Chapter 2: Us against the world
A snore caught in my throat and jolted me awake. I blinked rapidly and rubbed my eyes. Then I remembered where I was. I glanced over at the bed. His face was as pale as the moon that illuminated it. His eyebrows were drawn together, and he'd wrapped his arms around his knees. My heart clenched. He looked…scared. Lonely. But he was asleep, and I was thankful for that small mercy.
I pushed myself off the armchair and made my way across the room as quietly as I could. Bruce has never been what you might call a "heavy sleeper", but lately he'd been having trouble. Who can blame him, poor boy? My mind's eye flitted back to that terrible night, when I brought him home from the police station. He had been unresisting as I undressed him; his shoes, his trousers, his jacket, all stained in dark red. The only movement as I cleaned the blood from beneath his fingernails had been of silent tears rolling down his face, punctuated by quick sniffs.
He hadn't slept that night. Not a wink. His pain poured from his haunted blue eyes. At times, he would burst into sobs, loud and violent like he was reliving the very moment all over again. I would pull him onto my lap and try to offer him solace. And just as I was wracking my brain, trying to come up with something that would make the situation even remotely bearable (and failing badly), he would go quiet. He had stared, quiescent, out of the window until night became day, and I'd stayed up with him. Exhaustion took him later that afternoon, but in the following days I made it my practice to sit with him until he fell asleep.
I cast a final glance at the frail figure and shut the door softly. The grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs read two thirty-seven a.m. I would have to be awake in three hours but I couldn't resist the urge to make myself a cup of tea. It was my coping mechanism, I suppose, and a poor one at that, but there's not much you can do when you're feeling completely helpless.
I was younger than Master Bruce is when I learned the Lord's Prayer. Yet I only dusted it off a few days ago. "Your will be done..." The words cracked like kindling upon my tongue. This couldn't be the will of God, surely. Not the God my parents had confessed with such conviction. What purpose could possibly be served by letting a little boy lose the two most important people in his life before his very eyes, I wondered.
"Where were you?" I asked, about the umpteenth time. This time, like all the times before, there was no answer. I sighed as poured my tea into a cup and left the kitchen. I was headed to my quarters but something stopped me as I walked past the living room. The door was ajar. I pushed it open and stepped inside. The first thing that always drew my eye in this room was the family portrait overhanging the mantle. It was a magnificent work of art in my opinion because it had not only captured the likenesses of the Waynes, but the intangibles that really made them who they are – were, like the pride in Thomas Wayne's smile, the depth of wisdom in his wife's eyes, the sense of security of little Bruce, flanked by his parents. This time seeing their hands placed on his shoulders only made me think about the weight their child now bore.
The unfairness of it all tended to irk me most – the senselessness. They were good people. They didn't deserve to die like that. Police Commissioner Gatoni had assured us, and then the citizens of Gotham the next day in a press conference, that the Gotham Police would "devote all available resources" to finding the murderer. I have never been a violent man, but honestly, if I could I don't think I would hesitate to put a bullet in the punk that had caused all this misery.
The clock chimed three. I started and a little of my beverage sploshed over the side of the cup. I really needed to get to bed. Tomorrow Bruce and I would attend the reading of the will. It was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak – the final confirmation that they were truly gone. But at least it would begin to restore some certainty into Bruce's life. I wondered what would happen to him. Maybe he'd go live with his godparents, Ainsley and Nina Carmichael, who had flown in from Vermont for the funeral two days ago. Or his mother's second cousin, Gertie Davis, who was upstairs in one of the guest rooms. Or even Lucius Fox, Thomas Wayne's colleague and confidant.
What would I do then? If he left, where would I go? I didn't know if I could simply detach myself from this place. Bruce was helping me cope as much as I was helping him.
My gaze grew watery as I contemplated the future. But then I focused on the faces of my former employers and I could almost hear them speak. In this whole unreal situation, there was only one thing I was sure of, and I promised them.
Whatever happens tomorrow, I will always be there for him.