For Her
Sometimes—once in a long while, I mean—I wake breathless from a nightmare I shouldn't even have. Its memory lingers, and I can't sleep again from uneasiness. No one knows that this plagues me, except maybe Polly. Occasionally I find her asleep at my side, but the majority of my already few haunted nights I spend alone. I'm glad that she's not, because it hurts more when she's there.
Watching her sleep, my emotions wage an impassioned war inside me. There are times, like those nights, predominately when she isn't talking or moving or being a general nuisance, when I truly love her. Then there's basically any time she's awake. All the stupid, sneaky, self-inflating things she's ever done flood my memory, and I honestly don't understand how I can bear to be in the same room with her, much less the same bed. The only thing she cares about is her next story. She's a reporter, through and through.
In fact, I blame her reporter's bloodlust for a good deal of the misfortunes that have befallen me. I should have known that the moment I let Polly Perkins into my private life I had forfeited any mystique I had as identity-less "Sky Captain." By the next morning every newspaper-reading citizen of Gotham knew everything about ordinary Joe Sullivan. I still stand that Totenkopf's robot army was able to destroy my entire base and take Dex because she had proclaimed to the world who and where I was.
She has always put her headlines before her relationships. Which makes me second. This isn't easy for me to accept. Not that I'll admit it aloud, but I'm used to being first. I'm the best at many things I do, but I'll be damned if I'll always be second to Polly. It's not like I treat my plane better than I do her. The problem is that she makes it hard to really care for her. Just look at all the times she's betrayed me for the sake of her story. Of course I was cheating on her in Nanjing! By then, there was a lot worse I could have done.
The way we clashed, I felt only relief at escaping into gentler arms. And yet it continued, three long months of hell, surrounded by war inside and out. But something kept her clinging to me; that is, until jealousy finally got the better of her sanity. I knew that she'd known the whole time—she's the Chronicle's best reporter for a reason. But I wouldn't admit my unfaithfulness, and she never admitted to sabotaging my plane.
The madwoman! Getting her revenge and endangering the lives of millions! It was too much, just—I couldn't take it anymore. She's headstrong to the point of potentially fatal recklessness. I save lives with my plane, and she thoughtlessly wrecks it just because I can't stand being around her. At the time, I only had strong suspicions that Polly had done it, and my anger caused me to leave her. She had the same strong suspicions, and she went for the throat. And then she has the audacity to show up in my office and haul me back into her devious little world.
I hadn't seen her once since the break-up. Well, more accurately, after the mission in Nanjing ended. I let the "secret" of my infidelity slide under my anger at her for sabotaging my plane, making the latter the reason for our separation. I was so sure that it was her. I wonder if I hadn't have fooled around, maybe she wouldn't have done it. But, then again, maybe she would have. That's how much I can trust her.
She doesn't seem to realize that if she wants my full affection and respect, she can't keep treating my like any other disposable source. I know that all she really wants from me is that kindness, I can tell. In the ice cave, before I asked her whether she had sabotaged my plane, she gave me this look like she expected the most romantic drivel ever heard. Or times when I expressed concern about Dex's safety; or when Franky brought up our adventures in Nanjing. Not only awkward, but I felt that she was hurt that I wasn't fully focused on her.
Now I am, or at least trying to be. Still, every tender moment we have is forcibly overpowered by the thousands of infinitely longer spaces of time in which she simply infuriates me. She is the eternal thorn in my severely bruised side, and that's why it pains me so much to think that I saved the world for her. I didn't do it for anyone else. Not for Franky, not even for Dex. Not for the millions of inhabitants of whom I was the last hope. No, the thoughts that sped through my mind as I decided to face my death in a rocket-powered casket were solely of Polly, and of the fact that I'd be giving her a tomorrow.
I stole that kiss from her because I thought it would be my last. And there's no denying that I numbered my plane after her. Nothing can change the fact that after all she's put me through, all the difficulties I've had by just being in her presence, Polly Perkins is the woman of my heart. Before, in the cave, I asked her that stupid question because I believed that we would live. But when it came down to my last minutes on earth, there was only one thing I wanted to impart to her.
As it perpetually seems to be the case with her, seeing her on the catwalk gave me the most indescribable mixed emotions. The first instant was elation. One, for saving me; two, for giving me the chance to set eyes on her again. Then, of course, was irritation: I was trying to save her, and now she's just coming to get herself killed with me. Then shock and deeper irritation with getting a solid blow in the face. Like I hadn't been beaten around too much already.
Thinking back on it doesn't lend itself to clarifying my feelings. Of course I'm grateful that she came, there's a good chance that we all would have died if she hadn't. And on the other side, I'm so angry at her for being so stupid I could punch her again. I was prepared to meet my death, but not hers. What if the rocket had no escape capsules? Yes, I would have saved the world, but I would have lost what made it worth saving.
And that's why I bolt upright in the middle of the night—every time my subconscious wanders back to those horrific last moments, something always goes wrong, and there's nothing I can do to save her. And that's why it aches: because out of everything in this world that meant something to me, out of everything that hurt me, she's the embodiment of it all, and I did it for her.