He has many tools. Were you to ask anyone he knows – his enemies, his allies, those who would call themselves his friends, those who could be called family in his most open moments – of his greatest power, they would perhaps speak of his training, his strength. Those who had known him longer would speak of his intelligence, his homemade or carefully scrounged equipment, his cleverness and guile, or perhaps his uncanny ability to solve problems that would appear impossible to others, to cut every Gordian's knot. Those who'd known him the longest would describe his ruthless determination, his near-obsession with his work. They would qualify it, perhaps. Say that it wasn't all there was to him, that there was a man behind the machine. He isn't crazy, really. He just cares a lot.
He doesn't mind. Let them think what they will. When he thinks of power and strength, he doesn't feel a throb in his muscles. There's no smug flow of endorphins in his triumphant brain. Rather, the power comes from behind him, outside him. A humming in the air.
Eyes closed. Back straight. Not a perfect position, really, but he prefers to multitask, and sitting still strikes him as lazy. (Of course, that can depend on circumstances, but without a computer screen or a set of chemicals with which he needs to be careful, he doesn't see the point in it.) Instead, he hangs from a bar halfway across the room. Good endurance practice.
He breathes, and he focuses.
Doesn't think. No thinking. Focusing on not thinking, strange as it may seem, on the nothingness around him. The chattering, warped screeches above him. The faint wind from shifting air currents of the cavern. The humming. The warmth.
Most people think it's a waste of time. At best, they consider it a means to an end, the source of his renowned discipline. He doesn't think about that. He doesn't think at all.
He traces the humming, feels it bouncing and rebounding off of shapes. Objects. Things as they truly are. A stalactite. An insect. A man. All is more real. Eyes closed. Eyes gone, out of the way. Distraction.
The humming adds to the silence, and the silence adds to the humming. It's no longer a sound, but a buzzing vibration in his fingertips, travelling up the median and ulnar nerves. A slight sting at his brachial plexuses, and then it's his brain itself that's humming.
His breathing slows, nearly stops. His lungs are an obstacle. So is his heart, his pulse. He ignores them.
They think of him as a man with two faces. One is the mask, the cowl. Omnipresent. So much a part of him that he must learn to "act like himself" when it's off. When he puts it on each night, he feels his features fade and vanish, wrinkles and freckles – marks of humanity – vanishing into its darkness.
The other is its own mask. Plastic skin, paper fingers, pasted smile. A handshake for every partner and a greeting for every employee. It serves its purpose, he knows, and it's more than the others can fathom. It isn't just a disguise – it's his connection to the world. It's a way to help others with their lives, to intervene in more than a single moment of danger. The ounce of prevention the city needs. As much a lie as the mask he can see, but as much a part of him, too. He tells himself that sometimes. When it hurts. He reminds himself that he needs it, that those around him need it, too.
It still hurts to wear it. After all, it reminds him of them. There is a strong resemblance, after all. People ask him about it sometimes, at parties and meetings. He can always tell when they've been told. A friend takes them away for a second to "help find the powder room," and when they come back, they're nervous. Apologetic. They needn't be. He gets it all the time.
His blood is no longer pounding in his ears. He can't hear the distant screeching anymore. Even the humming is gone. All is silence. All is peace.
None of them understand. His true face is neither. It's nothingness, the third side to every two-sided personality. Perhaps Harvey feels this way sometimes, too – but then again, it was years before he truly felt it, years of study and focus. It's doubtful that any of his enemies have devoted similar time to such things.
They all underestimate it. A means to an end. A way to focus. In some ways it is, challenging his brain in a way little else does. Sometimes, he can see a flash of it in Dick's eyes, sudden comprehension of how small they really are, of how everything around can slow, stop.
Stop.
Time is irrelevant, really, once you understand it. A moving fist slows to a crawl. You have an eternity to consider your next move. For some people, eternity isn't enough time, but it's enough for him. That pause is there now. He can feel it, freezing the air around him until he can examine each molecule. If he opened his eyes, it would overwhelm him. Things would snap back, unable to freeze long enough to fit into his delicate perception. An object is fine. A landscape is impossible.
The third face isn't something the girls Bruce brings home see. The thugs he takes downtown don't see it either. Alfred, Clark, Diana… None of them can know. It's purely his. Truly private, the way J'onn says his un-shifted form is. Inviolable. Safe in a way only a fragile thing could be, a thing that would break if anyone tried to interfere. Impregnable by its transitory nature. A paradox. Him.
He isn't sure how long he stays there. He has an alarm, backed up by two separate devices. Of course, he could monitor it himself if he wanted to. It's an easy thing to keep track of one's own heartbeat, but the passing of seconds bores him. He'd rather leave it to the machines. He's alone, and he's enjoying it.
Images float up through a consciousness disconnected from, yet intimately bound up in, the present. Other children on the other side of the fence, playing. The shock and anger on the League's faces at a betrayal they never saw coming. His burned hands as he practices bleach titrations for the first time. Dick grinning proudly at a completed obstacle course. His trembling arm as he pulls himself up the side of a building at midnight. His parents chatting, discussing their friends as they walk deeper into the alley. Nothing is wrong yet. It's all moments, slices of time.
There is nothing but now. All other times map to this one, just as the infinite set of reals can map to the infinite set between one and two. Watch it long enough, zoom in closely enough, and a second can stretch forever, each point of perception a fractal of five more. A miracle of time, one that can only be experienced and explained by the same men.
He isn't Bruce anymore. He isn't Batman. He merely is. There is no mask, because there is no face to put it on. There is only emptiness, calm and peace. The anger isn't gone, but it is not in this moment. An eternity away. He cannot see himself, but to anyone looking on, he appears to be smiling. It's an illusion.
It's all illusion. Ridiculous as the idea sounds, it's kept him going when all else has failed. The pain isn't real. The anger isn't real. All that's real is the goal, and even that could disappear if he let it. And death. Death is always real to him. But it isn't personal. No reason to get upset. No reason at all…
"Master Bruce?"
The world snaps back. "Yes, Alfred?" His voice is rough after a period of silence.
"I apologize for the interruption of your daily meditation, sir, but your guest was most… insistent."
It's gone. The moment's drop has fallen, vanished into the next. Every molecule moves too quickly to be traced.
"Who?" The word is sharp as the emotion clicks into place. The anger that always hovers, surrounding him with the past.
"Miss al Ghul. I've settled her in the sitting room with some tea, but I imagine she won't be content there for long."
He drops to the ground. His arms are tired. "Right. Tell her I'll be up in a minute."
"Very good, sir." He leaves.
Bruce and Batman are back. They take a deep breath, consolidate. Refocus. The breeze is cool. The bats chitter in the background. His eyes have long since adjusted, but the light is surprising regardless. No matter. He dons his cloak, his boots. His cowl. With a final adjustment of his left glove, he follows Alfred upstairs.
Below, a second's eternity hums and rebounds off the walls, and a maskless ghost hangs in the air.