𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞
A misty memory A haunting face Is she a lost embrace?
𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧!: This work contains nuances of emotional incest, if the subject makes you uncomfortable I recommend skipping this post for your comfort.
Fandom: DC
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The world works in specific ways.
There must be roles to follow, labels you can never shake off, appearances you have to play up whether you like it or not. There are protectors and victims, good and bad, one side or the other.
But what happens when you're in the middle of the line?
When your role is to be ambiguous, your label is to shine but your role is to disappear, you're neither a protector nor a victim, you're neither strong enough to protect nor weak enough to need protection, you're neither good nor bad, you're a zero, a smudge on the paint.
You're not memorable.
And you use that to your advantage.
Your family never loved you, that's the truth; Dad's a liar. Bruce Wayne can act so well it's ridiculous, but he never bothered to act with you. He didn't pretend to love you, but he didn't pretend to hate you either. You were a limbo between the two, solved by acting like you weren't even there, easy and simple. Anyway, that's what he did with your mother after having sex with her and discarded her the next morning, coming back only because…Why did he come back? You could have gone back to your maternal family, with whom you still have contact; living in the system is better than Wayne.
Your brothers? As many as there are days in the year, it almost seems like collecting them is a hobby (or his therapy, something he tries to remedy himself by using others—who said that?!), but no matter how many there are, you don't connect with any of them. Maybe because you arrived late, or because you're not a Robin, or an Oracle, or whatever exotic bird and mythological name they use to fight crime. Your sisters? They're…there, far away, not bothering to get close, and to their credit, you don't either, not anymore anyway, it's not worth it.
Alfred tries, it's sweet of him to do so, but you'll never be a priority for the old butler; you don't need bandages in the middle of the night, or coordinates for a cross-city chase, and God forbid you need empathetic comfort because someone else needs it more.
There are orphans, murderers, revived, a metahuman! Doesn't Bruce hate those?!
It would be funny if it weren't so sad, that your own father loves others more than you, how depressing; but it's not all bad, really, no, the lack of parental supervision gives you time to do many other things; you allow yourself to try everything, after all, Dad pays without a second thought.
So far, you're a singer, painter, dancer, soccer player, basketball player, gymnast, national champion in marine sciences and aerodynamic engineering, archer, model, diva, and all at no more than twenty years old, Take that, Barbie! That's what negligence, free time, and a billion-dollar legacy combined do.
Another result of this is attention; you crave attention like a moth to a flame. It's a need, your air, your most primal desire. Being adored has become your mission, your purpose. Being envied is what motivates you to wake up every morning at four o'clock to start your beauty and exfoliation routine. Being desired is literally what makes you endure every magazine photo and every clothing ad that appears in store windows all over Gotham.
But through all of that, the smallest, most hidden part of your psyche still yearns for his attention, his desires, his flattery, his adoration, his envy, his need.
𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜.
That makes you hate him—hate him and his children, who are part of his world, who don't have to fight for even a glance from him, much less his voice. Dick doesn't have to do a million things at once to be his pride and joy, Jason doesn't have to lose sleep over a compliment on his looks, Tim doesn't rack his brains to be considered a genius, Damian never needed to prove anything to be considered his equal in his eyes, Duke received everything as soon as he arrived, Barbara didn't have to beg for the mantle of Batgirl, Stephanie doesn't have to excel at everything to be recognized as one of his own, and Cassandra is his daughter, 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙚𝙧.
They're all something to him, they're all on that damn wall, in the family portrait he commissioned as a gift for them, one where you're not included, like in everything else. You don't even remember what the excuse was this time, or if it was Alfred who said it or your head made it up, but that painting is the rock that broke the glass.
And, ironically, the painting next to it is your perfect revenge.
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The changes began slowly, although if they had happened suddenly, they wouldn't have noticed.
An extra charge at a beauty salon, a clothing store, a jewelry store—nothing Bruce cared about or Alfred told him about.
Then the glances began.
A familiar figure passing at the end of the hallway as Bruce crossed, a nostalgic laugh that made Alfred nervous, a smell that made Bruce remember his past, details that made both men alert.
The alerts turned into paranoia when the images started coming in.
Bruce knew you were doing things outside the family: events, galas, parties, charity events, anything considered extravagant and spectacular. He always used that as a distraction, hiring anyone who looked like him from afar to appear on the covers and facilitating his double life as Bruce Wayne and Batman.
He's heartless, but he's useful, you're useful, from afar and without interfering in his vigilante life; at least one of his children will be free from the Bat curse.
And in he excuses, he never thought the curse would be any crueler.
Because the next time she sees you, the only gala he attends that you organized as a charity event, the only time he steps into the same space as you and sees you as the very image of her.
That he ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀ.
Her bearing, her brightness, her smile and laugh, her presence—damn, you even seem to use the same style with a modern touch—it's like having her among the guests who aged like she might have.
And when you see him…
- Father!- your voice echoes in his head, and for a second he hears hers too - Bruce Wayne has arrived! -
He's a scared little boy.
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The world works in specific ways.
And when your role shifts from being a spectator to being a perpetrator, it feels good.
It shouldn't, morally, you shouldn't enjoy seeing him so disturbed, afraid to be around you but seeking you out more often. It should make you feel sorry to hear him cry every time you dress a certain way that you've seen in photos and he saw in person, you should stop when you noticed how he began to harass you more and more until you could feel him breathing down your neck.
But you couldn't. And the final straw was when he approached you first.
The encounter was strange, an awkward, tense atmosphere; you playing the piano in a living room far from the house, and he standing awkwardly in the living room doorway, listening without hearing and looking at you as if recalling a memory.
He approached awkwardly, slowly, as if each step were on a tightrope thousands of feet above the ground, and you were the solid floor on the other side. He didn't say much when he reached you. In his hands was a sheet of music that he held tightly; you could see the wrinkles in the old paper.
- Play it - he asks you, whispering, afraid of breaking whatever holds his sanity together.
That song, you learned from Alfred, who can no longer look you in the eye, was the first song Martha taught Bruce to play on the piano.
Martha Wayne, the grandmother you never met, the one you only saw in old portraits and hidden photos, the woman you bore an almost frightening resemblance to. You realized this on a day like today, a revelation that gave you the sickest idea you could have had, and despite everything morally correct, you went ahead with it.
Days at the salon to get her hair done, a manicure and pedicure elegant and classic, a new wardrobe with only clothes from the season she was alive, modernized enough to follow trends but still highlighting her style, jewelry she used to wear, the perfume she used (according to old newspapers in which she appears promoting it).
You became her in the present, the reincarnation of Martha Wayne.
Who would have thought that if you just dressed up a little more you'd look just like her?
The media adores you, those who lived during the Wayne matriarch's time desire you, women young and old envy you, and the spotlight always shines on you. And as if fate were gifting him to you, as if rewarding you for years of neglect and hatred that rotted you as a person, destiny hands you Bruce Wayne as a constant in your life.
Encounters at galas, parties, and gatherings, superficial and tense conversations whenever you meet at the mansion, calls in the middle of the night when he thinks you think he can't sleep, when in reality he's just overwhelmed by the loneliness of the night and the memories his mind combines of his mother and you, hours and hours in the music room where he asks begs you to play him the same piano score or the same lullaby, outings everywhere, accompanying you like a shadow.
The lines that were never defined have blurred, vanished, lost in a limbo that no one bothers to recapture; for you are content to have your father's full attention without seeking it, to snap your fingers and know he will come at your call, to go from being nothing to being his everything, to becoming the most twisted and sick form of you in his sole thought. And he is in a trance that no magic spell, or brainwashing, or catharsis, or anything like that can compare to; it is his never-healed trauma, the wound he sealed with fire opening again to raw, steaming, red flesh, which he uses to paint your lips the same shade his mother wore for social gatherings.
You want to know the most bizarre thing? That you've been referred to as "𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚑𝚊 𝚆𝚊𝚢𝚗𝚎"
And you won't change any of that, because your hatred makes you pull on the chain that strangles Bruce, tightening it every time someone tries to intervene and pull him out of the emotional hole he's fallen into; your brothers and sisters have tried, you must admit. Family interventions, paid therapies, magical, intergalactic therapies—there's nothing they haven't done to return his father to normal.
They've all failed because Bruce doesn't want to go out, doesn't want to leave the last piece of his past, of the time when he was full and happy, where there wasn't night and revenge, he doesn't want to be an orphan again. Bruce was a mama's boy; his previous partners have a bit of his mother in them, and now that he's found his mother in a woman, no force on Earth or beyond will make him let her go.
Even if that person is his forgotten child.
What does Alfred do? Nothing. The poor man has been swallowed up by guilt and remorse; that through his carelessness he let this grow and spiral out of control, that he knew the damage abandonment was doing to you and still left you in the toxic shadows of the house. And now? The family has fragmented.
This is your victory. You have everything you want, your life is complete; while you paint a portrait of a vase, humming a lullaby, with your father dozing behind you, hugging you by the waist.
You have won.
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Hello again! Happy to be writing again! I'm working on the sequel to A Human's Touch, so look out for it soon!
