BADLANDS
CHAPTER ONE
THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT

"It kills me sometimes, how people die."
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

"Get off the road, dumbass!"

Loud shrieks of laughter echo through the street. Anastasia Wayne hangs onto her best friend's arm, head thrown back with laughter as Kennedy Vasquez waves her middle finger and screeches swears back at a cab driver, moments after he narrowly avoided running the two of them down as they darted across the street.

It's clear that the pair had been drinking before they decided to make the trek from the club back to Ana's apartment.

"Oh, I can just see this picture in the tabloids tomorrow – 'Girls gone wild'," Kennedy mutters, waving her hand in front of her to indicate the headline. As the reckless daughters of two of Gotham's most powerful businessmen, the paparazzi have a fascination with them.

"Oh no, darling, to warrant that headline someone has to have their tits out," Ana replies.

"Yours or mine?"

"Either." She shrugs. "Maybe both, it might have appeased Mr Grumpy a little more." She nods in the direction the irate cab driver had driven before she shrieks suddenly as her foot lands in a puddle. Kennedy dives ahead so she misses the puddle and throws her head back with laughter. Ana swats at her with the shoes she clutches in her hands.

"Hey, it's your own fault! We wouldn't be walking anywhere if you weren't such a fucking clutz." Kennedy says, nodding towards the shoes Ana just hit her with. The heel on one of them is only hanging on by a scrap of fabric. The phone in Ana's other hand, meanwhile, is nearly shattered.

Ana rolls her eyes. "Excuse you, I am so goddamn graceful. The floor was wet and I slipped!"

"You suing for damages?"

"Don't tempt me."

"By the way," Kennedy says, "I forgot to ask, was your mom pissed about you bailing on the movie?"

The smile on Ana's face falls as her stomach twists with guilt. Her parents had wanted her to come to see a movie that night, along with her brother, but she had cancelled after a girl she and Kennedy were friendly with suddenly got engaged and decided that they wanted to go out to celebrate.

If she's being honest, she would have rather have gone with her family, but her friends had begged her to come – and spend her money on them - and fuck, maybe she's just weak-willed, but she likes feeling liked and wanted after spending so long feeling like she wasn't-

Enough. She's not thinking about that tonight.

She tries to think about something, anything else, but her mind refuses, lingering on the conversation with her mother instead. In fact, she was pissed, telling her that Bruce had been looking forward to spending time with her.

Bruce would be okay, she thinks, It's just one night.

"Well, she wasn't pleased about it," she says as they make their way up the steps into her apartment building, "But we're all going for lunch tomorrow, so it should be fine." She picks at the nail polish on her thumb, trying not to show how guilty she felt. She can still hear the disappointment in her mother's voice. She fixes a smile on her face and links arms with Kennedy. "Come on, I'm freezing and need new shoes."

The pair make their way up the steps and through the building, only pausing when they hear a noise near her door.

"Oh, just leave it, Gotham's princess must be out with her cronies."

Ana exchanges an unimpressed look with Kennedy at the sound of a man's voice nearby. They knows he's talking about Ana; the nickname was so commonly used by the papers. The condescending nickname had been bestowed upon her by the papers and stuck, mostly used to demean her, because she likes to throw her money around and they like to mock her for it. It used to make her angrier when she was younger – it's her life why did they care but she embraces it now, putting on a smirk to greet her subjects.

Two men stand near her apartment, one an older, scruffy-looking man and the other younger, with a serious look to him and pretty blue eyes. They turn to face her when the pair turn the corner and Ana opens her mouth.

"Well, if you wanted a chat so bad, darling, you could have called," she says, enjoying how the scruffy looking one scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, her sudden appearance surprising him. "Can I help you two?"

"Miss Wayne, I'm Detective Gordon, this is Detective Bullock," Detective Pretty-Eyes says, by way of introduction. "We've been trying to contact you for nearly an hour."

Ana waves the shattered phone towards him. "I had a mishap." The detective gives her an unimpressed look as she and Kennedy start giggling.

"Ma'am, it's an urgent matter, could we step inside please?" he says.

Ana glances at Kennedy and raises an eyebrow. "Taxi Man couldn't have worked that quickly," Kennedy mutters as the four enter Ana's apartment, stopping in the little foyer.

"Ma'am?" She mouths back, the word making her cringe and Kennedy grin.

The door is shut behind them and Pretty-Eyes turns to face her. "Ma'am-"

"Come on now, detective, "Ma'am" makes me sound like I'm fifty," she says, the smile still fixed on her face.

Detective Gordon presses his lips together and sighs. There's something about getting a rise out of him that makes her smirk. Maybe it's the way he almost looks disdainful or the way his partner keeps on rolling his eyes that makes her want to keep pushing it.

"Miss Wayne," he says finally, "your parents were involved in a mugging earlier this evening."

Her smile falls and her stomach drops as he continues, confirming the worst.

"And, I'm very sorry to tell you this, but something went wrong and…they were killed."

They were killed.

Killed.

Her parents were dead.

She slaps her hands over her mouth, stifling the sob that threatens to erupt and turns her back to others so they don't see the tears in her eyes. She catches Kennedy with her hands clasped over her mouth. Her parents are dead. Someone's talking to her – she thinks it might be Kennedy or Detective Gordon – but she can't hear it. Her parents are dead. Dead. Dead. She'd never hear her mother's voice or hold her father's hand-

Bruce.

She whips around again. "Where's Bruce?" she says, panic overtaking her because oh god had something happened to Bruce? "Where's my brother? Is he alright? He's only twelve-"

"Miss Wayne, your brother is fine-" Detective Gordon starts to say.

"Where is he?" she snaps before he can continue, feeling the panic build and build in her chest because oh god what if something happened to Bruce had she lost her family she couldn't have oh god please-

"Your family butler picked him up, an Alfred Pennyworth? He brought him back to Wayne Manor already." he says, glancing at the other detective, who nods in agreement.

"Is he okay? Is he hurt? Why didn't you find me sooner?"

"Well, that's the problem, we were trying to find you but you had your little 'mishap'." The scruffy-looking detective almost sneers the last part at her.

She turns to shove past Detective Gordon, focused solely on Bruce and getting to him. She has to see that he's alright - but no, he won't be alright, he watched mom and dad die, he's only twelve oh god she had to get to him-

"Wait, wait, you need some shoes, Ana." Kennedy says gently, grabbing onto her arm.

"No, what I need is to get to Bruce!" she snaps, trying to tug her arm out of Kennedy's grip.

"I'll take you to Wayne Manor, but you should listen to your friend," Gordon says. Ana turns to throw on some shoes and then bolts out of the door.

The drive to the manor is silent. Ana is shaking in the backseat and she can see Detective Gordon glancing at her in the rear view mirror. She hopes he doesn't want to speak to her. If she speaks, she fears she'll break down sobbing. The only thing that's keeping from breaking down is the need to get to Bruce to see if he was alright.

Kennedy had gone home, suggesting that Bruce would want to see Ana and only Ana, though she had promised to come visit the next day. The scruffy detective had requested to be dropped off somewhere else, where she couldn't frankly care less. One less person to possibly witness her inevitable breakdown. Ana remains in the backseat of Detective Gordon's car, alone with only said Detective.

"Uh," Detective Gordon says, finally speaking up, "your brother wasn't hurt when Mr. Pennyworth came for him. Scared, but he wasn't hurt."

She wonders if this is his way of trying to comfort her.

"I should have been there." The words come out of her mouth before she can stop herself. "I should have been with them." The guilt writhes in her stomach. She blew off her family and now she would never see them again. Her little brother had watched their parents die and had been there alone and scared and oh god she should have been there-

"You couldn't have known," he says quietly. Ana glances up and meets his eyes for a moment in the rear view mirror. She turns away when she feels tears prick at her eyes.

They're silent for the rest of the drive and pull up to the front of her childhood home. The detective has barely brought the car to a stop when Ana bolts out towards the house. Alfred is already opening the door when she gets there, a grave expression on his face.

"Where's Bruce?" she snaps, darting past him into the main hall.

"Miss, he's very shaken up, you need to-"

"Where were you?"

A small voice at the top of the stairs grabs her attention, causing her to whip around in unison with Alfred. Bruce stands there, tears streaking down his cheeks. "You were supposed to be there, why weren't you there?"

"Bruce, I…I'm sorry…" She trails off. After focusing so long on nothing else but getting to him, she's not even sure of what she can say to comfort him now that she's here. Abruptly, he runs down the stairs and wraps his arms around her. Ana lets out a grunt at his sudden weight, but pulls him closer as he starts to cry into chest.

"You promised mom and then you weren't-weren't there-" he sobs, hiccupping between words.

"I'm so sorry, Bruce." she whispers, before making eye contact with the detective over Bruce's head. She mouths 'thank you' to him and he nods back to her in return.

The sight of her brother, safe and alive, causes the reality of the situation to finally set in. For the first time since she found out, Ana lets out a sob and buries her face in her brother's hair.

Their parents were dead.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Well I hope you enjoyed that first chapter! This is my first Gotham story and my first story after about a year of not writing lmao so I hope it's okay. Please let me know what you think! Also, big thank you to comealongpixie/jabberwocking for betaing!