FLASHBACK: 10 YEARS BACK

CLOMP...CLOMP...CLOMPCLOMP...

"Damn Gotham City anyway..."

CLOMP...CLOMP...

Bruce Wayne, finally making it down the stairs through his alcohol-soaked vision, surveyed the Batcave, which he had stopped using ten years ago, with a foggy, animalistic glint in his eye. "Urban legend, huh?" He slurred, starting towards what was once his main mode of transportation, the Batmobile. "Urban LEGEND!? THE HELL YOU MEAN, I DON'T EXIST!?" His voice echoed in the barren hall, a stench of whiskey wafting from between his lips. "YOU'LL BELIEVE THIS, GOTHAM CITY!" He now, not thinking exactly clearly, stumbled towards the cabinets that held his weapons, pulling them out one by one and throwing them with overly excessive force at the black polished surface of the Batmobile. They left dents, and scratches, but why would he care? He was fed up. Done. "Anyone who can't save their OWN hides wants ME to do it, and I do it a BIT TOO DAMN MUCH!" Between his drunken ranting he kept throwing weapons at the car, ending with the Batarangs. Too many of those things, he decided, that slight bit of sense slamming through to the forefront of the once-sane, now alcohol-stained brain cells between his ears. They stuck into the side of the car; all the better for when he torched the place, they'd all melt at once.

Then he started in on his trophies; the ones that marked that he triumphed over the many attempts of his death. All the cases were broken; all the mounts ripped off the walls. Some were stained with his blood as he threw them at the pile of metal that was once the Batman's car. After a few moments he paused; he sure couldn't get that damn penny off the wall but this would do. His blood dripped onto the floor as a drunken, stupid sort of smile broke out over his age-ravaged face. "...Finally. I'm done. With all of you. You attacked me and left me for dead...EVERY TIME!" He was speaking much too eloquently to pass off for drunk; he was Bruce Wayne, he didn't become THAT stupid. Then, once he turned again, his fogged eyes came to rest upon the cabinet that held every suit he had ever worn. He snorted slightly, pausing another moment before starting for the cabinet. "...A man who runs around Gotham dressed as a bat OBVIOUSLY has issues..." He snarled, grinning rather caustically as he ripped the doors open, alcoholic's gaze sweeping over the countless yards of wasted fabric. "A waste." He slurred, scooping them up in his arms as he shook his head. "A damned waste." He stumbled around after kicking over the surprisingly flimsy cabinet, starting back towards the pile of his history. "MY LIFE HAS BEEN A WASTE!" He roared. "Batman has no reason to exist! Wanna be saved, SAVE YOUR OWN SELF!" He threw them all on the pile, one by one, recounting the villians he had fought in what seemed to be his past lives. "YOU'VE FINALLY WON, YOU LUNATICS!" He screamed, at the darkness, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again, snatching the bottle of whiskey from where he once sat. "Take this whole thing down with me..." He stumbled around the Batcave, dumping the whiskey everywhere, and when he ran out he threw the bottle to the ground in frustration, snarling a string of curses under his breath. "DAMN it..." He soon pulled a lighter out of the pocket of his purple, silken bathrobe, lighting it up. "So, SO done..."

"MASTER WAYNE." A voice snapped from the doorway nearby, one so familiar to him it just made him sick. "The hell you want, Alfred!?" Bruce snarled, hiccuping a bit, rounding on his butler that had taken care of him since he was small. "Master Wayne, this behavior is so unfitting for a man of your caliber." The Britishman snorted, shaking his head in disapproval. "Whaddaya know...Someone gives a damn." Bruce snorted. "Ain't gonna help; this whole thing's going down..." "Stop this boorish behavior immediately, Master Wayne, and go to bed, this is something you simply MUST sleep off, for lack of a better term.." "Screw off, Alfred." Bruce growled, lighter still lit in his hands. It went out, though, when he let it go, snarling something under his breath, a burn now on his hand as he dropped it. "Master Wayne, think of your father. Would he want such a thing to bring you down to nothing!? You act as if you are nothing but a common man; he would be rather disappointed..." And there was a pause, not the usual brute screaming back some indignant comment. It was as if Bruce saw that light at the end of the tunnel; it wasn't bright, but it was there. "Go to BED, Master Wayne." Alfred snapped, firmly, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

Bruce seemed to nod and grunt in aknowledgement, taking a step, or attempting to anyway. It wasn't the smartest thing to do; he fell over, though it seemed to be in slow motion, everything fading to simply nothing...

"Master Wayne."

There was no movement from the unconscious form below Alfred's grandson's legs. "Master WAYNE." A groan made him nod in satisfaction. "You have twenty minutes before being due to arrive at the Mayor's estate, sir."

"...Day's this.." Bruce mumbled into the carpet, not exactly the most welcome thing to be licking, carpet fibers.

"Why, it's your birthday, sir, did you forget?"

There was another groan, one more that resembled the cry of a wounded dog. "Are you KIDDING me..." He mumbled, shaking his head, shifting and slowly pushing himself up to a sitting position. His hair was disheveled and he reeked of week-old whiskey, or rum, or something. He slowly moved his head just enough to look up at Alfred's grandson, one that took a surprising likeness to him, and that of which he hated so much. "...What did I do to deserve this?" "To deserve what, sir?" Ashby, now Bruce's butler, asked just a bit TOO sweetly as he stepped back, allowing the hangover-stricken Wayne to stand. "To be sixty years old, damn it!" He snarled, shaking his head, rubbing his temples a bit as he stumbled to keep his balance. "I really don't know, and in such a state? You must simply HATE yourself right now..." Ashby remarked with a good-natured chuckle, but that venomous look in Bruce's eyes quieted him instantly. "Possibly you should...get a shower, sir?" He suggested, meekly, backing away. Bruce looked like, for a moment, that he was about to hit Ashby square in the forehead, but he shook that off and nodded curtly, stumbling off to a nearby bathroom.