Author's Note: Luke is going to provisionally run for between six and eight chapters. Bruce and others will make an appearance from the third chapter onwards. This chapter is to give a little more information on Luke's home life and his character. It also helps show how unhinged he is and his views on the world. Enjoy.

Luke 2

I'm in Juvie and it's night. All the room should be locked down, but they aren't. I'm being chased by two older kids armed with a shiv and part of a chair leg. They want my blood and I don't really want to part with it. So I'm running down an endless corridor with them howling at me like animals and the threat of a permanent nap keeping my legs from turning to lead. Eventually I reach a dead-end, a door with a deadbolt and no other way to escape. They corner me, moving in for the kill slowly. Both of them are enjoying this and all because I wouldn't play with them. Then the shiv is being wrenched into my stomach and the chair leg is coming down on my head and I wake up.

I want to say it was just a nightmare, something my mind just threw together to fuck me up, but that actually happened to me in there. I spent six weeks in the infirmary and nearly died of blood loss. The two kids, both of them sexual predators of the blond boy variety, got put in lockdown for a week. That really sucked. They kept their distance afterwards though and kept calling me damaged goods. Whatever, just don't try and fuck me up the ass please, one guard made that play already. He got dismissed, a huge rarity in that line of work. There's a knock at my bedroom door and my foster dad's voice on the end of it.

"Luke, it's Charlie. Are you awake?" I rub my eyes and shrug.

"I guess I must be."

"You mind if I come in?"

"No. Go right ahead, Charlie."

He finds me as I left myself last night, lying naked on the bedroom floor with nothing but a blanket to spare my dignity. It's not a shock and he's used to the spectacle. I can't sleep in beds; I'm too used to concrete and floorboards to find anything else comfortable. I'm used to being in confinement or solitary or lying unconscious on the basement floor after a beating and going without even the simplest of luxuries. Clothes chafe and pillows try to swallow my head so I dispense with both. I don't care. I'm happy down here with the dust and the dirt. It feels like home. I look up to find Charlie regarding me with a sympathetic expression.

When I first got here, Charlie gave me that expression too and I nearly broke his jaw. I hate pity and I hate people feeling sorry for me. You deal with your lot in life and you don't complain or cry about it. If you luck out and get a good run, fair play, but don't pity someone else who doesn't get that smooth ride; it makes them feel like they're beneath you. Charlie should've called social services and got me put in Juvie for that display, almost everyone else would have. Linda, his wife, plain-looking bitch, wanted to send me back. Charlie said no. I think he must be fucking crazier than me if he's willing to keep a kid with issues like mine under his roof. Because he didn't red flag it and because he actually does a decent job of taking care of me, I don't take exception to his sympathies anymore. I just let him think I like him. I don't like him or his wife, who I'm pretty sure is fucking his best friend Chuck, but I let them think I do.

"You about ready to get up for school, boy?" He asks crouching down to my level. I stare at his moustache for a few moments, wondering how bad his burns would be if I set fire to it while he slept, before leveling them on his eyes. Charlie's got big green eyes…a lot like Dick's if we're doing a straight-up comparison and they always look hopeful. I don't know what he thinks is going to happen here, but I'm not going to be his kid. I'm nobody's kid and therefore nobody's bitch and that's the way I like it. My step-dad told me my real dad hated me so much that he left my mother when I was only a baby. It was bullshit but I believed him. So now I don't believe or trust anyone's word. Charlie hasn't told me he loves me yet, but I know he does. But when he tells me, I'm going to call him a liar. I might even go for one of those eyes because I can't believe a word anyone says. I don't love anyone…except maybe Dick but even that might be a total lie at the moment. God I'm fucked up. I nod at him.

"Yeah, sure. I'll be down for breakfast in five."

Linda flashes me a smile when I sit down at the kitchen table. It's fake and very obvious to me. She has been giving me them since I got here and I'm pretty sure that's never going to change. Linda is an elementary school teacher in the middle of Gotham and is clearly better at lying to younger kids and retards. I know and can see she's scared of me. Maybe she notices how I look at her and then my knife repeatedly when we're having dinner and then give her a smile. Or maybe it's that she realizes I know about her affair and she's terrified I'll tell Charlie the whole story. She thinks I don't know, but I know she raids my room looking for incriminating evidence or a hidden cache of lethal weapons on an almost daily basis. She's good at putting things back in their place when she's done, but my memory means even a slight variation in how my underwear touch each other alerts me to tampering. I hate her and for so many reasons, some of which might be entirely imaginary. I'd like to force-feed her the cat and watch her choke on its entrails. I smile back.

"Morning Linda. What's on the menu?"

"Waffles okay Honey?" She says showing me the stack of blueberry waffles on the plate. I nod.

"Yes please."

Breakfasts in this household always pass by in superficial conversation and awkward silences. Charlie doesn't hesitate to ask questions but Linda won't speak unless she's prompted. They make a really bad double act and it's another reason I don't like them. Between them they ask about what classes I've got today, what I want for my lunch and if I want to invite Dick over after school to hang out. I answer the first two but leave the last one blank. I don't know enough about him to ask that question and already know the answer so I'll wait until I can read him perfectly. Knowing when he's lying and when he's not is what I need. I've got my foster parents down cold and that only took me an hour so I'd guess another day will see me right. Soon I'll know everything.

Charlie drops me off on his way to work and wishes me good luck like he did the other day. He still means it and I smile at him. Maybe I could fake Linda's suicide for him, snap her neck and then hang her from the ceiling with a confession pinned to her chest. He'd probably appreciate the gesture. I go to English.

Dick isn't here and is apparently off sick. When I ask what's wrong with him, Mr. Brunswick doesn't answer and ignores me. People just don't seem to get it with me. Does this ugly bastard not go to meetings? Does he not know what I've already planned to do to him as soon as this class is over? Never mind. He'll learn why it's not a good idea to fucking ignore me in less than forty minutes.

Second period is Biology. I like biology. I've only just sat down when I see paramedics rushing past the door towards Brunswick's classroom. A few minutes later, those of us who were in English are taken outside and asked some very particular questions by some very stern-looking teachers. They ask us if we saw anyone lurking around the hallway as we left or if we knew of anyone who had a grudge against Mr. Brunswick. We all say no and they let us go back to Biology. Apparently, some senior student found ol' Brunswick lying face down on the classroom floor shortly after his last class ended. The paramedics said that he'd been struck with a blunt object on the back of his head and could've died. The truth is I only hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious and the blunt object was nothing but the bony part of my elbow aimed at the right spot. If I wanted to, I could've killed him. He should just be thankful I wasn't sourer at him or else he'd be in a morgue about now. Don't. Fucking. Ignore. Me.

Today is supposedly a practical lab. We're going to dissect a pig's eyeball with a scalpel. I barely manage to stifle a yawn as the teacher, a fat, middle-aged virgin with thick glasses and a self-aggrandizing air, tells us what components of the eye to identify. Cornea, lens, pupil and all the usual crap get their five minutes of fame as people start to pair up with their lab partners. Since Dick isn't here, I get his lab partner…a girl called Sarah Brinkley. She's blond like me and fairly pretty I guess but has really cold eyes, the kind that say she knows she's pretty and is willing to exploit that to the fullest in order to get what she wants. Before she even opens her mouth, I know she puts out and that she's probably a cheerleader judging from her tight figure and fake friendliness. I'd like to cut open her face and see whether she's plastic all the way through.

Introductions are made, hands are shook and she tells me I'm cute straight away. I bet she's got a boyfriend on the football team…or a string of them on the football team. I wonder if she wants to see me get beaten up by them. When she asks me how I'm getting on at Bristol, I try desperately to not gouge her eye out with the scalpel I'm clenching in my palm. I should really take my meds instead of flushing them down the toilet bowl every day; I might be more even in these situations. Somehow, through no steering of my own, the conversation shifts onto Dick Grayson and I'm suddenly charming.

"We went out for a few months last year." She says after twenty minutes of friendly conversation about him, "He was really nice and funny and great to be with. He used to buy me whatever I wanted at the fair. He could win every one of the carnival games even though most of them were rigged. He was a cool guy." I nod along attempting to remember how to portray sympathy on my face. How does Charlie do it again?

"So why'd you break up with him? Did you not like him anymore or?" I ask to prompt her. Suddenly her expression actually becomes genuine and melancholic. I'm getting excited.

"It wasn't that. He was just…he was never really there, even when he was actually right next to me. He was distant and never seemed to listen to me; he only ever half-heard what I said. Then there were just little things that snowballed. Random cancellations on dates an hour before they were supposed to start and disappearing in the middle of them just happened all the time. Eventually I couldn't take it and I dumped him. He didn't even seem that sad about it all…" She stops and actually wipes away a TEAR before continuing. "It took a while to get over him. Anyway, are you ready to start…?" She can't finish her sentence. Without taking my eyes off her the entire time, I've effortlessly extracted everything of value from the pig's eyeball and neatly laid them on the worktop.

I'm already beginning to get a good idea of what I need to look for by the time the day finally ends. Dick is a popular guy and a natural athlete as I always thought, but he's definitely got a double-life. And it is just the one secret he's keeping, not a whole bunch of them like some of his friends think. Everything I've been told today, about his disappearances from movie theaters and arcades, his late withdrawals from track meets and basketball practice and his random bouts of illness are all connected. They all coincide with events that are happening at the same time but that nobody else is aware of. It's not domestic abuse, but it's definitely not accidental damage he's suffering. Something tells me it all comes from his guardian and the old guy I clocked yesterday. Bruce Wayne is responsible for whatever Dick is secretly doing and that old man is his accomplice in it. When I walk to Charlie's garage for my ride home, I get the ball rolling.

"Dick said I can go hang out at his house this afternoon. Can you drop me off?" I ask. Charlie looks puzzled.

"Aren't his parents taking you?"

"He had to cut away at lunch for a family emergency. He said I could still go round if everything was okay. He said it was. So can you drop me off?" Charlie doesn't exactly buy my lies, but can't disprove them either. He shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't like the idea of you going off on your own, Luke. Are you sure you'll be okay? You've taken your meds this afternoon right?" I nod my head. "You promise to be good for them?" I nod again. He takes a deep breath to reassure himself and nods back, apparently satisfied I won't maim someone tonight. "Okay boy, I'll drop you off. Where is it?"

"Wayne Manor."