Monday, February 14, 2000; 2:02pm – Wayne Manor; Gotham City, New Jersey
He found Rachel standing next to the counter in the kitchen, examining one of the apples in the small apple box in front of her. She had grown into her beauty over the few years since he had last seen her. Her dark hair was pinned back to show off that beauty, but Bruce had to admit that she was more cute while Ana was more beautiful—don't think about her.
"Alfred still keeps the condensed milk on the top shelf," Bruce interrupted with the lightest tone he had used since his return to Gotham. She didn't deserve his sour mood. And she wasn't as understanding as Ana—stop it.
"Hasn't he noticed you're tall enough to reach it now?" she asked as she set down the apple and turned towards him, her soft brown eyes underneath her raised eyebrows meeting his with a smile.
"Old habits die hard, I guess," Bruce replied with a small smile of his own as he set down his jacket on one of the chairs before closing the distance between them. She coyly leaned against the counter, looking up at him.
"Never used to stop us anyway."
"No it didn't." They both grinned at the memories. "How's your mom?" he asked as he leaned back against the counter as well. This was no small talk. Bruce missed both Rachel and her mother. And with Mrs. Dawes' health worsening over the years, he was genuinely concerned.
He just didn't always show it.
Rachel paused, looking for the right words, "She misses this place." And then she shrugged in agreement, "So do I."
"Yeah…" Bruce muttered thoughtfully, "but it's nothing without the people who made it what it was. Now there's only Alfred," he said with a fading smile.
She cocked her head to the side, curious to what impact her next words would have, "And you."
"I'm not staying Rachel—"
"You're just back for the hearing," she replied, defeated.
Bruce nodded singularly.
She looked down at the counter in slight sorrow before taking a breath and looking back to him, "Bruce, I don't suppose there's any way to convince you not to come."
He turned to look down at the ground as he folded his arms. His mind had been made up. He had to do something for his parents. And he'd thought about this day for over a decade. The chance to avenge his parents. The chance to get their justice. The chance to get him justice. He could've led a perfectly happy life if fate hadn't violently orphaned an eight year old boy. He could've been with her—no. There was nothing that was going to keep him from going. Rachel had no chance. "Someone at this…proceeding," he muttered, rolling his eyes in mockery, "Should stand for my parents."
Rachel looked pained. "We all loved your parents, Bruce. What Chill did is unforgivable—"
"Then why's your boss letting him go?" he demanded suddenly, aggressive.
She sighed as she closed her eyes before continuing. "In prison, he shared a cell with Carmine Falcone. He learned things, he will testify in exchange for early parole."
Bruce was shaking his head by now, not believing that she was willing to let him walk free, too. He couldn't, not for what he'd done. "Rachel, this man killed my parents," he whispered, looking back at her with darkened eyes. She returned the look with a concerned expression, not liking the look in his eyes or the sudden change in the tone of his voice. "I cannot let that pass. And I need you to understand that, please."
She hesitated, studying him carefully, trying to decipher the true meaning of his words. Finally, "Okay."
Monday, February 14, 2000; 3:13pm – Gotham City Court House; Gotham City, New Jersey
Bruce tuned out most of the trial, instead choosing to focus all of his energy at glaring at the back of Chill's balding head. He was slouched in his chair, his hands clenched in fists in his empty pockets. He wanted to strangle the man sitting only a few rows in front of him, erect and with his full attention on Faden passing his judgment. But a gun would be easier, quicker. A gun would produce absolute results.
His mind briefly flashed to the patiently waiting revolver, back in Rachel's car.
"The Depression hit working people, like Mr. Chill, hardest of all," Finch, Gotham's current DA, began. "His crime was appalling, yes, but it was motivated not by greed, but by desperation. And given his fourteen years already served along with his extraordinary level of cooperation with one of this office's most important investigations, we strongly endorse his petition for early release."
"Mr. Chill," Judge Faden announced as the DA sat down and Chill stood up. Bruce's dark and deadly eyes followed the murderer like magnets.
"Your Honor, not a day goes by that I don't wish that I could take back what I did," the aging man began. He seemed to breathe in a silent sigh, composing himself, trying to bite back the nervousness. "Sure I was desperate, like a lot of people back then, but that don't change what I did." Slowly, he reclaimed his seat, his nerves still running wild.
Bruce fumed. No apology in the world could make up for what he had done. What had his parents ever done to warrant death? They had only helped people, helped people like him. Chill had no right to breathe after what he did. And Bruce was going to make sure of that, one way or another.
"I gather there is a member of the Wayne family here today," startling both Bruce and Chill into frozen shock. Bruce was glad for the opportunity, glad that Chill would know who was at the other end of the bullet fate had planned for him. But Chill froze entirely, his eyes wide, staring straight ahead. He remembered the little boy he'd left in the alleyway. He didn't dare turn around like the rest of the court to see what his mistakes had created. "Has he got anything to say?" Faden continued out of customary requirements, just like the customary requirement that called Bruce to inform him of this very hearing.
As all eyes focus on him, all eyes except the very pair he wanted to glare into, he slowly stood. Daring that murderer to just glance at his creation, Bruce burned holes in the back of Chill's head with his deathly glare.
But Chill remained frozen, his wide hues refusing to look.
Giving up for earning any reaction, Bruce finally turned and stalked out of the room without a single word. He didn't need to see the fear in Chill's eyes, not until he pulled that trigger.
Retrieving the gun was easy—leaving the door unlocked for himself while Rachel presumed her car was safely secure. Sneaking it back into the foyer of the court house was just as easy. Both of his hands remained deep in his pockets, one of his fists wrapped tightly around the chilling, metal object. And the metal detectors weren't until the main part of the court house—the loopholes that Gotham's underworld took advantage of.
As he rounded the corner, a couple of lingering photographers waiting for the trial end off to the side of the main line in front of the court house stopped him abruptly. Pushing himself back up against one of the dozens of pillars that lined the large hall, he took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves and make sense of the adrenaline pumping through him. But despite his heartbeat thundering in his hears and his deep breathing in attempts to circulate oxygen better, his face had paled, preparing for what he was about to do.
Pulling out the small metal object that could change so much, he examined it secretly, running his fingers over the cool metal. He held it how it was supposed to be held, his index finger hovering over the trigger. But if felt unnatural. He carried the power of God in his hand.
Ignoring the sensation, his thumb pulled back the hammer and he checked the full cylinder again, trying to ease his concerns. He had been waiting for this for fourteen years. He was ready, no matter the consequences.
"He's coming out the side!" A reporter suddenly shouted, causing Bruce's head to snap up and over his shoulder as reporters streamed down the couple of steps to get a good view. Sure enough, the double doors of the side entrance to Gotham's premier court house swung open and a brigade of cops stormed out.
Taking one last breath, Bruce hid the gun in his sleeve, hunching his shoulder to keep the barrel of the tiny revolver from sticking out from his fingers.
You're ready. The tiny voice in his head kept repeating, drowning out all other noise. Reporters tried desperately to get Chill's attention, and one even recognized the Wayne heir and shouted his name. But all of this fell on deaf ears. Bruce was determined to do this. With one foot in front of the other, he stalked numbly towards the moving mob. Chill was right in front, a perfect target, with cops flanking his sides.
You're ready.
Each step brought the fated bullet closer to its final destination.
You're ready.
He was going to die.
You're ready.
Just like Bruce's parents had.
You're ready-
"Joe, hey Joe. Falcone says hi." Bang.
Bruce froze midstep, his dark eyes widening as Chill crumpled to the floor, swamped by the mob of people around him. In horror, he watched the man he was about to murder, the man he had to murder, die before his very eyes by someone else's hands.
His chance was gone. Justice was served, but he had not avenged his parents.
That had been his responsibility.
"Come on, Bruce. We don't need to see this," Rachel tried, tugging on his arm, her eyes also locked on the serene yet chaotic scene before them, unable to look away from the train wreck.
But Bruce didn't move an inch, only taking the time to shrug her off as his hues greedily ingested everything happening before him. Calmly, he replied, "I do."
And Bruce watched the man who ruined his life die on the cold, marble floor.
Monday, February 14, 2000; 5:48pm – 32nd and Jefferson; Gotham City, New Jersey
"The DA couldn't understand why Judge Faden insisted on making the hearing public," Rachel began after a few minutes of silence in the car. Talking had always helped her solve things, cope with things, so Bruce didn't interrupt. Or tell her to shut up. "Falcone paid him off to get Chill out in the open."
"Maybe I should be thanking them," Bruce stated flatly.
"You don't mean that," she said quietly.
"What if I do, Rachel?" he demanded with more emotion. "My parents deserved justice."
"You're not talking about justice, you're talking about revenge."
Shrugging, "Sometimes they're the same."
"No, they're never the same, Bruce. Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better. That is why we have an impartial system-"
He snorted, "Oh, your system is broken."
Rachel's lips thinned and she suddenly jerked the wheel to the left, cutting off a couple of cars as she darted across two lanes. "You care about justice?" she began, her voice rising as her own anger began to show at his selfish stupidity. "Look beyond your own pain, Bruce. This city is rotting. They talk about the Depression as if it's history, and it's not. Things are worse than ever down here."
Clenching his jaw at the lecture, but absorbing her harsh and direct words, and what they were driving through, Bruce stared blankly out the windows as they sped past the heaps of garbage and the flocks of bundled up homeless.
"Falcone floods our streets with crime and drugs, preying on the desperate, creating new Joe Chills every day. Falcone may not have killed your parents, Bruce, but he's destroying everything they stood for."
Suddenly jerking the Ford to a stop, Rachel roughly put the vehicle in park to glare at Bruce, daring him to understand where she had just brought them. "You want to thank him for that, here you go. We all know where to find him, but as long as he keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared, no one will touch him. Good people like your parents who will stand against injustice, they're gone. What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?"
Bruce swallowed, the emotions he had shut out for the past half hour suddenly seeping in. Rachel had the ability to stir something inside of him. When she wanted them to, her words could hit home with him. Keeping his jaw clenched in anger, now more at himself than anything, he glared out the window. "I'm not one of your good people, Rachel."
"What do you mean?" she questioned with a disbelieving smile. In all of their years, she had always looked up to him. She tried so hard to pick him back up on his feet so he could become the man she knew he could be. The truth was going to shatter that vision of him.
She'd never forgive him. She was one more good person he needed to push out of his downward spiral of a life.
"All these years I wanted to kill him," he said quietly, easing into the truth like it was boiling water, pulling out the revolver from his pocket as proof. "Now I can't."
He finally chanced looking at her, gingerly holding the weapon in his hands as if it were glass, and as he had guessed, she was furious. Shocked and furious. Once she had digested what he was holding, those chocolate eyes flashed with up to him with disappointment as she stared unbelievingly at Bruce.
Slap.
It didn't hurt. Ruffled his loose bangs a little and relaxed his jaw as it brought feeling back to his face.
Slap.
He didn't even try to fight the second one either. He deserved her disapproval. He was a coward with a gun.
"Your father would be ashamed of you."
His cold glare leveled on her. It was one thing to accuse him, but she didn't know anything about his father. She could be as disappointed in him as she wanted to be, but she had no right dragging his father into this. Jutting his jaw out in anger, his dark eyes flashing with sudden rage, he managed to slip out of the car and slam the door instead of doing something he would regret to her.
But deep down, he knew she was right.
The two bouncers who had been eying the blue Ford curiously straightened up as Bruce got out, their wary gazes overlooking the boy billionaire, sizing him up.
Shooting a daring glare their way, Bruce instead turned and headed towards the pale light that seeped in from a descending driveway.
Rachel didn't start the car and leave until he reached the top, the cold Gotham wind greeting him off the river just yards away. He shuffled to the edge, staring numbly at the city around him. The towering skyscrapers that defined the south island created a wall of reflections.
This had been his parents' city, and what had it done for them? Gotham had murdered them, left them for dead. He didn't want to claim this city, not as the Prince of Gotham. He wanted nothing to do with this city.
Gotham was death.
His dark blue hues glanced from the dangerous city to the horizon along the Atlantic. Small ripples of waves continuously moved in from the vast ocean, keeping the water constantly moving. And even though the twilight-touched cloudy day cast everything in shades of grey, Bruce couldn't help but think that Ana would still find this beautiful.
He clenched his jaw, pushing her out of his mind, and setting his resolve. Gotham could be pretty again. Gotham could mean more than death to him and to the rest of her citizens. But someone had to do something. And it would take more than Rachel's 'good' people.
First things first—he'd never be a coward again. Withdrawing the revolver from his coat pocket, his thumb stroked the smooth, cold surface again, far from passionately. It felt heavy in his hand, heaviest it had felt all day. Like it didn't want to be abandoned. Like it wanted to be used. But as he stared at it, all he could think of was that night, the night that one of these was pointed at his parents and actually applied. The night that a petty thief became God.
With a flash of rage at the images it stirred, Bruce heaved the manmade weapon into the river. It sunk with a loud, protesting splash.
No more being a coward. No more guns.
Now secondly—Falcone. It was time he prepared himself for a change.
Bruce strode up confidently towards the underground bar. Before he reached the door, the two bouncers standing guard shifted into his way, halting him to roughly pat him down. It didn't matter who he was down here.
Once he passed their first test, he was escorted inside by one of them. He almost waddled behind Bruce as if his muscles made him incapable of applying his evolutionary jointed appendages.
Falcone was being treated like low class royalty. Dressed in white in a booth to himself, with a wide radius of space around him that only his personal bodyguards could pass through. But before Bruce could stalk too close to The Roman, he was stopped abruptly by an oversized forearm attached to a quickly standing bodyguard. The movement earned Falcone's attention, and his weathered eyes sized the youth up.
"You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne," he commented as the bodyguard roughly finished his pat down. Once Bruce was deemed worthy enough to join Falcone, he was shoved down into the booth. "What? No gun? I'm insulted."
Ignoring Falcone's poor attempt at humor, Bruce glared down the bodyguard who remained standing, muscles flexed.
"You could've just sent a thank you card," he attempted again.
"I didn't come here to thank you," Bruce snapped, his undivided attention suddenly on notorious mob boss. "I came here to show you that not everyone in Gotham's afraid of you."
The elder man only flashed an amused smile. "Only those who know me, kid. Look around you," he began as he leaned forward, pointing lazily with his finger around the room. But Bruce's unwavering glare remaining solely on him, losing Falcone's intended emphasis. "You'll see two council men, a union official, a couple off-duty cops, and a judge." He pulled out his hefty gun suddenly and propped his elbow on the table as he pointed it lazily at the handsome billionaire's face. "Now I wouldn't have a second's hesitation in blowing your head off right here and right now in front of them. Now that's power you can't buy. That's the power of fear."
"I'm not afraid of you," Bruce repeated firmly, truly unintimidated by the gun pointed at him. He was prepared for anything. He accepted his fate now.
"Because you think you've got nothing to lose," Falcone added. "Well you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about your lady friend down at the DA's office. You haven't thought about your old butler—bang." He fired the empty gun off to the side before leaning back and putting it away. "People from your world have so much to lose. Now you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot, you know about the ugly side of life. But you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're, uh, you're Bruce Wayne, the Prince of Gotham, you'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name. So don't—don't come down here with your anger trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you'll always fear what you don't understand."
Bruce absorbed the words just as he had Rachel's. He hadn't known about all of this. He couldn't know about all of this. But he'd have to learn if he wanted to accomplish anything.
Falcone took a breath, assessing the damage his words had done, before glancing to his men and nodding, "Alright."
One of them came up behind Bruce and threw his head to the side before putting his arm around his neck, attempting to force him up that way. His anger rose again at the uncalled for roughhousing as he struggled before elbowing the man who held him in the gut. This earned Falcone's attention, his fingers curled curiously around the edges of his newspaper still resting on the table. Two of his men grabbed both of Bruce's arms and held him as a third gave him a solid punch to the face. Doubling over, Bruce recovered, forcing his hand up to touch his cut lip. Fire flashed in his blue hues and he glared dangerously at the goon who dared to hit him.
"Yeah, you've got spirit, I'll give you that," Falcone interrupted, almost admiringly. "More than your old man, anyway." That snapped Bruce's attention immediately to him again, stilling to focus purely on Falcone. His father had been dragged into enough conversations for one day, and Falcone had no right to even mention him in passing. "In the joint, Chill told me, uh, told me about the night he killed your parents." The younger man's eyes narrowed dangerously. "He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog." Rage turned the world red as Bruce struggled to get free, to wrap his hands around that old, thick turkey neck attached to that hideous, demented smile of dominance. But both bodyguards dragged him out, unfazed by his feeble struggles.
And suddenly he was face down on all fours outside of the bar, staring at the ever present grime that was a part of the street.
"You should've tipped better."
Slowly getting back to his feet, Bruce glanced at the source of the humor, wiping his wet, dirty, and bloody face with his scarf in the process. With an idea forming in his emotionally tired mind, he shuffled over towards the bum and his source of heat.
So he had to travel a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know who he was. He had to travel that far to know real darkness and real crime. He had to travel that far to find his fate.
Lazily unwrapping his scarf, he bundled it up as if trying to get it warm, but much to the surprise of the other man, Bruce simply tossed it into the garbage can, the flames licking at the new fuel. His fine, expensive, leather wallet was next, his fingers slipping the collected cash out before tossing it carelessly like it was a rock. The bum stared at Bruce like he was nuts.
Bruce glanced back, offering the cash with his fingers.
"For what?" the other man asked in his raspy voice, almost concerned as to what the younger man was going to do next.
"Your jacket," Bruce deadpanned.
"Okay." A wad of cash that looked to contain only big bills for his ratty old jacket, why not? At least the crazy young man didn't want something else for that much cash. As they both slunk out of their extremely varying jackets, Bruce was soon folding his lavish, wool one up, ready to toss it, too. But the bum held out his grimy hand, stopping him. "Heyhey, letme have it. It's a nice coat," he objected, his words slithering together. Bruce not caring either way, they exchanged coats.
"Careful who sees you with that," Bruce stated seriously as he shrugged into the different jacket. The older man questioned why with his eyes, his lips currently holding his income for the day as he thrust his arms gently through the fancy coat. "They're going to come looking for me."
"Who?" he finally managed, genuinely curious.
"Everyone." Bruce stalked past the other man and his personal fire, heading back out to the ramp that led to the river. Instead of the light leading the way, the early sunset had already brought evening to the city, and the downtown lights of the skyscrapers twinkled on the river water. It reminded him of her again briefly, but he strolled numbly along, pushing her out of his thoughts.
He stopped once he got deeper in the shipyard, the large cargo ships towering over the numerous crates that seemed to be a permanent fixture, and a low fog horn greeted him, signaling the last call for one of the cargo ships.
He was tired. Emotionally, physically drained. But he had a new mission now, now that his last was left unfinished and impossible. He had a purpose in life again, and he would not come back until fate told him to. Until he had accomplished this new mission that even he couldn't entirely define. It was time to take a page from Ana's book and just go with it for once.
He was going to learn the world. He was going to learn his limits. And above all, he was going to learn to fight back.
Even though he was tired, he was ready.
You're ready.
Forgetting Alfred, forgetting Rachel, forgetting Ana, his head turned towards the ship that was ready to make way, his mind finally clear.
The Capricorn
It would do.
Taking off at a sprint, he hurried to slip onboard before the oversized ship pushed off for the Atlantic.
A/N: End of part one. Yay! How excited are we? I'll give you all some time to catch up on the sudden onslaught of chapters—I warned you—before posting the few chapters I have prepped and ready for part two. I feel like a couple of days is enough time. :D
Oh, and if some words don't make sense in the last few chapters, I wrote all of this between 10pm and 6am—all of it to procrastinate that paper I mentioned. Not only did I not have easy access to internet (and I was too lazy to get up and grab my handy Thesaurus and Dictionary), but I was in the mood for using big words that I normally don't use. So if they're spelled wrong or used incorrectly—my apologies. My night owl brain was trying to sound smart for you all.
And yes, I tried to make the end of this sound all epic-like, lol. I felt it needed it, just for shits and giggles.
Now, review. Or else I'll send the review zombies after you. I think writing this much deserves some praise.