Bats are screeching everywhere as Rach, Ollie, and finally break I through the brush and into the cavern. It's just a wide-open space… it probably was supposed to be a tunnel at some point, since we're in an abandoned park. Gotham has a lot of abandoned projects. Sometimes I wonder why people even live here.
"Do you think this place is haunted?" Rach asks in a whisper. She's got her hair piled at the top of her head, her hoodie pulled tight around her. I yank on a piece of her hair and then hide as she jumps and turns, covering her mouth with both hands to muffle her shriek. I like to play pranks on her, she's so easily riled up.
Ollie snickers. "Yeah, Rach. The ghosts of all the kids that would have played here but got eaten by the insane amount of mosquitos in this bitch. I hope you brought bug spray, It's going to be a long night."
I roll my eyes. "You both complain too much. We're just here to get drunk. I hope you brought the liquor."
"Yes, oh, mighty Prince. We have liquor. I don't know why you're asking, it's not like you won't be drunk after two shots, you light weight."
"Fuck you, Ollie. I'm gonna drink you under the table tonight."
"Good luck, Bro," Ollie snorts.
"I still think that being drunk in a haunted cavern is a bad idea." Rachel brushes at the back of her neck with her fingers, shivering at where I just touched her. This time, I let her catch me. "I sweat to God, Bruce. I will kill you and Ollie will help me hide your body."
"You'll never be able to come back, Rach," I whine. Then I snicker. "I'll haunt you if you do."
"Oh my—you know what? Fuck you, Bruce Wayne."
"With pleasure, Beautiful."
She glares at me."
Ollie just shakes his head. Rach told him last year that she liked me, but that ended up being more drama than I'm fond of, because he told me, but I'm honest to God not into her. I mean, she's pretty. She's got model-perfect brown hair that reaches all the way down the middle of her tiny waist. Perky tits, nice eyes, cute smile. She's gorgeous, really. But I've known her far too long to not feel dirty thinking about her tits. She's practically my sister. When my parents switched me out of the charter school in the city and into Gotham Academy School of Business in seventh grade, they made moves to get her into Gotham Academy too, into their School of Law program. Basically, her parents are lawyers and they want her to be one too, but they don't have the juice or the money to get her into a school like GA. But since Rach has been coming to the manor as long as I've been alive (literally, Mom and her mom have been best friends since college and baby Rach was born literally two weeks after I was) my dad figured that getting her a scholarship and getting her internships with the law firm my family's lawyers come from would be the right thing to do. People in school kind of hate her because she's there through connects, not the 'nobility of Gotham' bloodlines that tend to be spoiled, self centered brats that care more about their cliques and social circles than keeping their grades up, or, I don't know, ACTUALLY DOING THEIR INTERNSHIPS.
I'll have you know, I keep my grades up. I dutifully go to ever goddamn internship my dad insists that I do for some division of Wayne Industries or another. Right now, he's got some project going on through WayneTech that's supposed to be for doctors (medicine was always his true passion, I think. But his parents wouldn't let him go to med school because of Wayne Industries) and he just started working on a new division of Wayne Industries called WayneBiotech which is supposed to focus on developing new technology to help the environment, help the farming industries, help whatever.
Personally, I don't care. I have no intention of taking over Wayne Industries. I'd rather take over the Wayne Foundation, to be honest. People actually need the metric fuck ton of money the shallow bitches in this school throw away on fashion or make up or plastic surgery. At least I know that the metric fuckton of money my parents insist on throwing away on this bullshit will be put to use if I keep my school life together. So, I do all the stuff they tell me.
Okay, that's not true. They told me to stop sneaking out and doing dumb shit, but hey, I'm fucking sixteen. I'm not a baby. Besides, they don't really care that I sneak out or drink. They care that I don't try to hide it and keep up a good reputation or whatever. But who cares about reputation? The Waynes practically run this town. Hell, the last time a cop tried to arrest me, all I had to do was say, "Gee, the commish would be pretty upset to find his godson in the back of your squadcar, huh?" and that was that. Well, the officer put in a call to see if I really know Comissioner Gordon. He is indeed my godfather, and I do indeed use that to keep me and my friends out of jail. And no, I don't give any fucks doing it. If I'm supposed to be some rich bastard that gets away with everything, my parents are just going to have to suck it up. They created this monster, really.
So I smoke weed at night, and I get fucking drunk if I want to. My parents always get mad and ask my why I insist on being a problem child, why I smell like those city hoodlums when I come home, and why I don't care about my future. I do, truly. I just don't want the prissy holier-than-thou future my parents think I should have. I already know I'm not better than anybody, and I already know that people who like to pretend they are are hiding secrets behind their money. I'll start doing what my parents want when they stop using their black credit cards to hide the terrible job they've done as parents.
We find shitholes like this and invite the street artists to 'vandalize' it (frankly, this shithole looks better now with all the neon greens, bright blues, stark white black and red pictures and words against the light of the fire that Ollie's setting up.
We have marshmallows and hotdogs and shit that we bought so that we could do this the old fashioned way, and we have collapsable chairs and trashbags to throw away our shit in. It's a legit camp out tonight, and I'm excited.
We drink and Rach bitches about Selina again. Selina is honestly just being an asshole because she's finally an upper classmen and she gets to pick on us lower class peons now, and because she's jealous of Rach. I've known Selina all my life too, except she buys into the bullshit parents like mine preach about being a perfect, spoiled child in a bubble made of wealth and 'culture' or whatever, so I stay far the fuck away from her.
She's always pissy because Rach could give a fuck less that her purse is next season 'pucci' or whatever, and still looks fucking awesome ever day. Rach is the girl all of those bottle blonde girls wish they were. I know for a fact that her 'hashtag no filter' instagram posts are genuinely as fresh-out-of-bed as they look. Her bedhead looks like sex hair, her make-up free face doesn't feature dark circles or puffy eyes. She doesn't have to use six pounds of makeup underneath her face just to give herself a healthy glow. Selina hates that Rach is perfect as she is.
The funny thing is, Selina could be perfect too if she lost the bitchy attitude and stopped getting lip jobs. I wish women knew that most men could give a fuck less.
I toast to Selina's stupid attitude ruining our night out… again.
Rach purses her lips, but I can tell that Selina really hurt her today. I resolve to fix this in school tomorrow. I already know how I'll do it, too. I toss back my shot and envision myself in the A Caf, 'accidentally' spilling my ranch dressing all over the two leaves and some cucumbers that Sel considers salad (she's on a diet again, I heard), forcing her to either go hungry or get another salad. Then, as she's bitching at me, I'll secretly dump my drink in her overly expensive purse. And because Sel is an epic bitch, she won't even notice until it drips on her equally ridiculous shoes.
And I'll shrug and walk away, and she'll bitch to her parents who will send my parents the bill for all her expensive shit and the therapist that she'll have to go to because I was mean to her. I swear, some parents don't get it.
"What are you thinking about over there?"
"Revenge," I answer simply. "Look, Sel is an epic bitch. She's not going to stop bugging Rach until Rach puts her in her place. And I'm devising a plan to help this happen because I'm tired of hearing Rach complain about her. Sorry, Rach, no offense, but your bitching is seriously the worst."
Rachel slumps her shoulders. "I've tried everything. I've tried being nice, I've tried being rude. I've tried not caring."
"You haven't hit her where it counts," I say. "She cares about one thing, and that is making sure everyone knows she's better than them. An ice cold glass of humility is the only thing that will stop her. I was thinking about spilling shit on her, but that won't be enough."
Ollie nods at this, thoughtfully. His hair is white-blonde, and it looks orange from the fire in front of him. "Hmm. Does everyone know about her failing her internship this quarter?"
"No, but putting that out wouldn't do anything. Half the upperclassmen could give a fuck less about their internships. We'll have to do some recon. I'm gonna see if I can find out embarrassing shit about her or her family." I point in what I think is her direction. "That can be your trump card, Rach. If she doesn't believe that you'd spread it—"
"I wouldn't."
"But I would."
Rach stares into the fire. "Is that really the only way?"
I shrug. "Yep. It's almost summer. She's not going to have time to fix her image or whatever before summer internships. You'd ruin her going into her senior year. Ha! That would teach her not to fuck with you. You're our girl, Rach. I could give a fuck less whose reputation or pretty shoes or face I'd have to ruin for you."
She grins at me. "Thanks, Brucie. I love you too."
"Don't call me that."
Listen, I got too drunk, passed out, and I didn't hear my phone alarm go off. It happens to the best of us, okay? Right now, I don't care about that. I care about the fact that I'm nauseous and the sun is literally blinding my eyeballs so hard, they might just quit my face. Rach is still passed out, and Ollie's already retching in the back corner of the stupid half-finished tunnel.
I get up and retch into the bushes nearby. Oh, spiced AND white rum mixed with vodka, hotdogs, marshmallows is cool in the moment, but so not awesome on the return. Did you know that? I'm finding out the hard way. My eyes burn and my nose lets my stomach know that what's coming out of my face is not okay, and my stomach responds by retching more.
Fuck. My life.
To add to this, since I didn't hear my alarm and purge while I was still mostly drunk, the hangover is probably going to last until the middle of the week AND Alfred is already awake, which means he's alerted my parents to the fact that I'm not home… the shitstorm waiting for me is severe.
I hurry to pack our shit and wake up Rachel, who probably doesn't remember anything past midnight anyway. With a smirk, I save our snapchat story in case there's any blackmail material. We'll all review our shenanigans later, when we're sober, to see if it's as funny as it was when we were drunk and high.
We trek our way back to Ollie's car, which I'm honestly totally jealous of, since I can't get my license until next year (I might have gotten caught with weed in my car and had my permit revoked).
Ollie is the kind of guy you can tell anything to, and he'll just nod like it's totally valid. Honestly, probably to a fault. He really shouldn't hang out with a fucker like me, but he likes that he doesn't have to say much around us. His parents' version of the perfect Queen Industries heir is the type that is strong and extroverted and knows how to schmooze people that need to be schmoozed. He's a loner that would prefer to spend his whole life ensconced in a window seat somewhere exotic reading anything he could get his hands on. My family didn't like his for a long time because they're sort of the opposite of ours; The Waynes use the foundation as a means to look good only, letting the business gain financially from their ability to pretend to give a shit. The Queens are what I want to be, to be honest. They use the business to give their philanthropic exploits the success they need.
To spite my parents, I once pretended to be my dad and donated an entire branch to the Gotham Central Library in Ollie's name. The Oliver J Queen Library, also known as the East Gotham Library, is state of the art, with brand new computers, thousands of books, and an entire top floor of coffee shops and study nooks for students, as well as charging stations and free wifi throughout the whole building. My parents had to swallow their gall as they made nice with the Queens until the damn library finally opened, because pulling back the donation would have been terrible PR (although not as bad as Ollie and I getting wasted on opening night). They gave me a long lecture about how to use money to better our image (isn't that exactly what I did? Minus the drunk part) and how I need to learn about responsibility in order to be a sucessful Wayne Heir.
I digress. The Queens make Ollie board at GA since he really lives in Star City. It was hard for him to make friends at first, since he's so damn quiet, but honestly, there's value in his silence. He's like a fucking ninja, and he knows more than all our professors combined because he stays reading up on the most random things. I caught him reading IN HIS FREE TIME by the way, about string theory. STRING. THEORY. For FUN. After that I started calling him Good Queen Hunting for like a solid month. He hated it. I had fun with it.
Now I need his ninja skills to get me into my room, which he does. He leavecs the same way we come, wishing me luck.
There is no luck. Alfred is sitting on my bed, staring at me. He inhales sharply and then coughs, his wrinkled face even more lined as his expression changes into one of disgust. "If you value your own sanity and mine, Master Bruce, please, for the love og God and the Queen, shower before breakfast. Your mother is already upset with you."
"You should stop ratting me out, Alfred."
"I would prefer to keep my job, Master Bruce. Although I have no idea why." He starts muttering his sarcastic thoughts out loud, the way he does when he was secretly worried about me and is now pissed. "I've loved the boy since the day he was born and yet somehow getting a raise doesn't seem like enough motivation to sacrifice my sanity over the—did you not hear me correctly, Sir. Get in the shower immediately, Breakfast will be served in less than an hour! I must still drivec you to school. Did you at least complete your daily assignments?"
I nod, mad at myself for upsetting him. "We did our homework before we left, Alfred. I'm sorry. I don't… mean to upset you."
"Then please present yourself in this house at a reasonable hour, Master Bruce. Not merely an hour before you need to go to school."
"It won't happen again," I promise. What I mean is, he won't catch me out again.
He knows that's what I mean, and he narrows his eyes at me. Still he says, "Very well," and leaves, not slamming the door because he's honestly too proper for that.
When I get downstairs, dressed in my uniform that someone kindly cleaned and pressed for me sometime over the weekend, I see that my parents haven't started breakfast like they normally do when I take too long to get ready. Instead, they both glare at me.
I sigh. "Look, I already know what you're gonna say, so you can just save it—"
"I've decided on your internship for the summer. You are going to Smallville, Kansas."
That is definitely not what I thought they were going to say. "Excuse me?!"
"You are irresponsible and we are tired of your ability to throw our reputation into the wind in fistfuls. I will not allow your stubbornness any longer. We're sending you away."
My father shoves papers into my hands. I decide not to react at all until I can see what the hell is so special about a town literally named Smallville. I think about this carefully, and then decide how I'm going to respond. My parents have always thought they could manipulate me using our already-shitty relationship. Mom's shrink told her that I probably feel abandoned by her as a mother or something, and now she only pretends to want to get to know me when I 'behave' and threatens to ship me off when I don't.
As if punishing me using our relationship doesn't prove the exact thing they were trying to tell my parents.
I read the internship documents and frown. "You're sending me to a farm? What the fuck for?" Mom looks appalled by my use of the word fuck, but we both know she isn't. I swear, she even has to pretend around her own family. That is a fucked up life. Suddenly, I can't wait to get away. "You know what? Cool. Send me away and hope somebody else can do a better job parenting me than you can. Call it an internship so that you can hope somebody else can teach me how to supposedly be a 'good' rich person better than you can. Why did you even bother having me, anyway?"
I pick up my backpack and stomp to the front door.
