**Written from Bruce Wayne's Point of View, taking place in the first season of Gotham, and contains graphic depictions of suicide and self-harm.**
"I was pain. That's all I was. Everything else, every chance given to me, every promise I'd made, all of it was pain. And what use is pain? What use is being just pain? It's not dignified. It's not kind. And if it's not dignified and it's not kind, then maybe it's not worth anything. Maybe it's better off as nothing. Gone. Dead.
I was ten. I got one of my father's razor blades, and I got down. I put the metal on my wrist. The edge scratching something cold. The blood on my hand. And I looked up. To Mother and Father. I told them I was sorry. I was so sorry. I was on my knees in Gotham. And I was praying, pushing my hands together now, the blood and the blade warm between them. I preyed. And no one-no one answered. No one answered. I was alone. Like everyone else. Like everyone in Gotham. I saw everyone in Gotham, all of us. We're all on our knees, our hands together, the blood and the blade warm between them. We prey. And no one answers. I saw. And I understood. Finally. Kindness. Dignity. I let the razor fall, and I understood, it was done. I'd done it. I'd survived. My life was no longer my life, and I whispered-
"I swear by the spirits of my parents to avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring off all criminals."
So that's what it is. The ears. The belt. The gargoyle. It's not funny. It's the choice of a boy. The choice to die. I am Batman. I am Suicide."
-Batman #12 "I am Suicide;" taken from a private and personal letter from Bruce to Selina,
With love.
I remember feeling small. I remember my mom and dad-vivid imaginations of them and myself. Happy bursts of memory that I could see through all angles of my mind. Bright visions of the three of us smiling and so very happy… I remember seeing those beautiful visions mixed in with the drive to school-the sun and shine combined with grey. Other children and their parents intertwined with my parents and I. The many voices inside my head would mix with Alfred's from the front seat of the car; his eyes when he would look at me through the rear-view mirror would replace with my father's pale blue irises. I remember thinking about all those times in my head and wondering if I could ever bring them back somehow. Would anything ever be the same? No. But that didn't mean they couldn't be better again, for all the people of Gotham.
I wasn't sure how to bring the happiness back. I wasn't sure how to restore Gotham back into something found in the far back corners of my mind. But, I knew that Gotham wasn't just a city. It wasn't just a place on a map, with streets, and people, and road signs covered in red crime. Gotham was a soul; a thing with a beating, bleeding heart, and it was a thing that demanded a sacrifice be made. A sacrifice for someone to give themselves up for the good of those around them. So I made a choice. Yes. It wasn't a relatively good choice. It was not a happy choice. It was a choice that was going to hurt people. However, it was my choice to make.
So, I thought about it for the rest of my day, unintentionally envisioning those memories of my mother and father. Their passing… as they were lying dead in the street with their blood rushing into all the little cracks in between the pavement. I thought about how angry I'd been, and myself and the man who had killed them. Screaming and fighting and begging with God to set things right. But he didn't answer me. No one did and I was alone. Until I remembered Alfred and how he held me tight after that tragic night… his comforting words that were keeping me calm. And the Good Detective, Jim Gordon. The one police force in the city who cared, but whose personal interests and afflictions where not enough to help.
I pretended in the times I wasn't thinking about it… in the moments I knew where to be my last. I pretended to be part of the public people. Taking my notes in school, joking with people I considered my "friends," and taking part in the smallest actions that make everyone human. Knowing the seemingly small hours that passed by, I wasn't entirely sure what would make them count more. What could make them last longer?
He swallows, putting a hand over his eyes and nodding his head back with a groan in his throat. Alfred is sitting in a chair beside his bed. Arms folded and his ageing eyes shut tight from wariness. Bruce feels pain pulsing from both his wrists-a twin-like numbing feeling coming from beneath his bandages. He breaths slow… feeling both weak and tired.
Alfred drove me home afterwards as he usually does, muttering on about his day's tasks from the front seat of the car where again, I see my father's eyes in the rearview mirror as he waits for me to respond. Unfortunately, being lost of anything more to say. Realization setting in earlier than I anticipated. I'm already too far away from him and the car ride anyway. No way for him to hear me from such a long distance. So I just let him drive. We go through the city as I look out the window, my vision turning from bright to dark. The people through the window shifting from young to old, men to women, the rich… and the poor. The scenes inside and outside the glass shifting from old to new. Faces changing shape and building changing pattern.
It was beautiful. Both sides that I was seeing through my mind's eye. Just beautiful. Gotham, honest and true. Dark and horrible but beautiful its own way. I could see it from the car… I believe I was the only one. For a moment, I even smiled at the sight of something I was going to soon leave behind. I was giving up all Her beauty so She could get better. My sacrifice was going to save her. Gotham would remain tall and beautiful… because I was leaving Her all behind.
We made it home and the first thing I did was head into my father's favourite room; his study. The living room if we were ever entertaining company. The place where I did my homework. Where my mother would read to me. Where Alfred would take his tea and a good book, followed by my father's disappearing in the strange hours of the night. I did my chores there. I had dinner with Alfred afterwards in the kitchen where we sat at a table made for two instead of four. All the while unable to stop thinking about what I was going to do… thinking about how I was going to do it. Mixing it in with the past remembrances of my parents, images of myself… the then and now… the future I could almost clearly see after it was all over. After my sacrifice.
I remember the water running inside the bathtub….
Filling up the bottom… holding itself all inside. The way it used to do when his mother turned the faucet on. Where she bathed him after a long day.
The way the air in the room felt… all…
Hot. He was already perspiring, which made him remember the way his mother's voice sounded in his ears-telling him how flushed he looked from the water. Then she'd let it drain until there was nothing left then a drop… and wrap him in a towel, and sing him to sleep.
When I saw myself in the mirror…
Staring very… blank. Depression beginning to soon sink in unexpectedly. He stood before his reflection and knew it was the end. He nodded to himself with gentle approval. He pulled back the cabinet mirror…
And I reached in for something that had been untouched for the longest time…
His father's razor. The blades shined, and they called for him… encouraging him on. He grabbed onto it, forced it apart and the razors sang into his fingertips. He picked one. Cool and sharp… and he brought it to the bathtub that was already so close to overflowing. He pressed his father's razor firmly between his fingers… squeezing his eyes tightly and biting his lip.
I can remember I told Alfred I was going to take a bath before bed. I left him reading his favourite murder mystery in the dark luminescence of the study. The dark light all around him…
That followed Bruce and shrouded his actions… seeing them so clearly too…
I remember being afraid.
He was scared.
I remember seeing…
Selina. So beautiful and so happy… smiling and laughing-the most wonderful sound he's ever heard. And then he feels her on his backside… touching him gently, and it makes him hurt worse because… he loves her… and now he's going to hurt her…
My face is dry now, from the…
Tears… that came down his face as he thought of her… and when he thought about Alfred… and his mom, and his dad, and Jim Gordon. And then all he could feel was…
Pain.
His father's razor, that was so shiny and like new, bit down hard on Bruce's wrist upon his command. It sucked the blood from his veins that came rushing willingly out into the open dim light. Now spilling down his wrists and across his fingers in a tainted black colour. Bruce was struck with a sudden sense of peace, soon crying… tears coming down his cheeks like he was a baby again. Breathing deep into his decision. Looking down at the poisonous waters.
I made a promise.
A vow.
To them.
All of them… His Mom and Dad, how sorry he was to have done such a thing. A necessary and terrible thing. He prayed to them… he prayed for them. Selina and Alfred. Saying he was sorry and thinking for the faintest second how it would soon all be over. As the blood feverishly rushed down his palm and fingertips… shining against the razor now streaked in red.
Crimson finally dropped down the tips of his nails-staining the water. It overflowed the basin, rushing now with blood.
I felt…
Tired, and shaky… The water now staining his school clothes. Now staining his mother's floor and the rug. Almost distracted by silly matters he reminded himself that it had to be done. He had to put all his pain and all his suffering into the sacrifice for Gotham. It had to be done. So she helped him turn his weapon over using his scarred flesh, helping him cut just as hard and deep as the first time. Puncturing his thin wrist just perfectly enough that his blue veins severed in two. Skin so largely splitting open while his body cried out in a roar of gushing blood where his lips could only stay silent. He felt the pain… so much… until then it was gone…
Gotham's beating heart was bleeding out.
There was a ringing in his ears, and again he felt far away. The visions of his friends and family fading away with every second and drop of blood that passed by… He closed his eyes… his hands feeling warm…
The blade slipped away from him, completing its final task… sinking way deep under the red of the water… He heard a voice… and felt himself being pulled away…
He was looking up toward the ceiling… at the light…
And when he finally awoke he was surrounded by it… everywhere. From all angles, it engulfed him in purity and goodness. For the first time, he finally felt free… until something changed. Shifting and leaving him behind in confused circles as it was Gotham that became his company. The City. He could see Her now, in all beauty and wretchedness. The madness… all close together in one space around him. He could see it all… The cracks, the crime, and the people… All the people.
And somewhere far beyond it all, he could see a white light, like a shining star. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and marvelled at what he had done, staring out towards the bright light but not going near it. He smiled at it like it were an old friend.
There was a feeling than… coming from his hands-his wrists, which he checked. Vividly seeing the sacrifice he'd made stained in deep red. He noticed the blade at his feet. The light in front of him… it was growing brighter. Reaching out to him…
I woke up after that, staring at the bright lights that belonged to a hospital instead of my own home. The city no longer in my perfect sight as it once was. I was inside of it. Beside Alfred sleeping in a chair. I looked at him before closing my eyes and putting a hand on them to cover the hospital light blinding me. I felt the pressure building in my head as I swallowed the dryness in my throat, and I shifted ever so slightly in the hospital bed to which I was bound.
I felt a gentle thumping inside of my wrist, like a heartbeat. A heartbeat that told me I was alive. I looked at the bandages around my wrist. White, new and thick. Hiding the scars I had created with my own hand. I could have ripped them off, but I knew I was the only one that was going to understand why. I shifted my gaze toward Alfred, who was still sound asleep. Slouched over in the orange plastic chair with imperfect posture and his tired eyes closed shut. I watched him, staring at the man who had known me my entire life-even more so than my own parents. Yet even as he knew me, I knew he was never going to understand the reasons behind what I did. He was never going to understand the boy I killed and why I felt alone with the knowledge.
I noticed a half glass of clear water sitting idly on the table beside the both of us. I reached for it-stretching with my new self to sooth my throat. I touched the glass without a sound… and his eyes opened; slowly at first, then they became wide as he reached for my bandaged wrist and held it tight between his hand. His palm slipped over mine, now clean… He pulled me into a hug, muttering to me about my actions. I cried along with him as our emotions came down hard. Whispering I was sorry for what I had done but also for the things he could never understand. My choice to end the life of a boy so that something else could live.