Leavering picked up his gavel, then put it back down. It wasn't necessary to call for order; all of the players were in place and seemed ready to begin. "It's now two o'clock, gentlemen," he said by way of beginning. "I'm sure the press outside will have already begun taking bets, so we may as well start on time, since everyone appears to be here. Mr. Erwin? Presenting your own evidence again today?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Proceed."
"Thank you. The court is already familiar with the basic facts of this case, so I won't reiterate them. Instead, I would like to focus on the much more disturbing angle that I uncovered yesterday morning, during a chat with Mr. Wayne's ward." He produced a recorder and a pair of speakers. "I thought I might be easier to hear with some amplification. The boy was still slurring fairly heavily from the stitches in his lip, and he whispers at times."
"Your Honor," Keith objected, "I have it on good authority that Mr. Erwin failed to follow proper procedure for obtaining that recording." Bruce had filled him in on the conversation he'd held with Dr. Montoya, and the attorney had no plans to let such a good statement go to waste, especially since it might cast doubt on the reliability of his opponent's evidence. "According to Dr. Lorraine Montoya, the physician who has been attending to Richard Grayson's needs since he was admitted, she gave no permission for him to be accessed, let alone interviewed or recorded, due to his continuing fragile state. As of a few hours ago he was still running a temperature of over 100 degrees, which indicates that he may not have been in his right mind when he was speaking with Mr. Erwin."
"If that is the case, Mr. Jones, I'm afraid I would need Dr. Montoya here herself to swear to what you're saying before I could even consider throwing it out. Even then, my doing so would be a questionable decision at best. For now, let's at least hear what he had to say on the matter at hand. Go ahead, Mr. Erwin."
"…I warn you, your Honor, some portions of this are rather heart-wrenching," the CPS man said, wearing a sympathetic mask as he pressed playback.
The first couple of questions were obviously warm-up fodder, but the conversation quickly intensified.
"Do you feel welcome, wanted?" Erwin's ersatz kindness assaulted Bruce's ears.
"…I used to."
The billionaire's eyes went wide hearing those misery-laden words in Dick's voice. Used to? What changed?
Further snippets of the conversation struck him like blows. "…Everything's changed…I'm supposed to tell him when I need to stop…" And then, the worst part; "I'm afraid he won't want me anymore."
He blanched at that, and had to grip the table to keep himself from falling a few seconds later when his son began to cry out for him. How could you ever think I wouldn't want you, Dick? Yes, you broke our rule, but my god. Have I been so distant as to make you think that if you disobeyed one too many times I would throw you out, reject you? I know I'm not exactly affectionate, but…I never would have dreamt that you carried such a fear inside of you. I am so sorry. I am so sorry for anything I did to make you feel that way, and I swear I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure you know better from here on out.
"Mr. Jones," Judge Leavering said in a deadly serious tone after the recording had ended. "Does your client have a response to this new evidence?"
"…Mr. Wayne?" Keith nudged him, trying to get the attention of the man staring at the floor with tears pouring silently down his face.
"Mr. Wayne," Leavering addressed him sharply when Keith's attempts had no effect. "Can you explain what we just heard?"
He swiped at his eyes, knowing that failing to make an excuse could be taken as an admission of guilt. "Out of context," he managed.
"What? I don't understand, Mr. Wayne. Please clarify what you mean."
"It's all…out of context." His brain was gearing up, clicking along over the words, some of which he'd heard without really absorbing, and creating a tangible story, something, anything to explain what had been said without revealing their great secret. "I've been putting a lot of pressure on him lately, especially in regards to school. I pushed him to take as many advanced classes as he could this year, and then I pushed him to study. I guess I didn't really give him much time to be a teenager. I told him at the start of the year that if it got to be too much, if he needed to drop something or take some down time, that I wanted him to tell me. I didn't want to burn him out, I just wanted to see him get everything he could out of his schoolwork. He's so smart." He wiped his face clean of more fresh tears. "He never told me he needed a break, but I was starting to sense that something was wrong. That's why – like I told Dr. Montoya and Mr. Erwin on Sunday – I asked him to leave off studying on Saturday evening and take a walk with me. He agreed, but he didn't say anything about there being a problem, so I let it go. I shouldn't have."
"The boy specifically stated that he's supposed to say when something hurts, Your Honor," Erwin pointed out. "Schoolwork isn't fun, but I'd hardly say it causes pain."
"You clearly didn't take college level chemistry, English, calculus, and biology concurrently at age fourteen," Bruce shot back. "Sorry, Your Honor. He also didn't tell me that his stomach was hurting him. I always tell him that physical and mental health are equally important, so it was probably a combination of not saying he needed help with classes and not saying anything about the physical pain he was in that he was referencing."
"…What did he mean by partner, Mr. Wayne?" Leavering asked, his eyes riveted to Bruce's.
"I told him that if he did well in school this year I would let him come with me to the office over the summer, start to get a feel for the business. It'll be his someday, after all, at least if he wants it. I filled his head with dreams, Your Honor. With my dreams. Dreams where he does phenomenally in school, goes to a good college, and then comes in as my full business partner when he graduates. I crammed his imagination with that, then put so much pressure on him about keeping his grades up that he probably thought getting a less than stellar score on a test would be all it took to make me change my mind about the rest of it. I've been out a lot of evenings the last couple of months, so he rarely had the opportunity to say anything and I wasn't around enough to see that he was troubled. I admit, Your Honor, that this is completely my fault. I drove him too hard, let him develop the wrong ideas, and then wasn't there when he needed me. I know what he said sounds terrible, out of context like it is. But I would never, ever hurt him, especially not the way Mr. Erwin is alleging."
Bruce, that was brilliant, he heard Dick's voice congratulating him in the back of his mind. The story was the perfect mix of truth and deceit; he had pushed him to take tough classes, he had threatened to reduce his patrol time if his grades slipped, and he had entertained visions of Dick's future at his side, partners in both their day and night undertakings. While he knew the teen had been busy keeping up with everything, he'd hyperbolized the academic stress angle; Dick was working ahead of the rest of the class in math and biology, and was right on target in everything else. As for his son's future, he had kept his dreams to himself, not wanting him to feel pressured to go into business if he wanted something else as a career. The only question now was whether or not the court would find his explanation more plausible than Erwin's.
"Your Honor," Erwin broke in as Bruce finished speaking, "that's a very pretty story that Mr. Wayne has spun for us, but really, the overwrought teen drowning under a wave of school work, social life and parental expectations bit is just a little too predictable and a little too overdone. You heard the recording, Your Honor; this boy was clearly trying to tell me that he has been undergoing sexual abuse at the hands of Mr. Wayne. I have dealt with a large number of similar cases, and it is not uncommon for children, especially ones as intelligent as Richard Grayson, to talk around the problem and use euphemisms. It's difficult for adults to come out and say they were raped, and for young people being mistreated by parental figures it's even harder. It's actually quite impressive that he was able to as clear about things as he was."
"Your Honor," Keith broke in right back at him, "Dr. Montoya is prepared to state that she found no signs of sexual abuse on the child when she examined him. Dr. Thompkins, the Wayne family physician, can also testify to having never found evidence of such treatment in her regular visits with him."
"Both witnesses are sketchy at best, Your Honor."
"…Can you offer an example of their 'sketchiness,' Mr. Erwin?" Leavering asked, his brow knitted.
"Dr. Thompkins has been a friend of the Wayne family since before the current Mr. Wayne was born. She is the person most likely to lie in defense of him, with the possible exception of Alfred Pennyworth. I would posit that the fact that Richard Grayson is not Mr. Wayne's biological child, and therefore automatically part of the family she's trying to protect, would simply make it easier for her to do so. The Wayne Foundation is also the largest contributor to her clinic, which she runs in one of the most economically distressed areas of this city. Bruce Wayne's displeasure is not something she can afford to incur. While Mr. Wayne's donations to Gotham Memorial, Dr. Montoya's employer, are much less essential to that hospital's operations than they are to those of Dr. Thompkin's clinic, they are still substantial. Even if Dr. Montoya is not facing pressure from above in this matter, she is also a single mother of three who hasn't received a child support payment in ten years. Having Mr. Wayne in her debt would be remarkably useful for someone in her position."
"At this rate, Your Honor, Mr. Erwin would have us discredit everyone who might step forward to testify on the basis that they're either friends of the family or looking for a payoff down the road," Keith protested.
"Everyone has their price, Your Honor. Bruce Wayne has the capital to meet almost any price. That is a material fact of this case, no matter how inconvenient it might be for Mr. Jones' defense. Plus, while I did use the word 'rape' a minute ago, I would point out that there are plenty of ways to sexually abuse someone that don't leave physical evidence for any longer than the length of a shower. Two doctors finding nothing doesn't automatically mean nothing is occurring."
"I've heard enough," Leavering stopped them, raising a hand. "Mr. Wayne, I would very much like to believe your story. In fact, I sincerely hope that it is true, and that the truth of it is able to be validated by this court. What I hope, however, cannot be allowed to affect my decision here today. I want to hear from the rather large group of witnesses that Mr. Jones is lining up, I want to hear Mr. Erwin's objections – substantiated by documents next time, if you please – to each of those people, and most importantly I want to hear from Richard Grayson. The live version, not the recorded one. Obviously that cannot occur until he is healthy enough to take the stand. Until such a time, I am interested in keeping him from experiencing any undue pressure from either side of this argument, not only for his own good but for the value of any statements he may make in my courtroom. As such, I am ordering that neither CPS nor anyone directly associated with Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises, etc., etc., have any contact with the boy. No messages are to be passed, no phone calls or visits to be made without explicit permission from this court."
"Your Honor, please," Bruce begged, his eyes growing hot again. Let me see my son! welled up inside of him, threatening to break out in a shriek.
"Mr. Wayne, I let you get away with interrupting me twice before. Just now makes three. I will not give you a fourth opportunity." He sat for one more second, giving Bruce an almost pitying look, then stood and strode from the room. The moment he had disappeared Erwin swept up his files and also left, whistling.
"I hate that foul son of a bitch," Bruce half-sobbed, his fists balling as the door shut behind the CPS agent.
"I don't think anyone would blame you, Mr. Wayne, but I'd still keep that to yourself. And for the love of god, quit interrupting the judge!" Keith snapped his briefcase shut. "As your legal representative in this matter, I'm going to leave you with one piece of advice to follow this weekend; don't screw up. Don't throw one of those parties you're infamous for, don't spend a bunch of time hanging around in clubs, and most importantly, don't try to contact Dick, in any way. Don't even ask Dr. Montoya to say hello for you. Doing any of those things will lose you this case."
"I understand, Keith. I'm not going to do anything like that. I won't risk getting him back." I just want to talk to him, even if it's only on the phone. That's all I want, and it's the one thing that will do the most harm to my chances of getting him back. If he got my letter, maybe that will be enough to let him know what's going on and…and how much I miss him. How much I love him.
"Good." With that, the attorney departed.
"Master Wayne?" Alfred spoke as he drew up to his elbow and found him fighting tears again. "I'm afraid there's a veritable wall of reporters waiting for you on the steps."
"…We'll go out the back, then."
"They're there, as well."
"Jesus," he sighed. "Fine, then they can take all the pictures of my misery that they want as I walk by. I have things to do." Namely go back over everything I have on Erwin, and branch out from there. I'm missing something, I know I am. "Clark's coming in tonight. I tried to convince him not to. He told me to shut up," he said the last a bit wonderingly.
"One of the guest rooms is already prepared, sir."
"Good." Straightening and rubbing his eyes one more time, he grimaced. "C'mon, Alfred. Let's face the vultures." I might be running out of hope fast, but I won't stop fighting for him until the day I die.