It was the evening of December 25th, and northern Vermont lay buried beneath a suffocating weight of snow. Pine trees stood like silent sentinels beneath a steel-gray sky, their branches heavy and unmoving, while snow drifted lazily through the air, catching what little moonlight slipped between the canopy and casting the forest in a dim, ghostly glow. The world felt paused—quiet, but not peaceful. The kind of quiet that suggested something was waiting.
That stillness broke under the low crunch of tires as a battered, matte-black Ford Crown Victoria pushed its way along the narrow road. The engine hummed low, the car's weight grinding softly through snow and gravel. Once a proud police interceptor, it had long since been stripped of dignity—paint dulled, body scarred, windows scratched into a permanent haze by years of abuse. It looked forgettable by design. That was the point.
Inside, it was anything but.
Frank Armstrong drove, and at thirty-five he had the look of a man who had carved himself down to function—everything unnecessary stripped away. Lean, controlled, precise. His short blonde hair was kept tight, his jaw clean, his blue eyes fixed forward with an intensity that made even empty roads feel like problems waiting to be solved. He wore practical gear—dark sweater, tactical vest, cargo pants, boots. Everything had a place. Everything made sense.
Frank made sense.
Bruce did not.
Bruce Redford filled the passenger seat like something forced into a shape too small to contain it—six-foot-eight, three hundred and fifty pounds of bulk and imbalance, knees jammed against the dash, elbows bumping the door with every slight movement. His head leaned awkwardly against the window, sunglasses—scratched to near-opacity—still clinging stubbornly to his face despite the darkness. He looked like a man who had dressed himself in the dark using only bad decisions.
A stained gray hoodie stretched across his massive frame, sleeves frayed where he'd picked at them, threads hanging loose like exposed nerves. His vest—if it could still be called that—was patched together with duct tape in places where it had simply given up. His jeans were worn thin at the knees, and his sneakers looked like they had survived something they shouldn't have.
Bruce didn't notice. Or didn't care.
Across his lap rested his rifle—an AR-15, decorated in a way that made no sense. Bright stickers clung to the matte black surface: smiling cartoon bunnies peeling at the edges, and near the grip, a small, worn image of Yoda stared outward with quiet, misplaced wisdom. Bruce's massive hand moved slowly along the barrel, almost absentmindedly, like someone petting a dog that couldn't bite back.
Frank glanced at him once, then looked away. He'd learned not to ask.
Silence settled between them—not the easy kind, but the kind built over time. Years of it. Missions stacked on top of each other until words stopped being necessary.
The car rolled forward through the snow, steady, until something shifted at the roadside—a flicker, small and fast. Frank saw it immediately; his eyes caught everything. He didn't react.
Bruce did.
"O-OH SHIT, STOP—!"
His entire body lunged forward, hands slamming against the dashboard as if impact was inevitable. Frank hit the brakes hard, and the Crown Vic skidded, tires biting into ice and gravel as snow burst into the headlights in a sudden wash of white.
Then everything stopped.
A gray rat stood frozen in the beam of light—tiny, fragile, completely insignificant. It twitched once, then bolted, vanishing into the dark.
Frank turned his head slowly. "You screamed like we were about to kill a child."
Bruce sank back into his seat, breathing heavily, face flushed—not with fear anymore, but relief. His hand returned to the rifle, gripping it lightly. "I-I'm sorry," he muttered. "B-but you s-saw him, right? H-he made it."
Frank stared at him. "It's a rat."
Bruce shook his head slightly, eyes still fixed on where it had disappeared. "Yeah… b-but not really."
Frank said nothing, and Bruce swallowed before trying again, slower this time, forcing the words out like they mattered. "S-some people… they g-get roads, you know? C-clear ones. N-no one chases them. N-no one tries to k-kill them." His thumb brushed over Yoda's face. "S-some don't. S-some just r-run. A-all the time. S-scared. A-alone." He exhaled quietly. "Th-that little guy… he k-kept going anyway."
Frank looked forward again, and for a moment he didn't speak. Then, quieter, "We're almost there."
Bruce nodded. That was enough.
The road stretched on through the trees until the forest finally opened, and the mansion revealed itself—a sprawling ski lodge dressed up as something warm and inviting, Christmas lights draped across balconies, golden light spilling from frosted windows. The illusion of comfort was carefully maintained, but it didn't hold up under scrutiny. Not to them.
The front yard was packed—SUVs, muscle cars, high-end sedans scattered across the snow like a graveyard of bad decisions. Thirty, maybe forty vehicles. Each one belonged to someone inside. Someone dangerous.
Frank slowed the car and guided it off the road into the shadows behind a cluster of pine trees. The engine dropped to a low hum before dying completely, and silence returned.
Both men stared ahead.
Bruce wasn't looking at the house. His gaze had drifted to the side, locking onto the fuel tank—large, industrial, red paint dulled by time, rust creeping along its edges. It sat too close to the building, close enough to feel wrong.
Or, to Bruce—
Right.
He stared at it, unmoving, something settling behind his eyes. Not curiosity. Not concern. Certainty.
Frank reached for the radio. "Unit Bravo-Fourteen—"
Bruce's hand stopped him—not forcefully, just enough.
Frank turned, irritation already there. "Bruce—"
"Th-that's it."
Frank blinked. "What?"
Bruce didn't look at him. "Th-that's how we d-do it."
Frank followed his gaze to the tank, then back to Bruce. "No."
Bruce nodded slowly, like the answer didn't matter. "Y-yeah."
"Bruce, no."
"I-it's perfect."
Frank exhaled sharply, forcing control into his voice. "There are at least fifty people in that building."
"E-exactly."
"That's not a good thing."
"It is f-for this."
Frank stared at him, disbelief creeping in. "You're not serious."
Bruce finally turned and pulled off his sunglasses. His eyes weren't confused. They weren't uncertain. They were calm.
That was worse.
"W-we call this in," Bruce said, voice steady in its broken way, "a-and it t-turns into a s-standoff. H-hours. M-maybe longer." Frank didn't interrupt. "P-people d-die. G-good people." Bruce gestured toward the mansion. "T-they g-get deals. L-light sentences. T-they walk." A beat. "Th-then they k-keep going."
Frank shook his head. "That's not how this works."
"N-no," Bruce said quietly. "I-it is."
Frank dragged a hand over his face. "You don't just blow up a building because it's convenient."
Bruce glanced back at the tank. "Th-that's not c-convenience." A pause. "Th-that's God p-putting it there."
Frank let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Jesus Christ."
Bruce opened the door, and cold air rushed in. "I-I'm sorry, Frank."
Then he was gone.
Frank sat there for half a second longer, staring at the open door, then muttered, "Goddammit," and moved.
He was out of the car in one motion, around to the trunk, grabbing gear with practiced speed—helmet, rifle, ammo—his hands working automatically even as every part of his brain screamed that this was wrong. He slammed the trunk shut and broke into a run, boots crunching through snow as he cut toward the edge of the clearing and dropped behind a parked SUV. He crouched low, scanning, rifle up, breathing steady and controlled—professional, always professional.
He keyed his mic. "Bruce, I'm at your six. Behind the black SUV. Confirm—"
Nothing.
Frank closed his eyes briefly, exhaling through his nose. "Of course you forgot your radio."
He leaned slightly, peering around the vehicle.
Bruce was already halfway there, a massive silhouette moving through the snow, slow but unstoppable, like something that had already decided how this was going to end.
Inside the lodge, the lights still glowed warm, music low, bodies scattered and unaware of anything beyond their own noise and comfort. Outside, Frank tightened his grip on the rifle, jaw set, eyes tracking movement through stillness that wasn't really still at all. This was wrong—every part of it—but he was here because Bruce was here, and that had always been enough.
Snow continued to fall, soft and indifferent, settling over the rows of cars, over the roof of the lodge, over the path Bruce carved forward with each heavy step as he moved through the clearing toward the fuel tank, toward something final. His breath rolled out in thick clouds that vanished as quickly as they formed, each step crunching louder than he wanted, his size turning stealth into a suggestion rather than a skill. The tank loomed larger with every stride, rusted red surface dulled by frost, warning labels peeling but still visible in the pale wash of moonlight. It sat too close to the building—too close to be safe, too close to be acceptable.
To Bruce, it was perfect.
He stopped in front of it, staring for a moment as if waiting for something—confirmation, maybe, or permission—but when none came, he nodded to himself anyway, like he'd gotten it. Then, with surprising care, he reached into his hoodie pocket, fingers fumbling through the usual mess—coins, lint, a crushed candy wrapper—before closing around something solid. He pulled his hand out slowly, revealing a handful of novelty lighters, clutched together like small, ridiculous relics.
Bruce didn't smoke. Never had. He'd bought them months ago at a convention because they made him feel like something else—cooler, maybe, or braver, like the kind of guy who had plans and knew how to follow through on them. They were supposed to be gifts—Frank's kids would've liked them—but somehow they'd never left his pocket, carried around instead like quiet little promises of a version of himself that made more sense than the one he actually was.
Now they sat in his palm.
A Darth Vader lighter—Your Empire Needs YOU—the dark figure pointing outward like it was blaming him personally. A black-and-gold Lord of the Rings lighter, etched with One Ring to Rule Them All. Another, more chaotic—Gandalf locked in defiance against the Balrog, frozen mid-battle. A simple one that didn't quite belong: Work Hard & Be Nice to People. And the last—clean, polished, almost sincere: Light the Way to Your Dreams.
Bruce stared at them a second longer than necessary, something unreadable passing through his expression, then he smiled—small, crooked, but real.
"Alright," he murmured to no one.
He crouched, placing two of them carefully into the snow near the base of the tank—the Vader lighter and the Ring—then flipped them open with clumsy precision, thumbs pressing down until—
click.
Two small flames came to life, flickering weakly in the cold air, fragile and unimpressive, like they had no business being part of something bigger. Bruce leaned back slightly, studying them as if they were exactly that—important, deliberate, meaningful.
"Timers," he whispered, satisfied.
He stood again and turned toward the valve. Up close, it looked heavier, older, the kind of thing that resisted being moved just out of spite. He grabbed it with both hands and twisted.
Nothing.
He adjusted his grip, planting his boots more firmly, and tried again—harder this time.
The metal screamed.
A long, grinding shriek tore through the quiet night, echoing off the trees and the lodge like something alive and very unhappy about what was happening to it.
Bruce froze.
Every muscle locked.
"…oh no."
From inside the mansion, a voice cut through—muffled, irritated, already halfway to angry.
"Hey! Who's messing with my car?!"
Bruce's eyes widened. "Sh-shit."
He moved fast—or as fast as someone his size could—rounding the corner of the building and pressing himself flat against the wall, which didn't work very well because there was simply too much of him to disappear properly. Still, he tried, sucking in his stomach like that was going to solve anything.
His hand went instinctively for his radio.
Nothing.
Bruce blinked, then groaned softly, letting his head thunk once against the wooden siding.
"D-damn it… n-no radio again…"
A beat.
"Frank's g-gonna kill me."
Footsteps crunched closer, steady and getting louder, and Bruce inhaled slowly, forcing himself to focus as his brain scrambled through anything useful it could find—tactics, stealth, distractions—most of which, unfortunately, came from YouTube.
His eyes lit up slightly.
Right.
Okay.
He cupped his hands around his mouth, leaned out just enough, and projected his voice into the dark with absolute confidence he did not deserve.
"Moo! M-moo! C-come here, y-you gangster cow!" he called, far too loudly. "Y-your mother w-was a hamster!"
The silence that followed lasted half a second—just long enough to feel wrong—before the footsteps suddenly sped up.
"—the hell?"
Bruce tensed, his grip tightening around the rifle as adrenaline slammed into him all at once, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it might tear him apart from the inside. The side door burst open, light spilling out into the snow in a harsh, blinding wash as a figure stepped through—
Bruce moved.
He came out of the shadows, raising his rifle—
—and stopped.
"…oh."
The man in front of him was small. Very small. No taller than Bruce's chest—maybe four-foot-six at most—with sharp, tight features and a face that looked uncannily like Peter Dinklage, only angrier. Much angrier. He wore a leather jacket two sizes too big, gold chains draped across his chest in a way that tried very hard to look intimidating and didn't quite manage it, and he looked up at Bruce like he genuinely intended to bite him.
"Who you callin' cow, freak?" the man snapped, already reaching into his waistband.
Bruce didn't think. He reacted.
All three hundred and fifty pounds of him surged forward at once, momentum deciding everything before his brain could catch up. They hit the ground hard, snow exploding around them as they crashed down together, Bruce scrambling to pin him while the smaller man twisted violently beneath him with surprising strength. It wasn't clumsy—it was fast, practiced, vicious—and for a moment Bruce was the one struggling to keep up.
The man snarled, baring his teeth—
and then he bit.
Hard.
Bruce yelped, jerking instinctively as pain shot through his hand, sharp and immediate, his grip faltering for just a second—and that was enough. His other arm swung without thought, driven by reflex and panic and weight, his fist connecting with the side of the man's head with a dull, final crack.
Everything stopped.
Not slowed. Not staggered.
Stopped.
The fight vanished instantly, like something had been switched off inside him. One second there was resistance—sharp, violent, alive—and the next there was nothing. The weight beneath Bruce shifted, then went slack.
Too slack.
Bruce froze over him, breath coming in short, uneven bursts, his chest heaving like his body hadn't yet understood what had just happened.
"…h-hey…"
No response.
The man's eyes stared upward, wide and glassy, whatever had been there moments ago gone so completely it felt unreal, like it had never existed at all.
Bruce swallowed hard. "N-no… no, no…"
He shifted awkwardly, carefully, like moving too fast might somehow make it worse—like the damage wasn't already done—then reached out with one massive hand and gave the man a small shake.
"W-wake up… c'mon…"
Nothing.
The silence pressed in around him, heavy and suffocating—not the quiet of the forest, not the stillness of falling snow, but something else entirely. Something final.
Bruce's chest tightened, a slow, crushing pressure building beneath his ribs as his stomach dropped out from under him, leaving something cold and sick behind.
"I-I didn't m-mean—"
The words broke apart in his throat.
For a moment—just a moment—Bruce Redford didn't look like something immovable, didn't look like a wall of muscle and bad decisions.
He looked small.
Lost.
Then voices broke through it.
From inside.
More than one.
Closer.
"What was that?"
"Yo—you hear that?!"
Footsteps followed—fast, multiple, coming straight for the door—and Bruce's head snapped up as panic slammed back into him so hard it almost knocked the breath out of him. The world rushed back all at once—the cold, the gun, the tank, the plan, if it could even be called that—and he looked down again, just for a second, just hoping—
But the body didn't change.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't move.
"N-no… I-I didn't…"
His hands trembled now as he grabbed at the man's jacket, shaking him harder, desperation bleeding into every movement. "W-wake up… p-please…"
Nothing.
Then the door burst open again, light flooding out into the snow, harsher this time, sudden and blinding, and another figure stepped through—taller, wiry, already armed, his gun coming up with instinctive speed.
Bruce didn't even have time to stand.
A shot cracked through the night—sharp, clean—and the man jerked, stumbled, then dropped straight into the snow without a sound.
Bruce flinched, ducking instinctively, his eyes snapping toward the darkness—
—and from behind a parked SUV, a voice tore through everything.
"Bruce, move!"
Frank's voice didn't just cut through the night—it snapped it in half. Sharp, controlled, but louder than Bruce had ever heard it, stripped of patience, stripped of restraint.
"They're waking up!"
And it was like the world had been waiting for permission, because the mansion came alive all at once—shouts bursting through the walls, confused at first, then sharp with anger, footsteps thundering across wooden floors as doors slammed open hard enough to shake the frame. The warm, harmless illusion of the lodge collapsed in an instant, something ugly and violent clawing its way up from underneath.
Bruce didn't think. He moved.
He scrambled back toward the fuel tank, boots slipping in the snow, breath tearing out of him in short, panicked bursts as his hands found the valve again—cold, stubborn, unyielding—and he threw his full weight into it.
"C-come on—!"
The metal shrieked in protest, resisting him for a second that felt too long—
then it gave.
Rust ground against rust with a sound like something breaking its own bones, and the valve twisted open as gasoline burst out in a heavy, choking rush, splashing across the snow and soaking it instantly, the sharp chemical stench flooding the air. Bruce stumbled back half a step, eyes wide, something almost disbelieving flickering across his face.
It was working.
It was actually working—
Gunfire exploded from the windows.
Glass shattered outward in violent bursts as bullets tore into the ground around him, kicking up sprays of snow and dirt, the sound deafening—sharp cracks stacked on top of each other, too fast, too loud, impossible to separate.
Bruce dove.
He slammed into the side of the tank, pressing himself against the freezing metal as rounds hammered into it with violent clangs, sparks snapping inches from his face in brief, blinding flashes.
Too close.
Way too close.
His heart was out of control now, slamming against his ribs like it was trying to escape, his breath coming fast and uneven, each inhale catching halfway like his lungs had forgotten how to work. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
The lighters—
He glanced down.
Still there.
Still burning.
Small, stupid flames flickering in the snow, completely indifferent to the storm of bullets tearing the world apart around them.
His hand was shaking.
There was blood on it.
Not his.
That hit him again all at once—the dwarf, the eyes, the way everything had just… stopped—and something tight and ugly crawled up his throat.
"I-I messed up…"
Another volley slammed into the tank, snapping him back as he curled tighter against it, clutching his rifle like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
"H-Happygun…"
His voice barely existed now, just a breath as he looked down at it—the stickers, the smiling bunnies, the calm, steady face of Yoda staring back at him like none of this meant anything at all.
"P-please…" he whispered. "P-please p-protect me…"
His grip tightened.
"I-I don't w-wanna k-kill anyone else…"
A beat, fragile and breaking.
"I-I didn't k-kill that dwarf… y-you did, r-right…? Y-you handle that p-part…"
Another burst cracked past him, close enough to rip the air beside his head, and Bruce flinched hard before sucking in a breath and leaning out from cover.
He pulled the trigger.
The rifle barked in uneven, panicked bursts, recoil kicking wildly through his arms as he fired without aiming—couldn't aim—just sending rounds toward light, toward movement, toward anything that wasn't him.
Somewhere out there, a figure dropped.
Then another.
Bruce ducked back instantly, shaking harder now.
"I-It wasn't me…" he muttered under his breath. "H-Happygun did it… I-I'm s-sorry…"
Again, quieter this time.
Like if he said it enough, it might become true.
Across the clearing, Frank moved like something else entirely.
Where Bruce was chaos, Frank was precision. He flowed between the parked cars, low and fast, rifle up, firing in tight, controlled bursts that ended exactly when they needed to. He never stayed still, never gave them a clean angle—one second behind a sedan, the next already gone, slipping into another pocket of shadow as bullets chased him, always just behind, always just missing.
To Bruce, catching fragments of it through panic and smoke, it didn't even look real—it looked like Frank wasn't dodging the gunfire so much as existing slightly ahead of it.
Back at the tank, Bruce pressed himself harder against the metal as gasoline continued to pour out, spreading, creeping across the snow in a widening, glistening stain that crawled closer and closer to the flames.
Always closer.
Bruce forced himself to look up.
Ten meters.
That was all.
Ten meters to the row of cars. Ten meters to something that wasn't this.
But the distance twisted in his head, stretching, warping into something impossible, the open ground between him and safety feeling enormous—wide enough to swallow him whole.
"I c-can't do it…"
His breath hitched.
Then something else pushed in.
Not the gunfire, not the shouting—something softer, warmer, slipping through the cracks in his panic like it didn't belong there but refused to be pushed out.
A memory.
The gymnast.
Sarah.
She appeared in his mind the way she always did—effortless, weightless, moving through space like gravity didn't quite apply to her the way it did to everything else. Blonde hair tied up in bouncing pigtails, bright blue eyes full of something light and fearless, her body twisting and turning in ways that made no sense to him and yet somehow looked completely right. She flipped, spun, bent, landed without sound, without force, like the world welcomed her instead of resisting her.
She didn't crash into things.
Didn't break them.
Didn't scare people.
People cheered for her.
Bruce stared at the snow in front of him, blinking hard, breath shaking.
"She m-makes it l-look so easy…"
His thoughts drifted for a second, strange and misplaced but almost innocent, trying to understand something he never had—the way she looked soft but moved strong, the way her body seemed built for something completely different than his. In his head, it made sense in the only way he knew how: strong legs, strong hips, strong chest—she had all of it, just… shaped differently, hidden better, like women just didn't show it off the way men did.
"W-why don't m-men have that…" he muttered faintly, then shook his head hard, like physically knocking the thought loose.
Not now.
Another voice cut in behind it—sharp, irritated, familiar.
You broke the table, Bruce.
You're not built for that.
His jaw tightened.
Maybe not.
But maybe—
Just once—
If he could move like her.
Just once.
No crashing.
No breaking.
No messing it up.
His grip tightened around Happygun, knuckles whitening as he leaned out again and fired one last messy burst before snapping back into cover. The bullets answered immediately, cracking past his head, forcing him down as he squeezed his eyes shut, his heart hammering so hard it hurt.
Then, quieter now—almost like a prayer—
"P-please…" he whispered. "L-let me b-be graceful… j-just this once…"
A breath, thin and shaking.
"I-I don't wanna d-die clumsy…"
And then the pause came—not silence, not really, but a fracture in the chaos, a single fragile heartbeat where the gunfire stuttered and the night seemed to inhale and forget to exhale.
Bruce moved.
He didn't run so much as throw himself forward, his enormous frame lurching into motion, limbs flailing in something that, in his mind, resembled the gymnast's effortless grace—spins, lightness, control. In reality it was weight and momentum and desperation colliding all at once, his body too big, too heavy, too late, stumbling into the air more than leaping, crashing into the snow more than landing.
But he was moving.
Forward.
That was enough.
The gunfire came back.
Bullets screamed through the air like hornets, furious and blind, and one of them found him.
It tore across his face in a wet, violent line—bone, cartilage, flesh giving way in an instant, his nose disappearing in a spray of blood as pain detonated through his skull so bright and sharp it swallowed everything else.
Bruce screamed—a raw, broken sound—but he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Another shot took his ear, a flash of heat followed by absence, something simply ripped away and thrown into the dark as blood poured down his neck, hot against the freezing air. He staggered, tried to rise—
—and the next bullet shattered his knee.
It didn't feel like a wound so much as something ending. The leg just… stopped working, collapsing under him as his full weight slammed into the ground hard enough to knock the breath from him entirely.
He howled.
But still—
Still—
He moved.
Dragging now, one hand gripping Happygun while the other clawed through snow and gravel, fingers tearing, nails breaking, pulling his massive body forward inch by inch, closer, just a little closer—
The gunfire intensified, rounds slamming into his back in heavy, brutal impacts that drove the air from his lungs and made his body jolt with each hit like something being hammered apart.
Then one shot—
Lower.
Final.
It struck at the base of his spine.
There was no pain.
Not like before.
Something just… ended.
Bruce felt it in the absence, not the presence—his legs were still there, he knew they were, but they weren't his anymore. They didn't answer. Didn't exist in any way that mattered.
Silent.
Empty.
Dead weight dragging behind him.
His breath hitched, a small, confused sound slipping out.
"…w-why…"
There was no answer, and no time to wait for one.
He kept pulling.
Kept dragging.
Because stopping meant—
No.
He didn't let himself think that.
He just moved.
And somehow—somehow—he made it.
He reached the cars, his body collapsing beneath the nearest one, folding awkwardly into the narrow shadow as his chest heaved, breath wet and uneven, blood pooling beneath him and spreading slowly across the frozen ground, faint steam rising into the cold night.
For a moment—just one small, fragile moment—he was still.
Then the shouting came again, closer now, boots crunching through snow, voices sharp and advancing.
Bruce rolled slightly, forcing his rifle up with trembling hands, bracing it weakly against the ground as shapes moved beyond the cars—legs, shadows, fragments of people—and he fired. The rifle bucked unevenly, weak bursts tearing into whatever he could see—feet, shins, anything—and screams answered him as bodies dropped.
It didn't feel real.
None of it did.
His breath came shallow now, each inhale thick, wet, wrong, his vision narrowing as the edges of the world darkened and began to pull away from him piece by piece.
He looked down.
His leg—
Ruined.
Twisted, barely attached, something that didn't belong to him anymore.
His hand rose to his face—
There was nothing where his nose had been.
Just warmth.
Just blood.
Too much of it.
His throat filled with it, every breath turning into a quiet drowning he didn't have the strength to fight, his lower body gone—not physically, but functionally, completely—dead weight beneath him.
Bruce lay there under the car, staring out at the world like it was already far away, like he was already separate from it, and slowly, quietly, he understood.
This was it.
Not dramatic.
Not heroic.
Just—
Over.
"I m-messed up…"
The words barely formed.
His eyes drifted past the chaos, past the movement, back toward the tank, where gasoline still poured—slower now, but steady—spreading across the snow in dark, glistening veins that crept closer and closer to the small, stubborn flames he had placed there.
The lighters.
Still burning.
Still waiting.
Bruce watched them for a long moment.
Then his thoughts began to loosen—not disappearing, not breaking apart, but softening, drifting, like they were no longer anchored to anything solid.
The pain was still there, somewhere, but distant now. Fading.
He thought of his father first.
Not with anger. Not anymore.
Just… memory.
Loud. Violent. Unpredictable. A man whose voice filled rooms and crushed everything inside them, whose words stuck longer than bruises ever did. Failure. Useless. Retarded. Always something, always something wrong. Bruce remembered the smell more than anything—the alcohol, sharp and burning, soaking into his hair as his father poured it over him one night, shaking him, yelling while he sat there in bed too scared to move.
It had been Christmas.
Cold, just like this.
He remembered crying, small and shaking, the room spinning with the smell, his ears ringing with words he didn't fully understand but somehow still believed. He remembered the doorway, too—his mother standing there for a moment, watching, her expression not cruel, not angry… just distant. Tired. Pitying.
Then she closed the door.
And left him there.
Alone.
That was the shape of it. Not clean memories, not full ones—just pieces, jagged and incomplete, stitched together by feeling more than fact. And then… the driveway. The flashing lights. Bodies on the ground. Silence where there used to be noise.
Gone.
All of it gone.
And that had been the beginning of something in him—not strength, not really, but a need. A need to protect, to fix, to make sure no one else ended up sitting alone in a room like that, smelling like something they didn't deserve.
Then Frank.
Always Frank.
He came into Bruce's life like something impossible, like a door that wasn't supposed to exist suddenly opening anyway. No yelling. No disappointment. Just a hand extended like it was normal, like Bruce was allowed to take it.
And he had.
A home followed. Not perfect, not something Bruce fully understood, but real. A place where people spoke without shouting, where meals happened at tables instead of in silence, where names like Richard and Meredith became something steady, something safe. It hadn't been his to begin with, but it had been given anyway.
School had been hard. Confusing. Everything taking longer than it should have. But he finished. Somehow he finished.
There were games—long nights of them, World of Warcraft, Medieval II, losing more often than not, failing constantly, but laughing anyway like it mattered. Road trips that made no sense, bad food, worse ideas, Frank laughing beside him like none of it needed to be good to be worth something.
That part stayed warm.
That part didn't fade.
Amber drifted through his thoughts next—messy, complicated, but not bad. Never bad. He pictured her in his place, living off his stuff, eating his food, using his card like she always did.
"I t-tried…" he thought faintly.
She'd be okay.
She had to be.
Then Sarah.
Frank's wife.
The gymnast.
Bruce never understood her, not really—how someone could look soft and still move like that, light and precise and powerful all at once. In his head, it had always made sense in the only way he knew how: she had to be strong, just… hidden strength, the kind people didn't show. The kind that didn't break things when it touched them.
And the kids.
Bruce didn't understand families. Didn't understand how love turned into something that stayed, something that didn't leave when things got hard.
But Frank had it.
And that made sense.
Frank deserved it.
Bruce smiled faintly, blood on his lips, the taste thick and metallic.
His life hadn't been clean. Or easy. Or impressive in any way that mattered to most people.
But it had been full.
In its own strange, uneven way.
And that was enough.
His eyes filled, not with pain, but something softer, something almost peaceful.
"Th-thank you…" he whispered, the words barely making it out.
He lifted Happygun one last time, firing weak, fading bursts toward the approaching shapes, more out of habit than intent.
"I-I'm s-sorry, Frank…" he murmured, breath catching.
Then, quieter—
"I d-did okay… r-right…?"
The darkness crept closer, slow and gentle, like something patient, something that wasn't in a hurry.
Bruce didn't fight it.
He just watched.
Watched the gasoline inch closer to the flames, watched the light flicker in the distance, small and stubborn and inevitable.
Then movement broke through it—fast, close—and a figure dropped beside him, sliding into the narrow space under the car.
Frank.
"Bruce! Jesus Christ—Bruce, stay with me!"
Hands on him. Real. Urgent.
Bruce blinked, his vision struggling to hold together as he looked at him.
"N-no… Frank…" he rasped. "Y-you h-have to g-go…"
His eyes flicked weakly toward the tank.
"It's g-gonna—"
Frank shook his head immediately, violently. "No. No, I'm not leaving you."
"Y-you h-have Sarah… y-your k-kids…"
"I don't care!"
The words tore out of him, raw and unfiltered, something deeper than anything he usually let show.
"I'm not leaving you here. Not ever."
Bruce stared at him, confusion cutting through the haze.
"…w-why…"
Frank's voice broke, but he didn't look away.
"Because you're my brother."
A breath, sharp and uneven.
"Because you're the best part of this world, Bruce."
His grip tightened.
"If you go, I go."
Bruce's eyes filled slowly, something settling in him—not everything, not all of it, but enough.
He understood that.
"…o-okay…"
Together, they raised their weapons—one steady, one barely holding on—and fired into the advancing shadows, two figures under a car holding a line that didn't exist anymore, because there was nothing left to hold.
And then the gasoline reached the flames.
It happened instantly.
Fire raced across the ground in a violent surge, a living thing devouring the soaked snow, rushing toward the tank with unstoppable hunger. Both of them saw it, both of them understood, and there was no time for anything else.
Frank moved first.
He threw himself over Bruce without hesitation, wrapping around him completely, shielding him, his body turning into something solid, something final.
"Got you," he whispered.
And then the world ended.
The explosion tore through the night with a force that felt almost divine, a fireball blooming outward and swallowing everything in its path—the tank, the cars, the lodge itself—as flame, pressure, and light consumed the world in a single, violent instant. Inside the building, hidden stockpiles ignited in a chain reaction, secondary blasts ripping through wood and steel, turning structure into fragments, fragments into dust, dust into nothing.
The ground shook.
The air burned.
And at the center of it—
Frank held on.
Even as the fire took them.
Even as everything else disappeared.
Bruce's eyes stayed open just long enough to see him—Frank's face, lit by fire, not afraid.
Just there.
With him.
And in that final moment, Bruce understood something simple, something certain—that he had lived. Not perfectly, not cleanly, but fully… and he had not been alone.
That was enough.
The darkness took him.
And after it—
warmth.
Not sudden, not sharp, but slow and complete, wrapping around him like something patient, something that had been waiting for him long before he ever arrived. It held him there, thick and surrounding, without edges, without weight, without pain. There was no fire anymore, no broken bones, no blood in his throat, no body dragging behind him.
Just warmth.
Just quiet.
Bruce floated—or something like it. There was no body to measure it by now, no sense of where he began or ended, no fear, no urgency, nothing pulling at him from any direction.
Only stillness.
And then the pressure came.
At first it was subtle, almost unnoticeable, like the warmth itself had shifted, but it tightened quickly, closing in from every side, no longer gentle, no longer passive. It pressed against him, compressing, pushing, forcing him forward through something too narrow, too tight, something that didn't want to let him stay where he was.
Bruce didn't understand.
Didn't have time to.
The pressure grew, relentless, driving him onward whether he wanted to move or not, squeezing him through something that felt wrong in a way he couldn't explain.
And then—
cold.
Violent, immediate, absolute.
The warmth vanished like it had never existed, ripped away in an instant as air hit him—sharp, invasive, wrong—and his body reacted before his mind could catch up. He gasped, a raw, instinctive inhale that burned his lungs and filled them all at once, the sensation overwhelming, unbearable, real.
Sound followed.
Voices.
Close.
Too close.
Hands—large, rough, calloused—caught him, lifting him upward, supporting him with surprising care, and he felt them, actually felt them, in a way that made no sense because suddenly—
he was small.
Too small.
"Congratulations, my lord!"
The voice was bright, breathless with joy.
"You have a healthy baby girl!"
Girl?
The word didn't just land—it crashed into him.
No.
That was wrong.
That was—
Bruce's thoughts collided, refusing to fit together, refusing to make sense of what he was hearing, what he was feeling.
I'm Bruce.
The certainty was immediate. Solid.
I'm not—
He tried to speak, to correct it, to fix it before it became real.
"W-w-wha—no, I—"
But nothing came out the way it should have. No words, no control—just broken, shapeless noise spilling from him, thin and weak and completely wrong.
"G-ga—aaa—waaaah—!"
The sound echoed strangely in the room.
Not his.
Nothing about this was his.
The air shifted.
The joy cracked.
Silence followed—not complete, but heavy, uncomfortable, pressing down on everyone in the room as eyes turned… not toward him, but past him.
To someone else.
Bruce felt it before he saw him—a presence, large and still, watching.
Duke Leo stood near the doorway, his broad frame filling the space with something colder than the winter outside. His expression didn't change—no surprise, no joy, not even curiosity—only quiet displeasure as his gaze dropped to the child in the midwife's hands.
To Bruce.
Cold.
Measuring.
And then—
contempt.
"It seems," he said quietly, his voice low and sharp, "this one is defective as well."
The words didn't need volume. They settled into the room, heavy and final, pressing into everything they touched.
The midwife's posture shifted instantly, her earlier excitement draining away as she lowered her gaze, shoulders dipping, as if the moment had never belonged to her in the first place. No one argued. No one spoke.
Duke Leo's jaw tightened briefly, irritation flickering and vanishing just as quickly, and then he turned, cloak snapping lightly behind him as he strode toward the door.
"Another failure," he muttered.
The door slammed.
The sound lingered longer than it should have.
And when it faded, the room felt smaller.
Colder.
The woman on the bed shifted weakly, and Bruce saw her properly for the first time—young, far too young, her body trembling with exhaustion, sweat dampening strands of pale blonde hair that clung to her face and neck. She looked fragile, like something that might break if touched too roughly.
But her eyes—
her eyes were still there.
Blue.
Soft.
Tired.
But alive.
She reached out slowly, arms shaking as the midwife passed him into her care, and the moment she held him, something changed—not in the room, not in the world, but in her. Her expression softened, grief loosening just enough to let something gentler through as she cradled him close, one trembling hand brushing carefully along his cheek like he might disappear if she wasn't careful.
"You look just like me," she whispered, her voice quiet and unsteady. "But… that's alright."
A faint, fragile smile touched her lips.
"Then I'll name you after me."
A pause.
"Lili."
Bruce forced his eyes open, the world blurry at first, then slowly sharpening until he saw her clearly—her face lit by firelight, exhaustion carved into every line, but still kind, still warm, still trying.
"N-no," he tried again, panic rising. "I'm—"
But it came out the same.
Soft.
Broken.
Meaningless.
"Ga—baaa—"
His body betrayed him, small arms flailing uselessly, fingers curling and uncurling without purpose, movement disconnected from thought.
She misunderstood.
Of course she did.
"Hush now," she murmured gently, pulling him closer. "It's alright… I'm here."
Her voice wrapped around him like something familiar, even though it shouldn't have been.
"I'll never leave you, my precious girl."
Girl.
The word didn't fit.
Nothing fit.
Bruce squirmed weakly, trying to push away, trying to correct her, to fix whatever had gone wrong—but his body didn't listen. It reacted instead to something older, simpler, deeper than thought.
Need.
She adjusted her dress with slow, practiced care, guiding him instinctively, and his mind recoiled—
this isn't— I'm not—
—but his body didn't ask.
It latched.
Hunger took over, immediate and absolute, drowning everything else beneath it, instinct overriding identity in a way that left him disoriented and ashamed and—
comforted.
He hated that part.
His eyes drifted, unfocused at first, then slowly taking in the world around him—the rough walls of wood and straw, uneven and patched with mud, the weak glow of a fireplace struggling against the cold, the simple, worn furniture barely enough to fill the space.
This wasn't a hospital.
Wasn't anything modern.
"Africa…?" his thoughts murmured faintly.
No.
Outside the window, snow fell slowly, steadily, covering everything in white.
"…that doesn't make sense…"
His thoughts felt slower now, heavier, like they had to push through something just to exist at all.
Maybe… a reenactment?
No.
That didn't make sense either.
Nothing did.
The woman holding him rocked gently, humming something soft and unfamiliar, the melody simple but steady, filling the silence in a way that felt… intentional. Her fingers moved through his hair in slow, careful strokes—not perfect, not practiced, but deliberate.
Like she was trying.
Bruce watched her.
Really watched her.
And saw it.
Not just exhaustion.
Not just sadness.
Loneliness.
Deep, quiet, and heavy.
The realization settled somewhere inside him.
He wasn't the only one lost here.
He shifted slightly, resisting less now, his body relaxing despite himself as warmth returned—not the same as before, not endless or complete, but enough.
"…I guess…"
The thought came slowly, faint and uncertain.
"…this is… home…?"
He didn't understand it.
Didn't accept it.
Not fully.
But he didn't fight it either.
Not anymore.
His eyes grew heavy, the world softening at the edges, and there, against her chest, listening to the steady rhythm of her heartbeat, Bruce—now Lili—drifted.
Outside, the snow fell, silent and endless.
Inside, she held him close, whispering softly into his hair again and again, like a promise she needed to believe.
"I'll always be here for you… little Lili… no matter what."