Barbara walked in through the door and into an atmosphere of looming chaos. For the moment, the room was silent. Thirty desks were arranged in neat rows along the gaudily tiled floor, most of them already occupied by the faceless masses. Encouraging posters were plastered all along the walls, ranging from kittens hanging from branches to hot air balloons drifting through a clear sky. All of them rang hollow in a way that was just a bit funny to her.

The solitary window was battered by unrelenting rain, thunder boomed and lightning illuminated the room in a piercing white light. A few of the students closest to the window were staring outside at the downpour, enraptured by its hypnotic rhythm. One of them Barbara recognized. He was a pale-looking boy with auburn hair carelessly split somewhere along the middle, two antennae of hair framing his bored-looking eyes. His shoulders were broad, but the rest of him seemed almost malnourished, particularly his face. His cheeks sunk into his skull, giving him the appearance of a corpse.

He was so transfixed on the rain that he did not notice Barbara take a seat next to him; he didn't make any movement when she tapped his shoulder, either. She spent a moment struggling to recall his name.

"Garfield?"

Slowly, the idea seemed to dawn on him that someone was speaking to him. Garfield turned his head to face her, though the rest of him didn't move. Barbara noted that he was clutching a small red lighter in one hand; apparently there was a reason he appeared to be high.

"Gordon's kid, right?" he asked. "Didn't know you went here."

"Well, I do." Barbara proclaimed. "So how've you been? I haven't seen you since that picnic our families took back in April."

"Been better," he stated in his flat, almost wispy tone of voice. "I don't like the weather this time of year. Too cold, too wet. So what's your deal? I thought you hated me since my dad got the promotion yours wanted."

"What?" Barbara asked, pretending that this wasn't true, and that she had no idea what Garfield was talking about. "No, I don't! I'm just happy to see a familiar face around here; there's so many new kids this year."

"Not really," Garfield flatly explained; his shoulders gave a bit of a shrug as his fingers flicked the wheel of the lighter. A yellow flame shone in the air for a moment, and the boy cupped his free hand around it. He took a moment to let the warmth soak in before extinguishing the blaze. "most of them just don't have a recognizable face. The only real new kid is the one back there."

Garfield pointed with deliberate slowness to the back of the classroom. Barbara looked, but already knew whom he was referring to: the dark-haired boy, who by now had taken a seat at the back of class.

"He was talking to me earlier." Barbara told her neighbor. "He acted like he knew me from somewhere, and he seems really familiar…"

"Well, maybe you know him; I don't." Garfield said. "He seems like a bit of a dolt, if you ask me. I wouldn't hang around him too long."

Even if Barbara had had more to say, Garfield would have none of it. He turned his head away and laid it down on the desk, returning his gaze to the growing storm outside. About this same time, a frail-looking old man entered the doorway to the class. Any doubts to his health were dispelled, though, when he grabbed a yardstick near the entryway and slammed it down into the closest desk; it just so happened to be the new boy's.

"You." the old man said in a fierce growl. "Tell me the first capital of Assyria."

"Or what?" another voice called out from the back row. "I'll be tossed off the bridge?"

A few students who both got and were not tired of the joke snickered to themselves, though the older man was less amused. He made his way to the offending student's desk. The boy was thin with dark slick-backed hair, and stared up at the man with a sly grin.

"Problem, officer?" He asked in high-pitched and raspy tone. The man did nothing but give a harrumph of contempt and made his way to the front of the classroom, where he faced the students with a puffed out chest and began a speech.

"I asked that question because I was confident in knowing that none of you knew the answer. My name is Professor Doll, and I am here to inform you of one thing:"

He pulled out a marker and quickly wrote a message on the board, which he read aloud for anyone that might be incapable of reading (not an unfair assumption from the looks of his students):

"YOU ARE NOT PERFECT."

"What I have found," Doll began "is that the culture of this city has sheltered the youth, coddled them in fact. You all seem to believe that you're invincible, that the universe revolves around you, but children, in THIS CLASS you will—"

—

The same would-be comedian from earlier let loose a raspberry, while giving a thumbs-down sign with a distinctively displeased look on his face.

"Who let this hack on stage?" he demanded, slamming a fist onto his desk. "I thought we were supposed to see some TALENT! Not some old fart who couldn't tell a joke if it was on a teleprompter in front of him!"

"Are you mad?" Professor Doll responded. "Sit down right now or you'll be spending the next week in detention! This is a classroom, not a comedy club."

"Tell me about it," the boy said as he slumped into his seat. "A xylophone made out of the Marx brothers' ribs would get more laughs a show than you."

With over half of the class stifling laughter, Doll went on with his speech. Barbara paid little attention to it, however. While most of the other class had at least smiled at the resident clown's attempts at humor, the mysterious boy from earlier's face made no movements at all. He didn't appear to be bored, like Garfield, but oddly focused. A mysterious determination was in his eyes that she couldn't understand.

….

The rest of the school day passed uneventfully. Barbara could hardly remember it as anything more than a blur of classes and teachers she had yet to care about, terrible jokes by the greasy-haired boy, and a very awkward lunch spent with Edward. No amount of subtle hinting could convince him that she wished to eat at a table that did not involve him in any manner, and she learned a great deal about him despite her attempts to tune him out.

"To tell the truth, I'm not supposed to be a sophomore." she was mortified to remember he had told her. "If I went by age I'd only be in the 8th grade; but an IQ as high as mine has its benefits."

When the clock struck two, the shrill bell out in the hall rang, alerting the student body that they were free from the tyrannical clutches of school for the rest of the day. They wasted no time in celebrating this newfound freedom by cramming the doors as they trampled over each other, all attempting to be the first to leave and avoid the oncoming tsunami of fleeing students.

Barbara had little intention of getting caught in such a mess, and calmly went to her locker, grabbing her bag and waiting for the halls to empty before heading out. Droves of strangers walked by, but one stepped out of the crowd and walked in her direction. The mysterious boy that she had been running into all day took a stance next to her and leaned back into a locker, watching the crowds go by.

After a moment of silence, Barbara decided to speak first. "Um, is there something I can help you with?"

"Hm?" the boy asked, turning his head in her direction. "Oh, I'm just waiting here, since we're taking the bus back to your house, right?"

Barbara instinctively took a step back, suddenly very disturbed by the boy. "And why would you be following me home?" she demanded to know. To her surprise, and fury, the boy seemed genuinely confused.

"What do you mean? Your dad said I could come… didn't you read the note?"

"What note?" she asked.

"The one your dad put on your bag."

Barbara's hand shot like a rocket over her shoulder and grasped at her bag, quickly finding a crumpled sticky note. She ripped it off of its place and read the message on it.

"The boy who brought you this is an old friend of the family. Bring him home with you, we'll be having him over for dinner.

-Dad"

She looked up from the note to see the boy had extended a hand expectantly.

"It would probably help if I introduced myself, wouldn't it? My name is Bruce."

The city bus was by no means Barbara's preferred method of transportation. At the moment, however, it proved the only means she had to get home with her newfound, rather unwanted guest. The rain in Gotham had been steadily pounding away for the past nine hours, and with no end in sight no soul dared to be caught outside without their umbrella or a hood. Except for two very cold and wet teenagers standing at the bus stop.

Barbara had met the city's mayor once before. He had been an affable enough man, kind enough to supply her with a lollipop, though she had been about four years too old for such a token at the time. Her father was quick to dispel any illusions about the man, though.

"Honey, he seems nice. Hell, he probably is." She remembered his words clearly. "But a lot of nice men are hiding real nasty ones just underneath the skin."

As she'd grown, and politics began to affect her life, she had noticed how damaging his policies were to the city, not the least of which was the idealistic notion that all criminals could be redeemed if given the proper care. This led to Gotham being voted the worst state in the nation for repeat offenders. But, his supporters said, at least the buses ran on time.

Forty minutes past schedule, the buses could no longer make this claim.

"So," Bruce began, apparently unable to take the awkward silence Barbara had carefully built up over the last hour. "I guess you don't remember me at all then?"

"Remember you? Should I?" Barbara asked.

"Well, maybe not." the boy said back, scratching at the back of his head. "About eight years ago, we met at a gala you and your dad attended. I came over to your house to play a couple of times."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Barbara said, feeling a little bit worse about forgetting than her choice of words let on. "I completely forgot about it. Why didn't I ever see you again?"

For a brief moment, Bruce's carefree smile faltered, and an emotion Barbara had never even imagined, let alone seen, blinked in his eyes. After thinking, she decided it almost looked like despair. But his composure was regained within an instant, even if his eyes were somewhat dulled now. "I moved away," he explained. "but that's a story for later. The bus is here."

On Bruce's cue a dirty, steel-blue bus pulled up to the street corner and came to a stop, hissing as its doors opened either from the release of pressure or from the disgusting odor of Gotham's populace as they poured out of the sardine can they rode around town. Once the last of them had gotten off, a particularly obese man with a harelip specifically, the both of them stepped on and encountered a surly-looking woman in the driver's seat. She said nothing, but glanced to them and then the change counter beside of her. Barbara reached into her pocket, and nearly jumped in shock for what she believed to be the third time that day as Bruce grabbed her wrist and pulled her arm away from her wallet.

"Relax, I can pay for it." He assured her.

She was flattered by the offer, but stood her ground, reaching back for her wallet. "Really," she asserted. "I can afford it."

"So can I." Bruce replied, reaching into his pocket. "And I insist." He came up with a crisp, black leather wallet; its outline was trimmed in shimmering gold. But the center nearly made Barbara's jaw dropped. In the center of the wallet was an ornately decorated silver shield with a cursive "W", known to every citizen of Gotham as the crest of the billionaire family of businessmen and philanthropists, the Waynes.

"You mean you're THAT Bruce—"

"So that means I can pay then?" Bruce asked her, apparently completely oblivious to the question he had just interrupted. He picked a few coins out of a zipped pocket within the wallet and dropped them into the coin slot. He grabbed her wrist and beckoned her toward the back of the bus. "Come on, we're holding up the line."

The pair moved to near the back of the bus, the dirty crowd somehow leaving a single bench open. Bruce slid in and scooted himself to the far side; Barbara was content to sit by the aisle. Excluding, of course, the stench of the man standing mere inches from her face. They rocked back in their seats as the bus trudged on down the street, searching for more lonely souls to bring on board.

Barbara glanced over at her traveling companion, and saw that he was staring outside. They were passing through Crime Alley; a rather crude nickname for the single worst neighborhood in Gotham, if only worse than the surrounding areas by a little. To call the buildings ramshackle would be an insult to a shanty town. Oil drums lined the streets like lampposts, ready to light on a cold autumn night like the one steadily creeping over the city. His eyes were transfixed on the blunt horror of it all.

"This your first time through Crime Alley?" Barbara asked the boy. She didn't get a response for quite some time, and she thought maybe he hadn't heard her; but the moment she tried to repeat herself, he answered.

"No. Just the first time in a while."

A chill went up her spine. The words were innocent enough, but there was something sinister in the way he said those words. As if he were alluding to something unspeakable.

"Oh," Barbara grunted, unsure of what to say. Bruce decided to speak for her.

"This is actually my first day back in the city for a long time," he told her, although he refused to turn his head and look her in the eye. "I've been on the road a lot. Looking for…"

"A home?" Barbara asked, attempted to help him find the missing words.

"Not exactly." he responded. That was the last thing he said on the bus, although another twenty minutes passed before they arrived at their stop. When the vehicle finally ground to the last halt they would have to endure, the pair scurried out of the filth of a hundred people packed like sardines.

A tall, thin house stood in front of them, solid red brick, with a grizzled-looking man at the bottom of the steps. Specifically, Barbara's father, Jim. Barbara ran up and hugged him as tightly as she could; he put an arm over her shoulder and gave his free hand to Bruce, greeting him with a firm shake. "It's been a long time, Bruce. Welcome back to Gotham."

"Glad to be home, Jim." the boy responded. Barbara looked at him as if he were insane. Did he just call her father, his senior by 22 years, "Jim"?

To her surprise, or rather utter shock, all her father did in response was give a low chuckle and make a gesture to bring the both of them inside. "Come on, Barbara, your mother's already got dinner on the table."

The trio walked into the Gordon family's home, Jim and Bruce chatting idly about random, trivial things; the weather, sports, the crime sprees that had been sweeping the city recently. Barbara would have found the last part odd, but crime had become such a prevalent part of life in Gotham, it was no longer a subject to be considered taboo in public. It was as much a fact of life as work, school, or shopping for groceries.

They walked into the kitchen, where a bright-faced and cheery woman was dashing between various dishes and pots, humming to herself as she went. "Your dinner is already on the table!" she said, not bothering to look away from her work. Barbara's father insisted that she sit down and eat, and he would make his own plate. She responded in a somewhat irritated tone that she didn't need help, and that she would eat when she was ready. He raised his voice and shouted that if she wanted to break her back working, she should stop hounding him over never doing anything around the house.

The pair retreated from the room, their voices growing ever louder even as they went upstairs. Bruce's eyes followed them out of the kitchen with a confused and somewhat worried look. "I'm sorry, did I come on a bad day?"

"Nah, don't worry about it." Barbara told him, sitting down at the table. "It's just a game they play."

"A game?" He asked, disbelieving.

"Something like that. They like to argue about everything; I'm pretty certain they have a whiteboard up in their room they keep score on. Sit down and eat." She told him, gesturing to a chair. He complied and took his seat, and looked down at the food, some kind of chipped beef and gravy over mashed potatoes.

"Looks good," he commented as he reached for a napkin. As he grabbed one, he finally noticed the little boy who was watching him. He wasn't a day older than six, and seemed absolutely enthralled by Bruce.

"Are you Mister Wayne?" He asked in a breathless voice. Bruce chuckled and nodded.

"So you're a ghost?"

Bruce's smile faltered and he looked at the child warily. "What do you mean?"

"Aren't you that Mister Wayne guy that died? My daddy told me about you when I was a baby."

"James, shut up!" Barbara hissed at her little brother. "You're upsetting him." Bruce held up a hand to her.

"No, it's fine." He insisted. He turned his gaze back to James and told him, in a voice that seemed both deeper and softer than before, "You're thinking of my dad, Thomas Wayne. I'm his son, Bruce."

James gave a grunt of understanding, and went back to eating, all interest suddenly lost in what was clearly now not a ghost. Bruce and Barbara ate as well, in silence. Barbara could think of nothing to say to her houseguest, afraid of upsetting him like her brother had. And he seemed to have no interest in speaking at all.

The awkward situation was defused when her mother and father walked back in, seemingly happier than ever, and took their seats. Barbara figured she could talk to Bruce by proxy with her father around.

"Dad?" she asked, her father looking at her expectantly. "How do you and Bruce know each other? He called you 'Jim'."

"Oh." Her dad said. He held a cigar in his teeth, unlit for the sake of his family but being ground down to nothing by his teeth from the sudden stressful question. "It's a long story, honey, and I'm not sure Bruce really would want me to talk about it."

"No, go ahead." Bruce told him. "No reason to keep secrets."

"Right," Jim said to him. He took two fingers and removed the cigar from his mouth and let them weave around it as he thought.

"Eight years ago, when I was first promoted to Lieutenant, I was on a case over in Park Row. But you and James probably only know it as Crime Alley. It was a nicer place then, real ritzy stuff. My first assignment as an Lt. was to go over there and investigate a murder case outside of a theater. When I got there, the murderer was already long gone, but the ambulances hadn't arrived to remove the bodies yet. The victims were Thomas and Martha Wayne, two of the town's richest citizens and its greatest philanthropists. And Bruce's parents."

Barbara looked over at Bruce. He said nothing in protest, but she could see a troubled look in his eye. She wondered how vividly he remembered that night.

"That was when I met Bruce," Jim continued. "a little kid in an alleyway crying for his parents. The men on scene suggested we ship him off to a foster school, or take him down to the station. But he looked hurt; stupid thing of me to say, of course he was, but I thought that I might be able to help. So I sat with him and talked for a couple of hours, helped him talk to the sketch artist to describe the man that did it, and waited with him until his butler came and picked him up. He stayed a friend of the family for about three years, we kept in contact with him, though he was home-schooled so you and James never really saw much of him. Then he left, without a trace or a forwarding address. Just where did you go, son?"

"A lot of places." Bruce said. "Alfred and I—"

"Who's Alfred?" James asked.

"My butler." Bruce answered. James only then seemed to recognize the words being said to him, and he returned to the sort of awe-stricken state he had had when Bruce first walked in

"Anyway, Alfred and I decided that it would be best if I got a view of the rest of the world, instead of spending my life sheltered up in a mansion. We took a tour of about twenty different countries: England, Ireland, Portugal, Morocco, Chad, Russia, Japan, the list goes on. I only just finished a month ago, so I decided to come back to Gotham."

"Seems like quite the undertaking for an 11-year old boy and his old butler." Jim told him.

"Believe me," Bruce said. "it was worth it."

The rest of the dinner passed pleasantly. Bruce spoke little, but he seemed to grow a little friendlier, willing to answer questions or laugh at jokes made. But throughout the meal something seemed slightly off, that Barbara could not place her finger on. Before she could really observe at length, dinner had already ended, and Bruce was walking with Jim to the door. She followed them out the front door, and was startled to find a black limousine waiting in the street for him.

The three walked over to its side, and a man stepped out of the driver's seat, a tall man in a finely-pressed black suit. His head was balding, with well-combed silver hair, and a finely waxed moustache. He appeared entirely stoic, though with a twinkle in his eye that seemed full of life. He walked over to the rear passenger door and opened it for Bruce, who stepped inside. As the man in the suit went back to the driver's seat, Bruce rolled down his window and gave a small wave to Barbara and her father.

"Thank you for everything, the food was fantastic." He said with a bit of a smile on his face. "Next time I'll have you over to my house, I'm sure Alfred could make something in a pinch."

The Gordons waved as Bruce's transport pulled away, off in the direction of the sun, now going down at a steady pace. Jim put a hand on her daughter's shoulder and guided her in the direction of the house. "Let's get inside before it gets dark, kid. You've still got homework to do, I'm sure."

Barbara groaned as she remembered the work she still needed done. The day had been blotted out, it seemed, by the arrival of Bruce Wayne. Even as she walked up to her room, homework in hand, her mind couldn't help but ponder the curious look in his eye.