But, All the Same - Part Thirteen (SPOILERS for the Film!)
'Batman' and certain characters belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros., respectively. No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
It's winter and therefore cold, but he doesn't feel it, not through the armor and not through the exertion of running, flat-out running, for blocks over obstacles and up a fire escape and across rooftops. There's no snow on the ground, and the condensation in the air has yet to fall as frost, so the way is clear, firm, and his body knows what to do. His feet are sure.
He'd put on the suit, but he isn't the Bat this time. The armor, what's still viable, yes, but the cowl and the cape had stayed back in the safe. He's just going to have to be careful when it comes to blows aimed at his head. Instead, it's back to the old ski mask routine.
And, getting ready, he'd slid shut the last latch on his left calf, testing it for any give, and when it was secure he'd repeated the process with the right side and then up, double- and triple-checking the plating around his left knee because of the brace. It hadn't been specifically designed with the armor in mind, and he'd noticed before that the brace had a tendency to, when he twisted his leg a certain way, catch on the plate right below his knee. As he comes to another alley, he tries it now, and, yes, it's still doing it, but at least he knows to continue to watch out for that. It's manageable, nothing too big-nothing like the ruined plate on the torso section where that sharp, curving knife had slammed in hard, deep, taking both air and conviction from him in one swift, precise move. Looking at that section of the armor now in the faint light of the city at night, the jagged edge of the hole, that's when the doubt just barely starts to creep in.
But, he can do this, take down the violently, criminally insane if he has to. This isn't about proving a point or making an example. This is duty and obligation. It should be silent, smooth, a shadow barely seen out the corner of one's eye.
God help the asshole who tries to mug or rape someone tonight. He's not feeling particularly merciful at the moment.
Once there, the clinic below does indeed have a line trailing out its door, just as John had said it did a few days ago. The people waiting are desperate and ill, and something deep inside him aches with the knowledge that they mean nothing to at least one of the caregivers within. They are a means to an end, and what that end is Bruce doesn't quite know, but it's not altruistic or humane.
Tommy was nice to him, condescending but nice, polite. Usually, they had just played chess, and Tommy would talk, and some of the things he'd said had made sense-and some things hadn't. Now, though, with what Bruce knows happened with Tommy after the two of them had drifted apart socially, those cruelly strange thoughts spoken in a child's voice do carry more weight and ring with a certain unpleasant truth. Tommy had always been cynical, often petty, but he was extremely intelligent and excelled at strategy. Upon his return all those years ago, when Bruce had heard through the grapevine all that had happened, it made the same kind of sense that Tommy would be a doctor as it did that Bruce would be-Batman. Power over life and death, justice, always in control and never the victims, not ever again, this is what they had become.
How proud their parents would be. Bruce's would be horrified, and Tommy's would laugh.
He's not here tonight, though. Bruce gets inside the clinic through one of the windows, and he finds a small office and knows immediately it's Dr. Thomas Elliot's, but it's dark and locked up for the night, and there's no voice in the building that could possibly be Tommy. The words aren't right, the sarcasm absent. The doctors and nurses and support staff on call tonight are all-too nice. They're good people, and Tommy most definitely is not.
He wonders if Tommy is anywhere near as convincing in his act as kindly Dr. Elliot as he was as idiotic billionaire Bruce Wayne.
And, alas, despite continuing to search through the night, he doesn't find him. He goes back to Selina's apartment, mentally prepared to defend the necessity of his actions, but neither John nor Selina is there. It's not right; he knows that. Something is happening here, coming to a head. But, who would know?
The mastermind behind it all.
So he peels off the armor and briefly cleans it but doesn't put it back in the safe. He just tucks it back into the closet and showers, shaves, puts on something inconspicuous, and bright and early at eight o'clock he goes back to the clinic.
Time to get the stitches out, after all.
"I'm here to see Dr. Elliot," he says to the man working the intake desk. The guy nods distractedly, eyes still down as he rifles through a huge pile of folders on the desk. Computers down, makes sense they'd resorted to paper documentation once again. Everything old is new again. Bruce clears his throat loudly, and the man glances up, down, and then comes back for the double-take, staring at Bruce and unfortunately obviously recognizing him. Before he can say anything, Bruce leans over the desk slightly and says, "Dr. Elliot. Please." He doesn't feel up to playing games with this man and isn't even sure the honeyed approach would work in the first place, so instead it's business-like and only slightly menacing. It's the fact that he's not worried about what he's doing right now that concerns him. He's walking around in public, and some people, thankfully not all, are going to recognize him, and word of this getting out. . .
Rumors. Gossip. They'll never prove anything, and soon it won't be an issue because he will be gone.
"Uh, yeah," the guy eventually says, moving out from behind the desk, clearly ill at ease, and leading him down a hallway and right to the door of that office Bruce had broke into just a few hours ago. He knocks on the door, looking at Bruce uncertainly as they wait, and Bruce almost smiles at him. What a strange situation this man is in, and he doesn't have the faintest idea. That's when, from over the man's shoulder, Bruce sees a figure come walking towards them from the other end of the hallway.
"Brett," the newcomer says, and the hair on the back of Bruce's neck stands up, and a shiver slides down his spine, "did you need something?"
Brett the desk guy turns around to answer, and in doing so Bruce is apparently revealed to be standing behind him.
"Yeah, Doctor, this is, uh- " and Brett awkwardly indicates Bruce, "he's here to see you."
Tommy is indeed a very good actor. Bruce just barely catches the tail end of surprise and anger, and even that's only visible in his eyes for half a second. The rest of his face is as perfectly composed as a portrait and just as immobile. A kind, blank smile, smooth forehead, and slight uptick to the eyebrows, and all that expression conveys is care and competence.
"Ah!" Tommy responds, nodding and briefly setting a hand on Brett's shoulder in reassurance. "Yes, well, thank you for showing him the way. Wouldn't want to get lost in a place like this!" He chuckles, and Brett relaxes under his hand and smiles.
"Glad I could help," Brett offers to both Tommy and Bruce. He then nods and politely takes his leave, most likely calmly walking back out to the front desk.
Bruce doesn't see that, though, his eyes pinned straight ahead. There's the space of two seconds after Brett's footfalls pass out of hearing range, during which neither of them breathes or moves, and then Tommy breaks eye contact and shifts to unlock his door. Once done, he flings it open and waves Bruce in pleasantly.
"After you," he says, happily, and loath as he is to allow Tommy at his back, Bruce nevertheless precedes him inside.
It's almost like a dream. Is this really happening? He feels disconnected but fully present. Maybe it's nerves. Maybe it's just-fear and desperation.
He turns around just as Tommy shuts the door, and then blinks when he's abruptly seized up in a tight and seemingly friendly bear hug.
"Oh, wow, Bruce!" Tommy says into his ear, and it's shocking and unsettling how convincingly relieved and overjoyed he sounds-an extremely good actor.
Bruce manages a few pats on the back, and then he attempts to pull away, but Tommy slides his hands down Bruce's arms and then grips his elbows, keeping him uncomfortably close.
"It's good to see you again," Tommy's mouth gushes, the coldness of the rest of his face showing it to be a lie. "Well," and here he chuckles again, "up and about anyway. I did see you a little while ago. . . "
Bruce seizes on that moment and steps out of reach definitively, Tommy's eyes never leaving his. He smiles, going for embarrassed and oblivious, saying, "And, boy, am I grateful to you for patching me up! My friends," he emphasizes, "were completely worried, but-you know me! I'm just a real klutz sometimes, not to mention pretty damn unlucky!" He punctuates this with a little chuckle of his own, Tommy grinning back in response, and here they stand.
"So," Tommy then says, moving away to lean against the top of his desk and waving Bruce over to one of the chairs in front of it, "it's been two weeks since I had a look at you. Ready to have those stitches taken out, I assume?" Another kind smile accompanied by calculating eyes.
Bruce nods, good humored and stupid, and, again, it's only for the briefest of moments, there and gone in a flash like before out in the hall, but as Tommy nods and gets to his feet, just as he's stepping around Bruce to leave the office to go and get the supplies, there is a wash of frustration and rage over his face. Then, he's temporarily gone, and Bruce sucks in a deep lungful of air, realizing he's been holding his breath for the last minute or two.
He's scared and is himself angry and frustrated, likely just as much as Tommy is, if for vastly different reasons. How did it get this bad? Had he always been like this, lying like this? Bruce knows that after his parents died, he and Tommy didn't spend much time alone together, but was that coincidental, or had someone, namely Alfred, seen something? There was the time at camp a couple years later when Tommy lost it and went berserk on that kid, and that had been the last time Bruce had seen him until just now, but what if something had happened before that? Did nobody catch this?
Nobody, not even Alfred, had caught what was inside Bruce, after all-and Tommy had most definitely not had an Alfred. Something with the father, though, or the mother, or both, and he can remember sitting in the waiting room with Tommy and trying to comfort him as Dad worked on Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, and he hadn't been able to do anything because the comforting wasn't needed until after the surgeries, when Dad had come out and told them-and Tommy hadn't been sad that his father was dead, only sad and furious his mother wasn't also.
Footsteps down the hallway, and Tommy comes back inside carrying a tray with alcohol, specialized shears, towels, bandages, and a small bowl. He's smiling politely once more, and Bruce remembers it had only been a couple weeks after the shooting when he and Tommy were playing chess again, when Tommy had said, "Happiness depends upon ourselves."
The tray is set down on the desk, but Tommy comes over and sits in the chair next to Bruce's and gestures for him to undress so the stitches can be taken out. As he stands and slips off his coat and slowly, carefully, and not entirely easily, pulls off the sweatshirt and undershirt, Bruce looks at Tommy and asks, "Who was it you always used to quote, you know, when we were kids?"
Tommy blinks, his face going blank for a second, and Bruce interprets that as genuine surprise, but then Tommy's smiling again. "Aristotle," he answers, quietly, and now he looks pleased. His entire face, eyes included, looks absolutely pleased and proud, and Bruce isn't quite sure what that means but doubts it's anything good. "You remembered," he adds.
Bruce nods and, after draping his clothes over the back of his chair, sits back down and slowly raises his arm, angling his body so Tommy has the most space to work in. "I knew it was someone important, anyway," Bruce remarks, and this time when Tommy meets his eyes, Bruce doesn't smile.
And Tommy gets it. He doesn't smile either, but there's something in his eyes now, and it's not warmth, at least not the kind one wants to stand anywhere near, but it's something-understanding maybe. It's life, anyway. There's someone home now, not just a lizard brain or a machine.
Then Tommy drops his eyes to Bruce's side and methodically begins taking out the stitches. First, he sterilizes the area and then the snips, and then he leans close and cuts one stitch, pulling it free and dropping it in the bowl on the tray, repeating the process again and again. His left knee and foot are touching Bruce's right leg and foot, and his fingers are warm and smooth and careful, and it's all Bruce can do not to shudder every time they touch skin.
Who is this Dr. Thomas Elliot, and what has he been doing-and why?
"There," Tommy says a moment later, scraping off the last stitch into the bowl and setting down the scissors on the tray. He reaches over and grabs the bottle of alcohol again and a sterile cloth and goes around the closed stab wound, gently, efficiently.
Bruce breathes in deeply again, and, meeting Tommy's eyes, now they both know Bruce was holding his breath. No grin or smile flits across his face. Instead, the smirk is all in Tommy's eyes, like that's where he really lives.
Bruce looks down at his side, and the seam is pink but healthy. "Great job, Doc," he says, lightly. "You're quite the hand at this whole healing thing."
Tommy nods, placing a large, thin Band-Aid over the wound and smoothing it down, his left hand sliding along Bruce's ribs at one point in something that is, in direct opposition to how it would be for anyone else and a doctor, disguised as a caress but is in fact a clinical assessment. Tommy's seen Bruce at his worst, delirious, on Death's doorstep from blood poisoning, and he's seen all the scars and felt all the damage. He knows Bruce's physical limitations, no doubt about that. This is Tommy proving that, telling Bruce in no uncertain terms that whatever this battle is they're waging-Tommy has the advantage.
"I enjoy it," Tommy says, responding to Bruce's comment. He then looks up as he moves back, the stitches out and his job done. "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work," he quotes.
There's no smile, no smirk, and the eyes are cold, but Bruce understands what he's saying.
Goodbye, Tommy.
And he might have felt sad about it, might still somewhere deep, but they're adults now. Everyone has a sob story, but not everyone decides to stage a mass breakout of the criminally insane for some greater purpose, and not everyone threatens people Bruce cares about.
Tommy isn't sad, and neither is Bruce.
"Thanks again, Tommy," Bruce says a few moments later, once he's dressed and they're both standing near the door of the office. "You saved my life back there."
Tommy nods and offers his hand, and Bruce shakes it.
"My pleasure," he answers. Then, he squeezes Bruce's hand and says, "Don't be a stranger now."
It's winter and therefore cold, but he doesn't feel it, not through the armor and not through the exertion of running, flat-out running, for blocks over obstacles and up a fire escape and across rooftops. There's no snow on the ground, and the condensation in the air has yet to fall as frost, so the way is clear, firm, and his body knows what to do. His feet are sure.
He'd put on the suit, but he isn't the Bat this time. The armor, what's still viable, yes, but the cowl and the cape had stayed back in the safe. He's just going to have to be careful when it comes to blows aimed at his head. Instead, it's back to the old ski mask routine.
And, getting ready, he'd slid shut the last latch on his left calf, testing it for any give, and when it was secure he'd repeated the process with the right side and then up, double- and triple-checking the plating around his left knee because of the brace. It hadn't been specifically designed with the armor in mind, and he'd noticed before that the brace had a tendency to, when he twisted his leg a certain way, catch on the plate right below his knee. As he comes to another alley, he tries it now, and, yes, it's still doing it, but at least he knows to continue to watch out for that. It's manageable, nothing too big-nothing like the ruined plate on the torso section where that sharp, curving knife had slammed in hard, deep, taking both air and conviction from him in one swift, precise move. Looking at that section of the armor now in the faint light of the city at night, the jagged edge of the hole, that's when the doubt just barely starts to creep in.
But, he can do this, take down the violently, criminally insane if he has to. This isn't about proving a point or making an example. This is duty and obligation. It should be silent, smooth, a shadow barely seen out the corner of one's eye.
God help the asshole who tries to mug or rape someone tonight. He's not feeling particularly merciful at the moment.
Once there, the clinic below does indeed have a line trailing out its door, just as John had said it did a few days ago. The people waiting are desperate and ill, and something deep inside him aches with the knowledge that they mean nothing to at least one of the caregivers within. They are a means to an end, and what that end is Bruce doesn't quite know, but it's not altruistic or humane.
Tommy was nice to him, condescending but nice, polite. Usually, they had just played chess, and Tommy would talk, and some of the things he'd said had made sense-and some things hadn't. Now, though, with what Bruce knows happened with Tommy after the two of them had drifted apart socially, those cruelly strange thoughts spoken in a child's voice do carry more weight and ring with a certain unpleasant truth. Tommy had always been cynical, often petty, but he was extremely intelligent and excelled at strategy. Upon his return all those years ago, when Bruce had heard through the grapevine all that had happened, it made the same kind of sense that Tommy would be a doctor as it did that Bruce would be-Batman. Power over life and death, justice, always in control and never the victims, not ever again, this is what they had become.
How proud their parents would be. Bruce's would be horrified, and Tommy's would laugh.
He's not here tonight, though. Bruce gets inside the clinic through one of the windows, and he finds a small office and knows immediately it's Dr. Thomas Elliot's, but it's dark and locked up for the night, and there's no voice in the building that could possibly be Tommy. The words aren't right, the sarcasm absent. The doctors and nurses and support staff on call tonight are all-too nice. They're good people, and Tommy most definitely is not.
He wonders if Tommy is anywhere near as convincing in his act as kindly Dr. Elliot as he was as idiotic billionaire Bruce Wayne.
And, alas, despite continuing to search through the night, he doesn't find him. He goes back to Selina's apartment, mentally prepared to defend the necessity of his actions, but neither John nor Selina is there. It's not right; he knows that. Something is happening here, coming to a head. But, who would know?
The mastermind behind it all.
So he peels off the armor and briefly cleans it but doesn't put it back in the safe. He just tucks it back into the closet and showers, shaves, puts on something inconspicuous, and bright and early at eight o'clock he goes back to the clinic.
Time to get the stitches out, after all.
"I'm here to see Dr. Elliot," he says to the man working the intake desk. The guy nods distractedly, eyes still down as he rifles through a huge pile of folders on the desk. Computers down, makes sense they'd resorted to paper documentation once again. Everything old is new again. Bruce clears his throat loudly, and the man glances up, down, and then comes back for the double-take, staring at Bruce and unfortunately obviously recognizing him. Before he can say anything, Bruce leans over the desk slightly and says, "Dr. Elliot. Please." He doesn't feel up to playing games with this man and isn't even sure the honeyed approach would work in the first place, so instead it's business-like and only slightly menacing. It's the fact that he's not worried about what he's doing right now that concerns him. He's walking around in public, and some people, thankfully not all, are going to recognize him, and word of this getting out. . .
Rumors. Gossip. They'll never prove anything, and soon it won't be an issue because he will be gone.
"Uh, yeah," the guy eventually says, moving out from behind the desk, clearly ill at ease, and leading him down a hallway and right to the door of that office Bruce had broke into just a few hours ago. He knocks on the door, looking at Bruce uncertainly as they wait, and Bruce almost smiles at him. What a strange situation this man is in, and he doesn't have the faintest idea. That's when, from over the man's shoulder, Bruce sees a figure come walking towards them from the other end of the hallway.
"Brett," the newcomer says, and the hair on the back of Bruce's neck stands up, and a shiver slides down his spine, "did you need something?"
Brett the desk guy turns around to answer, and in doing so Bruce is apparently revealed to be standing behind him.
"Yeah, Doctor, this is, uh- " and Brett awkwardly indicates Bruce, "he's here to see you."
Tommy is indeed a very good actor. Bruce just barely catches the tail end of surprise and anger, and even that's only visible in his eyes for half a second. The rest of his face is as perfectly composed as a portrait and just as immobile. A kind, blank smile, smooth forehead, and slight uptick to the eyebrows, and all that expression conveys is care and competence.
"Ah!" Tommy responds, nodding and briefly setting a hand on Brett's shoulder in reassurance. "Yes, well, thank you for showing him the way. Wouldn't want to get lost in a place like this!" He chuckles, and Brett relaxes under his hand and smiles.
"Glad I could help," Brett offers to both Tommy and Bruce. He then nods and politely takes his leave, most likely calmly walking back out to the front desk.
Bruce doesn't see that, though, his eyes pinned straight ahead. There's the space of two seconds after Brett's footfalls pass out of hearing range, during which neither of them breathes or moves, and then Tommy breaks eye contact and shifts to unlock his door. Once done, he flings it open and waves Bruce in pleasantly.
"After you," he says, happily, and loath as he is to allow Tommy at his back, Bruce nevertheless precedes him inside.
It's almost like a dream. Is this really happening? He feels disconnected but fully present. Maybe it's nerves. Maybe it's just-fear and desperation.
He turns around just as Tommy shuts the door, and then blinks when he's abruptly seized up in a tight and seemingly friendly bear hug.
"Oh, wow, Bruce!" Tommy says into his ear, and it's shocking and unsettling how convincingly relieved and overjoyed he sounds-an extremely good actor.
Bruce manages a few pats on the back, and then he attempts to pull away, but Tommy slides his hands down Bruce's arms and then grips his elbows, keeping him uncomfortably close.
"It's good to see you again," Tommy's mouth gushes, the coldness of the rest of his face showing it to be a lie. "Well," and here he chuckles again, "up and about anyway. I did see you a little while ago. . . "
Bruce seizes on that moment and steps out of reach definitively, Tommy's eyes never leaving his. He smiles, going for embarrassed and oblivious, saying, "And, boy, am I grateful to you for patching me up! My friends," he emphasizes, "were completely worried, but-you know me! I'm just a real klutz sometimes, not to mention pretty damn unlucky!" He punctuates this with a little chuckle of his own, Tommy grinning back in response, and here they stand.
"So," Tommy then says, moving away to lean against the top of his desk and waving Bruce over to one of the chairs in front of it, "it's been two weeks since I had a look at you. Ready to have those stitches taken out, I assume?" Another kind smile accompanied by calculating eyes.
Bruce nods, good humored and stupid, and, again, it's only for the briefest of moments, there and gone in a flash like before out in the hall, but as Tommy nods and gets to his feet, just as he's stepping around Bruce to leave the office to go and get the supplies, there is a wash of frustration and rage over his face. Then, he's temporarily gone, and Bruce sucks in a deep lungful of air, realizing he's been holding his breath for the last minute or two.
He's scared and is himself angry and frustrated, likely just as much as Tommy is, if for vastly different reasons. How did it get this bad? Had he always been like this, lying like this? Bruce knows that after his parents died, he and Tommy didn't spend much time alone together, but was that coincidental, or had someone, namely Alfred, seen something? There was the time at camp a couple years later when Tommy lost it and went berserk on that kid, and that had been the last time Bruce had seen him until just now, but what if something had happened before that? Did nobody catch this?
Nobody, not even Alfred, had caught what was inside Bruce, after all-and Tommy had most definitely not had an Alfred. Something with the father, though, or the mother, or both, and he can remember sitting in the waiting room with Tommy and trying to comfort him as Dad worked on Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, and he hadn't been able to do anything because the comforting wasn't needed until after the surgeries, when Dad had come out and told them-and Tommy hadn't been sad that his father was dead, only sad and furious his mother wasn't also.
Footsteps down the hallway, and Tommy comes back inside carrying a tray with alcohol, specialized shears, towels, bandages, and a small bowl. He's smiling politely once more, and Bruce remembers it had only been a couple weeks after the shooting when he and Tommy were playing chess again, when Tommy had said, "Happiness depends upon ourselves."
The tray is set down on the desk, but Tommy comes over and sits in the chair next to Bruce's and gestures for him to undress so the stitches can be taken out. As he stands and slips off his coat and slowly, carefully, and not entirely easily, pulls off the sweatshirt and undershirt, Bruce looks at Tommy and asks, "Who was it you always used to quote, you know, when we were kids?"
Tommy blinks, his face going blank for a second, and Bruce interprets that as genuine surprise, but then Tommy's smiling again. "Aristotle," he answers, quietly, and now he looks pleased. His entire face, eyes included, looks absolutely pleased and proud, and Bruce isn't quite sure what that means but doubts it's anything good. "You remembered," he adds.
Bruce nods and, after draping his clothes over the back of his chair, sits back down and slowly raises his arm, angling his body so Tommy has the most space to work in. "I knew it was someone important, anyway," Bruce remarks, and this time when Tommy meets his eyes, Bruce doesn't smile.
And Tommy gets it. He doesn't smile either, but there's something in his eyes now, and it's not warmth, at least not the kind one wants to stand anywhere near, but it's something-understanding maybe. It's life, anyway. There's someone home now, not just a lizard brain or a machine.
Then Tommy drops his eyes to Bruce's side and methodically begins taking out the stitches. First, he sterilizes the area and then the snips, and then he leans close and cuts one stitch, pulling it free and dropping it in the bowl on the tray, repeating the process again and again. His left knee and foot are touching Bruce's right leg and foot, and his fingers are warm and smooth and careful, and it's all Bruce can do not to shudder every time they touch skin.
Who is this Dr. Thomas Elliot, and what has he been doing-and why?
"There," Tommy says a moment later, scraping off the last stitch into the bowl and setting down the scissors on the tray. He reaches over and grabs the bottle of alcohol again and a sterile cloth and goes around the closed stab wound, gently, efficiently.
Bruce breathes in deeply again, and, meeting Tommy's eyes, now they both know Bruce was holding his breath. No grin or smile flits across his face. Instead, the smirk is all in Tommy's eyes, like that's where he really lives.
Bruce looks down at his side, and the seam is pink but healthy. "Great job, Doc," he says, lightly. "You're quite the hand at this whole healing thing."
Tommy nods, placing a large, thin Band-Aid over the wound and smoothing it down, his left hand sliding along Bruce's ribs at one point in something that is, in direct opposition to how it would be for anyone else and a doctor, disguised as a caress but is in fact a clinical assessment. Tommy's seen Bruce at his worst, delirious, on Death's doorstep from blood poisoning, and he's seen all the scars and felt all the damage. He knows Bruce's physical limitations, no doubt about that. This is Tommy proving that, telling Bruce in no uncertain terms that whatever this battle is they're waging-Tommy has the advantage.
"I enjoy it," Tommy says, responding to Bruce's comment. He then looks up as he moves back, the stitches out and his job done. "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work," he quotes.
There's no smile, no smirk, and the eyes are cold, but Bruce understands what he's saying.
Goodbye, Tommy.
And he might have felt sad about it, might still somewhere deep, but they're adults now. Everyone has a sob story, but not everyone decides to stage a mass breakout of the criminally insane for some greater purpose, and not everyone threatens people Bruce cares about.
Tommy isn't sad, and neither is Bruce.
"Thanks again, Tommy," Bruce says a few moments later, once he's dressed and they're both standing near the door of the office. "You saved my life back there."
Tommy nods and offers his hand, and Bruce shakes it.
"My pleasure," he answers. Then, he squeezes Bruce's hand and says, "Don't be a stranger now."