Steady hands (ragged breathing) Chapter 1: Bruce Kane, a batman fanfic

Full Summary: Bruce was just another kid without a mother living in the Narrows. Unlike the rest of them though, he planned to do something about this city. In which Bruce Kane is the bastard son of Thomas Wayne, grows up in the worst possible part of Gotham and still manages to acquire a colony of bat(kid)s.

Warnings for referenced/implied (underage) prostitution, child abuse and just about every topic canon touches as well. Nothing is explicit, but it might either be referenced or talked about.

So, this got inspired by me imagining what Batman would be like without all the high-tech. Then I started thinking about what Batman and Bruce Wayne would be like had he grown up in poverty in the worst part of Gotham and it all just spiraled out of control from there.
I'm pretty new to DC and comics and everything that doesn't fit canon will be judged according to "this is fanfiction" and a wise person telling me "tbh we ignore 95% of canon anyway" so there's that.
This story is dedicated to my best friend because she let me ramble about this.
Have fun!

Bruce Kane grew up in a tiny apartment he shared with his mother. He went to school from Monday to Friday and cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner on his weekends when his mother worked. His mother was pretty much always working, or so it seemed to Bruce, especially since she was always taking the hospital's night shifts, weekend shifts and holiday shifts, as those earned the most money. Bruce didn't mind too much though, he knew his mom was trying her best and he knew she loved him. No matter how late she returned, she always prepared a lunch box for him to take to school and gave him a goodbye kiss.

She was never too tired to listen to him talk about his day or answer his many questions about what kinds of people his mother had helped today.

His mother was a vibrant light in the darkness of this city. Walking with her through the twilight alleys never seemed as dangerous together compared to when he had to walk them home alone.

They had run into a lot of trouble in the past years - but who in Gotham's north hadn't, really? - yet Bruce felt always more protected with her around. He never had to deal with anything worse than a black eye, a push or a shove with his mother right next to him.

On his own, rushing through the streets on his way back home from school, he had already ended up with worse injuries. But even those he could deal with when his mother carefully wrapped them in bandages, telling him "andrà tutto bene, tesoro" - everything will be alright.

There were many things to be afraid of in this neighborhood: criminals with no moral backbone whatsoever, sickness and death, the bats that had made their home in the chimney and screamed at night, but as long as his mother was there, Bruce was sure that the sun would rise the next day.

"Bruce, can you fetch me the bandages, per favore? And the alcohol beneath the sink?"

Bruce ran criss-cross through the apartment, gathering everything his mother asked for and leaving it on the kitchen table. Since it was pretty well known that his mother was a nurse, injured people often dropped by. Some of them only once, others more often and a few came by regularly just to chat.

"Grazie mille, tesoro."

Of all the people that came by, Bruce liked Marie the best. She wasn't as old as his mom, but not super young either. Really, her age seemed to depend on what kind of make-up she was wearing. But Marie was always willing to talk to him about Gray Ghost and hug him and smile even when Bruce didn't feel all that happy.

They didn't have many possessions, just as much as they needed to get by. Sometimes his mother would indulge him and buy him a new toy, or one of the expensive shampoos that smelled like flowers and spring and nothing like the Narrows.

They'd take long baths together then and afterward dress in their most formal and cleanest clothes and pretend to be attending high society dinner parties. His mother would polish her pearl necklace until it shone brightly even with the lights turned off and only candlelight illuminating the room.

The pearls were a precious family heirloom, or so she had told Bruce. Its actual origin was unknown to Bruce, his mother came up with a different tale every time - from pirates to Roman royalty to mermaids - and made Bruce deduce the ending of each story.

It was fun, Bruce loved solving puzzles. He always snatched up the entertainment pages from gossip magazines and newspapers, dutifully filling out crossword puzzles and sudokus.

Bruce was reading on the sofa when his mother covered his eyes from behind.

"Mamma!" He complained. "I'm reading!"

She laughed, bright and happy like a summer's day.

"Of course, of course. I won't disturb you long. But, tesoro, three guesses what happened today?"

She was extraordinarily happy, so something unusual and positive must have happened. It was also already four p.m., so despite having an early shift, she had come home late.

"Something at the hospital?" Bruce asked.

His mother's hand on his eyes vanished and Bruce put his book aside to look at his mother properly. She was still smiling and had one hand behind her back, hiding the object from Bruce's view.

"My smart boy, already such a great detective. As you guessed correctly, something great happened at the hospital. I got a pay raise! And to celebrate..." His mother moved her arm from behind her back to her front. She was holding two shiny red tickets with a brand Bruce would recognize everywhere. "I bought us tickets for the Zorro movie you wanted to see."

Bruce's eyes lit up. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the no-feet-on-the-sofa rule to jump in his mother's arms.

"When, when, when, when!?"

"Tonight, movie premiere."

Bruce wouldn't remember it after this night, but he had left the cinema laughing, feeling happier than he had in months. It had been so late and dark, yet his mother hadn't warned him to keep quiet since she loved his joy far too much.

Everything happened in painful slow motion. The man was shouting at his mother. Ugly, harsh words not unlike those of their neighbor's in his drunken madness. His mother hadn't returned in kind. She was a soft-spoken woman, warm and safe and always concerned with keeping the peace. Her gentle words didn't prevent the man from reaching for her necklace though and, when she refused, from harshly tugging at it.

Bruce pulled his switchblade from his pocket when the necklace broke apart and like a thousand tiny raindrops the pearls dropped to the ground together with his knife.

His mother cried out pained and inhuman before Bruce had even registered the shot that reverberated through the night. Something warm splattered on his face, but the night was cold and clear. It was the first dry night this autumn as well, it hadn't rained all day.

The man cursed and ran away and his mother wasn't standing anymore. Blood poured from a wound on her chest, deep dark crimson seeping into her clothes. She coughed, choked with a sickly wet sound.

Bruce dropped to his knees, pressing his hands against his mother's wound but the blood would not stop flowing. It welled up between his fingers, drowning them in the hot liquid.

"Please, mamma, please don't leave, please don't leave me."

His mother didn't move an inch. She just lied there on the ground while her pearls were rolling over the floor and Bruce's hands, shirt and pants were stained in her blood. He didn't know how long he was sitting there on the ground, his hands holding onto his mother's body, hoping to keep the life inside. Everything around him seemed so much louder than usual. The noise of the cars driving past him and his mother, not stopping for second class citizens like them. His mother was still warm when somebody came for him.

"Oh, hell," they hissed, but they could have been screaming as well.

Bruce turned his head. His sight was blurry, he tasted salt on his tongue. "Please, you have to help my mamma."

The stranger came closer and put something around Bruce's shoulder while they moved their hands to cover Bruce's eyes.

"It's alright, kid. Everything's going to be fine," the stranger, a man, said.

Bruce tried to push the man's hands away. The man didn't understand! Why was he bothering with Bruce, he needed to help his mother!

"You have to help mamma," Bruce repeated, his voice hoarse. "Please, you have to help my mamma."

There are only three police officers that followed the detective's call. None of them cared, they scoffed, shrugged and continued on like his mother was nothing. They didn't even try to help her, so apathetic to her (still, cold, dead) body. They didn't take any notice of Bruce sitting in the corner, just a few steps away from his mother with the detective's heavy jacket on his shoulders. They didn't talk to him and didn't pay any attention to Bruce's shaking hands. He felt sick, like throwing up and wanted to be home in his bed in his mamma's arms. Anywhere but here staring into those dull brown eyes.

"Bruce, is that you- Oh, god."

Marie was familiar, Marie was safe. She pulled him close, smearing red all over her sparkling dress.

The police officers still didn't care and so Marie pushed him away, further and further from his mother, her pearls and all the crimson ground.

Bruce's hands wouldn't stop shaking, no matter what he did.

Marie had taken him home and tugged him in his bed, but she'd done it all wrong, and he couldn't close his eyes without those images flashing up. He couldn't sleep without waking up screaming and emptying his stomach on the wooden floor.

After three days or so, others dropped by. Bruce didn't talk to them, he didn't want to listen to their words and promises.

He still couldn't keep his food down.

Nothing was going to be alright.

A man pushed through the door, loud and violent, spending ages screaming at Marie while she begged for a few more days. He left soon after, but Marie's black eye stayed.

"Please, Bruce."

She was kneeling right next to his bed where he and his mother used to pray.

"You have to pick yourself up again."

Bruce had wondered what Marie thought was going to happen now. She had to go back to work and she couldn't keep offering him words of comfort and reassurance when they didn't fix anything at all.

"Martha is dead, and you will be if you don't go with the pace of this place."

She pressed something small and cold in his hands and for a moment Bruce thought those were the tiny marbles he kept in a box under his bed. He opened his hand and stared down at his mother's pearls. They looked dirty, shone with a red hue, but Bruce could tell they were those white stars that used to lie around his mother's neck.

"They're all we could find in the cracks. Obviously, it's not all of them, but they still belong to you."

Bruce closed his hand around the eight pearls lying innocently in his palm. It was Friday.

"I haven't been in school all week."

His throat hurt. He hadn't said a single word in the past days.

Marie sobbed, and a laugh interrupted by all her tears escaped her as she put her hands around Bruce's. "It'll be alright."

The Narrows were no place to mourn for long, you had to move on.

And so Bruce did.

(If sometimes he still thought his hands were red, then it did not matter.)

Marie went back to working and Bruce was alone in the now too big apartment. It used to be so small for his mother and him. Now it seemed much too big.

His mother's brilliant white pearls were still tainted by the red of her blood, no matter how often Bruce polished them. The handful Marie had managed to pick up for him didn't shine like they used to and they weren't worth as much anymore. Not that anyone ever would buy those from a child and offer the proper amount of money for them.

Bruce thought he should sell them either way, he needed the money. His mother had paid the rent for the month just the morning before she passed. That gave him another twenty-five, maybe twenty-eight days before he'd be thrown out of the apartment unless he found a way to pay for it.

He should sell the pearls.

Instead, Bruce let Marie's small hands thread a string through each of the eight pearls and tie that string shut with a knot. His treasure burnt warm on his skin, but Bruce didn't pull them out from beneath his shirt.

His mother died because she showed the world her most precious possession. Bruce wouldn't make the same mistakes.

Bruce went to school come Monday, without his lunch and his mother's goodbye kiss, and earned himself a week of detention for missing class. He didn't mind too much. School beat being home alone sitting in a cold apartment. His mother had always told him that school and education were essential if he wanted to become someone important someday. Privately, Bruce had always thought that he'd be fine if he could be an average citizen, fitting into a statistic with 1.8 children.

For even that, though, he had to study and get a degree.

School, however, Bruce learned, was expensive. It asked him for money for the upcoming trip to a zoo and the storybooks they had to order, both of which were little to no use to Bruce. What purpose did going to a zoo have for him? If he wanted to look at animals, he could go to the pet shop. They wouldn't even ask him for any money for looking at the animals.

Bruce's piggy bank, the Kane's entire savings account, had enough money for one more week of three meals a day. If he reduced it to breakfast and dinner, he could possibly last a week more. School would cut down that budget alarmingly. Marie didn't have any money she could spare him, and pickpocketing could only get him so far.

Bruce didn't return to school on Tuesday, or the following days. Nobody called home and no social service worker turned up on his door when Bruce was there and not running errands on the street.

The newspaper hadn't mentioned his mother's murder nor her son going missing. Just two more people disappearing in Gotham's fog and nobody gave a damn.

They should care though, Bruce thought while accepting a package. They should care that there was an eight-year-old running around delivering drugs, cash and guns so he could sleep indoors or eat.

Marie helped him sell whatever still belonged to Bruce when he had to leave the apartment twenty-four days after his mother's death. He kept a small suitcase full of things, half of them being his mother's medical books. They were much more interesting than Bruce's school books if a bit harder to understand. A photo album and his mother's diary also found their way into the case, though Bruce didn't dare to open them.

Living out of a suitcase was easier than Bruce thought it would be, but also very impractical. He kept having to carry it with him, or hide it when he was out on the streets.

He missed home.

Bruce saw the officer with the gentle hands patrol the Narrows during the daytime a couple times, for what purpose he didn't know. Just a bit of police presence wasn't going to fix anything here.

By the time Bruce had stopped going to school and was sleeping in the brothel most days and on the street on the others, the detective stopped patrolling.

Bruce wanted to hate him for abandoning the Narrows, but then again it wasn't like anyone else was doing something. He shouldn't blame the one man who at least had tried to go about this part of town differently.

Selling drugs as a middle-man turned out to be a dangerous occupation that got you beat up multiple times. If the quality was inadequate, if there wasn't enough, if the packaging was damaged, if the delivery was late - Bruce got to feel all of it.

He was fairly sure two of his ribs were cracked. Bruce had gotten pretty good at assessing his own and others' injuries. Marie had plenty of acquaintances that didn't mind the opinion of a now nine-year-old with professional books instead of no information whatsoever.

Sometimes they even gave him a few dollars for it or some hand-me-downs. His birthday and spring had come and passed and with that so had his growth spurt forcing him to get some new clothes. He had found a pair of sneakers that wasn't too big and still had enough grip to catch him when he was running through the alleys making his deliveries.

He had a new client today, which meant a new route and a new good impression to make. He'd already picked up the package and had been relieved to know that it wasn't filled with guns this time. He'd been told to be careful, or else - nothing new really - and they only ever insisted that much on it when it truly was something fragile.

Bruce turned right and climbed up the fire escape to avoid a brawl on the ground. Most people, Bruce had noticed, didn't look up even half as often as they looked behind themselves. They never noticed him when he passed by them right over their heads. Heights didn't frighten him anymore if they ever did. Without a permanent roof over his head, Bruce found himself feeling at home on the rooftops of his city.

At the end of the alley, Bruce turned left, reaching the dead-end that was his destination.

A lot of cardboard boxes piled up around the backdoor of the building, most of them looking pretty new. They could be useful, Bruce would have to check if he could use them for the nights he spent outside. During the winter he'd been more or less tolerated inside the brothel as long as he made himself useful cleaning up and stitching wounds, but he knew that wouldn't hold for much longer.

Bruce took the package out of his backpack and knocked against the gray door in front of him. It took a few seconds, but soon a stressed looking man opened the door.

"I've got your package-"

"Yes, yes!" The man interrupted Bruce. "Don't linger here, boy. Get inside."

He pushed Bruce inside, opening another door to a storage room. "You're going to have to wait for the payment, I'm a bit busy at the moment."

The man pushed his glasses up and continued walking inside. Bruce was unsure whether he should follow him. On the one hand, the man hadn't told him so and following strangers usually didn't turn out all that great for him. On the other side, Bruce couldn't leave without the money. There was no guarantee he would get it then and returning empty-handed to his employers was everything but a good idea. He weighed his odds and, feeling like he was about to make a mistake, followed the man out through the storage room into the building.

The first thing Bruce noticed was how clean everything was. They passed a room full of animals when it finally clicked for Bruce. This was a veterinary practice. They entered the waiting room, where Bruce was told to sit and not cause any trouble. He felt a bit out of place in-between all the injured adults and the very few injured animals.

Alright, Bruce had to correct his earlier assessment. This was a veterinary practice as a front for a real clinic. The man, the doctor and owner of this place, called up one mobster after another, though the clinic didn't seem to get any emptier.

Bruce turned to look at a newcomer. He had another man help him make it through the door, bleeding heavily through his pants. A stab wound most likely.

"Doc!" The second grunt shouted. "Get your ass here!"

The doctor turned up only briefly, barely glancing at the man before telling him to sit down and shut up. "It's not life-threatening, he can wait like everyone else."

The thug apparently wasn't very impressed with that. He snarled and pulled a gun out of his waistband. Bruce felt himself freeze up. He had carried guns before, had seen countless people with them in the past months, yet he couldn't move at all. It felt like he was trapped in his body, unable to move and interfere before his mother-

"If you want to show your faces here ever again, don't pull a gun on me."

The doctor didn't look all that impressed. He didn't even stay to watch what the men would do, he just turned on his heel and walked back into the treatment room he had come from.

"Fuck!" One of the men cursed but dropped his gun.

Bruce couldn't look away. He didn't understand why the man hadn't just taken the shot. It would have been easy enough, he couldn't have missed from that distance with a clear line of fire.

"What are you looking at, brat?"

The gangster glared at Bruce, his fingers twitching around his gun. "You think this is fun? Want me to teach you a lesson you piece of shit?"

He lunged forward and Bruce couldn't step back. The man pulled him up by his collar and the rough fabric pressed into Bruce's neck.

"You think this is-"

"I can fix him," Bruce croaked.

The man's pissed look intensified before switching with one of total confusion. "You can do what now?"

Bruce raised his hand to point at the injured man they had brought in. "Fix him," he repeated.

The gangster let go of him, crossing his arms over his chest. Bruce rubbed his throat but didn't avoid the man's stare.

"It's just a stab wound. I can fix him."

Bruce had sewn wounds shut before, smaller ones with needles and thread from a sewing package they had lying around to fix clothes with. The man's injury was larger than those he had treated before, and he was losing more blood than Bruce had thought at first glance.

"Now get to work, boy," the man hissed.

It was too late to back out now.

Bruce borrowed needle and threat from the doctor's storage room with his heart beating twice as fast as usual and his blood rushing through his ears. His hands were shaking, and he couldn't stop them. He couldn't sew if his hands would only tear more skin open, he needed to calm down. His mother's pearls burned warm on his skin. He pulled them out from below his shirt and rubbed over the smooth surface.

It would be just like he had practiced (he'd never done this before), just like his mother's books (there was too much blood). He could do this.

It must have been hours when the doctor finally took a break and gave Bruce the money for the package.

"I didn't deduce the costs for the needle and the thread. Since they were mine though, you also don't get to keep the money the men gave you."

He held out his hand and Bruce silently handed over the bills over that had been pressed into his bloody hand. Why was it that they were always red?

"How often have you treated wounds like that before?"

Bruce didn't look up from his hands.

"That was the first time."

The doctor hummed. "You've got steady hands. Come back tomorrow. 5 a.m., don't be late."

He returned the next day with a blue eye his previous employer had given him for being late. The doctor - Martin Crane - didn't care beyond one raised brow. Patients came in soon after Bruce and Crane started explaining what kind of injuries he was treating and how he did it and why exactly this way right when leaning over a patient. After the third reset shoulder, he expected Bruce to be able to copy him and added that injury to Bruce's list. At the end of the day, Bruce had a full stomach - lunch and dinner had been provided for him - and a list of injuries Doctor Crane didn't want to treat anymore and expected Bruce to handle instead of him.

Surprisingly, people didn't really object to him taking care of them. They looked skeptical, sure, but Doctor Crane had a reputation, Bruce figured. His house, his rules. And if he said the scrawny, malnourished child will sew your wound shut, Bruce would sew that wound shut.

He got to keep a fourth of what he earned. It was less than his deliveries won him, but it was a steady and somewhat risk-free income. Additionally, he didn't even have to spend so much money on food anymore. A few times a week Crane ordered him to pick up food for the two of them and Bruce didn't even have to pay for it. It wasn't enough to get him through the week, but it certainly did help.

Winter had long since made Bruce accustomed to hunger, that hollow feeling in his stomach, the light-headedness and the weakness in his limbs. This was an improvement, one Bruce would work hard to keep for as long as he could.

He had thought about going to the police or CPS after the first night he had slept outside and froze so terribly that his fingers wouldn't even warm up when Marie smuggled a cup of hot tea out to him.

Bruce had wondered then if it could really be so terrible. When he had voiced such thoughts to one of the other kids doing runs for the Family he was working for, the older girl had just started to laugh.

"They'll stick you in jail if you're lucky."

"And if I'm not?" Bruce asked.

"Then you might as well stay here. The devil you know and all that. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're going to matter when they know about you. You'll be just another problem they'll have to fix and they will hate you for it."

She shrugged. "Do the math yourself."

Bruce found some more blankets for himself and yearned for summer.

"You stink, boy. And you're dirty. You can't treat patients when you look even worse than them. What happened to basic hygiene?"

A pissed off pimp and the streets, Bruce didn't reply.

He'd been thrown out of the brothel permanently a few days ago since he didn't earn his keep anymore. Being away for most hours of the day and only returning to sleep automatically disqualified you for cleaning up behind people, who would have thought.

And since Bruce had been a nuisance since day one and now refused to give up the money he had earned, it had only been a question of time either way. He should have considered himself to be lucky for having a place to sleep at for so long in the first place.

Doctor Crane sighed and pointed Bruce towards the staircase leading up to his apartment. "Go shower. You can sleep in treatment room 3."

Bruce nodded dutifully and hushed up the stairs.

Bruce didn't have friends. He had a boss, acquaintances, a sibling figure like Marie and other ambiguous people such as Selina Kyle with whom he sometimes shared a meal with, but he certainly didn't have friends. Selina was a strange girl, and Bruce couldn't quite pin down her character although she was the same age as him. One day she'd be cheerful, telling him about all the cash she stole from unassuming passersby and on other's she'd be silent or downright nasty, insulting him and calling him names.

Teenagers, Bruce had learned, were good at hurting each other with words alone.

"You're pathetic, Bruce, 'cause you still think you can get out of here someday. You don't go to school, you work for a creep, and in ten years you'll still be here sleeping in your boss's office."

Bruce ignored the bite in her words in favor of continuing their conversation. Sometimes, that was the only way to make sure that Selina returned once a week for a proper meal. They weren't friends, but Bruce wouldn't let Selina starve just because they didn't get along flawlessly. Besides, it was nice to have someone to talk to he could relate to.

"But I've almost got enough money saved up to rent a domicile." He highlighted the stresses on his last words like the posh rich in the Diamond district did, teasing a smile out of Selina. "Besides, where will you be in ten years?"

"Paris," Selina replied immediately. "Eating breakfast in front of the Eiffel Tower, just you wait."

He kissed Selina only once and as far as kisses went, this wasn't too bad he assumed.

"And?" She asked, arms crossed and staring at him like she was just waiting for Bruce to say something wrong.

"That was alright? I guess?"

Selina sighed and sat back down on the railing of the fire escape. "That's it? Are you gay or something?"

Bruce shrugged. "Maybe. It was nice, but I think I could live my life without kissing anyone ever again. It's messy, and I think I'd rather just share a pizza with somebody."

He wasn't sure which part of his statement Selina found to be hilarious enough to break out in one of her rare laughing fits, but he supposed that this was better than being scrutinized by her keen eyes.

There were worse ways to spend your sixteenth birthday.

There were always people with injuries, so there were always patients to treat, but the amount varied depending on who was in control of the city at the moment. During the times of great disruptions, income was amazing.

Right now, however, not so much. The Penguin was enlarging his territory and had driven many gang members into hiding. Protection money had been upped again as well to a quite offensive sum. Bruce didn't even have to think hard about how many shops wouldn't be able to make that cut. Business was going poor and as usual nobody who actually deserved it had to feel the repercussions.

It made Bruce so, so angry. He had found a place to stay, one to call his own, just a few days ago and he had almost enough money together to rent it permanently. He was finally old enough that somebody would accept money from him. Bruce wasn't stupid, he had saved up over the years just for this, and he was so close to getting what he wanted for once.

Marie was pissed when he showed up asking for help. They hadn't talked much in the past months due to their schedules mostly. She was usually sleeping when he worked and vice versa, never mind that her boss didn't like it when Bruce came around without offering something. This time though Bruce was much too frustrated and angry to turn around and leave. He had plenty to offer for the right price.

People paid well for conventions they had invented for no purpose and Bruce wasn't above exploiting that.

Besides, he got an apartment out of it and the knowledge that sex also wasn't really his thing either. Every moment could be a learning opportunity, you just had to look at it from the right angle.

Bruce hadn't lived with Doctor Crane, yet he hadn't been precisely homeless either. The clinic had been his shelter and Crane's shower had been included in that space unlike the rest of the apartment. Everything else that was Crane's living space was absolutely off-limits, and Bruce hadn't been out to test those boundaries. As long as he didn't have to sleep on the streets, he was doing better than other people. Having to clear out your room every day for patients wasn't too bad.

He'd asked Crane only once why the Doctor cared and had been brushed off with a "I have a nephew your age."

It hadn't been an explanation, but enough of a reason to account for something. What exactly that was Bruce didn't know.

What he did know, however, was that he wasn't sad to leave the clinic behind in favor of his own apartment, room, living space. It wasn't much, only two rooms with one of them being a tiny bathroom, but it was his.

That was more than he had owned before.

Selina made fun of him for sleeping without a mattress but having enough books to build a sofa out of them.

"Is this what you spent all your money on?" She asked while skimming through his new law book.

"Yes. I found most of them in the trash and bought the necessary or interesting ones second-hand."

Half of Bruce's earnings were probably going into his stack of books. Education was important, no matter how informal. He didn't need a teacher to tell him to read the Odyssey, he could do that on his own just fine.

"Necessary ones?"

Bruce rolled his eyes and moved his head out of the trajectory of the book Selina had just thrown at him.

"Yeah, necessary ones, like school books. Math, English, science."

Selina's expression was unreadable.

The money he had earned from the trip to the brothel was enough to get his apartment as well as a used laptop Bruce was unconditionally in love with it, even if it was a little slow. The first thing he did with it was signing himself up for some online classes to get a high school diploma, while also picking up some college courses.

Bruce also picked up two phones. Nothing fancy, just something you could call and text with. One he kept for himself and the other one was for Selina.

She hadn't been only an acquaintance in a long time and had swiftly moved into the friend territory. On top of that, Selina was his only, and therefore also best friend, and Bruce didn't like her dropping off the map for three weeks without stopping by only to turn up on his doorstep at three in the morning bruised and bleeding with a kitten of all things sleeping in her backpack.

Selina carefully picked the cat up and sat it down on the ground, where it immediately began to explore the small space. Selina watched it climb over smaller and bigger stacks of books like a hawk, completely ignoring Bruce's presence. Only when the kitten had made it safely to Bruce's bed - a real one nowadays with a frame and mattress, pillows and blankets - Selina turned away from it.

"Where have you been?"

"Around," Selina replied.

Selina stayed the night and the next and the one after. Bruce hid his money all over the apartment, never all of it in one place and within weeks the stashes started growing. Selina bought groceries and came home with additional pillows and blankets. She sat on their bed in the evening with Bruce's old school books surrounding her and a cup of tea in her hands.

Bruce resigned himself to the fact that he now shared his apartment when he found himself buying cat food for Selina's cat Spade.

Selina paid half the rent and it irked him that he didn't know how she got that money. Pick-pocketing could only earn her so much and Selina certainly didn't go out every day. Sometimes she wouldn't leave the apartment for days at a time.

She was hiding from something, someone most likely, and she wasn't talking. Of course, Selina was entitled to keep her secrets, Bruce certainly wasn't sharing everything with her either, but if he was getting himself into danger by living with her, he'd prefer to know.

Bruce was a pretty light sleeper who could sleep any moment he wanted. He was usually exhausted enough to drop dead the moment his body hit the mattress. Unfortunately, that exhaustion didn't translate to him sleeping through the night.

He was awake the moment he felt Selina get up from the bed. He stayed still, pretending to be asleep when he heard her get dressed and leave the apartment. He waited another minute before standing up himself. It was time he finally checked out what was hiding behind Selina's behavior.

He put on his jeans, sneakers, a black hoodie, and a coat and was already halfway out of the door when he realized that maybe he should disguise himself a little better if he didn't want to be recognized. He returned to the apartment, trying to find something to hide his face with. All he could find on such short notice was a filter mask he had walked home with on accident after a long shift at the clinic and some of Selina's dark make-up she had bought on a whim.

The filter mask did a good enough job of hiding his lower face. Then he smeared the black make-up around his eyes. As long as nobody looked too closely at him, the disguise would hold.

He left their apartment through the fire escape, climbing up to the roof of the house. From up here, Bruce had a much better view of the city than from the alleys. He made his way across the night sky on silent feet and spotted Selina after a good half an hour of searching. She was taking many detours, but Bruce figured that she was heading towards the docks.

What did she want there? Everybody knew that the docks were the territory of the local arms dealers and therefore off-limits unless you wanted to end up in Gotham's cold, harsh waters.

Selina wasn't dumb enough to sneak into their territory.

Or apparently she was.

If they got home after this with all their limbs still attached, Bruce was going to gut her. He watched from a building right across the warehouses as Selina slowed down and came to a stop. She stood there, right in the open, scanning her surroundings for something Bruce couldn't see. Ten minutes passed and Selina still didn't move away from her spot. It was like she was waiting to get attacked! Bruce had been a scrawny kid, good at hiding away and finding escape routes. Selina, however, was the master of invisibility and would never just stand around in a place like that. Bruce cursed under his breath and took out his phone. He hadn't checked if Selina had taken hers when she had left the apartment, an oversight Bruce wanted to hit himself for, but trying to text her first was a better idea than straight up running up to her.

What are you doing?

Thankfully, whatever god was out there watching over Gotham's night, had let Selina take her phone with her.

Bruce?

Rooftop 12 o'clock

He stood up to wave and Selina spotted him immediately.

What are you thinking!?

I'M WORKING
GO HOME ASAP

I'm not leaving you here.

LET'S GO.

He didn't need a night scope to see Selina typing furiously. Bruce's patience was wearing thin, he wanted to just shout at her to get the hell out of this place before they got caught. The moment his panic finally won out and he was about to call for Selina, two shadows crawled out of an alley, approaching her. Hastily she packed her phone away and stood up straight.

The men came to a halt about a meter away from her. They were too far away from Bruce for him to pick out what exactly they were saying, but the discussion did not look friendly. Instead, it seemed to become more agitated and aggressive with every second.

He saw the two men moving closer to Selina, both pretty much towering over her. She took a few steps back, but that wasn't enough to escape their grasp.

Bruce balled his hands to fists in an attempt to calm down.

"Leave me alone!" Selina shouted, loud enough for him and everyone else on this block to hear, pushing one guy away from her.

That only seemed to anger them more as the other reached back to punch her. Goon number one pulled something from his waistband.

Blood rushed through Bruce's ears.

A gunshot. Pearls dropping on the ground. He was too slow, too far away and his friend got attacked, hurt, killed-

No.

Not again.

Steady hands, (ragged breathing), a good aim, (panic), a loose brick.

Bruce threw the stone as hard as he could and it hit the armed man's wrist, knocking the gun out of his hands. Apparently, that was all that Selina needed to head-butt her current assailant and kick the other one where the sun did not shine.

Faster than the wind she ran away from them, heading in Bruce's direction and climbing up the fire escape. Bruce held out his hand and helped her up to the roof from where they immediately took off.

The screams of the two men still echoed in Bruce's ears when they were already halfway across the city and nowhere near home yet. They collapsed right next to a chimney, his hands in hers, and his lungs feeling like they were on fire.

Selina's shoulders started shaking before choked laughter escaped her lips. Dread and exhilaration made a terrible combination. Bruce's self-control and emotions were all over the place and therefore he would not allow Selina to make fun of him for crying into her shoulder when she was about to do the same.

"They wanted me to plant blackmail on some businessman downtown," Selina confessed in the safety of their home, wrapped in all their blankets. "He's involved with some big shot in the Russian mafia and they wanted him to die. I'm good, but not that good yet, and I didn't want to die for this. I said no."

No was a concept that wealthy and privileged people could afford.

No, I don't want to eat tonight, I need to lose weight. No, I don't want to go through that alley and risk my life. No, I don't want this.

No.

And yet, Bruce had said no to every should-have-happened and could-have-happened of tonight and saved his friend. Selina was alive, right next to him, and they were fine.

Just a bit of bravery and a good aim was all it had taken. Perhaps this had been a onetime thing. He had been in the right place at the right time with a useful tool.

But maybe this could be more.

He didn't start sneaking out until months later. Another gang war had started up in the clinic's territory, so there was plenty of business and a lot of long shifts to work. Besides that, neither he or Selina did well without seeing each other for long and so she had taken to dropping by at the clinic while Bruce was working.

Doctor Crane called it codependency.

Bruce was perfectly fine acknowledging that going through a life-threatening situation together had severe ramifications. However, he wouldn't go as far as calling it codependency. They were still their own people with separate dreams and goals in life that did not include each other on a bigger scale.

One of Bruce's goals, for example, was to beat up the guys selling drugs on the corner. Their stuff wasn't just dirty and killed the consumer quite fast, they also had a nasty habit of getting kids hooked on the stuff. Not that Bruce considered himself to be the height of maturity with eighteen, but at least he wasn't thirteen and new to this life.

He sneaked out of the apartment around midnight, though it shouldn't really be called sneaking out if Selina was awake and pointedly ignoring his actions. He put on the filter mask again and smeared the make-up around his eyes, before disappearing in the night.

It was liberating, adrenalin pushed him further and further, and the dealers' expressions when he managed to surprise them were the absolute best.

Bruce had gotten into plenty of fights in the last decade, he wasn't exactly someone who went along with what other people said, and that got you into trouble. Perhaps it really was time he started getting into more fights.

Selina disapproved of his more and more regular becoming nightly activities. They had plenty of arguments about it with Bruce attempting to explain why he had to go out and at least try to change this place. If he could help just one person, only one single person, he was already doing more than everyone else.

All Selina saw usually was that it shouldn't be his duty to save others when they were barely getting by themselves.

"I'm not like you, Bruce," she said. "I don't care about every sad little orphan that lost their mother. I can't afford to care about everyone and think I should be fixing all the problems in the world. I didn't create them. It's not my duty to fix anything."

Selina seldom looked as tired as she felt. Out of the two of them, it was Selina who could be the most upbeat and cheerful.

"But you care about me," Bruce said.

This was a fact Bruce knew to be unshakable. They were friends, and they cared about each other, come hell or high waters.

"Yes," she sighed, exasperated, frustrated and fond of him at the same time. "Which is why I broke into a Wayne Enterprises warehouse for you. Thank you and don't ever make me stitch up a bullet wound again."

"That was one time-"

"Bruce, shut up and open your present."

He did as told and carefully unwrapped his Christmas present. He was greeted by sturdy black fabric. Wayne Enterprises' military standard bulletproof body armor to be exact. Bruce had very nearly dreamed about it ever since he had heard a couple low-level thugs talk about it right before they shot his left leg.

"And all I got you was a necklace," Bruce said, his eyes glancing at the single pearl hanging from a gold chain around Selina's neck.

"It's fine, I'm happy you didn't get me a mask to try to drag me into your hobby. And you know me, I like pretty things. Where does the pearl come from again?"

Bruce grinned, a thousand story ideas already forming in his mind.

"A Chinese treasure that was stolen by bandits. It was actually part of a necklace that was supposed to be a gift for a princess from a lowly fisherman…"

His mother didn't have a grave. Marie and the others had taken care of her body and Bruce hadn't asked what they had done to it. Besides, he didn't need to go visit a graveyard to be able to mourn her or think about her.

He wondered every day if she would approve of what he had done since her death. If she would be proud of him or sad to see what her dear treasure was up to nowadays. His mother always seemed so bright and pure in the darkness of this city. Bruce was everything but. He dressed up in dark body armor to go out at night and fight criminals, often feeling the most like himself when there was blood on his hands.

That was a familiar picture, one he had grown used to. His mother's blood, his patients' and now the blood of criminals' all mixing beneath his fingertips. The only difference was the amount of blood that he spilled.

Bruce did not kill and he didn't use a gun. He could handle one just fine, he had excellent aim, but no one ever used a gun to disarm. A firearm was first and foremost always used to murder a person and if Bruce stepped as low as the people he was fighting, how would he be able to differentiate himself from them in a few years' time?

Doctor Crane wasn't a kind or charming man. He was an opportunist who thought employing a nine-year-old was an acceptable idea and continuing to let that kid and later teenager sleep in his treatment room was perfectly legal as long as he had enough money to pay off the police.

Bruce had always known that he was a cheaper help than an officially hired one and that Crane solely kept him around for that. He only cost the man 10 dollars more bribery with the police as well, which Bruce had to pay himself, so all in all Bruce had been an investment for Crane.

He hadn't expected to matter to the man, which was why he hadn't known that upon the doctor's death, he had left everything in Bruce's competent twenty-year-old hands.

Crane hadn't seemed to be the type of man who could die or even would die from something like cancer of all things. The most anybody had cared about his death were the regular patients who ended up complaining that everything was running so slow now that Bruce was handling the clinic on his own.

The police had gotten used to Bruce handing them their money years ago, and they were perfectly fine with accepting a little more and congratulating Bruce for taking over his employer's job.

Running the clinic by himself was more work of course, but not all that difficult. He had more than a decade of experience after all and there was little he hadn't ended up managing at one point or another.

Suddenly owning Doctor Crane's apartment, however, was a different deal. Of course, Bruce was happy to get a bigger place and stop thinking about having to pay rent as well as protection money, but he still couldn't shake off Crane's ghost.

"This is such an upgrade," Selina sighed comfortably from the sofa. "Separate kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a guest room."

At least one of them had an easier time accepting this place.

"Honestly, this is luxury. What did you do to inherit all of this?"

That Bruce couldn't figure out himself either. "Be the same age as his nephew?"

It was as good a guess as any.

Between the two of them, they didn't have much, but enough to make multiple trips between their old place and their new one. Picking rooms was a surprisingly tricky affair with Selina insisting on taking the smaller guest room and Bruce Crane's bedroom, which did not sit well with him at all. Mostly because Crane's room was bigger and more comfortable and the Selina he knew would definitely bargain for it.

"Well, I don't want it so you'll have to take it," Selina insisted as they sorted their books into their shelves.

"But why-"

"I just don't, Bruce. Hey, what's with this book?" Selina held up a small leather bound journal Bruce hadn't looked at in years.

"That's my mother's diary."

"Any interesting stories in there?"

Bruce shrugged. "I wouldn't know, I never read it."

He didn't want to learn more about his mother than he already knew. He remembered her as a kind and patient woman so full of love and Bruce wanted to preserve that image of her. He couldn't fool himself into thinking that it was about letting his mother keep her privacy, this was merely him being too afraid to look at a dead woman's thoughts.

"Aren't you curious?"

"No."

Not enough.

The problem with fighting crime with no affiliation to any gang or so whatsoever was that people got confident over time. Bruce had built up a certain reputation as a shadow assassin after a while, but that only meant that his victims started to go outside more prepared. Those he helped were grateful, and there was really no sweeter sight than a couple kids hugging him with broad smiles and running away still alive, but that didn't necessarily stop anyone from committing crimes in general.

Unfortunately, Bruce was only one human, and while humans could be terrifying monsters, everybody knew that humans could bleed and everything that bled, could die.

If Bruce wanted to seriously stop somebody though, he needed to be more than just a human. Scare those scumbags so terribly that they wouldn't ever want to go against the law again.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Death, pain, I don't know. Why are you asking?"

"Just because."

"Talkative as always. Well, what are you afraid of?"

Guns. Screams. Blood.

"Bats. I climbed up a chimney once when I was younger and it was full with them."

Terrifying red eyes, shrill screams echoing from the walls and darkness all around him. Bruce was very much afraid of the small animals, even though he rationally knew that they were harmless and could be cute even. Fears were built on irrationality and emotions, and if you wanted to properly scare someone, you should inflict their worst fear on them, or become it.

BREAKING NEWS: MAN-BAT STRIKES AGAIN!

In the past months, multiple sightings of a bat like creature have been made, but now we got the first police confirmed sighting. The GCPD asks every citizen to remain calm and do not engage the beast until further…

Selina had taken one look at Bruce's new outfit, sighed and cursed. Bruce was well aware that the refitted cowl, made from stolen military tech Bruce had confiscated at a harbor, and the cape and the whole getup in general looked ridiculous, especially in broad daylight. During the night time, when light was scarce and smoke covered the sky and the ground, his shadow was a sight to behold.

It had taken a lot of exercise to learn how to move as swiftly in the new armor as he had before, but the results were impressive. And his adjustments weren't a hindrance. The cowl kept his head safe from attacks and the cape… Well, it did cast a better shadow, and the few times Batman interacted with kids, it served as a blanket or hiding spot. It didn't take long for Narrows' kids to learn that Batman was their ally.

The people he came after on the other hand were too scared to think of shooting at him or their aim was terrible. It didn't take long for Gotham's Bat to become its terror. The police hated him - but when did they ever like him unless he filled their pockets? - and dealers, pimps and about every other criminal with no policy about hurting others spoke in hushed whispers about him. Of course, not everyone was afraid, many even boasted about catching him, but nobody ever did. The point though was that people talked about him and that he had upgraded from some annoying little vigilante.

Becoming a myth had more advantages than Bruce had thought it could have and Batman was a weapon like no other.

No matter how often she visited, Selina couldn't grow fond of the clinic and also had the worst kind of bedside manner which really shouldn't surprise Bruce. Her reaction to him getting hurt was to get him kevlar and tell him to do better next time.

That still didn't stop Bruce from needing help in the clinic and wanting to give back a little to the people that had helped him before. Marie did not cry when he showed up on her doorstep, but Bruce was pretty sure that it was a close call.

She looked the same age she had four years ago when Bruce had last talked to her, putting their friendship on hold in favor of a screaming match about lousy decisions. The absence of make-up instantly reminded Bruce of the fact that she wasn't even ten years older than him.

No wonder his mother had always looked so relieved when Marie had spent a night at their place.

Selina had been, for the lack of a better word, on edge in the past weeks. She tried to hide it, of course, Bruce would be offended if she didn't, but she was unusually sloppy. The fact that Selina had gladly helped him unpack his belongings but still refused to do the same for her own clued him in just as much as her saving up more and more money.

"I think I want to broaden my horizon," Selina announced one day. "Get out of Gotham for a while, see the sights and all that."

"Why now?"

"Five years are already over and while you got your high school degree through shady means-"

"It's a government funded website, it's as official as every other-"

"-you're not sleeping in Crane's office anymore." Selina paused and looked around the living room. Most of the furniture was still from Crane but they had put up some pictures and plants as well as one more cat named Diamond. "Well, at least not in the same way as you used to, but I'm still here and I still haven't been to Paris."

Understanding dawned upon Bruce as every puzzle piece slowly fell into place. "So, you're leaving?"

Selina sat down on the sofa, and immediately Spade claimed his new spot before the other cat could.

"Just for a while. I need to get out of this city to find my place. You've made yourself at home in a bulletproof Halloween costume and I need to do that as well."

Bruce grinned at her words, causing Selina to frown until she figured out what amused him and immediately threw a pillow at him.

"You idiot! I didn't mean that I'll stalk the night in some spandex suit fighting criminals- Stop laughing, Bruce!"

He drove Selina to the bus station with her most precious belongings stuffed into one bag. The cats she left at home with Bruce, threatening to make his life a living hell should he mistreat them. She didn't really have a plan on where exactly to go and it frustrated Bruce that her greatest pleasure seemed to be to the point that out every other minute. He wasn't exactly what one would call a spontaneous person, he enjoyed well-crafted plans and knowing precisely what would happen next.

It was regrettable that life didn't work that way.

"Don't miss me too much, bat boy," Selina said, seeing him off with a hug. "And don't get into too much trouble. I won't be there to stitch up your wounds."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Please, I did that myself most of the time. Don't get lost exploring the west."

By the time Batman was on the streets again, Bruce was missing his best and only friend much more than anticipated.

Selina's first postcard depicted a small and cozy town somewhere in West Virginia. Bruce closed the clinic early that day and walked downtown to a little bookshop that always sold damaged goods for half the price. There he purchased a big map of the United States, which he pinned above the TV in the living room. With small, red pins he marked Gotham as well as the town Selina had visited and hung the card right beneath it. Then he connected the two points with red yarn from the ball of wool the cats preferred to every other toy Selina had ever brought home.

"So? What do you say?" Bruce asked Diamond, who deemed Bruce worthy enough to get a meow as a reply.

Great, barely two weeks and Bruce was already talking to the cats. He should probably ring up Marie and ask if she had time.

As far as Bruce could tell, the only advantage of Selina not being around was that he could test and craft his gear on the kitchen table and put his chemicals in the fridge without anybody complaining.

It did not outweigh the disadvantages.

He spent his twenty-first birthday eating cupcakes and drinking his first legal beer on the rooftop of Wayne Tower. Selina had sent another postcard. This time of Metropolis with a Superman sticker attached on the back and the order to call her as soon as he got home from patrol, no matter how late. He supposed that as his best friend he should have expected Selina to know that Batman wouldn't take a break, not even on his birthday.

On his way home, Bruce Kane passed an advertisement for a circus.

Can you believe that I wanted to cover Bruce's childhood in 3.000 words because I really, really wanted to write about him interacting with Dick and Jason? Yeah, needless to say that didn't work out.
(Please don't expect regular updates any time soon though.)
Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think!