He shouldn't have plucked the rose. He tells himself this every day. Hour upon the hour, minute by minute, the words soak themselves into his skin in a sweat of terror. He shouldn't have plucked the rose.
The Prince of Gotham has white, even teeth, and a smooth, perfect tan. He smiles like all the world is a joke while those cold, reptilian eyes stare right through the eyes to the wall behind and there is nothing in them but dismissal.
The Batman is a construct in terror and vengeance. A dark monster in armour and other people's blood. Sharp edges and shadowy cowl, an unmistakable shape in silhouette.
He still feels the coil of uncertainty but he hardens his resolve and breathes in the night air. "I think you're trying to help," he says firmly.
The Batman doesn't agree, but he doesn't disagree.
He should have turned when he felt the gun at his head, he thinks. He shouldn't have thought of Barbara and their children and how much he didn't want to die. That's why he's here now, in the epicentre of chaos.
He stares helplessly at the debris of the destroyed monorail, broken cars and shattered streetlights, and feels his shoulders sag.
He shouldn't have plucked the rose; the thorns puncture flesh and he doesn't have the strength to deal with the consequences.
He waits twenty minutes outside Loeb's office, resigned to the knowledge that he will not be forgiven for simply walking away. Rescheduling is a word reserved for other people. Maybe other cops. Not for Gordon, not for the Mayor's pet hero cop.
Understated, unemotional Gordon who's worked with the GCPD for twenty years, has a wife and two kids and believes in honesty. Believes in the redemption of Gotham.
He waits and waits and when the door opens, Loeb is smooth and affable, Wayne pristine as ever in a suit that costs more than Gordon's secondhand bed.
Wayne's eyes catch him where he's standing against the wall and his smile sharpens.
Loeb's eyes catch him and his smile vanishes.
"Gordon," he says, and doesn't apologise for keeping him waiting.
He startles at the sight of the envelope on his desk.
He's only been out of the office for ten minute. The door is standing open, there are three senior detectives in the next room, the window is locked, yet there it is.
He knows from experience there will be no prints, no DNA on the envelope or the windowsill.
Wayne's money is a welcome boost to the GCPD labs.
CI's been complaining about the equipment for years but they don't know what to do with half the machines they get. Half their techs trained years ago and they know the theory but practice is difficult.
News footage of Wayne accosted outside Wayne Tower is aired and Wayne's mouth twitches into a semblance of a smirk. "Continuing the family tradition of philanthropy," he says, "And my accountants assure me it's tax deductible."
Gordon's turned away from the television at the time, coaxing breakfast into his son.
Wayne is a handsome man with a handsome fortune. The women around him are foils, his penthouse is an accessory. He commands with an easy assumption of obedience and spreads his arms wide not to welcome the people around him but to draw attention to who he is and where he fits in the crowd he gathers.
Gordon isn't impressed.
Wayne is all sharp lines and appearance. No personality. No reality. A hollow shell of a man who consumes pleasure because he no longer recognises anything else.
In the aftermath of the incident with Dent, the Batman's assumption of guilt, the potential murder of his family – the whole world goes to hell.
Gordon waits for two months by the broken signal but the shadows don't move across the rooftops. He's in shock, his conscience is torn, and he doesn't know how to begin to fix things.
"I expect you to do your job," Garcia snaps.
He does what he can. He has nothing left by the time Barbara takes the kids to Cleveland. All he has is an empty house that no one wants to buy and a bed that his wife of twelve years leaves behind.
He doesn't have the strength for the consequences but someone has to face them.
The evening news reports that Wayne has been conspicuously absent from his company press. Eight months later, the morning news reports that Wayne is a recluse.
There are all sorts of rumours – accidents, rehab, and breakdowns.
A less than scrupulous magazine publishes long range photos of Gotham's favourite billionaire on the terrace of his mansion, wrapped in a dressing gown in the middle of the day. Wayne's face is turned away from the camera lens as if he can somehow sense it.
Gordon hears about it from the patrolman posted outside his door, and sees the footage on the news.
A part of him surges in hope, weak as he is in his hospital bed. Fierce pride in an old friend, adrenaline pumping at the memory of those precious six months when a monster tore through the streets of Gotham and chose to ally himself with a mere police lieutenant.
The rest of him worries.
He isn't out there on the streets. He's here, in his hospital bed, and eight years later he knows how precarious his position at the top is.
He can't help, for all that he wants to. The evil they've perpetrated has almost sunk him as it is, and he fears it will do worse.
Wayne falls from his pedestal.
Gordon doesn't care. Wayne is of paramount unimportance. The funds from the Wayne Foundation dried up five years ago and they've learned to manage without.
He does what he can, because someone has to.
Weak, weary, confused – he picks himself and tallies what he has to work with. A handful of cops still free, his own brain, a terrified city. He works himself to the edge of exhaustion, just like everyone else, and refuses to admit to anyone that he sits in the half dark because he finds some comfort there.
These days, he is the only guardian Gotham has left.
The sign flames against the night sky and the burst of hope is enough to drown him. Almost drop him where he stands. Those eyes stare at him; solid acceptance of what is and what will be done.
He thinks of that when Bruce Wayne flies a nuclear bomb out over the bay.
The rose has thorns, and he's held it fast in his grip for so long it's left scars. Dripped blood down to soak into Gotham's streets.
But that's in the past now.
He lets go of it gladly and holds it out, relieved that it's all over.
Then he faces the unblinking row of politicians and generals, FBI agents and public servants and he is told in no uncertain terms that his time of reckoning will come but not now, not when Gotham needs leadership and he's the only one of the old guard left alive.
He is the face of hope now, even though his career is splattered with dirt and gore and broken civil rights.
They dress him up and stand him on a podium and he makes his pledge, curling his fingers back around the thorny stem.
The Batman is dead. No, Wayne is dead, the Batman lives.
The nightmare silhouette still drops down from the rooftops, still slips out of the shadows, but he watches those eyes watch him and there is too much hesitation.
This isn't the Batman. There's not enough of the beast left in the man.
When Bruce Wayne returns, he is greeted with laughter. Wry comments from the sides of mouths on his 'habit' of dying and all Wayne does is smile his cold, reptilian smile, hair and face and clothes a perfect shell of a man.
Gordon watches from the sidelines while those eyes sweep around the room and catch him where he stands with his back to the wall. They pause, just for a moment, and they sharpen to something dark and dangerous before the moment ebbs away.
Wayne blandly offers his arm to the woman he's with, and turns away.
But that night, the unmistakable silhouette slips out of the shadows and Gordon faces him, fingers curling as the thorns slide deeper under his skin. It's too many years too late to extract them now.
Overhead, the signal burns into the clouds gathering ominously over Gotham.