Bruce felt something heavy hit him, he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. The collision sent his body back to aching, a fire spread through his bones. He just wanted to sleep. Nothing hurt when he was sleeping.

Another collision knocked a tooth free from Bruce's gums, and a final collision knocked it straight down his throat.

Bruce's eyes shot open as he began to choke on his own tooth, he gasped and wheezed for air before starting to cough. Finally he managed to spit out the tooth, and right away his entire body relaxed. Then he noticed the corpses. The people he had tried to save, now crushing him, very literally bearing down on him and forcing Bruce to remember just how he had failed them.

Skeletal remains of others embedded a close muddy wall. Bruce had found himself trapped in a mass grave.

Bruce reached for his utility belt but found it inaccessible because of the bodies above him. Bruce grimaced. He pulled his arm free and activated an internal mechanism within his glove. A small but durable grappling hook shot out of Bruce's wrist, latching onto something above. Releasing the mechanism, Bruce found himself flung upward with force, leaving the bodies behind.

Bruce latched onto the wall of dirt and found himself face to face with an acid disfigured skull. Turning his head, Bruce pushed on past some human remains jutting out of a burlap sack, and a skull that resembled a large broken egg.

Bruce pushed his way up into the cold night air and found himself in a construction site.

The Blood Moon Bat already had his knife out, prepared for another fight, but Bruce wasn't taking it easy on him this time, he was going to end this. Bruce activated another device hidden inside his glove.

The spikes attached to Bruce's gauntlets electrofied and ejected into the false Bat. The possible Thomas Wayne collapsed to the ground and began to convulse as the current ran through him.

Bruce could feel the gun trained on him, but this time he was a second faster than the shooter, with a swipe of his elbow, he knocked the weapon out of the Faceless Man's hands before turning to attack him.

Bruce stopped in his tracks, the Faceless Man wasn't a Faceless Man at all, she was a very familiar faced woman. Bruce's mother, Martha Wayne. Her face had a Glasgow smile carved into it.

"Mom?" Bruce breathed

Martha glared at him with pure hate in her eyes, a very different woman than the one etched into his memory.

"It's me" Bruce pleaded

Martha hesitated, studying Bruce's face, scrutinizing his eyes.

"... What was your favorite stuffed toy?"

"What?"

"Your favorite stuffed toy, asshole, what was it?"

Bruce knew it was a plush, that he had gotten it at Gotham Museum. He tried to cast his mind back but it was over forty years ago and he had locked away so many memories. Still Bruce strived to sift through the mental fog. It was in the morning, his mom had just finished opening a new wing of the museum, Dad had slipped off with his assistant, Bruce got upset so Martha bought him...

"A Dinosaur from the natural history museum, it was a T-Rex... to make me smile you called it -"

"Mister Tiny Arms" Mother and son said together

Martha's expression softened and she embraced her child, she cried, and Bruce joined her, they both refused to let go.

"How?" Martha asked, still holding on for dear life "You died in my arms"

Bruce assumed that in this reality, his eight year old self was gunned down by Joe Chill in his parents' place. Bruce just squeezed his mom reassuringly and held her tight. A conversation about the Multiverse could wait for later.

"Martha, get away from him" growled the exhausted old man behind Bruce

Bruce could see that his father had picked up Martha's gun, his hands were still trembling from the electricity. By the trajectory of his aim, If he fired, the bullet would enter Bruce's chest with a strong possibility of it exiting his back and killing Martha too. Bruce couldn't let that happen

"Look at him, Thomas!" Martha cried, ignoring Bruce's attempts at keeping her safe and instead positioning herself between them "It's Bruce"

"You're not thinking straight, Martha! you need another round of shock therapy!"

While his father was distracted, Bruce shrank away into the shadows, he fought down his anger at the bastard, he had to be careful.

Bruce's plan was to stick to the darkness, silently manoeuvre himself behind his father and incapacitate him. The idiot still hadn't realized he was gone, he was just continuing to hurl abuse at Bruce's mother.

"Are you really so stupid that you think your boy would just show up out of nowhere in a Bat costume! You know, I shouldnt've gotten you involved in this... that's on me"

Bruce could see the resolve in his father's body language, the old man had already made up his mind on Martha's future.

Bruce moved as fast as he could, Thomas's finger pulled the trigger of the modified weapon, the barrel was aimed at Martha's head. In a split second, Bruce lunged as far as he possibly could.

The sound was deafening. Bruce felt something hot and sharp tear through his neck before he crumpled to the ground in front of his parents.

Everything went fuzzy. The world blurred around him. He felt his mother's hands press against his wound.

"Please, not again" she whispered

Bruce really wished he could reassure her, tell her that everything was going to be alright, but nothing came out.

"His eyes..." Thomas babbled

Everything felt so far away, Bruce felt himself drifting off. He knew that wasn't a good sign but he didn't care anymore. After everything that had happened, not just today but in every day he had ever been forced to live through, Bruce was finally ready to go to sleep, and where better to do so than in his mother's arms.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

For years Bruce had lied to himself about the night that his parents died. He imagined his father kind, his mother smiling, one arm around his shoulder. His father stepping forward to protect them when the gun was pulled. He remembered the pearls breaking apart, scattering everywhere, he remembered Thomas's last words, his father was asking for Martha. She was already dead.

Bruce wanted to believe that if it wasn't for the gunman, his life would've been happy. Yes his father was an abusive piece of shit but that one night at the theater, that one reprieve from reality where they enjoyed Zorro together had him full of hope that Thomas Wayne was capable, at the very least of changing, of becoming a good father, a good husband, a good man, one that he could look up to. One like Don Diego Vega, the wealthy hero who became Zorro.

Without delusions, the night was far less kind to Thomas Wayne. He did put an arm around Martha but Bruce could see the look of fear on her face, Bruce could see her try to cower away from him. Bruce could see Thomas tighten his grip.

When they were confronted by the shooter, Thomas pushed Martha in front of him, she startled the man and became his first victim. In the chaos, Thomas tried to reach for the gun and was given a bullet for his trouble. Bruce was left alive with his two dead parents on either side of him. Well sort of. His father was dead but his mother still had some life left in her. Martha Wayne called little Bruce to her side, her mouth was filling with blood. She had a hole the size of a small fist blown out of her.

"Is he dead?" she gurgled on her own blood

Bruce didn't play dumb, he knew who she meant. He nodded.

Martha squeezed his hand and gave Bruce the biggest smile he had ever seen.

"Bruce, Bruce. It's okay... Don't be afraid... we're free"

She closed her eyes for a moment and never opened them again. Bruce wanted to lie down next to her, he wanted the gunman to come back and send him to rest with his mom, Bruce just wanted to sleep.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Bruce, you need to wake up!" called the distorted voice of a dear friend "I'm looking for you but I'm having trouble with all this chaos... Please don't be dead!"

Bruce woke up with a cry. He was in the Cave. The voice belonged to Barry Allen, he was sure of it but not just any Barry Allen, it was the one who visited him with strange visions, the Barry that he had once believed was from the future. The Barry who he had discovered was sick and trying his best to help save the Multiverse.

Bruce took a second glance at the Cave, it was all wrong. In the place of his Wayne Tech prototype computer stood a laptop on a lacquered desk. Instead of Robin's uniform in the corner, there was some child's clothes, wait, Bruce recognized them. They were his. They were what he wore the night his parents died. They were stained crimson.

A portrait of Patrick Wayne, Bruce's grandfather was being used for target practice at a makeshift shooting range. Thomas's hatred for Patrick was legendary. Patrick was everything Thomas pretended to be. Richer than sin, kinder than a church minister, beloved by all. Thomas's vengeance, for whatever daddy issues he had, occurred during the first year of Bruce's life, when he convinced Pat to set up a trust fund for Bruce. Pat being the sweet man that he was, agreed. Thomas embezzled the money and used it to start Wayne Chemical, which he eventually sold for billions to the ACE Corporation. Wayne Chemical dragged the Wayne name down, poisoned the skies, fought against the rights and fair pay of workers and had the audacity to publicly list Pat as a co-founder. Pat launched lawsuits, of course but by that time the damage had already been done. The people of Gotham saw Bruce's grandfather as a liar and a coward, his reputation lay in tatters till the day he died.

Bruce shook off his rising anger. Focusing back on the present.

A giant stuffed Crocodile stood ominously in the corner. Stood? Crocodiles don't stand. It's face looked familiar, Crocodiles don't have faces either.

Bruce pushed himself up, he was lying on a cold metal table, maybe an autopsy slab.

Bruce remembered Waylon Jones, a man with a skin condition that made him look like a kind of reptile. Bruce made him leave Gotham after he kidnapped a pharmaceutical heir, the poor man wanted to fund a surgery to make himself look less like the monster everyone told him he was. Waylon was just one more victim of a society that hated those who were different.

After a brief stint with the government's Task Force X, Bruce found Waylon again. They had a little talk, Bruce could still see the humanity inside the large form everyone called 'Killer Croc' . He gave him the money he needed and set Waylon up on the other side of the country with a house, a car, and an allowance. Last time Bruce checked in his universe, Waylon was a firefighter. Bruce held that in his heart before looking away from Waylon's stuffed and mounted counterpart.

"You're awake" Bruce's mom smiled as she entered the Cave

"I-I'm a-a-li-ve" Bruce stuttered painfully, his throat hurt like a son of a bitch and his voice sounded like a stranger's. It felt like he was spitting up broken glass

"Your vocal cords were shredded" Martha explained "Tom could only salvage about forty percent"

"He s-av-ed m-e-e?"

"When he saw that you had... when he saw your eyes, he did everything he could to keep you alive"

Martha changed the blood bag on an IV stand, Bruce didn't even realise he was hooked up to it.

"You're the first person he's saved in years"

Martha produced a small plush toy from her pocket and presented it to Bruce. It was green and had little foam teeth. It was of course his childhood favorite, the T-Rex, Mr. Tiny Arms.

"I thought you could use some company"

Bruce welled up, he couldn't help himself. His mother and the T-Rex brought back memories of a time he thought long gone, a Bruce Wayne laid to rest when he ran away at the funeral.

Bruce hesitated to accept the plush. These people were not good people, they were psychopathic murderers that just happened to be versions of his parents, he needed to distance himself, he needed to be Batman.

Martha put the T-Rex into Bruce's hands before gently touching his cheek.

"Chin up, baby boy, you're too old to frown"

Bruce's defenses crumbled. Barricades he had spent his entire life building up came crashing down on his head. Then, without warning a horrific realisation dawned on him and he pushed Martha away.

"You buried those people in a mass grave... What kind of person does that?"

"Thomas, not me, I swear that was the first time I've ever been there"

Bruce looked at her incredulously, he wanted to believe her but there was something that just wouldn't let him.

"How did you get those scars?"

Martha's mouth dropped open, she clearly wasn't expecting that question. Her Glasgow smile twitched as she tried to compose herself, it unnerved Bruce to no end.

"I... can't tell you" she faltered, before more firmly stating "I won't"

"In my experience, people who hide behind false smiles are just trying to cover up the horrors that they've committed, and aren't ready to admit that they're just damaged fantasists"

Martha refused to look Bruce in the eye.

"And you're any better than I am" she whispered

Martha touched the ragged Bat symbol on Bruce's suit, it looked like it had been ripped at the seems to allow for medical access.

"I know what this symbol stands for Bruce, the escapism it gives... and I know the eyes of a killer when I see one"

Bruce shut his eyes in pain, recalling all of the lives he had taken, all of the anger he had rained down on the unsuspecting criminals of Gotham... The citizens of Gotham.

"I... lost my son... And my way"

Martha took Bruce's hand, she squeezed it reassuringly

"So did I... Something like that breaks a person, something just snaps"

"Everything becomes so bleak, you try to take back control but it just makes you cold inside"

"You push anyone left in your life away from you... and make a start down a really unhealthy road"

Bruce couldn't forgive his mother for what she had been a party to, what she must've done, but he found himself crying into her shoulder, as he hugged her once again.

"What was his name?"

"Hmm?"

"My grandson, What was his name?"

"Jason"