ANGELS WEEP || bruce wayne

the twelfth

🦇

There was something different about this day. Something in the air perhaps, or maybe it was the rain turning to acid as it hit the sidewalk.

Or maybe it was the fact that the door to the visiting booth was three inches thick, steel enforced, and guarded by three people, the stations rotating twice an hour to prevent any hope of bribing the guards.

The glass separating the visitor and the prisoner was itself two sheets thick, a chain link between them preventing any breakouts. The prison air felt like thick honey, gooey and sticky. Stacey's chair was wobbly, one leg too high and the other too low, and she tried to balance herself at the top before slamming back down. She had nothing better to do then twiddle her thumbs and watch the guards change positions outside of her heavily fortified booth. Who even needed this much security anyway? Arkam was where the Gotham's worst were kept and treated, not Blackgate Pentitentuary. Half the people here were just at the wrong place wrong time, the other half here for some sort of drug or money laundering; hardly deserving of a three inch thick steel enforced door.

The slam of the door on the opposite side of the booth sounded throughout the room, and suddenly Stacey was thankful for the thickness of the glass dividing them.

Salvatore Maroni was silent, with the same poise you would expect from one of the most prestigious bosses in Gotham's underworld. Stacey imagined him sitting above the Iceberg Lounge, surveying the dancers and bright lights. The only thing different was his orange jumpsuit and unkempt hair. His face was still freshly shaven, posture straight, eyes piercing through her like a falcon spotting its prey.

Reality is nothing but a dream, Stacey reminded herself.

But that just brought her back to the church; clutching her mother's hand until it was torn from her grasp.

"Tace, cara mia. You have visited me, finally."

It was hard for Stacey to meet his gaze but she did, doing everything in her power not to cower away from his strong, regal stare. Those infamous Maroni eyes which marked her as an heir. Which marked her as his daughter.

"I... I am here, aren't I?"

"Do not be smart with me, cara," he snapped, Even while sitting he seemed to tower over her. "So che non sei venuto per chattare." I know you have not come to chat.

"I want to know where my money is, Papa. I need it for my loans, to start a business-"

He snapped his fingers, and she fell silent. "You remember what I told you, the day I left?"

Nodding, she recited: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on-"

"And our little life is rounded with a sleep. Have you thought on this, Tacey?"

Stacey fell silent, her hands shaking, trying to form any semblance of a word or phrase- something to prove to her father that she was worthwhile, someone to be proud of-

"Tace."

"I am a doctor now, Papa. I went to med school at Metropolis University, and I had a residency in-"

"That does not answer my question."

She gulped, chastised. "I have. It means the performance they have just witnessed was an illusion, and life is completed with the eternal sleep of the dead."

He sat back. "Tace, you've missed the point."

"How? I'm sorry."

"Reality," he began, "is nothing but a dream."

Stacey felt as if she had been punched on the stomach, and she was left fumbling for air. "What?"

"You will take up the family business. Then you will have your money."