Author's Notes: Hey there! Well, this is what happens when you make your two beloved fandoms collide. This is my first time writing a Batman fic, as well as a Leverage one. I was mostly worried about the characterisations of Bruce and Nathan, but I guess they turned out okay in the end.

This is set in Batman Begins, after Joe Chill's trial. I thought that all Bruce really needed was someone who had felt the same pain he was feeling—and Nathan immediately came into my mind. Bruce has lost his parents, while Nate lost his only child—both deaths that could be avoided. They have this in common—I thought I could point it out by writing this one-shot.

I hope you enjoy it! Sorry if you find any mistakes, I'm Italian, though I'm constantly trying to improve my English. Have a pleasant reading! :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, nor Leverage – they belong to their respective creators.

Not Worth It

So, this was it.

This was what you were supposed to feel when you see the man responsible for the death of your parents get free before your eyes—the very eyes who watched the light leave your parents' eyes that night.

It's not fair. Honestly, how could it be fair? He killed two people; he killed people who had devoted their lives to Gotham City; he killed your parents. He should be in jail, screaming, asking for pity, going insane. You know he should (and you're sure other people think the same thing, as well)—and yet, here he is. Getting out of prison—the place where he should be—and walking free again.

It is frustrating to a point you cannot describe. This feeling that is burning inside of you—it's too much. It consumes you—and again, you think it's not fair. You always blamed yourself for what happened to your parents, while in reality he—the real murderer—he should be the one taking all the blame. He should be the one screaming, asking for pity, going insane—but it's not like that. You're the one going insane here.

It's frustrating. Unfair.

Justice doesn't exist. Not anymore. Not for you. Because justice is supposed to make you feel at least a bit better—knowing that the criminal who killed your parents didn't get away with it. Instead, he did—he got away with it. The local authorities seem to think that getting a piece of information on a dangerous mafia leader is more important than doing the Wayne family justice. The Waynes, who were all about Gotham. The Waynes, whose Wayne Tower was right in the middle of the city. The Waynes. Did that surname not count anymore? Did the meaning it held disappear along with his parents the night they died?

Suddenly, the word 'unfair' is not enough—not enough to describe what they're doing to him. Don't they see how miserable he is? Do they want to drive him completely mad? He had to see his parents die in front of him—wasn't that enough? When they captured the one who had killed them, he didn't feel anything. He was too young to feel anything beside sadness. Blaming himself was so easy then—and it still is now.

Over the years, he knew a part of him would still blame himself. He'd grown accustomed to it, eventually. But with the murderer—the real murderer, he had to remind himself—locked in jail, he felt somehow lighter. The whole world blamed that man—everyone knew he was guilty. And he—Bruce—he was just a victim—someone to pity.

Bruce didn't like being pitied. On the other hand, however, it kept him sane. Nobody blamed him. Nobody blamed the son of Thomas and Martha Wayne for their deaths—they had somebody else to blame. Even if it meant being pitied, at least they weren't blaming him. Bruce could live with it.

Now, however, with the murderer out and free, there was no one else to blame. No one he knew would be paying every day for their deaths. No one he could pity.

It was the only certainty in his life. And now that he didn't have that certainty anymore, Bruce felt he was on the verge of slipping into insanity.

And now, he was about to cross the line.

As he felt the cold gun in his hand, he vaguely knew he couldn't turn back once he'd kill Joe Chill—but the thought didn't scare him. He was determined, though he could still feel his whole body trembling at the idea of killing a man. Unlike Joe Chill, he had never killed anyone.

Before.

It would be over soon. Once Joe Chill came out of that door, it would just be a matter of seconds before he pulled the trigger and put and end to this. If justice wasn't going to help him, then he might as well make his own justice. At least it was better than nothing; it was better than losing himself silently every day, little by little.

He sat down on one of the benches outside the court hall, beside another man who looked like he was casually drinking coffee. He adjusted the gun in his hand, hiding it carefully under the coat's sleeve, that was pulled so that it covered his whole right hand.

He was panting slightly and looking around. It felt all so surreal.

But it had to be done. He would end this... just a matter of seconds, he kept telling himself, just a matter of seconds—

"I wouldn't do it, if I were you."

Bruce wasn't expecting the man beside him to suddenly talk. He jerked his head to the right, to look at the man, who had his eyes fixed in front of him, not looking at anything in particular. He observed him for a few seconds: he must have been around his mid-thirties, just like his father; he also had an apathetic look in his eyes.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I wouldn't do it."

For a moment, Bruce feared he'd been found out. It was impossible, though. Nobody knew—no one even suspected—that he was carrying a gun with him—how could this man know?

He decided to keep cool and play dumb. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bruce saw from the corner of his eye the man take a sip of his coffee and then sighing heavily. Was that... the smell of alcohol? Maybe this man was not drinking coffee, after all. He still refused to look at Bruce and kept his eyes fixed on the pavement.

"You are wearing a coat that is a bit too heavy for this season, seeing as the temperatures aren't that low yet. You are panting and looking around nervously—not to mention the way that you looked at one of the security guards not too long ago. And, above all, you've pulled your right sleeve so up that it practically covers your whole hand and, as if that's not enough, you're even putting your left hand on your right one, just to make sure it is well hidden—I'm talking about the gun, of course."

Bruce looked shockingly at the man, who just took another sip of his 'coffee'. He had explained everything so calmly and he had observed and read every movement Bruce had made, without him even noticing. Part of him wanted to panic, but he tried his best to stay calm.

"Who—who are you?" he asked, now fully looking at the man.

The man finally turned his head to look at Bruce, but his expression seemed incredibly peaceful for someone who knew was sitting beside a person with a gun. "Relax, I'm not a cop," he said, a slight smile forming on his lips.

He wasn't part of the police? Bruce could hardly believe that. He had found out he was hiding a gun from his behaviour—surely, if this man was not a cop, he must have been something else.

"You're Bruce Wayne, aren't you?" the man kindly asked.

Bruce simply gave a light nod. "And... you are...?"

The man sighed slightly and looked like he was actually thinking about his name, for a second. "Nathan. Nathan Ford," he finally answered.

They didn't shake hands; they didn't even try to. Bruce had never seen this man before in his life. He never recalled his father talking to, nor about someone named Nathan Ford. If this man didn't know him at all, then why was he so interested in talking to him? Plus, he knew he had gun... did he want to talk him into not using it, perhaps?

"Are you... going to—?"

"Tell them you have a gun?" Nathan finished, looking for a brief moment to the security guard, almost reading Bruce's mind. "Nah," he added, simply.

Was this man for real or was he just screwing with him? Bruce didn't know what to think of him, as he kept looking at Nathan, who meanwhile took another sip of... whatever he was drinking.

"You're not going to stop me?" Bruce asked, skeptical.

"I'm not from Gotham and I don't know you at all. Whatever you do is none of my business," Nathan replied, his voice calm and collected. "I was just giving you a piece of advice. Personally, I wouldn't do it—but you can do whatever you want. It's your life."

At this point, anyone might as well have considered Nathan to be weird or crazy—but not Bruce. He had to deal with people who told him what to do every day of his life—his father's co-workers, Rachel, even Alfred at certain times. Talking to someone who didn't care what he did, for once, was... refreshing, somehow.

"Besides, he's just betrayed a mafia boss. Do you really think he'll get out of here alive?" Nathan added, in a matter-of-fact tone. "He'll be a dead man as soon as he steps foot out of that door. Just because you want to see him dead, it doesn't necessarily mean you will be the one who's going to kill him."

It was good reasoning. Bruce hadn't thought of this possibility, truth to be told.

"He's got protection."

"Protection? You mean, like the security guard who still hasn't noticed you're hiding a gun even though it's practically plastered all over your face? Yeah, kid, great protection, indeed," Nathan joked.

Bruce chuckled, feeling a bit lighter and relaxed since he'd entered the courthouse that day. Bruce was grateful for that, even for just a moment.

"Gotham City is full of corruption. Eventually, someone will sell him to the mafia. Not to mention he's killed two of the most important and loved people in all Gotham. Everyone wants him either dead, or in jail," Nathan kept on talking, "If I were him, I would've stayed in prison, where he belongs."

Bruce couldn't argue with that. Gotham was indeed corrupted, even though his parents had always tried their best to save it. However, the last thing Nathan had said, it cheered him up a little.

Finally, somebody seemed to think the same thing that he did—finally, someone seemed to consider his parents' lives more important than some mafia boss. It pleased him to hear those words—they drove him back to sanity.

"The Judge and the prosecution office don't seem to think the same, apparently," Bruce bitterly said, while Nathan drank a little more of his beverage.

"The people in courthouses can do only that much. Sometimes they can't even do anything. Don't stress too much over them, it's useless."

Bruce looked down at the pavement, sighing slightly. "You're probably right."

"I'm always right," Nathan corrected him immediately.

Bruce found himself chuckling again. There was something about this man that was so... comforting, in a way, and relaxing. He was feeling a bit better than he was five minutes ago, only by talking to him.

His mind was not set on killing Joe Chill, nor on the gun in his right hand anymore—now he was just genuinely curious about the man beside him.

"What brings you in Gotham, Mr Ford?" Bruce asked, looking back at him.

"Call me Nate," Nathan said, turning to Bruce and smiling a little. "'Mr Ford' makes me feel much older than I really am."

Bruce let out a smile.

"I'm here... for work," Nathan replied—again, looking like he had been thinking before giving him an answer.

Bruce looked at him curiously. Something told him there was more to it. "Really? What do you do?"

Nathan smiled, but in a Cheshire cat kind of way. "I help people." Bruce raised an eyebrow at that. "It's a really important business. Very complex, too."

And with that, Bruce understood that Nathan wasn't going to say anything more about it. Bruce wondered if he worked for the mafia, but he immediately dismissed the thought. Sure, it probably would have explained how he'd noticed the gun—but it just wouldn't sound right. Nathan himself had told him he wasn't from Gotham and, last time Bruce checked, the mafia certainly didn't brag about 'helping people', as Nate put it.

"So, are you going to do it?" Nate suddenly asked.

Bruce woke up from his thoughts. "What?"

"Shooting Joe Chill. Are you still going to do it?"

Bruce found himself speechless. Was he? Did he really want to, after all? He had brought the gun, at this point it would've been easy to kill the man. He never questioned his actions until now. He didn't need to question himself—all he cared about was getting revenge, the revenge justice had denied him.

"It's not going to change anything, you know," Nathan added, going back to his cool and collected self. "Your parents are still dead; even if you kill him, it won't bring them back. You're doing this for revenge. There are many ways in which you can get revenge, but this is the worst you could pick."

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but he himself didn't know what to say. He kept on listening to Nathan, instead.

"Right now you're blinded by anger. I'm sure you haven't thought about it carefully. You're still young—if you end up in prison, you're going to stay there and get out when you're thirty. You will have wasted your whole life in jail. Surely, you don't want that—your parents wouldn't want that. It's not worth it. You're not a criminal—that's not the kind of man Bruce Wayne is."

"You never even met my parents," Bruce retorted. He couldn't stand when somebody told him what his parents would and wouldn't do, now that they were dead—and he hated it even more when it was coming from someone who didn't even know them. "And you certainly don't know who I am—"

"But I know your feelings."

There was a pause after Nathan's words, in which Bruce tried to think of something to say back, but he couldn't—he could only mentally wonder what Nathan meant by those words.

"I know what it's like to lose somebody close to you—very close to you. You're consumed by an incontrollable anger and you feel like you're going insane. You know it could have been avoided and you're blaming yourself every minute of the day—and nobody can understand what you're going through. They say it will all go away with time, but the truth is—it won't. This feeling, it'll stay as long as you live. You can only learn how to live with it."

Bruce couldn't believe what he was hearing. It did sound like Nathan knew what he was talking about—what Bruce himself was feeling. It was just... unbelievable.

"Now, you need to make a choice. You either let yourself get driven by that feeling, or you can take your first step into controlling it." Nathan was now looking at Bruce right in the eyes and Bruce suddenly felt like the other man could read him like an open book—and it sort of scared him. "What will you do?"

That question seemed to echo through Bruce's mind. He locked eyes with Nathan, while his mind was filled with confusing thoughts. He wasn't so sure of what to do anymore. Did he want to kill Joe Chill—to have somebody's blood on his hands? Could he live knowing he'd killed someone? Would his parents approve of this—would they be proud of him for killing the one man responsible for their deaths?

...no—no, they wouldn't.

Killing the man who had murdered his parents and spending his life in prison—it wasn't worth his parents' sacrifice. Ruining the rest of his life because of this—it wasn't worth the chance he'd been given at living by his own parents.

It wasn't that he'd forgiven Joe Chill—it wasn't like he wasn't angry at him anymore. He'd just come to understand the truth—it simply wasn't worth it.

When Joe Chill stepped out of the court hall, Bruce's grip on the gun failed. It was like he had suddenly come to his senses—like he'd woken up from a nightmare. Now he was certain of his choice—he wasn't going to kill Joe Chill.

A gunshot was heard, regardless.

People screamed and Joe Chill fell to the ground with a loud noise—just like his parents had. Somebody had shot him, though it was unknown who did it. The only thing that Bruce knew was that it wasn't him.

Just like Nathan had said, Joe Chill was killed only a few seconds after his release. Bruce turned to Nate to check if the man was alright, but to his surprise, he wasn't sitting on the bench anymore. Bruce looked around to search for the man, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. He had just disappeared, quite literally; as if he'd never even existed.

He didn't know why, he was certain that Nathan was not the one who killed Joe Chill. He just knew it wasn't him.

However, he noticed something on the bench. He got closer and found a small piece of paper. Bruce carefully took it in his hand, examining it. It read:

LEVERAGE
Consulting & Associates

He flipped it and smiled inwardly as he read the name on the back: Nathan Ford. Bruce thought it was the strangest business card he'd ever seen... and probably also the most beautiful one.

He owed the man. Had it not been for Nate, he would've pulled the trigger and killed Joe Chill—and now who knows what might have happened to him. He would've been arrested and sentenced to spend the next twenty years in jail, probably, like Nathan had said. Only now did Bruce realize that it really wasn't the brightest idea—and that he certainly did not want to end up like that.

Nate was right. He couldn't get rid of this feeling inside of him—but at least he could learn to control it, like he had done today.

After that accident, Bruce decided that he had to get away from Gotham for a while. He needed to learn how to control that feeling—to live with it.

And who knows—maybe he'd be able to meet Nathan Ford again one day and show him what kind of man Bruce Wayne really was.

Final Notes: Wow, I managed to write this in three days—I thought I would have needed much more time. I'm pretty happy with the result, I hope you enjoyed it as well. :) I also might write another Batman/Leverage crossover in the future, or maybe even a sequel to this. Let's see if my inspiration decides to come around.

Feedback is very much appreciated! :D