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Bruce Wayne walked into the front entrance of the Wayne-Weyden Orphanage and came up to the front desk.
The building was grey, it bored him to just look at the place; grey walls, grey floors, grey uniforms. The reception desk, and most of the other equipment in the room was black, still, it felt cold.
"Mr Wayne." The girl at the reception desk said in surprise, her eye's grew wide and she almost dropped the phone she was holding.
Bruce gave her a calm smile, "Hello. Michele, wasn't it?" He placed his hands lazily on the desk, leaning against it slightly.
The girl blushed and nodded, she was surprised he remembered, it must have been almost 6 months since one of the benefactors came round, and that was to drop off Christmas presents for the children.
Bruce's smile widened slightly, "Lovely to see you again, are you still with your boyfriend?"
She shook her head, blushing slightly brighter, there was something about Mr Wayne's voice that seemed so… like if he wanted, he could make you say anything. "No, we broke up…" she cleared her throat gently, "Is there any particular reason for your visit?"
He shook his head, "Not really, I just wanted to check up on the place. See how the kids are doing."
"Not planning on adopting any today are you sir?" she said, smiling cheekily.
Bruce gave a gentle chuckle and shook his head, "No, I've got my hands full already."
She tapped a couple of buttons on the computer, "We've got one of the 8-12's leaving today, 3 birthdays across the board. A new toddler, and a new 14 year old."
He held his hand to his chin, pretending to think about whom he wanted to see, "I think I'll go for the new toddler first."
Michele nodded again, smiling widely; liking children was attractive in a man, and Bruce Wayne had adopted 3, had his own son, and now seemed interested in the babies – very attractive. "He's in room 23. Down the hall, on your left."
Bruce thanked her quickly and walked quickly down the hall. As he approached room 23 he was reacquainted with that whining cry he had heard two nights ago.
The room contained 5 cots, each but the last held a baby or toddler. The 5th bed had a woman standing by it, she was holding the green-haired baby, bouncing him gently, "Quiet down you damned thing, you'll wake the others…" she said gently, her tone a mix of annoyance and care.
Bruce frowned slightly, he didn't like that she had called him a 'thing', she seemed tense, probably not a good thing while around a child with his presumably bad background.
"Are you ok?" he asked quietly, not wanting to wake the other babies.
"Yeah…" she said, her voice strained, "I'm sorry. He's been like this through my whole shift, that's ten hours. All he's done is cry…"
"A little bit of angst is understandable." Bruce said, taking a few steps into the room. He stared down at the baby in her arms, "Why's his hair green?" he asked.
The nurse looked down at the child as it cried, "We can only assume that the parents saw fit to dye it. Idiots."
"Who were the parents?" Bruce asked, interested to know if Gordon had told the orphanage exactly who they were dealing with.
The nurse looked up at him, "I don't know. The head nurse has been told, but I'm not sure. Best to ask her."
"And his arm?" he asked, noticing that they'd bandaged his forearm, maybe it'd been more badly damaged than he'd thought.
The nurse frowned and let out a gentle sigh, "Again, we don't know. It was quite a bad wound, it was untended, some infection and muscle damage… He'll probably be weak in that arm for the rest of his life."
Bruce watched for a second as she bounced the child, trying to calm him down. "Can I hold him?" he asked quietly.
The nurse nodded, and turned the child to face him. The child's face immediately changed, and he held out his hands to be picked up, "Babat!" he said loudly.
Bruce frowned slightly and took the child, "Babat? What's that?" he asked, glancing up at the nurse.
She frowned, "I-I don't know. That's the first thing he's said, we didn't think he could talk."
Bruce held the boy to his chest, the young boy quickly reaching up and grabbing at Bruce's nose, the boy had started giggling.
"He likes you." The nurse smiled.
"What's his name?" Bruce asked, still trying to keep the façade that he didn't know anything about the child.
The nurse leaned forward to tousle the baby's green hair, "We've been told to call him James. But the only name he seems to respond to is Angel. 'Angel' was even stitched into the clothes he was wearing when he was brought in."
Bruce gave a small laugh as the baby continued to fumble with his nose, "Angel James. What a name."
"It's 'Angel James Wayne' actually. He had no birth certificate when he came in. We had to give him a last name too, and the commissioner suggested yours."
"Oh really?" Bruce said, raising an eyebrow, "I hope he doesn't expect me to adopt this one."
The nurse smiled, eyeing Bruce as he held the child. The boy really liked him; he was cooing gently and hugging at him. If the nurse didn't know better she'd think that Bruce were his father. "Would you like to feed him?" She asked, "We haven't been able to get him to take more than a mouthful. He seems to trust you, maybe you have a better chance."
Bruce nodded, smiling down at the child. The nurse took a small pot of baby food and a spoon from the shelf on the wall and handed it to Bruce, he took a seat, holding the baby on his lap.
He opened the pot and dipped the spoon in, "Baby James are you hungry?" he asked quietly as he lifted the spoon to the baby's mouth. The boy reached out and grabbed Bruce's arm, puling the spoon of food to his mouth and gulping at it. "He's so thin." Bruce observed as he gave the child another spoonful of food. "What kind of people would do this to their child…?"
The nurse shook her head, "I don't wish to meet them."
Bruce nodded, giving the baby yet more food, "Why do you think he likes me?"
The nurse hummed in thinking for a second, there had to be a reason. "All the people who've handled him before you have been women. Maybe he's scared of females…?"
"Is that possible?"
She nodded, "We get girls here quite a lot who are scared of men because they had abusive fathers, if this boy…" she paused for a second, as if trying to wrap her head around what she was about to say, "had an abusive mother. Then it would make sense."
"An abusive mother?" Bruce mumbled, feeding the boy the last of the food.
He would have expected Joker to be abusive towards the child, but Harley? He would never have even…
She'd always seemed so maternal.
Bruce frowned, the idea that a mother would do that to her child. Leave him this malnourished, this beaten and bruised…
"We were given this with him." The nurse said, holding out the voodoo-doll Batman, "He holds it as if his life depends on it."
James started squalling at the sight of the toy, holding out his arms and grasping at the air in front of him, the nurse gave him the toy, and the boy held it to his chest, "Babat…" he said happily.
"Oh?" Bruce said, smiling, "Is that what 'Babat' means? Batman?"
The boy held the toy out towards Bruce and gurgled "Babat" again.
The nurse smiled sweetly, "That is probably one of the most adorable things I've seen."
…
Bruce was still smiling when he got home, that boy, there was something about him.
Despite having had Joker as a father he'd developed a liking for Batman. Or, maybe Joker had coded that liking into him, hoping his boy would become like himself.
He'd certainly have to go back and see him again. Both James' parents had mental illness', it was likely he'd be more susceptible to such things. Given what the boy must have been through, and Bruce knew how bad those orphanage children treated the ones who were different…
He'd have to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't follow in his father's footsteps.
Honestly Bruce was amazed that Joker had been able to sire a son, he had assumed that the accident had made him infertile.
When Gordon had contacted him that morning, and told him that James was in fact Joker's son, he'd known he'd needed to see him.
He sat down at the Bat computer, spinning a rotation or two on his new chair before getting up the info he needed. On his way home the previous night he had stopped to find the place that the sniper had shot from, the one who had killed Haley, and put Joker in a coma.
He managed to find it; the only evidence there was two small marks on the edge of a balcony. One was a tiny rubber scuff on the ledge, caused by the stabiliser on a gun. And the faint shoe imprint on the floor – men's size 12.
Both were generic. Almost impossible to trace.
He was currently waiting for his computer to hack the nearby security cameras to see if whoever took the shot was stupid enough to sit within view of the cameras.
It would take a minute or so for the computer to hack it, so in the meantime he sat, thinking about the child.
The proses wouldn't take anywhere near as long if Dick were here, or Tim. They were brilliant with computers, far better than Bruce, somehow. If Bruce didn't know better he'd say that they could talk to the damn machines, they just tapped a few buttons and it was done.
Bruce sighed, looking up at the process bar.
'Angel James Wayne.'
…They couldn't have a child calling himself 'Angel'.
He'd eventually grow out of it wouldn't he? Ugh… He hoped so.
A video popped up, the security footage. Bruce sighed as he watched the video, and found that, just as he had thought, the man hadn't stood within the cameras view.
There was a flash in the corner of the screen, a small black blur. It looked like a hand.
He sighed. He'd have to talk to the security guards of that building. Have a look to see if there were any more cameras around there.
He'd find out who it was.
He'd find this murderous man, and make sure he paid for what he did.
…
It was one, maybe two hours later that Harley came out from the room, covered in blood and gunk, tears still tracking their way down her face. She could barely stand. She was staring down at the mass of blankets that held her baby.
"M-Mr J?" she asked timidly. He hadn't even taken his eyes from the tv when she came in.
"What Harley?" Joker asked, letting out a small and annoyed sigh.
She shakily held out the bundle she was holding, "You have a son."
"Oh." He said, turning his eyes back to the tv.
She frowned; he didn't care, at all, what had ever made her think he would…
He nodded gently, "Good. I'm glad."
She smiled slightly, "…Would you like to hold him?" she asked gingerly.
Joker frowned and shook his head, "I know where it's been. I dunno, just throw it on the sofa if you don't know what to do with it."
Another small frown came to Harley's face. Maybe if Joker saw him then he'd like him more.
She propped up a cushion on the sofa and placed the sleeping baby against it. Joker kept his eyes on the tv, and Harley tentatively left the room to clean herself up.
Joker's eye flicked over to the baby, it was staring at him, cooing gently. He growled at the child, he was going to take attention away from him… Stupid baby.
He stared at the little animal. It blinked sleepily, a small snot-bubble appeared from its nose, and the baby cooed gently, jumping slightly as the bubble popped.
Joker gave a slight chuckle. 'Spose it was kinda cute.
It didn't look much like him though. He'd have to fix that.
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