Hey everyone. I've written several of stories for shows based on DC comic characters, but this is my first one for Gotham and my first story done completely in first person. This is probably also one of my more darker stories, so hopefully I didn't make it too depressing. The next chapter should be finished soon.

I'm time-lining this probably between the episodes ''Welcome Back, Jim Gordon" and "The Fearsome Dr. Crane" (right after Bruce comes back from Switzerland and finds Selina).

Anyway enough rambling, I don't own Gotham or the copyrights to anything related to Batman/ DC Comics.

Enjoy and please review.


Chapter 1

Bruce's Point of View:

I lied to Alfred. I've never lied to anyone before. My parents always told me to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it was.

'Lies cause more problems then they prevent.' My father would say.

'The truth always has a way of coming out.' My mother would warn me.

This was only a temporary lie anyway. Alfred will know the whole truth soon enough, I explained everything in the note.

I told Alfred not to pick me up from school this afternoon. I called him during lunch and told him a friend from school invited me over to spend the night. He didn't ask questions, he was probably glad that I'm not brooding in my den, obsessing over details of my parents' murder. Alfred never pries into my personal life; mostly because he knows it would go against my father's wishes.

I'm actually surprised he bought it; I've never been very popular at school. My parents always said that I was an introvert, that I'm just shy. When most boys my age were playing sports and video games, I enjoyed reading novels and learning new languages. While they were watching cartoons, I watched the news. They spend their weekends playing in arcades and hanging out at the mall, meanwhile I'm usually attending plays at the local theater house or studying in the library. My mother used to say that I'm an old soul who is just mature for his age. I suppose that's motherese for 'loser'.

Gotham Academy was a private school for rich kids and I was one of the richest kid there, if not the richest. Most of the kids there were from millionaire families. Some weren't even rich but there on scholarships; most on Wayne Foundation scholarships, a new project my parents were working on. You would assume that being the richest kid in school I would be more popular, but that's not the case. I've had a few so called friends that would hang out with me only because my family was so rich. If anything, it was more of a business investment rather than a friendship. They would sometimes go to my parties, mostly for the extravagant party favors. But they never invited me to their's; unless they thought they could get an expensive gift out of me.

Perhaps they thought that because my family and I were billionaires that it meant we were smug. I've even tied to make friends with the Wayne Foundation kids, but when they did hang out with me it was because their parents forced them to. I assume they were afraid that if I complained to my parents they would lose their scholarship. In retrospect, I suppose the only real friend I had was… Come to think of it, she didn't really care much for me either. She used me. She lied to me and the police to get out of going upstate with the other street kids by using my parents' death as an excuse.

My parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, made headlines when they were shot to death after what many of the newspapers described as a 'mugging gone wrong'. It wasn't an accident. Someone wanted them gone; but who and why?

Why did he have to take both of them from me? Not that I could choose between them, but one parent is better than none.

Why couldn't it have just been me? My parents could always have another child, perhaps one who could have made them proud and would have been a more suitable heir to the family's company.

Why didn't the killer do me the mercy of killing me also; rather than leaving me without parents? Alfred is great, but he's not my father.

Why couldn't I save them? My grief councilor told me it wasn't my fault, that there was nothing I could have done differently that would have made a difference.

Everyone else tells me that everything happens for a reason and that it will all be okay in the end. What good can come out of this? My parents are dead.

Since their death, I've been working on becoming the son they deserved when they were alive; a son they could be proud of. I've been working on becoming stronger, wiser, braver, and more resilient. Alfred has been teaching me how to fight and I've been working on overcoming my fears. As well as researching detective techniques for thinking more objectively and creatively. I've been training myself to the point of exhaustion, it's the only way I can stay asleep all night without dreaming. Since that night I've either woken up in panic from reliving their shooting or fighting tears reliving good memories and the realization that I will never have a new good memory of them ever again.

I've been training hard in hopes that maybe one day I can find the man who did this and make him pay for taking the two people in the world I cared about the most. But I still fear that it will never be enough. Nothing I do will make me the son my parents deserved when they were alive. Nothing I do will ever bring them back. Either way, I've already failed them.

I've been planning this for weeks, but I just now finally got the courage to go through with it. I spent the night at the Wayne Enterprise building, in my father's office, to get my final affairs in order. As the only heir to the Wayne fortune, I have a responsibility to uphold. I decided to give some of our money to various charities and to leave the rest of the money to our butler, Alfred.

Alfred's a good man; he's been working hard tending to all of my family's needs, big and small, through out the years. As far back as I could remember, he's worked 7 days a week, day and night. He's never called in sick and has never complained about any of our requests, no matter how ridiculous; including stepping in as my legal guardian. Alfred deserves a break, he deserves to not have to be forced to raise a child that's not even his.

I stayed up all night making sure I didn't forget anything. I wrote down every detail I can remember about the night of my parents' murder and gave Alfred instructions to make sure all the evidence I've collected gets back to Detective Jim Gordon; along with an envelope with a generous check for his trouble. He's the only trustworthy officer in the Gotham City Police Department. I failed my parents, I couldn't save them or find their killer. But I know that if anyone could find them, it's Detective Gordon.

It will all be over before dawn. I can't stand the thought of seeing another day, another sunrise, without my parents. The sun mocking me with the promise of a new day and a fresh start. Nothing will bring them back and nothing will take away the suffering. I'd give anything for it to have been me instead. You may not be able to change the past, but you can always change the present.

I would have probably done this sooner, but it took me forever to decide how I was going to do this. I refuse to use a gun. Though that's how my parents died, I can't bare the thought of ever using one myself. As one of the self-defense books I've been reading said: weapons are for cowards who don't know how to fight with their hands; like the masked man who shot my parents. No one I know uses any medication and I won't contribute to the drug dealing problem in Gotham. Anything that involves bleeding out, suffocation, or ingesting poisons would take too long. I need something that will do the job quickly with no chance of going back.

I recently talked with one of my father's colleagues who told me that father's office hasn't been touched since the last time he was in it. As the heir to Wayne Enterprises, it will be given to me once I am old enough to claim my birthright, along with control of the company and the rest of the Wayne family's assets. This is the first time I have been in his office since the incident and it will be the last. My Father's office is on the top floor, with the best view in all of Gotham.

It will be the last thing I ever see.