"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."

― Mahatma Gandhi

Bruce: I want to make it clear that this is purely a social visit. Nothing more.

John: Of course. If it were otherwise, you'd be paying me.

Bruce: I am paying you.

John: I can't accept that. That would be a breach in my ethical code. Either this is a session, or it isn't.

Bruce: I need discretion.

John: But you don't want my services… As a therapist I'm bound by code to be discreet, but if it's a friend you need, my word is bond, and I'll give you the discretion of a friend.

Bruce: Mind if I pour myself a drink?

John: I thought you didn't drink.

Bruce: What are you talking about? You can't pick up a paper that hasn't once snapped a photo of me with a glass to my mouth. You've seen me drinking, in person.

John: It seems to bother you more that I've got a good eye you acting drunk at the gala, than your defacement by the press.

Bruce: (sips) Goddamn that's rich. Where'd you get this stuff? I've never heard of it.

John: It's hard to get your hands on in the states. My uncle sends a cask from the home land. And I need to point out that you've made your decision. Now that you're drinking this can only be a friendly visit.

Bruce: I owed you a visit anyway. I'm sorry you got canned. Wasn't my decision. I'm the CEO, but it's like how the Queen of England can't stop a restaurant from firing the wait staff. It's called a chain of command.

John: Comparing yourself to royalty certainly makes you sound conceited.

Bruce: What? You don't think I am? Like, maybe I've got a deep emotional core made of gold? Problem with that theory it really is the reverse. People only ever see the gold. I'm nothing but walking money to them out there, but in reality I'm all hollow on the inside.

John: Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?

Bruce: (shrugs).

John: I think you're trying to throw me off the scent. Probably by habit. I know when you're deflecting, but you wanted to talk to me. If you'd like, I can keep indulging you though.

Bruce: No wonder you were fired. What kind of a therapist would say that shit?

John: Probably not a good one, if this were a first session. But we're just friends having a conversation. Usually I would have all the time in the world to coddle and build trust; I get paid the same. But, as a friend, I'm being honest and direct with you. And, honestly, I can see through your bullshit.

Bruce: Sorry if I'm being a bit of a prick. It's not intentional.

John: Pricks typically aren't pricks intentionally. Do you find that you do it intentionally?

Bruce: …

John: Let me ask you this; what do you hope people see when they're looking at Bruce Wayne?

Bruce: Men or the Ladies?

John: Let's take sex out of the equation.

Bruce: A prick. A guy charming enough to be approachable, but selfish and juvenile enough to discourage lasting relationships.

John: What you're telling me is you're faking?

So you want me to believe that your whole image, all of who you are perceived to be isn't by accident, but is an elaborate caricature?

Because I do believe you. Not to say that it isn't quite elaborate and wholly convincing. In my case, I've only been able to spot you out as a fake because a conman has the preternatural ability to sense his fellow conmen.

I'm not going to pretend to know what is behind the suit that you call Bruce, and I'm not even going to pry. It's not important to me, and you'll feel more at ease knowing I'm not interested. I will, however, confess to you that the true Dr. Crane isn't a genial and warm man, but a bit of a psychopath.

That doesn't seem to alarm you.

Bruce: So you're a psychopath. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean to me. You're not a violent man or even dangerous. Apparently lack of empathy isn't a requirement to be a good psychologist, based on your work. I believe you're a bit of a hemophobe as well.

John: No one knows about my aversion to blood.

Bruce: Reading your credentials and educational records was like a pop-up book. Test scores like yours, all to quickly switch gears from a medical degree… and you're methodical; not a flippant man.

John: You investigated me before deciding to be my friend?

Bruce: I needed to know if I could trust you. Plus, isn't that your MO as well?

John: Of course. As I was explaining, I, at least, am less than neurologically typical.

Bruce: Please, continue that thread about how you can hardly stand other humans.

John: I never said that.

Bruce: (raises eyebrow)

John: But, yes, that's true. I don't feel a care for people in any capacity, save for the puzzle that they pose. My true desire is to dissect the brain of interesting specimens around me. I originally was in school to be a brain surgeon, but the first whiff of a cadaver sent me fleeing. I then opted to be a neuroscientist at a brain bank, but without blood those masses of fat are as lifeless as they are uninteresting. So, I took the one career that pays to legally and bloodlessly vivisect live patients.

All my manners and tact are learned and meticulously sewn together from my own selection of character traits like a Frankenstein's personality Monster. I don't care for my patients, not emotionally. I am intrigued by the neurons, the flesh, the pulse rushing in and out of that organ. A person's body, to me, basically just looks like a grotesque life-support machine

It just so happens that I unwittingly am helping my patients. Apparently it doesn't matter what the objective of the scarecrow, as long as it keeps the corn safe from crows. I'm very proficient when it comes to therapy, which isn't me boasting. A boast is when you're proud of something. My secret weapon is my apathy. Being in the negatives of sympathy has endowed me superhuman empathy, because I see what those emotionally involved refuse to see. A brain is a machine, a gizmo, a box of wires. Unplug that wire and rewire it into a different socket, and that causes this or that to happen. And thus, a mind can be boiled down to basic cause and effects.

Bruce: Wow. You're really confiding in me.

John: Is that a sarcastic tone? I sincerely did just level with you.

Bruce: Yes you did. But only so I'll now I feel more open to confiding in you. You're attempting to tinker around with my "gizmo."

John: If you're the savant genius boy here, you reveal to me, why is it so hard for you to express to me the real issue that brought you here?

Bruce: You're right, you're right. But, it's like you said. This identity has been meticulously crafted. Problem is, once you've pretended to be someone for long enough, it's all muscle memory from there. I think that's my problem. I've worn a mask for so long, I'm afraid that whatever was beneath has eroded over time, and the mask is now fused into the flesh and muscle.

John: I think I know what you mean. Bring me to the beginning. When did this begin?

Bruce: Bruce Wayne has always been my hack fiction I sold to the masses. Me, the real me, for as long as I can remember, has worked behind the scenes. Incognito, if you will.

John: Like a spy?

Bruce: Like a Kuroko, from Japanese theatre. I'm a behind the scenes stage-hand. Bruce Wayne is the actor. Or, even sometimes, just a painted background.

John: Behind the scenes meaning…?

Bruce: I've been doing anonymous charity work.

John: Alright, I won't ask why this had to be so private. I guess whatever you've been up to, it is pretty valiant of you to go unnoticed in this charity work. It's opposite of the sleazy "look at me!" mentality so many people have while enacting their "generosity."

What I want to know is, when did this split between you and Bruce first manifest? What was the lightning strike that cracked the tree in half?

Bruce: (chuckles)

Guess.

John: Your parents murder.

Bruce: Ya. That's what I want to talk to you about.

(Deep breath)

For as long as I can remember I've drawn mass amounts of strength from their deaths. I'd never admitted that I treated their memory as nothing more than a well, but now that well's run dry.

At my mansion, over my mantle piece, I've kept a preposterously oversized portrait of the three of us. No photos or any other paintings exist of the whole family together. Used to be I'd look up at that painting and I'd feel so sad and mad and hurt, but all in this darkly cathartic way. I fetishized them dying, I know that now. I felt recharged, and took the voltage their demise gave me and turned around and tried powering Gotham City with that conviction.

The other day I looked up at the painting, and I realized how silly it looked. I was having an out of body experience.

I was the me no longer playing the me I thought I truly was, but was the true, actual me. The me that made the Bruce Wayne character, but also devised what I'd believed to be my true identity.

(Chuckles) I hope that makes sense.

And that painting was obviously juvenile and ugly. It didn't make me feel bigger anymore, just sick. I threw it in the trash like a torn sock. No big ritual like burning it in the fireplace or anything.

That's my personal story. Who gives a shit? What gives me chills is what happened after that. I walked by a person who needed my help, and helping people has been my life, my one goal.

As a metaphor, let's say it was a lady who got her purse stolen by some thug. Well, the thug ran right by me; and I'm a pretty fit guy. I know it would've been nothing to close-line this dude and toss the purse back to the woman, but… I lacked that spark I've always counted on that usually goes off. I was numb. I didn't do anything. So, did realizing the true Me I thought was the authentic Me was just another manifestation, somehow dispel that aspect of me for good?

John: After you were numb and didn't act in the fashion you've come to envision yourself acting in, what feeling lingered.

Bruce: Impotence.

John: Ever since you were a boy you've been self canonized as a saint through your parent's deaths by baptizing yourself everyday in remembering their demise? You've been defining yourself by your boyhood trauma, and gaining power by those strong lingering emotions?

Bruce: (Shrugs).

John: Wounds close, heal, and fade along with the pain. Trauma can resolve itself over time. Have you considered that after so many decades of forcing yourself to care, you simply don't anymore? People move on, as often involuntarily as on purpose.

Bruce: So how do I get my motivation back?

John: You want to reopen old wounds?

After all this time you might find that process like trying to lacerate healthily weaved fibrous tissues; it takes a deeper cut to create a new wound where an old one scarred over.

Bruce: Fine. How do I do that?

John: Kill whoever is closest to you now. Or, at least, be somewhere you're able to witness them getting slaughtered.

Bruce: I'm serious. Lives depend on this. How do I get my mojo back?

John: Have you tried to see this as an opportunity, rather than a loss? Maybe you've gained something.

Bruce: As a man, my body reacts to my will, and my will acts on my emotions. By losing the passion I had, I'm as good as paralyzed. That's what it felt like the other day.

John: During your moment of impotence?

Bruce: So what the hell have I gained?

John: You tell me.

Bruce: Goddamnit. I came to you. If it was that easy I would've just sat in a dark room.

John: Fair enough. Well, in my opinion, as it sounds to me, you had a lucid moment when looking at the painting, which in turn has provided you the chance to trade in a pathological obsession for a healthy means of coping with your life for once.

Bruce: I don't care about my life.

John: Don't you? Didn't you just tell me lives depend on you? Ergo, to help those lives, you must be helped, and the most apt candidate in the world for the job is you.

— -

John: Before you finish that bottle, could you pour me a glass; neat.

So you've spent your entire adult life pursuing one goal?

Bruce: Longer than that. When I was still a kid I made up my mind of what my purpose was and dedicated every moment of my life into reaching that end.

John: Exemplary. That is, if you've progressed in achieving this anonymous goal. Surely, with your resolve and sacrifice you're near that end.

Bruce: Not even close. In fact, it sometimes feels like I've made things worse, that I've retreated from that end. I wonder if it's my nightmares that I'm manifest, rather than my dreams.

John: Sounds like a problem with your method. How often do you consider revising your plans on how to manifest your dreams?

Bruce: Occasionally. Problem is, it's impossible to experiment with new methods. It's all set up like a mechanical heart. To touch or even peer at it would mean a lot of blood and likely lead to deaths.

John: (Whistles) Those are some high stakes.

Bruce: There's one person in particular. I've been trying to help them for as long as I've known them.

They are a bit of an extreme case, even for me. They're a danger to themselves and the people around them, but the harder my punishment on them and the more severe my hand, the more they act out. It's like my violence is redoubling through them.

John: So this… person, they act out in some crazy or violent way, then you swoop in, dish it out hard, and the problem persists then intensifies? So, you're actively reinforcing this individual's behavior that you'll give them attention if they act out, and you're surprised they keep acting out?

Bruce: What? I'm not reinforcing anything. I'm punishing their behavior.

John: Not if they're rewarded by your hand, no matter how severe.

Just because the reinforcement results in something harmful, doesn't mean it's not reinforcement.

Bruce: So, like, I thought I was taking away what they wanted by stopping them from thrashing about, but really, I may have been giving them what they really wanted; which is me…

John: If you alter your routine so as to truly punish, as opposed to incidentally reinforce, you could alter their routine into acting in a conductive, rather than destructive manner.

Bruce: But I told you, trying anything new is dangerous.

John: Yes, yes. So is remaining the same, from the sound of things. But you must change how you operate. Have you ever heard of an Extinction Burst?

Author's Note: Extinction burst refers to the concept of, after discouraging a behavior by refusing to reinforce it, before the behavior "bursts." After the burst is also not reinforced, the behavior is that much more likely to go completely extinct.