#but here we are and they're in for a COUPLE SURPRISES I GUESSAKS FDSJAHBFUIJSHBUDHBUIGDSHB

[wrathbites]

i wanna see what you can do with #12 candles pls

Send me a number and I'll write a micro story using the word or phrase

They bury Bruce Wayne in broad daylight, sun shining and cameras flashing, the city's favourite spectacle denied his privacy even in death.

They bury their Bruce (father, son, partner, friend) under the cover of darkness, the quiet affair he'd have preferred. Free of his armour and mantle, the responsibility carried on his shoulders now passed to his children, shared between them.

And it's their choice to carry his legacy, never the burden he feared it would become, braced on all sides by the friends and allies made along the way.

Alfred steps out from under the span of Diana's umbrella, no candle in hand to shield from the rain. Just as before, so many years ago, but Bruce isn't in his arms this time, silent and shaking with his loss, no. He's silent and still in his coffin, an impossible thing Alfred never expected to see.

There are no speeches here, no people to please, not a single reputation to uphold, and so he allows himself a moment of weakness at last, waiting for a request that'll never come, for a voice he will never hear again.

"Goodnight, my boy. Rest well."

One by one the candles go out, each extinguished with a puff of breath, a murmured goodbye, the first step in many of an endless grief.

~

And all at once they flare to life on a scream that cracks earth and sky the following night, when there are none around to witness.

Ancient in power and terrifying in fury, Gotham calls her favourite son, her Batman, home.

#korblez #Batman fanfiction #Wrathwrites #listen this grabbed me by the spine and shook until I wrote it #because like look I like shit being WEIRD and OFF in cities as steeped in chaos as Gotham #with how much blood Bruce has literally spilled and spit all over bare bones earth on his home turf #with how long and hard and viciously he's fought to make Gotham a better place #I absolutely believe she'd answer in kind if he died on her soil #sure slap buildings on top of her and the city itself is young but GOTHAM is OLD and there's POWER to that #and nobody woulda fuckin guessed it when you've got regular humans in that city and Superman over yonder and Wonder Woman thataway #but here we are and they're in for a COUPLE SURPRISES I GUESSAKS FDSJAHBFUIJSHBUDHBUIGDSHB