Prelude
"You did so well, keep trying and getting good grades." The little girl with the brightest smile of missing baby teeth beamed and continued to try. She wanted her parents to love her, they always encouraged her schoolwork.
"You need to do better." She only did better, every test passed, and all her homework was done before class the next day. Her parents always seemed so stressed; they had nothing to worry about from her. She excelled in each school she'd gone to, and she made carefully sure.
"You're not doing enough." She kept doing more, extra credit even, a real teacher's pet. Fighting for the top of the class every year. Parents though, they yelled behind closed doors... the walls had ears and they spoke her name in angry tones sometimes.
"Your mother left." The little girl had done her best, she didn't understand why her mother left them. A bright rosy tinted world turned deep dark blue.
Father started to never be at home. Overworking his own pain away during the day. Out drinking and dating whores at night. Making poor decisions and self-absorbing behaviors in between. Years seemed to begin to blur as time pressed ever forwards. The little Holly grew numb to many things without his notice.
"Why are you failing?" She knew it didn't matter anymore, why try when she could never do well enough? Just do the minimum to coast through, that's how she would survive.
"You're going to fail in life if you keep skipping classes and not doing schoolwork." Like how he failed, she would think, to notice his example was only being followed at this point.
"You're grounded. No friends, no hobbies, nothing but school." This was not really different than before. She never had those things. There has always only been school... the rest was superficial. She did not respect his decisions anymore though, he was just a ghost in her life.
And eventually, she left him too.
By all accounts a rather normal, albeit delinquent, childhood.
So why then, had Miss Holly Kingsley just cracked a heavy plank of wood against the head of Gotham's very own Dark Knight?
