Let them tell me that you will ruin me.

Let them warn me about the blood pooling in the lines of your palm, the disaster lurking at the edges of your shadow, the sleepless nights and sunless days shifting in your eyes.

Let them talk their voices hoarse. I won't listen, you know. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

And even you cannot convince me otherwise.

we all love what destroys us / ( j.p. )

GLORY & GORE / BRUCE WAYNE.
by antigalactic.

Melanie Merlyn is no stranger to death. There has been a noose tightening around her neck for years now and she no longer fears the fall. Tragedy made itself known in her youth and she expects no favourable treatment when her rope meets its length.

She knows how her story ends.

          Her parents met their demise at the edge of a silver blade when she was a girl, leaving herself and her older sister to be swept under the wing of their uncle, Malcolm Merlyn — he is a cold man, composed of quiet calculation and fallacious vengeance. (He deals out mercy in ounces, and his love in less than that.)

          Malcolm forges her in fire, carves blades from her bones and steel from her heartstrings, makes a weapon to be wielded from the little girl who had barely wiped the stardust from her eyes. Melanie can see the grief in the gaze that stares back at her in the mirror, can feel it lodged between her ribs, trapped in her chest cavity. A reminder, that her innocence was consumed by his hunger for power all too quickly.

          Only Bruce Wayne softened her sharpness – two orphans, two birds of a feather, two sides of the same coin — and only his disappearance pushed her from the precipice. The golden girl of Gotham, now a hollow shell of who she could have been. Who she would have been.

          He dies and all things soft in Melanie die with him. The girl she once was is buried in a shallow grave, locked away tight next to the husk once her bleeding, beating heart.

          Upon his reappearance (his resurrection; his return), Bruce Wayne does not recognise Melanie Merlyn anymore. And he does not claim to be the same man who left seven years prior, but he can hardly find any resemblance to the girl he knew; there is no warmth in her smile nor familiarity to her touch. The person he finds is a wistful echo of the one he remembers so vividly. So why can he can still see her, beneath the surface — like a wraith haunting its own grave — and how do you mourn what isn't dead?

            When is it time to bury the past? Can you bury it all?

MELANIE MERLYN / 🪦.

BRUCE WAYNE / 🦇.

george clooney ... MALCOLM MERLYN.
nicole kidman ...... ELIZABETH BLACK.
gwyneth paltrow ........ VIVIAN MERLYN.
brie larson ........................ MAYA BLACK.
adria arjona .......................... LILY LARK.
erin moriarty .............. KIRAN HOWELL.
julianne moore ......... EILEEN MERLYN.
brad pitt .................. MARCUS MERLYN.

+ THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY CAST.
+ DARK NIGHTS SERIES CAST.

#1. GLORY & GORE , LORDE.
#2. MY TEARS RICOCHET , TAYLOR SWIFT.
#3. BROKEN CROWN , MUMFORD & SONS.
#4. BEAUTIFUL CRIME , TAMER.
#5. POMPEII , BASTILLE.
#6. KILLING ME TO LOVE YOU , VSC.
#7. GHOSTS THAT WE KNEW , MUMFORD & SONS.
#8. ANTI-HERO , TAYLOR SWIFT.
#9. CRYING LIGHTNING , ARCTIC MONKEYS.
#10. LIVE AND LET DIE , ROLLING STONES.
#11. REARVIEW , BEACH BUNNY.
#12. POWER OVER ME , DERMOT KENNEDY.
#13. HEART-SHAPED BOX , NIRVANA.
#14. DEAD SEA , THE LUMINEERS.
#15. THE FEAR , THE SCORE.

DARK NIGHTS SERIES / BOOK ONE.
a dceu-based series.

01. GLORY AND GORE / bruce wayne.
02. IN BLOOM / clark kent.
03. GHOSTLY / barry allen.

04. THE LAST OLYMPIAN / diana prince.
05. RAISE HELL / harley quinn.
06. KINGDOM COME / arthur curry.
07. ANTITHESIS / billy batson.

you do not need to read the other works in the series to understand this story.

OTHER MELANIE MERLYN FICS.
DARK WAR / dc comics au.
MORTAL COIL / the batman.
QUARTER PAST MIDNIGHT / gotham.
VIOLENT DELIGHTS / dcamu.

♟ melanie merlyn back from the dead and on her seventieth reboot?? absolutely

♟ glory & gore has been going a very long time so please excuse any discrepancies you may find in the form of loose ends and plot holes — there's so many iterations of this fic knocking around in chapters and drafts i'm bound to have gotten my wires crossed somewhere

♟ anyway, melanie and bruce are very dear to me. they incorporate some of my favourite tropes and the ups and downs of their relationship gives me a chance to write nuances in emotions and attachments that, really, not many of my other fics have. most my ocs / canon characters have pretty smooth sailing. melanie and bruce go from childhood friends to strangers to enemies to lovers to enemies again to friends to lovers and like what a fucking rollercoaster??? right like maya and barry just kinda stumbled into each other and were like "you're the one" and was sorta a done deal. these pair clearly got all the hurdles i missed out of everyone else

♟ melanie has very similar roots to bruce — gotham elite babies, dead parents, ties to the league etc. but mel's character has a very unhealthy reliance on her uncle malcolm (which i am adapting for TDK trilogy, but takes inspiration from both his comic book counterpart and various manipulative authority figures we see in media — can't fucking remember them but i'll ask them here later) and the comfort of being able to separate herself from her actions through the narrative of them being "his orders". i find the concept of having to break free from someone who is so clearly poisoning you, but whom you feel you owe so much to, a very compelling topic

♟ in my dceu series (dark nights), the dark knight trilogy is considered canon. my dumbass is basically merging the nolanverse with the dceu — therefore the events of man of steel onwards WILL be acknowledged/included in both glory & gore

♟ dedicated to the usual suspects !! bokuroos flamebirds JustSav  luckyvirgo nightwvngs vigilvnte sanktham -rosepetal boreaIe jupitersastrals

♟ please be aware that some of this content may be triggering. i do cover topics such as toxic and abusive relationships. please put your mental well-being above all else!

© SVPERBOY | 2022.
THE DARK NIGHTS SERIES.