Adult Content Warning
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.
-
And The Birds Don't Sing by madealine
Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Batman (Comics)
08 Jul 2022
Tags
Summary
The body is cold.
He knows he should stand to leave—to run for help—but the body is cold, and Bruce knows the smell of death far too well. If he stands, it’s over. He imagines a police chief draping a coat over a different boy, one much smaller and quieter, who didn’t know that fear meant empty hallways and cold dinners and pearls bouncing on the concrete but he does now, and the sound pounds in his ears and his veins and it burns. With shaking hands, he brushes his fingers across the boy’s chest. Burn marks. From the explosion, he knows, but it reminds him of the pearls and the alley and the bed that is no doubt unmade in the corner of a messy room he will have to clean alone.
His last thought is of a bloodied smile melting into nothingness before he, too, melts into nothingness. He carries the body down the hill. It’s cold, and it is burning him.