"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun then you can with a kind word alone" - Al Capone

•••

"Miss Wayne."

Bird's posture stiffened some as she rose from where she'd been knelt down in front of the engraved headstone at Oswald's mother's grave.

She'd only been there a few minutes and had just laid the bouquet of spring lilies down on the green grass when the peaceful calm in that section of the cemetery had been interrupted.

"Hello, Ed." Bird greeted back as she stood to her feet and looked over her shoulder to the approaching man.

With a small nod, he stepped up beside her before leaning down to place a much smaller and simpler arrangement of lilies next to the one Bird had left.

When she turned to him with a confused expression on her face, he stared forward and explained, "Oswald asked me to visit her grave and bring flowers. Lilies were her favorite."

"I know they were." Bird unintentionally snapped, before the rest of his sentence fully sank in and she stammered, "Wait, you got to talk to Oswald? When? I've been trying to get on the visitors list for Arkham, but he's not allowed to see anyone and-"

Cutting her near frantic ramblings off, Nygma explained, "No. I was only able to speak to him for a short time at the precinct before he was transferred to Arkham Asylum."

"Oh..." She breathed, letting the disapointment show on her face before she turned back and stared down to the headstone.

Oswald had spent longer in Arkham than she'd expected him too, but instead of accepting the help she'd tried to send him via the hiring of defense attorneys -he'd instead, given a full confession when he'd been arrested for Galavan's murder.

"Well." Bird cleared her throat, "I'm sure Oswald asked you to bring Gertrud flowers because he thought I wasn't sticking around Gotham, but I've since changed my mind. So, thank you, but I'll make sure her grave is tended to."

Nygma glanced over at her before pushing his glasses back up on his nose and admitting, "I'm sensing some anger."

"You told him he was better off with me dead!" Bird exclaimed, tossing her arms out to the sides and letting drop heavily at her sides, "That he was better off with his his mother dead too. You weren't there, Ed. I was. I watched his mother die in his arms and then I saw the same look on his face the day I was shot and he thought he was going to lose to me too."

"Okay, um..." He breathed with an awkward laugh, before holding his hands up in front of him and moving them as he spoke, "What causes a sudden increase in heart rate, a loss of memory and overall brain function, but is not a drug?"

With a small sigh Bird rubbed her forehead. When their paths has crossed in the past she'd always been game to play along and guess at the answer to his riddles, but she'd not gotten much sleep the night before and was already stressing about the upcoming interview with a news station that Erin was working on getting coordinated.

"Ed..."

Usually, he wasn't the best at picking up on other people's moods and cues.
Probably was part of the reason everyone at the GCPD seemed annoyed the second he opened his mouth, but defeat was written all over her face and even he couldn't miss it.

"Love, Miss Wayne." Nygma cut her off, "The answer is love. For some it's a source of strength, but for others, Oswald for example, it can be crippling."

"You're wrong." Bird argued with him, "Loss is crippling."

"You are a weakness for him-"

"Look..." Bird interrupted, "Last I knew, you and I were on good terms. I even called you a friend and I'm not sure where that changed -but even if what you're saying is true, sorry for the upset but I'm very much alive and intend to remain that way for the foreseeable future."

With that, she spun on her new heels and started to walk away and leave him there until he called after her, "No, you don't understand. I'm happy you're alive. I -I was saddened by your loss."

Turning back around Bird's expression was twisted up in confusion while her sluggish thought process felt like she'd been hit with whiplash. If he'd truly been upset over her death then why on earth would he have went on to convince her best friend that he was better off without her.

Scanning their surroundings to make sure no one was in ear shot of their conversation, Nygma walked closer to where Bird stood and admitted, "You see, I've killed three people and these murders... they changed me. I knew I couldn't go back to the person I was before it happened and I found myself in need of some guidance and you have killed many people."

"Unfortunately, you died before I could reach out." He reasoned, but then smiled as he added, "Fortunately, I happened to stumble upon Oswald at the right time to save his life and in return he's helped guide me on my new path."

Bird was silent as she stared up to his face and noticed just how proud he seemed of himself for the three lives he'd taken.

Crazy wasn't really a word she tossed around lightly anymore and she could handle the slightly unhinged members of society very well, but as she stared at him, all she could think was that he'd entirely lost his mind.

She knew he was capable of violence, after all, it was just the year before that she'd witnessed him kill an officer and finished her night by helping him dispose of the body.
But from what she'd understood, the man he'd killed had abusive to the woman he claimed to be in love with, but this was a side of him she wasn't familiar with.

It was as though a switch had been flipped inside him and he wasn't even the same person she'd known before.

Her eyes widened slightly when the realization fully dawned on her of what must have caused such a shift in his mentality.

"Miss Kringle." Bird recalled the name of the redhead employed as the record keeper at the police station, "She's dead. You killed her, didn't you?"

"How did you-" He started to ask, wondering if for whatever reason, Oswald had told her that.

"I heard some talk about her running off with Officer Dougherty, but considering we dismembered his dead body in an old warehouse last year..." Bird shrugged, "Well, two and two adds up to four."

A smile spread over his lips as he agreed, Indeed, it does."

"So that's what caused this-" She motioned at him, "Change in you."

"She was the love of my life." Nygma stated, "I owe this all to her. Miss Kringle's death is what made me whole."

With her lips pressed into a thin line and her cheeks slightly puffed out, Bird slowly nodded along with him though she found herself throwing the word crazy around inside of her head all over again.

"Well, word of advice. This might be Gotham, but it's still not the brightest idea to walk around bragging about how many people you killed and considering your ties to Miss Kringle, if anyone gets suspicious about the runaway story, you're automatically going to be a suspect... so you know, maybe don't offer up so much information out in public." Bird left him with a parting of advice, before offering a less than sincere smile and a small nod as she turned to walk away.

"Roger that." Nygma called after her. Staying in place and watching her until she disappeared from his line of sight.

He was no idiot.
He wouldn't dare tell the truth of what happened to just anyone; he knew she was one of the least likely people to snitch on anyone at all.

In fact, he'd learned a great deal about Bird while Oswald was staying with him after he'd nursed him back to health.

He'd learned a great deal about Jim Gordon too.
Like how he was the one who'd actually pulled the trigger and killed Galavan.

Such information was currently being threaded into a master plan of how to take Detective Gordon down.
The detective had been asking questions about Kristen Kringle's whereabouts and it seemed like every time Jim opened his mouth it was another test; trying to catch him in a lie or make him slip up about the crimes he'd committed.

That couldn't happen.
He was smarter than the entirety of the GCPD, but he also knew Jim wouldn't let any case go until he'd found the truth.

The only feasible solution was to entirely discredit Jim Gordon, that way even if he did stumble onto the truth, not a soul would believe him.

•••

Bird walked into her room at Wayne Manor and slowed to a stop almost immediately.

Someone had been in there.

Her eyes darted back and forth across the room she'd grown up and now been staying in since she'd been back in Gotham.

Alfred knew the rules, he was only allowed to dust around her possessions and not move anything and Bruce had never been one to go snooping around in a place that didn't belong to him.

Almost on cue her phone rang and when she saw her little brother's name on the screen, she flipped it open, "Bruce? Where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital with Alfred." He answered, barely taking a minute to pull in a breath before blurting out, "He's hurt, but the doctors say he's going to make a full recovery."

"A recovery from what?" She asked, raising her voice when she didn't get an answer, "From what, little brother?"

"A fight." Bruce solemnly admitted, "We tracked down one of Malone's former crime partners and nothing went according to plan."

He didn't have time to tell her all the details nor did he wish so soon to rehash how the entire thing had been his fault because he hadn't listened to Alfred and kept his mouth shut.

So he'd been forced to stand idly to the side while Alfred fought a man twice his size and got beaten severely to gain the information they'd been seeking.

"Stay at the hospital. I'm on way." Bird instructed almost entirely forgetting about how items had been moved around in her room.

"I can't do that." Bruce's voice shook with emotion, "I'm sorry, Starling."

"Sorry... you're sorry for what?" Her tone grew frantic, "Listen to me, you stay there-"

"I have to finish what we've started."
He answered before the line went to dead silence.

Bird darted over to her closet and jerked the closet door open, when she saw the decorative hat boxes up on the shelf were out of sorts her heart started to race wildly in her chest.

Knocking every single box off the shelf, Bird dropped into a seated position on the floor and started opening them in search of the weapons she'd been keeping there.

"Damn it, Bruce." She muttered, closing her eyes and forcing a breath into her lungs after seeing one of the handguns was missing.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Her voice came out in a shriek that echoed through the entire house as she jumped to her feet and angrily started kicking the boxes around her room in a fit of rage.

Muttering to herself, Bird picked up one of the other loaded guns and tucked it into the waistband of her pants before heading down to the garage to borrow one of the many cars the family owned.

•••

"Well, that took you long enough." Alfred complained when Bullock and Jim entered his hospital room.

Straining through the pain he managed to raise up some to speak the the detectives.

"For a butler, you sure do get beat up a lot." Bullock commented.

"What happened?" Jim demanded to know, his eyebrows furrowing at all of the bruises and dried blood caked on Alfred's face.

Alfred opened his mouth to start filling them on how they'd taken it upon themselves to track down the man who'd killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, but before he could loud voices spilled into the room from the hallway.

"I'm sorry you can't go in there, miss. The police are-"

"I don't care what GCPD is up to these days. He's family and I dare you to try and stop me from going there again."

"Ah." Alfred remarked, "I believe Lady Wayne has arrived."

"I'm glad you're okay." Bird angrily yelled at Alfred once the nurse opened the door and Bird stormed into the room.

"Yes, well, your tone says otherwise." Alfred cringed as he tried to readjust in the bed once again.

"I'm sorry." She huffed, "But this is bad. This is really bad."

"What's really bad?" Bullock questioned, offering up a titled smile when she finally looked at him and added, "Hiya."

"I thought you were leaving Gotham." Jim couldn't hold his silence as he took a few steps out away from the wall he'd been leaned against and looked to her with an expectant expression on his face with visible traces of pain.

He wasn't about to bring it up now -he probably never would, but since they'd last seen each other the night when he'd killed Galavan he'd had tried to call her more than once.

He'd been rather lucky to have been fully reinstated as a detective after everything that had happened and even though Barnes didn't seem to believe his version of events for the night and Oswald had backed Jim's story and taken the full credit for putting a stop to the nightmare that was Theo Galavan.

But it wasn't as though everything was getting back to normal in his life, in fact it was very far from it.

Living with knowing he'd murdered someone was tougher than he'd expected.
Even when he'd ended up having to shoot and kill Ogden Barker to collect a debt for Oswald, he could write it off as self-defense; but this was different.

Galavan had been entirely unarmed and handcuffed when Jim made the decision to pull the trigger.

He'd lied to everyone about what had happened that night -even to Lee.
Which had caused what felt like round after round of one disagreement after another without an end in sight.

There were only four people the knew the whole truth of the events that had taken place that night; one of them was dead, one was serving time in Arkham, one had swore they were leaving the city, and then there was him.

He who'd been more haunted by it then he'd ever expected to be and without a single person close to him who understood what had happened.

No one had been there to assure him he'd made the right decision or remind just how much Galavan deserved the end he received.

On the darkest nights, usually when he'd had a little too much to drink and closed himself off from Lee after a fight was when he'd tried to call Bird, but she'd never answered the phone.

"I'm sorry." She softly said, giving him an apologetic look knowing very well that she'd ignored every time he'd tried to reach out to her, but didn't offer up an answer to his question.

Bird couldn't pin point exactly why she'd not taken the calls whenever his name would show on her phone screen.
Maybe it was that she'd been too busy to stop and stand still for a moment or possibly even that she was really trying to move on with her life after everything that happened.

Perhaps she felt it would muck up the waters all once again if they started to get any closer.

Pulling her line of sight away from his, Bird cleared her throat and looked back to Alfred as she repeated again, "This is really bad."

"You don't think I know that, Lady Wayne?" Alfred's temper was short.

"Is one of you gonna fill us in on whats going on here -or are we supposed to play twenty questions?" Bullock asked, looking between them.

"We got a name." Alfred finally said, "The name of the man who shot and killed Thomas and Martha Wayne."

"Matches Malone." Bird nodded.

Jim's mouth hung open at the newly learned information.

A name?
In all of the time he'd spent investigating the murders, he'd never gotten anywhere close to finding a shaky lead, let alone something as solid as a name.

"Dude, we're the cops!" Bullock exclaimed, "Thank you for sharing this with us. When were you going to tell us this?"

"Never." Bird openly admitted at the very same time Alfred sighed, "I haven't got time to explain this right now."

"The point is, is that we got a good solid lead from the same place that I got seven bells knocked out of me. Now Bruce, he won't answer his phone, so my guess is that he's gone after Malone... solo."

"Gone after?" Jim managed to pick his jaw up off the floor and contribute the conversation, "To do what exactly?"

"What can he do? He's a kid." Bullock chimed in, causing both Alfred and Bird to roll their eyes at just how little the detective knew Bruce Wayne.

"Really, Bullock?" Bird's eyebrow arched, "This guy shot out parents to death right in front of my brother and you really can't put two and two together here?"

"Only one reason to go alone." Alfred nodded, "He's going to kill him."

Jim rubbed a hand over his face and turned away for a moment to look out of the window into the midday sun.
This was the very reason he hadn't wanted Bruce to take it upon himself to try and solve the case.

He wouldn't be approaching it from any other angle then wanting revenge.

"I mean, I-I told him not to. I said, you're too young for killing. Said I'd do it for him." Alfred quickly added in his own defense.

"Yeah." Bird backed his story, "We were all in agreement that when we found this Malone, either Alfred or I would kill him and Bruce agreed to the plan."

With his hands on his hips, Bullock leaned forward slightly and shook his head, "Again, we're the cops... don't tell us stuff like this."

Seeming to not hear him, Bird looked to Alfred and complained, "Speaking of the plan. The plan was that we're all in this together and next thing I know I come home to empty house and Bruce calling to tell me you've both gone and tracked down a lead and now you're laying in a hospital bed. What happened to the plan, Alfred?"

"What happened-" He scoffed, raising up in the bed, "What happened to the plan, Lady Wayne, is that you've been gone all hours of the day and night, off doing god knows what with god knows who, and if we'd waited on you this would have taken years!"

"I've been busy, Alfred." Bird defended, "I've had Victor Zsasz helping me track and eliminate any and all of Galavan's remaining associates, but if you'd just called me-"

"Hey!" Bullock interrupted her and looked between them with a still shocked expression. Motioning between himself and Jim he repeated, "Cops, remember?"

Jim looked back over at Bird, he wasn't sure what was more surprising; the fact that she'd stayed in Gotham when she seemed so sure about her choice to leave or that she'd been apparently living at Wayne Manor, when she'd made it a point to say she'd moved out the day she turned eighteen and never looked back.

"This is not a game, you have to understand that, the both of you!" Alfred said to the detectives, "You have to find him."

"I understand." Jim gruffly agreed, before asking, "Where was Bruce going?"

"We were told to go and speak to a Jeri on the East Side... a place called Celestial Gardens, I believe." Alfred forced himself to remember the information they'd gotten from the fight just before he blacked out after the severe beating he'd endured, "This Jeri is supposed to lead us to Matches."

"Celestial Gardens?" Bird repeated back the name of the place that no one else in the room seemed to know, before muttering, "Damn it."

"Damn it?" Bullock echoed, "I don't like that sound of that -damn it, damn it what?"

"Celestial Gardens." Bird said as if it should mean something but no one else was catching on.

"It's one of those night clubs that started opening up when Jerome and the Maniax were running around the city." She sighed, "So you can imagine the kind of people that frequent the place."

She still couldn't understand how Jerome's time in Gotham had left such a lasting impact on the city, but she was still dealing with being approached by oddly dressed strangers in the street.

Some of them would just stare at her, while others repeated back the very words he'd spoke to her during the children's hospital benefit -others were even brazen enough to ask to see the scars from where he'd stabbed and cut her.

Bird turned to leave the room but all three men yelled after her stop, when she turned around with steamed expression, Jim said, "Tell us exactly where this Celestial Gardens is located."

"I don't think so, Jim." Bird shook her head.

"You can't just go running off on your own-" Bullock cut in, but Bird wasn't too keen on listening to him either, "He's my brother and while I thank you for the concern, I'll find him and bring him home -on my own."

"Lady Wayne." Alfred scolded.
He knew she was always the type to run off by herself to get a job done, but this was her little brother's life at stake and he couldn't understand why she'd be turning down help from two detectives that she held a degree of trust in.

"No, Alfred!" Bird snapped right back, "You should have never called the police in the first place."

"We all want the same thing here." Jim held up his hands, "Stop Bruce from doing something he'll regret and bring him home safe."

Knowing from the expression on her face that she was holding something back, Alfred ordered, "Come on then, out with it. What aren't you telling us."

"He's got a gun." Bird dropped her arms to her sides with the admission, "He stole it from my room and now he's ran off to kill someone -and all of us might want to bring him home safe... but there is no way that you're able to guarantee me that if some other cop sees an armed teenager that they aren't going to shoot first and ask questions later."

Knowing that the only way she could make sure her brother wouldn't end up hurt or worse, Bird knew that she needed to stay several steps ahead of the police -several steps ahead of Jim.

"So go on. Call in the cavalry and organize a city wide search -while you're doing that, I'm going to find my brother and kill Matches Malone." She spoke with gravel in her voice before turning and fleeing the room despite the symphony of voices echoing after her to stop.

•••

Bird made her way into the club and blinked trying to adjust her eyes to the lighting. The sides of the large main room were shadowed and dark, while club lighting machines had blinding rays of light jumping and changing directions rapidly.

There was a small stage towards the front of the room with a backdrop screen playing old news footage covering the Maniax terror streak over the city, then flashing into the self-made footage Jerome had filmed of himself after the attack on the police station that had claimed Essen's life.

Quotes from the deceased maniac were flashing over the video reel and Bird slowed to a stop as the screen changed to taped footage of the broadcast from the children s hospital gala.

Soon the entire screen was a moving picture of her tied to that wheel on the stage with Jerome standing out in front on the microphone.
There wasn't any audio to it, but she could remember precisely what he said. He was trying to lure Bruce out of hiding and she knew exactly what the film would show next -when Jerome turned to her with a knife intending to draw her brother out by hurting her.

With a sigh, Bird pulled her eyes away from the screen and suddenly became aware of all of the eyes on her.

Everyone who'd been dancing around to the music blaring through the speakers were now all stopped and staring directly at her.

"I'm looking for Jeri." Bird yelled out to anyone who'd listen.

Slowly the crowd of people started to separate -opening up a pathway leading to where they small bar was located.

Bird's eyes darted suspiciously at every single person she walked by as she followed down the parted path.
Once she reached the bar she saw a small hallway off to the side with a door closed at the end.

She looked over her shoulder to see everyone was still watching her and held her breath as she hurried towards the closed door and threw it open to reveal an woman sitting at a dressing room vanity touching up the blood red lipstick that she'd used to cover a much bigger area around her mouth than just her lips.

"There you are." Jeri said as she caught sight of the younger woman in the mirror, "You just missed your little brother."

Spinning around in her seat, she flashed Bird a wide smile and complimented, "Well spoken kid."

Bird's eyes traveled over the white face paint and dark red and black shadows around her eyes, before nodding, "Indeed he is."

"Where did he go?" Bird pushed.

"My guess is he's off to kill Matches. Little dude had a loaded gun and everything." She laughed.

"Where is Matches?" Bird sighed.

"What? What was that?" Jeri teased, cupping a hand behind her ear and playing as though she wasn't able to hear what was asked from her, "Don't think I heard the magic word in there..."

"Please!" Bird yelled angrily, "Will you please tell me where my brother ran off to?"

"Nah." Jeri laughed, clearly enjoying getting under Bird's skin, "What's in it for me?"

"What do you want?" Bird asked, "What did my brother give you?"

"The truth." Jeri explained, "He told me exactly why he wanted to find Matches and what he was gonna do when he found him."

"You want the truth?" Bird bellowed, "Fine, the truth is that you're wasting my time while I'm trying to stop my brother from doing something that he can't ever take back."

Standing up, Jeri adjusted her handmade outfit complete with the same straps found on straight-jackets and asked, "Is that fear I'm seeing?"

"You're afraid." She accused jotting a finger in the center of Bird's chest, "Tell me. Bird. What are you so afraid of."

Bird swallowed hard and admitted something out loud that she'd been holding in for a long time, "That my brother and I may be more alike than I thought. I'm afraid of him turning into me -and he's still so young. I just don't want him doing something now that could alter the course of the rest of his life."

"Interesting." Jeri hummed, "Say you get there before the clean-up, before he does this thing that you think he'll regret. What are you going to do?"

"Kill Matches Malone."

"I love it!" Jeri broke out into another fit of laughter, "The amount of honesty your both willing to share with a stranger. You don't see too much of that nowadays."

"Are you going to tell me where-" Bird started to ask but was cut off, "So the plan is that you're going to kill Matches to save Bruce from living with a kill on his conscience?"

"Yes." Bird stated.

"I..." Jeri breathed stepping up and getting in Bird's face, "I know what you are. You're a sin-eater."

Bird's dimples showed as she laughed and nearly choked, "I'm a what?"

"A sin-eater." Jeri repeated, running her tongue over her painted red lips before stepping back and dropping back into the seat at her vanity.

Kicking off from the floor, she spun the chair around until she was facing the mirror, where she eyed Bird for a moment before she got back to touching up the powder white make-up covering her skin.

"You know, a sin-eater." Jeri repeated, glancing back at Bird's reflection as she spoke, "You know, you absorb the sins of people around you. Darken your own soul to keep theirs all pearly white."

Pointing with the end of her red lip liner pencil, Jeri spun back to around to face her, "You're a rarer bird than I thought, Bird."

"Are you going to tell me where you sent my brother running off to or not?" Bird nearly huffed, growing increasingly irritated from their encounter.

The clock was running out. Her brother was out there, probably minutes away from killing someone and the last thing she had time to do was be jerked around by one of Jerome's zealots.

"Matches lives in that big building on Grand Street between 9th and 10th street." Looking her own one last time she added, "Apartment 9B."

"Thank you." Bird nodded and turned to leave but one of the clubs workers unintentionally blocked her path when he entered the room and said, "GCPD is here. Gordon just walked in."

With a heavy breath of annoyance, Bird dropped her head back and stared up at the ceiling.
She knew he was just doing his job and that he probably wanted to stop Bruce from murdering someone just as bad as she did, but this was her fight and her brother she was trying to save.

"Don't worry." Jeri called out at seeing Bird's reaction, "We'll stall him."

Pulling in a breath and seeing no other option than to trust Jeri, Bird nodded and slid past the man who'd just came into the room.

Standing to her feet, Jeri smiled widely at her worker and announced, "Showtime!"
She'd always wanted to meet the infamous James Gordon and now seemed a perfect time as ever.

Bird made her way past the bar and out onto the dance floor. The music playing through the speakers was much slower than when she'd entered the club.

Instead of dancing and jumping around wildly, most of the club's patrons were swaying around as if they were all in a trance.

She caught a glimpse of the screen behind the stage which was now displaying scans of various newspapers articles and Jerome's mugshot.

Bird pushed her way between a small group of people dancing together with no sense of personal space and when she emerged from the other side she ended up face-to-face with Jim.

"Bird!" He called out, just barely catching her arm when she tried to dart off towards the exit, "You can't do this on your own. Let me help you."

"I'm sorry, Jim." She apologized, "But that's my little brother out there and I need to get to him before..." Her voice decrescendoed into silence when she picked up on her own slip of the tongue.

With furrowed brows he realized, "You got an address. You know where Bruce is headed."

"I do." She admitted.
Bird pulled her arm from his grip and stated, "But I have to go it alone, Jim."

"Listen to me." He pleaded, "You have to understand that I can't let you do this. You and Alfred and Bruce, you can't just take the law into your own hands-"

His words were cut short when a blinding spotlight was cast on them from the stage.
Looking up they saw Jeri holding the bright light as she screamed into the microphone, "GCPD 1-2-3-4!"

At the end of her count the band came to live with fast paced drum beats and the crowd responded by moshing together and screaming in excitement.

Jim had just started to turn his attention back to Bird when two men grabbed him and lifted him up in the air.

"HEY!" He yelled, but his fighting against them was pointless.

Within seconds he'd been hoisted up into the air and was being passed along by countless sets of hands and no way to get out of the forced crowd surfing.

By the time he'd been moved to where he could see the back of the room again -Bird was nowhere to be found.

•••

Bruce's eyes adjusted in the dim lighting in the hallway of the old apartment building.

Pulling a deep breath in, he raised his fist to knock on the door, but just before he could made contact a hand wrapped around his wrist and stopped him.

With a small gasp he looked over to see his sister as she still had a painfully tight grip on him.

Trying to pull away, Bruce whisper yelled, "Starling, let go of me."

"Where's the gun, huh?" She spoke in a hushed tone, keeping an iron tight grip on his wrist and using her other hand to pat at his pockets in the clothes he'd changed into that would help him look less out of place in the part of town that Matches lived in.

He'd learned from Selina that he couldn't wear his usual style clothes in the rough parts of town without either drawing attention to himself or making himself a target.

"Stop it!" He hissed, trying to jerk away from her, but in no time she'd pulled the gun out of his pocket and then pushed him back.

Nearly falling over, he grabbed onto the wall to keep from going all the way down to the floor.

His cheeks were immediately touched by fire with his entire expression coming to life with rage.
This was the moment he'd been waiting for.
The very thing he'd been training and obsessing over and in his mind she had no right to try and take that away from him.

"I have to do this!" He did his best to keep his voice low, "For what this... monster did to our family. For mom and dad-"

"It's just us in this hallway right now, so let's be entirely open and honest -shall we?" Bird arched a brow and didn't leave any open room for him to reply, "Killing him won't bring them back, Bruce. The last thing on earth that either of our parents would have wanted to see is you being so consumed with the need for revenge that you lose all of the values that they instilled in you."

He opened his mouth to argue; tongue at the ready to hurl some truths her way.
Like how he felt she was being the biggest hypocrite on earth, but he couldn't seem to make a sound.

Bird looked down to the gun and then back to her brother's face as she thought of how his features were the perfect mix of their parents likeness.

Their father had always been adamant that they make their own decisions when it came down to it. He'd tried to teach them both how to see a problem from all sides and choose the best course of action to deal with it.

Something Bird was sure he probably regretted when her choices had led her down a path of crime.

She'd been so caught up in seeing all of the ways that her brother was mirroring her that along the way she hadn't thought near as much about how much of their parents still lived on through him; her little brother who wasn't so little anymore.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she forced herself to take a hard look at him and how much he'd grown since the night he'd watched their parents be murdered right in front of him.

Bruce wasn't a child anymore.
He was far more grown than she wanted to admit and even further past the point of needing her to make decisions for him.

"Here." She cleared her throat as she presented the gun to him, "We made a deal that we were in this together. So however the night ends..." Her voice trailed off, "You need to be honest with yourself -that killing him is something you're doing for yourself and not for mom and dad. Stop using them as an excuse."

A shaky breath rattled his lungs while he took the gun back from his sister and tucked it away in his pocket where it had been minutes prior.

There was an unsure look in his eyes -as if he were trying to figure out her motives, see if this was some sort of test or trap.

She managed to let out the breath she'd been holding when their eyes locked and she could see so much of their parents in them.
They'd raised him to be an extraordinary human being.

Taught him right from wrong at a very early age and Bird, the girl who didn't trust much, was confident enough in the values they'd taught him that she was willing to hand him a loaded weapon.

He wasn't going to kill anyone, even if he didn't know it himself, she did.

The siblings walked back over the the door labeled 9B and after exchanging looks, Bruce raised his hand and knocked loudly on the chipped paint covered wood.

The door opened and Bird's eyes went to the face of the man who'd gunned down their parents, while Bruce stared down at Matches' shoes; his shiny, black shoes.
Just like he remembered from the night his entire life had been thrown from the tracks.

Bird stood in silence, waiting on her brother to say something -this was his plan after all.

"M...Mat-Ma-M...Mat...Matches Malone?" He could barely even bring himself to stammer out.

Caught a little off guard by the stuttering teenager, Matches nodded his head and stared between the pair with a rather blank expression.

Coming to his senses, Bruce pulled the roll of cash from his pocket and said, "I want to hire you."
His guise of wanting to employ the hitman worked like a charm and Matches let out a chuckle as he stepped to the side to let them in and muttered, "Kids nowadays..."

Bruce's legs felt so weak that he wasn't even sure how he managed to carry himself inside the apartment.
Meanwhile, Bird didn't seem the least bit rattled as she walked in behind her brother and shut the door behind them.

"So, you wanna hire me?" Matches asked as he pulled a bottle down from a cabinet and poured himself a drink.

Bruce had a hard time keeping up the act.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected when the door opened, but he certainly didn't expect to see an average looking middle aged man.

There was nothing remarkable about Matches Malone.
Not his looks, nor his clothes, or his apartment.

He looked normal.
Like someone you'd pass on the street and not even give a second thought about.

He didn't seem near as tall as Bruce remembered.
In his nightmares and darkest thoughts, he'd built the one who'd killed his parents up to be a menacing figure -a monster.

So how could Matches seem so normal?
How could someone so average have wrecked his life on such a disastrous scale?

Blinking rapidly and trying to slow his racing heart, Bruce managed to replay the last question he'd been asked in his mind and answer, "I want someone to die."

"Wait long enough and they will." Matches smiled at his own joke and took a swig from his glass.

"I don't want to wait." Bruce answered within a reasonable amount of time.

"You're kinda young to be putting out a contract." He commented before glancing to where Bird was standing and added, "She don't talk much, does she?"

"I'm old enough." Bruce said and Bird took the lead as she said, "Look, we're taking a risk even being here... so do you want the job or not?"

Shooting his sister a look, Bruce questioned, "Are you a proficient killer?"

"Hmm." He hummed against the edge of his glass as he took another drink and turned to face the siblings.

He'd been hired before by all walks of life to put an end to the life of the same diverse pool, but this was something new even for him.

Bruce was dressed in layers of clothes that were clearly a few sizes too big on him and mismatched in color and style.
He might have looked like your average street kid who'd shoplifted whatever clothes he could get his hands on to try and stay warm, but he was very well spoken.

Then there was Bird, who after some styling advice from her lawyer, looked as though she could have walked out of any executive office building on the rich side of town -yet when she opened her mouth she had the attitude and language of someone with street smarts.

"What's the deal with you two?" Matches questioned looking between them, "I thought you wanted to hire me -you didn't say nothing about a job interview, kid."

"I have to be sure I'm getting the right man." Bruce replied, adjusting his stance and breathing a small sigh of relief that he was able to process his thoughts faster than he'd been right when the door open and he'd been reduced to a trembling boy with a sudden stutter.

"Don't you know a killer when you see one?" He asked.

"Actually you look very ordinary." Bruce admitted, "Have you killed a lot of people?"

"I kill all kind of folks... just about every way you can." Matches said as he refilled his glass, then walked past them out of the kitchen and into the small space that was his living room and dinning area, "Rich, poor, guilty, innocent. By hand, by blade, by gun."

Coming to stop next to the table, he turned back to face them as he added, "Burned just one guy and after that, they call you Matches for the rest of your days. Life's funny, isn't it?"

Bruce stood in place and watched as Matches held his glass out to the side before taking a small drink.

When no one said anything or moved from where they were standing, Matches asked, "Cat got your tongue?"

Bird looked over to where her brother was standing perfectly in place, barely even appearing to blink.

Seeing the look Bird was giving to her brother, Matches gruffly asked him, "What's the matter, kid. You sick?"

"He's fine." Bird stepped forward, "It's just not every day that we put a hit out on someone is all."

"I'm fine." Bruce swallowed hard and echoed his sister's words before wiping the sweat off his forehead and agreeing, "Nervous is all. But, you seem to be the right man."

"You're damn right I am." He proudly agreed.
Eyeing them both, he sat down at the table and questioned, "Should we talk pricing?"

When they both nodded and entered into the room further with him, he began his usual spiel, "Well, it starts at ten grand for a simple hit on an adult male vic. Then there's a sliding scale depending on how hard the job is. I charge double for women and triple for kids -no babies. I won't kill babies."

"Ten thousand?" Bruce choked out as tears started to well up in his eyes, "That's cheap."

"Ha. Low rent." Matches bellowed, "Who do you want dead, son?"

Bruce stepped up the table and Bird followed closely behind him.

"You really don't remember me, do you?" He asked.

Seeing the tears welled up in the teenagers eyes, Matches grew confused, "Remember you? No... we've met before?"

"Yes. We've met before." Drawing the handgun, Bruce aimed at Matches and said, "You killed my parents."

"Oh..." Matches blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair with a frown taking form on his face.

"Hands where we can see them." Bird ordered as she stepped up beside her brother.

"Relax." He complied with the demand and held his hands up, "I'm not gonna jump ya. I could if I wanted to, but... I'm too tired. Who are you now?"

"My name is Bruce Wayne." He cleared his throat so his voice would come out strong and clear, "This is my sister, Starling. Two years ago you killed our parents in the theater district, in an ally."

"Their names were Thomas and Martha Wayne." Bird added, placing a hand on her brother's shoulder when she saw how badly the gun was shaking in his hand, "You shot and killed them right in front of my brother."

After giving it some thought, Matches sighed, "Not sure that rings a bell..."

"You looked right at me." Bruce reminded him as the tears that had welled up in his eyes started to spill down his cheeks.

"I was busy that year." Matches excused tossing his hands out to the side and seeming to have no knowledge of the crime.

"My parents were important people." Bruce's voice wavered, "It was a big deal in all of the newspapers."

"I don't read the papers much. Don't watch T.V." He shrugged, "Always the same bad news."

"You really don't remember?" Bruce asked with desperation in his tone.

"Well, hey...some of them stick with you. There was this mustache fella, a big bad cry baby, comes back to me in my dreams all the time." He shrugged as he truly couldn't make sense of it himself, "Like he's important. I, uh, I can't even recall his name or if I stabbed him, tossed him off a roof? I don't know."

"My parents were in evening clothes. It was cold and wet. You-you grabbed my mothers pearl necklace and it broke-" Bruce started to explain, but stopped when he saw the realization in the hitman's eyes.

"Oh... oh yeah, and the beads went everywhere. It's coming back to me now." Glancing down to the table he tried to recall further, "Nice looking blonde lady and a silver fox type dude... and a kid. That was you?"

"That was me." Bruce's voice was stronger than before.
He wasn't sure why it mattered so much, or why he'd spent so much time trying to help Matches remember. It just seemed important.

"Who hired you?" Bruce demanded to know and Bird glanced down to the floor.

She knew the likely hood of them getting information out of him would be slim to be none.
Either because he'd truly put in so many hits that nothing really stuck out in his mind about their parents or because he abided to the same criminal code of ethics that Bird held herself too -the one where nothing is worse than being a rat.

"Maybe no one did." Matches shrugged, "Maybe I just saw some rich suckers. Someone like that walks into a dark alley, they deserved it cause they let it happen. The way of the world isn't it, son?"

"Don't call me son." Bruce was quick to argue.

"Why? If I did what you think I did then I made you what you are. Just like Gotham made me. Just like rich folks like your parents made Gotham. So, I might as well call you son."

Raising the gun back up and pointing it at the center of his face, Bruce hissed, "I can make you tell me who hired you!"

"You think so?"

"I can hurt you. I can shoot you in the knee... or the stomach."

Bird tucked her hair behind her ears and tried to steady her own nerves.
She'd been so sure that her brother wouldn't stoop to murder before they walked into the apartment and now he was threatening to torture Matches.

"But you can't make me tell you a damn thing." Matches explained, "Killers code ain't much but it's what I've got. If I did what you say I did and someone hired me to do it... you'll never know their name. Not even if you take me apart, piece by piece."

"He's right." Bird quietly said to her brother, "It's a waste of time."

This man was nothing more than a hollowed out waste of space.

"Well, then I guess there's nothing left to the say." Bruce cocked the gun and took aim at Matches' face, while the hitman held his drink up and said, "Here's to you son, you've been a long time coming."

"You want me to kill you." Bruce realized, "Why?"

Shaking his head back and forth, tears burned at his eyes before he finally sighed, "A little rich kid like you would never understand."

"Try us." Bird stepped in.

With shaking breathing he tried to explain, "A man gets tired doing wrong and going unpunished. Nothing happens. You start to wonder if there is a God, or hell, if there's anything bigger than us out there."

Taking a small sip from his glass in an attempt to calm his nerves, Matches leaned back in the chair and made himself a ready and easy target.

Bird held her breath and watched as Bruce's hands trembled.

Seeing he was struggling, Matches said, "Tighten your left hand grip. Aim right here..." He pointed to his chest, "Aim a little low, she'll kick."

Bruce adjusted his grip like he was told, but hesitated when it came time to actually pull the trigger.

"Come on, kid. Pull the trigger!"

"No!" Bruce yelled quickly taking his finger off of the trigger.

"Come on. Don't lose your nerve now. Do it!" Matches yelled, "Look at me. I'm a monster. You meed to kill me." His voice softened by the end and his chin quivered ever so slightly.

Bird's chest ached from how long she'd held her breath as she watched a few spare tears run down her little brother's face.

"I wish you were a monster." Bruce admitted with a painful rawness, as he lowered the gun and somberly said, "But you're just a man."

Putting the gun back into his pocket, Bruce turned left the apartment with tear filled eyes.

Finally letting out the breath she'd been holding, Bird watched as her brother left before she took the empty seat across the small round wooden table from Matches.

Looking up from where his sight had fell to the table, he said in a weak voice, "I don't know what you want, but if you're looking for some kind of apology... it ain't gonna happen, sweetheart."

"I don't want an apology and I'm certainly not foolish enough to have expected one." Bird admitted as she hastily blew out a breath and shook her head back and forth before calmly stating, "I thought about this day so often, you know? The day I'd finally be face-to-face with the person who killed my parents."

"And is it everything you hoped it'd be?" He questioned.

"Truthfully?" Bird give small sigh and slight shrug before an out of place smile turned the corners of her lips up, "It's more. I'm happy."

Matches glanced around the room and then back to Bird, wondering what on earth could be causing that reaction out of her.
Maybe she was the sick one and not her brother.

"You're wrong, Mr. Malone." Bird elaborated, "My brother is what he is -not because of you, but in-spite of you. I handed him a loaded gun and put all of my faith and my trust in him to have the strength to not pull that trigger. And you know? Everyone always lets me down -but not him, not my brother. He's made of something great -cut from a cloth that people like us can't come close to touching and I'm proud of him for who he is now and the man he's growing into."

"Hmm." He hummed, watching her intently as he repeated back, "People like us?"

"You're right about one thing, you know, some of them do stick with you." Referring back to what he'd said earlier, Bird told a tale of her own, "I was sent to do a job last year. This idiot had been stealing money from my boss, trying to rally support and planning to overthrow him. Seemed easy enough. I tracked him to this bar just outside of the narrows that he'd frequent. He was just sitting alone in his car- head leaned back against the headrest and I thought he was sleeping, maybe passed out drunk?"

With a small shrug she continued, "So, I shot him in the head. One shot, nice and clean execution. That was when I heard her scream..."

"Who?" Matches asked, still holding his glass in his hand.

"The prostitute who'd had her head in his lap." Bird candidly said with raised brows when she earned a small chuckle from the man across the table from her.

"I can still hear the sounds of her screams and the... the noise she kept making, like she was drowning in her own tears and trying to gulp breaths of air down that just kept bubbling back up and choking her." Bird closed her eyes for a second to silence the sounds of that night, "I've done a lot of bad in my life, but nothing haunts me quite as bad as she does."

Bird looked down to the table and struggled to fully pull in a breath, "But she'd seen my face and I couldn't risk-"

"I'm the last person you gotta explain yourself too." Matches commented as he cut her defense short.

"Who knew we'd have so much to agree on." She sarcastically replied, tasting every bitter syllable of her sentence.

Not letting him get a word in, though he hadn't even tried, Bird said, "I know why you wanted my brother to kill you; because you want to remembered. To leave something behind. If he'd killed you then a piece of you would have lived forever inside of him. But me?" Bird asked, as she pulled the gun from the waistband of her pants, "To me you're nothing. Soon enough I'll forget what your face looks like, I won't even remember the sound of your voice. You'll fade into nothing. I have a lot of ghosts to keep my up at night, but you won't be one of them."

"Well, then..." Matches breathed as he brought his glass to his lips before he looked up at Bird and questioned, "Can I at least finish my drink?

Unlike Bruce, he knew a killer when he saw one and the sand in the hourglass was running out.

With a curt nod, Bird took aim with her gun and stood calmly while he downed what little amount was left in his glass.

Setting the glass back on the table, he offered up a nod and said, "Thanks."

Not saying another word to him, Bird fired three shots into his chest.

One for her father.
One for her mother.
And the last one for her brother, who in many ways had never left the night or the ally where he'd watched them die.

•••