Break My Fall 1/4
Title: Break My Fall
Author: cyranothe2nd
Word Count: 22,768 (!)
Rating: NC-17
Beta: 1bad_joke and Siri
Disclaimer: This work is based on characters and concepts created and owned by DC Comics, Warner Bros. and other entities and corporations. No money is being made and no copyright and/or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: Nolan-verse, alt-canon, original character death, minor canon character death, violence, sexual violence, language, angst, internalized homophobia
Summary: Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes. Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.
Something is wrong with Bruce.
Everyone says so.
They call him ‘Orphan Wayne,’ or ‘The Little Heir,’ or, in one blatantly blue piece of journalism, ‘The Loneliest Billionaire.’ Alfred gathers the papers and throws them away with the rubbish, but Bruce sneaks them out and reads the articles, one-by-one. Each word catches in his chest and makes his throat burn, but he reads them carefully, writing down the words he doesn’t know and looking them up in the big dictionary in his father’s study.
Homicide.
Philanthropist.
Bereft.
He lays flowers on his parents’ graves, dressed in crow-black, as the reporters circle and snap pictures. Alfred tries to prevent it, but it makes little difference.
Bruce pretends not to see them.
“Bruce, tell us how sad you feel to lose your parents,” a reporter directs the silent boy. And Bruce is sad. But what he feels most of the time is not sadness.
It is rage.
Something is wrong with Bruce, and everyone can see it. His teachers treat him with ginger concern, always watching, as if they know some secret he doesn’t. His peers don’t like him. They think that he is an arrogant rich boy. They think he is weird because he has no family. They think he is stupid because he keeps quiet.
Bruce isn’t stupid. He is bored. He has read each of his textbooks by the second month of school, memorized the biological classifications and the planets of the solar system. The other kids in his class don’t read much outside of school. They certainly don’t spend hours in the library, poring over college chemistry textbooks. They don’t obsessively read the crime sections of several newspapers and keep a careful catalogue of notes, tracking patterns, sifting for clues. Trying to make order out of chaos.
Bruce wonders if it is him that is disordered.
The teacher calls on him, and he deliberately provides the wrong answer. His classmates laugh, and he smiles at them. Even the teacher is amused; he has been careful to maintain a rapport with all of his teachers.
Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Bruce recites in his head. Family, Genus, Species.
Something is wrong with Bruce, but whether the sickness was always there, lying in wait, or whether the death of his parents caused it, he does not know. What Bruce knows is that, deep down, he is not normal.
When he is thirteen years old, he is suspended from school for fighting. Alfred patches him up, face drawn and weary. He doesn’t shout or lecture or any of the things that parents are supposed to do. He does not presume. Instead, he tells Bruce that his fitness as Bruce’s guardian is being questioned. There will be a hearing and, until then, Bruce must go to counseling.
Bruce hates the councilor. He hates her hennaed hair and her tight-lipped smile. He hates the way she asks questions, and the way her eyes study him when he answers. Her eyes are beady and dark-crow’s eyes-and he feels like an experiment in a dish.
“How did you feel when you struck the boy?” she wants to know.
And he answers truthfully, “Nothing.”
Later, the woman pulls Alfred aside and says quiet words to him, watching Bruce as she whispers into the old man’s ear. Alfred pulls away, his eyes going terribly livid for a moment, before he barks, “Come, Master Bruce. Let’s go home.”
It is the only time that Bruce has ever seen Alfred truly angry. The knuckles of the hand wrapped around the steering wheel are white. “I wish that I could forbid you to go back to that place,” Alfred says, tightly. “But I cannot. Do you understand?”
Bruce nods. He does understand.
Bruce spends the entire next day in the library, reading every book on child psychology that he can get his hands on. He learns how to answer the councilor’s questions in acceptable ways. He learns how to smile, and to nod, and to “make progress.”
He learns how to pretend.
He pretends so well, that soon enough everyone forgets. The teachers lose their wariness. His peers invite him to their parties. The councilor testifies on Alfred’s behalf. The reporters stop coming around. Everyone believes that he is fine.
But deep inside, Bruce knows that he is not fine. He does not fit. He is out of order.
He is alone.
Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes.
***
Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.
***
Batman drops from the ventilation shaft into Joker’s padded cell.
It has taken Batman a year to find a way inside Arkham Asylum. Now, it seems like it was a fool’s errand. Joker sits unmoving on his narrow bed. His greasy green hair has been shaved close to the scalp, his makeup washed away to reveal a narrow, pale face bracketed with scars. His legs are splayed out in front on him, the left wrapped in a brace that covered his threadbare drawstring pants from calf to thigh. An injury from Joker trip down from the Pruitt Building; a compound fracture that never healed properly. Joker’s eyes are glassy and unfocused. His hands, inside padded leather cuffs, lie bony and motionless in his lap.
He looks like a rag, folded in on himself, paper-thin and pale. His file says he is catatonic, unresponsive to therapy or medication.
Batman doesn’t believe it.
“Joker,” Batman hisses. His whisper seems loud in the still room. He hears the distant moan of another inmate, a shuffle of feet, the creak of a bed as someone turns over. No answer from the clown.
He crosses the room in an angry stride and shakes him. “Joker!” he tries again, more sharply. Joker’s head flops loosely on his neck and Batman releases him, watching as he slumps over onto the thin bed.
Nothing. No movement. Not a snide remark, nor mocking smile, nor even a spark of recognition.
This is a waste of time.
Batman moves to go, when a low, hoarse sound stops him.
“Ah-“ There’s a long intake of breath, an obvious effort to try again. “I know why you’re here.”
He turns. Joker is still slumped over like a marionette with its strings cut, but his eyes have focused on Batman.
There is a long, tense moment where they simple stare at each other. Batman has forgotten the power in that gaze-uncanny intelligence and relentless obsession like a freight train running him down.
“Bruce,” Joker slurs and Batman snaps into action, curling his fists into Joker’s soft grey t-shirt and lifting him bodily from the bed. He slams him against the wall, Joker’s knees knocking into his thighs with the impact and there it is--the mad swell of laughter. He cocks his fist back, wanting nothing so much as Joker blood on his gauntlet, when a noise makes them both freeze.
Footsteps outside the door, and Batman steps away, letting the clown crumple back onto the bed. He leaves as quickly and as silently as he can. He is barely outside Joker’s cell when he hears the door crash open, and Joker’s bright, “I’m glad you boys could make it,” before the sound of the guard’s shout and a fist impacting flesh.
Batman is gone before the fight is over.
***
“Hold him,” Mario Maroni says.
Bruce’s arms are yanked behind him and Mario’s fist plants into his stomach. The blow knocks the wind out of Bruce, tears springing to his eyes. Mario draws back his fist and punches Bruce again. The pain is blinding, knocking his feet out from under him. He sags into the grip of the two other boys.
“Hey there, rich boy,” Mario croons, cradling Bruce’s chin in one hand. “You’re in the wrong part of town.” He smiles nastily at Bruce, brushing a hand against the collar of Bruce’s coat. Bruce shifts away as much as he is able, and Mario lets him, a cruel smile still lighting his brutish face.
“I could break that pretty nose of yours. Really teach you a lesson.” He laughs and his idiot friends guffaw, and Bruce tries to pull himself together and think. He gets his feet back under him, and kicks out, connecting with Mario’s knee. The boy goes down and Bruce struggles against the hands holding him. He gets one arm free but then Mario is to his feet, pushing him against the wall of the alley and grinding his face against cold bricks.
“Now, that wasn’t nice,” Mario says. “Rich boys like you should learn who runs this town.” He pulls Bruce around by the back of his jacket. The blow lands on his cheek, pain blossoming across his jaw. He pitches back, head ricocheting against the wall and into the next punch. He tries to defend himself, but there are three of them and, while he lands a few punches, he knows they are just toying with him. Another punch to his gut and Bruce is crumpling to the ground. He curls into himself as they kick him a few times.
“You want this?”
Bruce looks up, rage burning in his chest. The left side of his face aches with the movement. Mario is holding the necklace-Rachel’s necklace, the one her mother had given her for birthday and that Mario had stolen from her locker at school-in front of Bruce’s face. Bruce snatches for it, but Mario is quicker. He pulls it away, laughing. “You want it?” He cocks his arm back and throws it, the gold chain glittering as it arcs into the trash piled at the end of the alleyway. “Go get it!”
Mario kicks him one more time and he and his friends leave.
It takes Bruce a long minute to uncurl himself and scramble to the back of the alley. He digs carefully through leaves, broken bottles and other detritus, looking for the necklace. Rachel was crushed when she found it missing, and none of the teachers would do anything-even when Rachel had seen Mario wearing it the next day. Cold anger scorches him at the memory of Rachel’s tear-streaked face. He shifts a large piece of glass out of his way, still probing for the discarded piece of jewelry. He is so intent on his task that he doesn’t hear the other boy until he’s right next to him.
High, eerie laughter awakens him to another presence and Bruce jumps, spins around in a crouch.
The boy is leaning up again the side of the building, and he’s laughing like he’s just heard the funniest thing in the world. Long streams of giggles bend him over, bony hands clutching his ribs in glee. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that are at least two sizes too big for his tall, lanky frame. The t-shirt is a garish bright pink, and the blond hair that hangs in front of his face is long and stringy. He lifts his head, the giggles still bursting out of his wide red mouth and-oh my god, his face, Bruce thinks and stares. Long, angry red cuts extended the laughing mouth, dark thread binding the broken skin in uneven stitches that look swollen and painful. Bruce can see the skin break as the boy tips his head back and howls, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“You,” the boy gasps, trying to speak past his mirth. “You just got your ass handed to you, didn’t you?”
Bruce blinks, forces himself to stop staring at the horrific gashes that mar the boy’s face. And he is a boy; Bruce can see that now. Despite his height, he can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen, and painfully thin. He is mostly clean, but has the ragged look of someone who’s lived on the street for a while. No track marks on his bare arms, though. No sores on his face or neck. Just those long, jagged cuts.
“I don’t really see how that’s so funny,” Bruce says sullenly. He turns back to his task, dismissing the laughing boy.
“Of course you don’t,” the boy says gleefully. His laughter tapers off, and he unwinds himself from the wall, shivering all over in delight. “That’s because you lost.”
“I didn’t lose,” Bruce answers sullenly. He could kick himself. He doesn’t know why he’s letting this strange, and probably crazy, boy bait him like this. “There were three of them. It wasn’t fair.”
Bruce only has a moment to curse his inattention before the boy springs across the distance between them, his surprisingly strong hands gripping Bruce’s shoulders painfully. “Fair?” he mocks. His face is so close to Bruce’s that he cannot look away, watching in disgusted fascination as the gashes on his face bunch and move with the boy’s words. “There is no fairness in this world, Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce starts, surprised as he always in when people he doesn’t know seem to know him. He twists away, shrugging the younger boy’s hands off him. The boy leans back onto his heels, amused. He holds out his hand, Rachel’s necklace dangling from his fingertips.
He pulls it away as Bruce snatches for it. “Fair doesn’t matter,” he says. He catches Bruce’s eye and his eyes are green, bright and intense. Bruce was wrong about the boy’s age. His eyes are old, far older than his thin, boyish body suggests. Bruce is trapped by that gaze, staring back for a long, dumbstruck moment. His brain is working to catch up, still reeling from the beating he received, and the boy’s sudden and unnerving change of mood.
The boy seizes Bruce’s wrist, uncurling Bruce’s fingers and dropping the necklace inside. He closes Bruce’s fingers around it, gives them a little pat and releases him. He stands, goes to the mouth of the alley. Bruce is still crouched next to a heap of trash, watching the boy as he hesitates between the darkness of the alley and the daylight beyond.
“What matters is who wins,” the boy throws over his shoulder. He slips smoothly into the crowded street and disappears.
***
Batman crouches on the roof of Arkham Asylum, winter snow spiraling down around him and onto the mostly barren grounds. The frozen grass is white, wind-blasted shrubs and stunted trees black in the moonlight. In is near midnight, and there is no sound from inside. The winter has been crueler than most, freezing water pipes and trapping many people in their homes. The ones who venture out find that most businesses are closing early, if they are opening at all, and the streets are caked with thick layers of ice. Even the denizens of Gotham’s notorious prison for the criminally insane seem to have hunkered down for the winter.
Batman is glad for the quiet, but he dreads what it might mean.
Joker had celebrated his reawakening with the murder of two hospital orderlies. The clown was eventually sedated and moved to a high-security wing. Batman can no longer reach him without a full-scale assault on the hospital. But he has no doubt that the madman is biding his time, planning. Batman curses himself for visiting him, for contributing to his growing obsession. Without Batman, Joker had been nothing. If he hadn’t been so intent on getting answers from the madman then none of this would have happened.
His guilt cuts far deeper than that, Batman knows. Across years, decades. So many times he’s failed. So many things he could have done to stop this before it even started. He tries not to think about it. He tries to neatly bisect his life: before Joker and after-- but he knows it’s futile. Joker was always there, waiting. Just like Batman was. It would have always found them both, no matter what either of them could or should have done.
Batman has no confidence in Arkham Asylum’s ability to retain Joker. Joker will leave when it pleases him, and start their bloody game all over again.
And so he stands a lonely vigil, waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to touch the horizon before he rises from his crouch, stiff with cold, and abandons his post for a few precious hours of sleep.
***
It is a couple weeks before he sees the boy again.
Bruce is cutting across Broad Street on his way downtown, dodging traffic and weaving through pedestrians. He loves being out in the city. It’s remarkable, the times he can just walk around Gotham without being recognized. That’s why it’s so jarring when it does happens; he’s always stupidly surprised when people call him by name, or act like they know him. The media has left him alone for the past few years, though he knows that interest will ramp up with the anniversary of his parent’s deaths, and his seventeenth birthday, just around the corner. Truth is, he’s been dreading the increased scrutiny and attention that comes with being the sole heir to the Wayne fortune. He sometimes wishes he could just slip away, trek across the world as a nameless no one.
Getting lost in the twisting streets of Gotham is the next best thing. The spring sunshine warms him as he moves, loose-limbed despite the bruises still hidden underneath his clothing, the remnants of Mario Maroni’s handiwork. The thought of the bully still sends a cold shock of anger through Bruce. He wishes he’d been able to teach him a lesson. The humiliation of letting a guy like Maroni beat him burns. Mario Maroni is a coward, hiding behind his father’s name, committing petty theft and aimless acts of cruelty at school, untouchable because even the adults are scared of him.
Bruce doesn’t want revenge. He wants justice. And it burns him that he is not likely to get it.
Bruce is passing the space between two storefronts when he hears an eerie, and familiar, giggle. His mind flashes to two weeks ago, and the strange, infuriating boy in the alley. He is moving before he’s even thought of it, following the siren sound of high-pitched laughter down a side street.
He sees them from a dozen yards away. Two figures in a deserted parking lot: the boy, dangling by his shirtfront, laughing in the face of a huge brute of a man. The man draws his fist back. The boy’s body rocks with the force of the blow. The laughter does not stop.
“Hey,” Bruce shouts.
Neither figure pays him any attention. The man punches the skinny boy again, letting him crumple to the pavement. The boy howls, curling around himself as giggles burst from his too-wide mouth.
“Shut up,” the man barks, raising a foot to kick him.
And then the boy moves, faster than Bruce has ever seen anyone move. He grabs the man’s foot in both hands and pushes. The man overbalances and falls down, the boy rolling smoothly up and over him, planting himself on the man’s chest. The man attempts to shake him off, but a flash of silver freezes him.
“Now it’s my turn,” the boy says in an uncannily calm voice. He shakes his head, dripping blood onto the man’s shirt. His knife hand moves. The man screams, and Bruce, who has slowed to watch, races forward again.
“Hey,” he shouts.
The boy’s head snaps up. His face is all sharp, pale lines and wide red mouth. There is blood on his knife. The boys grin is feral.
Time dilates. Bruce can feel him lungs burning, his legs churning over pavement, trying to get to the man because he is certain, absolutely certain, that the boy is going to kill him. He has to stop it. He has to stop him.
He stretches, strains forward even as the boy turns back to his victim with another eerie chuckle, and then everything snaps into bright focus as the sound of a siren rends the afternoon quiet. Bruce almost collapses with relief. Someone has called the police.
The boy’s knife is quickly stashed into a pocket. He pats the man’s face, says something that Bruce doesn’t catch, and rolls to his feet, sprinting away.
The man levers himself up, hand clutching his neck. There is blood trickling from between his fingers but he doesn’t wait for the police. He ducks into a nearby building. Bruce jogs towards the end of the street and looks.
There is no sign of the skinny boy.
***
Bruce stretches his right knee under the desk, rubbing at the underside of the joint absently as he leafs through paperwork. He ignores the pages with the Wayne Enterprises logo, reaching for the file that Alfred had handed him this morning instead. It contains the latest press clippings on the Dent Act, signed into law by Mayor Garcia that morning. A new era of hope, the mayor calls it. A city that no longer needs Batman. Bruce places his hand over the crisp, white sheets of paper. His knee throbs, the ache a constant background hum.
The shrill ring of his deskphone interrupts his reading.
“Bruce Wayne,” he answers, still staring down at the newsprint, his eyes caught on the words masked vigilante…murdered…hope.
“Ahoy there, sailor,” a shrill voice coos.
Bruce’s head snaps up.
“You know, you may want to have words with that secretary of yours. Ten minutes on hold, and my phone time’s almost up.”
Bruce swallows drily. “What do you want?” he rasps.
“Oooooh! You know I love the voice. Though it must be hell on your throat,” Joker’s voice drops. “Does Alfred provide lozenges? I bet he does.”
His hee-hawing laugher brays down the phone line. “I was so happy it was you. I mean, I knew, of course. But still…oh yes, so happy. Such a great punchline, you know?”
Bruce’s control snaps. “What. Do. You. Want?”
“What do you want, hmmmm?” Joker mocks. “You came to me, remember.”
Bruce remains silent. On the other end, there’s a huff of impatience.
“Oh fine, you want me to tell you. Fine.” He clears his throat theatrically. “You want to know why.” He draws out the last word in a sing-song, making it sound like a childish whine. “You need to make it fit. Not me. You know me.”
Another huff of laughter. “You want to know why Rachel.”
Bruce becomes aware that his hand has fisted in the contents of the file. He forces his hand to relax, smoothing out the crumpled papers and closing the folder.
“Alright,” he answers, proud of how steady his voice comes out. “Why Rachel?”
There is a click on the other end. A dial tone is his only answer.
***
Bruce laughs easily, his wide smile bright and charming. The redhead beside him prattles on. He isn’t listening, but that doesn’t matter. Bruce does not even remember her name. She has her arms wound through his, though, her breasts pressed into his side as the socialites and sons of powerbrokers and Gotham’s aristocracy mingle around them. Everyone stops to congratulate him on his birthday, pressing drinks into his hand and smiling brittle, over-bright smiles. He doesn’t know most of these people, and the ones he does know almost universally despise him.
It doesn’t really matter, though. The booze are flowing and the clothes are stunning and there are photographers everywhere, and Bruce could do all of this in his sleep.
Bruce hates it. He hates every single second of the chatter, and the music, and the stuffy conversation, oh you must come to dinner sometime and what a lovely party and you look so much like your father. He has to concentrate on not flinching at that last one, but he’s become an expert at this point, he’s heard it so damn often.
Rachel catches his eye from across the room, her smile tilting wryly. He gives her a jaunty wave and she giggles before she is swept onto the dance floor by her date. Bruce sighs and uncouples his arm from the redhead’s.
“Going for a smoke,” he tells her. “Why don’t you get yourself a drink?”
He doesn’t wait for her permission, just makes a beeline for the door, waving and shaking hands and nodding at the greetings he receives on his way out. Finally, he pushes through the restaurant’s side door and into the crisp night air. He breathes a sigh and tilts his head back, catching a glimpse of the stars. It’s quiet here; the sounds of the party drown out by street noise.
Bruce riffles through his pockets and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Alfred would kill him if he caught him, but Bruce really needs the excuse to leave the party, so his guardian’s aversion to smoking is just going to have to take a back seat, and damn, where is his lighter? Another search of his pockets comes up empty and he curses around the cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. He rounds the side of the building and notices a figure leaning against the brick. A cigarette glows as he takes a long drag.
“Hey, sorry to bother you, but do you have a light?”
“Sure thing,” a voice drawls. There is the flick of a lighter and a familiar face is illuminated for a brief second before he holds the flame out towards Bruce. Bruce lights up, drawing soothing nicotine into his lungs, and exhales on a gusty sigh.
“Thanks,” he says, leaning against the wall next to the boy from the alley. Bruce’s eyes have adjusted and he can see that the boy looks slightly different than when Bruce saw him last-the stitches on his cheeks have been taken out, the skin still bright pink but knitted together. His hair is pulled back into a tidy ponytail at the back of his head. He is dressed in the black pants/red vest combo of the restaurant’s valets.
“Are you even old enough to drive?” Bruce asks with amusement.
“Says the guy who’s celebrating his sweet sixteen,” the other boy rejoins.
“Seventeen,” Bruce corrects.
The other boy shrugs. He crosses his arms, cigarette dangling between lazy fingers. Bruce can’t tell in the dim light, but he thinks the boy is smiling. Bruce peers over at him, trying to catch the expression.
“Are you staring at my scars?” The question is conversational, and Bruce remembers how the boy sounded when he threatened the beefy man-calm, casual, violence without anger. He shivers. “Do you want to know how I got ‘em?” the boy asks.
“No,” Bruce says flatly.
Bruce takes another drag on his cigarette. The clouds part, a slice of moonlight illuminating the other boy’s face for a moment. He is looking at Bruce, his head canted to the side thoughtfully. Bruce opens his mouth to explain that no, he doesn’t need to know or even want to know about the boy’s scars or his past. It’s strange, this need to explain himself, to be understood by the other boy. Bruce had long-ago given up on really knowing people; knowing them the way that other people seem to know each other. Even Rachel doesn’t really know him, not the parts he doesn’t want her to see. He knows that she knows it. He catches it in her eyes sometimes; the way her mouth goes tight, her eyes soft and pleading. But she never pushes.
The boy next to him shifts closer, as if anticipating Bruce’s response, and Bruce feels something in his stomach lurch at his nearness. He raises his head, searching out the other boy’s eyes in the darkness.
A door crashes open around the side of the building, the sound of laughing partygoers breaking the moment.
“Oh my god, this party is the best,” one girl says, loudly enough that they can clearly hear her.
“Yeah, too bad it’s for that douchebag, Bruce Wayne,” another girl responds. “Did you see him flirting with Angeline? Ugh!”
The boy beside him giggles. Douchebag, he mouths, pressing his long fingers around Bruce’s wrist. His laughter is mocking, but Bruce gets the impression that it’s the situation, and not him, that is being mocked. Bruce grins back. They are standing very close together, but Bruce does not move away.
The girls continue to trash the redhead-Angeline, right, that was her name!-until their voices fade into silence.
“Wow, nice friends you got,” the boy drawls.
“They aren’t my friends,” Bruce says reflexively. And then he realizes how much that statement reveals, and he snaps his charm back up like a shield between them. “And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am a douchebag.”
The taller boy rolls his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just a guy who doesn’t know when to stop.” He releases Bruce’s wrist and steps back, planting his shoulder blades into the wall.
“That sounds like a mutual problem,” Bruce tells him. At the boy’s blank look Bruce explains, “The guy in the parking lot. The one you pulled a knife on?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah, that. You looked like you were going to kill him.”
“Would that be so bad?” There isn’t a hint of humor in the question, and Bruce doesn’t laugh.
“Well, yeah,” Bruce says slowly. “I mean, do you want to go to jail?”
“Is that why you don’t kill people? So you won’t go to jail?” He sounds bored, almost disappointed.
Bruce smiles mirthlessly. “That fear seems to be enough for most people.”
The boy turns, considering Bruce for a long second. “Yes,” he says slowly. “But we aren’t most people.”
The door bangs open again, more people spilling onto the sidewalk. The party is breaking up, it seems. Bruce ought to head back inside to say goodbye to his guests. The thought makes his jaw clench, but it wouldn’t do to keep standing out here. Besides, the other boy will probably be needed at the valet stand.
The skinny blond pushes off from the wall, probably thinking the same thing. Bruce turns to go, then turns back.
“Hey,” he calls to the retreating figure. “What’s your name?”
The boy turns and regards him for so long that Bruce thinks that the boy won’t say. Bruce feels a spark of disappointment at the thought.
“You can call me Jack,” the boy says, finally.
Part Two
Author: cyranothe2nd
Word Count: 22,768 (!)
Rating: NC-17
Beta: 1bad_joke and Siri
Disclaimer: This work is based on characters and concepts created and owned by DC Comics, Warner Bros. and other entities and corporations. No money is being made and no copyright and/or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: Nolan-verse, alt-canon, original character death, minor canon character death, violence, sexual violence, language, angst, internalized homophobia
Summary: Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes. Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.
Something is wrong with Bruce.
Everyone says so.
They call him ‘Orphan Wayne,’ or ‘The Little Heir,’ or, in one blatantly blue piece of journalism, ‘The Loneliest Billionaire.’ Alfred gathers the papers and throws them away with the rubbish, but Bruce sneaks them out and reads the articles, one-by-one. Each word catches in his chest and makes his throat burn, but he reads them carefully, writing down the words he doesn’t know and looking them up in the big dictionary in his father’s study.
Homicide.
Philanthropist.
Bereft.
He lays flowers on his parents’ graves, dressed in crow-black, as the reporters circle and snap pictures. Alfred tries to prevent it, but it makes little difference.
Bruce pretends not to see them.
“Bruce, tell us how sad you feel to lose your parents,” a reporter directs the silent boy. And Bruce is sad. But what he feels most of the time is not sadness.
It is rage.
Something is wrong with Bruce, and everyone can see it. His teachers treat him with ginger concern, always watching, as if they know some secret he doesn’t. His peers don’t like him. They think that he is an arrogant rich boy. They think he is weird because he has no family. They think he is stupid because he keeps quiet.
Bruce isn’t stupid. He is bored. He has read each of his textbooks by the second month of school, memorized the biological classifications and the planets of the solar system. The other kids in his class don’t read much outside of school. They certainly don’t spend hours in the library, poring over college chemistry textbooks. They don’t obsessively read the crime sections of several newspapers and keep a careful catalogue of notes, tracking patterns, sifting for clues. Trying to make order out of chaos.
Bruce wonders if it is him that is disordered.
The teacher calls on him, and he deliberately provides the wrong answer. His classmates laugh, and he smiles at them. Even the teacher is amused; he has been careful to maintain a rapport with all of his teachers.
Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Bruce recites in his head. Family, Genus, Species.
Something is wrong with Bruce, but whether the sickness was always there, lying in wait, or whether the death of his parents caused it, he does not know. What Bruce knows is that, deep down, he is not normal.
When he is thirteen years old, he is suspended from school for fighting. Alfred patches him up, face drawn and weary. He doesn’t shout or lecture or any of the things that parents are supposed to do. He does not presume. Instead, he tells Bruce that his fitness as Bruce’s guardian is being questioned. There will be a hearing and, until then, Bruce must go to counseling.
Bruce hates the councilor. He hates her hennaed hair and her tight-lipped smile. He hates the way she asks questions, and the way her eyes study him when he answers. Her eyes are beady and dark-crow’s eyes-and he feels like an experiment in a dish.
“How did you feel when you struck the boy?” she wants to know.
And he answers truthfully, “Nothing.”
Later, the woman pulls Alfred aside and says quiet words to him, watching Bruce as she whispers into the old man’s ear. Alfred pulls away, his eyes going terribly livid for a moment, before he barks, “Come, Master Bruce. Let’s go home.”
It is the only time that Bruce has ever seen Alfred truly angry. The knuckles of the hand wrapped around the steering wheel are white. “I wish that I could forbid you to go back to that place,” Alfred says, tightly. “But I cannot. Do you understand?”
Bruce nods. He does understand.
Bruce spends the entire next day in the library, reading every book on child psychology that he can get his hands on. He learns how to answer the councilor’s questions in acceptable ways. He learns how to smile, and to nod, and to “make progress.”
He learns how to pretend.
He pretends so well, that soon enough everyone forgets. The teachers lose their wariness. His peers invite him to their parties. The councilor testifies on Alfred’s behalf. The reporters stop coming around. Everyone believes that he is fine.
But deep inside, Bruce knows that he is not fine. He does not fit. He is out of order.
He is alone.
Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes.
***
Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.
***
Batman drops from the ventilation shaft into Joker’s padded cell.
It has taken Batman a year to find a way inside Arkham Asylum. Now, it seems like it was a fool’s errand. Joker sits unmoving on his narrow bed. His greasy green hair has been shaved close to the scalp, his makeup washed away to reveal a narrow, pale face bracketed with scars. His legs are splayed out in front on him, the left wrapped in a brace that covered his threadbare drawstring pants from calf to thigh. An injury from Joker trip down from the Pruitt Building; a compound fracture that never healed properly. Joker’s eyes are glassy and unfocused. His hands, inside padded leather cuffs, lie bony and motionless in his lap.
He looks like a rag, folded in on himself, paper-thin and pale. His file says he is catatonic, unresponsive to therapy or medication.
Batman doesn’t believe it.
“Joker,” Batman hisses. His whisper seems loud in the still room. He hears the distant moan of another inmate, a shuffle of feet, the creak of a bed as someone turns over. No answer from the clown.
He crosses the room in an angry stride and shakes him. “Joker!” he tries again, more sharply. Joker’s head flops loosely on his neck and Batman releases him, watching as he slumps over onto the thin bed.
Nothing. No movement. Not a snide remark, nor mocking smile, nor even a spark of recognition.
This is a waste of time.
Batman moves to go, when a low, hoarse sound stops him.
“Ah-“ There’s a long intake of breath, an obvious effort to try again. “I know why you’re here.”
He turns. Joker is still slumped over like a marionette with its strings cut, but his eyes have focused on Batman.
There is a long, tense moment where they simple stare at each other. Batman has forgotten the power in that gaze-uncanny intelligence and relentless obsession like a freight train running him down.
“Bruce,” Joker slurs and Batman snaps into action, curling his fists into Joker’s soft grey t-shirt and lifting him bodily from the bed. He slams him against the wall, Joker’s knees knocking into his thighs with the impact and there it is--the mad swell of laughter. He cocks his fist back, wanting nothing so much as Joker blood on his gauntlet, when a noise makes them both freeze.
Footsteps outside the door, and Batman steps away, letting the clown crumple back onto the bed. He leaves as quickly and as silently as he can. He is barely outside Joker’s cell when he hears the door crash open, and Joker’s bright, “I’m glad you boys could make it,” before the sound of the guard’s shout and a fist impacting flesh.
Batman is gone before the fight is over.
***
“Hold him,” Mario Maroni says.
Bruce’s arms are yanked behind him and Mario’s fist plants into his stomach. The blow knocks the wind out of Bruce, tears springing to his eyes. Mario draws back his fist and punches Bruce again. The pain is blinding, knocking his feet out from under him. He sags into the grip of the two other boys.
“Hey there, rich boy,” Mario croons, cradling Bruce’s chin in one hand. “You’re in the wrong part of town.” He smiles nastily at Bruce, brushing a hand against the collar of Bruce’s coat. Bruce shifts away as much as he is able, and Mario lets him, a cruel smile still lighting his brutish face.
“I could break that pretty nose of yours. Really teach you a lesson.” He laughs and his idiot friends guffaw, and Bruce tries to pull himself together and think. He gets his feet back under him, and kicks out, connecting with Mario’s knee. The boy goes down and Bruce struggles against the hands holding him. He gets one arm free but then Mario is to his feet, pushing him against the wall of the alley and grinding his face against cold bricks.
“Now, that wasn’t nice,” Mario says. “Rich boys like you should learn who runs this town.” He pulls Bruce around by the back of his jacket. The blow lands on his cheek, pain blossoming across his jaw. He pitches back, head ricocheting against the wall and into the next punch. He tries to defend himself, but there are three of them and, while he lands a few punches, he knows they are just toying with him. Another punch to his gut and Bruce is crumpling to the ground. He curls into himself as they kick him a few times.
“You want this?”
Bruce looks up, rage burning in his chest. The left side of his face aches with the movement. Mario is holding the necklace-Rachel’s necklace, the one her mother had given her for birthday and that Mario had stolen from her locker at school-in front of Bruce’s face. Bruce snatches for it, but Mario is quicker. He pulls it away, laughing. “You want it?” He cocks his arm back and throws it, the gold chain glittering as it arcs into the trash piled at the end of the alleyway. “Go get it!”
Mario kicks him one more time and he and his friends leave.
It takes Bruce a long minute to uncurl himself and scramble to the back of the alley. He digs carefully through leaves, broken bottles and other detritus, looking for the necklace. Rachel was crushed when she found it missing, and none of the teachers would do anything-even when Rachel had seen Mario wearing it the next day. Cold anger scorches him at the memory of Rachel’s tear-streaked face. He shifts a large piece of glass out of his way, still probing for the discarded piece of jewelry. He is so intent on his task that he doesn’t hear the other boy until he’s right next to him.
High, eerie laughter awakens him to another presence and Bruce jumps, spins around in a crouch.
The boy is leaning up again the side of the building, and he’s laughing like he’s just heard the funniest thing in the world. Long streams of giggles bend him over, bony hands clutching his ribs in glee. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that are at least two sizes too big for his tall, lanky frame. The t-shirt is a garish bright pink, and the blond hair that hangs in front of his face is long and stringy. He lifts his head, the giggles still bursting out of his wide red mouth and-oh my god, his face, Bruce thinks and stares. Long, angry red cuts extended the laughing mouth, dark thread binding the broken skin in uneven stitches that look swollen and painful. Bruce can see the skin break as the boy tips his head back and howls, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“You,” the boy gasps, trying to speak past his mirth. “You just got your ass handed to you, didn’t you?”
Bruce blinks, forces himself to stop staring at the horrific gashes that mar the boy’s face. And he is a boy; Bruce can see that now. Despite his height, he can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen, and painfully thin. He is mostly clean, but has the ragged look of someone who’s lived on the street for a while. No track marks on his bare arms, though. No sores on his face or neck. Just those long, jagged cuts.
“I don’t really see how that’s so funny,” Bruce says sullenly. He turns back to his task, dismissing the laughing boy.
“Of course you don’t,” the boy says gleefully. His laughter tapers off, and he unwinds himself from the wall, shivering all over in delight. “That’s because you lost.”
“I didn’t lose,” Bruce answers sullenly. He could kick himself. He doesn’t know why he’s letting this strange, and probably crazy, boy bait him like this. “There were three of them. It wasn’t fair.”
Bruce only has a moment to curse his inattention before the boy springs across the distance between them, his surprisingly strong hands gripping Bruce’s shoulders painfully. “Fair?” he mocks. His face is so close to Bruce’s that he cannot look away, watching in disgusted fascination as the gashes on his face bunch and move with the boy’s words. “There is no fairness in this world, Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce starts, surprised as he always in when people he doesn’t know seem to know him. He twists away, shrugging the younger boy’s hands off him. The boy leans back onto his heels, amused. He holds out his hand, Rachel’s necklace dangling from his fingertips.
He pulls it away as Bruce snatches for it. “Fair doesn’t matter,” he says. He catches Bruce’s eye and his eyes are green, bright and intense. Bruce was wrong about the boy’s age. His eyes are old, far older than his thin, boyish body suggests. Bruce is trapped by that gaze, staring back for a long, dumbstruck moment. His brain is working to catch up, still reeling from the beating he received, and the boy’s sudden and unnerving change of mood.
The boy seizes Bruce’s wrist, uncurling Bruce’s fingers and dropping the necklace inside. He closes Bruce’s fingers around it, gives them a little pat and releases him. He stands, goes to the mouth of the alley. Bruce is still crouched next to a heap of trash, watching the boy as he hesitates between the darkness of the alley and the daylight beyond.
“What matters is who wins,” the boy throws over his shoulder. He slips smoothly into the crowded street and disappears.
***
Batman crouches on the roof of Arkham Asylum, winter snow spiraling down around him and onto the mostly barren grounds. The frozen grass is white, wind-blasted shrubs and stunted trees black in the moonlight. In is near midnight, and there is no sound from inside. The winter has been crueler than most, freezing water pipes and trapping many people in their homes. The ones who venture out find that most businesses are closing early, if they are opening at all, and the streets are caked with thick layers of ice. Even the denizens of Gotham’s notorious prison for the criminally insane seem to have hunkered down for the winter.
Batman is glad for the quiet, but he dreads what it might mean.
Joker had celebrated his reawakening with the murder of two hospital orderlies. The clown was eventually sedated and moved to a high-security wing. Batman can no longer reach him without a full-scale assault on the hospital. But he has no doubt that the madman is biding his time, planning. Batman curses himself for visiting him, for contributing to his growing obsession. Without Batman, Joker had been nothing. If he hadn’t been so intent on getting answers from the madman then none of this would have happened.
His guilt cuts far deeper than that, Batman knows. Across years, decades. So many times he’s failed. So many things he could have done to stop this before it even started. He tries not to think about it. He tries to neatly bisect his life: before Joker and after-- but he knows it’s futile. Joker was always there, waiting. Just like Batman was. It would have always found them both, no matter what either of them could or should have done.
Batman has no confidence in Arkham Asylum’s ability to retain Joker. Joker will leave when it pleases him, and start their bloody game all over again.
And so he stands a lonely vigil, waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to touch the horizon before he rises from his crouch, stiff with cold, and abandons his post for a few precious hours of sleep.
***
It is a couple weeks before he sees the boy again.
Bruce is cutting across Broad Street on his way downtown, dodging traffic and weaving through pedestrians. He loves being out in the city. It’s remarkable, the times he can just walk around Gotham without being recognized. That’s why it’s so jarring when it does happens; he’s always stupidly surprised when people call him by name, or act like they know him. The media has left him alone for the past few years, though he knows that interest will ramp up with the anniversary of his parent’s deaths, and his seventeenth birthday, just around the corner. Truth is, he’s been dreading the increased scrutiny and attention that comes with being the sole heir to the Wayne fortune. He sometimes wishes he could just slip away, trek across the world as a nameless no one.
Getting lost in the twisting streets of Gotham is the next best thing. The spring sunshine warms him as he moves, loose-limbed despite the bruises still hidden underneath his clothing, the remnants of Mario Maroni’s handiwork. The thought of the bully still sends a cold shock of anger through Bruce. He wishes he’d been able to teach him a lesson. The humiliation of letting a guy like Maroni beat him burns. Mario Maroni is a coward, hiding behind his father’s name, committing petty theft and aimless acts of cruelty at school, untouchable because even the adults are scared of him.
Bruce doesn’t want revenge. He wants justice. And it burns him that he is not likely to get it.
Bruce is passing the space between two storefronts when he hears an eerie, and familiar, giggle. His mind flashes to two weeks ago, and the strange, infuriating boy in the alley. He is moving before he’s even thought of it, following the siren sound of high-pitched laughter down a side street.
He sees them from a dozen yards away. Two figures in a deserted parking lot: the boy, dangling by his shirtfront, laughing in the face of a huge brute of a man. The man draws his fist back. The boy’s body rocks with the force of the blow. The laughter does not stop.
“Hey,” Bruce shouts.
Neither figure pays him any attention. The man punches the skinny boy again, letting him crumple to the pavement. The boy howls, curling around himself as giggles burst from his too-wide mouth.
“Shut up,” the man barks, raising a foot to kick him.
And then the boy moves, faster than Bruce has ever seen anyone move. He grabs the man’s foot in both hands and pushes. The man overbalances and falls down, the boy rolling smoothly up and over him, planting himself on the man’s chest. The man attempts to shake him off, but a flash of silver freezes him.
“Now it’s my turn,” the boy says in an uncannily calm voice. He shakes his head, dripping blood onto the man’s shirt. His knife hand moves. The man screams, and Bruce, who has slowed to watch, races forward again.
“Hey,” he shouts.
The boy’s head snaps up. His face is all sharp, pale lines and wide red mouth. There is blood on his knife. The boys grin is feral.
Time dilates. Bruce can feel him lungs burning, his legs churning over pavement, trying to get to the man because he is certain, absolutely certain, that the boy is going to kill him. He has to stop it. He has to stop him.
He stretches, strains forward even as the boy turns back to his victim with another eerie chuckle, and then everything snaps into bright focus as the sound of a siren rends the afternoon quiet. Bruce almost collapses with relief. Someone has called the police.
The boy’s knife is quickly stashed into a pocket. He pats the man’s face, says something that Bruce doesn’t catch, and rolls to his feet, sprinting away.
The man levers himself up, hand clutching his neck. There is blood trickling from between his fingers but he doesn’t wait for the police. He ducks into a nearby building. Bruce jogs towards the end of the street and looks.
There is no sign of the skinny boy.
***
Bruce stretches his right knee under the desk, rubbing at the underside of the joint absently as he leafs through paperwork. He ignores the pages with the Wayne Enterprises logo, reaching for the file that Alfred had handed him this morning instead. It contains the latest press clippings on the Dent Act, signed into law by Mayor Garcia that morning. A new era of hope, the mayor calls it. A city that no longer needs Batman. Bruce places his hand over the crisp, white sheets of paper. His knee throbs, the ache a constant background hum.
The shrill ring of his deskphone interrupts his reading.
“Bruce Wayne,” he answers, still staring down at the newsprint, his eyes caught on the words masked vigilante…murdered…hope.
“Ahoy there, sailor,” a shrill voice coos.
Bruce’s head snaps up.
“You know, you may want to have words with that secretary of yours. Ten minutes on hold, and my phone time’s almost up.”
Bruce swallows drily. “What do you want?” he rasps.
“Oooooh! You know I love the voice. Though it must be hell on your throat,” Joker’s voice drops. “Does Alfred provide lozenges? I bet he does.”
His hee-hawing laugher brays down the phone line. “I was so happy it was you. I mean, I knew, of course. But still…oh yes, so happy. Such a great punchline, you know?”
Bruce’s control snaps. “What. Do. You. Want?”
“What do you want, hmmmm?” Joker mocks. “You came to me, remember.”
Bruce remains silent. On the other end, there’s a huff of impatience.
“Oh fine, you want me to tell you. Fine.” He clears his throat theatrically. “You want to know why.” He draws out the last word in a sing-song, making it sound like a childish whine. “You need to make it fit. Not me. You know me.”
Another huff of laughter. “You want to know why Rachel.”
Bruce becomes aware that his hand has fisted in the contents of the file. He forces his hand to relax, smoothing out the crumpled papers and closing the folder.
“Alright,” he answers, proud of how steady his voice comes out. “Why Rachel?”
There is a click on the other end. A dial tone is his only answer.
***
Bruce laughs easily, his wide smile bright and charming. The redhead beside him prattles on. He isn’t listening, but that doesn’t matter. Bruce does not even remember her name. She has her arms wound through his, though, her breasts pressed into his side as the socialites and sons of powerbrokers and Gotham’s aristocracy mingle around them. Everyone stops to congratulate him on his birthday, pressing drinks into his hand and smiling brittle, over-bright smiles. He doesn’t know most of these people, and the ones he does know almost universally despise him.
It doesn’t really matter, though. The booze are flowing and the clothes are stunning and there are photographers everywhere, and Bruce could do all of this in his sleep.
Bruce hates it. He hates every single second of the chatter, and the music, and the stuffy conversation, oh you must come to dinner sometime and what a lovely party and you look so much like your father. He has to concentrate on not flinching at that last one, but he’s become an expert at this point, he’s heard it so damn often.
Rachel catches his eye from across the room, her smile tilting wryly. He gives her a jaunty wave and she giggles before she is swept onto the dance floor by her date. Bruce sighs and uncouples his arm from the redhead’s.
“Going for a smoke,” he tells her. “Why don’t you get yourself a drink?”
He doesn’t wait for her permission, just makes a beeline for the door, waving and shaking hands and nodding at the greetings he receives on his way out. Finally, he pushes through the restaurant’s side door and into the crisp night air. He breathes a sigh and tilts his head back, catching a glimpse of the stars. It’s quiet here; the sounds of the party drown out by street noise.
Bruce riffles through his pockets and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Alfred would kill him if he caught him, but Bruce really needs the excuse to leave the party, so his guardian’s aversion to smoking is just going to have to take a back seat, and damn, where is his lighter? Another search of his pockets comes up empty and he curses around the cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth. He rounds the side of the building and notices a figure leaning against the brick. A cigarette glows as he takes a long drag.
“Hey, sorry to bother you, but do you have a light?”
“Sure thing,” a voice drawls. There is the flick of a lighter and a familiar face is illuminated for a brief second before he holds the flame out towards Bruce. Bruce lights up, drawing soothing nicotine into his lungs, and exhales on a gusty sigh.
“Thanks,” he says, leaning against the wall next to the boy from the alley. Bruce’s eyes have adjusted and he can see that the boy looks slightly different than when Bruce saw him last-the stitches on his cheeks have been taken out, the skin still bright pink but knitted together. His hair is pulled back into a tidy ponytail at the back of his head. He is dressed in the black pants/red vest combo of the restaurant’s valets.
“Are you even old enough to drive?” Bruce asks with amusement.
“Says the guy who’s celebrating his sweet sixteen,” the other boy rejoins.
“Seventeen,” Bruce corrects.
The other boy shrugs. He crosses his arms, cigarette dangling between lazy fingers. Bruce can’t tell in the dim light, but he thinks the boy is smiling. Bruce peers over at him, trying to catch the expression.
“Are you staring at my scars?” The question is conversational, and Bruce remembers how the boy sounded when he threatened the beefy man-calm, casual, violence without anger. He shivers. “Do you want to know how I got ‘em?” the boy asks.
“No,” Bruce says flatly.
Bruce takes another drag on his cigarette. The clouds part, a slice of moonlight illuminating the other boy’s face for a moment. He is looking at Bruce, his head canted to the side thoughtfully. Bruce opens his mouth to explain that no, he doesn’t need to know or even want to know about the boy’s scars or his past. It’s strange, this need to explain himself, to be understood by the other boy. Bruce had long-ago given up on really knowing people; knowing them the way that other people seem to know each other. Even Rachel doesn’t really know him, not the parts he doesn’t want her to see. He knows that she knows it. He catches it in her eyes sometimes; the way her mouth goes tight, her eyes soft and pleading. But she never pushes.
The boy next to him shifts closer, as if anticipating Bruce’s response, and Bruce feels something in his stomach lurch at his nearness. He raises his head, searching out the other boy’s eyes in the darkness.
A door crashes open around the side of the building, the sound of laughing partygoers breaking the moment.
“Oh my god, this party is the best,” one girl says, loudly enough that they can clearly hear her.
“Yeah, too bad it’s for that douchebag, Bruce Wayne,” another girl responds. “Did you see him flirting with Angeline? Ugh!”
The boy beside him giggles. Douchebag, he mouths, pressing his long fingers around Bruce’s wrist. His laughter is mocking, but Bruce gets the impression that it’s the situation, and not him, that is being mocked. Bruce grins back. They are standing very close together, but Bruce does not move away.
The girls continue to trash the redhead-Angeline, right, that was her name!-until their voices fade into silence.
“Wow, nice friends you got,” the boy drawls.
“They aren’t my friends,” Bruce says reflexively. And then he realizes how much that statement reveals, and he snaps his charm back up like a shield between them. “And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am a douchebag.”
The taller boy rolls his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just a guy who doesn’t know when to stop.” He releases Bruce’s wrist and steps back, planting his shoulder blades into the wall.
“That sounds like a mutual problem,” Bruce tells him. At the boy’s blank look Bruce explains, “The guy in the parking lot. The one you pulled a knife on?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah, that. You looked like you were going to kill him.”
“Would that be so bad?” There isn’t a hint of humor in the question, and Bruce doesn’t laugh.
“Well, yeah,” Bruce says slowly. “I mean, do you want to go to jail?”
“Is that why you don’t kill people? So you won’t go to jail?” He sounds bored, almost disappointed.
Bruce smiles mirthlessly. “That fear seems to be enough for most people.”
The boy turns, considering Bruce for a long second. “Yes,” he says slowly. “But we aren’t most people.”
The door bangs open again, more people spilling onto the sidewalk. The party is breaking up, it seems. Bruce ought to head back inside to say goodbye to his guests. The thought makes his jaw clench, but it wouldn’t do to keep standing out here. Besides, the other boy will probably be needed at the valet stand.
The skinny blond pushes off from the wall, probably thinking the same thing. Bruce turns to go, then turns back.
“Hey,” he calls to the retreating figure. “What’s your name?”
The boy turns and regards him for so long that Bruce thinks that the boy won’t say. Bruce feels a spark of disappointment at the thought.
“You can call me Jack,” the boy says, finally.
Part Two