The Domino Theory
Young Bruce Wayne watched in admiration as his father placed a thin, black block down onto the mahogany flooring. The older man was kneeling down in his study, his face in clear concentration as he worked down on all fours. Bruce held in his breath, hoping that the light breeze wouldn't knock down the similar blocks in front of him. It took father and son nearly three days to create a long, winding road of dominoes in the room, and Bruce wasn't ready to see the small blocks tumble on top of each other.
The anticipation was killing him, though.
"Are we done yet, dad?" the young boy asked quietly, slowly standing up and catching his breath as one of the blocks wobbled. Soon, however, he sighed in relief as it stopped. Shuffling his feet towards his father, who was now standing up, they both scanned their creation. The whole study was filled with identical dominoes, some resting on top of the bookshelves, others on Thomas Wayne's desk, and the rest on the floor.
"I think a thank you is in order for Alfred, don't you think?" Thomas mused, remembering how the trusting butler conveniently had stacks and stacks of boxed dominoes waiting in a closet. Thomas didn't think of asking where they came from, respecting Alfred's strange secrets.
"I think we should have him come watch," Bruce replied, also looking around the room. The seven year old was still in shock that he had managed to create such a chaotic mess. He had managed to find some loose boards around the greenhouse, convincing his father that it would be neat to create some slopes for the blocks. Thomas had complied, shocked that he had never thought of that. Then again, Thomas Wayne had never created something this huge.
As if on cue, Alfred came in carrying a tray of lemonade before him. "What should I watch?" Looking up, he then saw his beloved dominoes, hand crafted by his grandfather, his father, and himself, strategically placed around the room. The aging butler looked down to see his foot a near inch away from the starting domino. Sidestepping away from the small block, he placed the tray on the only empty table. "Good thing I stopped or else I would've started this chain."
"We were thinking of starting it. How about it, Bruce? Do you want to tip the first domino over?" Thomas asked, placing a hand on his son's shoulder.
Bruce nodded eagerly and bent down carefully to lay on the floor. With his index finger, he pressed the block lightly, and then watched as the first tumbled into the second one; the second one fell on top of the third; and so on, racing from the floor then onto the first slope that led to several sinuous rows of dominoes on Thomas' desk. Once those fell over, the tumbling chain continued onto a strategically placed slope that would lead to the many black blocks on the bookshelves. As he watched, Bruce couldn't help but smile as they tumbled down before the last row finally fell onto the long wooden table near the window.
As the last domino fell into a large, conveniently placed fish tank, Alfred cleared his throat. "I must say, I'm impressed," he said, admiration clear in his voice.
The black block sank, hitting an ugly fish Bruce hated. He looked up, turning hopeful eyes to his grinning father. "Can we do that again?"
Hugging his son close to him, his father shook his head at his son's excitement. "Some other time, Bruce," he replied.
Batman stood alone on a small rooftop, staring out into Gotham's dreary night. The supposed black sky was draped with an eerie green-yellow tint, caused by the unruly fog from the Narrows. Pedestrians walked down on the street below him, most of them clutching their jackets close to them due to the unusual freezing temperature. Others glanced uneasily at one another, as if there could be a murderer or rapist among them. Batman couldn't blame them. Since his return, it seemed that more Arkham Asylum copycats ran around, trying, wanting to get caught.
On this particular night, Batman's intent was to find the new mob boss that was succeeding in controlling Gotham. Death tolls rose with each new day. Money launderers made profit stolen from law-abiding citizens. Break-ins were all too common occurrences. There wasn't a name, an origin, or even a member to trace back to these dark deeds. They, meaning Commissioner Gordon, left it up to Batman to find the one clue that would solve the problem.
He growled in frustration. The GCPD was getting worse, more corrupt by the day and night. Since he had locked up the Joker, Gotham wasn't getting any better either. More theatrical villains rose each day, though they were largely incompetent and caught all too easily, yet Gotham still didn't want the caped crusader to return. The people still believed in Harvey Dent and failed to believe that their safety was more important.
Unhooking his grappling gun, the Dark Knight used the instrument to propel himself to the building across from him. The other block was equally quiet. Each person strolled along, trying to make it back home. Batman wouldn't admit it, but this lack of action was becoming all too suspicious. He actually wanted a new mob member to slip up and act out. He wanted to grip the criminal's collar and find out the name of the boss. He wanted to get rid of said mob and slowly restore Gotham to what it was supposed to be.
Grimacing, though convinced that the city was once again peaceful tonight, Batman slipped back into the restored Tumbler and drove back to the manor's construction site.
Once deep within the safety of his hideout, Bruce took his gear off, and Alfred worried over him, checking for any new cuts or dog bites as Bruce sat down in front of the computer. He flipped through the file that Gordon had given him, which enclosed records documenting past money laundering jobs and break-ins. The money came in from many different countries and landed in vastly different companies. The only importance Bruce could find was that all of it came in from the Middle East, mostly from the oil, agriculture, and mining industries. Oddly and coincidentally enough, all the break-ins took place where the money was going to. It didn't make sense to Bruce.
He turned to his trusty butler. "Alfred, if you were laundering money, why would you continue sending it to the same place, only to have it stolen?"
A bemused expression on his face, the butler replied easily, "Well, if I was laundering money, why would I still be working?"
Bruce shook his head with a grin, unfazed by his old butler's comment.
Alfred cleared his throat before continuing. "Do you recall, Master Wayne, the day you and your father created that domino chain?"
"Yeah," Bruce replied dryly. He thought of if all the time while patrolling Gotham.
"If you think about it," Alfred started, picking his words carefully, "we are dealing with the same idea. It's called the Domino Theory."
Bruce raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Wasn't that in the 1950s when Eisenhower said that Communism was going to cause a chain of events?" the billionaire replied, trying to think back to his American history. "How China was going to cause other countries to follow?"
Alfred nodded promptly. "Exactly, Master Wayne. Only, in our case, the mob is creating their own chain of events."
Bruce frowned. "What do you mean?"
"From the many years serving Batman, I've learned a couple of things," Alfred pointed out. "Some men like to watch the world burn, like the Joker. Other men like to knock specifics down, like the typical mob boss," he reasoned. "As Eisenhower said, 'you have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly,' and I believe he was right in this case."
"So you're saying that the money laundering was just the first domino, and whatever the outcome will be will be too quick to stop?"
"Precisely," Alfred replied grimly.
Bruce nodded and pulled up a new file. A picture of a man named Sal Maroni popped onto the screen, along with information tying him to different mobs around Gotham and out of the country. One was listed in the Middle East.
"How did you know, sir?" Alfred queried politely.
Bruce stood up, walking over to the cabinet. "Well, someone had to be the one to push the domino down, and Maroni's the only one powerful enough to do so," he replied with a shrug.
Alfred watched in amusement as the younger man took out the Batsuit. "May I ask where you are going, sir?"
"Going to ask Maroni some questions. I'll be back around four, but I hope it'll be earlier," Bruce replied, finally content that he would be receiving the answers he needed. If the tie between Maroni and the Turks turned out to be true, then Gotham might finally rest in peace once he was done with them.
I shall thank my Beta, stormsandsins, for helping me make this fanfic a lot better than how it started, and I shall owe it all to. This was my first Batman Begins/The Dark Knight fic, and I just wanted to get it right. =)