There aren't a lot of times Batman thinks that out in the field-- not sincerely, anyway. Often he might kick over a particularly mangled corpse, or observe someone doing something spectacularly foolish, and think, exasperated, What the fuck. But moments like this, well and truly flummoxed, are rare.
Red and blue and like a freight train. Oh, he thinks, at the same time as Oh, shit.
Gotham thugs are a vicious sort. The second wave does not all try to shoot Superman; shooting the mortal one just backfired, after all, and they have in fact seen the news once or twice. Instead only one unloads a full-auto clip into the Kryptonian, an attempt at a distraction while two other men scramble into the other room, to the hostages - civilians from a neighboring county, trafficked, here for no other reason than to act as shields in the event of running into the Bat.
Or, now, the Alien.
Bruce moves, but it's not fast enough to nab both of them. He gets the nearest man and pulls, sending the bullet in his handgun astray, clipping a bound woman in the shoulder instead of her chest where he'd been aiming. Because why not kill someone right off the bat to show the costumed freaks they're serious? Batman is negotiable. Batman is a known factor. Superman is escalation. The second man is in with them, holding a gun to the back of someone's head, shouting. The woman who's been hit is sobbing into the layers of grimy duct tape around her mouth.
no subject
the
fuck.
There aren't a lot of times Batman thinks that out in the field-- not sincerely, anyway. Often he might kick over a particularly mangled corpse, or observe someone doing something spectacularly foolish, and think, exasperated, What the fuck. But moments like this, well and truly flummoxed, are rare.
Red and blue and like a freight train. Oh, he thinks, at the same time as Oh, shit.
Gotham thugs are a vicious sort. The second wave does not all try to shoot Superman; shooting the mortal one just backfired, after all, and they have in fact seen the news once or twice. Instead only one unloads a full-auto clip into the Kryptonian, an attempt at a distraction while two other men scramble into the other room, to the hostages - civilians from a neighboring county, trafficked, here for no other reason than to act as shields in the event of running into the Bat.
Or, now, the Alien.
Bruce moves, but it's not fast enough to nab both of them. He gets the nearest man and pulls, sending the bullet in his handgun astray, clipping a bound woman in the shoulder instead of her chest where he'd been aiming. Because why not kill someone right off the bat to show the costumed freaks they're serious? Batman is negotiable. Batman is a known factor. Superman is escalation. The second man is in with them, holding a gun to the back of someone's head, shouting. The woman who's been hit is sobbing into the layers of grimy duct tape around her mouth.
He is pulling the trigger.