"I'm going to be here whenever you need me."
Your words bring me back to the place where it all happened. The place I can never let go of despite how hard I bury everything beneath me. How I work so hard to drive out the darkness in place of justice instead, but nothing will satisfy me. Nothing will heal me. Nothing will heal the anguish I carry over losing my parents, and your words just a reminder of how I used to hear them from my father's lips. Or in the happy sound of my mother's voice. Every day they used to tell me those words... "whenever you need us." But "whenever" doesn't last forever; just the memory instead. A memory that comes when I am alone or beside company. At night or in the daytime. I see it when I close my eyes. When I am sleeping. The look on my father's face right before he died. He looked so scared for me. Not a day passes when I don't see his bloodied face and wonder how things could have been different. Thought of the many ways I could have saved them and how things could be different. When I am finally outside that memory... everything is the same. Yet, I am faced again with the knowledge that I can't protect the ones I love. I am only a source of pain.
Selina, please understand that I am petrified it is you I might one day fail to protect. You, who might die in an alley by my side for the exact reason of "whenever I need you." That it is you next on this list of my ever-growing sins. You, who has stayed by my side at every horrible second and even in my darkest time of hour when I felt the most alone. A guardian watching over me.
Even though it is entirely clear you do not need me to protect you, what does it say when I cannot give you all that you have given to me? What does it say when I cannot protect the same man who has devoted his life to me time and time again? Who has been hurt because of me? Almost died because of me? What does it say to the people of Gotham when I cannot protect the ones I love first? When the time comes... how will I protect them?
You comfort me while I drown in my own self-loathing. I am grateful, but equally undeserving.
- it happened on a staircase