurt, but it felt worse to think about forgetting it all. Because for all the pain that came with loving? She wasn't sure she would want to erase it. It was ludicrous, and a year ago she would've laughed at that sentiment. Pathetic and weak, and she didn't know how to shake that off either. She wasn't sure the old her, the one that didn't let people in, was still there.
She had no idea how she was going to survive without that old Cat, without that version of herself, because she wasn't Blondie. She didn't have someone to help her stay whole,and she didn't have anyone she could talk to about her fears; she'd lost both people she could do that with. She had a sneaking suspicion Iris did that for Bruce, but she didn't have that. Robert had demons, and she wasn't calm and quiet and what he needed. And Bruce? Bruce was gone.
Tired, she stopped. She didn't even know what floor she was on anymore, and her forehead was dotted with fever. She was in jeans and a black shirt, snug and simple and boots that were sturdy enough to keep her grounded. Her cheeks were flushed, but it wasn't with health, and she knew it would pass soon, this sickness. She just needed to wait it out, and then she'd find a door, any door, and forget.
She tucked her phone into her back pocket, and she leaned beside a non-descript door, no different than any other. She'd considered leaving the phone behind, but it would just find its way back to her, and people might panic if she didn't answer them. She didn't want to be found, she was sick and tired of being the damsel people chased after. She wanted to be alone, and it would be easier to just tell people that, to let them hate her if they wanted to. And she rubbed at her eyes, closed lids and unsteady sway.
Wandering the hotel wasn't a common pastime but it seemed fitting as of late, an in between, a no man's land where he could pretend time itself stopped and gave him a chance to breathe. It wasn't Italy, which he wished could be home but wasn't, nor was it Gotham, a place which had once been his home but now felt foreign. Strange. The city had moved on without him and his place was gone. Bruce should have expected as much, really. No one needed him. They needed the Bat, wanted the Bat, and now they had one; Dick had taken his place.
He wasn't needed. Wasn't wanted. He really only had Eddie and Stephanie, and they were gone, living their lives and being happy as they should be; they'd grown out of Gotham. And there was the League, whom he thought of as his friends, but they didn't really need him either. He had no powers, nothing of real value to contribute to the team. Selina... he'd driven her away for good. As for the rest, his family? He'd burned that bridge the moment he left Gotham. He couldn't go back and expect to pick up where he'd left off. They wouldn't accept him; he knew that, deep, deep down. If he did go back at all he wouldn't be Batman, not anymore. He'd be Bruce Wayne, a man, and if he wanted to fix Gotham he'd have to do it the way his father had; maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. He'd always wanted to be like his father, after all. Leave the ridiculous playboy facade behind and be who he really was.
Once he figured out who that was.
The bitterly laughable part was that he had been getting better. Maybe it was the wedding, or maybe it was the post before, when he realized what everyone thought of him, that in trying to fix himself and be what Gotham deserved he'd cast himself in the role of the deserter. The man who'd abandoned the city he'd sworn to protest. And that made him angry, angry that no one understood, angry that they were all so selfishly unable to look past their own lives and their own problems. Selina was right; Gotham was selfish. He was tired of being their bad guy. He could fix himself, maybe, but he couldn't fix that. He was never going to be able to please everyone, and he should have realized that sooner.
And so he wandered. Italy was warm and calm, it was Iris and freedom and men who fought for a cause he could relate to, but it felt like a lie. Gotham wasn't his anymore. Batman wasn't even his anymore. And one of the few people who'd stood by him, who'd defended him, was gone-- his fault. He'd done that to Selina. Over and over he replayed that night, those moments, and over and over he wished he'd done it differently; the problem was he didn't know how. But it was too late, regardless. What was done was done and he needed to pick up the pieces and move on, somehow, because death wasn't an option anymore. He didn't actually want to die. Oh, he still thought about it, but thinking about something and actually taking the steps to carry it out were two very different things. No, it was more likely that he'd just stay in Italy, hide there, than kill himself.
Unless something happened to, once again, tip the scales, but he was trying very, very hard not to let that happen. He wanted to keep it from happening. Because there were things to live for. People to live for. Not many, perhaps, but he had reasons. He just had to remember what they were.
Wandering, wandering, he contemplated going back. Maybe visiting Gotham, a quick thing, no one need know he was there. Lost in his thoughts he didn't even realize he wasn't alone in the hall until he was close, too close, and he stopped short-- he wasn't really in the mood for conversation. Less so when he realized who it was, leaning against the wall, eyes closed. Selina. Oh no, no, he wasn't doing this again. He took a step back. Maybe he could leave before she noticed.
She didn't hear him approach, too sick for that at the moment, and she only opened her eyes when she felt someone near, an instinctive thing from years of running from rogues and heroes alike. Her mossy green eyes opened, and she probably looked hysterical in that moment, shock and her lips parted and why did the universe keep doing this to her? She didn't want to talk to him. She was too raw; she would cry. She would cry, and she'd promised herself that was done. Distance, she reminded herself. Distance.
He took a step back, and her heart didn't drop like it normally did when he rejected her, and perhaps that was just acclimation. Or perhaps she'd just finally reached the end of a very long rope. Bridge burned, and she'd lost him, and she'd lost Robert. She'd lost Damian and Tony and Steve, and what was left? Nothing, and she thought this was what rock bottom felt like.
He took a step back, and she took a careful step closer to the wall, intending to pass him. "I'm going," she said, moving in the other direction and hugging the wallpaper with shoulder and hip.
And perhaps she should've known better. Perhaps she should've moved away from the door as she passed it. But he was right across from the door's frame, and distance was the goal.
The door swung inward, and it didn't feel like a normal door. It smelled of death, of rotting, and the sounds of groans reached her ears just before the pull came from somewhere behind her bellybutton. Yank, and she tumbled to the ground, needle lost in the grass, and the door slammed.
And at least she was alone.
Almost.
She looked up, hair in her face, and there was a herd of things walking. The woods, and grass beneath her knees and hands, and they smelled dead, the things, even from this distance. She only needed the jerky walk to solidify where she'd landed, and she knew she wouldn't tell a soul.
She looked back, hopeful, though she knew the door would be missing, gone. It wouldn't be that easy.
The door wasn't there.
Bruce, however, was.