He was my hero. I really did care about him, looked up to him, I think.
Now I hate him. I hate everything he stands for, Mister Be All and End All, Vengeance of the night. Always this quest to beat up every bad guy in town, always this madness in his efforts to stop crime. Crime never took a break, true, but it didn't mean he couldn't, didn't it? He was –is- just this one guy after all. Alright sure, don't take a break, but he could've understood that everyone wasn't as dedicated as he was, not Jim, not even Superman.
He couldn't have expected everyone to be as obsessive about crime as he was. He couldn't have expected a little kid to grow up and still follow his every command and respect everything about him, never mind him being a control freak. I had grown up, things changed, I wasn't so blind, and I wasn't so accepting of the dirt he kept throwing at me. Did he still think I was that impressionable to play along with his constant militia routine without resisting? Well I wasn't in his war, I never wanted to be, and I wouldn't.
I thought he would give me a home, a life even. I suppose he did. A roof over my head, good food courtesy of Alfred, money for education, but that was it. He was always in that cave of his, more so after I found out. When he began training me properly, I thought he was actually starting to care, about me. How wrong I was, all I ever got after that were criticisms after criticisms, him butting in when he shouldn't, him not caring an iota about my life, only his, always his.
The only thing I ever gave him was disappointment. Yeah guess what, that's all he gave me too. The father that never was, I can only wonder why and how I ever considered him one, effects of childhood trauma, I suppose. I don't even know why I was so optimistic, childish idealism was all it turned out to be. My expectations of what life with him would be like were run into the ground week after week. All I lived in and with was his shadow and his back. By the time my graduation came, I wasn't even surprised at the empty chair next to Barbara's.
Barbara, she sided with him in the end. Maybe she wouldn't have if she knew about what he did to Conner's family. Beating up a guy who deserves it is one thing, but beating him up in front of his own kids? That's just cruel, that's not justice, and that's just a prime example about what was so wrong about him. So blind to the damage he created wherever he went.
I couldn't believe he showed Babs the cave like that, drag her into his nightmare of a world, making her think it was all rosy and pink. He'd wreck her view of the world, I just knew it. He had no right, or perhaps he did. I was no 'partner' to him anyway, why ask for my opinion? I never mattered. I was just there to 'provide distraction' to what ever criminal we were facing for him to nail the guy. Dynamic Duo? Don't kid me.
It was time to call it quits. My time was wasted enough.
He could've dodged when I threw him backwards that night, could've held his ground, I knew he could. I'd been trained by him after all, and there were at least five counter-moves that I counted he could have pulled, and seven more ways to evade. I watched as he sprawled at my feet. He just let himself sit there in front of me, watching my cape and mask fall at his feet, watch his petty little vision of whatever crumble into nothing. Or maybe not, now that he had Barbara. Maybe I just wasn't worth the effort.
He had enough time to stop me from casting my line and jumping if he had wanted. He didn't say a word, didn't even twitch. I don't know what I was expecting, for him to force me to stay, I suppose, maybe even-- but no, the Great and Mighty Defender of Gotham was never wrong, self righteous git.
He was my hero. I don't believe in heroes anymore.