[They're old all of the sudden, she says. The bell looks like it hasn't physically been used in years.
Bruce's brows come together despite the otherwise stillness of his body, despite the way his gaze follows the shape until he can't follow it any further. A puzzle piece then. He'll need to move it. Around the corner and presumably still on the staircase, he can hear the creak and groan of a well-worn step. It's the kind of demonstrative performance he would expect from Mary, a child seeing the details separated from the context.
Their voices continue conversationally and Bruce's palms find the stone floor underneath him, a point of leverage to push himself up.]
Your observations suggest that the passage of time happened in seconds. But perhaps they didn't change at all.
[For the angle and for his height, it means that only his hair and the top half of his face are visible around the pews.]
Those hallucinations just finished. It's possible that the stairs and the bell have been like that all along, that they haven't changed and instead only our perception of them has.
[This isn't a difficult leap for him to make. Of course it seems less possible for time to run in reverse and then move in fast forward, treated like a cassette tape of Beacon's history meant for only their viewing. But Bruce has seen less-possible things happen hundreds of times in Gotham. He's seen people do things they shouldn't be capable of, he's seen people die only to walk down the city streets again. But it's more plausible, he's found, to control people than to control a space. It wouldn't be unlike Crane's fear toxin; the mind has always been more powerful than the body.
He climbs to his feet and lingers there, too close to the pew.]
no subject
Bruce's brows come together despite the otherwise stillness of his body, despite the way his gaze follows the shape until he can't follow it any further. A puzzle piece then. He'll need to move it. Around the corner and presumably still on the staircase, he can hear the creak and groan of a well-worn step. It's the kind of demonstrative performance he would expect from Mary, a child seeing the details separated from the context.
Their voices continue conversationally and Bruce's palms find the stone floor underneath him, a point of leverage to push himself up.]
Your observations suggest that the passage of time happened in seconds. But perhaps they didn't change at all.
[For the angle and for his height, it means that only his hair and the top half of his face are visible around the pews.]
Those hallucinations just finished. It's possible that the stairs and the bell have been like that all along, that they haven't changed and instead only our perception of them has.
[This isn't a difficult leap for him to make. Of course it seems less possible for time to run in reverse and then move in fast forward, treated like a cassette tape of Beacon's history meant for only their viewing. But Bruce has seen less-possible things happen hundreds of times in Gotham. He's seen people do things they shouldn't be capable of, he's seen people die only to walk down the city streets again. But it's more plausible, he's found, to control people than to control a space. It wouldn't be unlike Crane's fear toxin; the mind has always been more powerful than the body.
He climbs to his feet and lingers there, too close to the pew.]
Peter, could you help me move this please?