The Eternal Funeral Guest

At first, all he felt was a void.

One minute, mommy and daddy had been walking beside him, alive and breathing. Mom nervous and shifty-eyed, wanting to get out of the dingy alley as quickly as possible and back on the train. Dad calmly walking forward, knowing that it wouldn't be far, and nothing could harm them while they all stayed together and kept their courage and wits about them.

It was all a blur, a blur of crystal clarity, single frames and images frozen in his mind's eye forever. He remembered the wallet dropping. He remembered the serpent's head of a gun barrel. He remembered his father moving in front of them both.

The bang and the high scream were removed from the rest, senses unable to collaborate and bring sight and sound into one.

A clear video of pearls clattering to the concrete, with rubies glinting off that hadn't been there two seconds ago. It was like a dream. And it felt like a dream, his feet unable to respond, his mind numbly hanging on standby. Watching.

Suddenly his parents were lying at his feet. …how did they get there? Gun, scream, wallet, bang, pearls…

"Bruce…it's okay…don't be afraid…"

The voice seemed a shot in the dark on its own, something he knew he should listen to, even if he didn't know why.

Wet was leaking from his eyes. Blood? No, tears. They seemed to be coming from nowhere. His awareness was hanging from the ceiling. A ball of thread with no cat to play with.

He fell to his knees in the freshly-dampened alley. He didn't know why. Maybe to close the distance between his parents, so his mind could descend back to Earth as well and shake him from this feeling of removal. Maybe for no other reason than it just matched the picture. Or maybe his legs just didn't feel like standing any longer. Why keep standing up?

xxx

Next he just felt annoyance.

He didn't know how long he stayed in the alley. It could have been years for all he knew, and he was now a grown man. Maybe he was a grown man. It certainly felt like it, compared to the rest of these people.

First the cops and their questions. It took a while for him to realize he was sitting in the station, and that several someones were trying to talk to him. He broke the surface of the lagoon his brain had been hiding in and the barrage hit him like salty sea air. "What were you doing?" "Why were you in the alley?" "What did the attacker look like?" "How many shots were fired?" "Were they after money?" What did it matter? Couldn't they tell he just wanted to be left alone, and for them to go away?

Then the one that was different. He felt a cold he didn't realize he felt being lifted from him as a warm coat settled over his shoulders. The mustached officer didn't ask him any questions, simply smiled and said "It's okay." And for a minute, a dumb part of his mind believed him. Nothing was going wrong right now. He was indoors and warm, and his conscious mind seemed to be returning to normal, in a warm and fuzzy place he could settle in. Maybe he could just sit here in this warmth for the rest of forever.

Then the man left. The other cop told him he had good news. Well, he was open to that.

"We got him, son."

Him.

The gun, his father moving in front of him, pearls, scream, bang…

Things were definitely not okay.

xxx

Next were the bright lights as Alfred walked him from the station to the car. Flashes and smacks from cameras, microphones jumping salmon to the orphan upstream. The word "reporters" crossed his mind. It kept playing in his head over and over, accompanied by some far-off scream with no source.

A garble of words and shouts. "How does it fee-" "…prince of Gotham…" "-were you thinking whe-" "secret affairs…" "-plot to steal her husband's money-" "-you plan to do nex-" "-the funeral, will you-"

The police were telling the reporters to back off. The ravenous journalists plotted their next stab at exposing whatever secret life went on in Wayne Manor. But all he could feel was the coat on his shoulders, and his teary-eyed butler's arm around him, guiding him home.

xxx

Alfred took care of all the funeral arrangements. Some thought that maybe he should be involved as well, but his butler knew him better than anyone, even then. He knew that such was not the time for his charge to face the dissonant music.

In the four days in the interim, he couldn't really remember doing anything. He would stare at his books listlessly, wondering if he should read one of them, before giving up entirely after realizing his father had read them all aloud to him at some point in his life. He picked at his food, eating obligatory bites because Alfred was walking by. He lay awake long into the night, feeling no reason to close his eyelids. Nothing good would be found behind them.

He didn't speak a word in the four days. He found himself drinking plenty of water for his throat would feel like cracking from lack of use, but no sound was uttered. No words, no screams, no sobs. Nothing but nothing.

Alfred would sit with him, though. He didn't try to coax the young master into conversation, but simply sat in a companionable silence with him each evening, close enough for a hug or a hand to hold if requested. It never was, but it was always there. Always there for a word whenever he was ready. Always there.

xxx

An ebbing bitterness lapped at the shores of his mind when asked if he wanted to view the bodies privately.

What does one say to that? Should a person of eight years want to look at the bodies of his parents, cold and lifeless, done up to look their best for their eternal slumber? Should he want not, and just remember them as they looked when alive? Would it be an insult to their memories to not want to look at them, or a greater hurt to want to use their deaths as a petty excuse to give into morbid desires and fascinations? Should he want to? Should he not want to? What should he want?

What did he want?

The undertaker stared at him over horn-rimmed glasses, hazel eyes probing through the ball of string, trying to work the kinks out. But the toy hung far out of his reach.

He just walked away from the peering man, up to his room. Alfred replied no for him. He knew it was anyone's guess as to what the child wanted, but he at least knew what he needed.

xxx

At least at the day of the funeral, he had no hovering aunties, uncles, or third cousins twice-removed to coo over the orphaned youngster of their blood. No one to exclaim "I haven't seen you since you were this big!" and gesture a flat palm around knee-level. He was the only one left of the Wayne family. The only one left.

Everyone from Wayne Enterprises was there, though. Them, other investors, fellows of the socially elite, the spoilt brat children of spoilt brat parents. And Rachel, and her mother. The two of them and Alfred were the only ones he felt really belonged at this congregation of black around two treasure boxes.

Two treasure boxes, holding nothing but his life. His life taken away by sound.

Bang. Scream.

The minister carried on about their lives, and when he heard his name mentioned as their son all eyes turned to him. He would have burned red in the face had he cared.

Right now, his mind was nothing but black. Funny, how everyone wore black at a funeral. Make the clothes sad, make the person sad to match. The prospect of rain had brought black umbrellas with the rest of the so-called mourners, and they stood like solemn sentinels with folded wings at their owners' sides. Eternally vigilant, ready to take the puncture of raindrops from those they served.

He had been asked beforehand if he would speak prior to the burial. He was, after all, their only living family member, and the one who had known them best. The minister had even offered to read something he wrote down about them, if he wished. He declined such offers.

Words could never be enough.

The caskets were lowered, and people cried fake tears for show. Their synthetic grief afflicted all but the true mourners. Rachel out of the lot of her peers cried the only genuine sobs; she had actually known the parents of her best friend. She buried her face in the crook of her mother's arm, who shushed her quietly through her own tears.

He didn't notice the emotional display of his friend, or the conjured displays of the empty-headed leeches. His mind and soul were cold metal, pulled wholly to the two magnets of the descending coffins, his life and innocence buried with them. The graves were completed, and should have given him closure. But that was the whole problem.

He had been closed off this entire time. What he needed was an opening.

Just as the last finishing touches were put on the graves, a swarm of bats erupted from their cave in the gathering dusk and spiraled around the mansion. His phobia prickled at his insides, and somehow, the bats made the ball of string swing back and forth.

For the first time in four days, he could feel.

xxx

The jittering feeling of the bats festered. All throughout Mr. Earl telling him "We'll be watching the empire," and all throughout waving goodbye to Rachel. Something was building inside him, pushing against the heavily-constructed dam he had somehow erected at his mind that night.

Alfred told him he was going to prepare supper, but he barely heard his exact words. The ball of string was quivering on its thread. His emotions of fear and – whatever else they were morphing into – were stockpiling inside his gut.

Gun, pearls, father moving in front of him…

"Alfred." The butler turns around, startled to hear the choked and rasping voice from a mouth that hasn't let sound escape in nearly five days. Nonetheless, he answers.

Bang, scream, bats…

…the opera.

It was my fault. I made them leave the theater. If I hadn't gotten scared…

Suddenly the dam breaks. The ball of string unravels. He is in Alfred's arms now, the only one he has left, as his eyes play images of bats and black umbrellas, rubied pearls and dark clothing, screams and silence.

xxx

He still remembers. The numbness, the tears. The simmering emotion caused by fear. By the bats.

Now, as he stands atop Wayne Tower, a solemn sentinel with folded wings, eternally vigilant, ready to take the puncturing bullets for those he serves, he waits for the next scream with no source to beckon him from his vantage point. And as he is every night, he is dressed in black. For he never left the funeral that evening.

Guns fire in the distance, whether in the present or the past is difficult to say. Still he leaps forward into the night air, spiraling around the pinnacle of his parents' achievement. The dark savior. The fallen angel. The eternal funeral guest.

A/N: I know, I know, I'm being an angsty terrible bitch continuing these depressing oneshots. Really though, I felt that such a pivotal moment in Batman history really needs to be explored in a fic, something I haven't seen all that much of yet. As I mentioned last post, my grandmother passed away last week, and I just got back today from her funeral. True, it wasn't nearly as traumatic a loss as having your own parents murdered before your eyes, but I still got a taste of grief and felt I had a bit of license to write about this. Because you can write about an emotion all you want, but you can't really capture it as truly and honestly as it needs to be until you've experienced it yourself.

Things like the numbness and the dam ready to explode, the final emotional release, being asked to view the body (and the questions raised along with it), the ponderings of black clothing, and the mention of relatives and their "I haven't seen you since you were thiiis big!" speech are all from my own experiences. (I, unlike Bruce, had to meet a bunch of old people I don't know, haha) And of course, I'm all closured up now and can move on, while Bruce's soul was buried with his parents and he /can't/ move on. Being Batman at night is part of his grieving process, and will continue the rest of his life. We can only hope he will one day become at peace with himself, I guess. Poor Brucey.