Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-01-02 16:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, door: dc comics |
Who: Bruce
What: Narrative.
Where: Batcave/the Manor.
When: Post-this.
Warnings/Rating: Sads idk.
He took Damian home.
It was the single rational thought in the murky depths of his mind, a repetition he clung to with frenzied desperation. Home. Home. Like the rhythm of his heartbeat, the in and out of his breaths, it was calm. Steady. During the time between the rooftop and the Manor he didn't have to think about the weight of his son (don't think body, don't think corpse, he's not dead he can't be) in his arms. He didn't have to face the reality of a future without the first child he'd met in this city, the most difficult, the most rewarding, the one with whom he was bound to by blood. He left Firefly behind to die without a second thought, without guilt or remorse, and he went home.
The silence was pervasive. Suffocating. Bruce entered through the cave, steps quiet and water droplets sliding over the shoulders of his suit and down his back. Beyond home, his thoughts were a blur, and he stood for a long, long moment, uncertain, before choosing a next step. He laid Damian out on a table with the gentleness of a new parent, and it took a supreme effort to drag his gaze up, up, to look upon his son-s face-- or what was left of it.
(He'll be fine he will I just have to
to)
He had to do something. Something. He looked around, at equipment and technology and stainless steel, his mind frantically scrambling for a new source of calm now that he was home, but there was nothing. He knew; he just didn't want to accept. He didn't want to face the truth because there was no coming back. Please, he thought, please, but there was no one
(if you pray hard enough maybe he'll come back maybe)
no one listening, no one caring. He thought of his childhood, of the girl in the alley and her belief in prayer that had been foolish and unfounded. While there were other, more sophisticated methods to test for signs of life, despite the fact that even a child could tell that Damian was gone, he thought of something else. Slowly, he peeled off his cowl, and he pressed his ear to the boy's chest. He listened, and he hoped, like the silly child he'd been all those years ago, in the dark and the cold.
Seconds ticked by. Damian's chest was still, unmoving. There wasn't even the slightest heartbeat, not even a swirl of air in his lungs. He closed his eyes
(no, no, NO)
but he couldn't shut out the truth. It burst in, crashed, broke down his walls and his denial and consumed everything. Damian was dead. Gone. He squeezed his eyes tighter and tighter and pulled back suddenly, violently, with a strangled cry. His fingers trembled. His shoulders shook.
"I told you to stay back," he whispered, voice hoarse.
(You were right there, Bruce, RIGHT THERE, you could have saved him)
"You should have listened, Damian. Why didn't you-- why--"
(You let him die. You should have saved him but you LET HIM DIE IT'S YOUR FAULT)
His eyes opened. He saw, then, his son's corpse laid out, features beyond recognition, an empty body devoid of life and humanity. He saw. "No," he choked out. "No, Damian, no, please..."
(I never told him I loved him did I
He didn't know he died not knowing)
His weight, oftentimes an asset, worked against him now. Bruce couldn't keep himself upright. He swayed, he fell to his knees and his hands curled into fists and brought them down once, twice, over and over against the rock and it didn't matter that his gloves were off, that the skin split and tore and bled. Nothing mattered. His son was dead and he'd let him die and nothing mattered.
His grief, which closed his throat and made his chest tight, finally clawed its way free. He screamed and screamed until he tasted blood on his tongue and his voice no longer worked, until the only screaming was within the confines of his mind and even then it faded, ebbed away, to silence. So much silence. And he had a single thought, then, as he gathered Damian's body to his chest like he was a child and not a young man at all. Just one, before the silence came back and he gave in.
(Will it rain during his funeral too?)