Chapter Text
It was raining in Gotham, a heavy, suffocating sheet that turned the neon glow of the narrows into smeared, bloody bruises against the asphalt. In the belly of the Batmobile, the engine roared, vibrating directly against my ribs.
I was flying.
Not literally, the tumbler was firmly on the ground, but my mind was five miles ahead of my hands. I hadn’t slept in seventy-two hours, and I had never felt more alive. The radio was a static hiss I didn’t bother to turn off because the noise was beautiful. Everything was beautiful.
The grime on the windshield looked like a high-resolution map of the universe. I could see the patterns in the chaos. I could see exactly how to fix this entire godforsaken city in a single night if I just pushed hard enough.
I took a turn at eighty miles per hour, the tires screaming. I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound that died instantly in my throat when the comms clicked.
"Master Bruce, your heart rate is spiking again. Have you taken the medication on your morning tray? You cannot conscientiously let the clock run out on your routine. The shadows grow longer when you forget the floor under your feet,” Alfred’s voice was dry and precise.
I pretend I didn’t hear him, my grip tightening on the wheel, and dropping my foot further into the floor.
“And, you have a passenger.” He added.
I glanced at the monitor. Right. The passenger.
Damian sat in the jump seat. Strapped in a bit too tightly, his small knuckles were white. The boy was fiercely competent, and currently looking at me with a mixture of intense calculation and the glassy, silent sadness he always seemed to harbor. He was a jagged little piece of glass that had washed up on my doorstep. Against every rule of self-preservation I had ever written for myself, he has become something of an anchor.
"I’m fine, Alfred," I said, my voice dropping into the low, gravelly register of the Batman. It was more than a disguise tonight.
“Uh, Batman, you’re shuddering,” so says the passenger.
I didn't look at him. I couldn't. I couldn't afford to crash.
"I'm focused, Damian. There is a difference."
Damian crossed his thin arms. "You are shuddering."
I ignored him, slamming the brakes and sending the tumbler into a controlled, violent slide directly through the chain-link fence of Pier 11.
The tumbler smashed through the fence at the pier. I was out of the cockpit before the glass canopy had even fully retracted.
My vision was swimming in neon fractals. Every smell of salt, rotting fish, burning diesel was dialed up to a repulsing volume.
I moved among the shipping containers quickly, silently.
The detonators didn't matter. Not really. Nothing mattered because I was God tonight. I could feel the rotation of the earth through the soles of my boots.
I’m looking for a shipment of military-grade detonators. Instead, I find a bright, painted smile.
The Joker was sitting on a stack of crates, swinging his legs like a child at a playground. His face was melting in white greasepaint and smeared red lipstick that extended far past the corners of his mouth. His mimicking a smile molded and folded over a collection of scars. He looked hideous.
He held out a greasy bakery bag. "Bear claws, Bats! Your favorite! You miss me?"
"Joker," I growled, my heart doing a sudden, violent flip. The high was still there, but it was curdling, turning dark and sharp at the edges.
"The one and only! Well, technically there are some cheap knockoffs in Blüdhaven, but we don't talk about themmm," Joker trilled, "Here, here, catch! They’re from that bakery on 5th. I know you like the ones with the extra almond paste because you're a big, brooding aristocrat with suuuper refinnned taste."
He aimed to toss the bag out, beaming. The smell of greasepaint and cheap pastry wafted through the freezing air.
Damian drew a birdarang, his stance practiced and precise.
"Move, and I will sever your femoral artery, clown." he says, in his best low pitched tone.
"Ooh, such a spitfire! He has your scowl, Batsy. Truly. It’s adorable," Joker cooed, completely ignoring the threat. He took a step closer to me, his eyes glittering with a terrifying, manic affection.
"You look tired, darling. Big heavy eyes. Let's blow up a bridge or something, get that blood pumping! You know I hate it when you get into these slumps."
I felt the rage bubbling up, sudden and absolute, uncontrolled.
"Where are the detonators?" I stepped into the Joker's personal space, my massive, armored frame towering over him.
The Joker didn't flinch. He leaned in instead, his nose almost touching my black cowl. He smelled like gunpowder and peppermint. "I traded them for the pastries, dummy. Priorities! I wanted to see you. Is that such a crime? Well, yes, technically, but I thought we were past all those labels."
I grabbed him by the lapels, slamming him hard against the corrugated metal of a container, relishing in the groans the wall released.
"Oh, you're on one tonight!" The Joker giggled, his eyes wide, greedily drinking in my unraveling. He reached up, his gloved thumb tracing the edge of my jaw, utterly indifferent to the grip tight grip around his throat.
"I missed this version of you. The burning Bruce. Do it. Tear me apart."
I raised a fist, my knuckles white in the darkness. I wanted to strike. I needed the release of the impact to quiet the roaring in my brain.
A red and blue blur streaked across the sky, high above the clouds.
I stopped. I didn't see him, but I felt him. There is a pain on the back of my neck.
He was up there. Orbiting. Listening to the heartbeat of the world with that effortless, infuriating goodness. The sheer amount of gravity in his presence punches me in the stomach once or twice. The poision in my veins seeps down from my skull.
I was disgusted. I was terrified.
I hated him for being so clean.
I hated myself more for wanting to be graced by such cleanliness.
I dropped the Joker like he burned to touch, as his squirming began to slow.
"Get him to the car," I said, my voice suddenly hollow, the high evaporating instantly and leaving nothing but a freezing, grey void in my skull. A crash in my head was forming, a devastating, surmounting blaze that needed to grow.
"I need to... I need air."
"Batman?" Damian stepped closer. His small hand hovered near my cape, hesitant.
"Go." I snapped, my voice cracking with a raw edge. It’s getting harder to hide it.
There was that glassy look again, but hardened. Maybe…scared?
“Oh, Batsy. You’re such a mess tonight.” He cooed, catching his breath, “Why don’t we talk about it over dinner!” he shouted, as I sped off.
Off, to a maintenence closet by the Pier.
I didn’t even listen for the door to click before I was tearing off my armor, ripping the Kevlar plates off my chest like an attempt to free myself from an iron maiden. I couldn't expand my lungs.
I am going to die.
I am going to explode and take the city with me.
The speed in my head reached a crescendo, a roaring, white-hot static that obliterated all reason.
With frantic, desperate hands, I ripped my arms, the carbon fiber tearing my nails to the quick. I felt like I was skinning myself, the boiling, firey sheets of skin bubbling. I shredded the ballistic mesh, throwing chunks of black armor across the dark, narrow room until I was shivering in the damp cold.
The shadows in the room began to warp and stretch, reaching for me, sentient and accusing. I was speaking aloud now, I was rambling about the geometric perfection of the street grid and how I had to build a wall of lead and fire to keep Damian from the monsters that were leaking out of my own eyes.
Where are the comms.
I run around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail until I realize.
I stepped in a sharp mess on the floor, showing I’d seemingly ripped them out and crushed them under my heel in my blind panic.
I was entirely alone in the dark with a nuclear reactor in my head.
I dropped to my knees, clawing at my own face, my fingers drawing blood where I dug them into my cheeks to try and ground myself.
It didn't work.
The room was spinning too fast. I slammed my forehead against the concrete floor, once, twice, until the physical pain momentarily sliced through the mental roar.
I knew I was going to be sick. I needed to. I keeled over, retching violently against the base of a rusted utility sink. I was choking now, releasing heavy, racking cries that tore at my throat as I curled into a tight ball on the wet concrete floor between the rusted mop buckets.
I bit down on my own wrist to keep from screaming loud enough to be heard outside the door. I bit until copper filled my mouth. I was a terrified animal clawing at the concrete as everything finally snapped, leaving me plunging down into a bottomless, freezing abyss of absolute despair.
I bit down harder onto my hand, shortly before moving down my arm as the taste of raw skin filled my mouth. Then, I resorted to tearing at my skin again. Opening old scars, and birthing new ones.
I felt faint, and like I need to be sick again.
There was no sound of tearing metal, no explosive breach. Just a sudden, violent displacement of air as the door was peeled back like tin foil and discarded.
A rush of cold, pure atmosphere swept into the closet, instantly cutting through the thick, choking smell of my own vomit, sweat, and blood. Cleaner air. Air that belonged miles above the smog of Gotham.
I didn't open my eyes. I couldn't. I was too ashamed of the blood on my face, the raw skin on my hands, and the pathetic, animalistic sounds still exploding out of my chest. I pressed my forehead harder against the grimy floor, wishing the concrete would create a deep pit and swallow me.
"Bruce," he said.
His voice didn't boom. It was quiet, devastatingly gentle, and heavy with a kind of raw concern that made my stomach turn. I could feel the radiant warmth of him cutting right through the damp, freezing cold of the floor. He was standing there in the doorway, the primary colors of his suit probably blinding in the gloom, smelling of ozone and high-altitude winds.
"Go away," I whispered into the concrete, my voice faintly cracking.
I felt him kneel beside me on the wet floor. He didn't care about the filth. He didn't touch me, he knew better than that. But, his proximity alone was a physical ache. He couldn’t possibly have heard my heart rate spike from the sky. How could he have seen the whole ugly, pathetic display, and flown down here to look at the wreckage.
"I'm not just leaving," Clark said softly.
The silence between us was a living thing, stretching tight and vibrating with a terrible, unacknowledged energy. I was so hyper-aware of him. He was hovering inches away from my shivering, half-naked body. It felt like a dying bird clawed from inside me, trapped in my own chest.
"Don't look at me," I choked out, a fresh wave of panic rising as the high tried to flare back up into paranoia. "Stop, and go away."
I was embarassed. There was an unbelievably luminescent light shining on my rot.
I tried to push myself up, proving my perfectly fine-ness, my shredded undersuit scraping against the floor. My arms quickly gave out, collapsing me back onto the concrete with a wet thud. I could feel the dirt mixing with my blood as a burning dispersed deep into my cuts and claw marks.
I felt a massive, gloved hand settle gently on my shoulder. It was incredibly warm. It was steady. It was everything I didn’t want, but desperately needed. I knew he could feel blood soaking into his glove.
Guess someone doesn’t care about the rules.
I froze, a small, humiliated sound escaping my throat. I hated him for seeing me like this. I hated him for being so paitent. His thumb made a slow, deliberate circle against the bare skin of my neck where I'd ripped the cowl away. A part of me, the tiniest part, wanted to drag him down into the dark with me just so I wouldn't have to be alone.
I bit my lip until it bled, fighting the terrifying, desperate urge to lean my blood-smeared face against his chest and surrender.