Chapter Text
Gotham cemetery, 6 am.
Batman got hurt after patrol. Broken rib, broken left pinky finger and sprained wrist.
But the man behind the cowl is still wounded from an injury that will never heal. He’ll never let it heal. It will be a grieving wound that will fester into a poison worse than his parents – because he had failed. Stupid, his mind whispers to him.
He had failed despite years of training and experience, failed despite making it his life’s purpose to prevent it. It was right there – his son was right there; and he failed miserably. Pathetically. Foolishly. Stupidly.
What kind of father was he? He failed his first son, killed his second and can only seem to fail the ginger-haired girl who still had her own father to see every day. Stupid.
Familiar clawed feet land on his shoulder without so much of a noisy flap. “Caw.”
Brown eyes blink.
Tired eyes blink back.
Fifteenth primary feather on the left wing.
His hand moves on it’s own, calloused fingers dragging itself over the feathers like a gentle breeze so faint one can barely feel it.
It’s time.
Every step is silent, every click of his expensive shoes muffled alongside the beat of Gotham’s heartbeat. The noise is a ripple amongst a thousand more waves. Blue eyes remain downcast as he lets the streets guide him like shepherd and blind lamb to the slaughter. Like he did to his boy. Stupid.
The world has yet to see Bruce Wayne after a week of his son’s funeral. Should one glance at the silent man with a crow by his side, they wouldn’t recognize that same socialite; so broken down, so stricken with grief. A hollow echo of a man’s silhouette. A single beep in a chorus of an opera.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidsupdistupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid–
The bird’s beak finds it’s way into his chest pocket of his shirt, pulling out the tiny ziplock bag filled with bird food. Barely registering the movement, his hands sluggishly move to open the bag and offer it to his avian companion, seed by seed.
This time around, there’s no fuss for more, no loud cawing of protest. Just slowly taking a seed in its beak, delicately holding it and swallowing it in the blink of an eye. It eats, bit by bit as the unusual pair gets closer and closer to the intended destination.
The man doesn’t do much other than blink. Every second of silence is a moment of suffering. Every step taken is a moment of hesitation. Every shaky inhale is a moment of deliberation. Every shuddering exhale is a moment of pure, unadulterated guilt.
The man doesn’t feel like a man. He doesn’t feel like a father, doesn’t feel like he’s alive, he doesn't feel anything anymore.
So what is he? What is he doing?
He wonders as he walks, fishing out another seed, piece by piece.
Why is he buying flowers again? Why are they shades of red and blue and yellow and green? Why are they so bloody? Why?
What must’ve been over thirty crows stay perched on the dead trees, ledges and grave stones, all staring at him with apathy – or perhaps he just can’t find it in himself to see another pair of eyes directed at him. He’s seen eyes of hatred and anger from his eldest. He’s seen resigned and grief in his father’s butler’s.
Why do those same flowers lay against cold concrete?
A good son, a beloved brother and a loved boy.
It is such a simple sentence, made up by words arranged in a line, with alphabets making up each word. And it hurts all the same.
Gloomy skies are Gotham’s norm – pouring rain and darkening horizons. Gotham sheds the morning light every day without fail.
Today is no exception.
Destitute gravestones are placed carelessly all over the grounds, with roots have even unrooted one of two of the gravestones. Rusty gates creak at every pull – as earsplitting as the screams he had once released uttering the name of his son. He hates that noise. He hates it.
Why?
Feathery little bodies hop around the cemetery with life – and yet he can’t find it in himself to look at them. They were so full of luscious life, it hurt. Like shrapnels in his chest, torn down to skin him free of his flesh, down to his very base skeleton and grinded into the ground where he belonged.
He looks down at the growing patches of grass over a high pile of dirt. His son was buried there.
He should be down there too. He deserves it.
“Caw!” A chorus of panicked squawks falls short onto deaf ears.
When had he gotten onto his knees?
It’s loud. So, so loud. The whole world seems to grate on his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Or knives against porcelain platters. Like crowbars against concrete floor or perhaps like the ticking of a bomb that burns one with passion and engulfs them in flames.
His fingers twitch by his side. Move, his body urges him. Move. Flail. Feel. Punch. Scratch. Stretch. Pull.
He tries to settle those thoughts by drumming the pads of his finger against his pants. It’s smooth. Too smooth against his fingertips. It is but a feeble attempt, so he stops.
He grips at the fabric instead. It’s so much more worse.
The broken man reads those words over and over again – like it was scripture and he, a devout follower – until it blurs into words and symbols he can barely decipher anymore and until his retinas burn from keeping them open against the frigid cold of the city.
A good soldier, a beloved bird and a loved Robin.
He hates it. He hates it hates it hates it hates it hates it–
He wants to run his fingers over the pile of dirt holding his son captive under the earth. He knows he’ll hate that too.
He wants to tear at the soft grass growing all over that same mound, to uproot it and throw it all away. Scatter it into the wind and stomp on it like a madman.
He doesn’t want to see flowers and green all over his son. He can’t. He can’t.
He can’t. He can’t. He can’t! He can’t let his son stay buried, he can’t let his child stay down there, he just can’t!
No voice leaves his throat. Any attempt just leaves him desperately chasing after a memory that died with his boy. He claws at his throat, knowing it would do anything but coax out another sound from himself.
He must look insane to passerbys, rocking himself to a beat only he hears. Every thunk-thunk-thunk of his forehead against that merciless, marble memorial serves to only make the pounding in his head all the more real.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidsupdistupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid–
He feels insane regardless, clenching his eyelids shut as if it could help fix the problem that was the cold, harsh truth. He’s just running. Running from his problems. He knows that. He runs and runs and runs. But he didn’t reach in time anyways.
So here he is. Repenting. Regretting. Resenting.
He’s on his knees now, begging for a second chance he knows he’d never get. It’s useless yet it feels like he’d be dishonoring him if he didn’t. He’d begged like this once. When he lost the only people he’d ever known.
He keeps losing them. Over and over again.
The world blurs over yet again.
Is it… raining? A feathered body curls against the smoothened stone surface – a bigger body joins the smaller one, curling around them like a shell.
There’s a droplet, but there’s no clouds in the sky. There’s thunder, but no lightning crackling. There’s a father… but no son.
—
When he opens his eyes, all he can see is disgusting green hair and bile green eyes. Pale, acidic skin and purple cheap suits. Plastic prank flowers and toy gun replicas. He slowly stands, mechanically guiding each bird off of his lap before stalking out the cemetery.
He knows what must be done. He has to. He has to.
I will, he promises. I’ll do it for you, Jason.
The birds follow him. Of course they do.
Crows know what it’s like to lose another to mother nature – and they know when threats are too dangerous to get close to. But they did not lose another to the natural world and they know that is no threat. That right there… is a dying man clinging onto a suit that brings just as much misery as it does hope.
Without the man of riches, and without the man in between, leaves only the creature of the night.
The flapping of wings echo in the silent horizon, the ominous wails of crows spreading across Gotham a singular, clear message to all: Run.
For a man with no purpose is nothing but an animal with no end.