theknightshift | (no subject)

[ Earlier tonight, Bruce took a bullet.

It isn't the first time, though thanks to the suit's fibers, bullets were more of a nuisance than a real threat. And most of the people shooting at him tonight couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. They're more likely to shoot each other than him. But the man who shot Bruce had been...different. He knew where to aim, so his bullet would slip between the narrow gaps of the protective layers of his suit and bury itself deep in his side.

The pain did not hit him right away. It was the first spurts of blood seeping through. Then there's pain, searing and hot, cutting across his chest. Then the air in his lungs seized at the pain and he's forced to his knees because the weight of his body felt unbearable. Bruce stabbed the wound with the He pressed a hand against the floor, the other to his wound, even though the suit had already compressed around it. His vision swam, but were locked on the shooter. Where had he come from? This impossible blur of grey and black, a near perfect camouflage against Gotham's cold, desolate streets. His voice is distorted, warped. But familiar. So familiar Bruce almost called out to him.

Dick?

Dick was dead.

This couldn't be real. It couldn't be.

Someone else must have shot him. Cobblepot or Dent, some thug taking potshots from a rooftop nearby - anyone made more sense than his lost son.

It's by chance he spots his assailant again while he glides across the city, Joker standing perilously close by, circling the man, appraising him. When speaks his laughter echoes.

You know, Bats, he does look awfully familiar doesn't he? Must be that stupid mask. It runs in the family!

Bruce ignores him but lands on the rooftop anyway. He had to know. He had to hear this man speak again. ]

Who are you?

[ Right to business. He's not in the mood for small talk. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The problem with fighting a war on two fronts — or dozens, depending on how anyone cared to categorize the various factions at play — is that there's often no clear lines drawn in battle, relative threat levels can change in seconds, and he's always running on a razor-thin line, dodging just as many attacks as he deals out, if not more. So it's no surprise that he didn't withdraw unscathed either, if he wasn't maybe he wouldn't have needed to make another shot at all, one could have been enough, and on top of that inconvenience is the weight of exhaustion bearing down on his shoulders, threatening to drag his body down more than gravity ever has. He may be operating at near-meta levels but he has his limits, and he's feeling several of them now.

Then there's the fact that he was closer to him today than he's been in years, and that's compromised him more than he would care to admit. Not enough to make him pull the shot, or enough to stall a pursuit that he would have made otherwise, but it's there. Feelings, memories, things that he's pushed so far down, with such determination, that they never should have seen the light of day again.

While it's a challenge to pick out the sound of a figure gliding through the city sky at night, with a backdrop of traffic and sirens and gusting wind that took up the space, Batman lands like a ton of bricks. Always has. He's stronger, still, though not by much, but not as flexible, especially with that bullet digging into his side.

He could retreat. Circle back when he's ready for this kind of fight.
Or he can stay, see if Batman will let his guard down.

Talk? He'd rather not. He gives cold, distant silence due consideration, leaning back against the heavy metal door to the roof that's providing him cover, before ultimately deciding that no, if he doesn't engage then this will just spiral into a physical confrontation before he's prepared to finish one. Especially since it could end with him unconscious and locked up somewhere. ]

Does it matter?

[ For all the mayhem Scarecrow and his militia have brought to Gotham tonight, there are two things Bruce can confirm are true: Joker is dead. He'd carried him out of the Monarch theater himself. Pushed his cold, grinning corpse into the furnace with Jim by his side. So the maniacal laughter he hears as a near constant echo isn't real. The figure he sees standing off to the side, behind the man in front of him isn't real. Even if his eyes and his ears tell him otherwise.

The other thing? Dick Grayson is dead too. He saw the tape, saw Dick on the floor arms splayed on either side of him, the chair he'd been tied to splinters under his body. Joker standing over him. Laughing, laughing, always laughing and repeating a familiar refrain: This is what happens when you drag your friends into this crazy little game of ours. Those words were burned into his brain. He could not think of Dick without hearing them.

And so the figure who shot him could not have been real. The bullet is - very much so - but not the man who fired it.

It had to be a trick. Crane's toxins still slithering through his senses, giving him visions of all the terrible things he'd never been able to stop. A madman he would have saved if he'd been given a chance. A son he had failed to save.

Or an imposter, someone meant to torment him so he'd break. Crane said tonight would be the one to break him and giving him visions of someone he cherished would have been the most perfect way to do that. ]

It does.

[ His voice is clipped, snappy. Hard. Angry. Sad. ]

Tell me who you work for. Why are they doing this?

If you come any closer I'll put another bullet straight through that armor.

[ He sounds calm. It's a threat delivered with detached clarity, a statement of fact, despite the turmoil boiling just underneath the surface, he's had a lot of time to practice keeping all of that locked down tight under any circumstances. Letting himself get emotional was to show weakness, exposing too much of his own vulnerabilities. Anger could be a useful motivator, rage gave him strength that fueled him through abuse that should have decimated him, but the pain of losing everything, of becoming a ghost haunting a past life, that wasn't constructive. Wanting what he had, remembering all of the good things he had, or thought he had, with Bruce, that was even worse.

And here he is demanding answers. Whatever control he's had over this city it's slipping through his fingers now and he knows it, that's what he really cares about, not confronting the possibility that he might have been wrong. Not him. If he ever did.

He doesn't have to answer, but maybe this is one point worth making. ]

I don't work for anyone. [ Not anymore. ] So you'd have to ask them.

[ It wouldn't take the World's Greatest Detective to figure out the uniting goal behind all of this anyway, he assumes that Bruce is being more specific than that. Why him. Still an easy answer, just one with entirely different reasons behind it. ]

[ This isn't the first time Bruce has had to wrestle control of his city back from the brink. Joker, Hugo Strange, Ra's al Ghul, all of them had tried once before. Scarecrow isn't the first. He is just the latest. The city may seem like it's slipping away, darkness closing in, and Joker's laughter scraping at the corners of his mind. But Bruce knows this game. He's played it before. And, Like every other time, he would fix this.

He doesn't doubt the man's threat, even though it comes out in Dick's voice and Bruce has to confront that grim reality. Dick is dead he tells himself, and Joker's voice is quick to mockingly confirm it: Ol Dickie is dead. I shot him myself! It makes him set his jaw tighter. ]

You work for someone. Why are you here otherwise?

[ To stir up trouble just because? No, Bruce didn't buy it. Unless the face under that mask belonged to Anarchy. For a moment, the thought lingers. Anarky vanished after Arkham City, a ghost in the chaos of Protocol 10. Could this imposter, this impossibility be him? It's easier to believe than the alternative.

But doubt gnaws at him. Anarky wouldn't know how Dick moved, the cadence of his voice. Yet clinging to that hope is easier than facing the cold, bitter truth: Dick isn't dead. Dick is the one who shot him. ]