#( ok so even if helena wasn't a noisy baby it doesn't matter bc bruce sees her tear up the SLIGHTEST BIT and he instantly goes mental )

[batologia]

❝ i would've come sooner. i would've been here if you'd only asked. ❞

MISC SENTENCE STARTERS WITH A DASH OF ANGST * accepting

  In the passing years, it has become easier to conceal the truth from his family. Some may argue that he has always been a gifted liar, right from the very beginning. From the very moment his broken hands dared to attempt to clumsily built this lumpy, uneven foundation of this terrible, beautiful thing that he could call his family. To an extent, they would not be incorrect. Even then, so many years ago, he had mastered a great portion of the art of deceit. What they fail to realize is that he has always been a poor, poor liar towards their faces. They had all been children then: so small, so believing. He did not doubt that if they heard half the things he had said to them then right now, they would be able to see through his paper thin lies in an instant.

  It is perhaps fortunate that as his children had grown up, he too had grown old. Filth is a familiar taste in his mouth, sitting alongside white lies &&. fraud. Yet, could he be entirely blamed for it? There is no one good parent in this world who do not lie to their children: about Santa Claus, about the tooth fairy, about their hopes &&. their dreams, about what came before the children, about what will come after. It is only natural. It is part of their DNA, of their genetic material, to soothe their children. To lie, to bury the truth six feet deep, underneath the casket of their parents that came before them, in the desperate hopes to maintain their children’s happiness. Bruce is a parent. A father. Against all odds. For all of his faults, he still wishes his children all of the joys in the world &&. none of the sorrows.

  Bruce looks at his daughter now, Helena / @batheir so grown &&. so, so far away from his baby girl whom he had so despairingly cradled in his arms. She is her own woman. She is his precious little girl. She is strong, tough, &&. courageous. She is everything he has hoped for her to become yet feared of her becoming. He still cannot stop himself from seeing the baby who weeps when she is sleepy &&. exhaustion has taken a toll on her. She was an achingly loud baby: Bruce wants to stop the motions of the world the moment her lips part &&. a cry is torn out of her lips.

  Helena looks at him now, fierce &&. incredible, &&. Bruce doesn’t know what to do with his hands. So, he ducks his head low, and he looks at his open palms instead. They are bleeding. They were bleeding, earlier, where glass had dug right into the tender meat of his hands when he had crawled out of a caved in building. It is not the worst injury he has sustained, but it is the longest that he has gone, injured on the field, without calling for backup.

  Bruce knew Helena was there, on the other side of the comm-line, just one order away, but he couldn’t make himself call for her. He still can’t. The Bat will have to endure more injuries, more time-offs, but Bruce cannot call Helena. He cannot call her daughter. He cannot let her see just how far he had fallen since his youth — just how broken he had made himself in a futile attempt to fix something that he has long ago suspected would eternally remain in ruins. He cannot. He is still a father. He is still her father. He still cannot find the right words to say … or any words at all.