C.2
Her mother dresses her in a white dress and she hates it; the last thing she wants is to be wearing something stupid and frilly and white. Her mother puts her hair up nice, and even though Hope wouldn't say that it's a leisurely pace, Hope is annoyed with her: annoyed that they aren't on their way to save her 'uncle'. She knows her parents used to do that—save people—and that sometimes they still do, and that Bruce did too. When her mother is finished, Hope turns and sees her father in the door. The man looks at her, feeling his heartbreak: she looks perfect, like a small angel—except for the storm in her eyes, and the set of her jaw. Clark sees his wife in that, and also the man who is dying; without thinking he scoops her into his wide arms, and she is little more than a spot of warm air for him to hold. Hope does not struggle, accepts being held, her face pushed sideways against the chest that has stopped bullets, has stopped trains, has stopped nuclear warheads.
Though her small hands clutch at the back of white-formal shirt in a place near his shoulder, she does not cry. Her father, expecting (maybe hoping for) the warm wetness of tears at his collarbone is disquieted by this, and wonders how deeply this is hurting his daughter—he imagines that if she feels even half of what he or Diana is feeling, then something crucial is building here. Clark wishes that his daughter wouldn't have to know death so early in her life, and knows that such a thing can make or break a child; knowing does not help.
When they arrive at the hospital in Gotham where Bruce Wayne will breathe his last few breaths, the man who was Superman is still holding his little girl in his arms, almost as if he can protect her from this. Bruce is dying, and Clark thinks of Lois; he thinks about how they all knew that the trio they had shared, with all their bickering and their more lovely, rare peaces, would end like this: broken into two. He doesn't know if that knowledge has been harder on him and Diana or Bruce himself. Hope wriggles and slips through his arms before they enter into Bruce Wayne's room; for a moment Clark lingers before letting his daughter go.
She is already so much like him, he thinks, and like Diana had earlier that day, thinks of Bruce Wayne's childhood. It's not the same, he tells himself. Not nearly. And still, though the two situations weren't quite comparable, he compares them anyway—though his daughter will still have a mother and a father by the end of the day, he hates this all the same. He hates Bruce Wayne's death for himself of course, his past is intrinsically intertwined with the man who was Batman, and he loves him: even remembering their most bitter disputes, Clark loves Bruce with all the simplistic purity that went with being Superman in the early days.
He takes his daughter's hand in his, and Diana takes the other. The mother and father share a thought, though they do not realize it: how much does my child know of death? And then: how much will this teach her? Though they both know, know plenty, that death isn't something a person can hide from, they would both agree that it's a lesson they'd rather their daughter didn't learn. Surprisingly, maybe, it is the small girl who leads them both into the room; while they both stand and attempt to collect their emotions, brighten their countenances, the child steps forward.
In her pale blue eyes is a blazing anger—the displaced sort that goes without any real target, and would instead burn anything in its path. It is the anger that is most visible, seeming out of place from her perfect angel's dress and pulled back hair (and maybe it would be endearing if in another situation) but it isn't really anger that Bruce Wayne sees. Instead, Bruce can see (and even with a breathing tube and most likely veins running quick with some pain killer or another, his eyes are as bright as ever) the pain that fuels that fire, and understands how deep grief can drive a person's rage. Bruce Wayne, who has known the Batman for the vast majority of his life, understands this perfectly well.
Hope does not go to his bedside, and though she was the first to bravely step into the room, she hangs back, casting doubtful, furious looks between the bed he is in (she won't look at him he realizes) and other things in the room: looking for something to blame, something to settle all her anger on. Bruce feels a very strong wave of nostalgia (which turns to a smaller wave of nausea in the pit of his stomach) hit him while he studies her face—he has seen that anger before. Mostly he thinks of Dick Grayson: Dick after his parent's death, Dick wanting to be Robin, Dick wanting not to be Robin. Almost startled, he realizes that whom he is really seeing in his 'niece' is not Dick Grayson (or any Robin or Batgirl, for that matter) but himself. His flesh, though he can hardly feel a thing, crawls; he imagines that he is looking back in time into a mirror.
There is a certain black abyss that creeps up behind his eyes that is not death, but is instead something that he knows well—knows better—guilt.
"Hello Bruce," Diana's voice draws his eyes away from the child (who has retreated—and how it wrenches his heartstrings—to the darkest part of the room, the corners of her mouth drawn down). Diana's words are fluid, even though her cheeks are streaming with fresh tears. Bruce can't gather much strength to speak, so he nods.
"Hey," Clark adds, ineloquently—he is fidgeting very slightly, and Bruce knows that he is crying. He would laugh (not a harsh one either, but an actual laugh) to know that Superman is trying not to cry in front of him, as if it really matters at this point, but all his can manage is a (still, to the last, charming) smile. Clark nods back, and the door to Bruce's room opens again, and two elderly people enter—one is a woman in a wheelchair, and one is a man who walks far less surely than he did in his hay-day. Hope knows both of their birth names, and she knows their other names as well (though even Bruce didn't really teach her them—she picked them up herself, in the way that children learn a language—immersion and careful observance).
The man who was the first Boy Wonder, and later Nightwing, approaches her—Hope likes Dick (not nearly as much as she loves Bruce) but she isn't in any mood for him or his natural quirkiness. He takes a look at her face, and Hope watches his eyebrows rise, and he averts his course: the smile he had begun to approach her with falters, and instead he goes to Bruce. Dick Grayson thinks that maybe he should offer the young girl some condolence, but he remembers the look in her eyes—she is ready to spit fire. He knows that soft words will fall on deaf ears for her, for now at least; it doesn't surprise him, when it comes down to it, either. Hope isn't reclusive; he knows that (maybe more introverted than most kids her age, but with a healthy playful streak when she was in a good mood), and he understands how she is dealing with this. Another child might be crying, another might be shell-shocked: Hope is dealing with it through sullen anger.
Dick's pretty used to that, actually.
Barbara has no such qualms: she takes her chair directly over to the youngster after exchanging nods and quiet greetings with Diana and Clark. Her vision has deteriorated since her time as Oracle—the endless days and nights of computer screens take their toll, yet still she is relatively nimble for her handicap. Dick thinks that maybe Babs just has more guts than him, and that maybe he was just afraid of confronting a hurt child—maybe there was just too much past in it.
"How are you?" Barbara asks the girl quietly, while the others made small talk (Hope generally dislikes small talk to begin with, but now she hates it, hates how they're all acting like Bruce isn't dying) with the man lying in the bed. Hope imagines the old woman with the red hair that she knows she used to have: now it's just pure white. Fingers that still retain some of their old dexterity lightly take Hope's wrists, holding them together in front of her. "Sweetie, how are you?"
"I'm fine." The words come out hard, and like Dick, Barbara's eyebrows rise into her snowy hair. Hope's face is drawn tight, and whether she realizes it or not, she's making the same expression Bruce would have made, and the only difference is in the voice, really. Barbara will take none of this: she pulls the girl into her arms with a surprising amount of her strength and quickness left. Hope makes a tiny sound, a whimper from the center of her chest, and it's almost like a small choke. Her arms circle around the woman's neck, breathing in a smell that is so completely human that the girl shakes for a second. Hope can hear the woman's heart beating if she tries, so she doesn't try—the beats are not strong and powerful, but the pulse of a weakening older woman. They are not sounds she wants to hear, especially not in this kind of place.
Barbara has done what the rest of them were perhaps too cautious or too frightened to do, and the little girl shivers like a leaf (but does not cry). Her old, slightly knobby hands run through Hope's dark hair, soothing her. After a while she draws the girl back, and kisses her on the forehead while Hope's eyes, wide and the color of melting snow, watch her. "It's terrible," Hope says, voice wavering.
"I know, sweetie, I know. Come on." Barbara holds the girl's hand as she wheels to the side of Bruce Wayne's bed.
His breathing is coming harder now, and for those that can hear it: his heart is laboring, but slowing at the same time. For those that can't: the tiny blips and beeps on the nearest monitor say it all.
