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do not disguise yourself in armor
Apr. 30th, 2021 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angermanagingTime is a distortion. Sometimes Bruce thinks about that apocryphal anecdote of Einstein's, about the relativity of time being clear after spending an hour with a pretty woman, but that makes him think about Betty and his mind skitters around the subject.
After a few months, the boredom starts to fade into a kind of numbness that blocks out other emotion. Grief means he's supposed to feel something -- and Bruce is no stranger to grief -- but it's like whatever he should be feeling has fully eclipsed his capacity to feel it. His normal coping mechanism of burying himself in work is impossible here of his own volition; he's not about to agree to playing scientist for the military-industrial complex again, putting his head in the sand like that absolves him of the consequences.
Clearly, it hadn't absolved him of anything.
Ironic, really, that he'd spent years searching the Earth for techniques to learn absolute emotional control to no avail, and what had finally done it was Betty's death. Bruce isn't having any trouble feeling nothing now. Since it's impossible for him to die (and he'd tried that first), he's in the second-best place, locked up where he can't hurt anyone. Where he doesn't have to try anymore.
It's this blank malaise that gets sharply, acutely interrupted by the arrival of another prisoner. The implausibly clear walls (Bruce has wondered about their material composition multiple times, a better distraction than Einstein) afford no privacy, so he has a full visual on the dramatics as someone else is dragged in.
Bruce sits up shakily, mind sparking to life. No doubt they're placing them beside one another to glean intel from their eventual conversations, but, well. He's always been terrible at staying out of things.
After a few months, the boredom starts to fade into a kind of numbness that blocks out other emotion. Grief means he's supposed to feel something -- and Bruce is no stranger to grief -- but it's like whatever he should be feeling has fully eclipsed his capacity to feel it. His normal coping mechanism of burying himself in work is impossible here of his own volition; he's not about to agree to playing scientist for the military-industrial complex again, putting his head in the sand like that absolves him of the consequences.
Clearly, it hadn't absolved him of anything.
Ironic, really, that he'd spent years searching the Earth for techniques to learn absolute emotional control to no avail, and what had finally done it was Betty's death. Bruce isn't having any trouble feeling nothing now. Since it's impossible for him to die (and he'd tried that first), he's in the second-best place, locked up where he can't hurt anyone. Where he doesn't have to try anymore.
It's this blank malaise that gets sharply, acutely interrupted by the arrival of another prisoner. The implausibly clear walls (Bruce has wondered about their material composition multiple times, a better distraction than Einstein) afford no privacy, so he has a full visual on the dramatics as someone else is dragged in.
Bruce sits up shakily, mind sparking to life. No doubt they're placing them beside one another to glean intel from their eventual conversations, but, well. He's always been terrible at staying out of things.
