Cutting ties

[moonshadows]

Anger and resentment, it seemed, had filled his days with bloody angles and blinding shadows since The Night. The night he’d shut down the Batcave, the night he’d had a heart attack, the night he’d picked up a gun and pointed it at another person with every intent to pull the trigger. He was staying awake all day, now, and sleeping at night – or at least, lying in bed staring at the ceiling until the shadows swarmed over him and dragged him down into nightmares. Hard to believe it had been less than a month. He hadn’t been answering the phone, hadn’t been opening his mail – digital or otherwise – and just now, he’d snarled Barbara Gordon away from his door with such venom that it had burned through not only her jaded defenses, but his own anger. The blood had clotted, holding the shadows at bay, and her eyes were a mirror returning his own Medusa glare, turning him to stone.

He was a monster. The day had finally come. But this lucidity wouldn’t last, and before he fell back into shadows and waking nightmares, there was something he had to do. Bruce Wayne rushed to the study, dialed with shaking fingers, held the receiver to his ear with one hand while the other spread across the surface of his desk, holding him up.

One ring. Two. “Hello?”

“Dick.”

“Bruce?” That was worry, concern he didn’t deserve. “Are you okay? You sound-”

“No.”

“Bruce, let me-”

“I said no!” He took a deep breath in the stunned silence and let the words fall out: first in a trickle, then in a rush. “Dick…shut up for a minute and let me say this while I can. I’m not well. I haven’t been well since I was eight, but I was able to…manage it. Channel it. I can’t do that anymore. I’m broken, Dick. I’m all sharp edges. It’s not going to be safe for you to keep contact with me for a while. Maybe not ever.”

Silence. “Bruce…” He didn’t have to say what came next: Let me help. How many times had he danced between Bruce’s broken edges to touch the center and bring him back to himself? But it wouldn’t work, not this time. The center was broken, too, all jagged razors ready to slice into anyone who tried to reach out to him.

“No, Dick,” he said heavily. “I know what you’ve done for me in the past and I’m…grateful.” Possibly the first time either of them had spoken directly about his ward’s humanizing effect. “But it’s not going to help anymore. I don’t want you to get hurt trying to help me. I don’t…” He stopped to cover his eyes and take a deep breath, to give his throat a chance to unknot. “I don’t want you to hate me. Let me go, Dick. Please.”

A long silence. “You know I love you, Bruce.” Something else they’d never said directly, now an offering laid on a funeral pyre.

Tears. How long had he been waiting to shed them? “I know. I love you, too. Thank you.”

“Want me to spread the word?”

“Please,” he said, and it was very quiet.

“Alright. Goodbye, Bruce.” The words were soft but final, the crackling of the lit pyre or the bridge between them succumbing to gentle flames.

He was really doing this. It was better this way. “Goodbye, Dick.”

 

 

He left the door unlocked; it didn’t matter either way, except that by doing so he’d be spared a broken door. He took the kryptonite out of the hidden safe, secure in its lead-lined pocketwatch like some oversized locket of death, and hung it on a braided steel cable around his neck. He fetched the bottle of scotch that was older than he was and seated himself securely in a wingback chair and drank to the memory of his parents, drank to the good health of the son who’d taken his mother’s maiden name because moving to the west coast wasn’t enough to distance him from his father, drank because why not, he had nothing left.

By the time the knock came, he was almost comfortable in his cocoon of alcohol-swaddled razor blade memories. Well aware that standing was beyond him, he made no move to get up. The knocking was joined by a familiar voice calling his name frantically, and then silence.

“It’s open,” he muttered, corking the bottle carefully and setting it safely out of the way.

Footsteps approaching. He resisted the temptation to rest his eyelids for just a moment. Superman stopped short as he entered the room, and a curl of amusement threaded through the haze in his brain. He knew Kent wouldn’t listen when Dick advised him to stay away.

“Bruce?” There it was, concern and confusion. “Are you okay?”

He sipped the golden liquid in his glass. “No.”

Blue eyes narrowed under that insufferable cowlick. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes.” Another sip. “So that I don’t hurt you,” he said, preempting the inevitable Why?

“Dick called me. He said…”

Bruce threw back the last of the scotch and set the glass next to the bottle. “You should have listened.”

Superman took half a dozen steps towards him. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s over, Clark,” he sighed. “I’m done.”

Three more steps. “Talk to me, Bruce. We can work this out.” Another two steps.

“That’s far enough.”

The Man of Steel stopped abruptly, fear washing over him in the blink of an eye.

“I mean it,” he snarled as Kent shifted his weight, one hand going to the pocketwatch’s knob and pressing it. Green light spilled out as it snapped open, causing Kent to recoil, but he was just out of range.

“Why, Bruce?” he asked in a quiet, sad voice.

Sullen anger bubbled slowly up through the fog of inebriation. “Because I’m broken. Batman is dead. I’m no good to anyone anymore.”

“You’re still my friend.”

He snorted. “I’m a rabid dog, Clark. I promised Selina that I’d be there when she woke up. That’s the only reason you’re not here for my funeral.”

Surprisingly, Kent didn’t say anything. Or maybe not so surprising; he knew better than most exactly how closely Batman had flirted with death.

“There isn’t a therapist in the world who can untangle my issues,” Bruce said slowly. “I’ve wrestled with them enough to know that I can’t win. I’m not rational anymore. I’ll bite any hand that reaches for me. So leave, Clark. Let go and leave. You can’t help me this time.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Superman said, the words slow and steady and soothing.

“You don’t have a choice, Kent. I’m a wounded beast, wild with pain. Either it kills me or I get used to it, but until one or the other happens…” He closed his eyes, then forced them back open. “I’ll only hurt you because you’re everything I could never be. I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want you to hate me. So leave me to my pain.”

Damned fool sat on the floor as if he were a child about to hear a story. “You haven’t driven me away yet, Bruce.”

“I wasn’t trying,” he growled. Blast it, why couldn’t the stubborn lug just listen? “Right,” he muttered to himself, “because I’m not Batman anymore. I’m just Bruce Wayne, broken bitter old man with a weak heart, I’m not worthy of the respect Batman commanded. Why should what I want make a difference?” Superman’s eyes narrowed, and Bruce realized he’d been speaking out loud. Guilt hardened into resentment. “That’s right, I said it. You’re Superman, you can do whatever you want and us normal people don’t have any say in it.” Bitter laughter. “Only I do, because I’ve got this.” One finger tapped the kryptonite lightly.

“I think I’m starting to get the picture,” Kent said slowly. “I’ll make you a deal, Bruce. A promise, because you know I don’t break those. You put the kryptonite away and let me stay the night, and then I’ll leave and I won’t try to contact you again.”

It was getting harder to think, but he knew there had to be an ulterior motive, and he didn’t trust it. “Why?”

“Because you promised Selina you’d be there when she woke up, and I don’t want you to die of alcohol poisoning. Let me stay to make sure you live through the night, Bruce, and then I’ll leave you alone until you’re ready to talk. I promise.”

He did promise…and Superman kept his promises, just like he did. Fuzzily, he fumbled at the pocketwatch until it clicked shut and the green light winked out, taking the world with it.

 

When he woke up, the clock said it was half past eleven and his head was pounding. He was in his own bed, and it took a minute to remember why that seemed wrong. It took even longer to scrape together the energy to sit up and down the glass of lukewarm water sitting on the table, next to the equally lukewarm pitcher and the kryptonite pocketwatch, which was sitting on a folded piece of paper. Grimly, he poured another glass of water and sipped at it while he read.

Just in case you don’t remember, Clark’s handwriting read, we had a deal. I stayed the night to make sure you lived through it, and now I’ll leave you alone until you’re ready to talk. Just like I promised. You’re still my friend and I still care about you, regardless of which name you’re using, and my respect for you has only gone up because of this. If you ever need me, just call.

- Clark

When he put the kryptonite back in the hidden safe, he tucked the bottle of scotch and the note in with it.