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It is a funny story how a billionaire (philanthropist) playboy ends up scouring the worst city in America at night dressed in bat ears.
If asked, a therapist would probably state that it was a combination of early childhood trauma, maladaptive coping strategies and unlimited resources to enable his behaviour. Then again, had a therapist actually been asked, none of this would have happened in the first place.
If forced (see: dangled over a vat of acid with both hands behind his back while under pain of death and unimaginable humiliation), Bruce would probably say that it was the bottomless pit of despair and darkness that opened up in his chest the night his parents died, and how it ballooned into a cavernous pool of grief as he grew to realise that no amount of privilege or wealth could ever create justice in a system where all the centres of power were aligned with greed and corruption.
Truth be told, the answer is much simpler than that:
From age eight to adulthood, Bruce has always been too little, too late.
It starts like this —
“RAFAEL, YOU'LL NEVER BE RID OF ME!” He screams, brandishing his blue plastic water bottle like a sword.
Thomas laughs. “Alright B-man, calm it down there a little.”
" Never! ” Bruce declares, and jabs his father in the stomach for good measure. Thomas folds over with a wheeze, though he cannot stop the smile that breaks across his face when he hears his wife’s laughter, clear as a bell, ring out into the night.
Martha, for her part, calls Bruce over with a fond smile once she gets over her initial fit of giggles. Having already vanquished his foe, Bruce is quick to comply. He quickly runs over to receive his mother’s affection, panting happily as Thomas looks on enviously at the pair. He is, as always, jealous of her ability to rein in their son’s boundless energy with a gentle yet firm hand.
Gazing up at his mother adoringly and basking in the warmth of her embrace, Bruce leans against her side, pressing his body closely to her. The movie itself was incredible – Zorro was so cool!! – but the best part of the evening had undoubtedly been being able to spend uninterrupted time with his family.
Thomas and Martha Wayne were loving parents, who made every effort to ensure that Bruce was cherished and cared for. His deep devotion to them was testament to the strength of their relationship.
But they were also respected doctors, benevolent philanthropists and pillars of the community, which never left much time for Bruce to have their full attention. To him, there never would be enough time.
Now though, he lets himself melt into the protective presence of his parents and enjoy the moment.
As he gives out a contented sigh, he feels his father sneakily head up behind them, snaking an arm around his mother’s waist. Unsatisfied with no longer having his mother all to himself, Bruce scowls and quickly squeezes himself in between the two of them, relishing in their surprised laughter. Grabbing both of their hands, he smoothly organises them into a coordinated routine where he swings between both of them on their arms.
The exhilaration of flying in the air, if even just for a few seconds, pulls delighted peals of laughter from him and as he’s pulled upwards, he misses the soft smiles that his parents exchange behind him.
After a few swings, Thomas’ arm decides that he’s had enough. “Alright chum, I think that’s about all I can swing for now. Ready to come back down to earth?”
Bruce lets out a plaintive noise of protest and shakes his head petulantly.
“Come on, Dad, just a few more,” he whines, tugging pitifully on Thomas’ hand.
Martha grins cheekily at him as well, giving him a wink. “Yeah Dad, ” she echoes teasingly. “Just a few more. My arms certainly can take it!” To punctuate her words, she flexes her free bicep and raises an eyebrow in challenge.
Thomas groans. His wife and son teaming up on him? There’s no way he’s getting out of this, is there?
Even though he recognises the futility, he still makes one last-ditch plea. “I’m an old man, you know? My joints aren’t as young as they used to be—“
His words freeze in his throat.
The blunt, unmistakable pressure of a cool gun barrel jammed against his back ensures his silence. Unaware of the new danger, Martha and Bruce turn to stare quizzically at him to see why he has suddenly fallen quiet. The twin sharp intakes of breath are all he needs to know that they have registered the new threat.
“So, old man, I don’t think I need to tell you why trying anything funny wouldn’t be a smart move at the moment,” a low voice rasps out.
He feels himself nod woodenly, clamping his teeth down in an iron grip. Beside him, he can feel Bruce shaking. All he wants to do is to bundle his son and wife up and spirit them both away to safety.
How did such a pleasant night end up like this?
Bruce burrows into his father’s side, praying that his father will somehow chase this man away. His mother squeezes his other clammy hand reassuringly and he clings on to that sensation and the comfort it offers.
She swallows nervously, and the sight does more to strike fear into him than anything else. Martha Wayne is not afraid. Martha Wayne does not get scared. But right now, Bruce can tell that Martha Wayne is terrified.
The thought sends shivers down his spine.
For all his earlier bravado inspired by Don Diego, all courage has fled his body now. All he wants to do is hide behind his father’s strong frame and cower like a child. His father is a mountain, and Bruce is more than happy to stand beneath in his shadow. He is no hero; right now, all he feels is fear.
Certain that he has successfully secured their compliance, the mugger leisurely saunters around to come face to face with them, waving the gun menacingly all the while. His gaze when it locks with Bruce’s eyes is chilling. The twisted grin he gives opens to reveal an incomplete set of yellowing teeth. Bruce quickly averts his eyes and tries to hide how a waterfall of chills envelops his body.
The man lets out a sinister chuckle before swivelling over to peer at his mother by his side. Bruce is glad that the attention is off of him but hates how that comes at the expense of his mother’s safety. He hates that he doesn’t dare to do anything about it.
“Alright then, lady and gentlemen,” he says with a wide leer. “To kick off this fine night, let’s start with you handing over your valuables, including any and all watches, rings and phones!”
Wordlessly, both Martha and Thomas begin removing the requested items. Bruce closes his eyes and tries to focus on his breathing to settle his racing heart.
In, out. In, out. In, out.
As the sound of clinking metal and rustling clothes fills the air, Bruce releases a deep breath. It’s almost over now. We’re going to go home after this.
“Oh, and let’s not forget about those lovely jewels around your neck, madam.”
Bruce’s eyes fly open as he feels his father stiffen beside him. Flicking a quick look up, he sees his father start as if to say something, before biting his tongue and looking down. His fist curls tighter around Bruce’s.
Stoic and strong as marble, Martha moves to unlatch her necklace, a hitch in her breath the only indication of any emotion. Against his wishes, Bruce’s eyes fill with tears.
Those are Nana’s jewels, he thinks mournfully. The significance of those diamonds and the reasoning behind his mother’s reticence to hand them over is not lost on him. He knows the only reason his mother was even wearing that particular necklace was that tonight was supposed to be a special occasion.
A special night for the family to spend together. He still remembers the way his father’s eyes lit up when he first caught a glimpse of his mother descending the Manor’s staircase and the breathless giggle she let out when he picked her up and spun her around.
Now, that precious memory is being poured into the grubby, dirt-streaked hands of a man whose eyes reflect only greed and selfishness, and none of the innocent joy that it held for Bruce.
Despite her put-together exterior, Martha hesitates just the slightest bit before she lets go of the necklace, but that split second of indecision is enough to make the mugger’s eyes narrow and jerk the gun up threateningly. Thomas’ eyes widen in alarm and terror as he reaches out a hand towards his wife to try and shield her. Fear anchors Bruce’s feet to the ground.
The gunshots that sound through the air still the night.
Bruce doesn’t realise that he is screaming until his mother collapses to the ground and the ragged cry tapers off into a weak whimper. Immediately, he spins around to his father and looks at him with eyes begging for him to just fix it.
There is an ugly, red stain spreading out from the middle of his mother’s chest and blooming like the ruby roses she grows in the garden at home. His mother’s heart is the best thing about her and it is spilling out of her with every breath.
Bruce’s heart is rabbiting in his chest and all his blown-out pupils can see is his family falling apart around him.
But it’s all going to be okay, because Thomas is a doctor, and all he does each day in the hospital is save lives and pull people back from the brink of death. Bruce has seen enough grateful families throwing themselves at his father in gratitude for letting them bring their loved ones home. What more wouldn’t he do for the love of his life?
All his hopes and more die the moment he registers the matching starburst in the centre of his father’s chest. It is only another moment before Thomas, too, crumples to the ground.
The mugger in front of them looks stunned, like he can’t believe what has just transpired either. Bruce is in a similar state of shock.
The sudden wail of sirens in the distance shakes both of them out of their reveries. A dream for the burglar who just made off with a pocketful of precious stones; a nightmare for Bruce.
Realising that he has no more reason to stay, the man steals off into the night, disappearing like he had never been there before. As if he hadn’t just ripped a hole through Bruce’s entire family.
Bruce doesn’t even feel himself slide to the dirty, alley floor. There is a jagged hole through his chest. He lets himself curl around the bodies of his parents and sob. He can feel his mother’s blood cooling under his fingertips.
For once, he had the chance to be a hero and protect his parents as they have always protected him. Instead, fear brought out his inner coward.
Tonight, it has made him an orphan.
It ends like this —
He is running across open sand, heart in his chest, or more accurately, in the form of a young boy trapped in a warehouse in the distance. Never has a space seemed so endless.
All his life, he has trained himself to be strong and in control so as to never be in this position again.
Helpless. Weak. Afraid.
Each step forward feels like one backwards, feels like sinking into a fiery quicksand. With each second, he is sinking deeper into a dark place where there is no love or hope. The expanse of sand before him melts into a barren wasteland.
Faster, faster, faster, his mind screams. Jason, Jason, Jason, his heart chants. Too slow, too slow, too slow, his memories tell him.
There is dust, or something, in his eyes causing them to prickle with tears, but he just grits his teeth and runs on. There is no time for feeling now.
Even before the warehouse explodes, a part of him already starts to grieve. Something in his heart tells him that he will not make it in time. A growing ache in his chest that is dressed up in dread but looks suspiciously like mourning.
He has spent a lifetime training his body to the upper echelons of human capability, and yet in this crucial moment, it is still not enough. It will never be enough, not where it counts.
But why?
Why me? Why him? Why us? ·
What sort of sin had he committed in the past that sentenced him to a life of loss and misery? Is he destined to suffer, and subject everyone around him to the same fate as well.
Losing his parents had been hard enough, a heavy cross that he has borne for all of his life, but one that he has been able to endure. He has managed to move on, as much as an eight year old orphan who witnessed the horrifying murder of his parents can truly be expected to move on.
This is a whole new nightmare, one he is still desperately hoping to wake up from. He imagines Jason lying limp, bloodied on that dusty warehouse floor, gaping wounds of red opening up their maws to consume him whole. Crimson flowers blooming across his son’s little chest in a cruel repetition of the past.
A parent should never outlive their child. A son should never die before his father.
When the warehouse actually does blow, he barely manages to raise his hands to his face before a flash of heat slams into him. The wave of fire leaves burn marks across his body but it is nothing compared to the searing pain that slices through his heart.
He wants to scream but the breath has been stolen from his lungs.
His mind, ever quick to analyse, begins to calculate statistics and probabilities for survival, but even more damning is the foreboding feeling in his chest. Once more, his mind begins to conjure up images of Jason, small, pale and dead.
It causes him to stumble, staggering a few steps as his legs grow weak. He quickly recovers because he doesn’t have time to entertain his wild imagination so he races off, but his heart keeps pounding along with his feet across the sand.
By the time he reaches the smoking rubble of what remains of the warehouse, he is gasping desperately for air. He scrambles up the smouldering debris and gropes around for any indications of his little lost Robin, willing his heart to guide him to his buried child.
All he sees is grey.
Finally, through tears and terror, his frantic hands manage to grab onto a flash of red. He lets out a wet sob as he pulls on that ray of hope to further reveal bright green and canary yellow, the trademark colours morbidly cheerful as ever, even under a layer of soot. Against the desolate background, the juxtaposition forms a macabre perversion of this innocent palette of childhood.
The limp hand that he unearths is even more devoid of colour.
As delicately as he can with trembling hands of his own, he carefully pulls Jason’s battered frame from the wreckage, wincing with every new bruise and bleeding wound he uncovers. He once thought that the sound of his son in pain was the worst thing in the world, the heart-wrenching cries that Jason would try to muffle into his arm tugging fearfully at his heartstrings.
The space left by his silence is even more terrifying.
Jason’s body has always been light, his frame left small and slight by childhood malnutrition and years on the street that taught him that the only way to survive was to barely even exist. Now, as Bruce raises his son out from the ashes, his body is feather light, a barely-there wisp of a boy.
Still, he clings onto that weight in his arms with the desperation of a father, every fibre of his being screaming for them to both be safe. When he finally settles on a stable enough surface, he gently lays Jason down, running a shaking hand across his bloody brow. Jason’s head lolls listlessly to the side. Blue eyes gaze lazily, sightlessly at the floor.
Placing two unsteady fingers onto his pulse points, he waits with bated breath for that life-affirming thrum. He waits one beat, two.
The whole period he waits, he doesn’t take a breath. Neither does Jason.
Bruce’s hand begins to waver. So does his hope.
Come on, Robin. His urging is silent, but he tries to convey the intensity of his wish through his eyes. His vision burns with fierce tears.
Move, he begs, but to no avail.
Only half-conscious of his actions, his hand slips to the ground. Jason remains unresponsive, though his skin is still warm.
Bruce falls back on his knees. A hollow pit starts to form in his chest. Bruce has seen enough dead bodies in his life to know when he is watching the life leave somebody’s eyes. Jason’s blue have glazed over.
His skin is still warm.
As traitorous gasps begin to leave his body, Bruce curses the wicked trick of nature that grants him a pebble of hope. He has felt the shifting ribs in his son’s chest, skirted gingerly around the countless open wounds that mar Jason’s body. He knows that it has been far too long without a single sign of life.
Jason’s skin is still warm, though that comforting heat is slowly dissipating from his body, so he must have been alive just moments ago.
And that is the greatest agony of them all, knowing that just a few minutes ago, Jason had been alive .
Hurt yes, dangerously so, but alive nonetheless. Now, there is nothing he can do. Trying to perform CPR to resuscitate him and push breath back into those fragile paper-thin lungs while countless rib shards jostle about would be the quickest way to puncture them if they have not already been deflated or choked with acrid smoke. Any one of the many dark bruises mottling his skin could easily signal irreversible internal bleeding, on top of the thick blood pouring out from his wounds.
None of those would have mattered minutes ago, because Jason was still breathing. Bruce would have done anything to keep that light in his heart.
If only he had been slightly faster, cared for Jason more, doubted Jason less. Inadequacy is the constant of his life.
Once again, Bruce has failed one of the only family he has left and there is nothing he can do.
He cradles the broken body of his son and begins to weep.
It is a sad story how a vigilante and hero ends up quietly retreating back into the shadows, never to be seen from again. How a once shrewd businessman, outgoing celebrity and loving father becomes a shell of himself.
If asked, Superman would say, with grim expression and sorrowful eyes, that something in Bruce broke with Jason’s death, and Batman was never the same again.
Truth be told, the answer is much simpler than that:
His son is dead and Bruce has always been too little, too late.