Alfred didn’t have to wake up Master Bruce this morning. Master Bruce woke up early in the morning, especially on the mornings of June 26.

Ah yes, June 26. The day that forever changed him.

Every morning on June 26, Master Bruce would visit the grave of his parents. In a stoic, solemn silence he would stand there, sometimes muttering his problems, other times staring sombrely at the grave without a single word being spoken. The lord only knew what he was thinking about. Alfred found it sad, lonely. Master Bruce would lock the gate to the graveyard, not letting anybody in. When Master Dick or Ms. Gordon were around, Master Bruce would occasionally grant them the rare privilege of joining in his mourning but unfortunately, Master Dick was nowhere to be seen and Ms. Gordon was in rehabilitation for the horrible injuries she had suffered.

It was later in this grey, cloudy morning that Master Bruce returned to the manor.

“Breakfast is ready, Master Bruce.”

Master Bruce just gave him a simple nod and walked into the dining room. After a few minutes, Master Bruce exited the room. Alfred went in to clean the dishes. Master Bruce had barely touched his food.

…

When Matt came to, he was in a bed, the think mattress digging into his back like needles. The first thing he noticed was the bandages and plasters around his chest and arms. The second thing he noticed was that his face wasn’t covered.

“What the…”

Matt tried moving but his hands were tied to the railings. It was then he heard the heartbeat of a man looming over him.

“Matt Murdock.”

He’d never heard the Batman’s voice. It was deep like a dark valley.

“Where the hell am I?” Matt said, shaking his arms. He was bound tight. He could hear cars in the distance and hushed whispers but that showed no indication of where he was.

“You’re in…”

“A clinic,” Matt said. “A small one, I’m guessing. Not a lot of patients.”

You wouldn’t know it by seeing but the Batman looked taken aback. “How do you know that?” he asked, a slight inflection in his voice indicating curiosity and intrigue. His heartbeat jumping just a tiny bit.

“I’ll answer that when you tell me why there isn’t any blood circulation around your left leg.”

The Batman was quiet. There was nothing in his body chemistry that indicated that he was scared.

“Your father died when you were 12,” Batman said. “You never knew your mother.”

“What the hell does this have to do with anything?”

“You lost your eyesight when you were 9 years old,” Batman said. “You pushed an old man out of the way but because of that chemicals fell into your eyes.”

“Shut up or I swear to God I’m going to break out of here and beat you up myself.”

“Your dad was a prominent boxer back in his heyday,” Batman said. “Unfortunately, as he got older, he mixed up with the wrong crowd and…”

Matt ripped the railing out, he charged at Batman despite his wounds but Batman grabbed his arm, twisted it and threw him down on the floor.

“You shouldn’t move,” Batman said, grabbing his wrists and pinning him down. “You’ll open your wounds.”

“What the hell do you want?” Matt said through grit teeth, struggling under his grip.

“I want to know if you killed Roscoe Sweeney.”

…

It was finally night-time. Throughout the entire day Master Bruce hadn’t eaten anything. He had just been alone in the living room, fiddling with a wine glass. At night he put on that godforsaken costume.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “Do you want to talk about anything?”

“Talk about what, Alfred?”

“Well, there’s the fact that you haven’t been out in public in quite a while,” Alfred said. “Batman may be an important part of Gotham but so is Bruce Wayne.”

“But my leg,” Master Bruce said. “It wouldn’t take much for someone to put two and two together and…”

“Are you scared of people finding out your secret identity?” Alfred said. “Or are you afraid that you’ll show some weakness, some vulnerability.”

Bruce was silent.

“Do you know Ms. Gordon doesn’t know that you lost a leg?” Alfred asked. “You haven’t visited her in…”

“I have visited her Alfred,” Master Bruce said.

“As Bruce Wayne, not Batman.”

There was a silence. “I…”

“Isolating yourself like this isn’t right Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “Not sharing your grief with others isn’t healthy. Did you know Ms. Gordon called you 8 times today to check up on you?”

Master Bruce was silent, he barely turned to meet his eyes.

“The only person you’ve met is Master Parker and that’s only for training,” Alfred said. “That isn’t healthy Master Bruce. They’re people who care about you, Master Bruce. You should let them in.”

Master Bruce was quiet. After a while he took a deep sigh. “Do you miss them, Alfred? Do you miss…” the words were almost hard for Bruce to say.

“Yes, Master Bruce,” Alfred said. “I miss them very much. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by where I don’t think of them. It hurts how I’ve…” Alfred cleared his throat. “Failed them.” Alfred paused. “But I had you Master Bruce, to share in my grief. All those years ago, there was a little boy who shared that grief with me and felt it just as intensely but nowadays, nowadays I’m not so sure anymore.”

The only sound was the screeching of bats and the dripping of water. Alfred dabbed his eyes with a tissue, silently so that Master Bruce wouldn’t see.

Master Bruce put on his cowl. He jumped into the Batmobile without saying a word. The Batmobile zoomed off in the distance, leaving Alfred behind in the dust.

It was the night of June 26th, one year after their death. Alfred was headed to Master Bruce’s room in order to tell him dinner was ready and make sure he was doing well. What he didn’t expect was the door to be half open, he heard Master Bruce mutter something to himself. He was about to open up and tell him dinner was ready when he saw that he was kneeling by his bedside, hands clasped together as if he was praying. Light from his bedside table cast a harsh glow on his face. He still, his body stiff and his jaw clenched. And then Alfred saw his. Those eyes, those baby blue eyes of his weren’t those of a 9-year-old boy but that of an adult.

“I swear,” Master Bruce said, his voice like stone. “I swear by the grave of my parents that I will avenge them.”

Alfred felt his heart break. All of Master Bruce’s innocence was gone, he was no longer a child, forced to grow up so fast.

Dinner that night was silent. Alfred walked over to the large portrait of the Wayne family, Master Thomas in the middle of the frame, Madame Martha with a coy smile on her face with her hands on the shoulder of a 7-year-old Master Bruce, his blue eyes filled with optimism, a harsh contrast to how they looked now.

“I failed you Master Bruce,” Alfred said, choking back tears. “I failed all of you.”

On the night of June 26th, Alfred Pennyworth mourned not only Master Thomas and Madame Martha whom he owed a lot to. On the night of June 26th, Alfred mourned the childhood of a boy that was killed when those blood-stained pearls clattered on the floor.

…

“What’s it to you if I killed him?” Matt asked, after Batman let go of him. “I’m doing your job for you, aren’t I?”

“If you killed him, I have every reason to lock you up,” Batman said. “Get you locked up, disbarred. A lawyer turned masked vigilante would be something for the headlines. I wonder what everybody will think, what Franklin will think?”

“How the hell do you know…”

“Would you want that?” Batman asked. “Would you really want that?”

Matt was silent.

“Did you kill Roscoe Sweeney?”

“No,” Matt said. “Hell no. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t want to kill him either, I wanted that bastard to confess. His heart was giving in and I wanted to tell him to stop but he wouldn’t listen.”

Matt clenched his fist. “I wanted to bring that bastard to justice after everything he did to this place but… well… you don’t always get what you want.”

Matt listened to Batman’s heartbeat but it was calm, nothing about it gave anything away.

“Why are you so interested?” Matt asked. “In whether or not I killed him?”

For a split-second Matt could hear the hesitance in his heart, he could smell the doubt on him. It was as if he was deliberating whether or not to tell him something. His body was placing cat and mouse between the truth and lies and the truth won.

“You asked why there was no blood flow in my left leg?” Batman said. “That’s because I lost it in a fight against the Joker. It took a while but after that I realised something.”

Batman paused

“What?” Matt asked.

“I can’t defend this city alone.”

…

It was after he paid his respects when he heard the screaming and gunshots.

He went over there as fast as he could. 8 men, three armed, trying to rob a convenience store. It would be an easy job and it was. The men with guns were dispatched fast, the rest were handled with ease. They were just 3 left and Batman didn’t know how but one of them grabbed a metal pipe and knocked him at the back of the head.

He was buried under a cascade of blows, unable to move. He was at a loss; how did a basic thug manage to get him behind the head? He found a weak spot, kicking one of the thugs underneath the leg, allowing movement. He managed to take care of the thugs; the cashier called the cops. Batman left the convenience store and grappled away.

How could he have made such a simple blunder? They weren’t the league of assassins or trained mercenaries. They were just thugs with no prior training and thought they were strong just because they carried guns. How could they have gotten a hit in?

Batman, check your back.

Robin’s voice echoed in his head.

Robin knocked the mercenary out before he could even attack Batman.

It was Robin, Batman thought. It was a weakness that slowly crept up and made him useless. He ended up relying on him and that made him weak. It was like a drug that he’d grown to rely on. Batman had to be stronger, he had to. For the sake of Gotham. But in the back of his mind there was the sliver of doubt that maybe, just maybe he won’t be able to keep doing this alone anymore.

…

“The city gets crueller as every day passes,” Batman said. “I’m sure you’ve seen it too good men turning cruel, bad men becoming worse. You’ve seen it, otherwise you wouldn’t have worn this.”

Batman held out Matt’s mask. “It’s not enough to be a lawyer, is it?”

Matt remembered that even after everything Sweeney did, he still got away. He was sitting at the stands and despite everything, despite the evidence there was nothing tying him to the atrocities he committed and the bastard was acquitted. The system was just as broken as this city.

Matt took the mask and wrapped it around his head.

“You’re right,” Matt said. “This city is getting worse but I’ve never cared for Gotham. This place, Crime Alley is my home. I was born here, raised here. I mourned and celebrated in this here block. I know the people, I know the community just like how I know we’re in Leslie Thompkins’s clinic, aren’t we?”

Batman stirred but there was no panic in his heart, no fear.

“When it comes to Crime Alley,” Matt said. “To my city, we follow my rules. I don’t care that you’re the Batman, this is my town and you follow my rules.”

Batman was silent.

“Very well,” Batman said. “I’ll leave Crime Alley to you. I won’t interfere with you and you don’t interfere with me. Do we have a deal?”

Batman reached out his hand, Matt shook it.

Batman opened up the window, taking out his grappling hook.

“Thompkins will patch you up if you’re wounded,” Batman said. “She has a soft spot for people like us, people trying to make a difference.”

Matt nodded.

“Yukio Okumura,” Batman said. “The Yakuza who killed himself is part of the Yamada crime family. They run a brothel around Park Row East that serves as a front for human trafficking. Their boss might know about those children.”

“What’s the brothel’s name?”

“Oriental Delights.”

Matt nodded. He was about to thank Batman but by the time he turned around he disappeared and Matt didn’t hear a sound.

…

Batman parked the Batmobile in an alley. He figured nobody would come anywhere near it, lest they felt the wrath of the Batman but much to his surprise he saw a mini-generator connected to a transformer on the nearby. He followed the mangled trail of wires to the Batmobile, the wires sticking to the engine like a gnarled hand.

Kneeling by the Batmobile he saw a boy who couldn’t have been more than 12, with jet black hair and hazel eyes, shaking the tyre out. The boy managed to take the tyre out, he turned around and dropped the tyre. The tyre rolled to Batman where it came to a stop.

The boy made a run for it.

…

Matt collapsed onto his bed, his body aching in pain and his mind begging for rest and his bed sheets welcoming him into its warm embrace.

The next morning, he was awoken by the robotic voice of his phone.

“Foggy, Foggy, Foggy.”

The robotic voice faded.

“You have 20 missed calls from Foggy Nelson.”

Matt reached out for his phone just as the robotic voice started up again.

“Foggy, Foggy, Foggy.”

Matt picked up.

“Where the hell are you?” Foggy said, before Matt even had the chance to say hello. “You’re late.”

Matt could hear a strain in his voice, he was speaking in a harsh whisper.

“Late for…”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Foggy said letting out a violent sigh. “You can’t tell me you forgot. The trial is already in recess.”

Oh, oh no.

“Our first trial as Nelson and Murdock and Matt Murdock is late.”

To be continued…