Nightmares

Part I: Bruce

The nightmares were the worst right after it happened. Childhood terrors filled his nights, waking Alfred to his midnight screams as the afterimages of bloodied pearls and the unseeing eyes of his parents lingered behind his lids. Too scared to keep them open in the dark, for fear of the silhouetted furniture that morphs into plodding corpses and smoking gun barrels. But even more afraid of keeping them closed, for fear of what he might find underneath.

Then the dreams ebbed into the edges of his routine, as time wore on and his vivid childish imaginings matured with the rest of his world. They became just as the entirety of his life had become: worn, gray, soulless. Once when he was fourteen, he visited the back alley where it had happened, eyes stretching into a world that was far away, yet more real to him by far than reality.

The dreams came back that night in full force, though this time there was a difference: Joe Chill appeared more prominently than ever before. Each subsequent night, the killer drew his focus more and more, until it was the only face he could still see with perfect clarity. He found himself having to look at a photograph to remember his parents' faces, while Chill's mug hung in his memory with glimmering detail.

When Chill was shot outside the courtroom, his nightmares shifted gears again, this time so vague that he could never recall any detail upon waking; only a dark, brooding quality stood out to him, a hushed lull that seemed to signify something greater to come. The bats appeared in his sleep consistently now, shocking him back to consciousness with their leathery fluttering. But beyond that, he dreamed of nothing but tunnels, tunnels he would wander around in forever but could never escape, until the bats appeared in a corner he hadn't noticed before. The bats guarded the way out, and to reach the light again he would have to face them.

He learned to face them in the mountains. His deep meditation exercises in the creaking glacier hideaway purged him of all dreams, and he slowly came to hone his habit of undersleeping into a controllable trait. Instead of lying awake as he had as a child, waiting for the morning to come and chase his night terrors away, he utilized his night owl ability to train even more vigorously, achieving in greater leaps and bounds than even Ra's al Ghul had anticipated…

The nightmares came to bother him again when he returned to Gotham. The city's magnetic pull of tragedy and crime stirred up fresh edges of grief, which he dealt with by keeping his mind occupied elsewhere. His mission came to the front of his mind every time, and each time dreams of dead parents could be quietly suggested to become dreams of skyscrapers and Kevlar, punches and refreshing night air.

Until he showed up.

Once the Joker began making a regular appearance, his dreams took on a warped, disfigured quality. Scarred smiles and murderous eyes stung his vision as rising mounds of bloodied corpses piled high in the distance, consumed by fire. Rachel and Dent found their way to the top of the heaps, scorching his mind with pleading – or perhaps accusing – eyes. Soon, though, he found the bodies disappearing from his nightmares, becoming more distant, less focused, until they drifted from sight altogether. Then there was only Joker.

It was then that his dreams would take on a slightly…different quality.

Each night he would awaken to a bed soaked in sweat – and more frequently than not, more than just sweat. He would shove the vile images from his memories, roughly denying their existence and constant occurrence. Yet they picked at his brain his every waking hour, as if his subconscious was trying to tell him something…

Until finally, one night on the streets, his subconscious had apparently had enough cold shoulder treatment and betrayed his morals to their core. He was rewarded with the deepest sleep he had ever experienced since the night at the opera, with no nightmares to speak of at all. Even after a few years of mentally kicking himself yet continuing in his wicked indulgence of dreamless slumber, he still couldn't fully justify his actions.

Soon the dreams started up again, only this time, they featured someone else.

Joker was the one who was shot dead in the alleyway, green eyes blankly gazing out at him as blood pooled around his purple-clad form. Sometimes it would shift to a mob shootout, as a fountain of blood gushed from his forehead after he paused to wave a cheery hello. Even in their bed, he would try to shake the madman awake, only to find a knife buried in his back…

He wakes from these graphic horrors with gasping fits and trembling hands. He sits up in bed to free himself from the clammy trappings of sheets, and shudders for breath as he tries to purge the images from his mind. And always, no matter what the time, he feels a warm hand rub soothingly up and down his back, silently reassuring him that the man of his dreams still lives.

Even as he takes the hand in his own, he is still frightened, though not from the nightmare itself. He is frightened because he feels more terror from this particular brand of dreams than he ever did from his visions of his parents' shootings. He is frightened that now, instead of fearing his parents' deaths most, he fears the Joker's death more than anything in his life. The man now in his arms has become the most important person in the world to him.

He'll just have to hold on to this one a little tighter.