Fic: Duality Chapter 10 (Batman + Superman)

Title: Duality
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 7,307
Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, the Joker, Tim Drake, Harvey Dent, Barbara Gordon.
Previous Part: Chapter 9
Next Part: Chapter 11
Summary: Bruce was expecting a nice, quiet soiree. The most excitement at that costume party would be Tim Drake showing up in a Batman suit. Then he saw the woman dressed up like a cat.

( I’m the Joker! And I say what’s funny. )

It can be like a slumber party, without a transphobia-inducing viewing of Sleepover Camp!

So in this story I'm writing, there's the Hero and his Rival. The Rival is what Smart Bitches, Trashy Books might call an "alpha male." He's rich, he's mysterious, he's controlling, he's dashing... a jerk, basically.

Only the Hero isn't much better. He's what might be referred to as a Nice Guy(tm), so when he and the heroine (yes, there's a love triangle, feel free to bring this up at my trial for not being a Real Writer) actually get together, it becomes clear that none of the bunch is in any state to be in a serious relationship. In fact, the whole theme is that...

Well, I've noticed that stories are always "hey, this guy is pretty fucked up... but he'll be a great once a beautiful butterfly punk-rock grrl with wacky idiosyncricies comes to sex him up." Or "this gal can't hack it on her own! She needs a man for her life to be complete!"

So, what if the theme for a story was "you can't expect someone else to fix you. You'll just going to end up dragging the both of you down. If you want a relationship to work, you have to put the other person first, not be selfish and expect them to be your cure-all."

Obviously, that's all depressing and shit because people want hunky, perfect guys with no unreasonable quirks, with the only threat for derailing the romance being bitchy exes and stupid misunderstandings (or, conversely, someone who can mother them while being sexually experimental but not being too much of a slut about it, except for them).

Those were three paragraphs that could've used some editing.

So now I'm in a bit of a fix for what the guy does, in a fantasy setting (just throwing that out there, little_details peeps), to make it clear that he's not ready to be in a relationship and needs to grow up and get over himself and basically be less FAIL.

And now you have an excuse to dish on ex-boyfriend stories, so it can be a bonding experience! Like a slumber party, only without--oh, you already read the subject line?