I Moderate (i_moderate) wrote in we_archive, @ 2006-01-02 20:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | alfred pennyworth, bruce wayne, death of the endless |
i_walktheline A Matter of Life and Death [ Death ]
He'd asked Alfred to drop him off at the park. Which he had. He'd also asked Alfred to go back to the Clocktower and wait on Maxine. But the older man hadn't. Alfred stood now, leaning against the hood of the car, leafing through a recipe magazine. He hadn't asked a question about what had gone on inside, or why the scowl on Bruce's face had been so dark.
Despite himself, his mood, Bruce found himself appreciating the company that was a few yards distant and carefully not paying any attention to him. The sky wasn't exactly clear, but it was bright, sunlight reflected of light grey clouds. Within his coat, he was warm. The signs in the park mentioned a hot house full of botanical wonders. It seemed the sort of thing Bruce Wayne might look in on, so he headed there, slowly, giving himself time to think.
The decision was made even before he was halfway to his destination, as he paused over a line of ants scurrying across the cement walkway. Bruce hovered his foot over them, weighing their fate. Their deaths.
"Are you near ?"
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 17:47:31
"I find it mildly upsetting that you would call me out in such a manner, Bruce."
She was standing under a tree just to his left, as if she'd always been there.
"It's not you. And there are other ways to find Death, when you want me."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 17:53:09
He moved his foot away, nodding and not quite meeting her eyes. "I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." Bruce ran a hand through his hair, and paused a moment.
"No, I was thinking. I was thinking it was likely the quickest way. The most thoughtless, but the quickest." He lifted his head to meet her eyes.
"I am sorry."
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 17:58:59
She nodded. "Right. On both counts. But I've never known you before to take the thoughtless route, quicker or not."
She tilted her head slightly, expression softening. "Did you want to talk about it?"
Not that it mattered what 'it' was. There was something he wanted to talk about, that much was obvious. Something he wasn't getting from anyone else.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 18:05:35
Plunging his hands into his coat pockets, he nodded. "Yes." There was a pause while he marshalled his thoughts. He was taking advantage of a situation that wouldn't ordinarily be open to him.
Then again, he was about to ask her about the death of someone he hadn't even met when he lived in Gotham. When life made a shade more sense than it did now.
"Jason Todd. I met him a few days ago. We were both surprised to find his tombstone in my family plot. Tim and Barbara knew, they said nothing. Barbara is still saying nothing. Not really."
He looked over at her. "I need to know. " He shook his head, voice bitter. "I don't know what it is they're protecting me from, or themselves." Cause it was not as if he was unaware that discussing death made other people uncomfortable.
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 18:16:28
Jason Todd. It was less than a moment for her to remember that tale, that life. It wasn't a pleasant tale.
"His story isn't mine to tell, Bruce. It's his own. And if it's been changed, then wouldn't it be better for everyone to be glad to have him still, instead of wonder why?"
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 18:21:15
"It's not his part in it I'm worried about. It's mine. What happened that the people who should know me best are so...hesitant to bring it up ? Fearful."
He didn't look at her, instead looking straight ahead, matching pace. "Did I fail so horribly they think a reminder would undo me ? How could I have failed that badly and there still be Tim and now someone named Terry McGinnis ?" Future and past meant nothing to her, or so she made it seem, so he didn't stop to ask what she knew of Terry.
"He ran away from me. We stood there and saw his tombstone, and he ran away." The determination in his voice was of a measure of steel shared with his alter-ego. "I have to know."
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 18:34:50
She raised an eyebrow. "Bruce, there's no need for that tone with me."
She tucked her hands into her pockets, and half-turned, looking up at the tree branches over her head. There was a light tweeting sound coming from above. "You weren't there. That was your part."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 20:39:22
He glanced her way at her tone, briefly apologetic in posture. It passed quickly however, when she said Jason had been alone, except for her.
His face went quiet, numb. "And ?" He asked, just as quietly.
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 20:49:37
"And he was acting alone. Not abandoned, not exiled. Simply on his own whim." The tweeting over her head was distressed. From the other side of the tree, a cat climbed up the trunk, ignoring the woman, but eyeing the man cautiously.
"What do you still need to know, now that you know your part?"
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 20:57:51
Bruce tugged at his gloves, going through the motions of taking off his jacket, like a man distracted.
"I don't know. Was he calm in the end ? Did he resent me ?" He stopped his pace.
"Did he resent his choice ? Did he think he could have been taught more." Bruce shrugged. "Those are the selfish questions." And weren't what he needed to know.
"Barbara said the Joker broke his neck." He looked at her. "But she also said there'd been a Joker problem. The Joker on a rampage has never been that humane. Was there time for him to find peace before you came ?"
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 21:21:21
"No, Bruce."
Movement, in the tree. The cat had pounced. Death reached up, tugged on the branch over her head, and reached into a nest sitting there. There was nothing to see, but she moved her hands as though stroking a baby bird, and spoke gently in a language Bruce couldn't understand. Then she blew gently on her hands, closed them over, and put them down at her sides.
Then, she turned back to face him. "There was no time, though I tried to help. I can't tell you what he thought about his choice or his training. I'm not omnipotent."
Dark eyes met his, and she asked for the last time, "Do you really need to know, Bruce? It happened in a past that was, and is no more. Only Destiny knows if it will happen again, and if it is so written, nothing can change it. So do you need to know?"
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 21:29:47
"I lost a Robin." The loss was in his voice, in the quiet whisper of controlled shocked, in his body language. But it wasn't the actual loss that disturbed him most. It was what she said. It was a death with no time, not even that split second of acceptance, of knowing this was the best choice, the only choice.
"Was it meaningless ?" A memory of a gunshot, loud and deafening, shattering the world, echoed in his mind. Quickly followed by a gasp, a half screen and the second gunshot that tore the broken world into pieces that could never, ever, be put back together.
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 21:39:22
Death looked at him with an even gaze, quietly for a long time before she began to speak. "Jack Napier tricked him. Trapped him. And beat him. Beat him with a piece of steel until Jason couldn't defend himself anymore. And I stayed with him as the warehouse blew up around us. By the time you arrived, he was cold and we had gone."
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 21:47:32
The hurt hit again. Deep. But he nodded to her. "Thank you." Even as the sun seemed less bright, and the red and blues of the world more dim. He'd been angry, or maybe it was merely upset with Barbara before. He'd had trouble believing she would not have searched through police reports and other files to get that bit of information when he proved non-communicative.
Now, he wasn't sure what to think. Except perhaps that Barbara had her own way of dealing with tragedy and it wasn't his. He was grateful for the truth, at last. "Thank you." He said again, turning stiffly to look for the car, trying to pull everyday ordinary citizen up from within him, protect himself.
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 21:50:45
She watched him turn and begin to leave. "Bruce." It was softly spoken, but she was sure he would hear it.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 21:53:24
He blinked as he turned around, eyes scanning her form. "Is everything alright ? Do you need anything ?" Because this meeting had been about him, purely. And in these strange circumstances, he didn't want to lapse in knowing when something was wrong.
From: [info]i_amjustme Date: 01/02/2006 21:58:15
She shook her head, lightly. "Nothing is meaningless, Bruce. Ever. They say that diamonds have no value but that which is placed upon them. But even a diamond has value to the coal it once was, to the pressure that formed it, and to the eyes that glimpse it's beauty."
Her usual smile, soft and a touch sad, passed over her lips. "Take care of yourself."
Her hands moved back into her pockets, and she walked away, into the shadows.
From: [info]i_walktheline Date: 01/02/2006 22:08:33
He would not compare a human life to a diamond. Which was the reason he seldom bought diamonds, having done a little research on his own about the industry.
Jason's life had to have had a purpose in death then, for his future-self. Something Death wanted him to discover on his own, maybe ? The way he would have in that timeline ?
He turned away, headed back to the car.
Barbara had mentioned their family, as she called it, had begun to drift apart until Jason's murder. He'd been a catalyst, then. For how they did things, how they related to each other, how they trained, how they prepared ?
Maxine had called him a constant reminder.
His hand rubbed at his chest. But to look at things that way... his parents' death held meaning in that through them, came Batman. A man, a being, who had saved countless lives. But if he could trade Batman for their lives, to have not experienced that loss.
The gunshots echoed through the space of memory, to hurt his ears again.
"Master Bruce ?"
Bruce paused once more, to look back at the park, but the place where he and she had stood was empty, save for a toppled bird's nest on the ground.
"Home, Alfred."