A/N: Second fanfic in two days, not too bad. Got this idea after watching The Dark Knight – amazing movie – about how Bruce isn't really the asshole Bruce Wayne, but he's not completely Batman either… somewhere in the middle. And the way he struggles with it. Anyway. It's kind of angsty and disjointed, but ah well…
And I know the last line is technically from Jack Nicholson's joker—I preferred Heath's, so let's call this artistic license. Read and review, plz.
After all, he must at least pretend to smile.
He holds out his arms wide and reaches for Natasha, Vivi, Kathy, (or Sarah, or Jessica, Marlene, Margarita—no joke—Genevieve and her sister Emma—twins, it was great—or Jordan, Rachel—not the real one, never the real one, but while he's pretending—Martha, Natalya, Caroline, Samantha, the other Martha…). It doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter if he remembers their names (they don't expect him to; they don't care if he does—and he doesn't—as long as he foots the bill and laughs loud and…)
It's all a game. It's all pretend. He closes his eyes and reaches for whomever and paints a smile on his face (red, it should be red, this is all a joke; maybe he's been the wrong one for years), and lets the world believe whatever it wants to believe. It doesn't matter. He doesn't exist there anyway, not quite. He's not Bruce Wayne. He's not Bruce Wayne and he's not Batman either. He's somewhere in the middle, caught between…
Somewhere safe in the middle; a rock and a hard place. Between the good and the bad, the black and the white, he's floating lifelessly in the gray, trying to make sense of all this. (He can't.) He puts on whatever mask and he pretends, but there's nothing in this world if not lies. He lies to his friends, his business, his lawyers, (his girlfriends, one-night-stands, trust fund, the police commissioner, the villains, lies to the public, the bankers, Rachel, Harvey, the money-laundering parasites…) He might as well lie. He might as well pretend. If not that, then…
Then anarchy. Then a rose by another name. Then, he's something else.
He comes home to a silent house and forgets the girls as soon as he's crossed the threshold. He bites down too hard on the inside of his mouth and goes to bathroom, throws up in the sink. Tastes metal and it makes him feel sick again. Bruce shuts his eyes and smears the blood away from his lips, upwards along his jaw line, until it paints a dilapidated, Cheshire grin on his face. He wants to rip his skin apart so he breaks the mirror instead.
The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.
He has to pretend. He has to lie. There is no way out of this. Bruce cracks his knuckles and takes a razor, nicks his other cheek until a few spots of crimson sprout… then he smears it like war-paint, forms that perfect smirk reminiscent of…
Do you know how I got these scars?
He goes out to the balcony, changed, ready to fall fifty stories into the night, take his chances… wipes most of the caked blood away; it looks black in the pale moonlight…
Somewhere in the distance, a maniacal laugh, and the vaguely sardonic voice catcalling, "Have you ever danced with the Devil…"