The constant beeping of the medical monitors intruded into what was an otherwise serene hospital room. A young man around 15 years old stood at the foot of a patient bed, watching. The patient was an older gentleman. His features were strong, noble. His dark hair was flecked with grey at the temples, and streaks of grey mottled otherwise uniformly black locks. His eyes were closed. His breathing was regular and strong, which wasn’t surprising as it was machine regulated. The youth was very much a younger version of the man in the bed. His hair hung long around his shoulders, but otherwise their faces could have been mirror images.
The Martha Wayne Long Term Care wing of Gotham General Hospital was named in honor of Gotham’s beloved first lady. Martha Wayne hadn’t been a politician’s wife, or anyone of any royal bloodline. What she had been was nurturing, caring, and completely selfless. While her husband, Thomas Wayne, ran his multi-billion dollar corporation and worked at Gotham General as a surgeon, Martha cared for the gutter dwellers of Gotham. The nation’s most populous city, Gotham was also knee deep in poverty, crime, and suffering. Martha had devoted every second of her time to bringing hope to a destitute population. Her bright light was snapped off in an instant. Everyone in Gotham knew the tragic story: a family caught in a mugging, a nervous and desperate gunman, and Martha was slain. One of the very souls she tried daily to save snatched her away.
Her husband was also cut down that day. But Thomas Wayne hadn’t died. The gunman’s bullet bored a hole straight through his brain, leaving him alive, but in a coma. Thomas rested in his wife’s loving arms as a long term patient in her wing. Bruce, now a teenager, was orphaned that night in the alley. He buried his mother in the ground and his father in the hospital. Neither would see him grow into a man.
Bruce watched his father breathe and thought dark thoughts. As it did every week when he visited, the sight of his father fueled a growing rage in the young man’s heart. In his head, his parents’ murders played on an endless loop. A scraggly beard. A ragged man. Booming gunshots. Blood. The senseless nature of the act stabbed in Bruce’s brain like an ice pick. The violence of the act burned in his soul like a churning volcano. The gunman had never been caught. Alfred told him later that his parents’s murderer ran past him as Alfred sprinted into the alley. Waiting in the car, he had heard the gunshots. But Alfred was more concerned with his charges than running down a fugitive that night. The police response, though rapid, was poorly coordinated. The panic over Gotham’s most prominent family being murdered overshadowed police procedure. The gunman simply disappeared into the overgrown fraternity of crime. Bruce seethed at the law enforcement ineptitude that allowed a killer to escape justice. He cursed them for their failure, their inability to provide safety at the Opera House and their inability to provide legal closure.
It became too much. Bruce turned abruptly and nearly ran out of his father’s hospital room. He ignored nurses and doctors who nodded or offered greetings on his way out. Though the Gotham day was bright and crisp, all Bruce saw was darkness. All he felt was the gnawing bite of injustice.
In his room, at midnight, on the night of his parents’ death, Bruce vowed vengeance. He was only a boy when he left for the Opera, but he returned a man. He promised the world that he would avenge his parents and that he would never let anyone suffer that pain again. But it galled Bruce to wait. He was only a boy, then. He could do nothing. He was powerless, weak, and small. And so he waited. He grew, he aged, and he matured. As a teenager his childish impatience hardened into careful preparation. He studied everything he could. He buried himself in school, in athletics, in the Gotham Central Library stacks.
Bruce knew that the secret to fighting evil lay in forging the perfect weapon. Having nothing but himself, Bruce dedicated every minute to forging himself into the perfect weapon. Outwardly, everyone saw a young man living life for the parents that he lost. They saw a star football player, a gifted baseball player, a devastating wrestler. They watched a master debater, a chess champion, an artistic prodigy. They saw a young Wayne emerging from tragedy to be every inch his father with all the heart of his mother. That Wayne was a lie, a disguise, an alter ego for the monster of anger, rage, and vengeance that was his true self.
Only Alfred saw both sides of Bruce. The loyal butler cared for his charge as best he could as surrogate parent, guardian, and caregiver. He heard Bruce’s nightmares. He heard Bruce’s fits of rage. He heard Bruce’s sobs of sorrow. Bruce would never openly betray the depth of his feelings to Alfred, but he did relax a bit of his facade at home. More than anyone, Alfred saw the real Bruce Wayne. As much as Bruce loved the family valet, he kept him and everyone else at a distance. Alfred also understood, to an extent, the depth of Bruce’s feelings. He gave the boy space to find himself again, to remake his life. Alfred saw the opportunity to mold a man out of the boy who suffered, and ever so gently and patiently, Alfred guided Bruce’s evolution. As crudely as Bruce built himself into a weapon, it was Alfred who tempered the process, refined the build, and sharpened the edges.
Bruce exited the hospital through whooshing automatic doors. Across the drop-off circle, Alfred was standing patiently next to the family Bentley.
“How is your father today, Master Bruce?”
“He’s still dead, Alfred.”
“The dead only sleep, Master Bruce.”
“Whatever you say.”
Alfred opened the door for Bruce, and the young man slid into the backseat. Entering the driver’s seat, Alfred regarded his ward in the rearview mirror. Bruce’s eyes flashed behind his hair. His face was grim.
“Where to, Master Bruce?”
“Home. I have work to do.”
“Very well.”
Alfred engaged his turn signal and gently pressed the accelerator. The large luxury car purred and pulled forward into the road.
a simple man 