Wheee! My first ever Fanfic!
This chapter is a little short, but more is on the way.
Disclaimer; As much as I wish I did, I don't own Batman, Robin, or other DC characters.
Bea, however, is my creation.
Once upon a time, there was a girl, and something bad happened to her, but a brave young man came and rescued her and carried her away, to somewhere beautiful, where they would be happy for ever after.
That's what would happen. At least, that's what was meant to happen.
So far, it wasn't going to plan.
Bea had loved stories since she was tiny. She had read them every spare moment she got, fairy tales, love stories, swashbuckling thrillers, she loved them all. They were part of her, so much more than her busy family, or her indifferent friends. Now it seemed they had betrayed her. She desperately wanted a brave white knight, or a heroic sea captain to come to her rescue, hell, even a friendly wood cutter would do. But no.
She was on her own.
It was six days since the city had fallen, six days since her parents had been crushed inside their apartment. Six days since the bad thing had happened to her. If her hero was coming, he was running late.
It had taken her ages to figure that it had been six days, that she had lost all that time in that strange building. She could hardly believe it. She felt so confused, she felt like she shouldn't be mourning her parents anymore, it had been six Goddamn days, but the grief was still raw and choking inside her.
She couldn't remember what had happened.
She couldn't find any food or shelter.
She couldn't look after herself.
And no one was coming to rescue her.
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Tim's life had become increasingly, horribly strange. What had happening to the city was terrifying, the level of destruction and death had almost driven him to the point of hysteria. At least his family was safe, which was more than could be said for a lot of Gotham's inhabitants. But that misery was broad, mindless, distant. What disturbed Tim more was Bruce. Always driven and determined, there was now something more to Bruce's attitude. An intensity that Tim had never before seen in him, a desperation. Bruce had always protected the city with his very heart and soul, but now it was at its most vulnerable, Tim couldn't help but feel that Bruce was getting stretched to his limits. He was becoming less than a person, nothing more than his cause. Bruce was losing himself to the victims of No Mans Land, and it left Tim terrified. If Bruce's personality was leaving him, what was next?
That's why Tim was out that night, unbidden by his mentor, desperate to find some purpose, some cause of his own, to get himself away from Batman, or Bruce, or whoever he was becoming. He had to get out into the wasteland of his city, see the damage through his own perspectives, judge it for himself. That's why he sat, huddled in his cape, on the apex of one of Gotham's few surviving roofs, the realisation gradually dawning on him; it was worse than he ever could have feared.
Perhaps Bruce new what he was doing with the strange attitude he had adopted. Perhaps the only way to deal with something like this was to become less than a person, less than a living feeling human. To be nothing more than a cowl and cape and, when he got the chance, a pair of strong hands, a decent fighter and an amateur medic. To give up on being a hero.