Chapter Text
“Come here, I’ll show you how,”
“But I won’t be as good as you,”
“Well, that’s alright. We don’t have to be good at everything we do. Sometimes the point of doing something is not to be good at it, but to enjoy your time doing it.”
Staring into the room he once spent hours at a time working on paintings, Bruce thought about how he used to be so full of life. He used to do things and be human. However, he felt as though he had lost the passion in life. For example, painting used to be such an innate part of Bruce’s continuance. Yet, a handful of years ago, he just stopped. There was no fanfare or hard-and-fast decision he made in his head that he was going to give up painting, the hobby just slipped through his fingers like water and left him. He still loved paintings and art, Bruce just didn’t contribute to his love himself—he became passive.
The first time he painted, he was watching his mother paint when she had him try putting pigment to canvas for the time. From that moment on, Bruce almost always busied himself with painting. He would sit in the corner of the room with his watercolor as his mother used oil paints.
His watercolor would dry too fast because his mother always had a window open to air out the atelier of the smell of linseed oil, and help cure her work. When he was young, Bruce hated the smell of linseed oil, but now that his mother is gone, he can only think of the love that existed during these moments when he smells linseed oil.
Bruce’s mother, for as long as he could remember, only ever used oil paints. They were bold, yet layered, could have harsh, strict lines, yet blended to be more delicate than a doily. Bruce stuck with watercolor. Many will say watercolor doesn’t work well and isn't very pigmented. However, if you know what you’re doing, watercolor can be as layered and bold as oil paintings. The only difference in the layers is that covering mistakes isn’t as forgiving of a process. You may always see your mistakes with watercolor, the challenge is trying to incorporate your mistakes with the final piece, so you may live and not be bothered by your fault.
When she died on that fateful day, Bruce only became more enthralled with painting. Putting color to the page was all he could do. It was Bruce’s way of continuing to connect with his mother even when she was gone. He lost everything else, including himself to depression. Painting was something he could do when everything else was too overwhelming; even when eating was too much. Bruce would go days without eating a proper meal, much to Alfred's dismay. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the food, Alfred even tried making his favorite meals just to get him to eat, but Bruce couldn’t stand the thought of having dinner without his mother and father beside him at the table.
Other times, Bruce would cry madly on the floor after finishing a painting until he was all tuckered out and fell asleep on the ground. He didn’t even want to sleep in his own room. The thought of his parents not being there to tuck him in was just too much. He would often wake up in his bed, though. Alfred would carry him to his bed and tuck him in after he fell asleep on the floor. If Bruce could’ve mustered up the energy in his tiny body, he would’ve seen that he wasn’t unloved. Alfred may not be his parents, but Alfred loves Bruce as a father might.
Once Bruce picked up the mantle of Batman, he slowly stopped painting. It wasn’t that he lost the passion of love for it and his mother, he just didn’t have the time or energy. He put his love directly into helping Gotham and her people instead of watercolor. As much as Bruce loved painting what was around him—and his parents to make sure he doesn’t forget what they looked like—he feels like his time is better spent out in the field doing the work to make needed change happen.
Bruce has since banned Alfred from cleaning the atelier. All his and his mother’s paints and supplies are as they left them the days they stopped painting; both of them were in the middle of a piece. Bruce never touched his mother’s palette or easel. He only ever stared at it from across the room. It is a landscape, her specialty. She mostly stuck to what she lived, urban cities like Gotham. She painted light exceptionally well. Somehow, she could always make the tail lights of car and shop signs seem like they were really glowing and not just a splotch. However, this landscape, her last one, was of grasslands with a tree in the distance.
When Bruce asked about it, she said it was from a recurring dream of hers. He was taking a break from his own painting while sitting in his mothers lap. As he breathed in her perfume he could feel his mother’s fingers dilly dally in his hair.
“I’ve never really been to the countryside, never really had the urge to either. But, I keep dreaming of being there with you, Bruce. It is also probably one of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. I can feel the sun on my skin, the breeze in my hair, and you in my arms. We’re meant to be there in my dream, too, I can feel it.
“I’ve always thought of the countryside as mostly empty, but what this dream opened my eyes up to is the love that fills the whole world,”
“You dream of me?”
“Of course I do, honey. I dream of things I love. I dream of food and painting, I dream of taking care of the garden, I dream of traveling, but most of all I dream of people like you and dad.”
“I don’t have a lot of dreams. If I do, I don’t really remember them. I’ve dreamed of you before, though, I think. I don’t know. What if I do dream and I just don’t know? What if I dream of sleeping while sleeping which makes my dreams just seem like no dreams because I’m sleeping?”
“Well, I don’t know. They could be. That would be pretty cool, though, hm.. Gosh your hair is so pretty, sweetie. Maybe your hair is storing all your dreams and not giving them to your brain. Maybe that’s why your hair is so pretty, your hair is made up of your dreams,”
Bruce has replicated this painting while mulling over his mothers words hundreds of times. Every time he replicates it he changes how he finishes it. Sometimes it’s just grass and the tree. Other times he puts in animals like cows. Another time he put in a path to the tree, footworn. But what if it snowed? But what if the trees were turning red and orange for fall? But what if the sun was setting? Or rising? Bruce has thought of it all time and time again and painted it. It has now been a little over three years since he replicated her last piece.
Bruce has been Batman for about four years, is now twenty-seven, and hasn’t painted in three years. Despite it being nineteen years since his parents were shot and killed, he feels more lost than ever. He wakes up every morning sore from the night before, and the previous night, and the previous. He has breakfast, courtesy of Alfred, and leaves for some meetings at Wayne Enterprises. After dealing with the shitshow that his shareholders can be, he goes back home. He eats, then puts the cowl on. Once he ends the night and pulls back into the Batcave, his body becomes leaden with the dread of having to repeat the same thing tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and next year—if he makes it that far.
But would they be proud of him? They surely wouldn’t like how much he gets injured every night. But would they be proud of him? He has the same mission as they did, make Gotham, and in turn the world, a better place. But would they be proud of him? Bruce doesn’t even know who “him” is, so how is he supposed to know? All he knows is something needs to change before Alfred is all alone.
Now, just like his life, the room once full of love and life is blanketed in a cloak of dust. Bruce stands in the door that hasn’t been opened in years watching the haze of dust suspended in the air. Some of the atelier is frozen in time from when he was eight. His mother’s paints and brushes are how she left them last. The water in the watercup has evaporated. The rest of the room is how Bruce left it the last time he picked up a brush. In the same way, he died, too. That’s the part Bruce can’t get over.
While he’s not “over” his parents death, per say, he’s accepted it. If he hadn’t, he would already be gone. Instead, Bruce has opted for a slow-suicide of his own making. His monotonous life leaves him stuck in his head thinking over every decision he has ever made. Regret and survivors-guilt is the rhythm of Bruce’s world. The blessing of this curse is that he knows and has time to save himself. The question is if he can muster up energy in his not-so-tiny body to see how he is supposed to go about saving himself. Bruce knows how to save others he brute force, but he can’t just beat himself up, and send himself off to jail to wake up his will to live.
He stood there, just barely in the doorway, looking. It shouldn’t have been as overwhelming as it was, but Bruce couldn’t get himself to go in. All he could do was stand paralyzed looking into what was once an outlet for all his emotions. Bruce could never talk about how he felt. He has always been a private person, even before his parents died; it only became a problem when his parents died, though. Before, Bruce didn’t have many struggles, how could he? He was an eight year old set to inherit billions of dollars and had a loving family. However, he also didn’t have to tell his parents everything, they could simply tell.
From what he can remember, when Bruce was sad, for whatever reason, his mother would come into his room with his watercoloring supplies and stuff to draw with, and sit with him. There were never any expectations other than co-existing. Sometimes, he didn’t even paint, he just watched and listened to his mother. Watch her hands at work, her hair continually falling into her face from behind her ears, listen to the scratch of pencils on paper, her humming songs his father would play in his study. He would always feel bad about it, but sometimes Bruce interrupted her work to sit in her lap and be held; he didn’t want to only hear her humming, but feel the resonance of her hum.
When they were killed, to try and help him find a way to live without them, Alfred put Bruce into therapy. However, it didn’t go all that well both because he didn’t want to tell people, and because he didn’t have the words to explain how he felt. Even if he did have the words, who were you to tell him he should tell others his innermost thoughts and feelings? That was why he didn’t last in therapy. On top of that, when therapy first started Bruce was still too distraught to make any progress. In the end, he closed the door to the atelier and walked away, this time.
It became routine for Bruce to stand in the doorway of the atelier. Sometimes, when he was really tired, he didn’t even look into the room, but just stood there with his eyes closed, leaning against the doorframe, basking in the presence of the sacred air. During this time, Bruce’s urge to paint came back in full swing. He felt like a man possessed with an obsession. This was the final straw that pushed him to stand in the room. Bruce took a full step into the atelier for the first time in years. It didn’t last long, but one thing about Bruce is that to go too far too fast is to ensure he won’t try it again. Once he reached the edge of the tarp on the ground, he became dazed with memory upon memory rushing back to him. Bruce was so overcome with emotion his teeth hurt and palms tingled. The dam had broken and he was being swept away in the resulting flood. All he could do was turn around, walk out of the room, and close the door with an outwardly calm demeanor.