Written for the mission_insane fic challenge on LJ.
Title: Transference
Author: carnageincminor
'Verse: Batman
Claim/Characters: General - Batman
Rating: T
Warnings: not much, other than mild violence
Disclaimer: Batman belongs to DC Comics/Warner Brothers and was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. I own nothing but my words.
Summary: Bruce Wayne takes a trip down memory lane. (And though I've rhymed the plot, a poem this is not.)
Table/Prompt: Songs - "The Pool" by A Wilhelm Scream
Words: 448
TRANSFERENCE
.
And now the face escapes me
But the shame's forever
"The Pool" by A Wilhelm Scream
.
A young woman walks past him. Head down, bag clutched tightly under her arm, flat shoes making brisk strides across the pavement. It's the darker end of dusk and she doesn't see him in the shadows. She doesn't see the man following her, either.
Without warning, she is tackled into a side alley and the man makes a grab for her bag. She doesn't let go in spite of her terror (or perhaps because of it) and screams for help until he produces a knife.
"No! Please don't!"
Her hands finally spring open in release as they fly to her face, but the man has already been disarmed. The blade clatters to the ground and he cries out for his newly broken wrist.
Batman forcibly whirls him around by the shoulders. "Don't let me catch you trying this again," he rasps in warning. In the background, the woman takes the opportunity to gather herself and flee.
Little tremors pass through the man's frame as his fish-like eyes stare back, round with fright. They're hollow, emptied out by a life of subsistence. His entire appearance is straggly, dank and feral; his age indeterminate as wrinkles mix with dirt in a map of lines on his face.
He looks like someone Bruce has seen before.
He looks like two other muggers Batman has encountered in the past week. And three in the week before that. All desperate, all homeless. Different clothes, different hair, different builds, but the same face. That face.
It's the same face he remembers from the night he lost his parents.
A vivid face, without clear features. Those features had dimmed over the years but never lost their impact. He could never forget it, not when it brought such a bitter cavity to his chest. Not when he'd imagined countless times seeing that face again, and all the ways he would crush it. Not when he'd imagined countless times never seeing that face at all, if only he'd acted differently.
Even now, he hasn't forgotten.
The face before him winces sharply, fearfully. A pained, reedy voice implores him. "I won't do it again! I won't do it again, I swear! Please! I --"
The tension in his muscles surprises him. Bruce looks down to find his gloved hands clamped on the man's shoulders, digging into them as though he were squeezing blood from a rock. Or bone.
He drops his hands. The man watches him uncertainly for a moment before backing off then scampering away. His gait is unsteady and the ends of his filthy coat flap behind him. Bruce closes his eyes for a moment and sees his parents' killer running out of the alley.