DISCLAIMER: I don't own Batman, The Crow, any of related characters besides OC's, etc. this is a work in progress and one of my first few fanfics made so please review. Also plz note that I have deliberately made both Bruce's origins/character and gotham city different to follow up with the plot. That said, read, enjoy, and review.

A smoky, polluted, cloudy sky overlooked Gotham City. Dark red spirals of smoke rose and masked the skies. If one had never heard of the city by name, they could easily mistaken it for Hell.

In the corner between two of the hundreds gloomy streets, a small crowd formed over the corpses of three: A man, a woman, and a young boy. All three laid down on the concrete pavement of the streets, in a large of puddle of blood.

Each of the three had large wounds, caused by bullets. The man, had two wounds, one on his side and one on his abdomen. The women had one, simply and straight on her heart on the left side. The child had the worse of the wounds. Several gunshot wounds. One on his abdomen, two each on his shoulders, and three on his back as a whole. Forensics could tell that all of those wounds came from separate guns.

Each of them had their eyes and mouths were open in an eternal grimace of horror. Ain't exactly to believe this kinda thing happened in Crime Alley. Sirens echoed off the alley walls as Police checked the scene. A miracle they showed up.

Lieutenant Gordon glanced the scene with a grimaced look. He mentally analyzed the scene, listed the technicalities. Multiple homicide, three victims; Two males, one female. Multiple bullet shells surrounding the scene, several found in the victims' bodies. Supposedly multiple assailants and different firearms. Then recognition hit him.

"Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne. Gotham's most wealthy and social family. Must have been on their way home and then attacked. Possible mugging." He said to his fellow officers.

"Why would they cut through here? When you're rich as them, this place is the worst place to be. Who in their right mind would cut through here?" The other cop said.

"Nobody", was the sad answer.

In the street between the alley, a stretcher was wheeled fast towards an ambulance. They realized the child was somewhat still alive, his body continuing to twitch and spasms as some kind of struggle. A young girl approached the boy on the stretcher.

"Bruce!"

But lieutenant Gordon gently pushed her back. "Stand back, kid."

The boy was panting in pain, physically twitching of disrupted nerves, managing to cough up one word: "S-Selina".

"Take it easy, kid. We got to get you to hospital right now. Just lie down". Gordon told Bruce, not wanting to exert the boy more than he could possibly be capable of right now.

Gordon turned to the teenage girl. She was blonde, short hair tied up, dressed in casual clothes. The holes in her black stockings and the number of necklaces and chains dangling from her neck gave her a punk touch. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"You Selina?", he asked her.

"Yeah. You lied to Bruce. And now you're gonna lie to me about him. He's gonna die, isn't he?"

"Now, come on, he's gonna be fine, okay?", he said, with the most unsure tone in his voice.

Bruce Wayne fought against death for thirty hours, but death won the battle. His bloody, contused, bruised, wounded and outraged body was buried near his parents' graves. As a family. Could a family's love set things right, at least partially? If Love came to an agreement with Rage, they could make up a third, more powerful force, Revenge.

*A year later*

Selina Kyle entered the cemetery, where her adopted and only family was buried. The cemetery plot replaced the luxurious manor for them. Selina placed flowers on each tomb, the bright colors sharply contrasting with the gloom of the misty graveyard, almost as the symbol of a clownish illusion of life in a world of death.

It was like it was just yesterday that Thomas and Martha Wayne had saved her from being a victim of a child sexual slavery ring. She remembered how hard they fought the system to adopt her. She smiles as she remembers how kind of a brother Bruce was to her. She sheds a tear as sad memories flooded her head.

Suddenly, Selina heard a croak; and then she saw the black figure of a crow landing on Bruce's tomb. Selina looked at the crow with curiosity. To her, this strange bird was an interesting creature: it may not have been a cheerful birdie, with its jet black feathers, rather ungraceful figure and scratchy voice; yet she liked it, just as we unconsciously like the irregular, nonconforming charm of the sublime.

"What are you, the night watchman?", she jokingly asked the crow.

The volatile just cawed again as an answer. The rain started to fall, so Selina walked away, failing to notice the crow peck Bruce's tombstone.

Nobody could have imagined that it was knocking on the door that divided the living from the dead.