P o s s e s s i v e m u c h ? Batmanxjoker

22- REGRET

Dream:

Bruce: "Dad? What are you doing in the garden late this late?"

Thomas Wayne: "I'm planting Scorpion grasses. Come help me."

Bruce: "What are Scorpion grasses?"

Thomas Wayne: "You know them by another name, Forget-me-nots. They are perennials that regrow themselves year after year."

Bruce: "Why are you planting them?"

Thomas Wayne: "Are you proud of yourself Bruce?"

Bruce: "What?"

Thomas Wayne: " Are you proud? Can you honestly look me in the eye and say you're proud of the life you're living?"

Bruce: "That's such a random question, i-i don't understand."

Thomas: I'm not proud of you Bruce."

[END OF DREAM]

Bruce woke up with a start, he was panting heavily whilst ducking in and out of consciousness. His heart was all over the place as he looked around his surroundings, to his relief he was in his room, not outside in the garden with his father.

"Oh god." Bruce breathed, sweat was trickling down his forehead but yet he felt cold.

My dream, what the hell? Bruce buried his face in his hands, replaying the sequences of his bizarre yet dark dream. In his dream he awoken just like now, he was unable to sleep, his eyes refused to remain closed. Bruce could feel nothing but a dull ache as he tried to drift to sleep, eventually he grew tired of waiting for the drowsiness. He wandered around aimlessly, finding no comfort in whatever room he entered, he continued to wander until he found himself outside, something about Wayne manor's garden attracted him. He walked amongst the flowers in his garden, he saw a figure in kneeling in the dirt, an array of gardening tools surrounding him, it was his father. In his dream Bruce approached him, caring not whether he was alive or dead, in this moment he just wanted to see his father, Bruce struck up a conversation with him. The nature of the conversation was quite strange. Bruce noticed as his father spoke his eyes were so closely glued to the forget -me-nots, he smiled as he dug up a small hole in the ground. The conversation had started off very peculiar but became darker with each passing second. The way his father spoke echoed through him, each word landed in hardly, but it was only when his father told him of disappointment that Bruce really felt horrible.

"I'm not proud of you Bruce."

It was the look of disappointment in his father's eyes, his father's once warm and inquisitive eyes were cold and spiteful. It left a hollow feeling in Bruce's chest, never in his years of living had his father said something like that to him or voiced his grievances towards his son. Bruce felt anxious, if father could see what he had become he would be more than disappointed. He sat with his arms in his lap, he knew it was only a dream, baseless imagination built of his subconsciousness. But that's what made it so frightening, it was his subconscious telling him he was disappointed with himself. Scientist often pressed the idea that dreams were our deepest desires or past events. Bruce found it scary that his imagination could conjure up something so devious. But he knew this was the way his brain was punishing him. His subconscious used someone he looked up to in order shame him and open up his eyes.

There's only one reason. There could only be one. Bruce fully well knew why he would be plagued with such dreams. He had done the wrong thing. For days, even weeks now he'd kept the Joker captive, he knew it was beyond the scope of being a hero, it was practically an abuse of power. He'd thought he really was doing it for the good of Gotham, that somehow this twisted act could be justified because it came from a good place. Bruce had let his need for control cloud his judgement of what being a hero was. It's just a shame I needed Alfred to call me out on it to fucking see what I was doing was wrong.