Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-12-02 15:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *log, alfred pennyworth, bruce wayne |
quicklog, gotham: wayne manor
Who: Bruce and Alfred
What: Alfred won't let Bruce be a hermit.
Where: Wayne Manor.
When: Morning after this stuff.
Warnings/Rating: TBD.
[No one had listened.
Bruce tried to tell them Damian wasn't dead. Despite evidence to the contrary, crushed legs and a caved-in chest, a body so broken and battered it brought back memories of another night, charred flesh and flames that lit up the sky, he tried. Save him, save him, but the truth was swift and merciless. There was no hope. No chance to come back, to find redemption.
And so he fled. Like a coward, like a scared little boy, he ran.
He couldn't stay there. Couldn't be in the same room as the body, couldn't look upon what had once been his son. No, no, not again. He'd done it once. Loss and mourning and moving on, he'd already done this, how could he do it again? He hid his grief behind locked doors. He didn't want to see anyone, he didn't want to talk. Didn't want meaningless words of comfort and sympathy he was expected to be grateful for. He should be strong, he was sure Damian's Bat would be. He would shrug death off like it was nothing and endure, he would rally the family together like a general wrangling his soldiers but this Bruce wasn't that, he would never be that.
Guilt threatened to suffocate him. Once was bad enough but this was twice, the second time Damian had died in his presence. His failure. His shortcomings. There was no explaining it away this time. Somewhere beyond the Manor walls the city was recovering, corrupt criminals deciding to play nice now that their thirst for blood was satisfied, but he couldn't even bring himself to care. The dead didn't, why should he? In the aftermath Bruce wasn't left with hope, with a determination to redeem Batman's name and keep fighting.
Death was what he had. Cruel words he could never take back. The knowledge that his son had died angry and so very lost, that his final act had been to kill not only himself but the man he sought to emulate. Oh, he knew. The explosion had been meant to end his life, too, not just Damian's. He wasn't meant to have survived. Why he did? He had no answer for that.
He was in his father's study, a place he'd spent a great deal of time in as a child. His voice was hoarse from dust and wordless grief, screams muffled into pillows, and his entire body ached. Every movement was pain, and while the weight of armor had kept him from serious injury he'd refused medical attention and so he had no real knowledge of just how bad it was. Not that he cared. He was half in, half out of the suit, all black and bruises blooming on his face from where the rocks had made impact; one large one beneath his eye, and a smaller one on his opposite cheek.
It was quiet, and dark. Curtains drawn, Bruce was just another shadow among the rest.]