Standard disclaimers apply. This is a fanfic.
Coronach
The twenty-sixth of June. A quarter before eleven will strike. The night is cloudy, and the moon shines weakly through the overcast sky, not unusual for summer in Gotham.
Hidden in a forested glade in Wayne Manor is the family cemetery. Certainly it is as well-kept as the famed Versailles gardens, but no ordinary person would visit the place at such a late hour; there are no lamps to light one's way, should someone wish to walk the neat gravel paths and well-manicured lawns at night.
But then tonight's visitor is no ordinary man.
The man in the black costume had arrived silently; the gravel does not crunch under his boots. The mythical ninja, the master assassins of Japan, would have accepted as one of their own one with such mastery.
Even with the odd gust or two, the man's cape does not rustle and mar the silence. The hooting of an owl from the dense forest surrounding the glade does, however, and yet the man is not distracted; in sure-footed silence he makes his way - purposeful, solemn - to a small rise in the glen.
The Gotham night returns to the silence of the graves dotting the even grass.
xxx
There are some who are afraid of the Gotham night. Strangely or not, those who fear the night the most are those of the criminal underworld, for from the darkness the terror comes. A horned cowl, the forbidding stare of white lenses, a cape of devil wings, bladed gauntlets, an impassive voice from the depths of the earth - whispers in Gotham debate whether or not the Dark Knight is a myth.
What the evil of Gotham fear is to be proven wrong, and that the terror is no myth.
The man is no myth. He is vengeance. He is the night.
Tonight, he is also memory.
xxx
The man finally reaches the rise, and on the rise are two headstones, side by side.
Thomas Wayne. Martha Wayne.
From beneath his cape, a gauntlet appears; in his fist are two roses. With silent tenderness, he bends down to lay a flower on each grave, and straightens up slowly. Crossing his arms, the man lets the silence take him to the past.
To be eight years old and lose one's parents to some random punk with a gun, watching the horror before your own eyes - he does not wish this pain on anyone.
It is enough that this man bears it.
It is enough for him to fight, night after night, so that nobody else will.
It is why he is Batman.
Inspired by Kipling-Bunny's "Fade Together" ( s/3742816/1/Fade-Together).