Life happened to be going pretty well for Carmine "the Roman" Falcone at the moment.

It was not the best it had ever been (that would have been back before his wife left) but it was far from the worst it had ever been. There were the ongoing tensions between the Falcone crime family and the others in Gotham, but things were relatively calm at the moment. There had been some concern of possible police crackdown following the Wayne shooting but nothing too troublesome had manifested and what little attempts there were at butting into his business was dealt with swiftly. The new smuggling operation was up and running well with expected high profits. His son, Michael had even started taking more of an interest in the family business he would one day inherit. His daughter Julia had largely been keeping out of his hair and doing...whatever it was young twenty-something women did.

Which apparently currently included glaring at him from across the breakfast table. Oh, she had been saying something, hadn't she? "I'm sorry darling, I was thinking about work. What were you talking about?"

Julia dropped her fork. "I was talking about a project I was working on for class I thought you might be interested in."

"Of course, of course,... What are you studying?"

Michael glanced back and forth between his father and his sister before burying his nose in the sports section of the Gotham Times.

"Business."

"Right. So you were saying?"

As Julia began her story again, Carmine mentally began reviewing his tasks for today. A meeting with his lieutenants in the morning, he could get Michael to come with him to that, then a quick review of some newly acquired property. Not a whole lot that needed doing today. He might even have time to go to the museum in the afternoon.

Everything was going wonderfully for him and his business. And best of all, he was showing exactly what you could do with a little hard work and a whole lot of charm. Without the nepotism granted by that stupid flying bird society. This was the American Dream, and he had made it.

The 'Roman Empire' was on the up and up.

-.-.-.-

"Ugh, Julie, do I have to? I'm not interested."

"And you never have been. Dad doesn't care about that."

"Yeah but he's retiring soon. Can't I just, you know, just hand it over to you once Dad's out of the way?"

"Mikey. Do you really think that Dad'll accept you throwing the business at me willy-nilly?"

"Why not?" He whined, "You're actually interested in this stuff. Surfing professionally is my dream, Jules. And you'll actually support me in that!"

Julia Falcone patted her brother's arm as she sat down next to him. "I know, I'm…" She sighed, "I'm asking you - do you really think our dad will allow me to take over when he's determined to see you only as his heir-apparent?"

"Then what do we do?" Mikey pouted up at his younger twin.

"We make the changes we want. Whatever it takes."

"Jules, what are you saying?"

"The big barrier to me taking over here is Dad's refusal to consider me as an option. I've attempted to reason with him and that failed so now we need to take more drastic action."

"...You can't be serious. You can try reasoning with him again."

"Whenever I try, he ignores me. We are well past that. If he tries to retire, but you immediately pass on whatever he gave you to me, he'll still be around to object."

"Jules…"

"Thankfully I have another solution."

-.-.-.-

Of course there were problems with the chemical plant. Carmine really should have seen this coming. The old thing had been abandoned for ten years before they had bought it for dirt cheap. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Property for cheap and it would only take a little time and funds to fix it up so they could begin production. Some legal stuff, that they could sell to other manufactures and what not, but there was still plenty of space in the back rooms to work on the stuff that would make them real money on the streets and black market.

But naturally the building inspections came back with a couple dozen red flags on it.

"I'm going to have to get Claudio to supervise this whole project," he grumbled to Michael after explaining the report to him.

"Um," Michael shifted awkwardly. "If it's such a big deal shouldn't...shouldn't you look over it yourself? It's not like there is a lot going on right now."

"Delegation Michael. An important skill to learn for when you take over. One cannot do everything."

"But… wasn't this an asset you were personally interested in Dad? Wouldn't it be, you know, easier to do it yourself?"

Carmine smiled widely at his son - finally his heir was taking an interest! "You sound interested in the process Michael, would you like to come with me to see the new plant? See what we're going to do to bring it up to our operational standards?"

"I don't know? Um. Maybe?"

"Then we'll go."

-.-.-.-

"Alright Michael, so the first thing we're going to have to do is get the toxic waste out. Now the sensible thing would be to just hire out a cleaning company, but the more profitable thing to do is sell it."

Carmine used a long, plastic, stick with a glass test tube at the end of it to bring up a sample of the waste. He smiled as he deposited the sample into a device that ran an analysis on what the contents of the waste was.

"Would you look at that? Plenty of ammonia and calcium salts. Could be refined into fertiliser - but much more profitable in the hands of people who'd like to make things go boom."

"What?"

"This plant didn't dispose of their wastes in an appropriate manner, so, they've left a lot of salts here in their reactive state. This is very good news for us. Hah! We'll show those birds yet!"

"Dad, maybe, it isn't such a good idea to get involved in a Turf War with the Owls."

"Nonsense, we're showing that there are options aside from them to grow strong in Gotham."

"Dad! You're not listening to me!"

"Of course, I am! And yes Michael, I am well aware that you're new to this but you have to learn, boy"

"It's MIKEY." He screamed, "I've told you again and again dad. I wanna be called Mikey."

"Well that's not the way the future leader of the Roman's Empire calls himself."

"Then maybe it's time for a regime change." Mikey said darkly, and with one smooth motion, he pushed his father over the railing into the toxic waste. A moment passed. Then another. And he fell down to his knees in shock. "Oh god. What have I done?"

Julia Falcone emerged from the shadows where she had waited and laid a comforting hand on her brother, "What we had to do Mikey, what we had to do."

-.-.-.-

Nothing made sense.

Everything made sense.

Et tu Michael?

There was a strange sort of pride that ran through Carmine's veins. Stiffening them, moulding them.

He resigned himself to his fate.