You come to me
By TeraWatt
It wasn't going to snow today, but that didn't mean that it wasn't damn cold.
Bruce hated Gotham. He hated the ostentatious neo-gothic architecture sitting beside depression era tenement housing nestled in amongst the modern skyscrapers. He hated the main roads which could be mistaken for New York or Chicago, giving lie that there was anything acceptable or livable about this hellhole. He hated that two streets away from the main roads into the rotten interior of the city the sky disappeared into a horrible smoggy gloom with droves of homeless people huddled around fires as though two small blocks had brought one back to the height of the depression. He hated the train network that his father's company had bankrolled which looked sleek and futuristic in his distant memories but were now graffitied and discoloured as though the years of smog and the filth of the city had stripped them of the promise of better days to come.
But mostly, Bruce hated the Gothamites.
Not any one group specifically; they were all the same in his eyes. The grasping masses ready to hijack unlocked cars at stop signs if the unwary driver hadn't locked their doors. The smarmy businessmen and women who worked in their ivory towers sneering at the commoners out on the streets. The corrupt police who paid lip service to the law only when it suited them and moonlighted as mob enforcers on the side. The mobsters like feudal lords in their strongholds, ruling over their claimed boroughs and corrupting everything they didn't murder.
This city, more than any one man, had murdered his parents, and if he could burn it to the ground with every person inside it, Bruce would see it done.
Sitting in the courtroom Bruce watched the proceedings unfold. He hadn't gotten a good look at him when the bailiff had brought him in. The lawyers took turns explaining why they were there, as if the judges panel and the crowded courtroom audience were unaware beforehand as to why they had come out on a freezing cold Saturday morning and as though a handful of journalists just decided on a whim that this particular courtroom was interesting enough on its own merits to spend their time reporting on.
Once the conviction report was read to the court the district attorney moved that the court consider releasing that animal back among the general population of Gotham.
From his seat in the gallery, Bruce glared at the back of the the murderer's head, hardly breathing.
"The depression hit working people, like Mr Chill, hardest of all. His crime was appalling, yes, but it was motivated not by greed, but by desperation."
Now Bruce's eyes flicked to the man in the crisp black suit with his Princeton haircut and his oh-so-slightly not-white of-the-people business shirt - 'Going for the working-man look are we Mr Finch? Where do you get the gall to refer this creature's actions as merely appalling!?'
"And given the fourteen years already served, as well as his extraordinary level of cooperation with one of this office's most important investigations, we strongly endorse his petition for early release."
The DA took his seat as the Judge at the middle of the parole panel called for his statement.
He stood.
. . .
"A little opera goes a long way, doesn't it Bruce"
A man with wild eyes moves out of the shadows and points a gun at DAD!
"WALLET! JEWLERY! Come on, FAST!"
. . .
For a moment, Bruce was sure that he must be in the wrong courtroom. The man that stood up couldn't have been that man. The man in the alleyway with wild eyes was large and intimidating. His voice was demanding and implacable. His straw blonde hair was short but thick, if dirty.
This man was thin - too thin to be the monster from the alleyway, and his hair wasn't thick - he had a receding hairline.
"Your honour . . ."
His voice didn't quite match his recollections either - if by some chance this was the same man, his voice too was diminished.
". . . not a day goes by that I don't wish I could take back what I did."
Bruce wanted him to gloat. Wanted him to be smug and unrepentant. Wanted a confirmation that there was at least something of that monster from his childhood nightmares in this figure speaking before him. And yet . . .
"Sure, I was desperate, like a lot of people back then but, that don't change what I did."
And Jo Chill sat down.
He sat down, not saying anything else to plead his case. No excuse offered, no promise false or otherwise that he had learned his lesson. Just a simple statement acknowledging his guilt.
The judge broke the silence.
"I gather there is a member of the Wayne family here today. Has he got anything to say?"
. . .
"The bats again?"
A timid nod from under the comforter.
"You know why they attacked you, don't you? They were afraid of you."
"Afraid of me?"
"All creatures feel fear."
"Even the scary ones?"
"Especially the scary ones."
"Sure, I was desperate, like a lot of people back then but, that don't change what I did."
"Did you build this train Dad?"
"Gotham has been good to our family. But the city has been suffering, people less fortunate than us have been enduring very hard times . . ."
"Sure, I was desperate, like a lot of people back then but, that don't change what I did."
. . .
Bruce stood. As he did so, Chill stiffened in his chair as though bracing for a physical blow.
"I was asked this morning if there was any way to convince me not to come. It was explained to me in almost blunt terms that the murder of my parents which I was personally witness to as a small boy, was not a consideration in this proceeding, only that the DA's office needed this man's cooperation in an important investigation. I replied that someone at this proceeding had to stand for my parents."
. . .
"Why do we fall, Bruce?"
. . .
"And somehow, my understanding of what it should mean to stand for my parents has shifted in the last few minutes. Because if I stand here and rail against these proceedings, against Mr Chill being granted early parole, I'm not really standing for them, I'm standing for my self and my personal pain and loss. If I stand back and really take into account what my parents stood for, then I neither support nor object to this man's application for early parole."
The courtroom takes a collective breath and Rachel sharply turns in her seat with wide eyes.
"Your Honour will judge this petition on its merits and I will accept the court's decision. And if Joe Chill should find himself so desperate again that he considers picking up that gun again and stopping a new family in some alleyway for their wallets and jewelry, he should come to me first."
Bruce raised his voice to carry to the whole room.
"Do you hear me Chill? You come to me. If you find yourself with no work, then I will give you a job. My parents almost bankrupted Wayne Enterprises trying to keep this city's head above water. The train network still runs day and night at no charge on my family's dime because they wanted to help. My father worked night shifts at Gotham General to lend a hand when they were short-staffed. And whilst I personally hold no fond feelings towards you or this city, my parents thought Gotham and its people deserved the best we could give."
Chill had turned hesitantly in his chair while Bruce was speaking and was now meeting his eyes.
"If you are let out today or in another thirty years and you need a job to keep this from happening again, you take yourself to Wayne Tower and tell them that Bruce Wayne said to give you a job."
After holding Chill's gaze for a moment longer, Bruce turned and left the courtroom, not waiting for the court's decision and somehow breathing easier for the first time in years.