Hello buddies,
In the following chapters, Bruce and Diana undergo the process of erasing each other's memories. The premise is the same as what is used in the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Science Fiction): a kind of lobotomy in the brain only of certain parts of memory, not in general.
I have divided this part into two chapters: the first (Forget) is full of anguish; full of memories that reaffirm the reason for deleting the memories. The second (Remember) is just the opposite - memories that show them that love should not be forgotten.
My special thanks to my beta SaultNPeppah for your patience and friendship.
Disclaimer: The characters and images do not belong to me.
Cover image by Dee_stroyer
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#Wonderbat #DCComics - /_miss_amelie/
#Personal - /carolaqueiroz/
Good reading!
Chapter 4 – To forget
"Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all"
(poem In Memoriam A. H. H. – Lorde Alfred Tennyson)
PAST
They had said, "I accept." The temptation of the devil was too good to pass up. It had been enough for them to say yes, and the agreement was sealed which, if it had not cost them their souls, had cost their hearts. Who could blame them? When the pain ripped, the offer to end it without harm - that is what they thought - became a necessity, not a cowardly escape.
Diana discovered that the pain of an unfulfilled love was alarming and prevented her from moving on. The pain of an unrealized love paralyzed and forced you to live in the past.
Bruce realized, too late, that there were different pains for lost loves - the pain of hopeless loss wass overwhelming, but still bearable compared to the pain of losing true love by choice. This is impossible to bear.
The demon had told them, "I can put an end to your pain, son / daughter," holding out their hand and they took it for support. The devil had promised them not the simple relief, but the elimination of the emotional cancer that had spread within their heart, sickening the healthy cells of the sensibility little by little. The demon had assured them that there would be no harm and that this solution would be best for both of them.
Like all temptation, it was perfect.
They ate the apple ...
And they were cast out of Paradise.
RA'S
"Pain is nothing. Will is everything. And the will is to act," was the last sentence spoken by Professor Henri Ducard, ending his presentation at Gotham University, regarding his controversial discovery of brain intervention. It was something he had called neural optimization, and it had become a revolution to modern Science.
enri Ducard, (his western name as he used to call it), had been given the Arabic name of Rā's al Ghūl, by his mother. An unquestionable genius of Modern Science, he was called the 'Head of the Demon' by its intellectual peers and scientists. Rich and elegant, Ducard had been compared to the Devil not because he would be commonly mistaken for an excellent seducer or manipulator- they called him Demon's Head because he was unique, concentrating seduction by Lucifer's Machiavellian genius, not lust. He was the Demon's mind.
Philosophy, Sociology, History, and Psychology. He used the Human Sciences to become a master manipulator. He had joined Plato, Kant, Machiavelli, Marx, Webber, Freud, Baudrillar and Chomsky. With a PhD in Neurobiology and Psychiatry, he had become the most extraordinary manipulator of the human mind, emotionally and clinically. He was a genius of Postmodernity.
As if that were not enough, Ducard had mastered countless other areas of knowledge, all self-taught. Ra's had learned alchemy and was one of the greatest fencing masters in the world, if not the greatest. It was a feat that had given him another nickname: The Immortal. People used to say that a man could only accumulate so much knowledge if he were 600 years old.
After years of searching for a way to 'accelerate Darwinian evolution and make homo sapiens more sapiens than man by eliminating the emotions that weaken him, something he had said were not rational, he had discovered the evolutionary Holy Grail: Exterminate the source of emotional imbalance (pain, fears, attachments, passions, loves).
Ra's AL Ghul discovered how to map the brain using an apparatus (a type of tomograph), overturn the mental resistance, and access the unconscious easily by injecting a greenish serum into the bloodstream. The serum, which he had dubbed the Lazarus Well, was a cocktail of hallucinogenic substances, anxiolytic and opiates, would erase only part of the memory identified as damaging, as the emotional damages that interfere with personal rational evolution were what he wanted to rid individuals of.
It was not a simple process. Ducard had thought of everything, and all the candidates went through rigorous assessments that required good physical, cognitive, and genetic health as a prerequisite for initial classification.
After a series of interviews to attest that the individual was legally and intellectually apt to be part of the emotional experience of each candidate, another set of questions was asked about the source of the problem, to map only the memories attached to it.
Ra's had never personally followed the proceedings, despite closely monitoring them. Not by pricelessness, but by pride. It was his way of making clear his 'superiority' for the members of his team - to the master, the genius, most evolved of the human species, it is the dedication to cultivate the thought and to the less evolved ones, of average intelligence, it is up to the manual work of ideas.
Yet he had entrusted this kind of task to very few people. His team consisted of three collaborating scientists, in formal terms (in practice, they were just helpers): These three were his daughters, Nyssa and Talia, and Slade Wilson. In addition to the three were two bodyguards, whom he called by the names of Lady Shiva and Ubu, as he did not know their civilian identities.
FORGETTING
Diana felt the rough tips of Slade's fingers touch her temples as he set the suction cups of the electrodes on each of them, gently securing the devices to each side of her head. Nyssa, who stood besides Diana, checked her blood pressure and temperature before she inserted the catheter into one of the more protruding veins of her right hand.
Bruce heard Talia's soft voice assure him that he would be all right. She told him he would feel incredibly willing and enthusiastic in the morning, without the burden of guilt and anguish, as she placed the electrodes on him, watching as Ubu laid Bruce's head on a device that resembled a portable tomograph.
Separated by what felt like miles in their separate rooms, but was only a few feet down a hallway, both Diana and Bruce did not know they were in sync, reliving their memories of one another for the last time
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Memories...
"Are you upset?" she asked.
"What?"
"You look upset with me."
"Do I look upset?" His pulse was racing.
"Could you please talk to me, Bruce?"
She took a deep breath and Bruce's heart stopped. Apparently, it would be one of those relationship conversations.
"I feel like you're not really here with me lately, when we're ... together."
Diana laid there stiffly, giving the water-damaged ceiling all her focus. "It's like I could be anyone, or like I'm with a stranger."
Burning coal set in the pit of his stomach.
"Okay ... Look, if you're not satisfied ... Just say it!"
She sighed.
"Bruce, that's not what I'm saying."
He sat up and pushed himself to lean against the head of the bed.
"No, really, Diana, why don't you give me some tips? You could even be my monitor at one of those efficiency workshops at work, what about training?"
"Right," she said as nodded.
She finally made eye contact and her confidence prompted her to finally speak.
"Is this about Selina?"
He looked at her in disbelief.
"You push me, you push me, you piss me off ... You have an idea in your head, and no matter what the reality, you just ... God, Diana!"
"You do not talk to me. What do you want me to think? Your ex-fiancee appears and I wonder if that's the problem," she said, with an annoying sense of calm.
He let out a breath of air, got up, and picked up his pants. "If you say so."
He knew it was impossible to stop Diana. Once she had decided what was the problem, there was no changing her mind. They had this conversation more times than he already cared to admit, and Bruce could not handle it all again.
"We should talk, and then everything will be fine between us, right?"
"You think of everything," he said between his gritted teeth, as he kept his back to her. Closing his trousers, he reached for his shirt and tried to control the anger that was starting to burn in his chest.
It did not help much to remember that she meant well when she was treating him as one of her personal projects of selfless solidarity. Sometimes Bruce felt more like one of the boys in the orphanage she cared for than a man; much less her man. More and more lately, he was feeling as if he never left the stifling weight of his good deeds.
When he turned, she was sitting with her knees to her chest, the comforter pulled up, her arms wrapped around her legs. "Listen, Bruce. I feel like you're struggling to pretend it's okay. But I understand that the pains of the past are hard to beat."
"You understand what, Diana?" Bruce located his shirt and pulled it off the floor.
"You do not have to overcome anything in your perfect life. It's like you're the beautiful Greek goddess taking care of her troublesome dog. You are always selfless, taking on a cause."
Confusion twisted her face. "Is that what you think? You're not a cause to me, Bruce. You are the man I love. I just work at our relationship because it feels like I'm losing you."
She paused, her voice losing some of her strength, as she asked, "Do you want this? Do you want us to end? "
"Oh, you're asking me? Asking me to make a decision? And who am I, the person with whom you are associated? I'm just a kid supported by you, " he said, holding his arms wide. "What can I say? I am an emotionally helpless poor soul."
His brow furrowed. "What do you mean? I never made decisions for both of us."
He dropped his arms tightly to the sides and let out a bitter laugh.
"Why do you just throw all the junk back at me. It's not my fault if you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, Bruce"
"I'm not throwing crap at you, Diana. I'm the trash. If you want to treat our relationship like a cause, then I must be able to control my part of our story. I do not just want to be part of it passively."
Diana looked stunned. "This is ridiculous," she breathed quietly.
"If you say so."
Leaning back against the head of the bed, she shook her head. "It has nothing to do with Selina, does it? You just do not want to take it on. You do not want us to take the next step."
Bruce stopped looking under the duvet for his shoes and straightened up to look at her. "Now you're being ridiculous."
"I am? You fight against all the ideas I have for us to move forward, to solve our problems, to be happy. "
"I'm not the person who did not even tell his own parents about us, Diana. I do not have to be cool with your ex-boyfriend Clark just so nobody suspects anything."
"What am I supposed to think, Bruce?" His voice was incredibly small, and that made him inexplicably irritated. "If only you were sincere with me. If you do not want to do this ... "
"I definitely do not want to do this."
"I mean us." She looked at her hands and played with the blanket. "I feel like you're slipping away, and I do not know how to get to you lately."
"Do not be dramatic. I'm right here, Diana, I'm always here." He saw the other shoe on the other side of the room and headed toward it.
"Do you need me here anymore? Maybe you can work out an agenda."
"You're not here," she said firmly, and then added more gently, "You're not happy, and I'm not happy."
Bruce's stomach contorted, and a sickening feeling settled deep within it. He could not make anyone happy. It was no use being here anymore. He straightened, one shoe in each hand, and barely continued to breathe, waiting for her to continue.
"Maybe ..." She took a deep breath. "Maybe if you realized how much I love you, you would decide to live your life by my side"
"For God's sake, Diana," he said wearily. "What do you want from me? I'm tired."
"I want you here! I want you to stay ... But you're unhappy, and when you're with me, it makes me feel like I'm nothing ... I mean, it's like you do not even want me. Like you were never attracted to me. "
"Not now, I'm not at all," he said coldly.
Had someone replaced Diana with this mess of a girl who was cutting the little pride he had left? And she wanted him to make her feel better? For a fraction of a second, he thought the fire had kindled in her eyes in response, but she was not about to leave the room when she was completely naked under the covers.
Diana sat up, the duvet holding her chin in her fists. She was smaller than she really was, scared and he despised it.
"Bruce ... If you're not willing to do the things you have to do to be together, really together ... then I can not see what I mean to you." The room began to fill with her unstable breathing. "I can not believe I mean nothing to you."
He decided right then, it was time to go. There was no time to put his shoes on; he would just take them in his hands as he walked through the door.
"Well, Diana, as usual, you seem to have everything planned. You do not need me for this, "he said, before he left.
Diana remembered the ducks, when Bruce had started spending nights in his apartment, bringing his toothbrush along with him. On the bathroom counter, his toothbrush was beside her in a variety of settings that certainly meant something.
On notable occasions, they seem almost curled together from top to bottom, each brush nested against the other's handle. She kept the amusement to herself, but was amused enough to see how they landed, especially when she disengaged herself in the middle of the night for a trip to the bathroom.
Now, in the dim light of the mirror, she stared at a blue brush, worn bristles to where they curved outwardly and flattened from the center, with her back to a green back, showing very little wear. About four inches of cracked tiles separated them.
She stared into the darkness of the room beyond where Bruce was sleeping and thought of symbolism, and crawling spaces between the immutability of his positions.
(…)
"I do not agree with your reasoning."
"I just explained my reasoning."
"It does not follow that I can not disagree with that."
"Bruce, I was just giving the pros and cons of each one. Which do you prefer?
"I really do not mind, as long as it's not the pub."
"Do not you have a preference between Thai and Japanese?"
"No. You choose."
"... Ok ... I just ..."
"What?"
"Nothing. I'll ... How about the curry then?
"Great."
"Of course, maybe we should ..."
"Diana, I do not really care."
(...)
It was a rare sight. Diana was half-dressed, perched next to her silk-brocade satin bed, pulling on her silk socks. She had a presentation at work and was at her best, which included (always for her enjoyment) leagues.
She was rarely at the mansion and Bruce was tired of traveling back and forth every morning. He was comfortable here, being the only one resting under the covers, watching her walk around looking for her clothes.
"What are your plans for Christmas Eve then?" she asked, buttoning the blouse.
"I have to sort things out, but I can get out of there by ten if you want to meet and stay the night."
She jumped on one leg, pulling on her shoe. "I go to my mother's house and my father comes from Greece to see me, with Persephone, so I'll stay with them at night. How about in the afternoon on Christmas Day?"
"I will be here all day with Alfred and Dick. There will also be some friends: Barbara and Jim, then ..." They shared a look of understanding. "But that night ..."
"Love, I promised the Kents that I would go there ... Martha is still shaken by the death of her husband," she said hastily, giving him a warning look. "I'm there for Christmas dinner every year."
He sat up, his forearms resting on his bent knees.
"So after. I'll come later and bring ...
"I'll stay the night." She turned and put in her earrings, as she walked toward him. "It's tradition."
"Really," he said firmly, "Can you not break the tradition of spending the night with your ex-boyfriend?"
"It's difficult, and I would not call Kal an "ex". He's spending the night with Lois. I'm only there as a family friend."
"Well, based on the behavior I observed of him last week, I have to say he would not call himself an 'ex' either," he said bitterly. Lifting the covers, he began to look for something near his feet.
Diana rolled her eyes. "December 26th, then. We could watch a football game. What about that? Or Tennis ... You love tennis."
His voice was muffled as he spoke with his head under the duvet. "I have Wayne's dental charitable functions."
She made a growling noise and went to the bag at the foot of the bed, bending down with a snort.
"I understand," she said.
"Oh here." He crawled under the bed and perched next to her on his knees, holding a heavy package over the length of his hand.
"Bruce ..."
"Merry Christmas, Diana."
(...)
"I did not say I would."
"Bruce, you explicitly implied that you would."
"Diana ... that does not even make sense."
"Yes it does! You did it. You make it sound like you're okay with something, not wanting to have a fight about it, but when it's time to go, you come with justification because you can not do that. "
"I happen to think that an alternative engagement is a perfectly reasonable reason not to go wherever you want to go."
"Ronnie's summer party? Bruce, Veronica had a six-month ago engagement. You could come up with something better than that. I think I deserve better than what you're doing. "
"She's famous for the party and it's not the act, Diana. It will be fun "
"I'm sure."
"Hmm, I can see whatever it is that you want to watch at another time, for sure."
"No, you can not. It's a classic movie drive-in movie festival, you know it only happens once a year, and I love to see old movies like that once in the car. I wanted to see 'Gone with the Wind.' I thought you liked it."
"Well ... I really like the name. What is it then ... Are you hot, baby? "
"Stop, I'm mad at you and ... hurt ... And - no, I'm not going to put it aside because it's the third time this happened this month - See, that's exactly what I'm talking about, you never want do the things that I like. Everything revolves around you "
"Come here ... I want to kiss you, princess. My Scarlett O'Hara. "
Diana's lips curled into a smile.
You asked me for forgiveness and I refused
I want you to understand that I suffered
But you left your scent on pages
I would give anything to be in your arms
I tried to hate you but the anger has disappeared
The good memories
in hatred and rancor
I forgive you, you do not know what you did
Oh, I forgive you, now it's time for me to move on.
Je Te Pardonne (Sia feat. Maitre Gims)