Chapter Text
Batman. In the mask, he is – so solid, so sure. Formidable, dangerous, standing on the brink of an edge and looking down into the depths. He says, I have seen the creatures of Hell on earth, and I can fight them. Certainty. All the nouns in the world are not enough to describe what he is, who he is, to Bruce outside the mask, where he is dislocated, weak, a frail thing, a fractured wing – so misbegotten, he knows what he is. A waste drowning in the wastelands.
This is who he is when the other man comes. He too understands duality, the thin line between reality and super-reality. He pulls at Bruce's hair, licks at the blood on his scalp after he smashes it against a coffee table. When he is inside Bruce, everything is terribly still except the rocking within him, still like how Bruce's world can never be, still and not shaking like Bruce every inhalation, still like corpses who feel no pain. Bruce spreads his fingers against the glass of his coffee table. There's scraped-off skin from his head on the sharp edge. He leaves palm prints against the glass, shuts his eyes against Two-Face's mad reflection, and prays for Batman to save him.