The 25th of June was a tragic day for Gotham, Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered, shot, outside a cinema in an alley, Park row. Their son, now an orphan, witnessed everything. He will have to live with these gruesome images for the rest of his life.
Jim was the first cop to arrive at the crime scene, an elderly couple called the police. He remembers the look of terror on the young boy's face. Still sitting next to his parents' corpses, clinging to them. His small hands were bloody. Jim had to drag him away from the bodies. When the family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, came to the scene, he swiftly pulled the boy into an embrace. The boy held onto him like he was his last lifeline.
The murder will be all over the news, the poor boy won't be able to grieve in peace. Jim sighs as he massages his temples and returns to the report. As much as he wishes to help more, he knows he can't, so he does what he can, find the murderer.
Just as Jim arrives at his desk, Loeb comes. The Commissioner leans forward and says irritably, "We can't afford the news to humiliate us further. Find the Wayne killer, fast," his face darkens, "Or I will make you will regret it, understood?"
"Yes, sir," Jim answers and puts the case file in front of him. It was going to be a long night.
The next two hours were spent collecting files from his colleges, cross-checking data, filling in reports and double-checking everything. Any mistake and Loeb will make sure that he is 'taken care of'. Sometimes he really wonders if he works for the police or the mafia.
When he first came to Gotham, he wanted to change something, to help this city. The idealism of a young rookie, all that was crushed when he found out, just two months after taking the job, that his partner was selling drugs to teenagers. Of course, he confronted him and told the Commissioner, both laughed at him and told him that he either plays by their rules or he won't ever see his family again. Jim didn't say anything again. He still tries to be an honest cop, but he knows he won't change much. But can't risk Barbra's life. So he turns a blind eye on the corruption right in front of him and tries to make at least the streets safer.
And now? Now the commissioner gave him a case that could cost him his job, his life if anything goes wrong. Great. No pressure. He looks over the files again, but the letters slowly start to swim together. He sighs and puts the files together and walks to the rooftop to smoke, Barbra hates his smoking habit, but he needs something to deal with the pressure.
The city looks beautiful from above, an ocean of lights. You could almost forget what happens down there, in the alleyways, all those people who suffer. How much can he really change? His hands are tied, thanks to the people who have sworn to protect the city.
He puts his cigarette out and walks back to his desk. Most officers have already left. Now sitting at home, with their partner watching some cheesy romance on tv or bringing their kids to bed...
Taking out the file again, he turns his computer on and goes through any emergency calls from that area. An old couple found the boy shortly after the murder and called the police, but maybe someone else reported the gunshots, too. Jim almost laughs, no one in Park row would report gunshots to the police. But he had to make sure they were no loose ends, so he went through any calls made around 10:47 (strange how the autopsy was that much faster when the victims are wealthy).
Most calls are from other areas of Gotham or relate to other crimes. He goes through the 'completed' files. Sometimes his colleges ignored calls because they either didn't want to respond or caused them and then just say that it was already handled. He finds a call from 10:47, no file indicates that someone has responded to it. Jim listens to it.
"Hel-lo, some...someone was just murdered! And the-the child is still there... Oh god I-I think they were his parents. I- He- there is so much blood, please come fast! It...It's Park row. Near the...near Mark's market"
The market is nowhere near the Wayne crime scene.
Jim hadn't realized that he had grabbed his coat and went to the car, neither the drive to Park row, he was just...there. The crime scene from the Wayne murders was still secured, the corpses were taken, a calk outline now marks their place of death. He walks past it further down the alley, it's almost midnight his hopes of finding anything were slim but he had to try.
When he arrives at the market, unsurprisingly, no one was there. The street lamps aren't properly working and flicker every so often. The market already closed and besides the litter on the ground there isn't anything, so he walks into an alleyway beside the market. Blood. On the ground is a puddle of blood, how could nobody have noticed? Or did nobody or care? A blood trail from the puddle leads to a nearby residential building. He follows, hand on his gun. Whoever did this could still be here. Inside the residence, the blood trail shows him the way upstairs to the second floor he quietly moves in front of the door and listens. He can hear faint sniffling. A hostage situation? He should have called in for back-up. ...No one would come, 'you got yourself this situation you get yourself out'. His hands around the gun tighten and he takes a steadying breath. Let's go.
He burst down the door and screams: "G-C-P-D Hands in the air!"
Two corpses, a man and a woman, are lying there, white as a bedsheet, as if all their blood was drained from them. Both have a gun-shot wound, one in the head and the other one in the heart. Next to them sits a little boy, dried blood on his clothes, hands and face. The kid's hands are in the air and he is shaking like a leaf. He is almost as pale as the corpses.
Jim puts his gun down, the black-haired boy keeps his hands up, "What happened?" The kid stays silent.
Of course. Jim collects himself, the boy just witnessed a murder, the victims were shot. He puts his gun out of sight, in the inside of his coat. Then he crouches down to the kid's level, "what is your name?" he asks quietly and as non-threatening as possible.
The boy stays silent, and he still hasn't put his hands down, doesn't move at all, just stares.
"I don't want to hurt you."
Silence.
"You can put your hands down"
Slowly the boy puts his hands down, still silently staring at him. The room only light in the room comes from a street lamp outside illuminating tear tracks on the boys face.
"Can you talk?", Jim asks uncertain, maybe he's mute? He doesn't get an answer, deaf maybe? "Can you hear me?"
"What do yo- do you want?", the kid tries to seem aggressive, but his voice broke halfway through. What did he think Jim wants? He wasn't sure if he really wants to know the answer.
"Someone called the police, I wanted to see what happened, to help," Jim answers honestly.
The kid huffs, "ri- right and I'm Santa Claus"
Despite his words, the boy looks like he was about to cry. Jim didn't know what to say, so he didn't. He pulls him into a hug. The boy immediately freezes, then tries to pull away, but Jim continues to hug him. Just as the man decided to pull away, thinking that it was a bad idea, he hears a sob. Quiet at first and then louder and small hands wrap around his torso. The boy shakes with every new sob and Jim holds him. Knowing that he can't make what happened right, but maybe he can at least give him a little bit of comfort.
After some time the sobs slowly subside, but Jim still holds the child, he doesn't want to let him go back into this cruel world yet.
"bruce", the tiny voice whispers.
"Huh?", Jim shifts to hold him in a way that he can see his eyes
"my name it...it's bruce", Bruce's voice is barely a whisper, and he isn't looking him in the eyes.
"I'm Jim," he says, voice quiet, "Everything is going to be alright, Bruce"
Bruce shakes his head, "no," he pulls away and Jim lets him go.
"We're going to the presidium, finding who did this, and you will live with other family members, alright? Everything is going to be alright"
Bruce shakes his head again and stands up, "I'm alone, now"
"You can live with fam- I'm sure we can find a foster family for you," Jim says, still crouching to be at Bruce's eye level.
The kid just shakes his head again, stares at the corpses, then looks at Jim and says, "thank you, jim", then he runs out of the room. Jim runs after him, out of the house on the street, but he was already gone.
Jim sighs and rests his head against a wall, knowing that no one will care. Bruce is just a street kid now, someone nobody cares about- Nobody is going to search for his parent's murder, nobody is going to make sure he's safe. He has to fend for himself now. The murder of his parents was almost exactly like the Wayne murder just with Bruce instead of Thomas Wayne Jr., just without rich parents. Loeb is going to tell him to drop Bruce's case.
Jim still calls an ambulance for the corpses, looks one last time back to where he met the little boy and drives back to the police station. He couldn't help Bruce, but he can still help Thomas and with that his own family.