Feed The Children

A charity.

One Edward has never heard of, and there's a likely reason why. On the floor of Bruce's library, Edward goes through the files of a charity that never saw the light of day.

He was looking through the 'F' section when he found it, searching for things on Falcone.

Feed The Children.

Edward's stomach flips over as he reads through the first page, being taken back to his childhood and thinking of everything that might've been different had this been seen through. There's an almost childlike sense of excitement, but accompanying it is unease as he finds out things he might've been better off not knowing about.

Feed The Children was all about providing enrichment for the orphans of Gotham. It was an idea proposed by Thomas Wayne, a fact that doesn't surprise Edward considering how much time he spent at the orphanage. He wanted to make things better, just like he wanted to help the city with Renewal, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Thomas Wayne might've tried, and tried again, but he didn't get anywhere. Edward doesn't know if he should resent him or not. Trying doesn't change things.

The charity would've built a new park on the orphanage grounds, added a library to the building, given new toys and beds and blankets to the orphans. It would've required a health and wellness standard for the nuns, would've required them to take measures to ensure the wellbeing of the orphans under their care. It would've made sure babies didn't die from malnutrition, or the cold, or illness, or whatever else they died from that Edward had to take care of when he got old enough. Thomas even wrote in that he wanted different food to be shipped in for the orphanage, and Edward thinks about what that might've been like after eating the same things for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. It would've given the orphans more tolerable lives.

Edward remembers how when he was fifteen, he held a dead baby in his arms, crying in fear and looking around for a nun to help, not knowing what to do. This program could've prevented that. Maybe not that death, but all the deaths after it. Even if it didn't help Edward right away, even if it was instituted after he left, it would have helped the kids he had to leave behind. Maybe it would've prevented the fire that burned the orphanage down. There are too many maybes, and all of them ache in Edward's chest.

Edward begins to cry. A single tear at first, slipping down his cheek and falling to the folder open in front of him. He goes through the budget for all of this. Its estimate is lower than Edward would have imagined for a project like this. He might've understood why it never came to fruition if they couldn't get enough funding. But that wasn't the case. Nobody cared enough to fund it. So the orphans went on starving and dying and killing themselves when they finally got old enough to realize they had that option. And nobody fucking cared.

The tears come harder, pooling at the edges of his eyes, and Edward tries not to let them fall, but they overflow and spill down his face. He takes deep breaths, trying to control his reaction to this overwhelming information, but the longer he thinks about it, the more his breath hitches, the more tears come, the more he begins to shake.

He can't help it, and he knows he's embarrassing himself, but the tears keep coming no matter how hard he tries to stave them off. He can't control the way he heaves sobbing now, anger and sadness for what could've been the most pain he's felt in ages. He clenches his fists and feels like ripping apart the folders in front of him, if only to make it stop.

His tears of sadness quickly turn to tears of rage. Frustration and anger mixing together to drive a conclusion in his head that he knows isn't just an overreaction.

Bruce comes around from the other side of the shelf and finds Edward on his knees, his face in his hands, crying in agony. He slides to the floor next to him and puts his hand on Edward's shoulder.