[for manorly_wayne]

[alan_shore]

The guards at Blackgate are starting to know him by sight. There are no pleasantries exchanged (unless the occasional sneered “Mr. Shore” can be considered a pleasantry) or special privileges accorded (although this is Gotham-there are some who’d say emerging unscathed from one of its prisons is a special privilege), but he’s now a known quantity,

Comments

[manorly_wayne]

Bruce Wayne is far from being the ideal client

[alan_shore]

Ironically--or, who knows, perhaps deliberately (don't think Alan hasn't mulled over Bruce's impeccably timed decision to hire him)--Bruce has selected a lawyer who, on a good day, could take or leave his career, and on a bad one is actively attempting to destroy it. Alan doesn't particularly need the money, either, and enjoys media attention only in the form of off-the-record interviews with attractive female reporters.

Which raises the question: what's in it for him?

"I'll try to be gentler than your last partner," he says, and although both voice and expression remain impassive, his jaw does clench. "What happened?"

[manorly_wayne]

Bruce isn't going to answer that. He doesn't think it's important, he doesn't think it's relevant, he thinks the answer is obvious. Why ask him questions when Alan can work out the information himself? It's ridiculous

[alan_shore]

It wasn't an answer Alan had been interested in so much as a reaction--any reaction, any form of acknowledgement. Bruce hasn't so much as made passing reference to the fact that his face has been pounded in.

"Business," he repeats, flatly. "Here's a notion, if I may be so bold: how about we set business aside for the moment and instead divert ourselves with cobbling together a defense that might allow us to postpone your departure from this earth?"