Legend of the Batman

TO DISAPPEAR

I remember it like it well…I remember it all. That is my curse. I remember the blinding flash of the gun and the painful sound of flesh as the bullet ripped through my father's stomach. I remembered his face as the shock passed by at the quick realisation of his own mortality. He looks to my mother.

Even as I stare down at their coffins, hovering over their dens, I see the man towering over us. I see him take aim on my mother as she pleads for my life.

As autumn leaves fell upon their caskets I hear Alfred whisper a prayer. I guessed he expected me to join in, but I had no room inside for faith. I was angry. I held a small crucifix pendant my mother had given me, hidden in his my hands and as I watched them lower my mother and father…it bent.

Though I was surrounded that day, by family friends, my parent's friends, I found myself isolated and alone. Their stares, they think they go unnoticed. Soon I begin to crave isolation. To vanish, disappear from sight, then maybe this pain would too.

I wanted just to scream out loud at them, for daring to show their faces now. Among them I could see several of Wayne Enterprise's employees, executives. I saw Lucius Fox, I saw his face, the genuine sadness. He said nothing to me but smiled. Where were they when the gunman fired?

I tried to smile back, even to force a fake one, and get everyone off my back. How could I smile, when the last memory I have of joy and laughter came from them. Leaving the theatre and talking excitedly to them about my favourite parts of the movie. I remember my father make a joke about masked vigilantes that he would have had you believe was witty and my mother rolling her eyes yet still with her own ruby lips curled in a wide smile.

A smile, of joy and happiness—as I look at my hands, the bent cross lying dead in my palm, I ponder, what right do I have to be happy?

We walked into an alleyway, the parking lot lay on the other side. Then out of the mist, a figure, a man comes up and produces a gun from his coat. He points it at my mother and demands money, jewellery. Father tells him to calm down. I get behind him…fearful.

But when he point the gun at my mom, dad moves quickly. He fires, the man with the gun—right into my father's chest.

I watch him as he falls.

Then, I look to my mother as she pleads, not for her own life but to spare mine. He grabs her by her pearl necklace, one my dad had just bought for her—an anniversary gift. The man rips them off of her neck causing her to jerk forward. He pushes her off of him and then…he fires. The bullet goes right through her head, between her brows.

And what do I do? I watched. I lay there, on my knees as the man leaves me there with their bodies. Streams of blood meet each other before me. I cry…I roar…I scream for help…

In the night I visited those memories as often as I dream…but not by choice.

'Are you alright?' I was reeled back from the abyss by the sight of the grand Eiffel Tower, the warm voice of a friend…a colleague…an acquaintance. Still, I didn't feel like speaking much, I just flexed my neck to tell him I was ready. The blonde shrugs off my attitude and continues to drink the coffee he ordered for us at the Café le Castel. 'Anyway, I have that contact you asked for.' He hands me a piece of paper with both a ten digit phone number and address. 'His name is Henri Ducard, he's a professor of criminology and deduction.'

I said nothing, just nodded. When my friend inquired of my interest in this professor, I had no answer—at least none I would ever divulge. He was the best in his field, a modern Sherlock Holmes, a veteran detective in the French Police nationale.

There were things this Ducard would teach me.

My friend takes me to the university he teaches, there to do a lecture on the science of deduction and the building and solidification of memory. He was a rather well built man for his age, reaching sixty-two next Friday by the not yet open birthday cards on his desk. He wore a tweed jacket over a grey turtle-neck sweater that hid slightly his more masculine body.

'Salut, Monsieur Ducard,' I approached him after the lecture. 'Mon nom est Bruce Wayne—'

'I know who you are, Mr Wayne,' he replied swiftly as he packed his bag of all of his notes. 'I saw you when you and Aaron walked in, brilliant young lad though a tad trop ambitieuses.' He offered his hand to me to which I accepted courteously.

'I have to agree to that, monsieur,' I say. 'As we speak he's off to our Headmaster, subtly reproaching her that he is best suited for her préparatoire aux grandes écoles .'

Ducard chuckles with restraint at my remark. 'I remember seeing your father when he visited École Normale Superieure, a good and hardworking man. I see you are much becoming a splitting image of him. I see a bit of your mother too,' I smile at this highest form of flattery and thank him. 'So what can I do for you, Monsieur Wayne?'

'I've read your books, your reports when you were still serving. You could pick up on anyone and find anything with but a couple of glances here and there. I know you're good at finding things…I want to know how to hide from you.'

-=o=-

As a father lies dying by his eleven year-old son, he looks to his wife, already still and lifeless. Tears still fresh, trickling her smooth cheeks. He wants to follow her, tears escaping his eyes. He looks up to his son who also has tears, but also confusion and fear. He knows what will follow. Anger and rage are very potent and blinding elements.

He tells him with his last and dying breath… 'Bruce, don't be afraid…'