So he'd been right all along. "You're going to ask me to tell you everything." And so he had. Jim found himself exhaling the tension he felt at the soft touch on his shoulder. The reassurance was a welcome one, even from as unlikely a source as this.
Tell me so I will know it. So that someone else in this damn city would. Tell the man who he could rely on to stand there and understand everything. Tell the man to whom it would be enough if he did just that. They could stand in silence then, and everything could be fine for just a little while.
He wanted to ask: "Are you sure you have the time?" He didn't. The answer wasn't one that he actually wanted to hear. So instead he leant into the wall, looked out across the city.
"We were running a sting. Targetting the mobs' money with your help. Way above and beyond what we could have done down at the MCU otherwise. Radioactively marked bills. The Joker ran off with some of it, and then the whole lot vanished. A leak from within my department." That was the bitterest pill of all. As Captain he'd put his faith and trust in those people, and they'd screwed him.
"I never asked how you did it, but you dragged their accountant back from Hong Kong and we nailed the whole lot of them. And that's when they get wise. You're our strongest link, and without you we're only as good as we were before. So they set the Joker loose on you. Crazy--" He spits the curse out under his breath, takes off his glasses. "Said if you didn't turn yourself in people would die, then went after all the people connected to the case; Judge Surrillo, Commissioner Loeb, Harvey Dent. Two out of three isn't bad work, is it?"
And he blamed himself for that. He'd been standing in the damn office, the words on the tip of his tongue, when Loeb had crashed to the floor. Too late. Too fucking late.
"Joker named the Mayor as his next victim, and that's where I dropped out of the game. Took a bullet, faked my own death. I couldn't have him going after my family."
He wondered if that would even scan.
"After that they were out for your blood. Dent held a press conference - announced he was Batman - and I end up driving him down the underpass with that psychopath firing goddamn bazookas at me."
The story stops here. Gordon, falling quiet, slid his glasses back onto his nose and patted his pockets. Somewhere--there. His wallet, a picture of his family inside, just opposite the glistening GCPD badge. It said 'Captain Gordon, Major Crimes Unit, Gotham City Police Department' underneath. They hadn't even had time to change that. He pushed it along the wall.
"Barbara's eight. James is ten. They're my world."
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Tell me so I will know it. So that someone else in this damn city would. Tell the man who he could rely on to stand there and understand everything. Tell the man to whom it would be enough if he did just that. They could stand in silence then, and everything could be fine for just a little while.
He wanted to ask: "Are you sure you have the time?" He didn't. The answer wasn't one that he actually wanted to hear. So instead he leant into the wall, looked out across the city.
"We were running a sting. Targetting the mobs' money with your help. Way above and beyond what we could have done down at the MCU otherwise. Radioactively marked bills. The Joker ran off with some of it, and then the whole lot vanished. A leak from within my department." That was the bitterest pill of all. As Captain he'd put his faith and trust in those people, and they'd screwed him.
"I never asked how you did it, but you dragged their accountant back from Hong Kong and we nailed the whole lot of them. And that's when they get wise. You're our strongest link, and without you we're only as good as we were before. So they set the Joker loose on you. Crazy--" He spits the curse out under his breath, takes off his glasses. "Said if you didn't turn yourself in people would die, then went after all the people connected to the case; Judge Surrillo, Commissioner Loeb, Harvey Dent. Two out of three isn't bad work, is it?"
And he blamed himself for that. He'd been standing in the damn office, the words on the tip of his tongue, when Loeb had crashed to the floor. Too late. Too fucking late.
"Joker named the Mayor as his next victim, and that's where I dropped out of the game. Took a bullet, faked my own death. I couldn't have him going after my family."
He wondered if that would even scan.
"After that they were out for your blood. Dent held a press conference - announced he was Batman - and I end up driving him down the underpass with that psychopath firing goddamn bazookas at me."
The story stops here. Gordon, falling quiet, slid his glasses back onto his nose and patted his pockets. Somewhere--there. His wallet, a picture of his family inside, just opposite the glistening GCPD badge. It said 'Captain Gordon, Major Crimes Unit, Gotham City Police Department' underneath. They hadn't even had time to change that. He pushed it along the wall.
"Barbara's eight. James is ten. They're my world."