XLXIV.

J'onn entered his room,

J'onn? Who's J'onn? Oh, it's the green-skinned guy. Tony didn't usually get names or clear thoughts from these things.

Pausing in the doorway as he took in the array of bottles and empty glasses. J'onn stepped forward placing himself before Bruce and sitting down, picking up a glass. He stared into the object for a moment before speaking softly, "I wonder what the others would say if they saw you like this." Bruce's bloodshot eyes narrowed, he was aware of how he looked. Beard unkept, cheeks showing signs of gauntness and the faint smell of odor that wafted through the room masked by the strong alcohol but not gone.

Tony shifted nervously as Bruce's thoughts came in loud and bold along with his emotions.

It was one of the worst things J'onn could say to him. Bruce didn't need to imagine what they would say, about his choices and his looming choice still to be made. He already knew, and it was nothing good. None of his old friends' voices were kind in his mind.

Oh, Bruce...

Bruce looked up at J'onn before looking down at his own cup, slowly spinning it around. "That's life. Full of all kinds of disappointments."

J'onn lifts the glasse to his face, sniffs it and grimaces before placing it back down. "We need you, Bruce." Bruce's face shutters closed, "No, you need Batman." The glass titters from the slight tremor in his hand. "And I don't know if I can be him anymore."

Batman doesn't kill. He can't because once he does there's no going back. Bruce already tarnished his friends' memory by turning his back on what the Justice League was all about. He was stripped of everything that held him up, the last remnants were reduced to training children to fight to survive. It was one thing to kill in self-defense it was another to be expected to lead and order assassinations and free reign to terminate any who cross their mission. He tried to keep the worst a bay, the death to a minimum and all it got him was his allies' continuous death. Their eyes haunted his every step.

J'onn waits patiently, not doubting his confidence as the only living being left that truly knows Bruce now. He isn't wrong. Bruce's last friend, a mere shadow of who J'onn once was stares him in the face. At his eyes red-rimmed and the tortured shadows. "How do you do it? How do you take your life, what gives it meaning, how do you take it being turned to ash before your very eyes?"

J'onn takes in a stilted breath, yes, even if the others were alive he would still understand what Bruce was going through the most. "We Martians sometimes must enact an ability that allows for a distancing of ones most potent emotions so they may not harm them." Bruce's defeated face simply stares. "In times of war, or personal distraught we place our painful memories behind a wall. It is not lost, nor is the weight completely gone, all it does it allow us to walk without being crushed."

A small laugh moves the air, Bruce sips his various drink mix and says, "We humans have something similar. A method to disassociate traumatic happenings." J'onn cocks his head as if to ask why he hadn't done so if such a thing exists. Bruce props his head up with his one hand, tilting his lips in a jaded smirk, "It's not the healthiest thing. Cutting yourself off from your emotions tied to an event can go wrong."

J'onn nods, "Ah, yes, if we push it too far away the same thing can occur with us." J'onn taps his fingers together, "Mainly it is used for circumstances when we do not have the time to go through our experiences at our own pace. It merely lessens the raw intensity. Ready to be picked at when it is safe to go traversing deep emotions. A defense mechanism so to speak."

"Sounds handy," a partly bitter but mainly tired voice notes. J'onn grabs the glass and takes a swig. Bruce's face remained unmoved. "I know that you dislike having your mind touched by telepaths or the like but I am offering to do something similar for you if you accept."

Bruce's face distorts, "Why is my mental state so important? What, can't find someone else to lead this war? To do the dirty work that must be done?" A slam of glass and the sharp crinkle of something breaking cuts across the room, Bruce's face forcefully smooths over. "Oh that's right, everyone else is dead."

J'onn slowly pours himself another drink, gently he says his piece. "No, I simply do not wish to see the only part of my life that still remains light drowned by shadows." It was a strange experience being called someone's light. It goes to show just how alone they were if that was true.

They spent the rest of the night drinking in silence. "I'm not alone yet, am I?" Bruce asks more himself then J'onn. They lock eyes. His hands were already tainted were they not? Bruce closed his eyes feeling drained, heavy. He couldn't rest, he had a few more lives yet to fight for. If doing it in such a way that is abhorrent to him, was the only way, then that person he would become. Besides, he didn't realistically see himself making it to the very end, so what did he have to lose? Bruce stared intently at an empty spot in the room, could feel them shaking their heads or frowning. If they were alive they would tell him to continue trying, that this was giving up in a different way. But Bruce lost his heart a long time ago. He took a sip of his drink letting their images fade from his mind. They were gone and he would just have to accept that. For now.

"I can no longer be Batman," Bruce admits, Batman was no killer.

J'onn smiles sadly, "It is not he, I ask for."

Bruce straightens, his face hardening, eyes so expressive sheer seconds prior show nothing but hollowed determination. "After tonight, he is no more."

J'onn lifted his glass to give his friend a proper send-off, "Batman was a valued ally, indispensable. His intellect saved many a life. His sense of justice unflinching, and for this, he cannot follow. Where we must go."