We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

XLVIII: The Foxglove

"No one blames her."
"That never matters," said Alec. "Not when you blame yourself." -
― Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls

~()~

"What  did you want to talk to me about?" Bird questioned as she found her  little brother in their late father's office at Wayne Manor.

"I  didn't expect to see you so soon." Bruce admitted, laying the book he'd  been looking through down on the coffee table, "Normally it's days  –sometimes weeks in between when I call you and when you come here."

"I  was already out." She explained, a small smile on her lips as she  continued, "Picking out a dish set and some other things for the house.  We're finally able to start moving things in."

Her brother smiled  as he saw how happy she looked and he wished he had better news to tell  her; wished he could keep her mood elevated, but sadly he hadn't called  her there for good news.

"The night of the charity ball, I asked  Selina to come there with me because I wanted her to make a copy of the  key to Sid Bunderslaw's office safe." He openly admitted, standing up  and walking towards where he'd been recollecting information and  recreating the cork board that Reggie had cleared out.

"Damn it,  Bruce." She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I told you that you needed to  be subtle... do you not understand what subtle means?"

"Of course I understand the meaning of the word." He said, looking at her, "I thought this was going to be subtle enough."

"What happened?" She questioned.

"I  went to Wayne Enterprises with the key yesterday, pulled the fire alarm  and went to his office... only he was expecting me and the safe was  empty." Bruce admitted, his gaze falling to the floor as he spoke. "He  knew Selina had made a copy of the key. He'd even cancelled the trip  he'd been planning because he was waiting on me."

"What did he say?" Bird asked, walking over to him.

"He  admitted to hiring Reggie Payne to gather the documents I'd been  collecting." With an almost stunned look on his face, he repeated, "He  admitted to all of it –all of the serious crimes that the company was  committing, because he knew there was nothing I could do."

Bird  watched her little brother as he picked up part of a picture that he'd  cut the rest of their family out of and turned to tack it to the board.  When he stepped to the side she saw it was a picture of their father  –now pinned up along pictures of criminals and paper trail evidence of  wrongdoings.

Her eyebrows knotted and Bruce said, "He said our  father was the same as me once –came into the company with files and  demanding to know what was happening, why a multi-national company was  operating partly in the shadows." The air in the room seemed to burn his  lungs as he struggled to take a breath and said in a low voice, "He  said that he eventually came around, that dad knew about all of it  –every single piece of wrongdoing and was okay with it."

"That  doesn't sound like dad." Bird argued, and Bruce slowly nodded giving a  weak shrug as he said, "But if you really think about it... how could he  not have known?"

Bird didn't have an answer for him, she didn't  even have one for herself, but it was difficult to believe that the same  man who'd harped on her criminal-doings was letting corruption run  rampant in his own company.

"You know..." She breathed, "Even if he did know, he was just one man... there probably wasn't much he could do to change anything."

"Yes,  but just standing by and watching a crime happen puts him at fault as  much as if he actively participated." Her little brother argued and she  couldn't disagree.