Prologue
Bruce isn't stupid. Maybe that sounds like a truism but he has to remind himself daily either with words or with actions. This person he calls "Bruce Wayne" acts the fool and plays the role and doesn't exist any more than the Grey Ghost really exists. Bruce was reborn in that alleyway as someone else, someone he didn't dare name until after Andrea came and left and broke him in her own way that first time. The man he is, the half-man, the Batman, is known for his mind, an intellect so sharp it cuts the rest to ribbons.
Genius is kin to madness. He's smarter than everyone else in the room, no matter what room, and too often he's trapped in rooms with madmen. Gibbering, capering, cackling, killing monsters, also broken. Just like him.
Not stupid. He's not. He knows the one line he won't cross, mustn't cross. He knows who and what he has to be, to separate himself from those others, those cracked and crumbling shells.
He doesn't kill.
He won't kill.
He can kill.
Sometimes he wants to kill.
He doesn't let himself. If he did, he'd be no different from the insane scum he scrapes from the street and sweeps into Arkham and Blackgate.
That's why he's burning tonight, why he stares into the flames of his own madness and is afraid to look away. Tonight he is going to kill, for her.
After that, nothing matters.
(To be continued?)