Fic: What Goes Up... (Nolanverse)
Aug. 3rd, 2008 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: What Goes Up…
Fandom: Batman, Nolanverse
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 506
Timeline: Batman Begins to The Dark Knight.
Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Henri Ducard, Harvey Dent
Summary: The faster you fall, the further away the bottom gets.
When Bruce remembers his parents’ death, the feeling is that of the ground dropping out from under him. His bedrock became as treacherous as quicksand. In many ways, that shift is the most vivid memory he has of his childhood. Maybe because he’s never stopped wondering how to change things back.
***
There’s no going back, he realizes as he drops after Ducard. But it doesn’t matter. He’s going forward, and now he can see his destination: Gotham. He has to go back home. He catches Ducard as his legend crystallizes, his code falls into place. He won’t kill. He’ll bend the law, but he won’t break it. He’ll work with the system, not outside it. He’ll be a hero.
Bruce’s muscles burn as he lifts Ducard to safety. But he can handle it. He, this legend he’s becoming, has no limits.
***
He’s heard of how freeing hang-gliding is. Lucius swears by how all his troubles stay on the ground. Not for him. When Bruce’s cape stiffens and becomes wings, he never forgets that gravity has its hooks in him. It wants him to fall, crack, break open. Even when he uses the grapple-gun, he doesn’t know what it’s like to fly.
***
He can handle the Joker. It’s only a matter of time. His conditioning is superior, his equipment is superior, his mind is superior. It’s only when the Joker grabs Rachel that the ground vanishes underfoot. She goes over the edge and he forgets that he’s anything more than a man. A man about to be halved.
Bruce falls and lets the fear blot out what the Joker could be doing above. It doesn’t matter, because that layer of him is being stripped away. Stripped down to the ragged, wounded part that begs ‘if you couldn’t save them, at least save her.’ He catches her, they land hard but safe, and the world goes right, just through the pain.
***
He wonders if this is rock bottom. He goes through the motions, but neither Joker’s defeat nor abiding by his code brings any satisfaction. Harvey stares at him through two faces and Bruce sees a reflection. Someone who’s hit bottom, cracked open, spilled out the anger inside like a reopened wound. The bullet slides neatly through a join in his armor and it’s cold. But he doesn’t really feel it, the pain. He registers it, manages it, holds onto it as it drives him into Harvey like a rocket exploding on the launch-pad.
They fall together; Harvey a little sooner, Bruce a little later. They land in the same place. This is Gotham. This is hell.
He closes the eye that Dent can close and lets it face the world blind. He envies Harvey: For the time Harvey had with Rachel, for the mask he didn’t have to wear, for the fact that he’s hit bottom and Bruce is still falling. Then he stops mourning and starts to run, shrugging off the bullet in his gut, because that’s what legends do with pain.
Fandom: Batman, Nolanverse
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 506
Timeline: Batman Begins to The Dark Knight.
Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Henri Ducard, Harvey Dent
Summary: The faster you fall, the further away the bottom gets.
When Bruce remembers his parents’ death, the feeling is that of the ground dropping out from under him. His bedrock became as treacherous as quicksand. In many ways, that shift is the most vivid memory he has of his childhood. Maybe because he’s never stopped wondering how to change things back.
***
There’s no going back, he realizes as he drops after Ducard. But it doesn’t matter. He’s going forward, and now he can see his destination: Gotham. He has to go back home. He catches Ducard as his legend crystallizes, his code falls into place. He won’t kill. He’ll bend the law, but he won’t break it. He’ll work with the system, not outside it. He’ll be a hero.
Bruce’s muscles burn as he lifts Ducard to safety. But he can handle it. He, this legend he’s becoming, has no limits.
***
He’s heard of how freeing hang-gliding is. Lucius swears by how all his troubles stay on the ground. Not for him. When Bruce’s cape stiffens and becomes wings, he never forgets that gravity has its hooks in him. It wants him to fall, crack, break open. Even when he uses the grapple-gun, he doesn’t know what it’s like to fly.
***
He can handle the Joker. It’s only a matter of time. His conditioning is superior, his equipment is superior, his mind is superior. It’s only when the Joker grabs Rachel that the ground vanishes underfoot. She goes over the edge and he forgets that he’s anything more than a man. A man about to be halved.
Bruce falls and lets the fear blot out what the Joker could be doing above. It doesn’t matter, because that layer of him is being stripped away. Stripped down to the ragged, wounded part that begs ‘if you couldn’t save them, at least save her.’ He catches her, they land hard but safe, and the world goes right, just through the pain.
***
He wonders if this is rock bottom. He goes through the motions, but neither Joker’s defeat nor abiding by his code brings any satisfaction. Harvey stares at him through two faces and Bruce sees a reflection. Someone who’s hit bottom, cracked open, spilled out the anger inside like a reopened wound. The bullet slides neatly through a join in his armor and it’s cold. But he doesn’t really feel it, the pain. He registers it, manages it, holds onto it as it drives him into Harvey like a rocket exploding on the launch-pad.
They fall together; Harvey a little sooner, Bruce a little later. They land in the same place. This is Gotham. This is hell.
He closes the eye that Dent can close and lets it face the world blind. He envies Harvey: For the time Harvey had with Rachel, for the mask he didn’t have to wear, for the fact that he’s hit bottom and Bruce is still falling. Then he stops mourning and starts to run, shrugging off the bullet in his gut, because that’s what legends do with pain.
