The Past is Just a Good-Bye

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.

- Teach Your Children Well; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

A knife sliced through the tall, lush grass, plunged down into the moist earth, and sliced around the edge of the dark marble, scraping against it with each downward stab. The stone remained unmarred as the grass growing up its grey sides withered and fell away into the thick overgrowth that covered the small graveyard.

Covered in the shade of an ancient oak tree, Bruce Wayne knelt beside his father's headstone, long blade from his adventures across the world clutched in a hand scraped raw from hitting against the lowest lip on the tall monument to his late father. He continued around the side, focused on his task, then sat back on his heels to admire his handy work.

The graves of his parents had come into some disrepair during his years abroad, though the care given to them by Alfred was in no means poor. There were simply some things he missed, some things Bruce saw that no one else could, such as the grass creeping up the sides, threatening to cover the epitaph carved beneath the date of death.

Bruce sighed and glanced up at the mansion looming in the distance like a gargoyle hunched over to protect its charge. A monolithic monument to a family line he fell ill-fit to, as if he were the black sheep bringing darkness and shame.

He shifted to sit halfway between the dark marble of his father and the delicate, light rose stone of his mother, giving his knuckles a slight glance but dismissed them as a worthy sacrifice for what he'd accomplished.

"I'm back," he croaked. A sigh. Loss for words. He'd never been terribly loquacious, and seven years spent mostly silent or speaking foreign languages had done nothing to improve the situation.

The late summer breeze tussled his recently groomed hair, whipping loose strands in his eyes.

"I had something I had to do," he continued, eyes straying from the gravestones for a moment. "I never...I never understood why you were killed. I had to find out, had to understand. I thought if I understood, then I could accept what happened."

A palm brushed over Thomas Wayne's name.

"I never could," Bruce announced. "The more I tried, the more I felt sympathy for them, for those kinds of people who killed you. And that made me want to go deeper, to learn more."

His hand was larger than the last time he'd rubbed it over the names of his parents, wiping back and forth as if erasing words from a chalkboard. As a child, this graveyard had been his classroom, a never-ending lesson in the realities of life outside the gates of the illustrious Wayne Manor. And for hours, with wet eyes and red cheeks, he would sit there and speak to them fully aware that they would never speak back, never again hug him or tell him not to be frightened.

And he had been frightened. Was frightened.

"But I never became one. Couldn't. Every time I went to grab a gun or steal something that wasn't mine, I remembered that night. God, I couldn't get it out of my head!"

His last words echoed through the silence of the massive estate; the birds resting in the tree above him fluttered off -- black crows, the carriers of souls. They moved south as a flock of black shadows, passing beneath the clouds. For a moment, Bruce saw the bats that attacked him as a child, flying and fluttering around him in mutual fright. His chest tightened as a wave of fear swept over him.

Courage squashed such weak emotions under the three fingered talon of a man reborn.

Moist eyes flickered to the mound of raised earth just beside the majestic grave of Thomas Wayne, an unmarked grave of fresh dirt. The memory of the three laying before him brought pain to his clear memory, but then, such was life. A constant battle against pain and memory he continued to fight, falling down only to get back up again.

Bruce stood, hands shoved in the pockets of his khaki pants. "He was right. The memory ate me up inside until I swore at your names. Tried to escape everything that reminded me of you, of this place.

"But it's just a house and it'll all that's left of you."

A hand ran through his hair, the words he wanted to say staying deep within his stomach until he could hold them in no longer.

"I'm not you. Either of you. But I am helping the city in my own way. Please understand as I tried to do. I must continue until the city is rid of those who would prey on the weak as well as the strong."

The sun fell behind the distant horizon, casting orange and pink hues on the earth as to wash out all color until the world existed in shades of grey between black and white, good and evil. Twilight blinded Bruce until all he could see was the tall cross at the head of his father's gravestone, his compass of morality in the uncertain world he inhabited.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
and know they love you.

Note: I've gotten a question about the third grave and whose it is. In the novelization of the film, Bruce buries his ninja suit as a representation of Ra's. Without getting too deep into it, he sees Ra's as "father" as well, and thus, buries "him" next to his father.