Bruce is mumblyage, The Other Guy is two (we are three years away from The Incredible Hulk (2008)) and Jason is 10. In just a few more months he's going to be jacking the tires off of a certain vehicle that someone had the brilliant idea to park in Crime Alley.
Does it look like I own it?
Bruce much prefers to avoid towns, forget about big cities like Gotham, especially in America. He's starting to get to the point where he thinks he can control the Other Guy so that he won't destroy buildings and possibly kill people but he isn't sure and doesn't really want to risk it.
He hasn't been back to the US since he first left it two years ago, after The Experiment went so very wrong. He doesn't want to be here at all, but the last trucker he'd ridden with coming down from Canada had stopped here and he figured he might as well stock up before continuing South to Mexico.
If he didn't know better, he'd think he was in the slums of Southeast Asia, instead of the poorer district of "America's Greatest City". It has the same, stacked up, run-down look as the third world countries he's traveled to in the past. It has a proper name, he's been told, but no one can tell him what that name is. They call it "Crime Alley" and that covers it pretty well.
If you climb to the roof of the "abandoned" apartment Bruce is crashing in (along with some thirty other people) you can see the high-rise apartments and skyscrapers that house the cities more prosperous inhabitants and their businesses, Wayne Tower rising above the others in a grand display of the peculiar, gothic-like style of architecture that comprises most of the city.
There are even signs of it in The Alley. Like that gargoyle that fell off of an old church (long since abandoned) and now just lays on the ground next to the sidewalk. It's one of the ugliest things Bruce has ever seen, with a snarling mouth and bulging eyes and the remains of what had once been bat-like wings.
He passes by it every day on his way back to the apartment from the shelter he's been helping out at until he decides to move on. It usually has some new version of graffiti on it, it's a favorite target of the local kids. Though the pre-teen sitting on it as if it was a park bench, smoking a cigarette, is a little unexpected.
He stands there, looking at the kid, for a long moment.
The boy looks back.
Eventually the kid rolls his eyes and exhales a cloud of smoke. "Whatcha starin' at, weirdo?"
"Nothing." Bruce ducks his head, eyes on the ground. He can hear the kid snort.
"Uh huh. Look, I ain't gonna quit the smokes anytime soon, so you can skip the lecture."
Bruce jerks his head up, a denial forming on his lips. The kid quirks an eyebrow at him and he sighs and tips his head in admission. "They really aren't good for you though."
The kid laughs, a bitter, harsh sound. "Yeah, well, think of all the much worse things I could be smokin'."
Bruce frowns at him. He looks like your typical Gothamite white trash, but he has more life in him than any other person Bruce has interacted with in the five days he's been in the city. "And what do your parents think of that." He nodded his head at the cigarette.
Something, he wasn't quite sure what, fluttered across the kid's face before it fell back into his previous sarcastic expression. "Mom OD'd a couple months back. Ol' man ain't been around for years. Good riddance." He stubbed out the cigarette and flicked it into the dried out grass in front of the church.
"So why aren't you in a foster home?" Bruce asks.
The kid looks at him like he's an idiot and Bruce concedes with a nod. He's been in this city less than a week and he's already picked up on the fact that the Children's Welfare system is little more than a front for organized human trafficking. He searches for something to say but is saved the trouble.
"So whatcha runnin' from?"
Bruce starts in surprise. "Nobody! Why would I be running from something?"
The kid gives him a supremely unimpressed look, complete with raised eyebrow. "You ain't from Gotham." He points out. "But no one comes here 'cause they want to." He rummages in his hoodie pocket and pulls out a lighter and another cigarette. Waving Bruce away at the same time. "Nev'mind. It's stupid though." He glares as he lights the cigarette, his enunciation impeded. "Runnin' never fixed anything."
Bruce just sighs. "Those will kill you, you know. That isn't just something people say."
The kid's glare ramps up another notch. "This is Gotham, Mister. Take yer pick from what's gonna kill me. At least I ain't runnin' from any of it like a coward."
"Run so that you may live to fight another day." Bruce muses and is slightly gratified at the annoyed look the kid gets. Petty perhaps, but the child is making it hard for Bruce to keep his cool.
That was the end of the conversation, but Bruce never forgot the scrawny, battered little boy with the bitter eyes. He hopes he found something better.
And now the most depressing parts are behind us. On to the not-cheerful-but-not-super-depressing-either chapter!