son for a son (gunmar/barb)

"I stole your son from you," he purrs, and Barbara sees red. "An eye for an eye. A son for a son."

Her mouth moves without her. She feels lifted out of her body with fury. "You haven't stolen /shit."/

Gunmar shows those teeth, those monstrous, crushing teeth, rusted with blood. The thick smell of gore and worse things on his breath billows over her. "Haven't I," he says, with mocking consideration. "Haven't I?"

"Nope," says Barbara. Her jaw feels like a steel trap. "My son is my son, and I couldn't be prouder of him. What he gave up, he gave up to stop you. And he did."

Gunmar frowns.

"How about you? How's it feel, knowing your son died for nothing?"

That hideous breath stops. The utter shock on his face, this monster who hurt her boy, is the most viciously satisfying thing she's ever seen.

Then his frozen face curls into a snarl, and his rage is like a living thing. The howl that tears out of him makes the walls of this place shake; if it wasn't some dream world, if it was real, she doesn't doubt her eardrums would have burst.

"You lost," she says, coldly. Her voice cuts through his roaring like a bell. "Don't ever forget it."

Then the colors of this place swirl and condense around her, and go black. She's waking up, she realizes, as his anguish follows her. It's about time.