Prologue: Accident
That's how it started out. A complete accident. Joker had been wreaking havoc in Gotham that night, and managed to kill a small family on their way home from the zoo. An explosion knocked a phone pole over and it crashed into the front half of the car, killing the parents. An ear piercing wail ripped through the air.
Batman only managed to hear the cry after the sirens and fires had been put out. Following the sound, he found a small, baby girl strapped in her car seat, her parents deathly still in the front. Guilt washed over him as he unstrapped the child and held her tightly in his arms. She clung onto him and buried her face in his neck.
The last of the firefighters had finished and were driving off. No one was in sight and Batman found himself stuck with the small girl. He couldn't help but heave a tired sigh.
"Master Bruce, my I ask how you came into procession of a toddler?" asked Alfred, following behind an unmasked Batman.
Bruce sat the girl down on a chair in the cave and unhooked his utility belt. "Found her. Her parents were killed in the cross fire."
"What do you propose we do with her?" Alfred peered down at the girl and noticed a nametag on her wrist, then he noticed something rather odd. "Oh my."
The Dark Knight looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
His butler picked up the girl and pulled back her left sleeve. "First, I believe her name is Winifred. And second, the poor child is missing her arm!"
Upon closer examination, they found that it must have been a birth defect that rendered her armless. But the child didn't seem to mind, in fact she seemed to be just as happy and perfectly fine as any other one year old could have been. Winifred spent the night tucked away softly in a spare bedroom and when morning came, she was handed into Child Services.
Alfred wasn't surprised the child didn't appear pleased to go, and had a fit as she was carried away. Bruce didn't show any kind of emotion about it. And later, while he was making the spare bedroom bed, he found her small nametag. Alfred smiled and shook his head.