Discovery

This story is fan-fiction I wrote a while ago. It holds some interest to me as a character study. Of course the characters here were created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger
Bruce Wayne, ten years old, muted witness to the murder of his parents. Wandering aimlessly through the cavernous hallways and salons of his estate, tucked away in his thoughts everything looked shiny, the floors waxed, the wooden panels on the wall lacquered, but still it looked dull to him like a museum, a museum to his parents? He knew his father had been a doctor, he got rich making people better.
When the house was too empty or boring, Bruce took long walks around the grounds and woods of the estate. No matter where he went or what he did, Bruce couldn’t get the pictures out of his mind, his parents lying dead on the cold cement in front of the theater, his fathers’ usually clean white shirt splattered with blood, like some gory Rorschach test. In bed, in the solitary confines of the dark night and his thoughts, every creak and groan of the mansion was the fear the killers were coming for him. Until finally one the boy cried out.
“Alfred! Alfred!” Bruce called out one of the many nights. Alfred burst into the boy’s room.
“Yes, Master Bruce, what’s wrong.” Alfred asked as he cradled in his arms.
“It was my fault! I was playing, father was watching me he didn’t see the men following us.” The boy sobbed.
“There’s nothing you could have done Master Bruce. The same thing could have happened had you not been playing, or had you not been there at all, it still would have happened. The variable wasn’t you Master Bruce.” Bruce sobbed into Alfred’s arms until he fell asleep. Alfred ever so gently tucking the boy back into bed. He knew the boy would be all right. “Sweet dreams Master Bruce.” He said, placing a kiss on the boy’s forehead.
As he became older Bruce became moody, depressed, living more in his imagination, a loner. He even withdrew from his only friend, Alfred, Alfred the steady hand, nurtured and took care of Bruce, a debt owed.
One blustery autumn day Bruce went out, Alfred’s emendations to be careful, still ringing in his ears. He headed towards the woods at the outer edge of the property. The trees were barren and seemed crooked to Bruce, the blanket of leaves on the ground swirled with every breeze, it seemed like a dream to him. He jumped into a pile of leaves and he was falling, down a shaft that had been covered with the fallen leaves.
“Ow!” He yelled as he hit, his body writhed with the momentary pain, and suddenly the ceiling moved, and exploded around him he saw a black cloud moving above him, heard flapping, felt the pressure as something swooped and dived at him, Bruce cowered and ducked. Slowly, he was able to focus, the black cloud were bats, he stood in awe of their power and beauty as they somehow moved as a unit, an entity. Then Bruce noticed his surroundings, the slick rock walls, plateaus, buttes, abutments, the cave was huge!
As the weeks passed he wandered around the cave exploring it until finally finding a ground level entrance, going to the cave everyday to explore, he found entrances, coves and niches of the cave. Every new discovery a different world, a new adventure, and for a while each day he was able to forget about his parents.
One afternoon caught up in his playing, he was transported back to the street where he had witnessed his parents death. He sees them come out of the theater, the immaculate doctor, his beautiful wife, and carefree child. They pass an alley and two men notice them and emerge from the darkness and follow unnoticed. Bruce witnesses it all, follows the chronology he knows all to well, he can hear everything, all the players voices fill his ears again, he feels the chill in the air of that night, he can smell the snow in the air and the diesel smell of the city, if he just reached out and grabbed his fathers hand he would be there again. All of a sudden he’s watching from above as the other two pull a gun demanding money and jewelry, then he swoops down a bat…a man, he lands between the criminals and the frightened movie goers, grabs the gun from the stunned criminals, and they run, everyone is safe, no one is killed. His father turns to the shadowy figure
“You saved us and our little boy, who are you?”
“I’m Batman.” The apparition disappears, reality awakened Bruce from his fantasy his parents were dead, no one swooped down, he didn’t save his parents, he felt the pain, he couldn’t save them. Bruce walked home in the sad coldness of the reality. He never went back to the caves again. As he grew older his fantasy provided a buffer for the pain, eventually his wounds scabbed over, and the cave and his fantasy served their purpose and safely retreated to the recesses of his mind.
As Bruce grew up he went to all the best schools, playing sports, football, gymnastics, fencing, martial arts. Under Alfred’s guidance the body was tempered with academics. Bruce was drawn to philosophy, trying to understand the unknowable why, when he couldn’t find the answers he was looking for there he switched to the sciences, when that didn’t satisfy his hunger, he switched to psychology, criminal justice, even the arts, his subconscious gently pulling him in directions he had yet to discover. But still he felt something was missing.
Until he met Jane Smith, a blond blue-eyed coed who’s clothing always looked like it was sculpted to her body. In Bruce’s mind she was life, she provided the light to his life, she became the focus and meaning to his life. She also appealed to Bruce’s dark side to further dull the pain of the memory of his parent’s death which was never far below the surface, Bruce was playing the part of the collegian playboy, Bruce loved the high life, and excess partying out the weekdays and weekend, Jane loved the life too.
In his senior year Bruce went to Alfred with an announcement and a decision.
“We’ve fallen in love, Alfred!”
“Congratulations, sir!” Alfred enthused, glad to see Bruce happy again.
“And I’ve made a decision, Alfred.”
“Yes?” Alfred said.
“After graduation, and Jane and I are married, we’re retiring.”
“Retiring sir?”
“Yes, Alfred, away from everything, and everyone.” Alfred frowned, and Bruce went on “I’ve thought about it a lot lately Alfred, considered everything, I don’t have to work, father saw to that, I don’t have to do anything, Alfred! That’s everybody’s dream!”
“Are you sure sir?”
“Yes, Alfred.” Bruce said, nodding his head in agreement with himself, “withdrawal is the right answer, we’ll be safe, no one will be able to hurt us behind these gates,” Alfred reposed in thought another moment.
“May I submit for your consideration, Master Bruce,” Alfred said tactfully, but staring at his ward earnestly “that a life of wealth and leisure leads to a decadence of the spirit, which, if meaningless leads to meaninglessness; is that the legacy you seek for your parent’s memory?”
“Haven’t I earned it? This is the freedom most people seek, they work their whole lives to pay for it, I paid for it by seeing my parents killed in front of me!”
“Yes, sir, your parents John and Abigail were my friends, I knew your parents from the early days of your father’s practice, your father has provided well for you, for us, but this isn’t the reason your father amassed a fortune, if he were still alive he wouldn’t approve, I ask in their name for you to reconsider.”
One night Bruce and Jane were walking across the autumnal campus, heading home from a party, Bruce shambling along having drunk a little too much, suddenly they’re accosted by three thugs, two hold and beat him until his struggles to get free are perfunctory, as the third takes Jane’s purse and throws it aside when he discovers nothing of value in it, Then pushes her to the ground and rips off her clothes, Bruce’s struggles are renewed but the thugs holding him are strong and determined, he can’t free himself. When he was done with her the third thug pulls out a knife, raises it up over his head, Bruce’s head shot up seeing the glint of silver in the moonlight, then it plunged down into Jane’s heart, she was dead.
“NO!” Bruce screamed. “Not again!” The thugs threw Bruce to the ground and they ran, Bruce cradled Jane but she was already getting cold, “I’m sorry Jane! I’m sorry!” Then he noticed he was covered with her blood, “No! I couldn’t have stopped it! I couldn’t have, it’s not my fault!” In a daze Bruce wandered through the night, not knowing where he was or where he’s going, his subconscious taking his body where it willed, seeking an anodyne for the pain, he tramped through woods until he vaguely realized he was back on Wayne Manor’s grounds, how did he get there? It must’ve taken him hours he realized, he walked numbly until his legs gave out from under him, he was falling! Down the same hole as he had in childhood, he hit the bottom more cut, and bruised, and damaged than before.
“Why me!” He screamed into the cave, then the black mass of screeching and diving bats came to life, swirling around him, the cave that had provided so much solace when he was a child. “What did I do! Why am I being punished?” He fell to the ground crying, beaten, all his strength gone, crying hysterically. His body contorting in the spasms of the pain his mind felt until he pulled himself into the fetal position, crying until he couldn’t cry anymore, the sobs subsiding, his body finally devoid of everything, even the pain. He was empty, slowly he pulled himself to a sitting position, hands around his knees slowly rocking himself. Then as if awakening from the caverns of his mind, he remembered the fantasy he had as a child. Then in the cold emptiness of his self a warmth started to fill him, as an idea manifests itself, turning to power as it solidifies and became more real in his mind. He felt it strengthening him. It stands him up, the vision comes into focus, he sees himself becoming huge over the night, he sees himself atop a twisted building, brooding over the city in the dark night, its protector, its sickness his own, his thoughts impenetrable, a very, very dark knight indeed. He’s strong again, as he’s completely filled with the warm strength burning through him, enlightenment fills his mind, and the light of conviction burns in his eyes and mind “I AM THE BATMAN!”