Batman Legacy: Book One
Copyright© 2025 by Uruks
Chapter 11: Chill
Gotham Clocktower – Early Evening
The rooftop of the old clocktower groaned beneath their boots, its warped timbers shifting in protest with each step. Far below, Gotham’s arteries of neon and steel pulsed in the night—bridges lit like veins of fire, skyscrapers standing like silent sentinels against the restless wind. Commissioner Gordon paced near the edge, his coat flaring with each turn, a dark silhouette framed against the glowing skyline.
“I’ve got enough to bury Falcone thanks in large part to you,” he said, his voice carrying the grit of too many sleepless nights. “Witnesses, evidence, financial records. It’s airtight.”
Batman lingered in the shadows behind him, a tall, unmoving shape. The wind caught the hem of his cape, making it whisper against the stone like a warning.
“I know,” he said simply.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Gordon demanded, stopping to glance over his shoulder.
Batman said nothing.
Gordon turned fully now, his breath fogging faintly in the chill air. “You said we’d move tonight.”
“We will move,” Batman replied. His tone was even, almost calm—too calm for Gordon’s liking. “But not yet.”
The Commissioner’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
A long pause stretched between them, broken only by the distant wail of a siren weaving through the city streets.
“Loose ends,” Batman said finally.
Gordon stepped closer, his boots scraping on the old stone. “I’ve got a hundred good men ready to raid half the East Side. You give the word, we bring down a goddamn empire before sunrise.”
Batman didn’t flinch.
“If we move now,” he said. “Something slips through the cracks. One piece of Falcone’s machine survives ... and rebuilds.”
Gordon stared at him, the fight in his eyes wrestling with the trust he’d come to feel for this man. Slowly, his gaze drifted downward to the city below—its traffic flowing like blood through veins, its people moving in patterns of danger and routine.
He was frustrated. Bone-tired. But he’d seen enough of Batman to know this wasn’t hesitation—it was calculation.
“You’ve gotten us this far,” Gordon muttered, turning the words over like stones in his mouth. “If it were anybody else, I’d call it arrogance. But with you?”
He met Batman’s gaze.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Then we end this.”
Batman gave a faint nod—more an acknowledgment than an agreement.
By the time Gordon blinked, the shadows behind him were empty. The only sign Batman had been there was the faint rustle of a cape carried away on the wind.
The Narrows – Night
The Narrows lay like a corpse draped over the city—wet alleyways glistening under fractured neon, broken signs swaying in the wind, the soft hiss of leaking steam curling through the air like ghostly fingers. Every shadow seemed to pulse with the memory of forgotten lives, the echo of crime long past, the quiet sorrow of Gotham’s forsaken bloodline.
Batman moved across the rooftop with the practiced silence of a predator, his cape catching gusts of wind and fluttering like a dark banner. He stopped at the edge of a crumbling ledge, crouching low, eyes narrowing on the third floor of a decaying apartment building. A single light behind a cracked window flickered like a hesitant pulse.
If his sources were right, inside sat Joe Chill. The man who had shattered his world, who had left an unhealable mark on his life. Bruce’s jaw tightened beneath the cowl.
A faint crackle came through the earpiece, soft against the city’s din.
“Bruce?”
He froze. It wasn’t Alfred.
“Rachel?”
“Alfred asked me to call,” she said, her voice steady but tinged with concern. “He was ... worried you wouldn’t listen to him.”
Bruce remained silent, his gaze fixed on the flickering window.
“So now you’re going to track down the man who killed your parents? After all this time?”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t blink. “I’m not here to kill him.”
“But you don’t know what you’ll do. Do you?”
Bruce closed his eyes beneath the cowl, feeling the weight of every year, every choice, every night spent chasing shadows. “No.”
“Then why go alone? Why now?”
“Because this is the last piece, Rachel,” he said, voice low, almost swallowed by the night. “Before I can finish what I started. Before I can bury Falcone for good.”
“You think facing him will bring you peace?”
“No,” Bruce admitted. “But maybe ... clarity.”
There was a pause. Only the soft hiss of steam, the distant rumble of trains, and the faint drip of water from rusted gutters filled the silence.
“Bruce ... you’ve spent your life becoming this thing. But it’s what you do next that defines you.”
He opened his eyes again, the lenses of the cowl reflecting fractured light, his gaze steeled, unflinching.
“I just don’t want to lose you ... to him.”
“You won’t,” he said, his voice carrying the weight of unshakable resolve.
The line clicked dead. Bruce’s boots barely whispered against the roof as he adjusted his stance. A slow exhale, a beat of preparation, then he dropped silently into the alley below, shadows swallowing him whole, leaving only the city and its ghosts behind.
The air inside apartment 3C was thick and sour—mildew, old smoke, and something worse, something intangible—regret, maybe. Dust motes floated in the dim lamplight, drifting through the narrow shaft of illumination like tiny ghosts.
Batman stepped through the threshold like a shadow, silent, towering, absolute. His cape whispered against the worn carpet. A single dim lamp cast a sickly glow over the center of the room.
In its circle sat a man hunched on a folding chair, spine bent, knees draped with a threadbare blanket. Joe Chill. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, a man who might have been alive physically but had long since surrendered any semblance of life.
He didn’t look up at first. Only when the door clicked shut behind Batman did he slowly raise his head, his voice raspy.
“Who the hell are you?”
Batman said nothing.
Chill squinted through the shadows, unable to see his visitor clearly. “You a cop?”
Still nothing.
“Falcone send you?”
Batman stepped forward, the faint scrape of boots against linoleum the only sound. “No,” he said, low, gravel-edged.
Joe’s eyes went wide, his voice nearly inaudible. “You’re him ... the Batman.”
Batman said nothing at first, quietly assessing the man who murdered his parents.”I’m investigating an old case. A double homicide. Park Row. Twenty years ago.”
Chill’s breath hitched, a small, trembling hitch.
“Never solved,” Batman added, each word deliberate, precise. “The Wayne family.”
Chill froze, fingers tightening around the blanket. Batman moved closer, shadow stretching across the cracked floorboards, voice like a hammer striking cold steel.
“The shooter was never found. But I’ve been digging. And I found you.”
Chill coughed—a dry, ragged sound. Blood flecked his lips. He twitched slightly, as if bracing for a blow. “You can’t prove anything.”
“I don’t need to.”
Batman circled him, slow, deliberate, a predator sizing its prey. The only sounds were Chill’s shallow wheezing and the distant hum of the city.
“You were a junkie. Living in the Bowery. No family. No friends. Then one night, you had a gun in your hand ... and Thomas and Martha Wayne ended up dead in an alley.”
Chill’s eyes fell to the floor, shame and fear mingling in his hollow sockets.
“Falcone picked me out,” he whispered. “Said the Waynes were getting in the way. Thomas was funding a rival mayoral campaign. One Falcone couldn’t control.”
He wiped at his mouth; a dark smear of blood came away on the back of his hand.
“They gave me a big wad of cash and some smack so I wouldn’t lose my nerve. I was the perfect pick. An addict so low down the food chain that not even the mafia wanted anything to do with me ... except on that day. It’d be hard for the cops to finger Falcone. The setup would make it look like just another random mugging, at least as far as the courts were concerned. They wanted the message loud. Permanent. Told me to make sure the whole family was gone. No loose ends.”
Chill didn’t look up. Batman’s presence loomed, unyielding.
“I shot the man first,” Chill continued. “He tried to shield her. Then I shot the wife after she screamed.”
He swallowed hard, trembling.
“I raised the gun for the boy. Just like they told me. But I couldn’t. He didn’t cry ... didn’t try to run or fight back. Nothing. He just ... stared at me with those big blue eyes. He almost looked like a doll. And then I ran. I guess ... I’ve been running ever since. There was so much heat after the Waynes’ deaths that Falcone decided it was best to leave the young Bruce Wayne alone. That was fine by me.”
Batman’s fists tightened beneath the cape. Chill seemed oblivious, or didn’t care.
“I did time in Blackgate later for stealing a car, but nobody brought up the Waynes. Falcone made sure that story stayed buried.”