"You can hate me if you want. You can blame me for how badly I failed you, your mother, myself, your grandfather and the rest of the goddamned world, and I won't argue with you."
His voice is a bit more haggard, now, and his eyes are showing his age.
"I can think more thoughts in a second than you can manage in an hour, and everything that goes on in my head is shaded by that one horrible failure. EVERY MINUTE of EVERY DAY, there's my best friend, the one guy who always had my back, looking at me with those stoic eyes and that knowing nod, scolding me for everything I do wrong, and lingering so I never feel good about what I do right."
He swallows back bile. "He's scolded me a lot. He hates what I've become, and he'd hate the road you're on, but I'm not going to let him hate what you become. Never. I don't care if I have to treadmill back from the end of time. You will never be a killer."
His lips curl.
"Or the same thing happens to you that happened to every last one of the Rogues. The same thing that's happened to all those Arkhamites who can't escape anymore. The same thing that happened to the Joker once I finally realized I was going to hell and it didn't matter for me anymore. All it took was a little self-taught anatomy to learn the exact right place on the human spine that severs all motor functions to the body."
Fists clench.
"None of those bastards are escaping anymore. They won't kill anyone else ever again. And if you turn into one of those evil pieces of shit that thinks it's okay to take someone else's life just because you're angry... well, I'm sure your father would agree with me that you're better off paralyzed from the neck down than you are ambulatory and lethal."
The tone is as cold as the mountain air.
"That's your choice, Mary. Do right by your parents, or answer to me. It's that simple."
no subject
"You can hate me if you want. You can blame me for how badly I failed you, your mother, myself, your grandfather and the rest of the goddamned world, and I won't argue with you."
His voice is a bit more haggard, now, and his eyes are showing his age.
"I can think more thoughts in a second than you can manage in an hour, and everything that goes on in my head is shaded by that one horrible failure. EVERY MINUTE of EVERY DAY, there's my best friend, the one guy who always had my back, looking at me with those stoic eyes and that knowing nod, scolding me for everything I do wrong, and lingering so I never feel good about what I do right."
He swallows back bile. "He's scolded me a lot. He hates what I've become, and he'd hate the road you're on, but I'm not going to let him hate what you become. Never. I don't care if I have to treadmill back from the end of time. You will never be a killer."
His lips curl.
"Or the same thing happens to you that happened to every last one of the Rogues. The same thing that's happened to all those Arkhamites who can't escape anymore. The same thing that happened to the Joker once I finally realized I was going to hell and it didn't matter for me anymore. All it took was a little self-taught anatomy to learn the exact right place on the human spine that severs all motor functions to the body."
Fists clench.
"None of those bastards are escaping anymore. They won't kill anyone else ever again. And if you turn into one of those evil pieces of shit that thinks it's okay to take someone else's life just because you're angry... well, I'm sure your father would agree with me that you're better off paralyzed from the neck down than you are ambulatory and lethal."
The tone is as cold as the mountain air.
"That's your choice, Mary. Do right by your parents, or answer to me. It's that simple."