The Way the World Ends
This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper. -T.S. Elliot.
"I used to waste my time dreaming about it."
Detective John Blake pushed himself up out of bed in his empty little apartment as the sun edged timidly over the horizon, marking the beginning of a new day.
"Dreaming, of somewhere - anywhere - really... a world that was a little kinder."
He wandered around in his apartment from room to room with no set destination in mind, a hot mug of weak tea in one hand. Decent coffee was more of a luxury these days since they couldn't afford to get alot from outside Gotham.
"I'd dream of dreams, if you can believe that. Of warping realities and upside down worlds, of quaint little coffee shops exploding in slow motion. Impossible things."
He placed his mug down heavily onto the nightstand in his room and collapsed onto his bed again, digging the heels of his palms into his eye sockets to try and relieve the stress that trying to understand these strange dreams always caused him.
"They don't make sense, no matter how you look at them. They're unbelievable, they defy the laws of physics... but I always get the feeling that they're real. Those dreams contain solid facts, memories of a life I know I never had."
He sat up and rifled through the drawer on the nightstand and pulled out a faded and well-worn moleskin notebook. He flipped the notebook open to the first page.
"I know my name is John Blake. I know that I am an orphan. I know that I am now a police officer. But my memories don't explain what some other obscure part of my brain knows."
The first page contained crude sketches of people, places, words...
"How do I know that this man with the slicked-back hair and solemn, narrow eyes, is named Cobb? How do I know that this gentleman of Oriental origins owns an airline? Why does this hauntingly beautiful woman with sunken eyes and Mona Lisa smiles make me want to cry?"
He flipped through a few pages and came to a stop at a sketch of Penrose Steps, letting his eyes wander up, and up, and up, that infinite staircase.
"Paradox."
He ran his fingers over the word scribed out in his neat, concise handwriting.
"I always wondered what the word meant to me. Only, I never found the answer."
There was a crude drawing of a dice on the next page with the word 'totem' scribbled on the top left corner.
"I have a dice exactly like that. It's loaded. It's the only thing I've got of my father's, he was a gambler, see? But I don't really like thinking about him, so I've shut it away in some dark closet."
There was a noise of gunfire chattering outside and Blake jumped, snapping the notebook shut and throwing it back into the drawer.
"Winter is coming. The days are getting shorter, and the night, longer. But we can no longer feel safe in the night without Gotham's Dark Defender. The Batman."
Blake grabbed his mug and drained its last contents before he shrugged into a warm jacket.
"'No Man's Land', people are beginning to call Gotham. I could hear them whispering in dark alleys sometimes."
Despite his better instincts of just staying inside his apartment until the danger had passed, Blake was a cop and always would be. He went to check out the commotion.
"It's a bad place to be. Gotham always has been, and most think that it always will be."
Blake pressed himself up against a wall, hidden in the shadows of lingering night and watched a few of Bane's mercenaries chase down a few straggling beggars and put them out of their misery with a few ruthless shots to their heads.
"They think it's a sport. Bane gave Gotham freedom, but too much of it."
Blake slunk back and crouched behind a dumpster as Bane's men marched by, laughing gutturally at the way their victims had squealed and whined like kicked dogs before being put down.
"Bane. The new face of Gotham's terror. Non-existant to Gotham's stubbornly blind eyes until he barreled into existence like a-..."
Blake froze in his hiding place, crouched like a ground-level gargoyle.
"...Like a train crossing in the middle of a downtown intersection."
Blake ran a hand over his face and reminded himself to check for survivors of the awful sport Bane's men had fashioned for themselves.
"It's always like this. Something I see, something I do, something I hear, or even think, something triggers one of those non-memories I have of gravity segueing from one point to another in a hall, or water tipping out of a glass, defying gravity. And now, like a train cutting through traffic like a shark fin through water."
None of the victims survived, not unnaturally, Bane's men were ruthless. Blake dragged the bodies to the side of the street and covered them with a tarp in an effort to retain a little dignity for the dead instead of leaving them on the street like roadkill.
"On dark days like this, I wish for the strangest things. I want to see buildings sprout up from the sea like heads of leviathans. I want to snap irately at having my chair kicked out from under me. I want to wake up and find myself on a reclining chair in a warehouse surrounded by people I've never met in my life."
Blake shoved his hands in his pockets and decided to track down Commissioner Gordon. He was feeling a little edgy of late, maybe the Commissioner would have some work with which to distract him with.
"I want strange things. Random acts that make no sense, but it's the idea behind them that soothes me. It makes me feel safe. It feels like... Home."
He walked away.
"Do you ever get the feeling that you know somebody, even if you know you've never met them before? Maybe it's a stranger crossing the street, a new employee at your favorite coffee shop, just a look, just a feeling. Like running into a butler named Alfred Pennyworth and nearly calling him 'Professor Miles'. It's like a puzzle piece falling into place. But sometimes it's not a puzzle piece at all. Sometimes it feels like a part of a whole new jigsaw."
The first time Detective John Blake met Miranda Tate, a small part of his brain gave him a warning, warning, warning! Every nerve was alive with sparking static shocks, warning him of some underlying terror.
"And she looked at me like she knew me, the way that old English butler knew me unequivocally. Without a word, without action, just a thought. A long forgotten memory. A shade of a person, at one moment someone I know, and at another, a stranger."
He trusted her, and then he was cautious of her, and he loved her, but the sight of her was like knives being stabbed into his chest and he could no longer breathe. He did not understand why he felt this way about her. She was Miranda Tate, CEO of Wayne Enterprise. The Batman trusted her.
"But in my mind I'm thinking 'don't trust her, don't turn your back on her'. But who can? When a woman like that walks into a room, you just can't look away."
And she was so beautiful. A flower blooming in adversity, a phoenix rising from the ashes, a-...
"... A woman sitting on the ledge of a balcony, ready to throw herself off. One delicate stiletto slipping off her foot into the chasm far below. I've heard the story countless times enough to just imagine it as if I was there."
And oh! He sees the flaming Bat signal a brilliant orange in contrast to the dark. He just stands and stares for a moment because deep inside, he knows he should be a little more enthralled that he's back.
"The Batman, a symbol of hope, an icon. The idea that the common man could transform himself into a hero of justice. But... it's just an idea. A glorified parasite that made a home in the minds and hearts of Gotham's people."
Blake doesn't see the first building crumble and fall into the sea, but he feels it rumble under his feet. With no authority to keep these buildings in habitable shape, they fell into disrepair. He ignores all this and proceeds to open the manhole to make way for the police officers to escape.
"Oh, let's play a game! 'Ideas', 'parasites', and 'elephants'... what connects these three nouns?"
Bang! The first policeman out of the manhole goes down and Blake dives for cover. All he could think is...
"Shit! Projections! This subconscious is militarized!"
He feels the second and third building on the very edge of Gotham fall away from the mainland and begins to take more notice. One fallen building is concerning, three is downright suspicious.
"Why the fuck isn't this level stable enough?"
And then there are projections grabbing him, forcing him to his knees for the execution... And then they're not. The projections fall like flies being batted away as a minor inconvenience. And suddenly He's there.
"Batman."
And somehow, he's a little disappointed that the masked vigilante doesn't introduce himself as 'Mr. Charles'. Another rumble and another building crumbles into the sea.
"Tell me I'm dreaming. Tell me that this is all just a nightmare."
But he doesn't. Because it isn't. This is reality, it has been their reality for so goddamned long. And they split up because Batman's going to go fight a war and Blake needs to get the boys out of the city before the bomb goes off.
"It feels like a countdown. I feel like the beginning notes of 'Non, je ne regrette rien' should be coming in right about now."
He's piling boys into Father Reilly's bus and just as he's about to climb on himself, stops, and hops off. Father Reilly and he exchange glances and a bitter understanding is formed between them.
"I just can't go with them."
The bus doors close and curious boys begin to press their faces against the windows, understanding begins to dawn on them and they begin shouting and screaming for Father Reilly to stop and let their friend back on the bus. But he doesn't.
Blake barrels into the battle outside the City Hall just as three tumblers roar out into the streets, mowing down everything in their paths. And for just one second, Blake could make out the cool, unflappable face of Mallory Cobb. And then she's gone.
"Mal... what is she doing here, Cobb?"
A few seconds later, Catwoman and Batman set chase after the convoy. Blake, however, runs into the City Hall. He has no idea why he does, but he just feels something or someone inside drawing him in. It takes a moment for him to catch sight of the crumpled form across the large lobby.
"Eames...?"
He set off at a stumbling pace to the fallen monster of a man. He's seen Bane on TV, listened to his speeches, and every time he did, he was somehow struck by something so familiar about the man.
"Like I'm seeing him, but expecting to see some face behind the mask. A smirk, or a smile..."
He reaches the man and gingerly turns him over. There is a gaping hole in the torso of his clothing and blood slips out at a sluggish pace. The man stirs under his mask and his eyes flicker.
"Mm... Arthur?"
Blake blinks. There is something so... familiar about the name. "I don't think you know me." He says instead.
There is a wheezy laugh. "Of course I know you, Darling. I know you."
"Y-you don't understand." Blake shakes his head. "My name is John... John Blake."
"Is it now?" Bane sounds only mildly surprised. "Well then, Mister John Blake, my name is Eames. You know me better as 'Bane'."
Something inside Blake clicks. It must be coincidence that the man's name was the name Blake had somehow knew it was. There is a slight twinkle in Eames's eye that says he knows exactly what Blake is thinking.
"I know." Blake replies quietly, stubbornly refusing to show how unnerved he is about everything this man is. At least Alfred and Miranda never claimed to be 'Professor Miles' or 'Mal'.
"Do you remember me?" Bane asks him laboriously.
"I don't think we've met... I think I would've remembered you." Blake tells him. Bane is a monster of a man, nobody would be able to forget him.
Bane gives another huffy laugh. "I told you, once, to dream a little bigger, Darling. But I didn't exactly mean that literally at the time."
By now, the rumbling won't stop as buildings upon buildings crash down to their foundations like marionettes with their strings cut.
"Eames." Blake breathes and suddenly he remembers everything. He remembers a botched up job and falling into Limbo. "Goddammit, Eames!"
Eames let out a laugh. "I love what you've done to the place, by the way."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "I created one of America's worst city states."
Eames shrugged. "Could've been worse." He sucked in a ragged breath. "But we're running out of time."
Arthur blinked. "Running out of time?"
"Why do you think Gotham's crumbling, Darling? It was steady and secure when it was your reality, but your hold on the belief that this is real is slipping. You know it's not real. This is Limbo, the world you made to keep yourself sane. You created a man who dresses up like a bat, for God's sakes! Just to remind yourself that this is ridiculous, that no person on earth would do such a thing. You created Bruce Wayne to remind yourself that this isn't real! You noticed, didn't you? That there are projections that you recognize? Miles, Fischer, Mal-..."
"...You?" Arthur asked him uneasily.
"No, Darling. I'm real." Eames chuckled. "After that botch-up job of ours, we lost you to Limbo. I came down after you to find you but you're a hard man to find."
"So this is all...?"
"Started out as a rescue mission, but turned into a coup thanks to Mal." Eames nodded.
Arthur glanced back outside when he heard an obnoxiously loud boom of the battle outside. Eames turned his face back with a gigantic hand on his cheek.
"Come on, Darling. We need to go now." he said kindly.
Arthur nodded. "Um- yeah." He ran over and picked up a discarded gun and came back. "You okay?"
"I'll be better when I wake up without a hole in my chest, Darling." Eames grunted back.
"Yeah, yeah okay." Arthur ran a hand through his hair agitatedly "Just give me a sec, alright?" He sucked in a breath and blew it out. He didn't get alot of practice in the 'killing himself' department since he fell into Limbo, okay? It's been a while.
Suddenly, a firm hand was gently removing the gun from his hand. Arthur looked at Eames. "Do you trust me, Arthur?" Eames asked him quietly.
Arthur gave a sharp inhale. Detective John Blake trusting his life to terrorist Bane? It was laughable. He reached out tentatively and touched the cold metal of Bane's mask. "Can I?"
Eames nodded almost imperceptively and John carefully removed the mask. Eames was just as he remembered him as, save a vertical scar marring his mouth. He touched it softly, tracing it with his fingertips, absently wondering how the Forger had got it.
"Okay, I'm ready." He breathed in deeply and let his eyes fall shut. "Do it."
It was a simple squeeze of a trigger and a bang, and Arthur was gone. Eames fell back flat, too exhausted to move. "Christ, Darling." he murmured just as GCPD projections burst into the City Hall to put the terrorist Bane to death. Rip him apart, tear his flesh, grind his bones into ash.
And then an explosion that seared flesh off bone swallowed Gotham City whole.
Boom!
"Wakey, wakey, Darling." A soothing voice sing-songed gently, slowly rousing Arthur from his sleep. "Come on, open those beautiful eyes for me."
And Arthur did, eyelids fluttering.
"Eames...?"
Eames smiled softly. "Speak of the Devil and he shall appear, Darling."
THE END
A/N: And then Eames will be all overprotective of Arthur for a few weeks after that until Arthur finally has enough of it and snaps 'Dammit, Eames! I am the night! (Or, would've been...)' And Eames falls over laughing. Of course, Cobb and the others have no idea what's so funny.