First Time

"Down!"

James Gordon and Ralph Adams hurl themselves at the ground, the blue saloon takes bullets like raindrops so that the two young detectives can catch their breaths. They each reload, and imagine the sound that the clip makes as it snaps in place. They hear that Gotham is screaming, they see its people falling like flies around them, and they eye one another, and they nod their heads. One of them pulls a pin.

The gunfire breaks momentarily, enough for the two colleagues to emerge from their shelter as friends and fire out into smoke and sound. It is a game of silhouettes, if you see one, you shoot it. Jim Gordon is not as good a shot as his partner, he finds his marks well enough, but through the corner of his eye he cannot help but to notice that the man to his right is better. He feels a breath rush past his ear, and then puts a bullet in its origin. He sees a flash and jumps, his knees find the concrete, all he can think to do is fire. Adams as well, still on his feet, fires at the sounds and at the flashes of light. The smoke begins to thin, and his partner finds the floor as well, and they fire fire fire fire, their arms out-stretched and the hard floor beneath their chests, they fire until there is silence. And when there is, when they can hear the sound of their sharp tugs of air, they laugh a nervous laughter, Ralph Adams puts his face in to the ground; Jim Gordon roles over onto his back, still laughing, clutching the stitch in his gut.

When they fill out the reports afterwards, when they tell their stories, they are as heroes. The pen tells of their courage, the mouths of those who saw tell of their skill, yet none but the two themselves ever know of the thick catch in the throat, of the vomit later that night, of the terror, of the anxiety that will stick like a stain. Only when they look into one another's eyes can they see written such things. They take solace in that, and a wall is built for them alone.

In the future, each will have many walls with many men and woman, and inside them the truth of shared memories; but that day, that they hid from death and caught their breath amidst the gunfire, they mark as a first.

This Fic is an optional companion to a much larger story called Rooftops. The main story can be found by going to: casualrobotDOTcom and clicking on Batman: Rooftops.