AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been gone so long. Sorry. I've been having a lot of trouble writing. And doing other things. More info later.

If you don't know him, Thomas Wayne Jr. is a character in both older comics and in Earth-3 (alternate DC universe). He was the Owlman, and Bruce's older brother. In older comics, his backstory was that he was mentally ill and lived in a hospital, where Bruce never knew about him, and only shows up later when someone brainwashes him. He appears in this story because I'm having tons of Tommy feels and there isn't enough fanfiction with him in it.

PART 1.1: The Fall

Stars are only visible in the darkness,
Fear is ever changing and evolving,
And I, I can poison the skies,
And I, I feel so alive.

~ Battle Cry, Imagine Dragons

When Bruce was three, his family was in a car accident.

They'd been driving back to the manor after an evening in town. His mother had been dressed in silk and his father next to her was cupping a hand on her knee, a warm grin on his face. His brother, Tommy, was sitting on the other side of their mother - next to Bruce - playing an imaginary game with the plush owl doll he'd received as a christmas gift from some relatives the year before.

Bruce does not remember any of this. He doesn't remember looking out the window, leaning up against the glass at the headlights that had caught his eye. He doesn't remember reaching for Tommy's arm, securing the six year old's attention before anyone else's.

He doesn't know that his parents aren't looking, that none of them are wearing seat belts. That the driver glances at a sign post in the opposite direction just as the other car cuts out of an unlit side street.

He doesn't remember this - but Tommy does. Tommy glanced over his baby brother's head - saw the car - and moved, only a second or two before the impact. If Bruce remembers anything, years later, it's the screech of metal, the sound of screaming, and the heavy-but-soft force of his brother slamming his body down on top of him.

He would not remember the sound of the driver's head smacking the wheel hard enough to kill. He would not remember his mother's voice yelling for her boys, or his father yelling for Thomas to keep his eyes open. The sound of shattering glass, or the exact moment that Tommy's body goes limp on top of him, are also not there.

There is one other thing he remembers - even after all the other images had faded from childish memory. It's the sound and smell of dripping blood, sliding down the sides of Tommy's neck, and hitting Bruce's face; like raindrops.

He never forgets the memory of his brother dying.

When Bruce was four, his mother rushed into the preschool he attended and pulled him out early. There were tears in her eyes, and she hiccupped wetly when he squeezed her fingers. They drove in the small city car - the new one, after the old one had been destroyed - to the hospital Bruce's father worked in.

The smell of bleach and sound of nurses rushing past sent shivers through his body, the memory of chaos and wheeled beds and blood still too strong, but he'd been here before that night, and he's been here since.

There is the flash of hallways, as Martha runs past and then they're there.

In Tommy's room.

Bruce has been in here many times over, sitting beside the bed as his mother read stories to the sleeping face of his big brother. Bruce had watched as slowly, his face grew pale and his arms thinner on the sheets. The sight of Tommy's closed eyes that haunted his nightmares for the past eight months is one he expects to when his mother places him at the foot of the medical bed, and leans down to kiss her eldest's cheek.

Except Tommy's eyes aren't closed; they're blue, a bit duller, and plenty confused, but opened and focused weakly on their father's face.

Tommy spots him at the end of his bed, and his face lights up, a grin with two missing teeth spreading wide. His hands reaching for his baby brother, and Bruce can't stand it, launching forward and howling tears into Tommy's hair.

"Missed you." He chokes, and he can feel Tommy's smile on his neck.

Thomas Wanye, Jr. is Bruce's older brother. He was born about three years before Bruce, and had always taken seriously the duties of being the elder sibling. Since he was strong enough to lift the howling infant, Tommy had trotted around the manor and its ground with his baby brother in his arms, often struggling to lift the child and his mess of wrappings. When this proved too difficult, Tommy often replaced the awkward hold with a basket, putting baby, blankets, toys and books all in one and relying on the enthusiastic babbling of his navigator to avoid taking a fall down any stairs.

While Tommy was nice enough in his own way, it quickly became apparent that Bruce was his only true love. Tommy squirmed and downright howled when subjected to the groping fingers and hands of visiting friends and family. He treated each capture and hug like it was dangerous, kicking about and fleeing quickly. It was unanimously agreed that Bath Time was torture for everyone involved; it was even bad enough that a stray visitor once called the police at the distant sounds of Tommy's tortured screams. Unfortunately, neither the two men in uniform who turned up at the door were able to do anything about Bath Time either.

When Bruce was there, however, Tommy morphed into a sugar-sweet teddy bear, giving up spoonful after spoonful of ice cream and mouthfuls of pancakes every time Bruce turned his baby blues to the older son. All toys that Tommy owned became Bruce's. If Bruce wanted to touch or look, all he had to do was point, and Tommy was lifting him up above his head, struggling to get into range whatever the baby's sights held. Bath Time was only possible after Martha introduced the cooing angel to the art of sitting still and letting adults scrub dust and dirt from his dark curls.

Tommy, it turned out, loved taking a bath - as long as Bruce was there. Baths were the best, if Bruce was making screeching noises and splashing water into Tommy's eyes while throwing around various plastic toys. Everything was the best if Bruce was there. The only time decent photographs emerged of the Wayne family, was after Tommy was allowed to hold Bruce, and all four could attend parties in relevant calm after allowing Tommy to introduce Bruce to each and every person in attendance.

At four months, Bruce started making "tttt" noises every time Tommy was not looking directly at him. "Toe" followed at six, and "Toe-me" at seven and a half. By month nine, "Toooooommmmmmyyy" was Bruce's very first word in the morning, and his most frequent throughout the day, being shrieked even if Tommy's ear was only a few inches from Bruce's mouth.

It became apparent shortly after Bruce's first birthday, that the toddler was a lot smarter then he should have been. By age one, his vocabulary had well over a hundred words, and he'd mastered walking at six months, skipping crawling entirely. His balance was excellent and he'd already begun to learn to count, mouthing words and sounds as he moved objects around to directions. The deep fascination with everything had not left, only growing larger as each new thing Bruce was presented was touched, smelled, shaken for a sound and tasted with deep, thoughtful looks at each discovery. His memory was amazing, allowing him to regonize people he'd only been introduced to once.

Little by little, attention shifted to Bruce, the sweet little angel, who smiled at strangers and laughed at kisses and hugs. He charmed even the most spiteful into agreeing; the youngest Wayne was the cutest thing since kittens.

Tommy was rarely anyone's favourite. Before Bruce had come along, all his playtimes had been spent alone, rejecting outside influence and playmates. He was not necessarily rude, or unhappy, but it was always agreed that Thomas Jr. was a boy who liked to be alone.

Bruce was Tommy's light in the world. Tommy might not have been anyone's favourite, but he was certainly Bruce's. Bruce could see no wrong in Tommy's stutters or freezing glances at strangers. When others remarked that Tommy was such a strange little boy, Bruce could only smile at his big brother, and see him smile back, with the whole world and all the love in it reflected in his blue eyes.

In the eyes of Bruce, Tommy could do no wrong. Even as his mind raced ahead in genius anticipation, leaving his older brother in the dust as he inhaled math and sciences, read faster, wrote longer, became better, Bruce loved his brother all the stronger, for sticking by when other kids teased the youngest Wayne for being too smart, for playing with him and ignoring children his own age. For understanding Bruce, when everyone else just treated him like a marvel, the little genius.

Tommy could do no wrong, even when he got very, very wrong.

Tommy turned seven in a hospital. Being in a coma for eight months had weakened everything from his muscles to his memory; he could barely coordinate well enough to feed himself.

It was not the hospital he'd laid in for so long. This one was private, expensive, and full of people recovering from various diseases and situations similar to Tommy's.

All in all, he had a nice, quiet room with a small view of the hospital's gardens. The room was bright, but rather impersonal, with flowered wallpaper, pastel colours, and only a few things that were Tommy's. Besides some clothes and a handful of doctor-approved books, there was only a picture of all four Waynes - taken shortly before the accident - and the plush owl toy, singed and stained after the crash.

It didn't feel at all like Tommy, but in some way, that fit the situation rather well.

For there was something wrong with Tommy.

It had been one thing, when he'd woken up, slowly staying conscious for longer and longer each day, learning how to move again and shape his tongue in patterns like words, it had been a challenge with an end in sight.

But time revealed something. He was different then before. Something had become twisted inside of him, something that lingered around the edge of his eyes. Where once he had squirmed at the attention of others, now he bared his teeth and clawed. He screamed at foreign contact, he snarled and kicked and hated, with something that was burning and hot, and almost cruel.

As time edged on, Thomas and Martha tried desperately to bring their son home, only to see him turn on the staff, lock himself in various rooms and refuse even his own parents' touch. Tommy travelled from doctor to doctor, as they tried to unweave what had caused the change.

The only person that Tommy softened around was Bruce. That darkness that curled so possessively around his innards would recede as Bruce smiled at him, held his hand and told him about his day.

Not a week went by when Bruce did not visit his brother at the hospital. It was the only time the nurses could breath a sigh of relief, as Bruce tugged Tommy out into the yard, to compare leaves off the trees to his carry-around book on American Flora or capture flies to stick in spider webs. It was like removing a boiling pot from hot water, the heaving, shimmering mess disappearing as if it never existed, only smoking slightly if others choose to interfere, or burning wayward fingers.

At first, fuelled by dangerous words from doctors or professionals, Thomas and Martha wouldn't let the two boys out of their sight, convinced that the slightly incident would send Tommy against his baby brother. But as time went on, slowly, they relaxed, trusting that Bruce, if nobody else, would take care of their eldest.

Tommy's birthday was a quiet affair, made only possible because Bruce had baked the cake himself, and spent the entire evening informing his brother about the chemical makeup of sugar and how the dough had changed every five minutes.

It was obvious that the newly minted seven year old was not keen on spending so long in what he widely considered to be a strange place. He took some persuading to open his gifts at all and mostly sat within a few inches of Bruce, slowly eating cake like taking his attention off watching the room would become dangerous.

That night it rained, thunder rumbling somewhere over the New Jersey shoreline. Every noise or flash of light would send shivers coursing through Tommy's spine, but even under careful watch, nobody seems to notice, his parents slowly sinking into a state of pleasant exhaustion as the two brothers played in various abandoned rooms, the staff having been given the night off.

Eventually, Tommy found himself in Bruce's room, sitting on the rug while Bruce informed him of a brave war being prevented by the two heroes of the night; the whole game being played out using Bruce's vast collection of ceramic and glass figures, plastic toys, tin soldiers from the attic and rather impressive set of stuffed animals.

Bruce was midway through rescuing the kidnapped princess from Tommy's dragon, which had either just randomly appeared or had secretly been behind the whole kingdom's economic collapse - it was a bit difficult to follow, sometimes - when there was a thunderous gust of wind, the likes of which had only been distantly howling at the window all evening, the lights went out and Bruce's window shattered.

There was a delay, as Tommy's heart leapt into a beat seemingly twice as fast, and Bruce seemed stunned, more then anything. Then, the rain spat inwards, lightning crackling in the distance, and Bruce screamed.

A haze took over Tommy, some part of him that remembered only screams of pain and flashing headlights, and he was moving before he had time to think, grabbing Bruce's sweater and dragging him away, away from the broken glass and the nightmares and death.

It was instinct, that made him curl his younger brother underneath him, instinct that wrapped his body around the small, trembling back, locked his hands over Bruce's neck, because there was still scars on the Tommy's head that itched. Instinct that pushed down, kept Bruce still and safe and he wanted to hurt someone.

There was hands that were trying to pull him off Bruce, hands that he tried to bite at, as he held fast. Hands that flipped him over and tried to break his lock.

Bruce was howling, words lost to whatever had crept up in his head, clinging desperately to his brother as he tried to wipe the water off his face with whatever he could get at.

Someone, distantly, was yelling, and it probably wasn't Bruce, because Tommy's whole world had narrowed down to his brother. He couldn't hear the wind, or the rain, his parents' voices lost to him as they tried to pry the two apart.

The fear was all-consuming, some distant part of Thomas that whispered Bruce is in danger, Bruce is scared, you can save him. You can save him. You've done it before.

He wasn't aware, up until that point, that the doctors in charge of his case had given his father a set of sedatives. The world was slowly rattling itself apart in a clash of wind and splintering metal, and the tiny pinprick of the needle was lost to Bruce's cries.

He did notice, when his eyes started to flutter, as his arms became weak, and began to loosen around his brother.

The very last thing he heard, before his head hit the bedroom floor, was Bruce's voice, laced with more fear then he'd ever heard in anyone's voice, yelling or screaming or whispering one small phrase, over and over.

"He's dying again."

Bruce had a fear of water on this face. Tommy's mother tells him this two weeks later. He hadn't liked showers or baths much following the accident, but everyone had just chalked that up to being without his brother.

Bruce - who was the perfect one - could not possibly be scared of what had happened. He only cried because Tommy was sick. He didn't wake screaming in the night, or refuse to go in cars or anything that would have tipped someone off to something being wrong.

But Bruce was scared of water on his face. He was scared of dripping rain trailing down his neck and his cheeks. He was scared of blood running down his head, dripping down from Tommy's wounds.

All the nightmares would fade with time, but this one, it stayed, so cruel and twisting. The reason that Tommy had to go to the hospital, that he'd become comatose, that he'd changed. All because he'd taken the glass and impact instead of Bruce, for Bruce.

And then, with the lightning - like headlights flashing - and the rain hitting his face - like Tommy's blood - and the glass shattering - like all the windows at once - Bruce could not stand it. It'd come back, too close for him to understand it was something different.

His mother says, she understands that Tommy was helping now. That laying down on top of Bruce had calmed him - because Tommy had saved Bruce once and he could do it again - and that Tommy had not been the one to cause his brother's screams. Tommy had not hurt Bruce; he'd been trying to save him.

Except, with some borrowed sedatives, instead of being the hero, Tommy had slept, not waking when Bruce had shook and shook, seemingly dead, seemingly asleep without any hope of waking up, and it had made it so much worse.

It had never occurred to Tommy before this, that Bruce was even capable of hatred. But Tommy could see it, when they let his family back into the hospital. He could see it in Bruce's face, biting harsh and bottomless.

As far as four-year-old Bruce was concerned, his parents had taken away his hero and killed his brother. It didn't matter that Tommy was fine - or as fine as he could be - or that Tommy hadn't even really saved him.

Bruce didn't shake ideas. He might have been smart beyond his years, but it didn't change the fact that he was a child.

"We know you were trying to help." His mother said. "Sweetie, we just worry sometimes." It was possible she looked sad, but it was hard for Tommy to tell.

He only had eyes for Bruce, and Bruce was angry.

When Bruce was five, his parents received a call one evening, shortly after dinner.

It would take a long time to forget the look on horror on his father's face, his calm manner so shattered it was like a broken glass.

He heard his mother cry something, when both of them talked out in the hall, and when they came back in, gathering up their youngest like he was still a baby, he could see tears in both their eyes.

"Bruce," Martha's voice sounded choked. "something's wrong at the hospital. Some nice policemen are going to come over and drive us down there, okay?"

Bruce nodded, fear spiking hotly in his feet. His parents didn't put him down, even as they carried him around to grab coats and bags. They were ready in the entrance hall by the time two black and white cars pulled up near the front door, lights sending splays of light off the darkened garden, though the sirens were off.

They were ushered in, and they took off quickly. The officers didn't give anything away - saying only basic answers to Thomas and Martha's basic questions. It left Bruce scratching for more, wanting to know.

Hospital? His father's hospital? Tommy's hospital? What had his mother meant by something's wrong?

Bruce kept the tears back, as they drove through the Palisades, across the Trigate bridge and into the heart of Uptown. Except, instead of taking the route to either hospital, the police turned down an unfamiliar street, and pulled up in front of a GCPD building.

The fear was becoming so strong it threatened to send him toppling from his father's arms. Were they going to the station to see a body? Was somebody dead, or in trouble?

But such a thing did not happen. Instead, they were ushered into a separate room, and Bruce's parents explained, in careful, tear-thick tones, that there was an incident at Tommy's hospital.

The television was on in one corner. The reporter on screen was talking about a hostage situation at the St. Angus Institution for-

Bruce suddenly found it very difficult to breath. In fact, it had suddenly become impossible. He could dimly hear his mother say something along the lines of it'll be aright, but it didn't really sound like the truth.

None of the Waynes could later give a clear description of what happened that night, but there was a rather accurate article in the Gotham Times a week after that gave the details, and that was always how the family retold the story.

There was a man - Leroy Hobbs, age 23, high on at least two illegal substances - who'd broken into the hospital after hours, gotten all the way up into the children's ward, and found the room labeled THOMAS G. WAYNE, JR. There, he'd slammed Tommy against the wall, dazing him but not knocking him out, and held a knife to the child's throat as he screamed to the nurse to get everyone else out, and made sure the rich brat's parents knew he was here.

Bruce remembered each statistic perfectly, year after year, after it was all over. Bruce was 5 years old. Tommy was 7 years old. Leroy Hobbs was 23 years old. Hobbs was $34,500 into debt with the Italian mafia. Hobbs asked for 1 million and a free pass out of the building, in exchange for Tommy's life. The Waynes had learned of the situation at 7:15 pm, about 20 minutes after everything had started. They got to the station at 7:40 pm.

Tommy broke free at 7:55 pm and was found at 8:20 pm.

At least, this'll be the story the papers will print. That is not necessarily the truth.

Tommy, whose memories of the night are the clearest, headache aside, will lean over, years later and whisper into Bruce's ear, that he bit down on the biggest, bluest vein standing out on Hobbs' wrist and ripped it clean away, as the man had waved the knife in his face.

The police report - and the newspaper article - will report that Tommy struggled, and bit down on his captor, while trying to escape. Tommy will be stunned, lost and confused, and will take 30 or so minutes to stumble about, and be found by a team storming the building. They will say that the drugs Hobbs was on caused him to tear his veins out. They'll say that it wasn't Tommy's fault. That Hobbs was dead before they got there. That there was nothing they could do.

But Bruce will always hear Tommy's words, whispered in his ear where nobody else could hear.

"I watched him die." The boy says, breath quick with some foreign eagerness. "He was dead before I left the room. I killed him."

On that night, however, Bruce knows none of these things. Instead, he watches, on the television, as bit by bit, stories are unraveled. There is a phone call, where his father speaks in a shaking voice and his mother stands beside him, barking quiet words that get listened too all so quickly. There's officers going back and forth as they try to decide on the best course of action. People cry, people yell. There's confusion and too much running out and part of Bruce goes numb, out of space, out of time.

It had never occurred to the younger son, that maybe, one day, his brother would not be there.

Perhaps it's because he's young, or because he's scared, but he barely notices any time passing - there's just a massive expanse of time where nothing happens, then his parents are hiccupping sobs of relief, they're back in the car, and finally driving to the hospital.

Tommy's standing near an ambulance, a shock blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders, an expression that's halfway between angry and stunned caught on his face. The paramedics and police around him are eyeing him warily, like perhaps the boy had tried something when they'd attempted to comfort him.

Tommy stiffens when his parents get out of the car, something almost like fear in his eyes for a second - like he knows he's about to get in trouble - and then Bruce is out, running across the pavement and squeezing his brother in the tightest hug he can manage.

If Bruce had cared to look, he would have seen everyone tense up at his sudden leap. He would have seen people move to grab them both, remove the young boy from the violent one's clutches, and his mother wave them off, before marching over to chew out the manager on duty.

Tommy runs a shaking hand through Bruce's hairs, mumbles something that sounds like "it's over" - because at least Tommy is smart enough not to lie and say it's all right.

"Don't go away." Bruce mumbles into his jacket. "Please never go away."

Tommy's fingers tip up Bruce's chin, so the two can look into each other's eyes.

"Never." Tommy promises, and there are spots of blood on his teeth.

Thomas Wayne Sr. had been born rich, loved and safe, in a time where safety was not necessary secured.

His father - Leonard Chase, later Leonard Wayne - had been a well-off banker from New York, meeting his mother - Angelina Wayne - who was one of two heiresses to the Wayne fortune. They'd had a calm but loving relationship, and following the second sister's suicide - Marilyn, his aunt - (a fact that Thomas Sr. was only aware of distantly, without much clarification), his mother, Angelina and her husband had become the next Waynes in residents.

Thomas knew that things were not nearly as pleasant as they'd looked growing up. He'd technically never been an only child, a fact he'd learned when he was seven, having watched his mother suffer her ninth and last miscarriage. Leonard's parents had disowned him, when he said he was to take his wife's name, and Angelina's parents had died - her mother at birth, her father to a random, work-related accident when Thomas was two.

Leonard had worked with Wayne Enterprises, up until a surprised heart attack when Thomas was seventeen. By this time, Gotham had begun its downward spiral into darkness, turning the streets against one another, as slowly but surely, crime began to take hold like a rot.

His mother had not taken her husband's death well. The days following the funeral, his acceptance into the University of Gotham's medical program, his early courtship with Julie Summers, Hannah Wright, Sarah Walters, and finally, Martha Kane were dark ones. Angelina took to drinking, refusing to leave her room for weeks at a time, and becoming more and more weak as time went on.

A small - very small, almost microscopic - part of him was grateful for the day he took Martha back to his childhood manor, only to find his mother dead in her room. Not because his last living relative - mysterious, unknown grandparents on his father's side aside - had died, but because unlike the other girls he'd loved, Martha did not fright at death, or make faces as he cries. She held him tightly, like his mother had when once upon a time, he'd suffered from nightmares.

Martha did not leave, when the going got dark.

They were married in the spring - the original plan had involved their assorted friends, but they'd changed it last minute to involve only them, some witnesses and a priest. Their friends - various med students or Martha's charity associates - spent much of their time cooing over how many children they were going to have and when, or other, equally digging topics.

Martha had a passion about her, a fire Thomas knew he couldn't match. Most people wrongly assumed that this was a regular drive - the same that drove her to help or to be kind. But Thomas could see it, shimmering beneath the surface, volatile and beating hot. Something as beautiful and dangerous as a well-crafted knife, capable of many uses and excellent at all of them, when properly applied.

She was wasted in this way of life. It was his most frequent thought. She could have so much better.

But life was not kind to Martha Wayne. She grew up in dresses and sewing classes, had a better grasp of what type of spoon was to be used, how to act, how to smile then most others.

Martha had grown up a doll, modelled and coloured as to be best placed on a shelf. Her marriage to Thomas was hailed as the grande finale in this plan. All they needed was the kids and for her to spend the rest of her days on Thomas's arm - rich, beautiful and silent. Kind as an afterthought, loving as a precaution.

Thomas married Martha, because he thought she was capable of anything, and he wanted to see it. He loved Martha, every freckle on her cheeks and her faintest hints of muscle, growing from some ecstatic hobby she persuaded when he wasn't there. He loved her quiet moments, intelligence ticking beneath carefully pinned blond curls. He loved her anger, vicious and loud, like a thunderstorm raging unconfined.

It was not necessarily that Thomas believed Martha could do no wrong. It was more that Thomas was of a mind that it didn't matter.

Thomas was loyal, before he was kind, before he was anything else. He had no family, his friends were little more then colleagues. He had sworn a vow to Martha, to love and cherish her until his last and final breath.

He would not forsake this oath, come hell or high water.

And Martha, devil in her eye, demon on the tip of her tongue, anger in her heart, could see it, knew it, like the taste of defeat in her throat. Thomas was bound to her, love and money and reason, so there for her to take.

Martha did not have a plan, she did not have a destiny. But she had a desire.

And this only grew, as little by little, the world burned, and her children, weakened by pain, every minute grew more in danger.

She had to do something. Something that was yet beyond thought, escaping around the edges of her head like a dream.

There would be a time, she knew, when things would change.

She only hoped her boys could make the jump when it happened.

The year of Bruce's sixth birthday was promptly ruined when the rather interesting specimen of mushroom he was looking at disappeared into the ground.

There was enough time for Bruce to think 'that's odd' before the dirt beneath his feet loosened and fell away, sending him tumbling legs first into the black below.

There was a scream - probably his - and then a crack, as his ankle caught against something. The pain crashed into him almost as fast as the water did, a moment later, as he hit and vanished beneath the surface of something.

There was a brief moment, as he sank, when the bubbles and dirt that'd gone down with him disappeared, and he got a blurry glimpse of all the water suddenly pressing down on his lungs. Calm took over, more stunned shock then anything, but still calm.

This moment gave him the time to react, noticing the surface above his head breaking as rocks and clumps of dirt followed him down. It was enough, as the panic began to set in, to have a direction to claw at, shove towards and finally, a barrier to break through, as he sucked in a lungful of damp, but not wet air.

There was a current, something tugging at him more strongly then his stunned limbs could protest. He had enough time to see a silver of light - the hole he'd fallen down, most likely - before the river - underground, how interesting, he'd never known it was here - swept him away, down a tunnel of rock, dirt and roots. The darkness soon swallowed everything, as he went too far for the sunlight to reach.

"Think." He croaked to himself, as he struggled to keep his head above water. Talking to himself had become something of a habit, after Tommy had spent so long away. "All rivers have to come out somewhere."

The river in question choose this moment to spit him out onto a small rocky shelf.

Out of the water, Bruce lay there for a moment, taking stock of his situation in the way he would any experiment. He was cold, wet, his ankle was probably broken (oh God, what if it was going to fall off down here - his father would never find it to reattach it!) and there was no telling how far he'd traveled by now.

Experiments were not as much fun when they involved you. Bruce mused, before beginning to root around the dirt for some sticks to bind his leg. He wasn't entirely sure how to bind something, but he was aware of the principles of the matter.

Somewhere, there was a squeak.

Bruce's first thought was mouse. Tommy had caught a mouse once, a couple of months ago when he'd been visiting. His mother had said to let it go, because you shouldn't hurt something that can't fight back. Bruce didn't know how his mother had known Tommy was going to try to kill it.

The next squeak, however, came from a different direction, above Bruce. Mice were not very good at climbing, as far as Bruce knew. That was a very unlikely place for a mouse to be.

The next sound, Bruce didn't know. Later, he would identify it as a flapping noise, perhaps close to leather. Here, however, it sounded vaguely like a snap, and it was the only warning he got.

The next minute, they swarmed him.

Bats.

Bruce had seen them flying across the manor grounds before, but they were not nearly as pleasant up close. There was hundreds of them, all rushing past and about, screeching in his ears, clawing at his skin as they flew past.

It was like he was drowning all over again, drowning in cold bodies that slammed into him with nay a care. The initial shock gave way to pain soon enough - leather wings scratching his skin as they hurtled past, his ankle twisting painfully as he attempted to pull himself against a wall, against a rock, against anything that could hide him.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over, his whole body quivering in cold, freezing shock as he lay in the mud. The last of the bats swarming down the river he'd been dragged through and leaving none of their kind.

Bruce gulped down lungful after lungful of damp, dirty air, tonguing dirt and what tasted suspiciously like blood. He couldn't hear anything, even the water having vanished somewhere else. He couldn't even hear his own heart.

Something moved in the dark, the grackle of shifting rocks freezing his blood still in his veins.

Somewhere, there was a snarl, like a bear or a tiger from the nature television shows he favoured. Something deep and dangerous, moving closer.

He stopped breathing, everything stilling down into nothing. He couldn't see anything in the dark, but he could hear it; massive and slow, something that scraped and dragged.

Bruce looked up, and there was eyes.

They were gleaming red, slotted with a thin pupil and set above a flatted, twisted snout, much like a pig's or a bat's. He wasn't sure how he could see it now, when he couldn't before, but it was clear enough to count each greasy black hair clumped across its skin.

It opened its mouth, revealing the sharpest, whitest teeth he'd ever seen, the biggest fangs so long they hung right out of its mouth. Its legs came down on either side of his head, massive ivory claws digging into the dirt, and something that looked like /wings/ raising above its body.

Bruce sucked in one large gulp of air, and began to scream.

And he screamed and screamed, until he could taste blood in his throat and suddenly, there was claws on him, ripping and tearing-

Only it wasn't claws, it was a flashlight into his face, and his father shushing him, wiping a hand through his dirty hair and slowly trying to carry him out.

"It'll be okay, it's over." His voice was heavy with the edges of fear, but calm was thick over top of that. He smiled at Bruce, when the boy refocused onto him.

Th sunlight hit his face like Bruce hadn't seen it in years, painful and sharp. His mother was standing back, quivering with something that could have been fear, or anger.

A large chunk of the lawn had collapsed in on itself, hollowed out and wet. There was easily a dozen people there, all looking at them.

His mother grasped his arm and squeezed it hard once he got in range.

"Oh thank God you're alright." She breathed, twisting his face to see the scratches on it. "Are you hurt? Is there anything you need, dear?"

For the first time since everything started, tears begun to well up, spilling down dirty cheeks.

"Tommy." Bruce hiccuped. "I need Tommy."

It was rare for Bruce and Tommy to truly be alone these days, but somehow, they managed it this time.

Following the incident, Tommy had been moved to a different hospital. This time, his room was decorated in more modern colours, with plenty of things that Bruce supposed children his age were suppose to like, things like race cars and pictures of planets.

Tommy sat in the middle of it with a look that said he clearly thought it was a cruel joke.

Their parents were out whispering in the hall - for once, not about their children, so much as their own fears. The doctor currently assigned to Tommy`s case was trying to calm them down.

"I think I'm scared of bats." Bruce confessed, sitting beside his brother and slowly stroking the tattered stuffed owl that had been sitting on Tommy's bed for quite some time now.

"Thats okay." Tommy muttered, swinging his long legs back and forth, thin fingers gripping the covers in that way he did when he wanted to grab onto Bruce and hold on forever, but thought it best not too, "Bats are a good thing to be scared of."

"They aren't very scary." Admitted Bruce, who had crawled downstairs the evening of his 'adventure' and spent several hours finding every bat reference he could in the Waynes' extensive library. The clinically drawn bone structures were quite far from the monsters that had attacked him below the earth's skin.

"It doesn't matter." Tommy's fingers flexed on the sheets, itching for that human contact he'd deny himself even here. "Sometimes its good to be really scared of one thing, instead of kinda scared of lots of little things." He paused again, and the tension drained his spine as Bruce leaned against his shoulder, nuzzling close like he had a hundred times before.

"Bats are a good thing to be afraid of." Tommy whispered into Bruce's hair. "You can cut them open and store all your worries inside of them, then they'll fly away, and never touch you again."

It was a very strange thing to say, but Bruce had grown up listening to Tommy's strange things. He understood.

The dimmest echo of raised voices came from the hall, and Tommy shifted in that way he did when reminded of the rest of the world.

"They're scared too." Bruce whispered back, and Tommy shivered again.

"The world's getting darker." His brother murmured back, and Bruce thought of his monster in the shadows.

Bruce entered second grade the year at age seven.

He'd spent some time in various pre-school and tutoring sessions, and had skipped grade one entirely. It was the first time he'ld been in a large school - big enough to house even teenagers.

He was the youngest in his grade, even if he was ahead of some of the students already. It was here that Bruce was introduced to the concept of cruelty.

Nobody had the gull to outright attack of a Wayne - they were at least smart enough for that - but that didn't stop them from teasing him to no end, isolating him from everyone his own age. Even the other smart kids avoided him.

But the real problem started when people slowly figured out who he was.

The private school was full of some of the highest class citizens in Gotham, making the children and parents of the community subject to most of the same gossip, and the first thing Bruce learned, was that there was a lot of gossip about his family.

It started innocently enough - a girl scooted her chair over and gave him a weird look, informing him in what she assumed to be a polite tone of voice that his family was very weird and she didn't want to be around weird people.

From there, it got steadily worse - because most of the comments were directed at Tommy.

"Your brother's the retard, right?" Was the most popular one, sometimes accompanied with a fearful look or cruel smirk. It made his stomach turn uncomfortably, and the laughter they coupled it with was enough to make his heart twist.

He lasted two weeks, before he shoved a fist into an older boy's nose.

The stunned look of horror and pain, blood dripping down his lip already, was almost worth the comment about how they should have let his brother die, instead of living life as a freak. The painful counter punch, knocking the air right out of his lungs, felt a lot worse then his knuckles, however.

His parents were less then pleased about it.

"Two weeks?" His mother muttered, more under her breath and to herself then anything. "You got suspended after just two weeks in school?"

Bruce sniffed, smelling the dried blood that had crusted around his own nose. "He was saying mean things about Tommy."

"Bruce…" His father said awkwardly, giving him a sad look over the ice pack he was holding down. "Lots of people dont understand these things. They aren't trying to be mean… they're just repeating what other people have said."

"Well… I don't like them!" Tears were welling up in his eyes. "Tommy's the best brother. If they don't like him, then… I won't like them either!" He hiccupped wetly, and wiped a fist across his face.

His parents exchanged looks over his head.

"How about we go visit Tommy." His mother said, some look in her eyes he'd never seen before. "Maybe he can stay the weekend - you two could camp out in the gardens again, if you liked?"

Bruce nodded shakily, and hugged both of them.

He did not go back to school.

In November of the year Bruce was eight, his brother had turned eleven. Growth spurts had sent both brothers all over the place, broadening Tommy's shoulders and giving him a good deal of height, while it slowly matured Bruce's face and limbs into something less clumsy and more useful.

Despite the fact that they were both approching the ages where siblings often grew apart, time had only strengthed their bond. A new doctor had encouraged Tommy's codependent nature, making him Bruce's shadow for a good deal of each week. After merging their two bedrooms, he'd begun to spend most of his time back home, still avoidant, still unsure, but now quieted enough that things were - if not peaceful - at least safe.

The brothers were aware things were not going well.

Where once the daily news had been a constant in the household, slowly his parents had been watching less ad less, as news-anchers reported shootings and robberies, murders and various other crimes.

This - perhaps more then the excuse of Tommy not being comfortable in public, was what drove the Waynes to mostly spend family time in distant places, or at home. Trips to areas like the zoo, or either of their parents' jobs were now out of the question.

Still, the boys had managed to convince them that going out to a movie was a great idea.

Two hours of greasy popcorn, shared between two sets of small fingers, gasping potholes and tender kisses between the actors was spent in more peace then was usual, the brothers grabbing each other every time suspenseful music played, while Thomas and Martha took the chance to lean their heads together and lazily keep an eye on their boys.

It was over too soon, spilling movie-goers out onto the cold November streets. Even though it wasn't that late, the sky was still dark, hints of snow swirling through the air as the brothers bumped shoulders and recapped scenes, Bruce sprouting perfect lines from equally perfect memory, while Tommy supplied the explosions and various other sounds.

They didn't even notice, when their father failed to hail a cab, then frowned, as he quietly argued with Martha on the best course of action. After a moment, they slowly pushed both boys towards a side street, with the intention of getting a cab from the main road.

The sound of cars faded into the background, leaving only the excited chatter of the boys as they leapt back and forth in a game, half movie fusion, half continuation of whatever had entertained them for most of the day.

A click stopped the family in their tracks, Martha and Thomas freezing instantly, Bruce and Tommy stopping in their houseplay as they saw the man before them.

"Money." He rasped, jitters in his voice and hands. The barrel of a gun was pointing right at them. "Wallet, jewelry, cash, everything. Now."

"Okay." Bruce had heard this tone of voice before, his father's calm, doctor voice. "We don't want any trouble."

"Now!" The man hissed, raising the gun that was sending tremors through Bruce's soul. "Or I'll shoot that little kid of yours!"

His parents tensed, horror on their faces, and Tommy leapt.

The howl of the man's voice was almost entirely drowned out by the bang of the gun going off, followed only seconds later by a pain-filled yelp from behind Bruce.

But Bruce wasn't looking behind him. In front, Tommy was pulling a tiny sliver of metal from the mugger's stomach, fingers gripping the wrist of the hand holding the gun so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

The man choked, stumbled back a half step, still in Tommy's grip. There was something in his brother's eyes Bruce had only seen shadows of - something that reminded him of the beast below the lawn.

And suddenly, that same shadow - but not a shadow, more of a storm - was in his mother's eyes. Because Martha was there, ripping the gun from the mugger's hands, clicking it to the next bullet in the chamber, and pressing the cold steel to the stranger's forehead.

"You will not touch my boys." Came the coldest, angriest words Bruce had ever heard. And Martha moved to pull the trigger.