Chronology
Jul. 17th, 2006 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shankieBruce writes unsent letters in Wally's absence
(Thanks again to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
batfan_sarah for helping me brainstorm. :) )
Chapter Five: Letters to Wally
Oct. 23
Dear Wally,
I write this, as you once wrote to me, never knowing that someday it would be received. I can only hope.
Clark has repeatedly insisted that I need to learn acceptance. As I'm sitting here, I can't help but think that I'd like to go speak with your mother, if she'd be so kind as to tell me more about you. Perhaps that's a stage of acceptance.
It's a kind of irony; to the last, I never believed he was dead. Now roles are reversed, and although time has passed, he has so little faith. The newspapers, the ever-present reporters are all speculation, an air of defeat hangs over the Watchtower, and my faith begins to fail me.
The leaves are out, all brilliant reds and oranges, as if a sign to keep hoping. You would love how the grounds look right now.
The Council is waiting for me to tell them when they can begin to mourn.
That day is not today.
* * *
Oct. 25
Dear Wally,
You would be proud of Bart; despite his attention span, he has dedicated himself to his work, to bettering himself. He still doesn't patrol in Gotham, but he has done his best to take care of Central City. I don't worry if he's stretched himself too thin, as I can sometimes hear laughter drifting from Tim's apartment.
The manor is a shrine of memories. Every step I take, I can almost hear you about to walk down the steps or the rustling of plastic in the kitchen.
There's no laughter left in here.
I couldn't stay here last night, couldn't return home to the darkness and the silence, and found myself in Metropolis, letting Clark make everything less... real. It's difficult to look at his face, when he's giving me a gaze of pity and adoration.
I confess, to look away, and to remember how you always looked at me... like I made you the happiest person in the world... and let him have his way with me... it's as if, for a moment, I've regained something lost, and I can forget.
Forgive me.
* * *
Oct. 30
Dear Wally,
Today was Dexter Miles' birthday; you told me, once, that each year you would go to the Flash Museum with some gift for his work there, some show of appreciation.
In your absence, I went there as a visitor for the first time. In Central City, I can walk around unrecognized, left alone for the most part. When I approached the curator with a donation, he was surprised as much as grateful. I informed him that I'd like to have an art piece commissioned for the main hall, and he was very enthusiastic.
Apparently their number of visitors has been increasing.
Afterward, I was able to visit your mother. I regret not having met her before. She invited me in with such warmth and love that I... was overwhelmed. We spoke for hours, with such an open candor, such pride in you, and I was left missing your presence all the more, alone in the jet on the flight home.
I never knew just how little of your childhood had been spent... being a child.
Mary told me that you often felt as if you'd been granted the greatest gift anyone could ask for, that endless hours of dedication to strangers was the least you could do. But I wonder if you ever thought of it that way, or were just so happy to run that you did it without hesitation, accepted the uniform and the work just to keep running.
* * *
Oct. 31
Dear Wally,
Bart is staying in Central City; Gotham is dangerous tonight. He tells me he's making friends at school, that they could go out tonight and join in the celebration.
I'm glad he did. I think of him having returned home to Mary's kitchen, with a bag full of candy he will no doubt be finished with already, and it's an image far brighter than the evening and early hours brought upon the home you adopted.
But, of that, I've logged my reports and patched my wounds, and as the sun rises through the window above my desk, reminding me that Halloween has come and gone, I have no desire to dwell on it.
Other subjects are not so easily pushed aside.
I never know what to tell Dick on today, this anniversary of his parents' deaths. He spent it alone, I don't know where. I wish I could find it in me to speak of it with him.
I didn't know how to refuse Clark when he came to sweep me into the still and silent sky.
This constant uncertainty has left my life chaotic and somehow, less meaningful. The only thing left of import, I'll think, is my work, my mission. Then Bart will walk into the cave with a hesitant smile and a plate full of cookies and milk. I don't know how to talk to him anymore, not that I ever truly did. But he refuses to leave, and I'll never ask him to.
* * *
Nov. 2
Dear Wally,
Clark was here when I came home from patrol. Sitting in my chair, waiting in the cave. Tells me he cares, he'd do anything to make me happy.
He doesn't say 'happy again' despite that being the truth.
I wonder if he really knows how I love you. If he even feels love like we do. If he's lost in some sort of altered perception of reality stemming from his dual identities.
I wonder, but I never ask.
* * *
Nov. 7
Dear Wally,
Today Diana approached me after a mission to South Africa. We haven't spoken a great deal for some time now... I haven't spoken to anyone a great deal, if I want to be honest.
Which I haven't been much recently. I can't talk to J'onn, despite his offers.
But her... I suppose it's a wonder more of the Council hasn't tried to waylay me. They all give me sympathetic glances when they think I can't see it.
She asked me to join them in a celebration in your honor, and I told her I didn't need any help with remembrances, I didn't need it.
Then Clark came to the manor, to ask me again.
He gave me more pity I couldn't look at, then touched me when I wouldn't listen to his words, took me against the cave wall, and all I could think about was you. I couldn't find any pleasure in it. Just let him have what he wanted, shameless and cold, and went to New York with him.
We had toast after toast, and they found it in them to laugh. I found it in me to smile, to lose myself in memories, until we parted ways and found my own way home.
Then I just felt empty, like I've lost a piece of my soul.
I love you terribly.
* * *
Nov. 10
Dear Wally,
I've been buried in my work.
The Joker managed to orchestrate a gas leak under Arkham, that gave the inmates the opportunity to escape. We lost everyone, and the GCPD has been overwhelmed.
More work undone.
I've always known this war of mine can never be won. Endless battles that will continue long after I'm gone. Small victories would be enough, one more life safe, one more evil punished. But it never lasts. It will never be enough.
I understand now, why my counterpart chose the path of domination, how it was so much easier than the neverending struggle. I thought I did, then, I thought I understood the meaning of your absence and the path from guardian to dictator.
I was a fool, and understood nothing.
* * *
Nov. 18
Dear Wally,
Today is Clark's birthday. As I have every year, I went to visit his Fortress of Solitude.
This time, I brought no gifts. Only myself. We pretended I'd come to see a new piece of technology he'd acquired, then lost hours to fucking. I would never call it making love. His body is hard and cold next to yours, absent of the beautiful sounds you'd make under my hands.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I can feel alive again.
He's given up trying to win anything but this from me, a fact for which I'm thankful. His pity makes me hate him, that he believes he could ever replace you disgusts me.
But he lets me feel something, even if it's pain.
This can't go on forever.
* * *
Nov. 19
Dear Wally,
This afternoon in Central City, an attack by a stray Amazo, which have been giving the League some trouble for a while now, had Bart asking me for help.
I sent Clark. Drew him away from his work, and he responded immediately, without question.
Bart had questions. He wants to know why Superman acts uncomfortable around him, and I don't know how to answer him.
I listened to one of your CDs today, I don't remember which, just this. "If you have no-one, no-one can hurt you." It always amazes me, how a buffeting wall of sound and seeming despair like your collection could always make you dance and sing.
But there was never anything you couldn't defeat.
Sometimes I'll wake from a sleep, be anywhere, and I swear... I can feel you somewhere.
I almost don't dare to hope anymore.
* * *
Nov. 30
Dear Wally,
Today I let Alfred dust in your bedroom.
* * *
Dec. 5
Dear Wally,
I went to Central City, visiting your mother. She still hopes, still believes with all her heart that you're still alive. She told me a story about when you learned how to drive. Your first time behind the wheel, and you ripped off the bumper to your uncle's Lincoln running into a dumpster.
I laughed, for the first time... in a long time.
We also made plans, a surprise birthday party for Bart. Working in Central City alone has begun to take it's toll on him, and I can't bear the flickers of sorrow I catch in his eyes. I don't know what I would do without your mother's help.
She hugged me, and told me it was alright if I wanted to call her "Mom." I was touched... but I'm not sure that I could.
* * *
Dec. 13
Dear Wally,
Tonight we had our first true snowfall in Gotham. I sat above City Hall and watched it settle in a white blanket over the city, so beautiful and glittering in the streetlights.
Clark came to find me, but I sent him away.
You would love the way everything looks right now. Clean and brilliant, even in the darkness. As I write this, the sun is rising, casting a pink glow over the world, and I ache inside to imagine watching it with you.
* * *
Dec. 21
Dear Wally,
Once Bart came home from celebrating his birthday with his new friends in Central City, Alfred and I had the manor decorated in Christmas lights, with all of us, Dick, Tim, Barbara, waiting for him.
We all gave him gifts, something of an early holiday. He'll be spending Christmas with his aunt and uncle at your mother's home, and all but Alfred have other plans.
Dick gave him a new skateboard, something called a longboard that he looks so small riding through the garage, weaving in between the cars and managing a few moves that earned applause from his audience. Tim gave him a pre-release copy of some video game they'd been anticipating, Barbara gave him music, and Alfred gave him a new winter coat, as the days have become more bitter and cold.
My own gift had taken a great deal of thought. I didn't really know what would be enough, mean enough, to give. I asked Tim what he thought, and he suggested with a laugh that I build him a half-pipe he can use in the winter. I took it to heart, and told Bart that he could design a setup of his own, to be constructed in an unused section of the old stables.
Uncertain as I was, he smiled like he could never have a care in the world and wrapped his arms around me.
Perhaps it's my way of trying to keep him here. Despite his assurances he doesn't want to leave... there seems to be so little left here for him. He reminds me so much of you sometimes, and I couldn't bear to lose him, too.
I love you both. And even if I can't find the words to tell him, I hope he understands.
* * *
Dec. 25
Dear Wally,
I came home early tonight. This year, even the criminal element seems to be postponing its ways for the holiday.
Merry Christmas, Wally. Wherever you are.
* * *
Dec. 29
Dear Wally,
I've relented. In a way.
Clark swept me into his quarters on the Watchtower, like he'd done so many times... But I couldn't do it.
I told him, that if you were still gone by your birthday, I would hold a wake in your honor at my home, invite the League. Give them their permission to mourn. You asked us once, if something happened, not to act in sorrow and anger, but celebrate your life. In so many words, I know. But that's what I can do for you now.
He looked at me with more of his pity and merely nodded.
It's all no less than you deserve.
No matter what happens, my love for you will never change.
(Thanks again to
batfan_sarah for helping me brainstorm. :) )Chapter Five: Letters to Wally
Oct. 23
Dear Wally,
I write this, as you once wrote to me, never knowing that someday it would be received. I can only hope.
Clark has repeatedly insisted that I need to learn acceptance. As I'm sitting here, I can't help but think that I'd like to go speak with your mother, if she'd be so kind as to tell me more about you. Perhaps that's a stage of acceptance.
It's a kind of irony; to the last, I never believed he was dead. Now roles are reversed, and although time has passed, he has so little faith. The newspapers, the ever-present reporters are all speculation, an air of defeat hangs over the Watchtower, and my faith begins to fail me.
The leaves are out, all brilliant reds and oranges, as if a sign to keep hoping. You would love how the grounds look right now.
The Council is waiting for me to tell them when they can begin to mourn.
That day is not today.
- Bruce
Oct. 25
Dear Wally,
You would be proud of Bart; despite his attention span, he has dedicated himself to his work, to bettering himself. He still doesn't patrol in Gotham, but he has done his best to take care of Central City. I don't worry if he's stretched himself too thin, as I can sometimes hear laughter drifting from Tim's apartment.
The manor is a shrine of memories. Every step I take, I can almost hear you about to walk down the steps or the rustling of plastic in the kitchen.
There's no laughter left in here.
I couldn't stay here last night, couldn't return home to the darkness and the silence, and found myself in Metropolis, letting Clark make everything less... real. It's difficult to look at his face, when he's giving me a gaze of pity and adoration.
I confess, to look away, and to remember how you always looked at me... like I made you the happiest person in the world... and let him have his way with me... it's as if, for a moment, I've regained something lost, and I can forget.
Forgive me.
- Bruce
Oct. 30
Dear Wally,
Today was Dexter Miles' birthday; you told me, once, that each year you would go to the Flash Museum with some gift for his work there, some show of appreciation.
In your absence, I went there as a visitor for the first time. In Central City, I can walk around unrecognized, left alone for the most part. When I approached the curator with a donation, he was surprised as much as grateful. I informed him that I'd like to have an art piece commissioned for the main hall, and he was very enthusiastic.
Apparently their number of visitors has been increasing.
Afterward, I was able to visit your mother. I regret not having met her before. She invited me in with such warmth and love that I... was overwhelmed. We spoke for hours, with such an open candor, such pride in you, and I was left missing your presence all the more, alone in the jet on the flight home.
I never knew just how little of your childhood had been spent... being a child.
Mary told me that you often felt as if you'd been granted the greatest gift anyone could ask for, that endless hours of dedication to strangers was the least you could do. But I wonder if you ever thought of it that way, or were just so happy to run that you did it without hesitation, accepted the uniform and the work just to keep running.
- Bruce
Oct. 31
Dear Wally,
Bart is staying in Central City; Gotham is dangerous tonight. He tells me he's making friends at school, that they could go out tonight and join in the celebration.
I'm glad he did. I think of him having returned home to Mary's kitchen, with a bag full of candy he will no doubt be finished with already, and it's an image far brighter than the evening and early hours brought upon the home you adopted.
But, of that, I've logged my reports and patched my wounds, and as the sun rises through the window above my desk, reminding me that Halloween has come and gone, I have no desire to dwell on it.
Other subjects are not so easily pushed aside.
I never know what to tell Dick on today, this anniversary of his parents' deaths. He spent it alone, I don't know where. I wish I could find it in me to speak of it with him.
I didn't know how to refuse Clark when he came to sweep me into the still and silent sky.
This constant uncertainty has left my life chaotic and somehow, less meaningful. The only thing left of import, I'll think, is my work, my mission. Then Bart will walk into the cave with a hesitant smile and a plate full of cookies and milk. I don't know how to talk to him anymore, not that I ever truly did. But he refuses to leave, and I'll never ask him to.
- Bruce
Nov. 2
Dear Wally,
Clark was here when I came home from patrol. Sitting in my chair, waiting in the cave. Tells me he cares, he'd do anything to make me happy.
He doesn't say 'happy again' despite that being the truth.
I wonder if he really knows how I love you. If he even feels love like we do. If he's lost in some sort of altered perception of reality stemming from his dual identities.
I wonder, but I never ask.
- Bruce
Nov. 7
Dear Wally,
Today Diana approached me after a mission to South Africa. We haven't spoken a great deal for some time now... I haven't spoken to anyone a great deal, if I want to be honest.
Which I haven't been much recently. I can't talk to J'onn, despite his offers.
But her... I suppose it's a wonder more of the Council hasn't tried to waylay me. They all give me sympathetic glances when they think I can't see it.
She asked me to join them in a celebration in your honor, and I told her I didn't need any help with remembrances, I didn't need it.
Then Clark came to the manor, to ask me again.
He gave me more pity I couldn't look at, then touched me when I wouldn't listen to his words, took me against the cave wall, and all I could think about was you. I couldn't find any pleasure in it. Just let him have what he wanted, shameless and cold, and went to New York with him.
We had toast after toast, and they found it in them to laugh. I found it in me to smile, to lose myself in memories, until we parted ways and found my own way home.
Then I just felt empty, like I've lost a piece of my soul.
I love you terribly.
- Bruce
Nov. 10
Dear Wally,
I've been buried in my work.
The Joker managed to orchestrate a gas leak under Arkham, that gave the inmates the opportunity to escape. We lost everyone, and the GCPD has been overwhelmed.
More work undone.
I've always known this war of mine can never be won. Endless battles that will continue long after I'm gone. Small victories would be enough, one more life safe, one more evil punished. But it never lasts. It will never be enough.
I understand now, why my counterpart chose the path of domination, how it was so much easier than the neverending struggle. I thought I did, then, I thought I understood the meaning of your absence and the path from guardian to dictator.
I was a fool, and understood nothing.
- Bruce
Nov. 18
Dear Wally,
Today is Clark's birthday. As I have every year, I went to visit his Fortress of Solitude.
This time, I brought no gifts. Only myself. We pretended I'd come to see a new piece of technology he'd acquired, then lost hours to fucking. I would never call it making love. His body is hard and cold next to yours, absent of the beautiful sounds you'd make under my hands.
But sometimes, just sometimes, I can feel alive again.
He's given up trying to win anything but this from me, a fact for which I'm thankful. His pity makes me hate him, that he believes he could ever replace you disgusts me.
But he lets me feel something, even if it's pain.
This can't go on forever.
- Bruce
Nov. 19
Dear Wally,
This afternoon in Central City, an attack by a stray Amazo, which have been giving the League some trouble for a while now, had Bart asking me for help.
I sent Clark. Drew him away from his work, and he responded immediately, without question.
Bart had questions. He wants to know why Superman acts uncomfortable around him, and I don't know how to answer him.
I listened to one of your CDs today, I don't remember which, just this. "If you have no-one, no-one can hurt you." It always amazes me, how a buffeting wall of sound and seeming despair like your collection could always make you dance and sing.
But there was never anything you couldn't defeat.
Sometimes I'll wake from a sleep, be anywhere, and I swear... I can feel you somewhere.
I almost don't dare to hope anymore.
- Bruce
Nov. 30
Dear Wally,
Today I let Alfred dust in your bedroom.
- Bruce
Dec. 5
Dear Wally,
I went to Central City, visiting your mother. She still hopes, still believes with all her heart that you're still alive. She told me a story about when you learned how to drive. Your first time behind the wheel, and you ripped off the bumper to your uncle's Lincoln running into a dumpster.
I laughed, for the first time... in a long time.
We also made plans, a surprise birthday party for Bart. Working in Central City alone has begun to take it's toll on him, and I can't bear the flickers of sorrow I catch in his eyes. I don't know what I would do without your mother's help.
She hugged me, and told me it was alright if I wanted to call her "Mom." I was touched... but I'm not sure that I could.
- Bruce
Dec. 13
Dear Wally,
Tonight we had our first true snowfall in Gotham. I sat above City Hall and watched it settle in a white blanket over the city, so beautiful and glittering in the streetlights.
Clark came to find me, but I sent him away.
You would love the way everything looks right now. Clean and brilliant, even in the darkness. As I write this, the sun is rising, casting a pink glow over the world, and I ache inside to imagine watching it with you.
- Bruce
Dec. 21
Dear Wally,
Once Bart came home from celebrating his birthday with his new friends in Central City, Alfred and I had the manor decorated in Christmas lights, with all of us, Dick, Tim, Barbara, waiting for him.
We all gave him gifts, something of an early holiday. He'll be spending Christmas with his aunt and uncle at your mother's home, and all but Alfred have other plans.
Dick gave him a new skateboard, something called a longboard that he looks so small riding through the garage, weaving in between the cars and managing a few moves that earned applause from his audience. Tim gave him a pre-release copy of some video game they'd been anticipating, Barbara gave him music, and Alfred gave him a new winter coat, as the days have become more bitter and cold.
My own gift had taken a great deal of thought. I didn't really know what would be enough, mean enough, to give. I asked Tim what he thought, and he suggested with a laugh that I build him a half-pipe he can use in the winter. I took it to heart, and told Bart that he could design a setup of his own, to be constructed in an unused section of the old stables.
Uncertain as I was, he smiled like he could never have a care in the world and wrapped his arms around me.
Perhaps it's my way of trying to keep him here. Despite his assurances he doesn't want to leave... there seems to be so little left here for him. He reminds me so much of you sometimes, and I couldn't bear to lose him, too.
I love you both. And even if I can't find the words to tell him, I hope he understands.
- Bruce
Dec. 25
Dear Wally,
I came home early tonight. This year, even the criminal element seems to be postponing its ways for the holiday.
Merry Christmas, Wally. Wherever you are.
- Bruce
Dec. 29
Dear Wally,
I've relented. In a way.
Clark swept me into his quarters on the Watchtower, like he'd done so many times... But I couldn't do it.
I told him, that if you were still gone by your birthday, I would hold a wake in your honor at my home, invite the League. Give them their permission to mourn. You asked us once, if something happened, not to act in sorrow and anger, but celebrate your life. In so many words, I know. But that's what I can do for you now.
He looked at me with more of his pity and merely nodded.
It's all no less than you deserve.
No matter what happens, my love for you will never change.
- Bruce
no subject
on 2006-07-18 01:49 am (UTC)What was surprising is that I am so accepting of this unconditional love *that is expressed* (wow) in Bruce. I applaud you!
Your Bruce is so believable; we can track his progression from the beginning. But, at the same time he is so different now from the normal "cannon" Bruce we normally see. Not that your Bruce is out of character in the beginning so many, many parts ago, but that he is truly your character now, if that makes any sense. While not an original character, he has your mark, your style all over him.
I believe every written word, and cannot thank you enough for your gift. The story is spectacular. I cannot wait for the next part.
no subject
on 2006-07-18 03:21 am (UTC)::huggles the Bruce::