dichotomy of man

I'M AS HUMAN AS ANYONE. independent clark kent based off james gunn's superman. low activity. selective. written by sky. 26. she/her.  ( new to the world of dc, please be gentle ... ) carrd.

❛ oh darling, you know how the underbelly of gotham's criminal elite works. ❜ as she says this, the cat brings her fingers to her mouth, languidly licking the razor-sharp claws attached to the tips of her gloves. there is a trickle of what looks a whole lot like blood on one of her claws, to which selina shrugs and cleans it with her tongue.

She steps towards him, boots clicking against hardwood floors. Quickly, her hands reach to touch him, landing on his shoulders and chest, to confirm he is made of skin and bone and not a ghost made of phantom limbs. She is not as gentle as she usually is, so frantic is she in her assessment, in her need for confirmation. ❛ How are you here? ❜ And not in Arkham, she means. Her eyes are wild with curiosity.

When she (finally) returns, wet and shining, angelic, even, he's grinning, and he expects the muscles in his face to fatigue from the effort after such a long stretch of disuse. His appearance is far off from what it had been when she'd visited him at Arkham, only days before. He's shaved, for one, and already gotten himself into one of his loud tailored suits. No longer does he wear an empty, soul-crushed look in his eyes.

And so, Diana does her best to assuage this cruelty with her softness. Carefully, so as to always offer him the chance to deny her, she takes Two Face's hand and brings it to lay against her cheek, gentle gentle gentle. In doing so, he will feel her smile as well as see it, with the way her lips move against his hand to form the smile. She does not kiss his hand, although the thought occurs to her that she might like very much to do so, but just lets his hand do as he pleases with the softness of her face.

Again, she refrains from entering Bruce into the conversation, refrains from letting him know who allowed them to meet so intimately like this. Neither has it escaped her attention that Two Face has held counsel with his coin, that peculiar extension of him that Diana truthfully has never been certain what to make of it. She has heard that there are times when the guards deny him its company entirely. A rumor she does not need a lasso to confirm. And that had brought her sadness, too, to think of him denied it, even if she did not, could not, understand its significance.

Suddenly, she looks at him with passion in her eyes, that passion of hers that guides all she does. Always, Diana would prefer to feel everything than nothing at all. ❛ How have you been? Truly. ❜ The way she says it is almost a challenge, as though he will not, cannot, lie to her. All this time speaking to him, and it strikes her how she has not asked, how she still does not have the truth from his lips.

Her fingers stroking him makes him shiver, a reaction he fails to stifle completely. Her skin against his feels like coming in from the cold, a warm relief more needed than even he knew until he had it. It'll make her absence that much more painful, but it's awoken something in him that he believed was dead and rotten. He'd hardly even thought of leaving before he saw Diana and asked her to help him--he hadn't seen any point before then. Now, he's made up his mind not to spend another night more in that cell than he has to.

The question makes him scoff incredulously, an automated response. "You want the truth?" he asks, rhetorical. She always wants the truth, even when she doesn't outright say so. "Bad. I've been... it's been bad. But you knew that, right?" It isn't an attempt to make her feel guilty, or any guiltier than she already seems to feel; she must know that already.

Diana tilts her face, and speaks before she can think better of it: ❛ I have known you to be capable of the most gentle love. The most passionate love, too. ❜ She allows this to linger between them, to touch them both. Their time night not be endless, but they are deserving of moments that are not rushed. Her smile that basks in sunlight quite suddenly shows the strain of sorrow, once again.

❛ Monsters? I have known them. And they are not you. ❜ The strength of her body is rivaled by the certainty of her heart. There is a flash, something small but meaningful, that shocks her memory. One that reminds her of just how many monsters she has known, just how many she will meet. Two Face is not one of them.

Monsters cannot love others the way he loves her...

Still, he has committed horrors, has he not? He is capable of inflicting pain, as well as gifting love. He has terrorized Gotham before, this is true. He has done enough to end up here, for Bruce to decide this is where the "best place" is for him. She frowns.

❛ You are not a monster, and I would... I want to believe I would do anything to have you free of this place. ❜ Can he tell already this is not the answer he wants? ❛ Gotham is the territory of the Batman. My ally. My friend. Even Superman does not interfere with this city. Cannot interfere.... ❜

He's so certain she's going to agree. Of course she is, after saying those things. But he doesn't get the answer he's expecting, and his face falls a bit, his gaze dropping and head lowering for a moment as he takes it in. It would be easy to get angry with her, too, and he almost does, but he doesn't want to be. It isn't really her saying no, is it? It's him. Batman, who has been nothing but a pain, his tormentor, almost since the beginning, determined to make Two-Face's life more difficult than it needs to be. After all he, and even Harvey, have done for him.

Slowly, shakily, he inhales, lifting his head and looking into her eyes again. He could argue, insist that she has to, that leaving him here is the same as putting him here, but the time that's passed between them, with him agonizing over her nightly, then seeing her again today... no, he can't. She might change her mind and take back all of those things she said -- except she wouldn't, he knows she wouldn't... but she might leave again. And it's Batman's fault, after all, not hers.

"And he says we belong here. Right." Difficult as it may be to be angry with Diana right now, Bruce doesn't have the same luxury, the gruff ire of his voice laying it out, plain and bare. Two-Face's jaw clenches, his exposed teeth visibly grinding together. His right hand releases her arm and fishes into his breast pocket to retrieve his coin, flipping and catching it with a practiced ease. Scarred side. He doesn't let Diana see the outcome before he puts it back.

Instead, she stays in this moment, this moment where she has not hurt him, he has not hurt her, and although the future feels bleak, they can savor the present. Does he know how deeply she wishes he could leave with her? Already, it strikes her as cruel all over again, how there is never enough time. Diana might be ageless, she might be immortal, yet even she must surrender to such a fragile concept.

Sorrow threatens to return, only soon, she is appreciating his hands against hers. She does not squeeze his fingers as much as she wriggles them to confirm to him that she is a real, this is neither dream nor nightmare, but reality. The moment may be fleeting, but it belongs to them.

❛ I was not sure if was fair of me to say this. I'm still not... ❜ Finally, there's the smile, the smile just for him, without her teeth. It dances in her eyes too, those eyes that have spent endless nights crying for all that happened to him. ❛ But I missed you, ❜ she admits, and it was inevitable for her to do so, even though she is still uncertain whether she has the right to say it.

Something like relief fills him when she finally smiles, and it's so familiar, despite how she's been completely absent from his life for the past three years. It's just the way he remembers, having etched everything he could about her into his brain, her image carved into the inside of his skull, a permanent fixture in his heart and soul. Even if she hurts him again, he does not want to forget.

It's almost hard to believe her when she says that she missed him. In part, yes, because of how things went before, but it's difficult for him to fathom that anyone could miss him, that she might have enjoyed his presence at all, much less enough to miss it when he was no longer there. So often the people he loves have only loved Harvey, and saw him as his disease that needed curing. A cancer to be cut out and thrown away. Even Bruce sees him that way.

Before she's finished speaking, he's shaking his head, looking down towards their hands, still gripping hers hard, like a lifeline. It's still difficult to accept that she's real. "No. Of course I did." His eye meets her gaze when he looks back up, with a look of steadfast earnest.

It would make her feel better if he told her he didn't miss her, or if he at least lied or even withheld how badly he did, but his love is selfish like a child's, and he does not feel inclined to assuage her guilt. "I thought about you every day. I was angry, for a long time." Until he saw her today, in fact.

"I wanted you to come back. No one ever talked to me like you did. Like a... a person, y'know? You don't treat me like a monster." Being vulnerable isn't something he struggles with as much as one might assume. He isn't prideful enough. Too desperate for any shred of affection, and too self-loathing to care .

There is a sudden flush to Diana's cheeks, olive skin turning pink, and for less than a moment, she turns her gaze away. But he deserves more, so much more than she has ever offered, so she gives him the fullness of her attention. When he takes her hand, her pink flush deepens. It does not resemble that of a blushing schoolgirl, which evokes inexperience, but rather, that of a woman who knows passion.

He will not like anything she has to say. Neither will she. So instead of speaking, she entwines her fingers in his, locking them together. Her fingertips brush over the skin of his knuckles. It is always a wonder, how her flesh remains smooth, remains clean, despite all the blood and all the war. Her body will always heal her.

She wishes she could heal him, too.

Her fingers tighten around his. ❛ I'm not so sure there will be an after this, ❜ She clears her throat, the admission threatening to strangle her. ❛ I tried. I pled your case, tried to convince him that this wasn't the place for you. The attorney in you would have been proud. ❜ Finally, there is a hint of the smile. Fuck the phrase that speaks of stealing the moon from the sky. Diana is made of both stars and sunshine.

Until, once again, the sadness of truth creeps back in. ❛ But he... he thinks this is the best place for you. ❜ Need she really say the name? Bruce is the judge and jury of Gotham. The executioner, too, even though he's loathe to admit it.

❛ I... I can visit. I can. ❜ They all know it's a promise she wants to keep.

Now it's her turn to leave a long silence between them, but he waits. He can be patient. His hands stay tight around hers, like he's afraid she'll fall out of reach.

His brow twitches when she starts, and his eyes narrow as she continues. The sour feelings rise up in him with great intensity, yet he keeps himself mostly composed. The best place? Here? This is the best place he could be? The sorrow comes back, but it's quickly, almost suddenly overtaken by rage. Interestingly, after a few moments with his eye closed, it's gone once he opens it again. It doesn't surprise him that he would say that, but he wishes it did. The anger he feels, the hurt, it isn't gone, but he doesn't matter right now. Two-Face doesn't need him, anyway. Not if he has her.

"Oh." What else can he say about that? His eyes are drawn back to hers when she insists she can visit. Not will. Can. He notices, but chooses not to dwell on it, instead tucking it back into his memory, maybe knowing in some part of himself that he might want to remember it later on.

Then, he speaks, so suddenly, and her body nearly shakes from something akin to shock. Diana has never admitted this, to no one but herself anyways, how she finds voices the most difficult aspects of a person to remember. Of him, she remembers every detail of his face, the nuance of his hands, the surprising softness of his kisses. Yet, his voice, she could not quite place. It had faded, that first year they were apart. It is much the same with her Steve Trevor, how she remembers the sparkling blue of his eyes and the warmness of his touch, yet his voice is lost to her, forever.

Her lip trembles, now, to hear him speak, his voice like a lost gift she thought she would never recover. She has always had a particular smile for him. At him, she would always smile with her lips, no sign of the white teeth beneath them. He had enough teeth in his life, enough to bite him. To everyone she meets, everyone she knows and loves, Diana wishes to be a safe haven. Now, she wonders, how grandly she has failed him. So, she does not smile, not exactly. Even though her lips do remain softly pressed together and her eyes, although sad, have sincere softness to them.

All this thinking, all this wondering, that Diana nearly forgets to respond to him with words of her own. There are so many things she wants to say, and she's not so certain she deserves to give speech to any of them. ❛ I wanted to see you. I was not so sure you wanted to see me, ❜ she says finally, truthfully. ❛ Yet, all the same, I wanted you to know, needed you to know, that you have not been forgotten. ❜

The words are even more difficult to decipher. It's almost like she's speaking a language unknown to him, with her intentions so impossible to determine. It hurts, too, thinking about how things ended up.

There's another long gap of silence after she speaks. The indifferent front he'd flimsily put in place is already crumbling into nothing. He feels everything too loudly, always, but especially with her.

"Do you..." He wants to ask if she wants to be with him now. It sounds like it. That's what he wants it to mean. "Yeah. I wanted to." He's normally so good at being angry, but it's been too long, and it burned away the moment he saw her sitting there, her perfect face framed with her soft, black hair. Right now, he just wants to take her hand in his.

He's still shaking when he does it, leaning close and squeezing hard, too hard, if she'd been anyone else. There are a thousand questions on his mind, all too stupidly hopeful, but she said she wanted to see him. Why would she tell him she wants him to know he's been on her mind if she hadn't changed it?