A/N: Set after the very end of TDKR.
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"I came to apologize."
Gordon almost didn't recognize the man who stood on his doorstep and spoke in a very low voice, two large take out cups of coffee in his hands.
If Alfred had not told him that Bruce Wayne was still alive, he probably would have started to believe in ghosts. The Commissioner opened the door wider to let the almost stranger into his small apartment.
"There is no need to." Gordon gestured towards his sitting room, closing the door firmly behind him.
"There is." The younger man stood uncertainly in the middle of the room, eyes scanning his surroundings out of habit. Gordon took the offered paper cup and let himself fall into his favourite chair.
"No, there isn't… Mr. Wayne."
"Bruce, please." The former billionaire sat awkwardly on the edge of the sofa. "I've let you down."
Gordon looked up surprised, carefully studying the man who he knew now had been Batman. There were fine lines around his eyes, a bitter firm set to his mouth – Batman's mouth – a few silver strands coloring the dark, slightly grown hair. He was well built but his posture kind of hunched together. Nothing left of the playboy he had always seen in the man.
Knowing he had been Batman was something entirely different than only guessing it.
"You never let me down," Gordon murmured and sipped from the hot liquid. "You just saved us."
"Well…that wasn't me alone. We were a team again…" Bruce's voice sounded very tired. He fidgeted with his cup, not able to look Gordon in the eye.
"Yes," the Commissioner nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on the man he considered a friend so many years ago. "Thank you for telling me the truth."
"It was time." Bruce took Gordon's appearance in. The Commissioner didn't look one year older than when he had last seen him close up. TV didn't count. He secretly wished he'd had the courage to tell him before the disastrous events of the last months.
When he'd heard Gordon lay injured in the hospital, he finally knew he had to act again, come out of his stupor.
Gordon sighed. He felt very honoured that "Batman" had revealed his true identity to him at last, but something in the younger man's behaviour showed him that there was something wrong. He didn't know how to deal with the new situation. In the past Batman always knew what to do, had the lead in their actions.
The man in front of him now seemed somehow broken, a mere shadow of himself.
"Want me to make us some more?" Jim took the empty paper cups. Bruce looked up at him and only nodded with a smile Gordon had never before seen on him.
He thoughtfully busied himself with coffee making in his tiny kitchen space, wondering what his guest really wanted.
"I can't do it anymore." Batman's voice startled the Commissioner and he abruptly looked around, just to see Bruce standing in the doorway. "But I would like us to work together again anyway. I really should have done that during those eight years. I'm sorry."
Gordon saw so much sadness in the expressive dark eyes that it gripped his heart deeply. He knew what living alone, being alone meant. He knew deep loneliness. When he was about to say something Bruce continued, "Lucius proved that at least part of the money got stolen, so there should be no problems to get it back and pay for the orphanages and the…"
"Mr… Bruce," Gordon interrupted and handed his still uncomfortable looking guest a really large cup and poured the hot black liquid for them, "I'd like to work with you again too, with or without that damn money." The Commissioner clicked their cups together in a salute, relief flooding him and he smiled too, "I'm glad you decided to come back into the land of the living."
That made Bruce chuckle a bit and he hummed appreciatively when he drank the first mouth full, "How did you know I drink it black?"
"Just a guess," the older man murmured.
"If…" Gordon slowly walked over towards the sofa again and sat down, clearly not knowing how to form his next sentence, "If you are not able to be… Batman anymore," he looked up uncertain, "Why did you repair the flood light?"
Bruce smiled at that and sat down beside Jim, elbows on his knees, turning the mug around and around, "I think there is a young man we could help a bit to become Batman's… successor…"
"Blake," Gordon stated immediately.
Bruce nodded, eyes staring at an imaginative point in front of him, lost in thought.
They sat in silence for a very long time until Gordon was brave enough to ask his next question, "You…you aren't dying of radiation poisoning or something?" His hand itched to stroke across the bent back, heart racing in his chest all of a sudden.
They'd tested the water and the shores, miraculously there wasn't any radiation. Batman must have dropped that bomb exactly in the extra deep part of the sea. If he hadn't, the city would have been in ashes anyway because of the resulting earthquake and the flood that followed.
Bruce looked at him, slowly shaking his head. "Lucius built something into the Bat that catapulted me miles away within seconds…" He trailed off, remembering the pain and shock and concussion that had caused when he'd landed. "Before you ask, yes I've seen a doctor about the poisoning. I'm fine. That's not the reason why I can't be Batman anymore." It's my damn body that doesn't cooperate as perfect as it once did, he added silently.
Gordon noticed how stiffly the other man was holding himself as though he was still in pain. He was just about to say something when Bruce asked, "What about you? You still want to fight the mob? Get those animals back into prison?"
The Commissioner fixed him with his stare for seconds, not a trace of doubt in his clear blue eyes that weren't covered with his glasses at the moment, "That's what we live for, you and I, isn't it?"
Bruce held that glance, remembering what it felt like to be without purpose over the span of eight years, without hope. Feeling some energy now again when he looked at Gordon and his never fading enthusiasm. "Yeah. You are right." He held out his hand and Gordon immediately took it, "For Gotham."
"For Gotham."