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[theknightshift]

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[batsymbol]

( a confirmation. a suspect finally named. something alfred has never been able to give him. to give to himself. but there it is. one of them has found the unnamed murderer. )

Who? Where are they?

[theknightshift]

[ He almost doesn't want to share it. It feels intrusive, an invasion he hadn't asked for or wanted. But he knows if the roles were reversed - if this man knew and didn't tell him, he'd be angry. Furious. ]

Joseph Chilton. His street name is Joe Chill.

When he was released from Blackgate, he moved into a small apartment in the East End. He's been there for quite some time.

[batsymbol]

Why was he released?

[theknightshift]

He served his sentence.

[batsymbol]

Served his sentence? How long was that?

[theknightshift]

Don't do this to yourself.

[batsymbol]

How long?

( how many years are their parents lives worth? )

[theknightshift]

Stop.

[batsymbol]

I deserve to know.

[theknightshift]

Our circumstances are similar, not the same.

[batsymbol]

You're not telling me because it's not enough. You know it's not.

( gotham fails its people yet again. )

[theknightshift]

[ That and-- ]

He was never arrested for my parents' murders.

[batsymbol]

Then how do you know it's him?

[theknightshift]

Because I found him and I made him tell me what he did.

[batsymbol]

And you didn't think to throw him in jail or at Gordon?

[theknightshift]

He was already in prison.

[batsymbol]

And they didn't think to do anything with a confession? To add to his sentence?

( brother please. )

[theknightshift]

Bruce, the only person he ever confessed to was me. An angry kid who broke into his prison cell and beat him until he begged for mercy.

[batsymbol]

He should be rotting in there and you know it.

[theknightshift]

I told you to stop.

[batsymbol]

( somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear joker's voice — hear his hyena-like cackle — over the murders riddler had done. you think they deserved it. just as he thinks this joe chill deserves to rot. how slippery of a slope is it for him to think that? even here? how much anger does he still hold inside him over the murder of his parents and how he's never been able to avenge them? to give them the sort of justice they deserve? )

I won't. Because they deserve justice.

[theknightshift]

[ They do. More than anything. Joe Chill didn't deserve any mercy. There were moments when Bruce saw himself bleeding the life out of him. Because it's what he deserved. Why did he get to live when Thomas and Martha did not? Still Thomas' words echo: You save the life, no matter what. Even scum like Joe Chill's. ]

Neither will I.

[batsymbol]

Was he one of Falcone's?

[theknightshift]

No. He was just a man with a gun in an alley.

[batsymbol]

( he can't be. after all these years he can't just be some random man. )

He was just some random man?