I don't own it!
"So be it. Take the Batman into custody."
Silence reigned over the conference room as Harvey Dent stood, waiting, wondering if the Batman would make good on his promise to reveal himself.
Slowly, as though great weights were attached to his feet, Bruce Wayne stepped forward.
The crowd seemed to glare at him, as if demanding why he would turn the spotlight to himself at such a pivotal moment as this. At such a critical moment in Gotham's history, did the playboy billionaire really have to try to steal all the attention? And why was he here, anyway?
Bruce made his way up to the podium, looking more suave and handsome than ever in his tailored Armani suit. But something weighed on his face and for a man of thirty he somehow looked much older.
"I..."
He looked out over the crowd, at the abundance of cameras all straining to hear whatever he had to say, knowing there were thousands of people watching, waiting to see who Batman really was.
"I...I am Batman."
The crowd went into a total hush; one could have heard a pin drop. They looked as if they did not know whether to laugh or become outraged.
But one cop took care of that for them.
"How dare you!" the angered man screamed. "Shut your face, Wayne, and quit playing! Maybe you got nothin' to lose, but the rest of us ain't got a couple billion dollars to spend with our own security posse to keep us safe! Get outta the way and let the real Batboy show his face!"
The crowd was on its feet screaming agreement.
Bruce remained entirely motionless, hands loosely in his pockets, looking defeatedly out over the crowd.
He said nothing, but from his pockets began pulling his small bladed bat-a-rangs and tossing them into the crowd, which fell silent again as it observed.
"If you like, I can give a demonstration," he said listlessly. "Send your best cops up here. But I'd rather not; Gotham needs all the good men she has."
Harvey Dent was staring at Bruce with a mixture of utter amazement and revulsion written all over his handsome face.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said in total disbelief. "You-Rachel-she...?"
"We can talk later, Dent, if you want," Bruce said quietly. Several burly cops had muscled their way to the front and roughly twisted Bruce's arms behind his back.
Distantly, Bruce wondered why they were being so rough with him; anyone who knew anything about Batman knew there was no way fewer than a small crowd of armed men would be able to detain him. If he wanted to escape, well, he wouldn't have come in the first place and secondly it would be as easy for him to get away as eating pie.
"Are you serious?" shouted out a reporter suddenly, and the room seemed to regain its voice.
"Wayne?"
"The hell-"
"How did he-?"
"-what he did with all his money-"
The cops muscled Bruce away and loaded him into the back of the armored car. Dent jumped in behind him, saying shortly he just wanted to talk when questioned.
"He isn't going to hurt me," Dent snapped at the cops who doubted his judgement. "If he wanted to do that he wouldn't have turned himself in. Idiots."
The door slammed shut behind them and for a long moment Dent just stared at Bruce, who had shut his eyes and bowed his head.
"So all that playboy stuff-all that, stealing the whole Russian ballet thing, buying all those restaurants-why?" was his first question.
"It was just an act," Bruce said wearily. "I never slept with those women. I only ate at those restaurants to make an appearance. Almost nothing I did as Bruce Wayne meant anything to me."
"I can't even believe this," said Harvey, clearly still in shock. "Did Rachel-"
"She's known ever since the episode with Crane," Bruce replied before Dent could even finish his question.
"And you-how did you learn-?"
"I spent years training with Ra's al Ghoul, deep in the Himalayas," Bruce said.
He was so tired. There was nothing he cared to keep a secret. Everyone knew who he was; his time was up. There was nothing for it. This was the end of Batman.
"I learned everything from him. He was the best, and he taught me all he knew. And my technology...that I obviously got from Wayne Enterprises."
"Why did you turn yourself in?" demanded Dent suddenly, harshly. "I believed in you-Gotham needed you!"
"People were dying, Dent," Bruce said coldly. "Maybe you don't know what it's like to have the blood of innocent people on your hands, but I do."
"But you played the Joker's game," Dent said fiercely. "He's won, he's forced Gotham to give up her greatest hero."
"I'm not a hero," Bruce said. "You're Gotham's hero, Dent. Now you can be what I never could be for her: a savior."
"I can't do what you can do," Dent said helplessly. "I can't smash through walls or intimidate mob bosses. All I can do is threaten them with a little jail time and put a dent in their trust funds."
Bruce sighed. "It isn't about that, Dent," he said softly. "It's about giving Gotham someone they can trust. Someone who follows the law that they can look up to."
He laughed bitterly.
"What will they charge me with?" he wondered aloud. "Obstruction of justice? Taking the law into my own hands? Deaths of Gotham police officers?"
"I'm going to do everything I can to get you cleared of all charges," Dent said immediately, but Bruce just shook his head.
"Don't you see? It doesn't matter. What good is my money when every single person within a thousand miles of Gotham is going to know who I really am? I will be ostracized for the rest of my life."
A sudden thought occurred to him, and he glanced at Dent sharply.
"But Alfred, Dent. If there's anything you can do...make sure nothing happens to Alfred."
Bruce's head sagged against his chest and the two remained silent.
Until an explosion shook the car, and they heard one of the men in front yell something about a bazooka...
The next morning, the papers held sad headlines.
"Bruce Wayne: Gotham's prince or villain, dead at 31."
The article relayed how the Joker had come out of wherever he was hiding and attacked the caravan as it made its way to the prison.
He and his henchmen had killed almost everyone in the convoy with little issue, including Harvey Dent. Only one cop, who had pretended to be dead, survived the horrifying massacre and was able to relay the story to the press.
The Joker had ripped open the back of the truck transporting Wayne, killed Dent with a single shot, then dragged Bruce Wayne out onto the pavement.
"He slapped him around for awhile," recalled the officer. "He kept punching him, kicking him, even cutting him with his knife. But Wayne never resisted once."
A long cry from the man who effortlessly fought dozens of criminals at once and came out on top with little more than bruises.
"I just kept watching him, hoping he would fight," the officer said. "I knew he could-so why wasn't he?"
Even the villains seemed rather upset at the Batman's lack of resistance.
"I'm disappointed in you, Brucey," the Joker was overhead saying before a last vicious swipe to the throat ended the billionaire-turned-vigilante's life.
And that headline turned out to be the last free one the people of Gotham saw, as within hours the Joker's henchman had swarmed into the newsrooms and taken control of the media.
Anyone deemed on the side of the cops or authorities was immediately killed: Gordon, the mayor, Rachel Dawes.
The police were overwhelmed by the suddenly huge number of criminals whose courage was strengthened when they saw that not only was the Batman dead, but the Joker in clear control. Blood ran through the streets for days.
And sometimes, only sometimes when one felt the courage to whisper what they thought, you could hear a little conversation.
"If only Batman hadn't listened," the people would whisper, terrified, as their homes were ransacked and devastated yet again by the Joker or his men.
"If only he had stayed away...if only..."
It was too late; Gotham had lost both her white prince and dark knight, and before long she had become a ruined city of fear and poverty, fading into history as a mere memory, written next to Rome and Constantinople, only to be ever again remembered an example of something gone terribly, terribly wrong.
WRITTEN AT TWO IN THE MORNING! Tell me what you think but no flames please :)