You stare at the console, its buttons blinking silently back at you. You're waiting for that familiar click of the heels and clearing of the throat from behind. The smell of earl grey tea should waft in at anytime now, cleansing the air of the damp mustiness of Bat guano that fills the cave. As if sensing your thoughts, one of the inhabitants lets out a demented shriek, piercing the silence.
The silence: It wasn't that way once. Once, the chatter and laughter of children, you like to think they were happy, filled this bleak interior. You had wished to damn yourself here, along with every other creature of the underworld. But these beings, they had transformed your hell into a – not a heaven, exactly- sort of haven. Mysteries had been solved within these walls, joys shared, and tears comforted.
You find no comfort now. Cold chilling air is all that greets you now. You grind your teeth to stop them from chattering. Memories flit by you at every turn, mocking you. They seem to parade across the computer screen. You can near fancy them to be reflections of the now, that they aren't yet lost in the past. Your own face is mirrored, a bitter looking frown plastered on. You scowl at it.
Swivelling in your chair only makes you face the remnants of those long departed. Those you learned to actually care about. The empty costumes lining the wall stare back at you, their eye holes boring into your skull. Even your own costume stands there. It's hollow, just like you are now, a mere shell. A cringe finds its way to your mouth.
One of them would've no doubt commented on your lack of humour by now, Dick perhaps. Dick, who hates you, where ever he may be right now. Dick, whose life you wasted on your crusade in your damned pursuit of vengeance. And not him alone (no you never learned, did you?), for there was Barbara, and Tim. Poor Tim, manipulated in the hands of that sick, murderous-
Oh, but who left him there, alone? Who couldn't reach him in time? Who brought him into this crime-fighting 'wonder world' in the first place? Who placed him in danger every night, precautions or no? A boy should be playing tag on the streets, not masquerading round the city in a cape, chasing after evil, cruel beings. Who took that away from him?
Of course it was the last straw, one that pulverised the already broken back of the camel. No wonder they all left. They saw through your paltry lies and excuses, exposing the selfish, proud git they now know you are. After what you did to them, who wouldn't?
Absently you wonder why an odd looking smudge mars the surface of one of the cases. No one has touched it besides your knowledge, of that you are certain. The polymer will hold anyway, if someone tries to steal the costumes. The thought comforts you somewhat. You ignore the stinging in your knuckles, unaware of how they have become so red.
Peering closer at the smudge, it seems to ghost over the symbol of the bat on your old suit, blurring it. The suit stands at attention, a sentinel keeping watch over the others lined up beside it. You scoff softly to yourself. What a pity. You weren't, and aren't able to do the same for their owners. Owners who have long left the coop, or should we say, cave.
Your sigh comes out in a mist, evaporating in front of you. The early grey will not come tonight, or any night to come. Those shoes that had clicked softly behind you for so many years, accompanied by the quiet thump of a cane later on, will never do so again. The owner of them has departed to an even further plane. That one constant in your life after the tragedy is now gone. There will be no one to patch up your injuries, your uniform. No one to guide you, show you the light where you see none.
What will you do now, little boy? Who will you run to? Who will kiss your knee better when you graze it?
Stonily your gaze answers the silence. On your own once again, you can rely on no man but yourself. No responsibility but to your city, no silly, cumbersome relationships to cling on to. Yes, you keep telling yourself that. There is no other way.
The bats swarm about you as they did that fateful day when you first fell into the cave, as if to herald a new era, a new beginning. You are not afraid, even as they whirl around you, crying, screeching, and reminding you of your calling. Yet you must tread more carefully now. A dead bat is a useless bat. An injured bat cannot hunt.
A sketch is in your hands before you know it. You smile approvingly. A new suit, stronger, more advanced, more powerful. Deadly. Its exterior is more foreboding than any you've designed before.
It's perfect.
These new age criminals will learn to fear the dark knight as their predecessors had.
You will see to it.