EPISODE 14: A Conversation with The Penguin
Bruce's head snapped around back to Oswald's desk to find that he had not left his position. The cold barrel of the pistol was still pointed at the scared man's temple.
"Put him down, Oswald. It's over." Said Bruce as he limped towards him.
"Not quite, my friend. Look who has made a massacre of my factory. My men. You turned this perfectly good factory into a blood bath." Oswald said to Bruce. Feeling a surge of anger, Bruce took an aggressive step closer to Oswald. Seeing this, Oswald jammed the pistol further into the man's head and tightened his grip around the man's neck. Bruce could see that he was visibly shaking under the cold grip of his boss.
"How can you say that when you have one of your own men at gun point?" Bruce said.
"Do you know how many sacrifices I've made to keep this business afloat and the good people who run it working? I am willing to make another to keep deranged men like you from tearing it down." Oswald spat back at Bruce.
"I hardly see this as a sacrifice, Oswald." Bruce said between gritted teeth.
"And how many sacrifices have you made, Bruce?" Oswald said with an angry smirk on his face.
"What do you mean, Bruce?" He replied angrily. Oswald laughed condescendingly.
"Don't play dumb with me. There are only so many men in this town who can afford all of the tricks and gadgets that you drive around with. Hell, the car on its own is more than just about anyone in this town can afford. It didn't take long for me to narrow it down to you from there." Oswald said. The color from Bruce's face disappeared. He knew. Oswald knew. It suddenly all made sense. The reference to a "guest" when he had been sneaking around the ventilation ducts. The decoy. The deal in North Gotham right where his parents were killed. The trap he walked into earlier that night. Oswald knew the whole time. Bruce was speechless. Noticing this, Oswald let out a chilling laugh that reverberated all around the cold room.
"Someone's finally putting it all together. I had no problem with you until you went in and started messing with my company and my employees. In fact, your work was making people more paranoid. So you created more customers for me. But then you had to mess with my operation. And then I had to deal with you." Oswald said with contempt. Bruce regained his composure. He stood up straighter, allowing the leathery cape to billow for a moment as it adjusted to his movements.
"Be that as it may, you're not defending your men at all. You sit up here in your pretty office and send them all to fight me. You're just protecting yourself." Bruce said in a level voice. He noticed beads of sweat streaming down the hostage's forehead.
"And you are helping them?" Oswald replied. "You have beaten nearly one hundred of my men to within an inch of their lives. You leave all kinds of kids with parents in jail, effectively not having them at all. Just like you." Oswald said glaring at Bruce. Bruce paused for a moment, Oswald's words were eating away at him. The bat suit that felt like a second skin before now felt like a weight bearing down on him.
"I'm not the one pointing a gun at someone who was loyal to me. I'm not the one selling illegal weapons to people in Gotham that leads to more gun violence. You are in the wrong here, Oswald."
"Am I?" Oswald asked rhetorically. "I'm not the one who beats people every night because of the guilt I have over my dead parents. Or maybe you enjoy it, but you can never go so far as to kill them. Then you'd be no different than the people you fight, right? But you aren't, Bruce. You did kill a man. And I've never done that." Oswald said. Bruce froze. Whatever sense of stability Bruce had was gone. He was barely holding it together as his breaths became increasingly shallow.
"Yes. We all remember what happened with the Joker." Oswald said.
"That wasn't my fault." Bruce said between gritted teeth.
"It wasn't your fault that five years ago the Joker happened to suffocate to death in your grip." Oswald said with a smirk. He knew he had Bruce unhinged. "You're the guilty man here, Bruce. And if you step any closer, you'll be responsible for another dead man. And I don't think you want that on your conscience." Bruce was filled with rage. Oswald had touched on every major point of pain for Bruce and in a matter of minutes he had broken him down. Bruce took the time to examine Oswald closely. He had his thick left hand clasped tightly around the handle of the pistol that was aimed at the man's head. Oswald's right arm was hooked around the skinny man's neck to hold him in position as he stood just behind him.
"I can't be responsible for a man that you shoot, Oswald. Let him go." Bruce said as he slowly reached for his grappling gun. Oswald didn't notice Bruce shift his right hand down towards his utility belt.
"The decision isn't up to me, Bruce." Oswald said as Bruce gripped the gun tightly now. "If you move, I shoot him in defense and if you don't, he lives. It's very simple and very much out of my hands." He continued smugly.
"You're delusional, Oswald." Bruce replied as he slowly lifted the grappling gun out of its holster on the utility belt.
"Look who's talking. The man who dresses as a bat." BANG. Bruce whipped the grappling gun from beneath his leathery cape and fired it through Oswald's left hand. The hook shot directly into and out of his palm as blood splattered out in all directions. Oswald screamed in pain and doubled over, clutching his left hand. The pistol fell to the ground with a resounding thud and the man dove over Oswald's desk and ran to the other end of the room. At the same time, Bruce leapt forward onto Oswald's large body and tackled him to the hard wood floor. Oswald whimpered in pain as Bruce began to land punch after punch on the defenseless man's face.
"Stop it. Stop it. Please, stop it. I'll do anything you want, just please let me go." Oswald begged Bruce to stop. And he did. Bruce slowly got off of Oswald and walked towards his desk where a bright red phone sat quaintly on the back left corner. He picked up the phone and dialed the police's phone number.
"I have more evidence of an illegal weapons organization based out of and run by the Cobblepot Shoe Company. And I have about sixty men…" Bruce looked down at Oswald. "…sixty one men who need immediate medical attention. Please send help right away." Bruce put the phone on the dialer with a click. He placed the tape with Tracey's confession on Oswald's desk next to the phone. After that he grabbed the chair behind Oswald's desk and threw it at the window, smashing a large hole through the middle of the large pane of glass. Bruce pulled the grapple out of the wall and retracted the hook back into the gun. The hook slid back through the hole in Oswald's left palm as it made its way back. Without a word, Bruce fired the grapple towards another building and shot out of the office, leaving nothing but the frigid air to seep into the room. Oswald began shivering as the harsh air chilled his body. His well-tailored suit was stained with his blood. The clean white and jet black cloth that made up the suit was now covered in red spots as blood continued to spill out of his palm. As Oswald laid there in agonizing pain, he heard the last thing he wanted to hear that night. He heard it draw nearer and nearer to his factory. Closer and closer. Louder and louder. It was a sound he wished would never arrive. It was the sound of police sirens.