Disclaimer: You know the drill.
On the black waters of a corrupted, polluted city, they waited.
Waited for anything. For someone. Somebody had to do it. Anyone.
Just, not them.
But someone would do it. This was Gotham. Surely there was someone on this boat looking after themselves.
So they waited, together, in a collective silence, hoping someone would step forward before the fall of midnight.
11:30
His name was Robert. He was waiting on the left side of the boat, directly across from the tick-tick-ticking clock, silently involved in a staring contest with Time. So far, Time was winning.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:36
She was sitting near the captain, practically within reach of the detonator. All she had to do was stretch out her arm. . .
No one would blame her, or stone her in the street. She knew it for a fact. But she kept her arm firmly around her son and waited for someone else to do the job.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:38
Gladys is six and doesn't understand what's happening. What she does understand is that it's making Mommy very upset, so she clutches her stuffed rabbit and chews on its floppy ear while her mother holds her tighter.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:41
There was a kind of poetic irony to it all. Here he was, alone in a crowded room, waiting to kill or be killed. By terrorist or by prisoner, what difference did it make in the end? He groaned inwardly and buried his face in his hands, resolving to toss the cyanide pills in his breast pocket overboard if he ever got the chance.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:42
Steven sat nervously, sweating and fidgeting in his seat, much to the discomfort of the nearby passengers. But they had bigger problems on their minds, so perhaps he would be forgiven.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:49
Laura sat calmly, a sharp contrast to the rest of the ferry where most people were terrified for their lives. She reached into her brown leather jacket and pulled out a few tissues for the frightened young woman next to her.
"Here you go."
She had a kind voice the woman would remember later. She would also remember the gentle pat on the hand she received when Laura explained she had skin cancer, and how much preferable a swift release would be to the torture of chemotherapy.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:52
Elizabeth, or Liz, was born with buttercup yellow hair, the sort that put every true California girl to shame. Last year she decided it didn't match her dark and brooding fifteen year old personality and dyed it unnaturally black like the boys in all her band posters. She was composing a poem in her head and mourned that her current boyfriend of eight months would never get to hear it, and would probably never stop putting scars on his arms.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
11:54
Six minutes to midnight and no one had stepped forward. The captain stood in resolute silence, grimly staring out at the crowd. The man stared at his shoes, contemplating. He wrote his vote on a little piece of paper and passed the pen along. He watched the clock. He glanced at the crowd. He looked at the solid gold band on his finger and thought of his wife, thousands of miles away safe in Europe waiting for him and made his decision.
"No one wants to get their hands dirty. Fine. I'll do it."
On the black waters of a corrupted, polluted city they searched for truth.
They had their chance.
It was for my wife.
For my son.
They're just criminals!
My family needs me.
What if they push it first?
Excuses flew, fingers pointed, passengers fought with their inner demons in a world gone mad. But no one dared say them aloud. Because that would mean they had taken a side, and in a city that made a vigilante its symbol of justice there was no side to choose. There was my side and there was your side and both sides were gray, and fuck it the entire damn city was colorblind.
But no one pushed the detonator.
Maybe they were stubbornly refusing to give in to a terrorist. Maybe their belief in the Batman was greater than they let in on. Maybe punching the button would mean they could no longer meet the eyes of the families with confidence and assurance, knowing if you'll do it for a good reason, eventually you'll do it for a bad one as well.
Or maybe they believed they were better than pushing the button.
And maybe they are.
There were no heroes on this boat. Just people, frightened, ordinary people, with families to look after and obligations to a world that didn't care.
But what if they push it first?
What it you push it first?
So they were waiting for someone else, for the Batman, for death. And as long as they're waiting, they don't have to choose.
So they waited, together, in that collective silence, watching the color trickle away from a once clear-cut system into the gray abyss.
This began as an AU two-shot, one in which the passengers pushedthe detonator and another in which the prisoners pushed the detonator. I like this better. R & R please!