Scene retelling, inspired by this prompt:
perfectlyrose. tumblr (dot com) / post/ 108927396051/ red-orca-pleasegodletmelive-owynsama
au where everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate
ADDITIONALLY: when your soulmate dies, the world goes back to black and white
Gunshots retorted off of the chemical tanks and ricocheted dangerously around the room, pipes broke, scalding steam hissing up through the air, and all the while the gang continued to run along the catwalks, glancing behind them as they shot. Batman moved effortlessly beyond their view, only letting himself be seen in glimpses—first here, then gone, as though he could disappear and reappear with the will of the shadows. He wasn't here for the men—he was only here for their leader. The Red Hood had participated in an incredible amount of crimes over the past month, each one pulled off without a hitch—until this last. It was sloppy—sloppier than he had come to expect. He scanned the area to find the dark, rounded shape of the hood that was all that designated the leader, and found him standing at the edge of a catwalk. Somehow he had gotten separated from the group. He didn't even run, just stood and watched, hands clenched tightly around the rail. Batman changed direction suddenly, grappling to the next walkway and landing with silent feet. The man started, as though sensing his presence, and turned toward him. For a moment they stared, mask to mask. Batman was already stepping forward when the world started to change—a differentiation between shades that made him stumble, unable to process the sensory input. Everything was—bright.
No, he thought. Not him.
The man stared back—seemed to stare—in just as much shock. He stepped back, heels skidding on the metal, raising an arm as if to ward off a blow. "No no no no no," he said, mumbling in a half-crazed voice. "This can't be happening, she's dead, this isn't supposed to happen!"
The hood stood out with a sudden, stark difference from the dark, pressed neatness of his suit and shirt, glaring and strange.
Think later. Batman pushed the disorientation to the back of his mind and stepping forward, grabbed the man roughly by the front of his suit. "Give yourself up," he growled.
"No," the man said. Batman heaved him above the rail and dangled him over the tanks shining far below with an eerie hollowness.
"Let go of me!" the man choked out, struggling, hands lashing out and kicking. "Let me go!"
The struggle was unexpected, Batman felt his grip loosen dangerously for a moment before he closed his hands more tightly around the man's collar. "Stop moving, you lunatic!" he hissed.
The man laughed desperately. "It won't be you. It won't be." He went still for a moment and Batman pulled him back toward the safety of the catwalk. Then, like lightning, the man cracked Batman's arm into the rail, hard enough to send tingling pain through the whole arm. He couldn't feel his fingers—didn't even notice he had let go until he saw the man falling—faster than he could hope to catch him, into the acid.
Into the green acid.
Batman stood, forgetting for a moment the rest of the fleeing gang, or the policemen bursting in from the side doors, guns held at the ready. "Give yourself up!" they yelled.
He watched the figure sink into the green acid and the struggling form disappear under the surface. Then dullness blurred itself across the swirling form, and it—and all the world around it—was once again colorless.
He's dead. Batman didn't have to see a body to know.
How many people meet their soulmate like this, he wondered. He'd always imagined what the world would look like in color. He had thought if he was lucky enough to ever experience such a thing, he would get—years, at least.
Not this.
I didn't even know the man.
Minutes.
He turned with a suddenness that made the policemen startle, rising up into the heights of the warehouse and gliding away with a fluidity and speed that seemed like flying.
And he thought:
Red.
Green.
.
.
.