Born Again
A/N: This is my first 'Dark Knight Rises'-related Batman fic. I'd had the idea for a long time, but waited until I'd seen the film again on DVD before writing this.
This story is basically about Bruce's feelings as he puts on the suit for the first time in eight years. It's set just before Batman's return during the tunnel chase.
"If you make yourself more than just a man...if you devote yourself to an ideal...and if they can't stop you...then you become something else entirely".
"Which is?"
"A legend, Mr. Wayne...a legend".
Words spoken a lifetime ago echoed in his head as he placed his hands on the suit, felt its cool, armoured surface. It had been eight years since he'd last felt it on his skin, yet he remembered its feel perfectly. It was almost like the touch of an old lover...forever imprinted in his heart and soul, forever biding him to return.
He'd said he was done with it, but Alfred was right. Deep down inside, he'd known. Or at least hoped. Hoped that things would go bad again...hoped that the legend he'd created would be needed again. The legend that he'd conceived from his darkest childhood fears, and fed with his sweat and blood. It had become more than just a symbol to him...it had become his life. Once he'd sighted another life...a life beyond the suit, beyond the cave...but that life had been taken from him.
Without the Batman, he was an empty shell. In many ways, as dead as his parents...as dead as Rachel. And now, the Batman was needed again. The Batman had an opportunity to rise again and serve Gotham. He was filled with renewed purpose...with life. This was his destiny.
Slowly, he started to get into the suit.
The cold metal of the bodysuit's titanium plates against his skin almost shocked him, the sense of familiarity aching through his bones. Once more, his mind was drawn back into the past...
"As a man, I'm flesh and blood. I can ignored, I can be destroyed...but as a symbol. I can be incorruptible...I can be ever-lasting..."
Then the boots and the gauntlets. He remembered vividly the blades which he'd fired from them, cutting the already scarred visage of the Joker. How many bodies had he bruised with them? How many bones had he broken? A thousand memories of nocturnal violence erupted just beneath his consciousness...as he relived all the battles he'd fought and won. The past shaping him for his future.
The cape. Visions of gliding above the city, inspiring fear in the guilty and in the innocent...relief? Or had the innocent too been afraid of him? At least some of them had been. An acceptable compromise, he'd always argued to himself.
The belt. The grappling gun. And the final, most crucial element...
He stared at the fearsome face. His face.
"Your real face is the one that criminals now fear..."
It was done.
The Batman stood in the centre of his cave, surrounded by his brethren, and by the darkness that was his element. The years between then and now were a hazy daydream...the nightmare had returned. He was the night. The caped crusader...the ultimate symbol of justice and retribution...
He was the Batman.
And he was born again.