Knight of Gotham: Smiling has its Downsides

CHAPTER I

I still remember that night down to the last detail. It was just me and my parents, seeing a movie for my birthday. It was two days after my actual birthday… if only it wasn't. Maybe it was some cruel twist of fate that caused us to go out through that alley. Maybe it was just idiocy on our part. Either way, the result can't be changed.

The guy seemed harmless enough at first. We just figured he would ignore us. WHY did we ever think that? Again, it seems cruel. Because then he pulled out a gun. Now that I think back on it, it might have been a Magnum. He demanded for money. My dad tossed him his wallet. We thought it would stop there.

But it didn't. The guy demanded for jewelry. My mom gave him her pearls, earrings, bracelets, and rings. We thought it would stop there. But it didn't. It stopped when the guy looked over his shoulder as if he was looking for someone. The funny thing is, I thought I saw someone too. Then the guy pulled the trigger. Twice. Ten feet from my parents. Each bullet went right through. I still think, "Would it have been better if all three of us died that night?"

It would've saved me from the very image that haunts my waking mind to this day. The image of the bullets piercing the bodies of Martha and Thomas Wayne, their blood spurting on the walls, on the ground, and…on me. Some went up my nose.

He didn't shoot me. He ran off. I screamed. I screamed for fifteen minutes, maybe in some vain hope that it would wake my parents up. Only 3 hours later did a patrolling police officer discover me, still crying silently, stricken, over my parents. He said he was Jim Gordon, and asked my name. I of course replied that I was Bruce Wayne. Jim called in some other officers to help set up a crime scene.

Jim offered to take me home. I accepted, and in twenty-five minutes, I was back at Wayne Manor. I was greeted by my faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Then he noticed the police officer. Jim assumed a solemn expression, one I have yet to see matched. I wasn't really paying attention to what he said. All I knew was that Alfred was in tears. I had never seen Alfred crying until that day.

That night, the only things that emerged from my mind were the red streams exploding out of my parents. I can see them there, being propelled backwards by the bullets. It was that night that convinced me that this city was broken. Living in such a big mansion my entire life, I had no idea what it was like in the lower parts of Gotham. The days at my house seemed longer, and darker. The sound of cheerful laughter didn't come from the dank halls.

Alfred made up for it though. He always helped me when I got hurt. He always made me the best birthday cake. And most frequently, he comforted me when I ran inside, away from some bat. I hated the fuzzy little freaks. It was a relationship reminiscent of that between Indiana Jones and snakes. They lived in a cave located on the grounds.

There was one thing he couldn't protect me from, though. I was 14. I decided to take a walk that day, due to a nightmare the previous night. I eventually wandered into one of the more seedy areas of Gotham, about a block from Arkham Asylum. Two guys approached me. They recognized me as Bruce Wayne. The taller one of the two looked at me and said, "You see that?" I looked at the other guy. He was obviously stoned. I nodded. The taller guy continued, "That, my good man, is the high produced by our experimental form of heroin. It makes you feel happy for hours on end. Not only that, but it can substitute bad memories for good ones. That effect is the reason you will love this. We call it Halcyon."

Of course, I'd always been told to stay away from any kind of drug my whole life. But I felt as if it was the only way to get rid of the pain. There was one corner of my mind, screaming EVERYBODY HEARD ABOUT YOUR PARENTS DYING! THESE GUYS ARE TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! I didn't care at the time. And so it went. I arrived home with a single shot of Halcyon. I tried it. It felt heavenly. I forgot that night, and just imagined myself hugging my parents, telling them how much I've missed them. But in a couple of hours, I returned to the desolate state I'd been in before.

The next day, I went back to those guys, and got more. I stuck myself again. I felt happy again. And then I fell back into Hell. It was a vicious cycle, and all of it involved lying to Alfred. He knew something was wrong, but I was stupid enough not to tell him.

It made school harder than it already was. I was high in the middle of class, at lunch, even in after-school clubs! I got moved from school to school, and even though I was a smart kid, the Halcyon did nothing for me in the long run.

My vicious cycle ended when I was 18. I overdosed on Halcyon. It shocked me into realizing how broken my life was. I decided to travel, to get away. After months of what could at most have been called rambling, I landed in Japan. I liked the peaceful atmosphere up in the mountains. I met a man by the name of Kirigi. He taught me how to defend myself, after, of course, beating me up and telling me I had "great potential". He taught me other things, like different healing methods from around Japan. He even taught me all the things I would've learned in college. It had an overall beneficial effect. I came back when I turned 29. My arrival exploded all over the Internet and the news. I discovered that in my absence, Wayne Enterprises had been slightly declining. I took the position of CEO, but it felt really unfulfilling. So, I put my dad's old friend Lucius Fox in the position instead. Things calmed down for a couple weeks.

About six months before my 30th birthday, Alfred came to me and said, "The man who killed your parents has been caught. His name is Joe Chill…Master Wayne, he said that he would only speak to you. The next time he gets to speak to anyone is Wednesday." I thought about it. Would Chill just mock me? Would he grovel for forgiveness? I had no idea. But I found myself saying, "Alright, I'll speak to him."

When Wednesday came, I felt nervous, because the guy who killed my parents would be within make-out distance of me in a few minutes. At the same time, I was nervous because the guy who killed my parents would be within strangling distance of me in a few minutes. As I sat down at the table, the same raggedy wretch that I saw almost twenty years ago was in front of me again.

Chill began, "I'm not going to ask forgiveness. I just want you to know what happened that night." I felt fury well up inside me. "I already know what happened," I said. "You killed my parents, you coward! You already had what you asked for! Why didn't you just leave?" I found myself crying. I felt the same way I did all those years ago: confused, angry, missing my parents. Chill looked at the floor and continued. "You don't think I feel sorry," said Chill. "Well, I do. You know, I grew up without parents too. At least, without real ones. I was a foster kid. You don't know how much I didn't want to put another kid through that." My anger multiplied. "It seemed to come pretty easily to you that night," I said. "Look," said Chill, "They had my foster parents. They said they would kill them if I didn't do it." I didn't know how to respond. On the one hand, I was still mad. How could he kill them, even if his parents were being threatened? On the other hand, how couldn't he?

I was still stuck on this internal debate when Chill started talking again. "You know," he said, "the guys who made me do it, I overheard them talking about other people. I only caught a few names, but I wrote them down." He slid a folded piece of paper across the table. I unfolded it. There were four names. I recognized the first one: Harvey Dent. I heard that he'd become the D.A. while I was gone. The second name, I'd never heard of: Bane. It was simple, yet frightening. The third name I knew as a local college professor: Dr. Jonathan Crane. He teaches psychology. The final name had pretty much no effect on me: Solomon Grundy. It just seemed like the name of some average guy, which raised a question.

"What's the significance of these names?" I asked. "I don't know," replied Chill shakily. "What I do know, Bruce, is that you have to keep your eye on them, and if you can, stop them." "Who are they?" I asked aggressively. "I don't know that either," said Chill. "The truth is, I don't really want to know." A guard walked up and said, "Alright, inmate, time to go back to your cell." I left that day with Chill's plead. Stop them, he said. I will, I thought.

Now I've woken up. It was all a dream, recounting all the events of my life thus far. I reached over to my bedside table, picking up the paper that Chill gave me. I had to know what these names meant. I wanted to honor my parents by taking down the people who killed them. My mission began that day. Little did I know where it would take me.