Chapter Text
Bruce couldn’t quite decide if he wanted porridge or boiled beans for his supper. His food supplies were running low, and it was honestly a toss-up on which was better; both were bland, of questionable texture, and filling enough for him to grit his teeth and eat regardless. Witchers weren’t known for their culinary expertise, after all. Well. Except for Alfred, of course.
But Alfred wasn’t here, so Bruce picked porridge and moved on.
Hunching over by the small makeshift campfire, he placed his cooking pot on top and dropped in the oats, adding water. For some extra pizzazz, he shredded the mushrooms he’d foraged a few hours ago, allowing them to cook in the congealing porridge. He found this particular type of mushroom to soothe his sleep. So, he ate them whenever he could. Though, he also tried to tell himself it was because of the earthy flavour they added to the dish. Something Alfred would have said, perhaps.
In the end, the food wasn’t that bad. Inoffensive, borderline acceptable even. And it was going to have to suffice until Bruce was able to buy more supplies. Amal, his mare, huffed quietly behind him in her sleep. He sat back on his haunches as he spooned the mushroom-porridge diligently into his mouth and looked up at the night sky. The blanket of clouds stretched out beyond the horizon. It was pitch black—not even the moon was visible. His own campfire was the only light source nearby.
Technically, Bruce did not need a light source to see clearly in the darkness. But it was the principle of the matter. And the ability to cook with fire. He continued to slowly chew on his food, gazing off at nothing in particular. When he finished, he placed the empty bowl beside him. He would wash it in the morning.
---
Perhaps it was procrastination over not wanting to return to Gotham, but Bruce took his time going to the creek to clean the bowl. Afterwards, he washed his face, saddled up Amal, and began riding.
The journey was pleasant, gently rolling hills surrounding him. It was unfamiliar territory. Southwest Redania was an area he had avoided for some time. He passed through a couple of villages, unbothered by the fearful stares he often received. Alright, so he was a little bothered, but the years had compacted the feeling into a neat package which could be easily tucked away. He was a large man, and witchers were intimidating by nature, after all.
Before long, however, Gotham came into view. Across the fields, tall and proud, stood the city. Thick walls of stone encompassed her. As he approached, he slowed Amal down to a serene walk. The guards paid him no mind as he entered, chatting leisurely to each other. Amal remained blessedly calm, despite the large crowds.
The city was beautiful. Being there scratched at Bruce’s memories, distantly familiar. There were few things he could clearly recall about Gotham, he realised. It was strange; he had always thought Gotham to be a formative part of his life, and now… He didn’t feel much of anything, really.
But here he was, in spite of everything.
He continued along the main street, carefully navigating through the traffic. At some point, he turned into a side street. Many of the buildings had hanging flowerpots on the windowsills, and if he were to have continued, he would have found the city quarter where his parents used to reside.
He hadn’t fully processed that unsettling realisation when he spotted an inn a little further up the street. It looked to be a large establishment, and Bruce had been hoping to find an inn soon. He decided to forgo potential nostalgia in favour of convenience. There was even a stable boy, to whom Bruce handed the reins of his horse before entering the inn.
It was quiet inside. An old man—the innkeeper by the looks of it—sat at one of the tables, polishing silverware. He looked at Bruce, eyes squinting.
“You a witcher?”
Bruce thought it rather obvious, but inclined his head.
“Hm,” the man grunted, presumably having seen what he was looking for, and continued to polish his spoon.
“I would like a room,” Bruce said, after a few moments went by.
“Of course.” The innkeeper examined the shine of the spoon, closing one eye. Finally, he placed the spoon down and stood up. “Standard rate is fifty a night.”
Damn, that was going to eat away at his finances. Bruce briefly debated the advantages of looking for a cheaper place to stay, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He was probably only going to be in Gotham for a few days, and it was unlikely he’d find a better deal in the capital of Redania. Besides, he had a good feeling about the innkeeper, and his instincts were always accurate. He seemed… trustworthy.
“That is acceptable,” Bruce said.
“Wonderful.” The innkeeper gestured for Bruce to follow him. “Let me show you to your room, witcher.”
It certainly was one of the nicer rooms Bruce had seen. But there really wasn’t much to do in it, so he pocketed his key and headed out into Gotham, deciding to let Amal rest in the stables.
It was mid-afternoon and the city was bustling.
For a city Bruce had pathologically avoided for years, the normality of everything was almost disappointing. Stunning buildings flanked the streets, their impressive architecture gleaming in the sunlight.
Honestly feeling somewhat aimless now that he was here, he wandered for a while. He could lie to himself and say he was in Gotham purely out of curiosity for his childhood city. But the fact of the matter was he knew exactly why he was here.
He had been having dreams. They’d been haunting him for months now, and he’d been ignoring them, continuing life as normal, doing witcher’s work. But the dreams had gradually become more and more vivid. More unpleasant. More visceral. More real. He saw blood. Death. Gotham.
Still, he hadn’t thought anything of them. That is, until recently. Two weeks ago, a child appeared in his dreams for the first time. He knew of people receiving prophetic visions, but before the child appeared, he frankly didn’t want anything to do with prophecies. Now that the grotesque imagery of his dreams involved another person (a child), he couldn’t ignore them in good conscience. So, with great reticence, he gave in and came to Gotham.
Now that he was here, though, he had no idea what to do next. Perhaps it had been a little naïve to expect it to be obvious, to know exactly where to find the child.
As he walked along the streets of Gotham, he spotted a colourful poster on a wall. Upon closer inspection, it was an advertisement for a traveling circus which had recently arrived in Gotham, apparently with a good acrobatics act. At least, according to the poster which prominently flaunted the ‘Flying Graysons’. Maybe he would attend this evening while he figured out what to do.
“So tell me,” a voice said, pulling him out of his thoughts. “What’s a witcher doing in a place like Gotham? Any monsters I should know about?”
Vaguely annoyed at the intrusion, Bruce turned around. “Just sightseeing,” he said.
The stranger—a guard—snorted. “Sure. I’ll tell you what. If you’re looking for witcher’s work, you might want to head to the garrison. The Commander’s all pissy about these drowners in the sewers that no one can be arsed to deal with. All us lads are turning a deaf ear, as it were.”
God, not the sewers. Bruce would have preferred a kikimore nest.
“Where’s the garrison?” Bruce asked instead.
---
The circus was going to have to wait. Bruce knew when he had the upper hand, and this was one such occasion. The Commander, Gordon, had given into Bruce’s price easily. He had been almost apologetic that there wasn’t any other work for Bruce to do, with the city of Gotham being generally free of monsters.
After being handed the key to the sewers, Bruce wasted no time. He found the nearest entrance and descended the steps, swinging open the rusty gate. The drowners didn’t know what hit them. Bruce was hardly paying attention as he swung his silver blade through the monsters, occasionally casting his fire sign if they were sufficiently out of the sewer water. Bruce supposed he could have set up a trap and lured them all into it, but that was significantly overengineering the issue. He made his way down the various passages, until he was confident the sewers were cleared.
Upon returning to the garrison, Bruce gave back the sewer key to Gordon by dropping it unceremoniously on his desk.
“My pay,” he grunted. He felt thoroughly unpleasant. Gordon was looking at him like he was something thoroughly unpleasant as well.
“Feel free to count them,” Gordon said, handing Bruce a coin pouch. Their hands briefly brushed, and Gordon visibly grimaced. “You might want to have a bath after that job.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Bruce said as he counted the coins. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”
Satisfied he was paid in full, Bruce nodded politely to the Commander before leaving. He wasn’t usually one to hurry, but Bruce was definitely hurrying as he returned to the inn. Now slightly busier in the early evening, the inn was a welcome sight. Bruce caught the attention of the innkeeper.
“I’d like a bathtub brought up to my room.”
The innkeeper looked him up and down, most likely catching scent of him as well. “Understandable,” he said discreetly. “I’ll have one brought up shortly.”
“Thank you.”
---
“Bloody hell,” Bruce muttered, leaning back in the wonderfully hot water. At least he was six hundred crowns richer. He huffed a laugh to himself. He’d almost felt bad, demanding such a price for a bunch of drowners. But they were drowners in the sewers. So it felt justified. He could almost hear Alfred telling him ‘It puts hairs on your chest, lad’.
The water was quite relaxing. Bruce’s eyelids grew heavy as he stared at the ceiling, letting his eyes unfocus and his thoughts drift. Thoughts of his childhood, of Alfred, of his dreams. That child. They all melted into one cacophony, and Bruce lay there, festering in them as the bath water gradually cooled.
Ah, well. At least he was clean.
---
Something’s not right. Bruce blinked, waking up to fully process his own thought. He had dreamt about that child again, unsurprisingly. But now that he was awake and stumbling out of bed, he hadn’t tangibly sensed such wrongness since… Well. Since many years ago. His bones felt sharpened. On edge.
He freshened himself up using water from the basin before pulling on his clothes and boots. Sunlight began to filter through the windows, promising another beautiful day. Absently tousling his hair, he went downstairs to the inn’s dining hall. It was already occupied by other patrons when he entered, some having breakfast, some nursing a hangover from the night before. Bruce considered his options before sitting at a table with three men. The other tables were already fully occupied.
A serving girl bustled over, delivering food to the men at the table.
“And what will you be having for breakfast, sir?” She asked brightly, turning to Bruce. “There’s leftovers from last night’s beef pie, or we can get you a more typical morning dish?”
“Hash browns and eggs, please.”
“Of course.”
The serving girl left, and the previously loud conversation on the table subsided as the men began eating their own food. One of them, sitting across the table, looked up from his plate and raised his eyebrows in greeting. Bruce nodded in acknowledgement.
“So witcher,” the man said, mouth full of bacon. “Have you seen anything worth sharing lately?”
The other two men turned their attention to Bruce as well, and honestly it could have been a worse question. He considered telling them about the troll he had met five days ago, but that would have required more contextual explanation than he was willing to share.
Instead, he said, “I cleared out the drowners infesting the sewers yesterday.”
The man nearly choked. “There were drowners in the sewers? Here?”
“Most likely the guards didn’t want civilians to know about them,” Bruce said, not feeling particularly guilty.
“Ha! I’ll bet not, lazy bastards. Never seen them do anything besides mingle about with the ladies and say they’re ‘protecting the common folk’.”
Bruce gave a wry smile; it was maybe a little unfair, given that there weren’t any other monsters currently endangering the city. But he could still smell the sewer stench in his nostrils, though, so he didn’t hold the guards in high regard either.
“The name’s Harold, by the way. Harold Jordan, though everyone calls me ‘Hal’. I’m passing through Gotham at the moment.” Harold ‘Hal’ Jordan stuck out his hand over the table.
For a second, Bruce was unsure what he was reaching for. Then—Oh. He wants to shake my hand. Bruce took it in his own right hand, giving one solid shake.
“Bruce,” he said.
“Pleasure to meet you, Bruce,” Hal said. “I’m glad to finally speak with a witcher under normal circumstances.”
One of the other men laughed, and began sharing a story of a disastrous encounter Hal had had with a witcher some years ago. It was distantly entertaining, but Bruce wasn’t paying close attention.
His medallion had started vibrating. It was subtle, easy to miss. But witchers were finely tuned to their medallion. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he concluded that something truly was wrong.
Discretely, he looked around the inn. People sat at tables, in conversations of their own. Occasionally, the door would open as someone entered, sending a light draft though the room. Snuffed out candles, simple tapestries and coats of arms decorated the walls. The innkeeper himself was busy behind the bar, cleaning glasses after a night of drink and merriment. Bruce couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary.
The serving girl returned with Bruce’s meal. Thanking her, he tuned back into the conversation in time to catch the end of the story.
“—like wanting to save money, so instead of putting four wheels on your wagon you only have three. It makes no sense.”
“Ridiculous,” Hal agreed.
Bruce began to eat, and the other two men entered an amicably heated debate. His senses were still alert, trying to figure out the danger his medallion was warning him of, when he felt Hal’s eyes on him. He glanced up, making eye contact.
“What?” Bruce asked.
“Nothing, sorry. Just… Can I ask you something?”
“I suppose there’s nothing stopping you.”
Hal swallowed. “Um, well. Are you… You wouldn’t happen to be the Dark Knight by any chance?”
Right. That vexing moniker that had caught on for some reason. Bruce sighed. “I am.”
Hal’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape. “I’ve heard stories about you. Glad to know you’re not… quite as scary as they say.”
Bruce snorted, amused. “People will often exaggerate.”
---
The day dragged on. Bruce realised he was low on amethyst powder, and Amal had a rock stuck in her back left hoof which he only noticed after taking her out to ride to a nearby village, and the village’s farrier was on a lunch break so he’d had to tie her up and remove the offending rock himself using a small tree branch, and his medallion was continuing to vibrate but he couldn’t figure out where the danger was—
Finally, he was back in Gotham and walking to the circus. It was now early evening. The sun had begun its descent, dipping below the horizon, and Bruce was honestly not thrilled at the prospect of attending an evening of entertainment (he thought of the soft sheets and comfortable mattress of the inn) but dammit—he’d decided he was going, so that was that. It was, perhaps, beneath him to quibble with himself about going to a circus. He wasn’t usually one to seek out frivolous entertainment; maybe he had internalised the common presumption that witcher’s didn’t like fun aside from the carnal variety. He’d certainly met such witchers.
One of them was Oliver Queen. Always talking about his latest encounters with various women, always managing to aggravate Bruce in some newfound way. It was almost nostalgic, remembering how he would return with Alfred to winter in Kaer Morhen, only for the entire season to be turned into a test of patience through Oliver’s antics. Almost nostalgic. Bruce couldn’t say he particularly missed Oliver.
Exiting Gotham via the northern gate, he could see the circus tent up ahead. It was impressively large, festive bunting decorating the surrounding area. Bruce joined the queue for the ticket boy, who seemed utterly unphased at a witcher buying an entry ticket. And it was heaving, people milling about outside the tent, plenty of others entering in.
About to follow suit and enter the tent, he stopped in his tracks. From behind one of the caravans, he spotted the back of a child. Only for a second, and the child vanished, running off.
But Bruce knew. That was the child. The whole point of journeying to Gotham. He needed to do something, keep the kid safe. His medallion was vibrating strongly, wisps of redness appearing in every corner. Yet he couldn’t determine the source of danger. And without having a reason, he could hardly demand to commandeer the child. What would his parents think?
He was irrationally glued to the spot, still staring at the vacant space where the kid had been visible for the briefest moment. People moved past him, oblivious to his distress. An announcement that the show was about to begin pulled him back to the present. Following the last remaining people into the tent, he found a spot near the back.
He hadn’t felt this restless in a long time. The inside of the tent was fully tinged with pink, and Bruce wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
The ringmaster entered, grandly announcing the opening of the show. His speech was pompous, setting high standards for the performances. As he was about to finish, a group of clowns entered, ruining his delivery much to the delight of the children watching. They juggled whilst cracking jokes, constantly dropping the juggling pins. Bruce supposed it required a lot of skill to be able to choreograph such disaster.
A bear entered next, frightening the clowns away, and its trainer demonstrated tricks she had taught the animal. Contortionists followed, then a strong man. A magician and clown act combined, the clowns interfering the magician’s tricks until he ultimately finished the act by making the clowns disappear in a puff of orange smoke.
Then entered the Graysons. The highly anticipated acrobats. Nervous excitement filled the tent as the two began their impressive tumbling routine. Halfway through their act, a small boy entered the ring on horseback, holding a handstand, and oh. They were a family.
Bruce lost sight of everything else, finding he had to stop himself from running into the ring. The pink hue had deepened to red.
The boy’s parents joined him on the horse, together forming a human triangle. More horses entered the ring, the parents jumping onto them. The family continued cantering around the ring, deftly switching between horses, and the audience was beside itself with amazement as the Graysons exited to rapturous applause, but Bruce couldn’t appreciate the talented performers.
Time dragged on as a few more acts went by before the grand finale—the Graysons’ flying acrobatics act. Inviting the crowd to look up, the ringmaster proudly presented the finishing routine. To everyone’s astonishment, trapeze equipment had been set up in the high top of the tent, the Graysons already standing on the platforms above.
It was shocking, even to Bruce, how effortlessly they could fall, gracefully catching and releasing, swinging from one bar to another, grabbing each other’s hands, tossing themselves about dozens of feet in the air. Their faces beamed as they worked together to create art in motion.
Bruce’s senses snapped.
He needed to go.
The parents were just about to swing back up to the platform to return their child. A flash of light appeared in the centre of the ring, and Bruce shoved through the crowd, vaulting over the barrier surrounding the ring.
A sorcerer stood in the ring, holding knives.
Everything slowed down. The boy was falling. His parents were already dead, knives lodged into their throats. Bruce could only save their child.
He caught him.
Beside them, the boy’s parents splattered sickeningly to the ground, bones cracking.
Chaos erupted. People screamed and rushed to get out.
Bruce gripped the boy tightly as the sorcerer focused on them. The boy began to scream, trying to wriggle out of Bruce’s hold. Bruce only held him tighter, pivoting so the boy was out of the sorcerer’s line of sight.
The mage sent ice shards towards Bruce’s back. Bruce countered with Aard, thrusting the force of it backwards into the ice shards.
He had to think fast. There wasn’t much he could do holding a child, and his magic tricks would only go so far against a mage.
Guards stormed the tent. The mage was momentarily distracted, and Bruce used his opportunity to grab a dagger, flinging it at the mage. The dagger sliced through the sorcerer’s right hand, severing it, and he screamed in pain before teleporting away.
The amputated hand lay on the ground.
Bruce released the boy, who ran to the prone bodies of his parents. A pool of blood had formed around them, and the boy wailed.