BRUCE:

Bruce had been awake for about an hour by the time his alarm rang, he walked over to it and silenced it then sat on his bed. The bed was too big and so was the room, he'd gotten used to the tiny dorms he'd been occupying so Wayne Manor was one of the only things that stayed as big as he remembered. He had already made his bed and gotten ready for school and was now dreading breakfast with his uncle. Bruce knew his uncle meant well but when he thought of spending time with him, his mouth would fill with the taste of bile, he wanted to be mature and get on with his uncle but something stopped him and even made him angry. He'd later understand that it was resentment.

Bruce learned to do two things when he first got to boarding school: how to keep his room tidy and how to hide things even with exceedingly limited options. Later on, in his boarding school experience, he learned to carry himself like an adult to buy booze for him and his friends, he learned how to sneak out of any space he was placed in, he learned loads of things the one thing he did not learn to do was cook. There was never any need for him to cook; the schools provided meals and so did planes and friends' parents. When his uncle Alfred would come to visit, Bruce's mother would send her chefs away and Bruce and his mother got to choose what Alfred would make for them, those were some of his fondest memories, whether he wanted them to be or not. Now, he was dreading entering the kitchen with his uncle.

"Good morning, uncle," Bruce said as he entered the kitchen.

"Ah, Bruce, mornin'."

Alfred had prepared what Bruce could only describe as a feast. Alfred had gotten up early, it was the sound of him messing around in the kitchen the woke Bruce up and it was his guilt that prevented him from falling asleep again. He had to eat breakfast with his uncle now, after he had gone through all this trouble. He walked over to the table and sat down where his uncle had set out a plate for him.

"Is Matthew not going to join us?"

"He's not a morning person…he'll be here for dinner though."

Alfred understood how his nephew felt, probably better than Bruce did. He knew he left him at a time when he needed him most and he knew it blindsided him but Alfred was hurt beyond belief, he was in no position to take care of his nephew. Alfred wanted to speak to Bruce about everything that had happened but he preferred the awkwardness to potentially being iced out completely, so he opted to wait for a better time. They shared a few words over breakfast and eventually, Bruce thanked his uncle for the food and Alfred handed Bruce his lunch and bag waved goodbye from the front door.

"Why aren't you going to St. Bart's? Its heaps closer." Quinn said to Bruce as she started the car.

"Good morning Quinn."

"Mornin' Bruce, so St. Bart's?"

"Honestly? I don't think I can go to one more private school."

"High school is high school though…"

They rode in silence outside of little comments Quinn would make about buildings or streets or whatever she noticed; it was annoying at first but Quinn's too likeable for anyone to feel that way for too long.

"See ya later."

"Later."

Bruce stood outside the car and heard Quinn speed off to God knows where and took a deep breath. The other kids were already staring at him and whispering, he wondered what they rumours were. He walked into the building and didn't know where to go.

"Lost?" asked a small voice from behind Bruce.

"Yes. I'm supposed to go to…"

"I know. Follow me." She cut him off.

"Thank you."

The girl was short, with long blonde hair and big glasses that magnified her eyes. She had a mean look on her face but with all her hair and her glasses she looked cartoonish and cute, it made Bruce smile just a little bit. She took him to the principal's office and they stopped in front of a woman at the desk in front of the actual office.

"Ah, Mr. Wayne." The woman said.

The girl next to Bruce let out the smallest gasp and looked down at her shoes before muttering something to the receptionist and dashing out the door.

"Thank you, Miss Quinzel." The lady called after her.

"Now you, go right in there and the principal will give you a few words of encouragement then you'll come get everything else from me."

Bruce went into the office and got a half-hearted pep talk from his new principal before being led down the hallway passed his new classmates and into a nearly empty classroom. They passed the blonde girl he met earlier and he smiled and waved at her.

SELINA:

Selina got to school later than usual but somehow managed to get there before the first bell. She spotted her friend standing still with her forehead pressed against her locker and walked over to her.

"Hello? Harley? What happened?" Selina asked.

Harley fixed her posture, opened her locker, and started silently rummaging through it.

"Whatever weirdo,"

"Hey did you guys hear about Pam, she totally got her face burned up using knock off Chanel skin crap," a girl said as she walked up to her locker with two other girls.

"Yeah, I heard her parents paid like 10k to fix it and the girls wanna kick her off the squad because she's being, like, super preachy about organic…"

"Who the hell cares about that cheerleader turned eco-warrior, Bruce Wayne is back in Gotham and isn't going to some private school…he's coming here, East Gotham, H-E-R-E!" the last girl squealed.

"Is he hot?"

"Who cares? He's rich." Selina added.

Selina wasn't really friends with any of these girls, their lockers were next to each other so they talked and hung out but graduation was coming soon and without school, Selina didn't see herself staying besties with them. Except for Harley, they met at camp when they were younger but Harley was gonna go on to some big school and probably leave Gotham to be a normal person and Selina had made no such plans.

"Oh, Selina, one of the kids got kicked out of my tutoring program so you can teach math in his place," Harley told her.

"Oh nice, I needed the extra cash" she lied.

"I know."

The other girls started to stutter then fell silent, Selina looked up and saw the most beautiful boy to ever enter her high school and he was waving…at…Harley? Selina and the other girls stared until he disappeared into a classroom then a small crowd formed around Harley almost like a mob, Selina was its leader.

"How the hell do you know Bruce freaking Wayne?" Selina inquired for the group.

"He was lost this morning and I helped that's it."

Harley was met with a flood of questions and was saved only by the bell that sent everyone to their respective classes.

At lunch, Harley was nowhere to be seen, which Selina expected. She looked for Bruce Wayne but he wasn't in the cafeteria either so she decided to wander around the school. At some point, she found a spot hidden from everyone at the school and in the little bit of sun that was out that day.

"Hello." The voice came from out of nowhere.

"The tree."

Selina looked up and saw Bruce Wayne which made her blush so she looked away quickly.

"Why are you in a tree?"

"Old habit. I'll come down."

"No…"

Selina ran at the tree and pulled herself up onto the branch on the opposite side of the tree trunk and sat on it. She leaned forward so she could see Bruce and met his gaze immediately.

"Gymnastics." She explained sheepishly.

"HA! Same. Until I was twelve."

"WHAT?"

"I showed mild interest when I was four so my uncle took me and I liked spending time with him so I stuck with it." He smiled.

"That's so…"

"So what?"

"Cute."

They both laughed. Selina heard the bell ring and hopped off her branch, she turned to tell Bruce they had to run back to class but he was already gone. 'When…?'

"We're already late," Bruce called, already headed for school.

They ran back to the main building together, at some point Selina had gotten ahead of Bruce and gone back to grab him by the hand and pull him along. At the main building they waved at each other as they split up, Bruce headed to class and Selina headed out early, she had things to take care of and one of her locker buddies would cover for her in class.

Selina headed to the bank to deposit some money and paid her rent while she was there. After the bank, Selina headed to a liquor store near her house and bought a six-pack of beer "for her dad" and went home. The apartment always felt big to her when she wasn't rushing out or asleep, it was like the longer she was in there the higher the ceiling got and the farther apart the walls got and the quieter it got. Beer, Selina found, or alcohol of any kind helped; she'd get drunk and dance around the apartment or play house or just fall asleep.

JAY:

Jay found school easy on most days, it was like a play and so long as you were happy with your role, everything was fine. His classmates were all so insecure it made them easy to read and the teachers were overworked and underpaid so you'd have to literally pay them to care, high school was like a movie that Jay was writing, directing, and staring in.

"Yo, Jay, you coming to my party tonight?" A random boy whispered.

"You don't even have to ask."

The boy was happy with his response, the party seemed a little irresponsible to Jay but he knew that's why the boy was throwing it and why so many people would attend. Jay had a place in this school and going to parties helped maintain it. A party on a Monday was meant to be cool and what would be cooler is when all the cool kids come in hungover with their cool little post-party jokes. Jay didn't care for crap like that but it was a necessary evil. He wasn't the most popular guy in school but he was far from the least, he wasn't more attractive than that Wayne boy but he was far from ugly and so on; he wanted to maintain this middle-ground.

Jay noticed that Selina Kyle hadn't been in school for the last two hours of the day and he heard the Wayne boy was seen frolicking in a field with her earlier. Jay wanted to find Selina but he knew she could be anywhere. 'It appears you've caught my eye properly Miss Kyle,' he thought.

After school, Jay headed to Selina Kyle's apartment building and waited outside for someone to come in or out, after about ten minutes he went to try the door and it was open. It pissed Jay off that he waited around like that but he couldn't dwell on it, he had to focus. He went up the stairs to and began to pick the look on her door, and entered the apartment. Jay had considered putting one of his cameras in here but he only had two and they were expensive: one made sure nobody snuck up on him in his room and the other was in the music teachers house and he wasn't willing to remove that one, she was his current obsession but she was getting a little less interesting. Jay carefully combed through the entire apartment and found nothing out of the ordinary until something caught his eye. If anyone were to ask what specifically caught his eye, he couldn't say but something in the kitchen seemed…off. Jay walked into the kitchen and found a box hidden behind a tile behind the microwave and inside it was an expensive watch.

"Hmm…"

He took a picture of it next to some bill in Selina's name then put it back in the box, back in the wall, and left the microwave as he found it, he then walked out the door and locked it again on his way out.

'How interesting'