Bruce held the blanket tight over his body.

A part of him wished he hadn't left the cloak Ruby had given him as a child back at home. It had always brought comfort to him.

But that didn't matter as of this moment.

He rubbed his arms in an effort to warm himself, as Cinder fed the fire they sat in front of. She looked up to watch his method of warming herself, and shook her head.

"Rub your chest. Your arms will take care of themselves."

Bruce sighed, doing as she requested. It seemed every action he made to impress the league, to impress his teacher, to impress Salem was met with some form of scrutiny. Most of them seemed to have a distaste for him. It was only Cinder who showed any form of respect or welcome to him.

"You are stronger than your father," she said.

Bruce growled. She rarely made statements like that, but when she did, it always angered him. "You didn't know my father."

"But I know the rage that drives you," Cinder said. "That impossible anger strangling the grief . . . until the memory of your loved ones is just . . . poison in your veins . . . and one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed . . . so you'd be spared your pain."

Bruce looked up to her. He had known her for a year now, and this was the first time he had heard true emotions in her voice. He was touched she would do that for him.

"I wasn't always here in the mountains," she continued. "Once, I had a partner. My great love. He was taken from me."

His anger faded, the knowledge of what she had lost hurting him deeply. Losing his parents was one thing, but if he had lost the woman he'd loved, the woman he was thinking of in this moment, he would never be able to live with himself.

"Like you, I was forced to learn there are those without decency . . . who must be fought without hesitation, without pity. Your anger gives you great power. But if you let it, it will destroy you . . . as it almost did me."

"What stopped it?" Bruce asked.

"Vengeance."

He was disappointed in that answer. "That's no help to me."

"Why, Bruce? Why could you not avenge your parents?"

The question plagued in his mind, and his memories came back once more. The memories of his last days in Vale.

"Will you be heading back to Vacuo after the hearing, sir?" Alfred asked. "Or can I persuade you to stay on for a day or two?"

Bruce was 11 years old at the time, and he had spent a few months in Vacuo. Wayne Manor had been in the care of Alfred while he was gone. He had come back after hearing the news of the upcoming trial of Joe Chill, the man who had killed his parents.

"I'm not heading back at all," Bruce said.

"You don't like it there?" Alfred asked.

"I like it fine," Bruce said. "They just don't feel the same way."

"I've prepared the master bedroom--"

"No," Bruce shook his head. "My room will be fine."

"With all due respect, sir," Alfred said, gesturing to the rooms around them, "Wayne Manor is your house."

"No, Alfred, it's my father's house."

"Your father is dead."

"This place is a mausoleum. If I have my way, I'll pull the damn thing down brick by brick."

Alfred turned to Bruce, his voice much more stern. "This house, Master Wayne, has sheltered six generations of your family."

"Why do you give a damn, Alfred? It's not your family."

"I give a damn because a good man once made me responsible for what was most precious to him in the whole world."

Bruce stayed quiet, with nothing to say against that.

"Miss Schnee has offered to drive you to the hearing," Alfred said. "She probably hopes to talk you out of going."

"Should I just bury the past out there with my parents, Alfred?" Bruce asked.

"I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do with your past, sir," the old man replied. "Just know that there are those of us who care about what you do with your future."

"Haven't given up on me yet?" Bruce asked, oddly touched.

Alfred smiled. "Never."

Bruce hadn't been in the Manor in a while. It was just how he remembered it. The walls were slightly older than before, and that wasn't something he liked. But then, he found an old case. One he remembered too well.

He picked it up, and opened it to pull out what he already knew was inside. It was his father's old stethoscope. He could still remember the day he had heard his father's heartbeat with it. But it hurt to think about.

Bruce set his suitcase on the couch, and opened it up. He picked up the cape that Ruby had given him so many years ago, smiling as he saw it. He set it down on the couch, and reached back into the suitcase. But, this time, he pulled out something much darker.

A gun. The same type of gun and bullet used on his parents that night. Poetic justice.

Bruce put the gun in his pocket, and walked into the kitchen, where he saw his old friend Weiss Schnee waiting for him. She was just as beautiful as the last time he saw her, and he smiled as he looked over her form, taken in by her beauty.

Even in Vacuo, he hadn't fallen in love with anyone the way he did with Weiss. She was one-of-a-kind.

"Alfred still keeps the condensed milk on the top shelf," he said.

Weiss turned to look at him, and instantly smiled as she laid eyes on him. "Hasn't he noticed you're tall enough to reach now?"

"Old habits die hard, I guess," Bruce said.

"Never used to stop us anyway."

"No, it didn't," Bruce agreed. It was nice to think of the good times they'd had before the murder. "How's your sister?"

"She misses this place," Weiss said. "So do I."

"Yeah," he nodded in understanding. "But it's nothing without the people who made it what it was. Now there's only Alfred."

"And you," Weiss added.

"I'm not staying, Weiss."

Weiss nodded. "You're just back for the hearing. Bruce, I don't suppose there's any way to convince you not to come."

"Someone at this proceeding should stand for my parents."

"Your just a child, Bruce. We all loved your parents. What Chill did is unforgivable."

"Then why is everyone letting him go?"

Weiss sighed, crossing her arms. "In prison, he shared a cell with Roman Torchwick. He learned things, and he will testify in exchange for early parole."

"Weiss, this man killed my parents," Bruce said. "I cannot let that pass. And I need you to understand that, please."

Weiss sighed. "Okay."

Once he arrived at the courthouse, he left his gun outside the perimeter of the metal detectors, and entered the court, sitting with the crowd.

After much angry anticipation, he finally saw Joe Chill step into the courtroom, and seat himself down beside his lawyer.

The mere sight of him angered Bruce. He could feel the rage burning inside, and he found himself eagerly waiting the moment he could kill the man, and he felt no guilt at the idea.

"The depression hit working people, like Mr. Chill, hardest of all," the lawyer said, his defensive words for Chill giving Bruce more rage, though it didn't match the anger he felt towards Joe. "His crime was appalling, yes, but it was motivated not by greed but by desperation. Given the years served, as well ashis extraordinary level of cooperation with one of this office's most important investigations we strongly endorse his petition for early release."

"Mr. Chill?" the judge said.

Chill stood up, his back turned on Bruce, keeping him from seeing the empathetic, guilty expression in his eyes. "Your Honor not a day goes by that I don't wish I could take back what I did. Sure, I was desperate, like a lot of people back then, but that don't change what I did."

Bruce paid no attention to the guilt in his voice, only hearing what he wanted to hear: excuses.

"I gather there is a member of the Wayne family here today," the judge said. "Has he got anything to say?"

Bruce stood up after the judge mentioned his name, but he didn't say a word. Chill didn't turn back to him, and he didn't notice him stiffen up, the guilt building inside him as he new the child he'd traumatized was staring at him in rage.

But Bruce didn't defend his parents, as he said he would to Weiss, he turned around, and stormed out of the courtroom.

There was no hesitation to make his way to the hidden gun, picking it up, and hiding it in his sleeve. As soon as he had it hidden, he waited for Chill to exit the courtroom.

He kept count of every second, every minute of time he'd spent just standing there, waiting for Chill to leave. Waiting for the moment to finally get the revenge he had been waiting for since his parents' funeral.

1,458, 1,459, 1460--

The sound of doors swinging open, and a crowd shouting over each other interrupted his counting, and he looked up to see countless people following Joe Chill in an attempt to get him to answer their questions.

This was it. The moment he had been waiting for for years. The moment when he could finally bring justice for his parents. Underneath his sleeve, he loaded the gun, and prepared to finally give Chill what he deserved.

"Joe!" a woman shouted, running up to him. "Torchwick says hi!"

She pointed a gun at Joe's chest, and fired. Bruce flinched at the sound of the gunshot, watching as Chill collapsed to the ground, blood soaking his shirt, and as security grabbed the woman, pulling her away.

Weiss was in the screaming crowd, one of the few who was more confused than scared. She looked away from Chill, spotting Bruce watching.

Not wanting him to see this, she ran to him, grabbing his arm, and trying to pull him away.

"Come on, Bruce!" she said. "We don't need to see this!"

He shook his head, refusing to take his eyes off of Chill's dead body.

"I do . . ."

It took too long for Weiss to get him away from the crime scene, and she was disappointed in herself for being unable to get him away in time, whether he'd wanted to watch or not. She rambled about the events that had taken place, but Bruce didn't reply to anything she said. He stared blankly into the distance, in a trance he hadn't been in since his parents were murdered.

"The DA couldn't understand why Judge Faden insisted on making the hearing public," Weiss said as she walked with him down the street. "Torchwick paid him off to get Chill out in the open."

"Then maybe I should thank him," Bruce said, finally speaking up.

Weiss was shocked to hear those words come from his mouth, and disappointed to hear them come out of his mouth.

"You don't mean that," Weiss said.

"What if I do, Weiss?" Bruce said. "My parents deserve justice."

"You're not talking about justice," Weiss said. "You're talking about revenge."

"Sometimes, they're the same."

"No, they're never the same. Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better. It's why we have an impartial system."

"The system is broken."

Angered, Weiss grabbed his arm, and tugged him down an alleyway, dragging him to a location he had never been in before. He made no effort to stop her, allowing her to drag him through the street.

"You care about justice?" she said. "Look beyond your own pain, Bruce! This kingdom is rotting! They talk about the depression as if it's history, but it's not! Things are worse than ever here! Torchwick floods our streets with crime and drugs, preying on the desperate, creating new Joe Chills every day!"

Bruce looked around at his surroundings, as Weiss told him to, and what he saw was far worse than he'd expected.

People were lying on the streets in makeshift camps, hugging themselves for warmth. The place itself resembled the alley where his parents had been murdered, except this was much bigger.

"Why do you care about all this?" he asked.

"Because your parents did," Weiss said, still dragging him to wherever she intended on taking him. "Your parents showed me all of this. It was horrifying then, and every time I come back here, it is just as horrifying."

Bruce pulled his hand away from Weiss, and stopped, staring at someone lying on the street. He looked just like Chill did back when he had killed his parents. But this man didn't bring the same rage Chill did when Bruce had seen him. As Bruce stared at this man, this old, desperate, homeless man, so many of his questions about Joe Chill had finally been answered.

The biggest being, "Why?"

"Torchwick may not have killed your parents, Bruce," Weiss said, placing an arm on his shoulder, "but he's destroying everything that they stood for."

She pulled him away from the homeless man, this time much more gently, and took him around a corner.

"You wanna thank him for that? Here you go."

She gestured across the street, finally stopping. Bruce looked to the bar across the street. He turned to his old friend, confused as to how she knew he was here.

"We all know where to find him," she said. "As long as he keeps the bad people rich and the good people scared, no one'll touch him. Good people like your parents, who'll stand against injustice, they're gone. What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing?"

Bruce was silent for a moment. All of this information he had just taken in was so much, and his views, his morals, his beliefs. All of them were put into question.

"I'm not one of your good people, Weiss," he said.

"What do you mean?"

Bruce held his breath for a moment, reaching into his pocket to pull something out, knowing she would hate him after this.

"All these years, I wanted to kill him. Now I can't."

He pulled out what was in his pocket, and revealed it to Weiss. Her jaw dropped as she laid eyes on the gun. She looked up to Bruce, and he saw an expression he'd never forget. A look of horror, disbelief. A look that morphed into anger and disappointment. She slapped him, hard. But he didn't react. Even when she slapped a second time, he let it happen. He deserved this.

"Your parents would be ashamed of you," Weiss said.

Bruce turned to her, shocked that she would say such a thing. But, the more he thought about it, the more he knew she was right. Why would they ever be proud of this? Why would they be proud of this angry boy, filled with rage and a need for revenge.

He walked away from her, and from the bar. He didn't care where he was going. As long as Weiss wasn't around such an angry fool, he didn't care.

He walked for miles, only stopping at the docks, where he couldn't walk anymore. He stared out into the ocean, thinking about everything that had happened. Everything his parents had taught him. All of it was disgraced by his actions. By holding this gun.

Bruce looked at the gun. The same gun used that night. He had planned on killing Joe, in the same way Joe had killed his parents. The man had showed empathy for what he had done, had been so guilty he couldn't look Bruce in the eyes.

He felt angry. But not about what Joe had done to him. To his parents. He was angry he had never given him the chance to apologize.

Flashes of the weapon he had stared at that night flashed into his mind, only this time, it was Bruce himself who was the gunman.

Scared, Bruce tossed the gun away, watching as it went flying into the air, and descended into the water.

That was the gun taken care of. But there was something else. There was a monster in Vale, and he had to confront him for what he had done.

Bruce stormed back to the bar Weiss had taken him to. He hoped she was still there, but when he saw that she wasn't, he didn't care. This wasn't about him and his friendship. This was about something much more important.

Wayne walked into the bar, and looked around. It didn't take long for him to find Roman Torchwick. His ginger hair, bowler hat, and white suit was easy to identify.

He made his way over to him, only to be stopped by a man dressed in a black suit. Torchwick looked up to see him as the man patted him down, and he smirked.

"You're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne," he said.

The guard stepped back, no weapons in Bruce's pockets.

"No gun?" Torchwick said with a chuckle. "I'm insulted."

The man shoved Bruce into a seat.

"You could've just sent a thank-you note."

"I didn't come here to thank you," Bruce said. "I came to show you that not everyone in Vale's afraid of you."

"Only those who know me, kid," Torchwick said. "Look around you. You'll see two councilmen a union official, couple off-duty cops and a judge."

Then, Torchwick lifted a cane from his seat, and pointed the bottom of it directly at Bruce. It opened up to become the barrel of a gun, the tip that had moved turning into a reticle for aiming

"I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head off in front of them," he said. "Now, that's power you can't buy. That's the power of fear."

"I'm not afraid of you," Bruce said.

"Because you think you got nothing to lose," Torchwick said. "But you haven't thought it through. You haven't thought about your lady friend, the Schnee. You haven't thought about your old butler. Bang!"

He made a gesture of pulling the trigger. Bruce's eyes widened in horror, the thought of Torchwick killing Weiss or Alfred terrifying him.

Torchwick smiled, knowing he had made his point. He set his cane down beside him. "People from your world have so much to lose. Now, you think because your mommy and your daddy got shot you know about the ugly side of life, but you don't. You've never tasted desperate. You're Bruce Wayne, the prince of Vale. You'd have to go a thousand miles to meet someone who didn't know your name. So don't come here with your anger, trying to prove something to yourself. This is a world you'll never understand. And you always fear . . . what you don't understand."

Bruce stayed silent, letting those words sink in. Everything he thought he had just learned was challenged. Torchwick was everything he had heard he was.

Torchwick turned to his men at the next table, nodding to them. "Alright."

The guards grabbed Bruce, lifting him off his seat. But Bruce wasn't about to go down without a fight. He bashed his fist against one of the guards, but they immediately hit back, leaving behind a bloody lip.

"Yeah, you got spirit, kid, I'll give you that," Torchwick admitted. "More than your old man anyway. In the joint, Chill told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy."