All content belongs to DC-this is just my twist.
This is an non-canon, AU, etcetera, where Bruce didn't adopt him and save him from 'the system'.
Chapter 1—
Every time Bruce woke up he had that child on his mind and a pain in his heart. A whole year since the death of Mary and John Grayson and only last night had his alter ago arrested Tony Zucco, the man at fault. He thought he would sleep easy that night but in fact, he barely managed an hour. It hadn't been the duty as a vigilante to keep him up; instead he tossed and turned for three hours, uneasy under a heavy burden of guilt, laid upon him by a boy.
Richard Grayson, a young child made an orphan at the hands of the mobster. Batman had investigated the boy while Bruce Wayne funded the orphanages for the boy to be in good hands. Nevertheless, against all the subtle prompts that he get the best care, he had been sent to the Juvenile Detention Centre—a place where he didn't belong but there was no room anywhere else. Bruce had thought maybe he could take him in. But no, a playboy is not a good father and neither is a cold-hearted vigilante, furthermore, each persona had duties to Gotham that weighed him down.
He couldn't adopt, he wouldn't be able to manage.
Surely.
He had hesitated for a year and last month when checking in on the orphanage, he had been told the boy had run away five months ago. The woman on the phone had specifically said, 'at least we don't have to worry about him, he's probably dead'. Bruce had seen to it that she was fired immediately. Did anyone care for the boy anymore? Since his disappearance, Batman searched for him on patrol, rifling through the Zucco case in case the kid had wanted his own revenge. After all, Bruce had felt the same way when his parents had died; only with Alfred to stop him from going over the edge, did he find 'Justice'.
Richard didn't have anyone like Bruce had; he was alone, with the mourning of his parents, having witnessed their deaths and cradled their broken bodies; now he was on the street no doubt starving, freezing or being beaten. Maybe he was already dead. Batman tried not to imagine stumbling upon the nine-year-olds corpse thin and bloody, with those blue eyes staring open in his last moment of horror, his mouth hanging open in the feeble attempt to keep screaming. Bruce saw the image every time he closed his eyes, making sleep impossible for him.
His alarm rang but he was already awake. He was washed, dressed and walking downstairs in fewer than ten minutes. Alfred was waiting for him with a hot breakfast. He gave his surrogate father a smile. The manor had never seemed so dark, while Alfred tried to lift the mood and ease his troubles in every way the faithful butler could, it was clear something was missing. Bruce shrugged off those thoughts as he sat down to his breakfast; Alfred smiled wryly, noticing the fatigue in the billionaire's eyes.
"There are no meetings today, sir. I suggest you go back to bed."
"I can't until I put this case to rest."
"The Zucco case? Sir, the culprit is behind bars."
"And the orphaned child of the victims is still somewhere out there on the streets all because I let him down. 'I'll never let another kid lose their parents just because of some thug with a gun.' That was what I promised, so much for that. I've hesitated too long and now that Richard Grayson probably doesn't have a chance."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Gotham is a dark place, as you know, as a young kid vulnerable on the streets, you either change or die."
He nodded knowingly and paused before asking, "What if the latter has occurred?"
"Then I'll pay to bury him next to his parents."
Alfred turned away from the dark thought, "In that case, let's hope it hasn't come to that."
"The other option will mean that there isn't much of a little kid left. Nevertheless, he's smart and he'll want revenge on Zucco—whether he knows of his arrest or not—I may find him immersed in his own investigation. I'll follow my leads and hope I come across him. Tonight, I'll start with his warehouse." He held his finger to his ear and listened to the voice coming through the comm. piece. "It's Batman, what do you want? Yes, I'm free, thank you."
"Is it League business sir?" Alfred inquired once Bruce quickly ate the rest of his meal and stood.
The man simply nodded once before proceeding to the study where the passage to the Batcave was hidden.
One years later
Blood collected at the wound before seeping down his wrist. Dick hissed at the burning but nevertheless pressed the knife if deeper and dragged a two centimetre line before removing the blade. It hurt. However, in Richard's eyes, pain was good; it meant he could still feel. Anything was better than feeling that hollow depression that claimed him. The boy then picked the a spot underneath at cut another line, a bit deeper this time and the blood was running in minute streams to pool in his palm. The ten-year-old counted the seventeen lines running meticulously parallel and uniform down his pale arm.
Two years since his parents had met their fate and one year since he had run away from 'home' if that was what the orphanage could be called. In fact it wasn't even an orphanage, there was no room there so where he they thrown little Dick Grayson? The Juvenile Detention Centre, the dump, where every kid was expected to end up since it was Gotham after all. He didn't deserve to be there, he hadn't done anything wrong. Wait, he had failed to save his parents, leaving him as guilty as Tony Zucco himself. Dick dug the knife it deeper before he realised what he was doing and stopped. He needed that arm for tonight.
In his chase for the man that ruined his life, he had taken to the streets to hunt him down, donning a mask in the process. He had no name but the media called him Boy Wonder. He had avoided the cameras, keeping to the shadows and striking from the darkness. He improved and trained himself to near exhaustion. He had to be better for the day he would take on Zucco. He had to be able to get that revenge. Every night, he took on the criminals and the menial thugs while letting the Caped Crusader take the spotlight in battle with the Joker, the Riddler or Two-Face.
The list went on for all of the Dark Knight's notorious cases and the super-villains that spring up to endanger the town in the most ludicrous ways. 'Ludicrous'; Dick praised himself on the advanced word. His self-taught English was getting better with French, German, Japanese and Mandarin not far behind—it would be long before he made himself a polyglot. Polyglot? Was that right? Dick taught twice then gave up; Greek was not a language he was even going to try. Taking a breath, Dick threw the bloody blade away and crossed his hideout to the language books he had stolen and flicked through since there was little to do that night.
He had just returned from one of his patrols, finding two robberies, three muggings and one attempted murder, however, once dropping down for the thugs to notice they all ran. In the early days, Boy Wonder would have imitated Batman in his attack but now with his name and reputation in the press, he found it easier. With all criminals bound and left for the police with indelible ink specifying the crime across the forehead—his trademark style—he had made it home to his warehouse.
Dick was half way through reciting a German question he was learning when he noticed the Bat-signal flaring to life in Gotham's night sky. "Was hat das Mädchen…hallo?"
He stood and ran to bandage his arm quickly before assessing what he had to take. All he ever used were the acrobatics, hands and feet, and his brain but it never hurt to take a weapon. He found himself stealing a single shipment every month from Oliver Queen who he now knew to be Green Arrow. Taking the tips of the arrows and fashioning them to pellets, he shot them with the slingshot he had pocketed from one of the bullies from the so-called orphanage. It helped him in a lot of tough situations and since Batman was called, the police were definitely in a spot of trouble.
Boy Wonder scrambled across the roofs and wished that the Batman wasn't so aware of hat was around him, that way, Boy Wonder could sneak in and take one of those grapple hooks, however, it was not meant to be. BW was nearing the police department when a figure swept over him to land in front. BW stepped back into a defensive stance as his blue eyes scrutinised the Bat from behind the mask, of which he had also stolen from Green Arrow to dye black and call his own. The Caped Crusader stood still, letting his cape fall around to close at the front, concealing his hands almost as if he knew the younger boy's paranoia needed to see those hands in case they reached for a weapon.
Batman, in turn, looked over the boy that he had run into on many investigations. A lad of maybe ten or eleven, he was thin and he knew him also to be strong and fast. Just last month, Batman had heard a man's cry in the next alley only to reach the scene and find the new vigilante had already taken down the culprit and was writing 'mugger' with a marker across the unconscious man's forehead. Watching the scene from the shadows, the Batman had become curious to the new crime fighter, gathering the young boy to be the mysterious Boy Wonder that apparently shared his city.
And a true wonder the boy indeed was, after a month of watching the boy fight and solve his own mysteries, he had assumed the boy to know at least more than one language, have a talent in acrobatics and martial arts and take naturally to detective works. Not to mention the ability to disappear and reappear by means of shadows. While following the boy, he always seemed to lose him before he found out where the boy lived.
The kid was putting his life in danger and Batman wasn't going to stand back and let it happen, after all it was why he was Batman, so no one else had to be. As good as the boy was, two years of fighting each night and he was still alive meant he was incredibly lucky. However, the luck would never last and without someone to guide him or a partner to watch his back, he could only do so much and at that age, he was easy picking. The kid had common sense after all, not once had he gone after any Super-villain and that Batman was glad of, but it didn't stop the said criminals from hunting down the boy instead.
Maybe he had survived this long because the boy hid his face from the cameras, meaning he surprised every criminal he jumped and even then, Gotham's night obscured most of his features. Not even Batman had a chance in deducing his identity and he was supposedly the Great Detective. He needed to know so he could get message to the boy's parents at least; that would be one hell of a visit wouldn't it? The Batman at your door—"Can I speak to your kid please?"
Where they stood that moment in time was on a block of flats, in reasonable gloom however, the Bat signal was not far away, only pointing above the heads of the two masked heroes. However, the Batman blocked the signals light from illuminating the boy's features and when he tried to step aside, the boy copied the movement within a millisecond. With all the possible actions Batman could have done in that short second and the boy had predicted correctly. The Batman stepped back but found it affected nothing. Through the gloom, he saw the boy smile knowingly.
Batman narrowed his eyes, staring a the mask where the boy's eyes were as he thought, "Who are you?"
The mask seemed professional as did the explosives he tended to use when hand to hand combat and complicated acrobats to confuse wasn't enough. The slingshot itself seemed hand-made and was mainly where the boy's accuracy went down the drain. Nevertheless, he had leant to use it well; he was a fast leaner too. As for the clothes, they were seemingly a thin black material, as not to weigh him down in his stunts and flips, yet the cold didn't seem to bother him neither did the long nights that caught even the Batman off his game from time to time.
Where had the boy had gotten the equipment from?
Who tutored him to be so fast and cunning?
Who trained him to be so agile and skilled?
Who knew and let this boy endanger himself so?
The questions needed answering and just staring at each other wasn't going to get either of them any closer to their goal and Batman knew it. Consequently, he opened his mouth for introductions but then closed it when he found he had no idea what to say. Boy Wonder just watched as the Dark Knight impersonated a fish, and decided to say something first to ease the vigilante's pain.
He just pointed past the cloaked figure to the Bat signal and asked, "Are you going to get that?"