Forget-Me-Not [Selina/Catwoman]

It was a long way home. Perhaps the longest he's ever been. His polished leather shoes were ruined and spotted with mud. His tie, stripped off and cast into the sewers. His jacket, given to the nearest passerby, some poverty-stricken hobo on the street. When he reached the Wayne Manor, he undid the buttons of his shirt and peeled the fabric from his skin, tossing it to the floor as he entered. Bruce could feel Alfred's concern for him from across the room. The elderly man had decided to stay up and wait by the door. It seems it wasn't only Bruce who remembered what date it was.

Perhaps he wasn't the only one who lost something that night.

In spite of Alfred's insistence, Bruce removed whatever was left of his clothing and changed into the Bat-suit. The armor, slipped on quietly and without a word. The cape, fixed and left to hang majestically from his back. It was the black cowl that he put on last, as though that was the final piece of the puzzle; the knife that finally cut him free from his identity as Bruce Wayne. A sweeping change came over him then. The look of sorrow on his face was replaced by a mask of grim-faced stoicism. His eyes, once filled with an inexplicable sadness, showed a steely resolve, before it was shrouded by a set of pure white lens. With each step he took, he seemed to shed whatever remained of Bruce Wayne from his body, as though it was a second skin that served no purpose other than to camouflage.

Into the night Batman went. From rooftop to rooftop, his powerful figure like a panther, all black and all chiseled muscles. Never once did he pause. Not to brood or to patrol the area for crime. Not to drink in the beautiful light-show Gotham City gave off at night. He had a set destination, and there was nothing in the world that could stop him from reaching it.

Perhaps it was the urgency with which he climbed through the night. Perhaps it was the way his shadow seemed darker, larger and more gruesome than ever, as though it didn't belong to Batman, but some monstrous and hellish fiend. That night, all of Gotham's criminals slinked back to the safety of their homes, to whatever shadowy corner they deemed safe. All except one. But Catwoman was the last thing on Batman's mind. Even the feline fetale, who on more than one occasion had managed to distract him, couldn't divert him from his goal tonight.

So on he went, swinging from roof to roof, in the steel and asphalt jungle that is Gotham City. When he did pause, it was only upon reaching Crime Alley. There he stood, a lone figure with a bat's emblem dashed across his chest. His cape was drawn closely around him, as though to ward off a bitter chill. The dark shadow splashed like an inkblot behind him was tilted over, shoulders stooped and chin sunken. It was a pose malapropos to everything Batman stood for. He was Gotham's Dark Knight, guiltless and sure, the only thing standing between it and complete annihilation. But for some reason, he seemed exhausted, drained and withdrawn. Here was the proud lion, clipped of its fangs; here was the bat, robbed of its wings.

Then, like a comet from the sky, he shot off the roof and landed on the street, his figure a dark blur. The street was empty, and the single streetlight above him flickered, like a dying man fighting for life. It was this exact spot where his parents were murdered. Shot by one man armed with a gun, though at the time, to young Bruce Wayne, it sounded like the firing squad of a whole artillery. He still remembered the way their bodies fell, like two dams, crushed behind the current's immense weight. For Bruce Wayne, the current was a giant tidal wave, a black torrent replete with all the world's atrocities. That night, his parents fell, and Bruce was swept away, carried off and nearly drowned by all the wickedness that plagued the world.

But Bruce didn't blame them. He never did. At first, he had made it a personal mission to reap vengeance from the man who had committed murder. But slowly he understood, and from a fallen, broken boy, he emerged a man. A man ready to face the world; a man who had vowed at his parents' grave that he would defend Gotham with his life. But still, he never stopped laying blame for what happened that night. Now a man well into his thirties, a decade into his career as Gotham's Silent Guardian, he finally knew who it was he had to blame.

Himself.

Something wasn't right with him. Something that no telescope, no matter how sharp, could possibly discern. But Catwoman had known him for years. Known him since the incipience of his journey as Gotham's Cowled Crusader. Seen his growth, his transformation, and in turn, Gotham's metamorphosis because of him. He was Gotham's Dark Knight. Strong, incorruptible, and relentless. Like the bat emblazoned across his chest, in the minds of Gotham's citizens, he was a creature of the night; predatory, mystical, and unstoppable. A symbol that relinquished its humanity, so he could shoulder the whole of Gotham on his shoulders, like the mystical titan, Atlas.

But something was different tonight. For the first time in years, Batman seemed human. With all the rage and darkness that oozed out of him, like blood from a fresh wound, one couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he reached the breaking point. If, like a glass bottle finally unable to withstand the pressure, he broke, and shattered. And, scarily enough, Batman felt like he was tip-toeing dangerously close to the edge.

"I failed you. And I failed him."

It was a whisper in the dark. So soft, the ears would have to strain to hear it. It seemed like he was speaking to somebody; someone that he saw, but nobody else could see. Kneeling unto one knee, Batman passed his hand over the ground. It was cold, but once upon a time, on a chilly night outside of Gotham's theatre, a man and woman was shot and it was warm with their blood. That night, the survivor, a young boy left with a life he didn't know how to live, went cold. Colder than the floor as it is now; colder than the night when the murder occurred. Colder than any one boy deserved to be.

"I vowed that I would protect Gotham with my life. I vowed that I would not ever let another boy suffer like I did. But I failed. I buried him, the same way I buried you. And I wonder to myself, who would be next? Would else would suffer because of my own inadequacy?"

Batman had counted on the traffic drowning out his voice. And perhaps it did; portions of it. But he would have never guessed that, in the emotional state he was in now, someone had snuck up on him. That they stood well within hearing distance, watching him, listening to the words stream out, like hot tears as it runs down a child's face. Except he wasn't crying. No, the Batman would never cry, not like the powerless child who could only stare helplessly, too scared to yell, and too weak to fight, as his parents fell before him.

Silently, Batman loosened his grapple gun. Pointed, hand unsteady for half a second. Shot, and swung his body onto a nearby rooftop. Without so much as a glance back, he leapt onto another roof, then another. Soon, the enormous black figure became a dot, then a speck, before disappearing entirely. Left in his wake, on the ground with the metal wing sticking out diagonally was his batarang. It stood there, like a tombstone having risen from the earth. If Catwoman cared to retrieve it, she would find letters engraved upon the center.

Bruce
May You Rest in Peace