"Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some." - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

•••

"Are you okay?" Jim asked as he helped Bird up from the floor of the prisoner transportation truck.

"I'm fine." She answered, rubbing the shoulder she'd landed on when the truck had slid on a patch of ice across the road before slamming against the cement structure holding up the overpass above.

Bird looked over to her brother and to Karen, who both nodded that they were also okay after the accident..

"You're bleeding." She frowned upon seeing blood running down the side of Bruce's face from where he'd hit his head during the wreck and the skin under his eye had busted open.

"I'm fine." He dismissed, "What happened?"

Taking the lead since he was the one armed, Jim opened the doors of the truck and jumped out.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see, but he sure as hell wasn't expecting to see Victor Fries alive and well.

The man that the papers had nicknamed Mr. Freeze was dead. Had been for quite some time, yet now here he stood.

Following behind Jim, Bird stuck her arm out to keep her brother and Karen back out of harms way.

"Is that..." She questioned, her face scrunching up.

"Yeah." Jim nodded, not taking his eyes off of Victor Fries.

"Victor." Jim yelled, "Put down the gun!"

"You." Victor remarked with a smirk.

He'd been sent on a mission to kill Karen Jennings and anyone who got in his way; he hadn't expected one of those people to be Jim Gordon.

Not heeding the warning, he started to walk closer to the group and Jim fired a shot, only to see the bullet bounce off of the metal suit he was wearing.

His eyebrows lowered, but he barely hesitated before firing a few more shots, though it did little to slow Victor's advancement.

Alfred made his way around the side of the truck, immediately pulling his own gun and opening fire on the approaching threat.

Feeling a hand on her arm, Bird looked back expecting it to be her brother but instead it was Karen.

"Go." She said, fighting to keep her tears from spilling, "Get out of here, it's me he's here for."

"No." Bird argued.

Hearing the conversation, Bruce turned away from where Alfred had been checking on how badly he was wounded.

"Karen, no." He agreed, "We're not leaving without you."

Her eyes glistened in the glow from the streetlights above as her eyes darted back and forth between the siblings faces.

"I'm so glad I got to meet you both." She managed a smile and to somehow keep her voice steady despite her quivering chin, "Your dad would be so proud of you. Of the people you've grown up to be. I just know it."

With that she pulled Bird into a hug, catching her off guard before turning and wrapping her arms around with Bruce.

Stepping back, she took one last look at his face and pulled in a deep breath. Not waiting any longer and risk the chance at losing her nerve, Karen took off running past where they were standing.

"Karen, no!" Bruce yelled, starting to run after her.

But it was too late.

She'd made her decision and it was clear that Mr. Freeze was ready and willing to hurt or kill anyone that got in his way of getting to Karen.

"Stay here!" Alfred yelled just barely catching enough fabric of his coat to hold him in place.

Once she was in front of him, Victor raised his freeze gun and blasted her with a stream bright blue liquid that immediately turned to ice and froze her completely solid.

Bird stared at the horrific scene in front of her with wide eyes.

She'd of course read the stories in the paper and saw news coverage of his crimes months ago, but seeing a once living person frozen completely solid right in front of her within just a handful of seconds was something entirely different.

She'd never seen anything like that before.

The sounds of the night faded into nothing.

There wasn't even a car on the overpass above.

No sirens in the distance.

For a few ever fleeting seconds the city seemed to fall mute -until Victor raised the freeze gun in the air and brought it down on the top of Karen's head.

The ice shattered.

It sounded like bits of glass.

Thousands of tiny pieces raining down onto the pavement below.

Bird's mouth hung open, no longer able to breathe.

The air had been forced right from her lungs.

"NO!"

Bruce's scream was so loud it physically hurt Bird's eardrums as she stood beside him.

Jerking from Alfred's grip, Bruce started to charge in Victor's direction.

He didn't have a plan for what he'd do if he made it to him.

At that point in time he could no longer process a single thought.

He just knew he had do something.

He'd been the one who'd promised no harm would come to Karen and now she wasn't only dead -she'd been completely obliterated.

"Bruce!" Bird's voice didn't come out near as loud as her brother was still screaming.

Grabbing onto him, she held tightly with every ounce of strength in her body as he fought against her, still frantically screaming out; traumatized from what he'd just witnessed.

The loss as well as Bruce's pain was as fresh and raw as a gaping wound.

Opened up and bleeding out on display for everyone to see.

There was no room for him to feel anything else, not even a fear for his own life.

Knowing that there wasn't a point in trying to reason with someone in that state, Bird did the best she could to hold him back for his own safety.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Victor pull something from the side of his suit.

It looked like a type of grenade, filled with the same solution he'd just used to freeze Karen into a human popsicle.

"Move!"

She was the one who'd shouted, but it sounded like someone else's voice to her ears.

It was only a matter of seconds -but the city seemed to fall into silence again with everything around them happening in slow motion.

The clink of the grenade landing on the pavement.

The rapid beeping as the device drew ever closer to detonating.

And then finally explosion.

So powerful it shook the ground beneath them and bits of ice pierced through the metal of the truck.

They took cover the best they could on the other side of the open doors.

She was blocking Bruce from the blast with her own body and it wasn't until it was all over that she realized Jim had been doing the same to her.

The group of four stayed still, huddled behind what small bit of protection the truck was offering.

A tangled mess of limbs as they listened to the heavy footsteps and ice snapping and cracking beneath them.

It was the sound of Victor's boots further crushing down what was left of Karen's frozen and shattered body as he retreated from the scene.

•••

By the time they'd made it back to Wayne Manor a storm was raging outside.

Thunder booming so loud the panes of glass in the windows shook.

Lightening cracking so hard and bright it looked like it was splitting the sky wide open.

Bird sat on the couch beside her brother by the fire place as he stared down to the music box they'd retrieved from Karen's house.

It was made from beautiful dark stained wood.

The inside was a picturesque winter wonderland.

A gold figurine shaped like a girl with ice skates spun in the center of a white blanket of snow with deep green pine trees placed off to either side.

Bird's eyes moved between where the figurine was stuck in a never ending pirouette as the music played and the glitter that was coating the snow.

It was beautiful.

No wonder the gift had meant so much to Karen.

"My father risked his life to protect her. He cared for her and now she's dead." Bruce's voice was distorted from the lump in his throat, "Because of me."

Closing the music box, he pushed it onto the coffee table in front of him and titled it up to see the gold plate on the front which was engraved with black bold font, 'To Karen. Happy Birthday, Thomas.' Letting go of the box he swatted at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Bird bit down on the side of her tongue and glanced over to where Jim was sitting next to her at the end of the couch before diverting her gaze back down to the music box.

Deep down she wanted to be comforting big sister Bruce needed in that moment to put an arm around him and tell him this wasn't his fault.

But she couldn't.

All she could manage to do was sit there with the weight of the day crushing down on her shoulders like thousand pound weights.

"No." Alfred spoke as he sat the tray containing a freshly brewed kettle of tea and a handful of cups down on the table, raising up he argued, "Not because of you Master Bruce, but because of what you're pursuing."

"Is there even a difference?" Bruce questioned, keeping his gaze low and not making eye contact with anyone in the room.

"Yes." Alfred stated. He glanced over to where Bird was sitting before directing his attention back to Bruce and saying, "And if you can't make your peace with that then you're not ready."

"He's right." Bird finally broke her silence, but didn't lift her eyes from the music box.

"There will be others." Alfred spoke to them both.

He wasn't sure where the path they were on was heading, but he knew there would be casualties along the way.

"Karen was the only one who knew what The Philosopher looked like. How are we going to find him now?" Bruce questioned, getting up from where he'd been sitting he walked over and stared into the flames of the fire place until the light was too much for his eyes.

Alfred crossed his arms behind his back and watched him, but it wasn't long until his line of sight moved to Bird.

There was a darkness in the room now.

A kind of black hole that opened and swallowed every ounce of light around.

For all of their differences, there was still such a likeness between Bird and Bruce.

They both felt things so deeply -though Bird was better at hiding it, usually through acting like she didn't care about anything at all.

But they both had the ability to make the entire room shift from their feelings alone.

And right now it was a hopeless feeling, emanating from Bruce and seeming to fill up every corner of the room until there wasn't anything left.

Bird reached up to move the hair from the side of her face, not even realizing the small cuts and scrapes across her cheek and side of her forehead until she's brushed over them and felt the stinging pain from the fresh abrasions.

"We, uh..." Bird breathed with a despondent shrug, "Whoever sent Victor Fries after Karen clearly knows something-"

"Yeah?" Bruce's voice raised as he turned to look at her, "Up until an hour ago we all thought he was dead. He's more than likely going to go right back into where ever he's been hiding. How does that help us at all?"

By the end of his sentence, the anger had faded from his tone and he was fighting back tears again.

He hadn't meant to yell at his sister.

Not when he was sure that the main reason she was even so deeply involved in all of this was because of him.

Alfred too for that matter.

Of course he knew they both wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened to his parents too, but this had mainly turned into them trying to keep him safe and helping him along the way.

"You need to have faith, Bruce." Jim finally said, eyeing Bird once more before he stood up and approached the younger Wayne.

"I know what you risked today." Bruce faced him with a pained expression, "If Barnes finds out you were involved..." He let his voice and sentence trail off into nothing.

Knowing the words didn't need to be voiced out loud.

"He will." Jim agreed, "If he hasn't already."

His gaze fell to the floor briefly before he made eye contact and said aloud what he'd been fearing all along, "Pretty sure my days at the GCPD are over. But I knew that going in."

Bruce looked past where Jim was standing to where his sister was still sitting in the same place; all but closed off to the rest of the room.

"Then why'd you do it?" Bruce questioned as he looked back to him.

"You're not the only one who made a promise." Jim reminded him of the night they'd met.

The night he'd watched his parents be murdered right in front of him. The same night that had changed everything.

Only Bruce hadn't realized just how much that night had changed everyone else's lives as well.

Everyone's attention was pulled over to the doorway of the room at the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Ah, Mr. Fox." Alfred greeted.

"I let myself in." Lucius stated the obvious, before he explained his urgency, "I think I might have something..."

His voice trailed off as he looked around the room.

Al four of them had bruises and scrapes on their faces and looked fairly banged up.

"Are you alright?" He questioned.

"What did you find?" Bird replied, blatantly ignoring his question as she didn't have an answer to give him.

Launching into his explanation, Lucius handed over a picture to Bruce,"When I was compiling the personnel files on scientists, I also ran a cross-reference search on Pinewood Farms and The Philosopher and found this." Pointing to the picture he continued, "It's from a company newsletter taken about twelve years ago. The photo lists team nicknames. Look at the man next to your father."

"Hugo Strange."

Bruce read the name aloud.

"The Philosopher..." Bird followed, reading the nickname listed under his name.

"He runs Arkham now." Jim added.

"Yeah. I know." Bird's jaw tensed, "He wouldn't let me in to visit Oswald when he was there this last time. He, uh... his so called therapy sounded more like torture." Bird continued, "He did a number on him."

"A friend?" Bruce pushed the picture into his sister's hands, pointing to where their father and Strange were standing next to each other, both wearing smiles.

Thomas even had his arm draped around Strange's shoulders.

"Someone he... he trusted?" Bruce said out loud, as if it would make anymore sense than it did in his head, "That's not fair."

His breath felt as though it had turned to smoke, scorching his lungs and throat with every breath he tried to take, "That's not right." His voice was nearly a growl by the time his tongue carved the last syllable.

•••

Reaching the top of the stairs, Jim turned his head when he heard the now familiar tune from the music box coming from a room off to the right.

It was well over an hour ago that Lucius Fox had left and not too long after Bruce had announced he was turning in for the night.

Not long after, Bird had picked up the music box and silently left the room.

Jim had assumed she'd left to speak privately with her brother, but then the minutes started to pass like hour long chunks of time and he was left alone in an awkward silence with Alfred.

Slowly and as quietly as possible he followed the sound of the music until he reached the doorway to find Bird sitting on her old bed with her back against the wall, staring as the figurine spun in circles among the snow and trees.

The room was done up in dark colors with a stack of CD cases on a desk and even some older band posters on the wall.

In many ways the room looked stuck in time, like it had barely been touched since Bird lived at home as a teenager.

"Sorry." She quietly said, not looking up from where she was sitting, "I'd planned on coming right back and then..." Letting out a sigh she shrugged and slowly closed the box.

"It's okay." Jim was quick to say, before explaining, "I could only take so much of Alfred's staring."

With a half smile she finally looked up to where he was standing, "He's trying to figure out what's going on between us."

"I noticed." Jim's eyebrows raised.

"He and Bruce both are, but neither of them will just ask." She chuckled and for a moment a smile spread across her lips; for the first time all day she didn't look like she was in pain.

"Why haven't you told them?" He questioned.

"It's no one's business but our own." With a shrug, Bird stated, "And it's not we're hiding it."

True, Jim thought to himself, but it certainly didn't make things feel less awkward during the times when he'd be left alone with Alfred who just stare at him, waiting for an explanation.

Crossing by the dresser, Jim paused when he saw how everything on top was lined up in perfect rows of three.

Turning back to her, he walked over and sat down beside her in the bed, scooting up until he was leaned against the wall beside her.

"You aren't going to ask?" Bird questioned, knowing that by now he'd seen several of her ticks.

The odd behaviors that she'd do her best to hide from the outside world, like her incessant need to keep her belongings in multiples of three -all perfectly lined up.

"Assumed you'd tell me if you wanted me to know." He vaguely replied.

He'd asked Alfred about it not too long ago, when he'd been recovering there after he'd been shot by Nygma.

All he'd gotten from the butler was a roundabout answer that just left him more confused.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know." Bird's voice ran dry as she spoke.

"Well..." Jim began, looking over to where she sat at his side, "I want to know."

"It's this thing I've been doing since I was a kid." Bird rubbed her forehead.

Even though she'd offered up her complete honesty, it was pretty clear that she'd rather be talking about anything else, "One of the orphanages I was in before I got adopted -it was ran out of this creepy old house."

"Whenever I was lucky enough to get my hands on little bottles of soaps or apples or anything. I don't know, I guess since I had so little I was scared of having it taken, so I started lining everything I owned up next to my bed." Bird's tone grew a little hollow as she spoke, "I'd try and stay awake as long as I could and I'd just stare at everything I had in the moonlight. I got to where I was able to tell if anything had been moved -even just the slightest amount."

Jim's brows lowered as he listened to her explanation.

He remembered Alfred cautioning him against moving the bottles of hand-soap next to the kitchen sink, swearing that Bird would know if anything had been touched.

As much as she tried to leave the earliest years of her childhood behind, the time had left lasting marks on her.

"You probably saw the inside of a lot of bad places." He reasoned.

He'd known she'd spent time in foster houses and orphanages before being adopted by the Waynes, but he hadn't really given much thought to the condition of the places she'd been in.

It was often easy to forget that she'd had such a rough start to life after seeing the wealth she'd grown up in after that.

But the effects of everything she'd gone through still deeply played a part in the person she'd grown into.

Nodding, she remained silent now.

She couldn't remember everything that had happened back then.

Luckily, Thomas and Martha had found her and brought her home when she was five years old.

A psychologist once told her that children can't retain memories until around age five, but she knew differently.

Most of what she could remember were trapped in her mind like scenes from an old movie.

As if she were witnessing the abuses happening to someone else rather than living through it herself.

Hunger pains and the locks on the cabinet doors and refrigerator to keep the hungry children out.

She'd never forget how it felt to be laying in sheets soaked with her own urine because she was too afraid to get out of bed in the middle of the night and just couldn't hold it any longer.

Being afraid to step even a toe out of line and the beatings that seemed to come a daily basis.

She didn't have to say it out loud.

Jim could read the expression on her face easily enough to know her mind had was reliving things that had happened nearly twenty years ago, but he didn't know what else she was thinking of until she let him in.

"I didn't feel it, you know. Not really." Bird finally said after a long wave of silence rushed over the room, "When my parents were killed."

"You were in shock." Jim remembered her reaction that night.

It was the very first time they'd crossed paths.

She was coming home late from her job at Fish's club and he was waiting by her apartment door.

That was two years ago now and neither of them had any way of knowing how intertwined their lives would become from that day forward.

"I wasn't." Bird shook her head, "I know death. I understand it better than I do life."

With her own forehead lining as she realized out loud, "I felt it when I thought you'd killed Oswald back then -and everyone I've lost since, I felt all of it, but not when my parents died."

Try as she might to distance herself from it, she couldn't stop the aching in her chest now.

It wasn't just from watching Karen die that not or even the weight of knowing the woman had sacrificed herself to keep them safe.

Bird couldn't stop replaying what Karen had told her; of how her dad had spoke so much about her and how Karen hadn't known what having a real father felt like until Thomas Wayne.

"I guess you really don't know what you've got until it's gone."

Bird's voice wasn't over a whisper; so quiet that Jim couldn't even fully hear what she'd said.

"What?" He asked.

"It's just so screwed up." Bird shook her head, "Thomas and Martha Wayne were the best parents anyone could ask for and all I did was wonder about my birth parents." She admitted, "If I'd only known what disappointments the truth was going to bring back then... I don't know maybe I'd have treated them better or put in some effort to fix things between us before it was too late."

"You're trying now." He reasoned as he slid an arm around her, she leaned against his side, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

"Is this the part where you try and tell me it's not too late to turn my life around?" Bird gave a half-hearted attempt at a joke, "Not too late to make them proud?"

She knew she'd never fully be the person they'd wanted her to grow into, but she'd made some peace with that.

Some peace with who she was and in her head she imagined that being enough to work with if they'd still been alive.

That maybe if she hadn't been at such a war with herself inside of her own head, that maybe, just maybe, they could have started to accept who she was.

Bruce had dealt with learning her secrets better than she'd expected; though she couldn't help but wonder if that was only because she was about all of the family he had left.

"What I'm saying is that you're trying to get to the bottom of what happened to them." Jim clarified.

Bird nodded her head against his shoulder but didn't verbally answer him.

Jim was right, she was now doing everything she could think of to find out why her parents had been gunned down in ally.

What he didn't know was the she held a degree of guilt for it taking her so long to fully devote herself to that cause.

With her connections on the streets, she was sure that if she'd started really digging around sooner she'd probably already have the answers now.

But she just couldn't.

Her eyes slowly closed when she felt him press a kiss to the top of her head.

This was one of the many things she was already loving when it came to being with Jim.

The way that so much could be expressed without words.

Reaching forward, she opened the music box again and let it play for a few moments before she quietly said, without looking up at him, "Once we find out what we need from Hugo Strange, I'm going to have to kill him. You know that, right?"

Pulling in a deep breath, Jim bit back his knee-jerk response of saying he couldn't let that happen.

That Professor Strange needed to be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

They couldn't handle this the way they'd handled Galavan and the way she'd handled Matches Malone.

But he didn't say it out loud.

Today had been an incredibly long and trying day and even though she wasn't saying it out loud, Karen's sacrifice and death hurt had taken a toll.

So far the plan they'd came up with while everyone was still downstairs was that in the morning Jim would go see what information they could get out of Strange.

Approaching him under the ruse of being hired by a client to look into Karen Jennings' death and Strange's involvement in Pinewood Farms.

They needed to know with absolute certainty that Hugo Stranger really had a hand in the Wayne murders before they could plot their next move.

Jim was sure once he got him face-to-face that he could get that for them.

Neither Wayne had immediately jumped on board with the plan.

No, they were both ready to storm Arkham Asylum that night and drag him through the streets.

But after some coaxing from Jim and Alfred's repeated insistence that they at least take the night to process everything and approach it with a fresh mind in the morning, they had reluctantly agreed.

•••

"Good morning!"

Bird's eyes widened as she looked up to see the woman who'd greeted her the very second the elevator doors opened.

"Morning..." Bird greeted, sounding unsure of how true the sentiment would ring considering it was her first day on the job.

This couldn't have come at a worse time, but she'd committed herself to seeing this through, to being a part of the company.

Which meant she was supposed to spend the day pretending to care about her new position in Wayne Enterprises, while Jim would be spending his morning questioning Hugo Strange.

After she was off work they were all supposed to meet back up at Wayne Manor to see if he'd uncovered anything.

Pulling in a deep breath, Bird stepped off the elevator and studied the doe eyed woman who'd greeted her.

Despite being more than a few years older than Bird was, the blonde clutching a clipboard to her chest stood a good three inches shorter than her.

"I'm Charmaine." She introduced herself with a slight bounce in her step as she rushed after her new boss who was making a beeline to her office, "I'm your secretary-slash-assistant."

"Oh." Bird came to a stop as she turned to face and admitted, "I didn't know one of those came with the job."

A confused expression fell on the Charmaine's face, clearly unsure of how to respond. She didn't know Bird well enough to decipher if she was joking.

It only took moments for her to grow uncomfortable under Bird's intense stare as she gave her a once over.

Reaching up, she nervously patted the side of her head where her naturally curly blonde hair was pinned back and was just about to ask if everything was okay, but never got the chance when Bird spun on her heels and continued on her journey to her new office which left her secretary scrambling after her.

By the time they'd reached the office, Charmaine was out of breath, not because of the near running walk she'd been in, but because of how unsure the death of Garret Bryne had left her feeling of her own standing within the company.

If she didn't make the right impression on her new boss then she could be out of a job by the end of that day.

"How do you take your coffee?" She questioned, pen at the ready against the fresh sheet of paper on her clipboard to take notes.

"Iced, lately." Bird admitted as she sat her purse down on her desk and turned to face her, "Are you really writing that down?"

"I, uh..." Charmaine let out a nervous chuckle, "My job is make sure you have everything you need to make your job easier."

Walking over to the large office desk, she laid the clipboard down and questioned, "That is if I still have a job?"

"Are you good at what you do?" Bird quickly fired back.

"I am." She asserted, sounding ten times more confident in that answer than she had in anything else she'd said up to that point.

"Then you have nothing to worry about." Bird promised.

Letting out a breath of air so fast it left her lungs feeling like deflated balloons, Bird's shoulders slouched forward, leaving her looking an inch or so shorter than before.

"I wasn't ready for this." Bird admitted to her, "I thought I had more time to properly prepare before taking over this office."

"I'm sure you're going to do fine." Charmaine tried to offer support, "And I'll be here to help you get acclimated to everything."

Seeming to not hear her, Bird walked over to the large windows lining the far wall of the office, opening up the room to a floor-to-ceiling view of the city.

In the reflection of the glass Bird spotted a few people pass the the office and pause to look in before scurrying on their way.

"What are they saying about me?" She questioned, turning to face her secretary once again.

"How great it's going to be having a Wayne back in the company." She smiled widely.

Squinting, Bird shook her head, "Look, Charmaine, I couldn't care less if you remember the way I take my coffee or not. But honesty is something that goes a long way. I have to be able to trust you."

"Of course, Miss Wayne." The blonde nodded before leveling, "This is a well paying position -a position that a lot of people were kissing ass to try and get when Garret considered retiring. They're mad that you're coming in off the street and getting the corner office."

With a breath to finally break up her sentences, she continued, "Don't let that bring you down. Clearly, they don't know what they're talking about."

"No, they're right." Bird dropped her arms at her sides, "I'm entirely unqualified for this. Handing me this position is a total PR move from the board. It's good for business for them to say a Wayne is now actively involved in the day-to-day operations and as of right now public opinion is on my side, so it makes it look even better for the company."

"Meanwhile-" She sighed and waved an arm toward the door, "Everyone is out there watching and waiting for me to fail. So I have to be good at this. No, I have to be better than good if I'm going to prove them all wrong. I need to be great and in order to do that, I'm going to need your help, are you up for that?"

"Yes-." Charmaine started to say.

"Because I'm going to be honest here. I have a lot of things going on in my personal life that I can't even begin to get into right now." Bird continued, "I need someone one hundred percent committed to this while my attention is split."

"I'm your girl." Charmaine smiled with a confident nod, "Shall we start with going over the itinerary and item list for the silent auction later this week?"

"Yes..." Bird began to say, but was interrupted when there was a knock on the open door and a delivery worker questioned, "Miss Wayne?"

Once he had Bird's attention he walked into the office and sat a large, bright bouquet of flowers on the corner of her desk before bidding her a good day and leaving.

The room stayed in a suspended state of complete silence as she plucked the car from it's holder and opened the small envelope to see who'd sent them.

"Charmaine?" Bird broke the silence, "Why is Fat Lenny sending flowers to the office?"

Bird questioned after reading the card from a low-level gangster both congratulating her on the new job and saying he was looking forward to doing business with her.

"Garret Bryne was a good man." Charmaine started to say, holding her hands up as she spoke.

"Every time someone says something like that, it's usually right before they unveil a laundry list of reasons proving otherwise." Bird's jaw stayed tense as she waited.

"He, uh..." She spoke while moving in closer, "He used to have a gambling problem a few years back and he ran into some trouble with the wrong people."

"He owed a debt to Lenny's crew?"

"He paid everything off, but the threats kept coming and so he kept paying." Closing her eyes, Charmaine pulled in a deep breath, "From the office funds."

"And so he just assumes I'm going to keep playing ball?" Bird guessed.

"Seems like." Charmaine agreed, "And with the fundraiser next week-"

"No." Bird cut her off, "No deal."

"I'm sorry?" The blonde couldn't begin to hid her shock.

"Send word to Lenny's crew that I'm not giving them a penny." Bird asserted.

"Miss Wayne..."

"He's nothing." Bird dismissed, "A street thug leading a gang of like ten men at the most. He was barely even a blip on Falcone's radar... hell, even Maroni wouldn't have given him the time of day when he was still alive."

Seeing her secretary's nerves start to spike again, Bird said, "Your name doesn't have to be anywhere in this. If Fat Lenny wants to retaliate then I'll deal with it when it happens."

Pulling the leather desk chair out far enough to have a seat behind her desk, Bird shook her head, thinking that she had much bigger concerns at the moment then a low-level thug.

Trying to keep her focus on her new responsibilities, she did her best to offer up a smile at her right hand woman and said, "Let's get started."

•••

"This man ordered my parents' death? You're sure?" Bruce asked, looking down to the photo they'd been given the night before by Lucius Fox.

Jim's eyes cut over to the afternoon sunlight beaming in through the windows on the far side of the room.

"I know he was part of the reason they were killed." Jim answered truthfully.

"Why is he not under arrest?" Bruce demanded to know.

"It's not so simple." Bullock offered up with a shrug.

Jim had brought him onto the case early that morning, fully briefing him before he could even finish his first cup of coffee.

Bruce's face twisted at his words.

Not so simple?

This was right and wrong.

Good and evil.

It was simple.

"The evidence we have is far too tenuous for a warrant." Jim explained.

"It's ancient hearsay, not fingerprints. Only witness is dead. Barnes wouldn't even say no. He would just look at me like I was nuts." Bullock's voice raised.

He was lucky to even still have a job after the part he played in Jim's Blackgate escape.

Something he'd do all over again without a second thought, but now this mess with Strange was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Ancient hearsay?" Bird echoed from where she'd been sitting on the couch so quietly that everyone had almost forgotten she was there.

"Yeah." Bullock looked over at her.

"Please." She scoffed under her breath.

Rising to her feet she reminded the room, "I wanted to take care of this situation last night."

"We didn't know for absolute fact that Strange was responsible until today." Jim reminded her.

"What were you going to do?" Bullock tucked his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slouched, "Just kill the guy because he may or may not have been this Professor character you were searching for?"

"Yes." Bird nodded.

"No." Jim was just as quick to the argument, "You do that and Barnes will find out. You'll go to prison."

Never mind the fact that it was wrong.

"I doubt that." Bird's dimples showed as she fought back a smile.

"Prison." Bullock repeated, "That would scare most people."

"I'm sick of this." Bruce cut in.

He could remember a time when he thought taking a life was wrong.

Just like Jim, he'd believed in the law and justice.

But that felt like ages ago now.

Back when he naive enough to think that the guilty were the ones punished while the innocent walked free.

That's how it should be, but right and wrong were all twisted and tangled up in one another like a drawer full of cords that seemed impossible to start untangling.

All he'd seen and all he'd been through left him subscribing to his sister's way of handling things.

"We know where Strange is, we know he's hurting people right now, and you two are talking about politics with your boss and then trying to get a piece of paper signed." Bruce complained, his eyes scanning the room from where Jim and Bullock were standing until his gaze landed on Bird, who was apparently the only other person angry enough over their parent's murders to want and act on it.

For all of his promises to bring the man responsible for their deaths to justice, Jim Gordon seemed too content to just let things be.

"This is the way it works, Bruce." Jim stated.

"Why? You're not a cop anymore." Bruce didn't miss a beat.

His voice raised and every ounce of disdain he was feeling trickled into his tone, leaving him hoarse.

"Hey!" Bird's voice raised to match her brother's tone, "You don't get to do that. Not after all he's done and risked for this -for you."

It wasn't that she didn't agree with what he was saying, but it was the disrespectful tone in which he using.

"For you, you mean." Bruce argued with her.

He was growing more sure than ever that Jim's sudden spike of interest in the case was at least in part because of how close the detective had gotten to his sister.

"Excuse me?" Bird's eyes narrowed.

"Give us a sec?" Jim nodded to Bullock, who now couldn't wait to get out of the room.

He had enough on his plate already, he didn't need to stand there and listen to three of them bickering back and forth.

Especially when he was sure how it was going to play out; Jim could lecture them both on law and order until he was blue in the face, but ultimately Bird was going to do as she pleased and it looked as if her brother was going to follow the example she'd set.

After all, the law rarely seemed to apply to Gotham's elite.

Jim's eyes lingered on the doorway until Bullock was out of sight and the doors were closed, "Bruce, I know you're frustrated, but we need to do this the right way"

"The right way?" Bruce's eyes narrowed, "And how many times did that fail with Galavan?"

"It's not the same." Jim argued.

He looked over at Bird, hoping that at least for the sake of her brother, that she'd back him up.

But he could tell from the look on her face that she was still ready to spill some blood.

"He bent and broke the law over and over again, and Strange is doing the same thing. This man killed Karen, maybe my parents." Bruce pointed out, "Look, I-I appreciate everything that you've done for me. But I fear we are going down the same path as before, and we won't get justice unless..."

His voice trailed off and he looked over at his sister.

Agreeing with her methods of handling these situations still felt less of an evil than saying out loud that they should take justice into their own hands and murder someone.

"Unless what?" Jim questioned and while Bird knew here he was heading, she didn't say anything.

"What you did to Galavan." Bruce answered, "What you knew you had to do, because of the bureaucracy and the red tape."

Jim's face contorted and Bruce stopped walking closer when he saw anger flash through the detective's eyes.

"What I had to do?" Jim turned to better face him, anger putting a strain on his voice, "I chose to kill a man in cold blood, and it was the wrong choice, crossing that line. You'll pay for it over and over again, like I have been. Like I still am."

Pulling in a deep breath, he stepped closer, laying a hand on Bruce's shoulder as he added, "And it will make you more like the evil you're trying to fight. You need to be better. Do you understand me?"

"Just hold out a little bit longer. We'll work on Barnes, get him to sign off on a warrant and put Strange away for good. The right way." He continued.

"Okay." Bird said, shocking them both, "Get Bullock. Let's go talk to Barnes. Maybe he'll listen if we're all there -or at least stop threatening Bullock's job."

"What?" Bruce nearly choked on the breath of air he was trying to pull in.

His airways felt tight, cutting off his oxygen supply.

The one person he'd truly felt was on his side just switched her view so fast he felt like he'd gotten whiplash.

Jim's eyebrows lowered.

He was entirely unsure of her motives, but at least for the moment he had someone else backing him.

With a slow nod, he looked at her one last time before he left the room.

He didn't close the doors all the way and stood silently off to the side to hear what would be said between them.

"Why did you do that?" Bruce asked.

"Because he's right." Bird tried to get by with the simple answer, but her younger brother wasn't about to settle for it.

"No, he isn't... and you know it." Bruce argued.

"He's right about some of it. Look,I hate Strange, okay?" Bird stepped closer, "But I love you more than I hate him -and so if doing this thing by the book keeps your hands clean, then I'm on board."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that you regret taking such extreme measures with Theo Galavan."

"That's pointless." Bird argued, "We both know I can look anyone in the eyes and lie right to their face."

"Yes, but you promised to be honest with me." He reminded her.

"I don't regret it." Bird openly admitted, "Given the chance I'd kill him a hundred times over. I still think he got what he deserved and I'm certainly not losing any sleep over what happened."

"Then what makes this any different-"

"You're not me." Bird interrupted, "Standing there, you may think that you wouldn't regret taking a life; taking his life, but once you cross that line... there is no going back, little brother. There's no do overs or second chances. Murder is permanent, okay? And if it ends up being something you can't handle then you'll continue to just beat yourself up for it every single day."

"I want better than that for you." She added.

"Because I need to be better?" He repeated what Jim had said to him.

"Yes."

"Why?"

He was getting exhausted from constantly being told that.

He'd suffered more than anyone from losing his parents and yet he was constantly told how he needed to deal with what happened.

He'd been the one who'd found their first real lead, gotten the name M. Malone -only to immediately be told by Alfred and his sister that one of them would be doing the killing and not him.

It was so incredibly frustrating to be told over and over by the ones closest to him that there were lines he couldn't cross -all while they repeatedly crossed those very same lines themselves.

"I could give you a millions reasons." Bird said with a defeated sigh, "But you've already heard them all before. So I'm just going to say that I love you and I know you can't understand it right now, but we're all just trying to protect you. I'd do anything for you."

"Even let Strange walk free? After all he's done?" Bruce couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Yes." She nodded.

"I don't believe that." Bruce argued, "If Detective Gordon's plan doesn't work, I can't imagine you'd just accept that.

"Go." Bird nodded towards the far exit of the room, "Get your coat if you want to come with us."

Once he was gone, Bird let out the breath of air she'd been holding and leaning forward, resting her hands on the desk as she hung her head.

Her little brother was growing up and getting to the point where he thought he didn't need anyone to protect him anymore.

And Bird wasn't naive, she knew there would be things she couldn't shelter him from.

That in so many ways Bruce was really starting to reach the point in his life where the decisions he made now would ultimately shape the man he was going to grow into.

Broken hearts and making his own list of mistakes and regrets was one thing, it was an unavoidable part of growing up, but as long as she could keep him from doing something as life altering as killing someone, she'd do whatever it took and then some.

Jim watched her through the crack in the unlatched door after Bruce had left through the other set of double doors that was closer to the stairs.

He didn't believe that Bird was going to be able to let this go anymore than Bruce did, but he could see how much she was trying.

Trying to set a better example for her brother.

It had been jarring for him to see Bruce all but flat out asking them to kill Strange, so he could only imagine the impact it had on her.

Which is why he had to get this one right.

He'd let the Wayne murder case fall by the wayside and because of that Bruce had gotten himself neck deep in a mess of things he never should have been involved in.

Alfred had wound up in the hospital after a particularly brutal street fight and it had ended with Bird putting three bullets into the chest of Matches Malone and having to call in a clean up crew.

Even though Bird had forgiven him for everything that had happened with Galavan, he still couldn't forgive himself.

The weight from the guilt of her nearly dying because he hadn't listened to her when she tried to tell him the truth was sill overwhelming at times.

The entire thing still played out in his dreams from time-to-time; waking him up in a cold sweat with the feeling of her blood on his hands feeling a little too fresh.

As with the night he'd made the decision to murder Galavan in cold blood.

Standing over him with the gun in his hand.

Galavan beaten and bloody, lying on the ground broken enough he was begging for death.

Jim had been so sure in those moments that he wasn't going to regret it.

That taking the life of one would be for the greater good or at least that's what he told himself.

Regret hadn't came as fast as the bullet that ended Galavan's life, it had been more like a poison slowly spreading through his entire being and tearing apart his life piece by piece.

It was wrong.

He knew that now, but just like Bird had told her brother, it was an act he couldn't take back.

When he'd met with Hugo Strange earlier that day, the man had tried to get into Jim's head to evade the line of questioning he was being met with.

Strange had pointed out everything Jim had lost.

Told him that this case wasn't about solving it or even about helping the Waynes.

He claimed Jim was doing this for himself.

That he was trying to make up for the sins of his past and how he believed that righting these wrongs would somehow bring about his own personal redemption.

•••