Ivy

“Wayne Manor archive project, continuing in the fifty-second floor, east hall,” Bruce dictated. His voice bounced softly across the room, picked up by a small audio recorder made of orange plastic. He sat cross-legged in front of an old bookshelf, vellichor mingling with decades of dust and decay.

He turned a book gently in his hand, then opened the cover and thumbed through the brittle pages.

“Item 194. ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley, 1818. Second edition, printed in 1821. Poor condition. Pages 19, 53, 70...and 142 have folded corners.”

Bruce placed the book into a fresh cardboard box, laying it flat carefully. The lid was set to the side, the biting scent of permanent marker still present on its label. He reached up to the shelf and grasped another book.

“Item 195. ‘The Men Who Built Gotham: The Gates Brothers, A History.’ Author Benjamin Trudeau, 1973. Handwritten note on the flyleaf. ‘Thomas, cheers to graduating.’”

He took a shaky breath. He wore a respirator and goggles to keep the worst of the cobwebs and dust out of his system, the material of the mask gently tugging with his inhalation. He continued reading:

“’This one’s a solid read, even if the depiction of good ole great-grandpa Alan takes some liberties. Love, Uncle Elwood.’”

The book went in the box. He continued, the repetition of the task starting to dull his senses.

This room was an office on a floor distant from the penthouse. When they had moved into the tower, when Bruce was six, his mother had used it to store extra clothes and books. Now it was full of the remains of his father’s mayoral campaign. A black walnut desk was shoved to the far corner and stacked to chest height with books and boxes of documents. Bookshelves, already mostly cleared out, lined the walls. A medical grade portable air filtration system sat in the center of the room, trying to make headway on the dust. One corner held piles of aluminum yard signs and wire stake frames, likely shunted into Wayne Tower spare rooms along with the rest of the contents of the defunct campaign headquarters. Bruce had blurry memories of Alfred making the arrangements.

The first few rooms he went through had now been gutted top-to-bottom, Alfred outfitting them with shelves and file cabinets. Once the boxes were full he would properly clean the items, sort them, and store them in the newly christened archives. Some, like a massive twenty five volume encyclopedia set, bound in red leather and linen, would be donated to charity after Bruce fanned through the yellowed pages of each one to make sure there were no notes or flowers pressed between.

Archiving the contents of the rooms, most of which Bruce hadn’t seen in years, was a massive undertaking. He had refused to let the staff clear out any of his parent’s rooms after their deaths, even arguing with Dory about letting her vacuum and dust. There was no point in wishing his ten year old self had grieved differently but he did feel a pang of regret when he saw the state of the rooms. When he first returned from assessing the lower floors, exhausted and covered in grime, he half expected an “I told you so” from Dory, but it never came.

After Riddler’s arrest, Gordon sent Bruce a digital archive of Edward Nashton’s entire apartment. In the slow weeks of recovery, his infection reduced significantly but still bed-bound, he meticulously scraped through the files. Once combined with screen-caps and footage from Batman’s video contact lenses, he had a complete record of Nashton’s life at his fingertips.

It didn’t amount to much. A ramshackle work schedule. A nonexistent social life. Reams of paper filled with nonsense; indecipherable codes and incoherent ramblings. Riddler’s coded messages for the Batman were a children’s game compared to the contents of his private journals. It was an overwhelming amount of information, impossible to tell what held real meaning and what was empty, feverish scribbles of someone who had gleefully killed hundreds—no, thousands of people. Bruce had struggled to keep pace with Riddler when he wanted to be understood.

After weeks of dead ends and false starts, he and Alfred had failed to make meaningful headway. They turned the search inward, to the mausoleum-like halls of Wayne Tower. They held hundreds of safes, file cabinets, bookshelves, and lock-boxes—the scraps of the combined Wayne and Arkham families. His father’s files on the Renewal fund, still strewn across the attic floor, were a small fraction of what the tower held.

His mind wandered as he continued to sort the books. The claims Riddler had made about Bruce’s parents didn’t fully line up with Alfred’s story, but the overlap was startling. What really was the connection between Edward Elliot and Thomas Wayne? Even more elusively, how had Riddler discovered the connection, along with whatever Elliot had uncovered about the Waynes?

Riddler had used the Wayne’s history like a scalpel, tearing open the family’s reputation. If there were more skeletons lying in wait, Bruce had to know. Somewhere, hidden in dozens of rooms of dust and debris, would be the truth Bruce craved.

Bruce reached the last book on the row, a poetry collection by Richard Brautigan. He read the title out loud for the recorder then placed it in the box, the last it would hold. He stretched, then walked to the empty bookshelf that held the audio recorder and clicked ‘pause.’

He carried the catalogued books down the hall to another room, this one cleaned out and full of items to be dusted and sorted further. Folding tables lined the perimeter of the room. Books that had been dusted and were ready to go on shelves went to the right while other items, notes, letters, postcards, bookmarks, went to the central tables. On the left were boxes and piles that were catalogued but not yet clean. He pushed aside a garment rack holding dozens of his father’s suits in muslin bags to make room on the floor for the books.

After setting the books carefully next to the rack he stepped over to a laptop, perched on a stack of folders. The laptop hummed as it ran a program, pulling item descriptions and numbers from Bruce’s voice recordings and adding them to a spreadsheet. He edited a few incorrect titles then headed back to the other room armed with a new box and fresh pair of disposable gloves.

He had been methodical for days, trying to clear out the rooms front to back, but so far nothing had been out of the ordinary. So far the books, clothes, and campaign signs held no hints as to what Edward Elliot had been doing with his father during his visits. No sign that he had ever been at Wayne Tower, other than his and Alfred’s memories.

Bruce searched for a new entry point into the mess, finally deciding on the desk. Several bins and loose piles of ephemera blocked its drawers. He cleared a semicircle so he could reach the desk unencumbered. His gloved hands felt the brass knob of the first drawer and slid it open. A half-full bottle of single malt scotch whiskey and two small glasses sat on folded fabric that covered the entire drawer. The label boasted that the liquor had been aged for 25 years, and now it was almost twenty years older than that. Despite the age, no dust had made its way into the drawers and the bottle’s glass shone like new.

He could remember his father drinking occasionally, but no specifics. It could have been his or his mother’s. It might have even belonged to a member of staff, socking it away for sips on the job—these rooms weren’t frequented often even during Wayne Tower’s busiest years.

He lifted the bottle and glasses out of the drawer and gently sat them on the section of desk not covered in stacks of books and papers. Patting the fabric in the drawer flat, he felt something underneath, or maybe inside it. The edges were hard, something rectangular and flat about the size of a journal or notebook.

Wrapping his fingers underneath the object through the fabric, he lifted it out inside its wrapping. After fumbling around with the folds, he was able to remove it. A light brown wooden box with a crested logo in gold inlay on the top. He undid a small clasp on one side and lifted it open.

A box of cigars. Had his father ever smoked? If he had, he’d done a good job of not doing it around Bruce. Or maybe he just hadn’t noticed, his child’s perspective unable to connect the dots. The unease that came with knowing he’d never be able to talk to his parents as equals, have a truly adult conversation with them, bubbled back up. He was chasing a memory that might not even exist, defending a concept of people he barely knew.

That wasn’t fair. He’d known them probably better than most people ever did. Who else knew the ins and outs of their schedules, the way they acted when they were frustrated and thought no one was around, the love they put into planning Bruce’s future? The fact that he couldn’t say for sure if these were his father’s cigars didn’t dampen that. Still, it didn’t sit well. He should know those kinds of things.

There was a knock on the office door, then it squeaked open. Bruce bent around to see Alfred in silhouette. The bright light from the hallway shone past him, illuminating dust particles.

“Doctor Elliot called, he’s on his way here.”

Bruce closed the cigar case and placed it back in the drawer. “You shouldn’t be down here. Not without a respirator, the air’s not clean yet. Spares are in the hallway.“

“Bruce—.”

“I can’t see him today.”

Alfred stepped away from the door, leaning on his cane and taking a breath of the cleaner hallway air. “I don’t think he’ll appreciate being turned away again.”

“I’m doing much better, it’s been weeks. He’ll have to wait. I’ll be fine. ”

“I believe he said it was a social call.”

“Still. Tell him I’ll call him tomorrow.” Bruce tucked the fabric under his arm and reached for the handle of the second, larger desk drawer. It was locked. He let out a frustrated sound. Any key that might have existed at one point was long gone.

“Found anything?” Alfred asked, observing distantly.

Bruce brushed a finger against the lock, feeling the opening. He hadn’t picked a lock in months, maybe it was time to practice. “I’m close to…something. Not sure yet.”

Alfred excused himself and returned to the upper floors, promising to relay Bruce’s message to Tommy. As he listened to Alfred’s fading footsteps, Bruce absentmindedly folded the fabric sheet back up. A small item tumbled out and landed on the carpet. He bent to pick it up.

It was a matchbook. Used to light the cigars, probably. An art deco design was pressed in silver ink onto the dark purple cardboard. He flipped it over in his hand. The Iceberg Lounge.

* * *

Bruce’s mind raced as he rode the elevator to the retrofitted Wayne Terminus.

The Iceberg Lounge. Carmine Falcone’s long-time hideout. The club was a legitimate business, at least on paper. Still, Bruce’s father never publicly associated himself with Carmine or the rest of the Falcone family. Carmine’s death at the hands of the Riddler meant Bruce couldn’t get the closure he craved. One shot from an apartment window and the last person alive who had intimate knowledge about the relationship between Thomas Wayne and Carmine Falcone was gone. No chance for interrogation, not even a long shot wish for a deathbed confession.

He’d known that his father and the mafioso had a relationship, so it stood to reason that Thomas Wayne might have visited the Iceberg or 44 Below. The matchbook’s presence in his father’s desk didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. So why was he struggling to breathe?

The elevator car rattled as it impacted on the foundation. Sparse automatic lights flickered on and the edges of the space buzzed into view. He crossed the room on memory, not bothering to hit the rest of the switches on the panel by the elevator, jogging to a car sitting on jacks with the wheels, engine, and half of the body panels removed.

Bruce rummaged around the drawers of tools until he found a leather roll of lock picks. From a different corner he took a black plastic briefcase and a battery pack from a charging stand. Turning to leave, he took three quick steps then stumbled, slamming into an unfamiliar shape on the half-lit repair bay. He caught his balance and cursed as the battery pack clattered to the ground. It was his motorcycle, still caked in mud from the flooding, propped up on its kickstand.

Was that really where he had left it after the flood, or had Alfred moved it? No, he must have moved it himself the last time he was down here, Alfred wouldn’t have bothered. Which was…when? The haze of time and sickness dulled his memories. Had he really not been in the cave since recovering?

He snatched up the battery pack and walked back towards the elevator.

* * *

The drawer had a standard four pin lock, not very secure but small enough to give him some difficulty after months out of practice. He held the tensioner, at an angle, pulling down on the center of the lock with just enough pressure to keep it still while his other hand manipulated a long thin hook, feeling for the bumps that gave away the lock’s pins.

Despite the texture etched into the handles of the lock picking tools, he was struggling to keep them steady. Two of the four pins were set and he was fiddling with the third when his hand slipped. He cursed as he dropped the tensioner and the lock reset with a click.

He sat back on his knees in front of the desk and fought the urge to rub his stinging eyes. The mask was stifling, the never-ending dust aggravating. He wiped his slick hands on his shirt and blinked rapidly.

The desk mocked him. He reached for the black plastic case and battery pack.

The angle grinder went through the lock like butter. Sparks crackled in and out of existence and Bruce dully hoped nothing inside was flammable.

He slid the drawer open. No more cigars or bottles, just a stack of what looked like office supplies. A manilla envelope sat on top with a sprinkling of metallic dust from the lock. He picked it up, brushed the dust off, and examined it. It was sealed and both front and back were blank. Later, he would open it more carefully than he had the drawer.

The rest of the desk was a jumble of what looked like square envelopes. Bruce took a deep breath and pulled one of these out at random. It was a paper sleeve, holding some kind of disk. Through a clear plastic window he could see a date scrawled in sharpie. March 22nd, 2000. The next two were nearly identical but with different dates: February of the same year, one for the 23rd and one for the 9th. He quickly had a pile on the carpet of two dozen disks with different dates on them.

Were the disks still good? Long term digital storage is always questionable, files can corrupt, disks can scratch or warp. They could hold… what? Photos? Video? Not much, given how old they had to have been. Maybe an hour of footage at most, low quality at that. Text files, though, there could be more information on one disk than the rest of the books on the shelves combined.

Bruce could barely restrain himself from running to the laptop in the archive room and hoping against hope that the data was still intact. There was still more left in the drawer, though, and he had to be thorough.

His cell phone blared into the quiet. The people who had the number was enough to count on one hand, so it had to be important. He snapped a glove off and slid the phone from his pocket. Alfred. He answered the call.

“Wh—”

Alfred cut him off. “Doctor Elliot is here.”

Bruce paused. “What do you mean, ‘here’?”

“He just buzzed in, came up the elevator. Security down there didn’t stop him, Lord knows what we pay them for. At the upper floor entrance he just rushed past Dory.” He lowered his voice to a hushed murmur. “Bruce, I couldn’t exactly tackle him in the bloody foyer.”

Bruce’s shoulders slumped and he pulled the phone away to avoid Alfred hearing him sigh. “I seriously don’t have time for this. I’m not here, I’m out of town or—”

“Ish that Broosh? Let me…” A muffled voice appeared on Alfred’s end, followed by scuffling sounds of fabric and skin bumping the phone around.

“You—I swear—Dory! I never…” Alfred sounded distant, indignant.

“Brucie, you there?” Dr. Thomas Elliot slurred through the phone. “Everyone says you’re not here, but I think they’re lying. They want poor Bruce to miss the part-y.”

Bruce sincerely thought about dropping the call, then reconsidered. He couldn’t leave Alfred to fend for himself. “Tommy, what the fuck are you doing? Are you okay?”

“Oh my god! Bruce, it’s you! Ha!” Tommy’s voice had a moment of clarity which left as quickly as it started. Alfred’s muted complaints continued but faded away as a tinny ding sounded. “What floor’re you on? There’sh like five hundred of ‘em.”

“Tommy, I’m sorry but I’m busy right now—”

“Yeah, I know, I know. Alfie told me, he said,” he put on a posh accent, “‘Master Bruce is busy until tomorrow.’ Well, it’s tomorrow now, so…”

Bruce glanced at the clock on his phone. 1:27 am. It felt like mid-afternoon to Bruce’s off-kilter circadian rhythm. He would be up for at least another five hours.

“Look, Tommy,” he said tentatively. “I’m happy to have you over but you have to give me some heads up. Uh, what’s going on, exactly?”

“If you won’t tell me what floor you’re on, I’ll just have to check’em all.”

Bruce heard the sound of clinking glass and more fumbling, then the clicking of elevator buttons being pressed. His phone buzzed, another incoming call from Alfred on the Wayne Tower line. He hit “reject.”

He caved. “Floor one-twenty-two. If you make a mess in my elevator you have to clean it up, though.”

“It’sa deal. Coming up.” Tommy clicked off the call just as Alfred buzzed through again. This time Bruce answered.

“Bruce,” Alfred panted. “He’s coming up the elevator right now. I—”

“I know, I know. It’s fine. I talked to him.” Bruce held the phone up to his ear with his shoulder and pulled a new disposable purple glove onto his hand. “What’s going on, any idea?”

Alfred exhaled slowly, finally catching his breath. “Haven’t a clue.” He sighed. “What a mess. He went in through the public entrance, anyone could have seen him. He’s making a show of things, that’s for sure.”

Bruce carefully placed the disk-containing white envelopes back into the drawer as he spoke, not enough time to properly sort them. He stopped when an alarming thought swam behind his eyes. “He’s not armed, is he?”

He heard Alfred typing for a moment, then responding. “Elevator scan says no. Wallet, keys, corkscrew. Two bottles, sealed. Two phones, in addition to mine.” Alfred paused. “Why, are you worried?”

“About Tommy? Maybe. I’ll be fine.” Stop being so paranoid, he chided himself.

He managed to finish replacing the desk’s contents, shove the drawer shut, set the angle grinder in its case, and scramble up from the floor just as Tommy stepped past the open door in the hallway. Bruce called out to him and he stopped in his tracks.

“Bruce, I haven’t seen you in fucking forever!” Tommy crooned as he stepped into the room. He wore a tan suit with a light blue dress shirt, a blue so light that it appeared white under the dim incandescents. The shirt was untucked, crumpled, with a tie that was so loose it was a miracle it hadn’t been lost in transit. He held two bottles, their glass necks clinking together in one hand. His other hand held Alfred’s staff phone, liberated from the talons of its owner.

“Don’t come in without a mask, unless you want to risk pneumoconiosis,” Bruce said, pointing out a box of respirators near the doorway.

Tommy blinked, as if he had only just noticed the state of the half-disassembled room. “Cleaning?” he asked simply.

“Yeah. Old shit from mom and dad.”

Tommy nodded gravely, then turned to meet Bruce’s eye with a grin. “Didn’t we hide in here once?” The light sparkled in Tommy’s pale green eyes.

Bruce’s chest strummed a long-forgotten chord. Just like that, they were kids again, ducking into side rooms as Alfred chased after them. Once every other week, a brief glimpse of what a normal childhood might have looked like.

“This isn’t some kind of late-night doctor’s visit, is it?” Bruce quipped.

Tommy barked a laugh. “Of course not. I’m here to celebrate with my friend, who so rudely dodged my calls for the past three hours.”

Bruce walked out into the hallway and Tommy followed, stumbling lightly but throwing out a hand to balance himself with a golden sconce that wobbled in its setting. Bruce peeled his contaminated items—mask first, then gloves—and threw them in a bin as he headed for the elevator.

“Where’re we goin’?” Tommy asked.

“I’ve got to shower, too dusty down here,” Bruce said. He clicked the button for the elevator door to open and selected a floor. “So, what are we celebrating?”

* * *

Tommy sat on the edge of the empty tub in Bruce’s master bathroom, a glass in one hand, flipping Alfred’s stolen phone end over end with the other. Bruce was in the shower, a pale blur behind floor-to-ceiling panes of thickly frosted glass. Steam seeped from the shower cubicle, pooling in the upper corners, fogging the mirror and massive windows that watched over Gotham’s night skyline.

“It was fucking incredible,” Tommy rambled to Bruce. As he talked he became more lucid, the excitement pulling him out of the wine haze. He had to half-yell to be heard over the rush of water. “Two years ago I would have told you it was absolutely impossible to do a human-donor valve replacement on a kid that size. She’d be stuck with a mechanical valve most likely, then have to get adjustments as she grows. Now she’s got one that’ll grow with her, hopefully. Absolutely mind blowing.” He paused. “I bet I sound like an asshole saying that, though, about my own surgery.”

Bruce scrubbed the dust out of his scalp, breathing deep the scent of tea tree and mint. “No, it’s a huge accomplishment. Don’t downplay it.”

“Yeah, well, you would say that,” Tommy chuckled. “You’re always too nice, you won’t even turn me away when I’m banging your door down, drunk off my ass.”

“I don’t think they get it,” he said, quieter now. “I mean, I know the family appreciates it, of course. Their kid was opened up and made it out okay, how could you not feel some gratitude?”

“But there’s no way to understand the magnitude of it without, fuck—years. Years of education, minimum. They wouldn’t know the difference between a coronary angioplasty and a CABG if it ran naked down Brookside.” He hiccuped, then slurped down ice water from his cup and held the cool glass to his forehead.

“That’s the kicker, Bruce. No one really gets how hard it is unless they’ve done it. They think, oh, yeah, you’re the surgeon. Keeping calm on your feet for a twenty hour surgery, hand steady, whatever. They don’t see you as a person anymore. You’re a robot. Unless you fuck up, then you’re too human.” He sighed and flipped the phone again. The plastic was getting slick from the steam and almost slipped out of his fingers and shattered on the tile. He set it next to him on the edge of the bathtub.

“Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Of course they don’t get it. How could they? It’s beyond them completely, I shouldn’t even be upset about it.”

Bruce paused his rinsing, suds dripping. What Tommy was saying was startlingly close to some of Bruce’s own feelings. “You want real recognition,” he said slowly. “From an equal. Someone who knows how hard it is.”

“Yeah, something like that. I mean, the students loved it. Some of my best were watching the live feed. God, Bruce, it was beautiful. Seeing the valve. The donor one? Such a small, pointless thing. But lovely. I can’t even put it into words.” Tommy stood up from the tub. He pulled his tie off and let it fall to the bathroom floor, then moved the glass to the back of his neck, wincing at the chill. He stooped down to the bucket that held the champagne bottles—provided by Alfred—and used the tongs to select new ice cubes for his glass.

“If I had known you were celebrating I might have come out,” Bruce said. “Let Alfred know next time. He just said you were ‘coming over.’ Thought it was something medical.”

Tommy scoffed. “You were a hermit before you got sick too, don’t pretend like you weren’t. I would have had to drag you out either way, even if I told ol’ boy it was a party.”

He couldn’t disagree.

“Nah, I don’t mind,” Tommy continued. “Bruce Wayne at the Iceberg? With a headline like that some kid’s surgery gets bumped to page six. It all worked out in the end.”

Bruce froze, arm outstretched towards the shower knob.

“How was it?” he asked, forcing himself to turn the water off. “I haven’t been down that way in…a while.” His mind raced with scattered images of his last time in Carmine’s office. He opened the shower door and reached for a towel hanging from a nearby hook. Tommy turned away while Bruce dried, the modesty a formality after weeks of caring for him in a near-catatonic state.

“It’s nice,” Tommy said. “I’d never been. Good to get some new scenery.”

“Who’s the new owner?” Bruce hastily wiped the water off his torso and wrapped the towel around his waist.

“Not sure. Didn’t ask."

“Would’ve assumed you’d want to avoid the place, considering...”

Tommy twisted back towards Bruce. “What, considering Falcone offed my old man?” he bristled. “Your dad’s fault, no?”

Bruce winced. “I—that’s—Tommy, I didn’t mean…”

Tommy yanked a bottle from the ice bucket with a sigh. He tore the foil off with his teeth, spat it out, twisted off the wire-wrapped stopper. Froth poured out and he let it bubble over into the tub.

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” he asked between swigs. He turned the bottle in his hands, fingertips working the filigree on the embossed label but eyes staring out the window at the neon glow of downtown Gotham.

Bruce sat next to him on the bathtub edge and followed his gaze. After a beat, Tommy held the bottle neck-first towards Bruce, who wrapped his wet fingers around it and raised it to his lips. The bubbles caressed Bruce’s tongue and the alcohol warmed his throat. He thought of his father locking away files, hiding cigars from his mother, knocking back whiskey with politicians and Falcones alike.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said, finally breaking the silence. “I’m too cooped up, spending all day going through their stuff. My mind goes there a lot.”

“Stuck in the past?”

“Something like that.”

They sat, looking at Gotham together. The steam haze slowly creeped off the window, revealing the cloud cover only a few hundred feet above them.

“It was easier than I expected,” Tommy said quietly. “Being at the Iceberg, I mean. Falcone is gone now, dad’s long gone, your parents…it’s all in the past, for better or for worse. Whatever game they thought they were playing, it’s over.”

Flashing lights raced through the maze of streets like ants, too far to hear the sirens. Bruce itched to join them. In the distance, the signal light flicked on. Gordon.

Tommy said something Bruce didn’t hear, mesmerized by the beam casting the bat up onto the cloud cover. Was he ready? He flexed his fist, testing the muscles. He’d been neglecting his training. Time lost first to recovery, now the archival project. Could his body take it?

“Bruce?”

“What?”

“Think he’s coming back?” Tommy asked again.

Bruce swished the question over his tongue, tasting it. More apt than Tommy could ever understand. “I don’t know,” he answered, then followed it up with “I hope so.”

“You’re a fan?” Tommy asked. “You don’t resent him? If he was any good you’d think he would have stopped the Riddler before he blew up your living room.”

“You paid attention to all that?”

“Once dad got dragged up on the news it was hard not to. Followed it pretty closely.”

Bruce nodded and ran a finger through his wet hair, tucking strands out of his face behind his ear. He stood and handed the bottle back to Tommy. He rounded the corner of the bathroom and entered his walk-in closet, raising his voice and continuing the conversation as he pulled down clothes. “Well, if he had come up here, offering protection or something…I probably wouldn’t have trusted it. Don’t like people digging around.” He tried to laugh but it sounded strained.

“I like him,” Tommy said. “Or, used to. Someone pushing back against these freaks taking over the city for once. There’s some twisted joy in seeing some psycho mugger really get his shit rocked, I guess.”

“‘Used to’?” Bruce questioned.

“Yeah, well. He’s clearly not the hero people thought, right? He’s nowhere to be seen now.” Tommy’s disembodied voice sounded wistful from around the corner. “Right when people need him.”

Bruce wrapped the towel around his neck and threw on boxers. He stepped back to the bathroom. Tommy was a thousand miles away.

“So, what’s the rest of the celebration?” Bruce asked, trying to sound chipper. “Should I dress up?”

Tommy checked his watch, a modest timepiece with a brown leather band. “Bruce, it’s almost three in the morning. I doubt anywhere nice is still open.”

“I’ve got some strings I can pull.”

“Ah, the perks of being a Wayne.”

“Few and far between, surprisingly.”

Tommy laughed. “That, I seriously doubt.”

Bruce smiled.

“Let’s stay in,” Tommy said. “I’m worn out. Too many hours on my feet.”

“What’s your size? Alfred can get you some clothes. Spend the night.”

“I might take you up on that, actually.” Tommy picked up Alfred’s staff phone and inspected it.

“Hit zero, it’ll call him. If he’s still up.” That was almost a joke. Alfred’s sleep schedule was more regular than Bruce’s, but not by much. “Fair warning, he might still be mad at you.”

Tommy dialed and held the phone up to his ear. “He’ll get over it, he has to. I did save your life, basically.” He lowered his voice as Alfred picked up the call. Bruce could barely hear him reprimanding Tommy, who winced then grinned at the lashing.

Bruce returned to the closet and slipped on a black tee with a band’s logo and tour dates screen printed on the back. He listened to Tommy’s conversation as he dressed.

“You’re right…I’m so sorry…it won’t happen again, I swear.” Bruce couldn’t make out what Alfred was saying but he recognized the scorching tone. He’d heard it a few times when he’d snuck out as a teen, scaring Alfred half to death.

When Bruce stepped out into the bedroom proper, Tommy was already there, pacing while he talked.

“Look, Mr. Pennyworth, do you think you would be able to spare some clothes, a bed, and maybe some caviar?” He paused for a second, thinking. “Some Tylenol would be great as well…Yes, I understand this isn’t room service. I have nothing but respect for your profession, believe me...”

* * *

Despite the shakedown he gave Tommy, Bruce knew Alfred wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off his underutilized culinary skills. Bruce’s diet had been woefully practical since becoming Batman, prioritizing speed and convenience over flavor. What meals Alfred did prepare were typically split between him and Dory, Bruce left to scavenge the cold leftovers after a long patrol.

When Alfred arrived half an hour later with night clothes for Tommy and a large silver tray of food, he couldn’t help but smile at Bruce and Tommy’s reaction.

“Homemade fresh blinis, topped with tangy crème fraîche and dollops of caviar.”

“Oh my god, I’m in heaven,” Tommy said around a mouthful.

“Made some for yourself, I hope,” Bruce added.

“I prefer my caviar straight from the tin.” Alfred swiped his phone back from its perch on the bed, slid it into a pocket in his vest, and gave Tommy a look. “I’ll be in my study if anything else comes up.”

They sat cross-legged on the bed in a guest room, passing the champagne around while they ate. A small bowl on the tray held a blister pack with two Tylenol. Tommy washed them down with tap water.

“Since we’re already digging up old baggage,” he started. “Did you know they’re saying the Renewal fund was an inside job from the start? But your people at Wayne Enterprises say your father’s intentions were good, that Falcone took advantage of him.”

“That’s funny, I don’t remember anyone running a statement by me.”

“I think you were barely alive at the time.”

“Ah,” Bruce mumbled through a bite.

“I may have overheard Alfred on a call or two. It’s okay, you’ve got client confidentiality.” Tommy grinned and reached for another blini. “I’ve heard talk that if he got elected, your dad, we’d be right in the same spot we are now, the mob and crooked politicians eating away at of the city’s coffers.”

“Bella Real is crooked?”

He elbowed Bruce playfully. “That remains to be seen. She’s an unknown quantity right now.”

“She’s spearheaded the flood cleanup, though. That’s going well, from what I’ve heard.”

Tommy shook his head. “That’s starting to stall. Gotham Square Garden, for example. There’s a huge dispute over what to put there. Original plan was to rebuild it the same but with new flood-proofing. Reinforced windows, drainage, the whole thing. Now there’s a group that wants it to be a permanent memorial to the victims of the attacks. A third group even wants it to be a new Arkham facility.”

Bruce almost choked on his champagne. “Right in the middle of downtown? They can’t be serious, right?”

“I know, I know, but that’s what they’re saying.” Tommy held his hands up like ‘don’t blame me.’ “I just hate downtown being blocks of soggy rubble. It’s hideous. But anyway, what do you think? About your dad. Would he have been a good mayor?”

Bruce fiddled with a small spoon, clinking it on the handles of the tray. He avoided Tommy’s piercing gaze. Why did he want to talk about this right now? Hadn’t he been the one saying it was all in the past? He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” he said after long deliberation. “A few months ago I would have said yes. Now, with everything I know, I can’t make sense of it.”

“You really didn’t know about any of it?” Tommy asked from around the corner.

He sat up so he could look Tommy in the eye as he answered. “I didn’t know. Not about your dad, not the Renewal fund, none of it. I’d seen Falcone a few times as a kid. That’s it.”

“And you never put two and two together once you learned who Falcone was? You can’t seriously tell me you were checked out enough to never realize who he was. Or were you really so ignorant that you thought he was buddy-buddy with Falcone for a good reason? Something wholesome, to fix the city?”

The sudden turn in the conversation stung Bruce’s throat. Tommy would see straight through the ignorant rich kid card, he deserved the truth. As much as Bruce could manage to choke out.

“I made the connection. Later than I should have. I never knew who Carmine was, what kind of person he was, not until I was older. My father seemed so trusting, someone to always see the best in people. I saw it as a…a character flaw that Carmine exploited. Felt that there was no way he would have associated with him if he knew.”

“How naive,” Tommy snipped.

“You’re right. There’s no way he wouldn’t have known Carmine was the head of the biggest crime family in Gotham. It’s laughable that I ever thought—or hoped—that. But I don’t know what his reason was. Why would he ever trust him? It makes no sense. The man I knew wouldn’t have associated with someone like Falcone without good reason.”

“You were a kid. You can’t seriously think you were an accurate judge of character. Every kid thinks their parents are amazing, it’s all they know.”

“What about you, huh?” Bruce said, starting to feel hot around the neck. “What about your dad, spending so much time here? If my dad’s crooked by association, then why don’t we go one step farther?”

“Bruce,” Tommy said quietly. He realized he had been holding a half-eaten pancake for several minutes and placed it back on the tray, fingers wavering. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, like you do? What the fuck was he doing here, then? Snooping on my mother, threatening to leak pap pics of her at her lowest to the press? Trying to get a payday? How fucking noble.” Bruce was vaguely aware that he was yelling. He needed to stop, to catch his breath, to get as far away from this conversation as humanly possible. It was too late.

“I don’t know! I never got to ask him, need I remind you?” Tommy adjusted on the bed, sitting up straighter. The spoon slipped off the duvet, along with the thin china bowl Alfred had put the Tylenol in, which shattered on the floor. “You’re fucking delusional if you think what my dad did was worse than anything Carmine Falcone and the Great Thomas Wayne cooked up. They had people killed. You think he was the only one?”

He cackled. “God, I can’t believe I wasted my time saving your life. Not even almost dying could make you snap out of this fantasy you’re in where you and your family are the white knights saving Gotham from itself.”

“You think they were equals?” Tommy continued. “My dad and yours? Like any Wayne has ever known what it’s like to have to work some demeaning, dehumanizing job, some dumb fuck telling you what to do all the time. I don’t know what my dad was doing here and I’ll probably never know. I’ve made peace with that. Something you have clearly never tried.”

“Go home Tommy, you’re drunk,” Bruce spat. His stomach churned the second it left his mouth. He slouched back, burned by his own spite.

Tommy stumbled to the bathroom and returned with his discarded tie in hand. “You’re digging around for proof he wasn’t complicit, aren’t you? You can’t accept that he might have been a bad person. You still think he was a good man?”

3 years ago

Bruce tore his eyes open and lurched his motorcycle to the right, narrowly avoiding an impact with a rotting railcar. He was dead on his feet, meds wearing off as he zipped through the tunnels under the city, weaving between rusted subway tracks and piles of scrap metal. Stimulant injections—a special cocktail of epinephrine, morphine, and amphetamines—had kept him alive and alert for the past thirty-six hours. Now they were starting to wear off.

The gate to the never-finished Wayne Terminus station rattled closed behind him as he skidded to a stop. Plumes of vaporized rubber carried his inertia forward in tendrils, grasping at the air. He stumbled off the motorcycle, almost forgetting to flip out the kickstand.

The Riddler’s plan to destroy Gotham—he had been the only person capable of stopping it. He had failed. It was his biggest mistake yet, one that had cost countless lives, both in the flood and the attack in Gotham Square Garden.

He shed the Batsuit like a man on fire, tearing at buckles and straps, throwing each piece away carelessly. His chest burned and he refused to look at the extent of his injuries until he finished his task. Muddy fingers scratched at his eye and slid the video contact lens onto its receptacle. He had to remember, had to see exactly where he went wrong. As the files transferred to his computer he pulled out a thick black notebook. NOTES & OBSERVATIONS (GOTHAM PROJECT) Year 2: November.

Bruce grimaced and fought a wave of nausea. The crushing pain in his chest from when one of Riddler’s fanatic followers had shot him point-blank was returning.

He wrote frantically, fighting off the yawning void of darkness that crept into the corners of his vision. The past two days would have killed almost anyone. When sleep inevitably won, he wasn’t sure if he would ever wake up.

The city is underwater. The National Guard is coming.

Behind him, a metallic screech as the rusted elevator door opened. Alfred spoke but the words were fuzzy, bouncing off of him. His pen scratched feverishly at the page.

I have to become more. People need hope.

As he succumbed to fatigue, he felt weathered hands wrapping around him, slowing his fall.

* * *

As he laid in bed, delirious from pain, Bruce slipped out of time. Alfred watched him sleep fitfully, muttering and writhing in an angry fever.

“The Waynes, and the Arkhams. Gotham’s legacy of LIES and MURDERRR!” The words of Riddler’s final message echoed through his dreams, tearing through Bruce’s chest underneath bruises and broken ribs. Martha Wayne’s mental illness, her time in Arkham, that scum had aired it all out in front of the world. Family secrets, hidden from him for decades, somehow uncovered by this deranged, pitiful man, consumed by hate and bloodlust.

Weeks passed and Bruce showed little signs of improvement. Alfred’s British Intelligence training had included basic medical training, enough to ease Bruce’s pain some but not enough to reverse his injuries. During his brief periods of lucidity, though, Bruce made his wishes clear: no outside help.

“It’s too dangerous,” he muttered between spoonfuls of broth, the only food he could keep down. The pain breathing brought made it difficult to speak. “Just a few…more days.”

The breaking point came when Alfred found Bruce slumped over on the floor, half inside the elevator to the caverns beneath Gotham Tower and half out. He dropped the tray carrying breakfast for the two of them and rushed to his side. The bandages wrapped around his abdomen were stained red. Bruce’s face was pale, his eyes slow to loll open when Alfred shook him.

“I have…Alfred, I have to…help...” he muttered, then coughed, blood and phlegm dripping from his mouth. The automatic elevator doors slid closed then lurched open again when they bumped his legs.

“Bruce, you’re in no shape. Back to bed, okay?” Alfred hooked his arms under Bruce’s and helped him sit up. Bruce shook his head, weakly trying to fight Alfred’s firm but gentle grasp. His hand reached up for the elevator button to the Batcave but couldn’t reach.

Alfred had no option but to drag Bruce back to his room, letting his legs trail behind. Bruce groaned and strained against him some as he fell in and out of consciousness but didn’t protest.

Carefully laying Bruce on the cocobolo floor, Alfred stretched his back and felt it pop in several places. He leaned his weight on a dusty antique cabinet and tried to catch his breath. He wished sorely for his cane.

“What a fine pair we are, Bruce. An old man and a dying boy.” Bruce didn’t respond. He was asleep in a position that made Alfred wince and rub his neck.

A glinting light at the end of the hallway caught Alfred’s eye. He bent down and patted Bruce’s shoulder. His head rolled towards Alfred’s arm but he stayed asleep.

Limping down the hall, Alfred clenched his abdominal muscles with each step. He hadn’t seen his physical therapist since leaving the hospital, he’d been too busy caring for Bruce, but this trick had stuck the landing. Engage your core, bring those other muscles into play. Come on, old boy, you can do this.

Bruce’s phone lay in the crook of the hallway next to a scuff on the molding, the screen’s light flickering orange and white. Dropped in his trek to the elevator, Alfred deduced. He scooped it up and almost clicked it off, then paused when he saw the screen.

Deadly Explosion Rocks Crown Point. Casualties yet to be determined, dozens injured…

A short, looping news video of firefighters on aerial ladders spraying the remnants of a city block. A crater where the street should have been, with rubble and bodies lost in dust and chaos. Flames leapt up hungrily towards apartment buildings as police pushed crowds of onlookers away. The video repeated again and again. A tear slipped onto the screen and distorted the image.

The boy will blame himself, Alfred thought. He holds the weight of the world on his shoulders. As he walked back, placing the phone in his vest pocket, he watched Bruce’s chest rise and fall slowly. Blood blossomed on his bandages from the exertion of walking—crawling part of the way, maybe—to the elevator. He could barely talk, barely move, and still he put Gotham first. This city doesn’t deserve you, Bruce.

Alfred lifted his glasses, wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve, then crouched behind the boy. He lifted him under the armpits and continued pulling him towards his bedroom, clasping his hands together in front of Bruce’s wide chest for leverage.

Bruce’s mouth opened and words fell out, barely audible. “Crown Point…bomb, have to…”

“It’s over, Bruce. They’re taking care of it. Just rest, let’s get you to bed.”

The tension left Bruce’s body, but he didn’t sleep. With Alfred pulling him down the hallways of Wayne Tower, he watched the ceiling’s texture and gothic light fixtures pass by in a melting swirl through half-lidded eyes. Twenty years since his father had carried him down these same halls, tucked him to bed, kissed him goodnight.

When he was a boy, dozing off in his father’s arms while counting the whorls engraved in the crown moulding, Thomas was setting in motion plans that would lead to the murder of the reporter who planned to expose his family’s dirty laundry.

Did his father know how bad the conditions in Arkham were? Did him and his mother talk about her time in the asylum, or was that just another skeleton in the closet, another dirty corner of their lives to scrub clean for the campaign?

As he drifted back to sleep, finally in bed, he heard Alfred making a phone call. He heard snatches of the conversation, and if he had enough energy to open his mouth again he would have yelled “No!,” told Alfred to stop, that he was fine, that he would feel better in a few days.

“…getting worse…physician…Thomas…utmost discretion…”

* * *

As Bruce came back to reality, he realized he was in a different bed. A hospital-style one instead of his childhood four-poster bed. Sunlight streamed through the massive, arched windows, burning his eyes.

An IV bag hung over his head, the pump softly whirring fluids into his forearm. He tried to sit up, then winced at the stabbing pain in his chest. He pushed a button on the side of the bed that lifted his back until he was almost sitting. He reached over to the stand holding the IV and rotated it, trying to read the label on the fluid.

“Gentamicin, if you’re wondering. Diluted in 5% glucose. Pretty strong stuff there, friend.”

Bruce blinked the sleep out of his eyes and glanced around the room, trying to locate the unfamiliar voice.

A figure stepped forward away from the window, their silhouette forming out of the glare. Bruce jolted upright. The man’s head was on fire, wisps of red and white like the streets of Crown Point.

He took another step. No, not fire. A shock of orange hair lit from behind by the window. Bruce exhaled painfully and slumped back into the bed, feeling his heart race.

“You were touch and go there for a while, you’re lucky Alfred reached out when he did. A few more days and the infection would have done irreversible damage.” The man placed a hand shrouded in a white lab coat on the railing of Bruce’s bed.

“Who…what?”

With effort, Bruce swung his legs to dangle off the side of the bed. He realized he was wearing a hospital gown. He didn’t remember putting it on.

“You’ve been very sick, Bruce. Alfred called me, he told me everything. He wasn’t sure if you’d remember me or not. Thomas Elliot?”

Bruce struggled to place the name. Visions of a scrawny boy, friends for a while in childhood, then gone, too close to the haze of grief of losing his parents to remember clearly why. He hadn’t thought about him in years, decades.

“Tommy? You’re a…” Bruce gestured at the man’s lab coat and slacks.

“Yes, Dr. Elliot now. You can still call me Tommy, of course, as long as I can call you Bruce.” He chuckled. “You didn’t seem to mind during my visits so far, but you’re a little more lively this morning. How do you feel?”

Elliot… The name resonated in a dark corner of Bruce’s memory. “What did Alfred tell you?”

“Oh, everything, I think.” He tisk-tisked and shook a finger disapprovingly. “You’ve been up to quite a lot since we were kids, so I hear. Can’t say I approve of most of it.”

Bruce’s throat clenched and he gripped the side of the hospital bed. Alfred wouldn’t have...Not even to save my life. He eyed Tommy. Would he?

Hearing steps in the hall, Bruce strained to turn around and found he couldn’t twist his chest very far before the pain came. The sound gave him away, the alternating step-thump of a man walking with a cane. Out of the corner of his eye he could make out Alfred, who tapped the open door with his cane then strode into the bedroom carrying a silver tray with a pitcher of orange juice. He froze, seeing Bruce sitting up in bed, the glasses clinking together on the tray.

“Master Bruce!”

He set the tray on the nightstand and hurried to the bed. Bruce tried to stand to lean into Alfred’s embrace, but stumbled when he pulled away and gripped the bed railing for support.

“You’re looking quite better today,” Alfred observed, sizing him up.

“Alfred, what happened? I don’t remember anything right now.” Bruce rubbed his temples and gave Alfred a glance that meant what’s the story?

“You don’t remember the accident? Oh my, well, Mr. Elliot might be able to explain it better than I can, with all the medical terminology.”

You phony, Bruce thought, smiling inside. There’s still secrets to be kept. That’s good.

“Bruce, I’m afraid you were in a car accident,” Tommy said, taking the tone of a scolding parent. “Quite a bad one, in fact. Didn’t anyone tell you to wear a seatbelt?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m a slow learner,” Bruce said and sighed.

“Does the city flooding ring a bell?”

“Maybe? Jog my memory.” He fiddled with the IV port in his forearm. The transparent dressing taping the plastic catheter into his vein reminded him of the cling wrap the Riddler and his fanatics covered their heads in. Smart, stops him from leaving hair at the crime scene, Gordon had said.

“Well, that’s a long story, maybe one for when you’re feeling a little…better.” Tommy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s just say, the seawall gave out. A large part of the city was flooded, including downtown, where you were going for a joyride. Your car was swept up in the initial wave—bam, right into a concrete building. The windshield shattered, airbag went off, and, since you weren’t wearing your seatbelt, the airbag hit you in your chest instead of your face. My guess is, you were almost flying out the window over the steering wheel when the airbag went off because you have a nasty blunt trauma to your chest.”

Yeah, something like that.

“Sounds like I’m lucky to be alive,” Bruce said.

“That’s not the half of it.” Tommy grimaced and cleared his throat. Alfred poured the doctor a glass of orange juice from a silver pitcher. He took a sip and nodded his thanks to the butler. “The thing is, when the city floods, like a few years ago with that nor’easter, or this time with…well, anyway, when it floods it’s not just the water of the bay filling up the city. The city’s water system, drain pipes, plumbing, you name it, gets overwhelmed. The two water sources start to mix.” He held his hands out and interlaced the fingers to demonstrate.

“So,” he continued, “not just flood water, but sewage as well. And you, with your scratches, cuts, abrasions, and whatnot, were in that water for quite a while. Picked up a nasty infection.”

The hours in Gotham Square Garden, chest high in the flood water. Of course. He hadn’t even considered the pathogens.

Bruce examined Tommy, something nagging at the back of his mind. What was it? He remembered Tommy, hair even more red in youth, visiting Wayne Tower. Visiting with someone else, someone who would come to visit his father. Bruce was seven. No, eight. Two years before the election.

“Alfred did his best to treat you, but it wasn’t quite cutting it so he gave me a call.” Tommy shrugged. “Does that sum it up, Mr. Pennyworth?”

“I believe so, sir. And quite glad we are that you were available when you were, and very thankful for your…discretion, Dr. Elliot.”

Elliot. The name finally plonked into place in Bruce’s memory.

“Of course,” the doctor said. “It’s been easy enough to stop by between my morning seminars at the university. Just a favor, for an old friend.”

Edward Elliot. The journalist, from the Gazette. He remembered him now, making the connection between the photos in Riddler’s video and the face in his mind, blurred by time. He had visited every week.

“…my son, Tommy. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, of course, he and my Bruce will get along fine. Alfred, please…”

Edward Elliot and Thomas Wayne worked for hours in hushed tones while Alfred chased the two boys around the tower. The visits were not particularly frequent, but visitors Bruce’s age were rare. Then one day, they stopped. A year later, Edward Elliot was dead, as were Bruce’s parents.

He stood up, struggled to balance for a moment, then caught his footing. He held a hand out to Dr. Elliot, who took it.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” Bruce said. “I never knew he died. Not until now.”

Tommy’s eyes flickered. “Well, it wasn’t exactly front page news.”

“Riddler was wrong. My father never meant for Falcone to kill him. He only—”

Dr. Elliot placed a firm hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Bruce, stop. You’re not your father, you don’t have to defend his honor. If I thought you were like him, I wouldn’t be here.” He sighed. “We should talk about this more when you’re stronger, you have to keep your heart rate down.”

“My father made a mistake, and your family paid for it. I-I’m sorry.” Bruce pulled Dr. Elliot into a tight embrace. “I feel almost like myself, more than I have in a long time, thanks to you. I owe you.”

He stepped back and took in his childhood friend. Dr. Elliot’s face contorted into a smile but his eyes were cold.

“Professor approval required to drop course.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

In your hurry to get out, get anywhere other than in front of the glaring eyes of the students in Art 111, you hadn’t even considered that this might happen. Your phone screen mocked you, displaying the error notification.

Walking out of his class had been impulsive but it had felt right. You had been determined to leave and never come back. This hangup, just a small amount of extra resistance, had you rethinking everything.

If you couldn’t take Art 111 off your schedule, there was no way you could add another class in its place. And, if you weren’t taking enough credits you wouldn’t qualify as a full-time student, one of the requirements of your trust. You ran the numbers in your head, trying to figure out if you could make ends meet. No matter how you cut it, it didn’t work.

If you weren’t full-time, you might as well pack your bags and head for home. Back to the town with nothing but dead memories and family you didn’t want to see.

Your options were clear; either convince Professor Wayne to let you drop the course or truck through the term with gritted teeth. You shivered in the cold night air, thinking of standing in front of the class, mind blank, trying to think of something to explain your terrible artwork. Nothing was worth that. You refused to be humiliated again.

Emailing him was the easiest option. You could explain that it wasn’t working out, that you had decided to focus on topics more in line with your major. But what were his criteria for dropping the course, anyway? What if he didn’t respond in time, before the two week cutoff for a tuition refund?

Either way, it was worth a try. You found his email address from the crumpled syllabus at the bottom of your bag, thought for a minute, then typed out a message:

Dear Prof. Wayne, I am writing to ask that you let me drop your Art 111 course. Thank you. Sincerely, y/n.

You paused, then added:

Also, I hate this school and I hate you.

You put down your phone with a sigh. It felt good to let out some of your frustration, like opening a shaken-up bottle of cola just enough to let a few bubbles slip out.

The weight of the long day was wearing you down. You closed your phone. It could wait until morning. You would take some Tylenol to cut through your migraine and sleep on it. The embarrassment was starting to fade. The evening chill cooled your emotions to a dim ember.

No. It has to be tonight.

The only way to make it stick, to stop you from flaking out, was to get it over with immediately. You would talk to him after the class ended, which would be in—you checked the time—almost an hour. You would convince him to let you drop the class, no matter what.

* * *

You alternated between sitting, endlessly tapping your feet, and pacing the hall outside Professor Wayne’s classroom. Your shoes echoed in the empty hallway. You felt a pang of relief when the door opened and students spilled out. It was almost over, if Professor Wayne would allow it.

Stepping into the room after the last student left, you saw him pulling apart a still life—a plaster bust, a bowl of styrofoam fruit, and a stack of books. He selected a few items and disappeared into a door at the back of the studio. Kanara was cleaning the chalkboard with a rag and spray bottle, she didn’t notice you walk in.

You warily approached the storage room, then dipped your head inside. The walls were lined with shelves, bins overflowing with art supplies and still life props. Professor Wayne pulled one bin down from a high perch and began placing styrofoam apples and pears into it.

As your eyes adjusted to the dim light of the storage room, you were surprised to see the space doubled as his office. A sturdy cedar desk and two chairs—his jacket loosely tossed over the back of one—had been crammed into the corner of the room at odd angles.

Your heart pounding, you knocked on the open door.

“Come in,” he said without looking as he lifted the bin back up to the high shelf. His dress shirt pulled loose from where it was tucked as he stretched. You averted your gaze and clutched your portfolio bag. You stepped inside. The room was several degrees warmer than the stone hallways and lofty classroom.

“I was hoping to talk,” you told the floor. “About earlier.”

As he bent after putting the bin away, he winced and rotated his shoulder in its socket. Wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead, he turned to greet you. The look of concern with a hint of desperation from earlier was gone, replaced with something else. Frustration? Disappointment? You couldn’t tell, his blue eyes giving away no secrets.

“Let’s chat,” he said, and gestured towards his desk.

As you approached, you saw your drawing of the university library, carefully laid over stacks of books and papers. You traced the frayed edge absentmindedly where it had been torn from the pad. Small holes dotted the corners where you had pinned it to the wall for critique.

“You saved it?”

Professor Wayne stepped behind you and looked at the drawing over your shoulder. “Thought you might come looking for it.”

Now that they had been pointed out, the problems with your sketch were painfully obvious. “That’s not...I don’t want it. It’s not very good.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry you feel so poorly about it. Have you reconsidered staying in the course?” He plucked his jacket off the back of the chair and squeezed behind the desk to sit in the other chair. He gestured at the open seat. “Please.”

You continued to stand, diving into your request instead. You braced yourself for him to argue with you, convince you to muscle through the term. “I’m still dropping the class. I need your approval to take it off my schedule.”

“Ah.” Professor Wayne leaned forward, elbows on the desk.

You opened your mouth to continue fighting your case, explain why you needed to get the hell away from Art 111. “It’s just not working out, I thought I might like it but it’s not the kind of thing I’m good at. I’d rather do something more useful for my major.”

“Alright.” He pulled a laptop from a desk drawer and flipped it open. Your list of complaints was on the tip of your tongue about to take flight when what he had said reached your brain.

“What?”

“What’s your last name? I’ll take you off the list.” He held his fingers over the keyboard. “If that’s what you would prefer.”

With his shirt sleeves were rolled up almost to the elbow and his jacket off, he looked younger. You felt more like you were talking to a peer than a professor.

You hesitated. “Really?”

The corner of his lips turned up. “Contrary to the events of this afternoon, I’m not typically someone who chases students down hallways. If you’re unhappy with the class I’ll remove you from enrollment. I should say, though, that Clayton will be more constructive with his feedback in the future.”

You were stunned. What’s the catch? The argument you expected hadn’t materialized, but it didn’t feel completely averted either. It was just around the corner waiting to strike.

“I know this class is challenging,” he said. “But it’s also rewarding. It isn’t for everyone. If you want to drop the class I won’t get in your way.”

Ah, there it is. “You don’t think I’m good enough, then, is that it?”

Professor Wayne let out a quick noise that you swore was a stifled scoff. He closed his laptop and rubbed his temples. “That’s not what I said.”

The embers inside you flamed up into defensiveness. “You’re saying this isn’t up to snuff,” you said, poking your finger at your drawing. “And I should just get out of your way and let you teach the rest of the real students like Clayton and Poppy? That’s what you mean, right?”

That struck a nerve. An overtone of frustration crept into Professor Wayne’s voice. “Don’t talk about your work like that.”

“Why not? It’s trash. And you didn’t answer me.”

“It’s not ‘trash.’”

“I worked on it for an hour and it still looks fucking ugly.”

He stood up and walked around the desk, joining you to look at the drawing head on. He stood, arms crossed, brow furrowed. “Okay, well, what about it do you think is ugly?”

“Everything. Look at this.” You pointed to the lines making up the main tower of the library. Your hand had been unsteady after your uncle’s phone call, and the lines before then weren’t particularly straight either. You felt your voice warble with more emotion than you intended, your throat burning. “It’s all fucking wrong.” Your eyes watered and you spat the curse out at him.

Professor Wayne considered the drawing. “I like it.”

“Yeah, sure. Ha ha.” You wiped your eyes and flicked the tears away, a few landing on the page and making the ink bleed. God, you were being such a crybaby.

He relaxed a little in response to your emotions, speaking more softly. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I mean it. You did good work.”

Something in the way he said it gave you pause. His persistence was annoying you but he wasn’t lying, not quite. He really meant it, or he thought he did.

You turned to him. The wetness in your eyes brought a soft haze to the world and doubled the image of his blue irises. “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you like it?”

* * *

When he became a professor, Bruce decided he would teach with one guiding principle: unconditional positivity. “There’s no such thing as a ‘bad’ drawing.” “Treat each student as if they were doing their best.” “Always have something supportive to say.”

You were currently testing his resolve.

Receiving critiques in a healthy, detached way was a basic skill that he expected everyone to learn. We’re critiquing the art, not the artist.

It could be hard at first, he understood that. When the tutor his parents hired when he was eight crumpled his crude drawing of a square house with triangle roof and said that that was how children drew, we will do better than that, he had thrown a fit. Within a month, though, he had been using rough two-point perspective to sketch out Wayne Tower. The growing pains eased eventually.

Clayton’s critique had been harsh but nothing Bruce hadn’t heard dozens of times before. The drawing had problems, definite errors in perspective and line control. Pointing them out was part of the learning process.

Over time he came to view his tutor’s severity as unnecessary, for the most part. He probably could have learned without causing emotional outbursts. Still, some level of grit was necessary to improve.

Truthfully, Bruce had been elsewhere for most of the conversation. Administration was breathing down his neck, furious over the heat they were getting from his extracurricular activities. One in particular weighed heavily on his mind.

He found himself repeating placations, lost in thought. I like it, it’s not trash, I like it quite a lot.

“What do you like about it?” you repeated, waiting for him to reply.

The drawing was a solid attempt at the assignment and showcased the student’s weaknesses, which helped identify areas for further growth. That’s what the rubric might say. But did he like it? He couldn’t remember the last time he felt like he ‘liked’ anything.

He struggled to come up with a response and fell back on a line one of his professors had told him. “Art isn’t inherently good or bad,” he monotoned. “It simply exists as a reflection of its creator.“

You stared at him in disbelief.

“I don’t buy it.”

Bruce didn’t respond.

“There’s no way you actually think that. There’s no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ art? What does that even mean?”

The idea had made sense to Bruce at one time, but whatever logic was there had become abstracted and intangible. He couldn’t even begin to explain what he meant. He took a deep breath and picked up your drawing, holding it up in front of you, covering his face.

“Never mind. Think of it this way. This drawing, obviously you’re not happy with it. I get that. But it isn’t you. This is just what you were able to do with the time, focus, and energy you had. And you made something interesting, which is more than some of your classmates can say.”

He lowered his arms so the paper revealed your face. From the redness on your sclera he could tell you were stubbornly holding more tears at bay. “Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. The critiques can be hard, don’t take them personally. People want to show off, end up coming off badly.”

He held the drawing out. You snatched it out of his fingers and started folding it up, almost crumpling it.

This emotional pain, had the critique caused it or only released it? He wasn’t sure. If there was something else going on underneath, some other reason you wanted out of his class so badly, why wouldn’t you just say it?

* * *

Professor Wayne stood awkwardly as you folded the paper and stuffed it in your portfolio bag. His arms hung at his side like he didn’t know what to do with them. He opened his mouth then shut it again, then began unrolling his sleeves down his forearms and re-buttoning them despite the warmness of the room.

“So,” he finally said. “How are things going, uh, outside class?”

You snorted. “Do you really want to know?”

“Sure.” Not exactly a yes, please.

“Do you want to hear about the dead dad or all the other shit going on?”

He hesitated, his features softening. You braced yourself for the inevitable, perfunctory “I’m sorry” that came when people found out.

Instead, what he said was “were you close?”

You considered, then nodded. “For the most part.”

“Well then, I’m sorry for your loss. Losing a parent is…never easy.”

You didn’t immediately respond, letting silence fill the space. He let you take your time. His eyes never left yours, the deep shadows cast by his brows only made his blue irises shine more intensely.

You chewed on your lip, trying to ignore the sweat building up on the back of your neck. The room was already warm and had been progressively more stuffy with the heat of two people. You felt compelled to spill your guts, tell him about your dad, about how little you wanted to be at school, about how far you felt from home but there was no home to go back to.

The storage room door let out two loud taps that made you start and Kanara entered carrying a box of supplies.

“I’m heading out for the evening Professor, do you need anything else before I go?” As she looked up from around the box she noticed you. “Oh, sorry, am I interrupting something?”

You opened your mouth but Professor Wayne spoke first.

“No, not at all. I can put those away, thank you.”

Kanara set the box on the ground, nodded to both of you, and left.

Professor Wayne exhaled slowly through pursed lips. “Do you still want to drop the class?” he asked.

Your head spun and your cheeks felt feverish. Kanara hadn’t interrupted anything, really, but you felt resentment that she had broken the odd tension in the room.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, sleep on it. Email me in the morning if you do. I’d love to have you but I understand.” He looked over at his desk which appeared to jog his memory about something. “If you want a fresh start with a new group, there’s a few seats in 131, figure drawing. Let me know.”

“Okay.” You couldn’t bring yourself to thank him even though you knew it was warranted. You were vaguely aware that he was going above and beyond for you, but your head was fuzzy, like you were two hours deep into karaoke night at Mora’s.

He unfolded his arms and for a strange moment you thought he was going to reach out and hug you. You lurched forward slightly, then when his hands went into his pockets you tilted back again, doing an odd, apprehensive back and forth. Oh my god, what the fuck am I doing? You hoped to god he hadn’t noticed.

You managed to get out “I’ll email. Thanks,” and headed for the door, portfolio bag in tow, scrambling to get your phone out of your pocket, hoping to call Titus for a distraction from how awkward you felt.

Professor Wayne’s voice caught you halfway to safety.

“Y/n,” he said. You cautiously turned around partially, enough to see him twisting back into his jacket. “If you ever want to talk, I’ll be here. Even if you do drop the course.”

You paused. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

As you turned back around and left, you pulled your phone out of your pocket. The flyer the protestor outside the Gotham City Museum had shoved onto you fell out in an orange crumple. You had forgotten about it until now. You bent down, snatched it up, and tossed it into the trash can near the classroom door.

* * *

As Bruce was leaving for the night, about to turn off the final lights in the classroom, he glanced down and a saw colorful splash among the pencil shavings and coffee cups. That color…

He had seen them around downtown in increasing numbers, even some around campus. Protestors, handing out leaflets printed on pumpkin orange paper. He reached out and plucked the paper ball. So far, his classroom had been a sanctuary away from this mess. That was coming to an end, it seemed.

He smoothed out the paper and began to read, his chest constricting again, the now-familiar anxiety returning.

“Gotham City Museum is spreading LIES about the history of city institution ARKHAM ASYLUM, which has kept us safe from the criminally insane for over…”