DEATHSTROKE.

‍ ‍no one can be batman, but someone can represent what he stood for . the ideals that made batman — justice, consequence, and ironclad resolve to protect : and truly there is none other that has the wherewithal to uphold the ideals better than you, richard grayson . ‍

(+) the motions automatic . his mind felt clouded . foggy . he knew there were things he needed to do, wounds he needed to take care of, but all he wanted to do was lie down . not that sleep had been a good friend of his recently . grunting, his fist clenched .

dreamily gazing towards the west he sit, watching the last remnants of defused light, slowly dematerialize, far off on the horizon . twilight is turning into night, breeze is nil, darkness descends . no moon tonight but the stars that shine .

‍ ‍ it is a soul that waits with patience as the cold storm approaches ‍ obscured by the severe grimace ‍ created by the long battle scars . ‍

“They say skydiving is for people with a death wish. I've come to learn it's for people with a life wish. A wish for things to be as amazing as jumping out of a plane on a beautiful clear day from so high up that you feel you can almost (+) ‍

(+) touch the stars. And thats what I am going to do soon. Make the great leap. Touch the stars. Not as Nightwing. Not as a Titan. Not even as an Outsider. Just as me, my own self. Richard Grayson.”

it was all over the news ; the deaths, many deaths of people caused by a virus . humans turned into monster, a corrupted being, zombies . what was meant to be a cure in the beginning turned into a calamity . how could this happened ? dick could barely (+)

(+) comprehend . for a short moment he thought this was simply another bad dream he had in his sleep, but the pain of the wound on his body awakened him, tickling his consciousness . this was (+)

(+) no dream . his brows dipped into clear agitation, sapphire-like blue eyes wandering around, searching for his phone . sweats pouring down his face . bruce, alfred, his * ( family ) . he need to make sure they're okay . #ViralStrife

(+) apartment felt oppressive after the roar of the wind had been deafening him for the last two hours . he stumbled into his bedroom, not bothering to even turn on the lights, and headed straight for his closet . he pulled off his domino mask and escrima sticks first, (+)

(+) it had been years since they'd worked side by side, but even here his mind wouldn't let him escape * ( his ) shadow . it was well after two in the morning by the time dick climbed inside through his window, every inch of his body throbbing . the silence of his (+)

(+) being paranoid ? at this point, he half expected to see the two-pronged shadow of batman's cowl even if the logical side of him kept insisting that nothing short of gotham's complete destruction could make him take the forty minute trip south to bludhaven . (+)

(+) had none of their subtlety or brains . so, * ( where ) were they ? as he swung over two more abandoned blocks, he began to tense . did someone scare off the lowlifes, either a hero or a villain ? was he missing something obvious or was he just (+)

(+) war on the other end of town couldn't have been all the illegal activity that was happening in a shithole like bludhaven on a saturday night . in gotham, quiet nights meant one of the bigger fish in the pond were planning something big, but the big fish in bludhaven (+)

(+) foreign that night . the streets he passed over were uncharacteristically quiet, providing him with no distraction from the burning of his injuries as he strained them again and again . he was naturally suspicious of quiet nights . two drug busts and a gang (+)

(+) he'd never admit to anyone just how long it took him to reach the other end of the rooftop or how crisscrossed his path to get there was . after that, he allowed muscle memory to take over . the path back to his place was a familiar one from this area, but it seemed (+)

(+) to tend to a lot of wounds later . he forced himself to keep moving, ignoring the dull pain emanating from every inch of his body . light striped across his body before fleeing in a continuous game of tag . the overall effect was nauseating and he knew (+)

(+) simple swing, but he couldn't rest yet . not when his apartment was only eight blocks away . the masked vigilante tumbled onto the opposite rooftop with a sloppy roll, wincing as the tears in his suit were torn even wider, his skin tearing along with it . he have (+)

he couldn't breathe . his lungs burned as he cleared another rooftop, sweat rolling down his face despite the cold wind buffeting his body from all sides . blaring horns filled the air as he neared the highway, the ever present sound of police and (+)

(+) ambulance sirens drowning out any peaceful hum the city might have had . there hadn't been a single quiet night since he'd come to bludhaven ; tonight was no exception and he had the bruises to prove it . he fired a quick shot with his grappling hook and leapt off the (+)