Laura (homeandhearth) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-10-03 13:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, death, door: dc comics |
Who: Bruce Wayne and Death
What: Meeting the new neighbors? And discussions about glowy green pits.
Where: The Batcave
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Nope
The Batcave had always been a place of refuge for Bruce. When the Manor had seemed too silent, too empty, he found a sort of solace in the caves beneath the ground, where his only company were the bats who certainly gave him no trouble, the two species managing to coexist quite well. Things in Gotham were, quite simply, worse than ever at present, and even the night that Harvey Dent had spoke of, which the Joker had brought in with him, seemed pitiful in the face of this. He’d always sworn he would put Gotham first, no matter the cost, yet he had done the exact opposite, allowing a madman free reign--well, to an extent--in exchange for the life of someone he cared about, and it plagued him with guilt. He would have gladly given his own life in exchange, but to reverse all the progress Arkham had made... it was not a burden borne easily, and he felt its weight more and more each day.
While the Manor was no longer quiet, with many members of what he had come to dub the ‘Bat-Family’ dwelling within its walls, he still found silence here, in the caves, where he was usually left alone. The only sound was minimal, the whir of computers and data being fed into the system, and the quiet chatter of the radio frequency feeding into the bluetooth in his ear. Bruce had left his own mark on Arkham, or rather in it, and he studied a series of security camera footage as he fought to keep from dozing; sleep had not come easily as of late.
Within minutes, however, his eyelids became heavier and heavier, until they closed entirely, his head coming to rest on the desk in front of him.
Death had been concerned, upon stepping through the door, that everything she had come to know would be changed. But she found that she still looked the same, she could still move about as she always had, still had the same duties that took her around the world, presiding over the beginning and ending of lives. But she also knew that there were slight changes in her world, could feel the weight and pressure of people that were different, and she began to visit those differences. Most of them never knew she was there, maybe marking her passing with a shiver or a glance around, but she claimed no one, and continued on.
Getting into Bruce Wayne’s cave was hardly a challenge for her. She walked in without setting off any of the myriad alarms she knew (mostly thanks to Laura’s curious presence) would be there. The woman wasn’t the most familiar with things through this door, but she had some passing idea of the most important people there. The cave itself was interesting, nothing like anything Death had seen before, and that was saying quite a bit. She knew Bruce Wayne, knew his family, knew them as she knew anyone within her purview, but it didn’t stop her from exploring. Her silent steps took her to a glowing green corner of hidden cave, and she stood still as she stared at the pool. It was unnatural, made something in her achy and uneasy, and she wanted nothing more than to find a way to banish it from her world, but she also knew that it was unlikely she would - or could. Its power was unlike anything she or her siblings had ever created, and it might unravel her very essence or trap her within. She didn’t know, and a small corner of her mind was frightened of that. She didn’t want to end up like her brother, trapped for too long in a creation of man while her realm crumbled into decay and her duties went undone.
Finally pulling herself away from the pool (but always aware of its sickly presence), she returned to the cave proper, smiling at the figure that was slumped rather inelegantly over his desk. She wondered if he dreamed, if her brother’s reach extended here now, even though she hadn’t been able to call upon him. That inability made her sad, had nearly made her return through the door, but for now she would simply distract herself from that thought. Slipping up onto the desk, she tucked one foot up under the opposite knee, and waited for the infamous Bruce Wayne to wake from his nap.
Bruce Wayne did indeed dream. Not every night, but more often than not, and they varied. Nightmares were prevalent, for example, but sometimes his dreams were pleasant, of a life which could have been or times long ago, and others they were the sort that made no sense at all and had no particular meaning. Currently, he had just entered the level of sleep in which dreams occurred, and nothing more than faint wisps of people and a backdrop of somewhere dank and cold had time to form before he found himself rousing back into wakefulness. There was nothing specific he could attribute the interruption to, at least not initially, as his vision was hazy as he opened his eyes and felt the hard coolness of his desk beneath his cheek. His back was stiff, the cost of falling asleep at such an uncomfortable angle, and he let out a muffled grunt as he eased himself back up into a sitting position and rubbed at his eyes to clear his vision.
That was when he noticed the girl seated quite casually on his desk, and the sheer unexpectedness of it caused him to leap to his feet, knocking the chair over in his haste. Why hadn’t the alarms sounded? Whatever had roused him from sleep, it hadn’t been that-- they were far too loud. No, they simply had not been activated at all, which made no sense. “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” Bruce’s voice was only slightly hoarse from sleep, and he eyed the strange girl with blatant distrust and suspicion.
Death smiled as the chair clattered to the floor. That wasn’t the sort of reaction she’d been expecting from him, and her lips turned up as she shifted and crossed her legs properly, revealing the slightly worn knees of her black jeans. Her wide-necked, black shirt slipped off one shoulder when she put a hand down on the desk to lean on, and she tipped her head to the side to study the man in front of her. His demanded questions only caused the turn-up of her lips to deepen. She adjusted the sunglasses that were on top of her head, currently acting as a headband of sorts, and shook her hair back. “I walked,” she finally said, sounding ever so pleased with herself, casual in the face of a Batman interrogation. It may have been slightly masking the truth, but she had walked into the cave from where she’d been before. Simply not in the way that he would likely think. “And hello, by the way. Bruce Wayne.”
The girl's casual, unconcerned demeanor puzzled him, and Bruce regarded her with a frown when she smiled. She should not have been doing that; why was she? Even if she had somehow managed to break in without tripping the alarms, which was impossible, allowing herself to be seen so easily was illogical. She was not familiar, and her clothing made him think of teenagers, which made his thoughts go to Damian or Stephanie... but no, surely neither of them would give a stranger access to the cave. "You walked?" He echoed her in disbelief, and while his shoulders were still tensed in response to a foreign presence, she didn't seem like much of a threat. In fact, the longer he studied her, the more he had an uncomfortable sense that she was familiar in some strange way. Her recognition was not a surprise, since his face was well known in Gotham and around the world, but her presence in the Batcave meant that his secret was in jeopardy. "You know who I am," he said slowly, "but I don't know who you are. Or why you're here."
“I walked,” she confirmed with another grin. Death knew she shouldn’t tease, but she had the feeling (a very strong, very accurate feeling) that he led a far too serious life, and frankly, if she had to take him while he was still so stern all the time, she was maybe going to feel a little bad. In a way she never quite did when doing her job. She saw something begin to dawn in his expression though, a sort of sense of familiarity. It was to be expected from someone that lived the way he did, that he would be familiar with her in his own way. “I know who everyone is,” she confirmed with another smile, this one quieter but with nothing shy to it. The simple words rang true. “And I’m here to visit. To meet you.” She leaned back, weight on both hands, and kicked her booted toe in time with some unheard rhythm. “I just got here, and I don’t have one of you where I’m usually from.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not to mention that I get the feeling your whole family likes to flirt with me, even before I showed up. What’s up with that?”
Bruce stifled a sigh. Her manner reminded him very much of a teenager’s, and he found his suspicion became fainter, less of a dominant presence, while his confusion and sense of annoyance strengthened. That lingering sense of familiarity certainly didn’t help in terms of putting him at ease, and he tried to figure out where it was coming from, how he could possibly know this girl, as she spoke. Perhaps he hadn’t actually met her, but there was a sense that he had seen her, at least; it was something to do with her presence, something he couldn’t put his finger on. “You’re here to meet me? Why?” At the very least, he knew that she had come from somewhere else before this, as he had, based upon her comment that there wasn’t ‘one of him’ from wherever that was. As for his family flirting with her, that was a little less straightforward, and his brow furrowed as he attempted to understand. There was no single person they all could have known, especially if she wasn’t from here, but he was beginning to think he should start taking what she said a little less literally. “I might be able to answer,” he said slowly, “if i knew who you were.”
Death kept her gaze on Bruce, and her eyes went serious. Some of the playfulness slowly faded. She ignored his question about why she would want to meet him, thinking that she had already adequately answered that. Instead, she remained quiet until his next request for her identity. She shook her head. “You know me, Bruce. ...or someone like me.” She reached out and touched his hair, pushing it back from his forehead where it had fallen as he slept, like someone would to a small child. “You have since you were very small.” In that moment, her teenage playfulness had disappeared, replaced by something soft and nearly maternal.
There was something unsettling about the way the girl looked at him, and in a way, Bruce was reminded of himself and the tendency he had to give people serious, rather off-putting stares without even realizing it. He wondered again, why him, but in a way she’d already answered that, and it didn’t really matter, did it? Normally he was not a fan of physical contact, as that required a great deal of trust on his part, but when she reached out to push his hair back, he made no move to stop her-- despite the fact that it would have been laughably easy for him to do so. The gesture reminded him quite suddenly of something his mother would have done, and in that moment he felt very much like a child all over again. “I have?” There was only one thing he had known that long, which he had been close to ever since, even more so after adopting the persona of Batman and dedicating himself to a cause far greater than himself. “That’s impossible,” he breathed, shaking his head. “It can’t be-- you’re a person. You are here, tangible, and I can see you.”
She smiled at him again, still soft for a lingering moment until she pulled her hand back and wrinkled her nose, eyes closing for just a second as she grinned. The lighter tone returned and she leaned back on her hands again, straightening one leg to nudge his hip playfully with her booted toe. “Anthropomorphic personification, actually.” Her smile didn’t fade as she shook her head. “And come on. Impossible? After everything else that’s going on here, I’m the impossible one?” She raised her eyebrows in Bruce’s direction, skepticism in every line of her face. “I’m probably the least impossible one, when you really think about it.” She finally slipped off the desk, boots thunking heavily to the floor. When she stood, she was noticeably smaller than him - not nearly as petite as her youngest sister - but enough that she had to tip her head back to keep looking at him. “You see me because I’m saying hi. Hard to say hi if you can’t see me.”
Bruce had never quite subscribed to the notion that Death was some sort of ominous figure in a black robe, with a hideous, skeletal visage and a scythe carried around for whatever reason, but he had never quite imagined it--her?--as a young girl either. In fact, he had never imagined Death as anything one could physically see, and she was certainly much friendlier than he thought that which had taken his parents from him would be. “Anthropomorphic personification,” he repeated, raising his eyebrows. “I see.” His lips twitched when she nudged his hip, and he thought that perhaps he should have been angry, should have demanded answers, but while his parents had died, it was a man with a gun who’d brought that upon them. He had, after all, donned the cape and cowl to fight crime, not Death itself. “Gotham is rife with the impossible, yes, but you... you’re Death,” he said slowly, as though awaiting concrete information. No one, he realized, would believe this. They would think he’d gone insane, that one too many head injuries had begun to affect him... or perhaps he wasn’t giving his family the credit they deserved. He tilted his head to the side, looking down at her as she looked up at him; she was certainly the opposite of intimidating. “Do you usually stop by to say hello, or am I an exception?”
After how long Death had been herself, after how many living things she had known, she could read people and their expressions, tended to be able to predict what they were thinking, and she watched Bruce’s thoughts cross a face that was likely impassive to many. She caught the twitch of a smile though, and smiled at him in return. Especially when his voice went slow and nearly skeptical. She made an affirmative sound in the back of her throat. “I am. ...people need to be born, Bruce, and people need to die. You see those things, you believe in them. So why is it so impossible that I’m here to oversee it?” After another moment of watching his expression, she laughed. “You’re not imagining me, don’t worry. I’m actually here.” She was suddenly close to him and slipped her arm through his, beginning to walk through the underground cave as easily as if they were strolling casually through the park on a summer’s day. “You’re not the first I’ve ever said hello to. You won’t be the last.” She glanced up at him with the nearly-permanent smile still hovering around her lips. “I wouldn’t say it’s common, though.”
There were likely very few people who could claim that Death had smiled at them, and Bruce mused upon the strangeness of such a thing for a moment before letting it go. He dwelled upon so much that he could not change already, and while he was capable of a great deal, not even he could conquer Death herself. “I do believe in those things,” he admitted. “They’re certainties in an uncertain world.” And yet, there was the one question he wanted to ask: why his parents? Why then? Death was inevitable, of course, but why not when they were old and had lived long, full lives? Why did men like the Joker and Crane get to live, while people like his parents died? He had almost formed the words when she assured him that she was actually there, and the contact of her arm looped through his proved that beyond doubt. There was a moment of hesitation before he relented, though strolling through his cave was not something he did often, if ever. “I was simply wondering how flattered I should allow myself to be,” he told her, a hint of his mostly unused humor in his tone before he sobered slightly. “You said you oversee all of it, life and death. Does that mean you have no control over timing?”
“How flattered?” Death’s laugh was something pleasant and low, something that some might call ‘husky’. “You can be flattered all you want, as long as it doesn’t give you a big head.” She nudged him with her elbow as they walked along without destination. She’d caught the thoughtfulness before his joke though, and it returned even as her chuckle’s echo died among the high rock walls of the cave. She let the silence hang, filled only with their steps, the hum of machinery, the flutter of bat wings, and the steady drip of water somewhere in the cave. She was unhurried as she looked up at him again. “It happens as it is written. Everyone gets as long as they get, just as it reads in Destiny’s book.” She paused her words but not her steps, searching for the answer to the question that people always asked. “You get your life, however long it is, and when it’s done, I’m there for you.” Her thoughts were pulled back toward the green pool that throbbed in her awareness, and she turned her head to look in its direction, even though there were expanses of rock between. “Well. For most. I get the feeling your family cheats, though.” She returned her gaze to him, sharp and serious.
Bruce didn’t laugh often, and when he did, it was a strange, unused sort of sound, like a child attempting to imitate something they’d heard without truly understanding what it was or in what context it was meant to be used. Her laugh was much different, and much nicer, he decided, despite the fact that nice was not a word often associated with Death. “I would never allow such a thing to happen,” he said gravely, as though they were discussing something of the utmost importance. Alfred would never allow such a thing to happen, regardless, and his sudden influx of long-lost children would certainly do much of the same. Unlike most, the silence had never bothered him, and he was quite content to allow it to linger as they walked. Down here, however, it was different; there was always something coupled with the quiet, whether it was the flutter of the bats he shared his cave with, the hum of his various machines and equipment, or even just the difference between an empty space and one filled with people, even if it was just the two of them. “Written?” He tilted his head to the side, curious, and he wondered if Destiny was an anthropomorphic personification as well. Was she referring to a literal book? Were all their lives truly already laid out before them, and if they were, could they ever be changed? “I see,” he remarked, almost offhandedly as his thoughts whirred around in his mind. “Is there a way to alter what has been written, to extend one’s life? Or, I suppose, to shorten it as well,” he added as an afterthought. The Lazarus Pit had been a fixture in his cave for long enough that Bruce had almost accustomed to its presence. Almost, but not quite, and he followed Death’s gaze with a sigh of understanding. “He did not ask to be brought back,” he said. “I let him die. A different version of myself, perhaps, but I was still responsible.” His expression settled into a frown. “I have no intention of using it, the one here. My son created it without my permission, and I only allowed it to remain to placate him.”
Death returned Bruce’s smile and reached her free arm up so that she could tap one finger against the side of his head, just above his ear. “Good thing,” she replied, as she dropped her hand again. His thoughts were obvious - maybe not in specific, but she could tell that he was processing and analyzing everything she said. She hesitated at his question about the book. She really didn’t have as good of an idea on how it worked as she might need, especially to explain it to someone else. “I think it’s happened. Only once or twice in all of time. It’s not supposed to happen. I don’t... It’s my brother’s book.” She gave an odd little shrug and touched the silver ankh that hung around her neck, a distracted sort of touch, as if to make certain it was still there. She listened to Bruce’s next statement and then sighed, rolling her eyes up at him. “It was his time. That was the lifetime he was supposed to get.” She had to admit that the back-to-life boy intrigued her in the same dangerous way the glowing green pit did. Once she took someone, they didn’t return. That was the way it went. She was silent for a long, thoughtful moment before she shook her head, drawing herself out of her thoughts. “Which son?” A pause, a glance, a raised eyebrow as she mentally catalogued his family. “...Damian?”
It was easy to forget that the girl was, well, Death, especially since her touch felt no different than anyone else’s. Bruce was interested in the book, admittedly, though he would never ask about the fate of himself or those he cared about no matter how much he might have wanted to. “Jason must have been one of those exceptions,” he said, more to himself than to her, and the fact that his return had come at such a terrible cost troubled him. “If everything we do leads to one predetermined end, then what’s the point of it? I like to believe we create our own fate,” he admitted, “that we control our own lives.” Jason’s life, when it ended, had been so short. He’d been so young. Too young, really, to die the way he had; alone, knowing that the man he trusted had failed to save him. “He deserved more than the lifetime he received,” he sighed. “And more than what he has now, to live with all that anger and pain.” No matter what he did, nothing seemed to alleviate any of Jason’s bitterness. He nodded at the mention of Damian, giving an almost fond sigh. “Yes, that’s him.”
Death shook her head at the comment, even though she could tell it was meant less for her. “It’s not as easy as all that.” There was a frown on her face as she looked up at him, stopping her steps though keeping a hold of his arm. “You aren’t forced to do anything. You live your life, the life you get, how you see fit. No one is pulling strings or influencing you behind the scenes. But what you do is recorded. It’s there, in the book. You, Jason... me. We’re all in there. Even Destiny himself.” She dropped his arm and put her hands on her hips as she looked at him. “Like this. I bet the book says ‘and Death stood in the Batcave and put her hands on her hips’. But nothing made me do it, other than the fact that I’m lecturing you now.”
She waved one hand as if to brush away that topic, and frowned. “It’s not about deserving. It’s about what you get. When it’s your time, it’s your time. It’s not about justice or fairness or how good you are or how young or how old. It’s about your time.” Her eyes went distant for a flicker of a second, before she stared at him seriously. “Even now there’s a baby girl dying at the hospital. And a boy in an apartment across town. A young woman that spilled off the back of her husband’s motorcycle. An inmate in Arkham. And a man that’s two days from his ninety-fourth birthday. And I’m there for all of them, because it’s their time, Bruce. And that’s just this moment, in this city.” She could have been sad or sympathetic, but she showed no signs of it, no remorse. “I don’t play favorites. I am neither judge nor jury. And when it is your time, or your son’s, or anyone else in your family, I will come for all of you.” She pointed back over her shoulder, still looking at Bruce but her finger unerringly directed at the Pit, as if it was somehow magnetic north to her internal compass. “But that threatens to upset everything.”
Bruce came to a halt when she did, without stumbling or faltering even briefly at the suddenness of the motion. He was, admittedly, interested in what she had to say, and he listened without interrupting as he looked down at her. “You said everyone gets as long as what is written in your brother’s book. My choices may be my own, and my actions free, but is my death not already predetermined? Is how long my life lasts not decided?” He wasn’t mocking her, or intentionally making things difficult; in this, he truly wanted to know. Whatever she told him would not necessarily be accepted as truth, but it couldn’t hurt to be aware of how things supposedly worked in her world. He quirked a brow when her hands went to her hips, and he imagined this very scene being written in a book somewhere, even as they spoke. “Does what is recorded in the book affect the outcome?” He supposed he could see the sense in that.
He was not so naive as to think that Death cared about injustice, about the corrupt and the innocent, of bloodshed and what one deserved. Regardless, it was a sore subject with him, and he frowned, unable to keep back his reaction. Most people thought he was stoic, having numbed himself to death, but the opposite was true; Bruce felt everything. He felt too much. “I do what I do to keep innocent people alive, to give them the lives they deserve,” he said gravely. “And I will fight to keep my family safe for as long as I can.” Maybe he couldn’t stop Death, but he could fend her off, keep her at bay long enough to give those he cared for a chance. He simply wasn’t capable of sitting back and doing nothing, of accepting the inevitable. As for the Lazarus Pit, he knew it was unnatural, but a small, deeply buried part of him was almost reluctant to get rid of it. Maybe that had something to do with Luke; if Selina ever died, he would sell his very soul if it would bring her and Wren back. “I know the Pit goes against nature, but surely it cannot hurt anyone simply by existing if it remains unused?”
“Everything is written there,” she tried again with a sigh. “It doesn’t make you any less you or me any less me. Or what we do any less important.” She paused, hands still on her hips and weight shifted onto one foot. He may not have been trying to be difficult, but it was always strange to try to explain such things. “What is there isn’t forcing you to do anything. It’s a record of what you will do. It’s like... history in reverse.” At his frown and stubbornness (really, why did anyone think they could out-stubborn her?), she simply sighed again, reaching out to grab his elbow and guide him back over to where they’d started by his computer, pushing him to sit in his chair and hoisting herself up onto the desk, toes just catching the arm of his chair. She rested her hands on her knees and leaned forward. Now that she was nearly eye-to-eye with him again, she read the feeling in his eyes.
“Listen,” she started, voice softer. “I know why you do what you do. And it’s good. I know that. Keep doing it. It’s part of who you are, and without you people’s times would be different.” She paused, eyes dark on his. “I’m not telling you to not save every single person you can. That’s in the book too.” She gave him a soft tip of a smile. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean you stop who you are and what you do, Bruce.” His wavering on the “the Pit”, as he called it, brought back her frown though, and she sat back as she straightened her legs, pushing his chair away.
“If. If it remains unused. How many people know it’s there? How many people could succumb to the temptation to slip in and use it. How does it even work? All I know is that it feels wrong, and counter to everything I am.” Her own expression took on a sort of tension that it never had. She was scared. “What is in there,” again she gestured back in its direction, “is worse than outright killing someone. You’re taking the entire process into your own hands. Determining who lives and who dies as you see fit.” She slid off the desk and crossed the few feet between them, finally taller than him, and she used it to her advantage, her hair slipping forward as she leaned over him. “What gives you the right?” She’d moved from scared into angry, her expression and her voice both darkening with it.
Bruce Wayne had a long history of being difficult, and those who knew him would undoubtedly agree upon that one single trait as a way to describe him. It wasn’t always intentional, often more of something akin to instinct, but when he believed in something--or, conversely, disagreed with it--he could be unfailingly stubborn in his convictions. “Perhaps it doesn’t dictate our actions,” he admitted grudgingly, “but history in reverse, these events being written out in advance, suggest a certain amount of predetermination.” He likely would have continue to argue, or in his mind, rationalize, but then she had hold of his elbow and was leading back to where they had first begun their conversation. Though he was not one to be led, this time he made an exception; she may have appeared harmless, but he hadn’t forgotten that she was Death.
The change in her tone made some of his defensiveness ebb away, and he looked up at her with something like amusement. “I would not stop, even if you’d told me to,” he said with calm certainty. “There are only two things which would result in me no longer needing to do what I do, and I admit that I hope one comes before the other.” Bruce knew either his own death or Gotham becoming the city he one day hoped it would be were his only options, and these days, while the former seemed more likely, he hadn’t given up hope on the latter. Not yet.
He brought his feet down to keep the chair from skidding too far, and instinct made him stand, aware that the Lazarus Pit was a dangerous subject. “Not many,” he said warily. “Those who do know would never attempt to use it, not without my permission, and if they did, they would find barriers preventing them from doing so.” As for how it worked, Bruce simply shook his head. He still couldn’t answer that. “Only Ra’s Al Ghul knows for sure. I could replicate it, as Damian did, but it would never be the same, and I could never identify every element. I am well aware that it’s unnatural.” The fear in her expression worried him, but then again, it made sense for Death to be afraid of something which could undo that which should have been permanent. He didn’t appreciate being accused of playing God when he had done no such thing, however, and his eyes narrowed as she approached. “I never claimed to have any right,” he said, unflinching, despite the fact that it might have been wise to back down. “I have never used that Pit. If I do, then come back and accuse me of playing with life and death as though they are puppets to bend to my whim.”
Any lighthearted amusement she’d held moments before at Bruce’s expense was long gone, her focus turned entirely to the Pit. She did not back down when he stood, staying as menacing as she had been when leaning over him. “You and all your family, Bruce. Do you trust them all so much that you are willing to bear the responsibility for their own possible attempts at using it? That you leave it there betrays your desire to use it. For the ‘what if’ that haunts you, that you feel you should be able to change in the future.” Her eyes were deep as she stared him down. She still held that fear, that worry, but it was overlaid yet by her anger. The moment hung, strangely silent, even the bats above gone quiet. Even the air seemed thicker.
When she finally turned away, sense came rushing back, the high sound of the creatures above, the drip of water somewhere in the cave, the rush of air. Walking toward the dark edge of the cave, she turned at one point, her gaze once again pinning him. “I like you, Bruce, I do. I like your family. I don’t want to change my mind.”
More than anything, Bruce wanted to say yes. Yes, he trusted them. Yes, he would gladly bear that burden, because no one would use it without his permission... but he couldn’t. The unfortunate truth of the matter was that his trust did not extend that far. Emotion could often overrule logic, and if something happened to Selina, or any of them, the temptation to use the Pit to resurrect them might be overwhelming. Even he had thought about it, thought about what would happen if any of his family died or were near death, even though he remained firm in his belief that thought and action were entirely separate. How, though, could he tell her he couldn’t destroy it? If something happened to him, for example, was it fair for Luke’s life to be cut short as well? He inhaled deeply, considering his response, before letting his breath out slowly. She was right, of course, but he was loathe to admit it. “I won’t deny what you’ve said,” he said finally, a small concession. His voice seemed to resonate in the sudden silence, an almost tangible thickness in the air he tried to resist. “Destroying the Pit may not be as simple as it is in theory, but... I will think about what we’ve discussed.”
He never took his eyes off of her as she turned and walked towards the edge of the cave, and he remained still, almost as though he dared not move. Bruce set his shoulders back almost defiantly when her gaze met his, and he gave a barely imperceptible nod. “I hope you won’t,” he told her, and at least it was honest.
Death returned the nod, quiet and serious as the edge of the shadows started to eat at her dark boots. It was a disquieting thing to see, especially with her expression, but then she broke into a smile. It held mischief and warmth again and she laughed under her breath. “Don’t worry so much, Bruce. Even if I visit, I’m not coming for you any time soon.” It was a promise, a glimpse of the things she knew, hanging there between them until she turned again, took a step, and was gone.