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Bruce is not a good man.
He knows what he is. He knows he's sick— sick in the head, sick on the inside, sick with something that's swallowed him whole, something that leaks from him like an oil slick and stains everything he's ever touched.
Bruce is not noble, or brave, or just. He's not good.
There is something inside him, gnawing at the inside of his rib cage, something horrible. Something that wants him to do horrible things.
Dick and Alfred mistake control for honor.
They, naively, think he's good. That he does what he does for a just cause, that he's fighting solely for what is right.
Bruce knows that good men don't need rules, and that he needs every one of his.
He's long since stopped trying to correct them. They don't listen—- just look at him like he's some kind of kicked dog. Maybe he is. A dog, that is. He's just as desperate, just as violent. He's always armed to the teeth, armed with his teeth.
Sometimes he thinks he could be capable of anything. Of hurting anyone.
Sometimes it actually scares him.
There's no cure for what Bruce is. He's looked. The only solution is control. Discipline. Distraction. He can only delay the inevitable—- that day where he's past the point of no return. Sometimes it feels like any day, now. Sometimes it feels like every day.
He's not good. He's terrible, and he knows it.
He can feel it, looking at his parent' portrait, letting the hate and rage and sadness boil in his gut like hellfire. He is horridness itself—- his own deadly sin. He is angry and vengeful and violent, and there is no devil on his shoulder. He is a devil.
And that's probably why he hates Superman with a burning passion.
Superman is good.
Bruce knows this. Everyone knows this. He saves cities. He helps old ladies cross the street, he frees cats from trees, he rescues squirrels from oncoming traffic.
Superman is the epitome of being goodhearted, as cheery as a fucking peach on a spring day. He looks like a fucking idiot.
He's all smiles, all goodness, all kind intentions and small talk. He makes it look easy. Like being good just comes to him, like fucking divine inspiration finds its way to him in a ray sunshine.
Bruce finds it infuriating.
Alfred says he's projecting something. Dick says he's jealous. Bruce doesn't give a damn what he is, because what does Superman know? He could be worshipped as a god, a deity—- but instead he's helping the socially anxious order their meals at food trucks.
Superman isn't like Bruce. He doesn't have rules, doesn't ever hold a criminal's throat too long, wondering what it would be like if he could just squeeze for just one second—-
Superman has control. Restrictions on his powers, but never himself. He doesn't have a Robin to worry about, a hidden identity to make appearances in. He doesn't even have to worry about injuries.
And that is why Bruce hates him so much.
He's too good, too convenient. He is so unlike Bruce, so polarly opposite, so… so unparalleled. So bright, like the sun, hot, fiery, burning alive, combusting in the empty vacuum of space— necessary for life but so, so destructive. So violent. So heartwarming, life giving, eternal— so, so on the verge of burning out, burning up, so nearly caving in on itself, obliterating the space and time in which it once stood, and taking all of humanity with it.
He could decimate cities in a breath. And he doesn't. He doesn't even seem tempted.
Dick treats hating Superman like a sin, and maybe it is. Superman is hope. Goodness. Kindness in a world where there is far too little.
But Bruce isn't a good man, and he's never pretended to be.
He's angry, and bitter, and envious. Envious of a man who has so much and has lost so, so little.
It's only a matter of time before Bruce knows everything there is to know about him. Superman has his stupid little story— born and raised on Krypton, living on Earth in a fortress in the middle of fucking nowhere. Bruce doesn't buy it. There's more. He knows it.
It's only a matter of watching and studying.