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Bruce Wayne, in his grungiest hoodie, walked down Crime Alley, careful to keep his hands in his pocket as though they were wrapped around something dangerous. And in some ways they were.
Bruce may not have been carrying a weapon but he didn't need one to do enough damage to ruin someone's future.
He wasn't sure why Jason wanted to meet up with Bruce here. Normally when they needed a private conversation they went to the Cave, Bruce's home office, or Jason's actual apartment. His son had a good enough grasp that inviting Bruce somewhere secret was potentially leaking the information to Batman, so they stick to private yet known places.
He had no idea why Jason felt the need to burn a safehouse and the thought made him nervous.
He checked the address against a crumbling apartment building, the smell of piss and shit coming from the alley beside it. A shopping cat full of mishmash testing against the wall and Bruce could see feet sticking out from under a ratty blanket.
He mentally marked the neighborhood for more social programs from the Martha Wayne Foundation while at the same time trying to figure out if he had done something particularly egregious. This was Jason making a point about Bruce and his marble castle, but lately Jason had been using his words, mainly to demand money so Jason could fix what Bruce didn't really understand.
He knew about poverty. Jason knew poverty. He understood solutions for it better than Bruce did and Bruce was more than willing to step aside to get results. And they were coming, slowly but surely.
He pushed open the apartment door. It creaked on bent hinges with a lock that stopped nothing. The floor was uneven, hollow spots buckling under Bruce’s footsteps and the patches of carpet were torn and jagged. Holes punctuated the walls and wind whistled through broken windows.
It was a shithole. He must have really pissed Jason off.
He found the apartment that matched the one Jason had texted him, rapped on the door, and pushed it open.
It was a bachelor unit with a bare kitchen, a projector, and a bloodstained couch.
On the couch sat Tim, a remote in his hand. He stared Bruce in the eyes and clicked the remote. The wall lit up into a PowerPoint slide labelled “People Bruce Wayne has Killed.”
Bruce frowned at his middle child. “You've been spending too much time with Jason. Theatrics have always been his arena.”
Tim was stiff, rigid the way he was in the boardroom when his presentation was a battleplan. He clicked the next slide. A headshot of a relatively handsome man who, the last time Bruce had seen him, had a throat full of glass. Philip Rosenbalm.
Bruce sighed. “I will watch your presentation if you want, but I am not going to deny it.”
“Why?” Tim asked, voice blank.
“Why what? Why Batman?” Tim didn't respond.“Because I love Gotham. Why kill?” Bruce shrugged. “Because I love my children.
“One of these things was obviously more important to me.”
Tim still sat stony. “You've killed for me. Other than Ra’s.”
“Yes.” There was no point in lying.
“Would you do it again?”
“In a heartbeat,” sincerity filling every word.
Tim leaned forward, elbows on his knees as and his fingers steepled under his chin. There was no silence, this part of Gotham too angry, but there was a heavy tension that not even the screams on this side of the city could penetrate. Bruce watched his son, wondering how this was going to play out, if Tim was going to be the lynchpiece that Batman so desperately wanted, if Tim was going to finally stop Bruce. If this was the point where he should call Jason or if the momentum of this moment had already decided the future.
If anyone had enough evidence to put Bruce away, it was Tim.
“Do you take requests?”
There was a flash of Batman inside and Bruce drew in a deep breath, squashing the vigilante down so he could have a private conversation with his son. He walked up to Tim and kneeled on the floor, grabbing his son’s hands between his own. Even though he was nearing adulthood Tim’s hands still fit inside Bruce’s.
“Whose hurting you?” He kept his voice smooth and even, suppressing the rage that Tim had been suffering and Bruce hadn’t noticed.
Tim shook his head but didn’t pull away from Bruce. “Not me. Steph.”
Bruce tightened his grip in surprise. “Steph?” Tim gave a sharp nod. “What’s happened?”
“Dean.”
Bruce hummed as he placed the name. “Her ex?” Another nod. “I thought she was done with him?” The man was a bum who had wanted nothing to do with Steph’s pregnancy.
“He came back. He’s contesting Steph’s right to put the baby up for adoption without discussing it with him. He never terminated his parental rights. He wants to find Steph’s daughter and have Steph pay child support.”
“With what money?” Bruce winced as the words escaped his mouth, knowing how pretentious he sounded, but the fact was that Steph didn’t have a steady source of income. She was a college student and Bruce was the one paying for her education.
Tim stared at Bruce like he was an idiot before the situation rearranged itself into crystal clarity. Bruce pays for Steph, Bruce pays for Steph’s child support, and Dean has a meal ticket.
And he was going to tear through Steph’s life to get it. That selfish little fucker.
Bruce stood up and pulled Tim up and into a hug. He pressed a kiss into Tim’s hair. “Consider it done.”
“That easy?” Tim asked, as though Bruce could have said anything but yes.
“That easy,” Bruce confirmed. “It will always be that easy. I am here for you, Tim.” Bruce broke away from the hug and clapped Tim on the shoulder. “Now, let’s watch your presentation. I want to see how much evidence I left behind.”
Tim gave Bruce a small smile and picked up the remote.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Dean was easy to find. He was still a loser, working at a convenience store selling cigs to minors for a markup, and he was still way too old to have ever dated Steph when she was a teen.
Bruce could have tried to have Dean meet up with a bribe but honestly he didn’t want this scumbag to think for even a moment that he had a hope of winning. It was simple enough to slip a street kid ten bucks to lure Dean out to the parking lot and happened to have no working cameras. A well placed sedative in the neck and then Dean was asleep in the back of an unmarked, stolen van.
The man woke up to his hands locked in solid cages and chains across his chest keeping him anchored to a chair. He kicked out, his feet scraping a plastic tarp “What the fuck?” He slurred, the sedative still in his system. Bruce heard him pull against the cages but they had no give. “What the everloving fuck?” His eyes snapped to Bruce, instantly recognizing him. Everyone in Gotham did. “What the fuck is this?”
“This is a lesson,” Bruce said calmly, his hands in pockets as he watched dispassionately.
“A lesson?” Dean snorted, but under his disdain there was already creeping fear.
Bruce nodded. “You tend to touch things that don’t belong to you.”
“Is this about that bitch? She had my kid, she fucking owes me!” He pulled again. “And I’m not going to let some fruity fucker get in the way of that!”
Bruce stared Dean down until the man broke his stare. “You raped her.”
“I never-”
“She was fifteen,” Bruce cut him off. “You were not.”
“Fuck you, you sanctimonious asshole. Everyone knows you stick your dick in everything that moves. I bet you’ve taken that whore for a spin.”
Bruce ignored the comment. “Steph gave her daughter up for adoption. The child is safe and happy. You are trying to pull a child away from her family for money.”
“I deserve her,” he snarled. “You’re a father. You should be on my fucking side.”
Bruce brushed that comment as well. “So today you are going to learn what happens when you touch what you shouldn’t.” He walked over to a switch that was hanging from the roof of the abandoned barn he’d ‘borrowed’. The cord followed the frame Dean was chained to and split, leading into each metal box. “Most kids learn about being careful through heat. I think everyone has touched a hot stove.
“I think that is the lesson that needs reinforcement.” He flicked the switch.
“What the fuck does that even mean? Fuck you.” He started pulling against the cages again. “Help! Help! Someone, get me out of here!”
Bruce rocked on his feet. “You can scream. No one can hear you.” No one would care if they could. This was Gotham.
“You fucker. You bitch ass fag! Let me go.”
“No.”
Dean screamed and twisted, trapped where he was. It didn’t take long for the screams of fear to morph into screams of pain as the heating elements in the cages brought the internal temperatures to that of an oven. The room filled with the smell of cooking meat and it was only when the acrid scent of char hit the air that Bruce turned the elements off.
Dean was sobbing and trembling with shock as Bruce unhooked his hands.
Or what had been his hands.
Skin was bubbled and black, falling away from the bone as the man tried to flex them. Bruce didn’t need to be a doctor to know that there was no saving them. They would probably need to be amputated.
“You son of a- you son- oh god.”
Bruce hummed. “I don’t think god followed you here.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder. “And school’s not out.”
Dean whimpered.
“The second thing you need to learn is when to stay gone. You left Steph when she was pregnant, because she was pregnant. That makes you scum, but Gotham has a lot of scum.” Bruce walked over to a table that was covered with a tarp. He pulled it off to reveal another cage, the size of a head and grated so you could see the inside. “Then you came back.”
“No, please,” Dean begged. He sobbed, pulling at his bindings.
Bruce fit the cage over the man’s head as he struggled weakly, his sobs punctuated by the clicking of latches.
Bruce flicked the switch.
Dean tried to free himself by pushing against the bottom of the cage, screaming as his hands further split against the metal, bones pushing back as the melted cartilage gave way.
“Please! No!”
Bruce had never done it before, but it was fascinating to watch a man cook to death. It didn’t take long for Dean’s face to go red, for his lips to start to crack as the moisture was sucked from them. He screamed and sobbed, the salt from the tears amplifying the pain from the burns. His hair curled and shrivelled to ash, the scent of burnt keratin overpowering everything else.
Bruce would need to shower.
Next, his skin blistered as his voice gave out. The blisters split and the skin wept clear as the fat from his face dripped down his chin. He was still breathing when his eyes shrivelled, when his skin blackened. It was only when he started to smoke that his chest stuttered.
Satisfying.
Bruce would have to use this method again.
In the meantime he had a body to dispose of.
X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
“Hey, Bruce,” Tim popped his head in the door of Bruce’s office.
“Tim,” Bruce looked up from his crossword. “How did your day go?”
Tim stepped into the office and kicked the carpet. “Good. Hung out with Steph.”
Bruce hummed. “I would say that was good but you two seem to be bad influences on each other.”
Tim looked innocent, which was the best sign that he wasn’t. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“I have the footage.” Bruce did not but he figured he needed to find some if the flash of concern that flicked over Tim’s face was any indication. “Don’t you have a date with Bernard?” And Conner. Though Tim thought Bruce didn’t know about that.
“Yeah, I’m heading out now. I just wanted to say thank you.”
Bruce tilted his head. “Oh? For what?”
“For being my dad.” Tim ducked out of the room before Bruce could respond with anything more than shock. Tim was emotionally reserved and while he knew the boy loved him, he had never expected to be acknowledged as his father.
Batman’s rage was the perfect contrast to Bruce’s joy.
He’d do anything for his children.