These Scars

Prologue

"Rachel! Raaaay-chell…."

The childish voice of a young boy rang out across the massive grounds of Wayne Manor. A peal of girlish laughter was the only response that he received, but it was enough to send him running out of his hiding spot behind a large hedge. "Raaaaay-chelll!!"

The boy was named Bruce Wayne, and the large estate which now served as the perfect place for a game of hide and seek had been in his family for generations. Bruce's wide dark eyes were lit up in a rare moment of light heartedness, his elusive smile—an exact replica of Martha Wayne's—beamed briefly across his face as he ran off in pursuit of his best friend. He was serious for a young boy, intense and insightful in a way that most children his age and many adults found off-putting. He was brilliant in math, science, and, oddly, drama, could outrun and outfight even the oldest students in his elite private school (which had, in turn, resulted in most students keeping their distance from him), and had a surprising, subtle sense of humor that only a few people ever really got to see—his mother and father, Alfred the family butler, and his one true friend, Rachel Dawes, with whom he was currently playing a game of hide and seek.

The sun was beginning to set, and the formal garden of Wayne Manor was beginning to grow dark. A sense of panic began to lodge inside Bruce's stomach. Where was she? His dark brows knit together in worry as he stopped for a moment to think.

"Raaaaay-chell?!" he tried again.

There was another peal of laughter to his right. He set off in a swift run, calling her name once more. Nothing. He was lost in a maze of the perfectly trimmed, boxy privet hedges that his mother loved, and the setting sun was quickly turning it into a labyrinth of dark corners and dead ends.

"Rachel?" His voice caught on the last syllable, revealing the panic that was making its way into his throat. "Rachel, where are you?!"

Another laugh. "I'm here Bruce…you just have to find me."

He rounded a few more corners, his feet pounding the velvety green grass flat as he ran. Panic was welling in his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move. And then, quite suddenly, she was right in front of him. Eight year old Rachel, with her long brown hair done up in two braids, grass stains on the knees of her tights. She was there—she'd always been there, but he'd been too blind to see it. And then, just as quickly, she began to grow, changing quickly as though someone had hit fast forward on a VHS tape.

The older Rachel, the woman whom Bruce had loved as a boy and loved, in an even deeper, fiercer way, now, stood in front of him. She wore the dark, formal work clothes that he'd last seen her in, and her beautiful blue eyes were looking at him in that wry, amused way that she had had—the look that saw straight through the many layers of Bruce Wayne to his very core.

"I'll always be here Bruce…you just have to find me," she repeated.

And then there was an explosion, a burst of flame, and she, the woman that Bruce had loved to oblivion, was no longer there.

In the penthouse of Gotham City's most exclusive apartment building, Bruce Wayne, the most coveted bachelor in all of America, perhaps even the world, woke up screaming. The bed sheets, made of expensive Egyptian cotton, were drenched with sweat and twisted uncomfortably around him. His face was slick with either tears or sweat—he couldn't tell—that he hurried to wipe away with the back of his hand. He glanced at the clock and groaned—three o clock in the morning. Behind him, through the large floor to ceiling windows, Gotham slept, comforted by a pillow of lies, by the belief that the figurative light at the end of the tunnel was visible. Bruce Wayne knew better.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite the bed. Traces of that young boy were still clearly evident in his intense eyes, thin lips, and thick brown hair. Childish roundness had given way to razor sharp cheekbones and eyes more intense and serious than any billionaire playboy's had a right to be. It was Thomas Wayne's face, with traces of Martha Wayne found in the elusive smile that had become increasingly rare since Thomas and Martha's death years before. It was a handsome face, one that the photographers for Page Six loved. However, this face was not the one that the paparazzi were used to seeing, certainly not the face of a famously spendthrift young billionaire. The face staring back at him was ravaged by pain, anger, heartache, and, most of all, confusion.

Oddly enough, although it was three in the morning, this was the first time in recent months that Bruce Wayne was actually looking at himself—his true self, not hidden behind the figurative mask of a wealthy trust-fund brat or the literal mask of Batman. He stared for a full minute, emotions churning inside of him until it felt as though he was going to throw up.

And then he thought of her, of the dream.

And then, for the first time since Rachel Dawes had disappeared in a cloud of fire two days before, Bruce—not Mr. Wayne the billionaire who ran off with the entire Moscow ballet, not Batman, the caped crusader turned vigilante running from the law—allowed himself a few tears, most for the woman he'd loved more than anything in the world, but some for the innocent young boy who he would never again be.

In those moments, Bruce Wayne realized one thing. His life was completely changed. He'd gone from an idealistic boy to a vengeful young man lost in the past to, yet again, an idealistic man who'd thought that he could save his city. Now all of that was gone, and Mr. Wayne, Batman, and Bruce—all three of the very different men that lived within that one face—were stuck with the decision of where they were supposed to go from there.