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The puddle reflected the glow of the streetlight, much in the same way it would after one of the long, dreary Gotham rainstorms that the city was so infamous for. As the blood continued to spread from the torn skin of Martha Wayne’s neck, over the pavement and soaking into the knees of the dress pants her son was wearing as he kneeled on the ground, a series of paws splashed into it and splattered warm droplets of blood all over her pale face.
The blood was also splattered over Bruce Wayne’s white dress shirt, his tear stained cheeks, and gaping lips. Silent, he stared at the bodies of his mother and father.
His father had been drained of blood, his mother had only been in the hands of the vampire long enough to have her neck ripped open. Bruce had been saved for last.
“Down, boy,” the vampire said, laughing maniacally before racing away from the pack of wolves after him. His speed was so much more than theirs could ever be. Bruce’s eyes never left his mother’s face, her unseeing blue eyes not quite staring at him, but the laughter reached some deep part of his mind.
He would never forget the laughter.
The click of nails on the asphalt didn’t register for the boy, trauma still too fresh to even consider looking up, but he was knocked into some sense when the wolf pounced on his back, shoving him face first into the puddle of his mother’s blood and growling in his ear.
Someone screamed. Bruce realized it was him.
Jaws snapped close to his ear and he fell silent. A wet nose nudged his neck and Bruce struggled, trying to free himself. The wolves were mightiest in a pack which left them constantly searching for people on the fringe to turn and use as soldiers in their army against the vampires.
Both sects were so caught up in their goals, in their war, that the humans caught in between were little more than cannon fodder and food.
“Please,” Bruce begged. He could taste copper on his tongue where being forcefully pushed into the blood, some had landed in his mouth. His stomach rebelled at the thought. “Please don’t-“
Another growl and this time Bruce could feel the heat of the wolf’s breath against his skin.
The wolf backed up, feet still keeping Bruce’s young body pinned to the ground, and for a brief moment, he thought he’d reached some humanity in the beast. Then teeth latched onto his shoulder, just below the neck, and the pain was the worst Bruce had ever felt. “Please! Stop!”
Not that it would do any good. The damage was done.
The werewolf held him still for a minute, time seemingly endless from the boy’s position, before letting go and giving the boy a gruff noise. Bruce looked up in time to see the wolf race off, disappearing around the corner to join his pack in a blur of fur, and then passed out while still lying in the puddle of blood.
~~~
“No, Jim, it’s fine. I was just surprised when you called. There are paramedics-“ The woman with the dark hair was cut off by the police officer. Bruce watched them interact and the officer whispered something in her ear before her eyes widened, moving to him, and then softened when she saw him huddled under the shock blanket.
She walked over, heels clicking on the alleyway, and crouched down in front of him. “Hello, Mr. Wayne. My name is Dr. Thompkins.”
“Bruce,” he corrected, voice sort of hoarse. “Nice to meet you.”
“Bruce,” she parroted. “I’m really sorry about your parents, Bruce.”
Bruce clenched his jaw, forcing himself to hold back tears. “Thank you.”
Her gaze managed to soften even further. “Detective Gordon said that you might have an injury that needs to be looked at.”
Bruce pulled the blanket around him tighter, ignoring the way it rubbed against the bite on his shoulder. “No.”
No one could know about the bite. Alfred would know what to do, Alfred would understand. But Mother and Father had not raised up their names only to have their son ruin it by becoming a feral beast.
Dr. Thompkins lowered her voice, fingers touching the edge of the blanket that Bruce had a white knuckled grip on. “It’s alright, Bruce. Detective Gordon brought me because he knows that I know how to keep a secret. Let me look at it and get it covered and I promise that Detective Gordon and I won’t tell anyone else about it, okay?”
Bruce’s eyes welled with tears. He didn’t want anyone to look at it. He didn’t want it to be there. He didn’t want anyone to know what it meant. If someone else saw it, if someone else knew what it was, then it was real. But he felt himself nodding, Dr. Thompkins’ manner calming enough to have him pulling the blanket away.
Her fingers were thin and delicate from his glance at them before she disappeared behind him and gently rolled ruined, bloodstained clothing away from the wound. It throbbed with a dull sort of ache that he’d mostly begun to ignore in favor of the numbness spreading from his chest. The pain was more apparent as he let her prod at it. Something wet made the raw flesh sting and then he felt gauze laid over it before she covered it with medical tape and stepped back around to his front. Her eyes held pity.
Bruce didn’t want her pity.
“Do you understand what this means, Bruce?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Do you want me to come over and help you through it?” she asked.
Bruce looked down before he tightened the blanket around himself. He shook his head no.
Dr. Thompkins put her hand on his good shoulder and squeezed gently. “Bruce, I can’t pretend that this will be easy but it doesn’t have to be a curse. There’s nothing wrong with you now.”
Except that he had a beast inside of him, an animal. A killer.
“And if you change your mind, here’s my card,” she said. A little rectangular business card was slid into his hand. It had her name and the name of a clinic. A phone number in clear black numbers at the bottom.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
“Master Bruce!” Alfred exclaimed.
Bruce was off the fire escape and dropping the blanket, running into the arms of his butler and caretaker. Warm arms wrapped around him and even though the embrace was more than painful on his shoulder, he ignored it in favor of the affection given to him. “Alfred.”
“Master Bruce, I am so, so sorry,” Alfred said.
The man’s eyes were rimmed with red. Bruce wasn’t surprised. The old man had been there for Bruce’s father for a long time. It might have been as hard for Alfred to lose Martha and Thomas Wayne as it was for Bruce himself.
“I want to go home,” Bruce said.
Alfred put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. His good shoulder, luck would have it. “Of course, sir.”
“Keep an eye on him,” Detective Gordon said and something dark stirred in Bruce’s gut. Anger, anger that someone already thought he needed to be watched.
“Take care of him,” Dr. Thompkins said, almost like she was correcting the detective.
“With all of my being, ma’am,” Alfred replied.
~~~
Bruce was still wearing the suit he wore to the funeral.
“You should eat, Master Bruce,” Alfred said.
“I’m not hungry,” Bruce replied.
Alfred was silent. They had walked this border, both with some trepidation, since Alfred had learned that he had custody of Bruce now that the Thomas and Martha had passed. It was not an easy transition for Alfred to go from employee, even one looked upon with fondness, to guardian.
Much in the same way that it was difficult for Bruce to go from employer, even one who rarely gave orders to the man, to ward.
“I’m afraid I must insist, sir,” Alfred said.
Bruce picked up the fork and robotically shoveled a bite of the food in his mouth. Stiffly. He didn’t even taste what was in his mouth. It seemed to hurt Alfred, not offend him but pain him in the way that many wished they could fix a problem but knew they could not, but the man said nothing.
Eventually the plate was empty and Bruce shoved it away. “May I excuse myself to my room?”
“The full moon is in a week, Master Bruce,” Alfred said softly.
Bruce’s stomach cramped and he worried for a moment that he would lose all the food that Alfred had just made him eat. Not that he cared. He didn’t feel hungry, that hadn’t been a lie. Except that Alfred might decide that he needed to keep up his strength and Bruce didn’t think he could stomach another meal.
“So?” Bruce asked.
Alfred’s expression held pity. Bruce didn’t want anyone’s pity. “So, I do believe that we should discuss some preparations.”
“May I excuse myself to my room or not?” Bruce demanded, sharper this time.
Silence. Alfred let out a soft sigh. “Yes, Master Bruce. You may.”
Bruce left the plate on the table and the fork on the plate and disappeared from the room with tears in his eyes once again.
~~~
He’d put it off as long as possible but there was no way to delay for any longer. No matter how much denial Bruce have been in. He hesitated in the doorway to the large library, books stretching up from floor to ceiling, and looked in on Alfred dusting the shelves.
“Alfred,” Bruce said softly.
It didn’t seem to matter the volume because somehow, some way, Alfred turned at the near whisper. His eyes softened, “Yes, sir?”
“Can we talk about tonight?” Bruce asked, a little louder. Not much louder.
Alfred’s shoulders seemed to drop. A cross between relief and resignation. Maybe some foolish hope that his young master had been right and if they ignored the problem it would simply go away. “Yes, Master Bruce. I believe that would be wise.”
The library was left, still mostly undusted, and Alfred led Bruce into the kitchen instead. There was a dining room table, long and expensive, but Bruce had rarely eaten there since his parents’ deaths. Instead, he took most of his meals at the small table in the kitchen that was intended for servants. That was where he was seated as Alfred brought him a cup of tea. The steam rose in gray waves from the cup and Bruce took a small sip before setting it back down.
“You’re going to turn tonight, Master Bruce,” Alfred said.
Bruce nodded, fingers tightening around the little cup. “Into a monster.”
“Into a wolf,” Alfred corrected.
“Into a werewolf,” Bruce said. “A monster. They’re killers and thugs. Their gangs are destroying the city. Them and the vampires.”
Alfred folded his hands on the table as he took the seat across from Bruce. “Those creating havoc in the city do so by choice, Master Bruce. Humans are just as capable of evil as wolves and vampires. The wolves and the vampires simply have more strength to do their damage with.”
Bruce felt chastised. Alfred often made him feel that way. Not stupid or delinquent, but gently reminding Bruce that he didn’t know everything though he wished that he did.
“There have to be others out there,” Bruce said. “Like me.”
“I’m sure there are,” Alfred said.
“We should get chains or something,” Bruce said after a moment. “We could chain me up out back for the full moon every month. I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone like that.”
Wolves could change any night but they were forced to change on a full moon. Scientific, magical, something else entirely… whatever it was that caused the werewolf change was tied to the moon and while Bruce could choose to never change willingly - at least once a month, the choice would be taken from him.
“I believe I have a better idea,” Alfred said. The chains were not a bad idea, but Alfred did not relish the idea of locking the boy up. Caging him like some feral beast. It might take some time for Bruce to get his bearings but the young man would learn to control it. “I stumbled upon a passageway leading down into caverns below the Manor. It appears as if your father may have known about it but the passage looks much older than that.”
Likely put in long, long ago by Waynes of generations past.
Alfred continued. “You could spend the evening in the cave below and I could open the door once more in the morning.”
Bruce wasn’t nearly as surprised by the passage as the idea of his father knowing about it. But the man had so many secrets. “Do you think that’s safe?”
“I do,” Alfred assured him.
Bruce nodded, determination clear. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
~~~
The moon would be rising soon. Alfred pulled on the right stone in the fireplace and a place in the wall opened. Beyond it, Bruce could see stalagmites and stalactites jutting from the cave floor and ceiling. A soft dripping sound echoed from the area, like pools of water somewhere in the caverns.
“How did you find this?” Bruce asked.
“Luck, I would imagine,” Alfred said vaguely.
It was enough for Bruce who walked down the stone steps into the cave. He looked around and then up when the chatter of the bats drew his attention. They made his stomach recoil, something about their eyes and incessant noise striking some fear into him.
“It’s huge,” Bruce said.
“Plenty of room for you, sir,” Alfred agreed.
Bruce nodded, swallowing hard. The change. Of course. “You should go back upstairs, Alfred. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Moonrise is not for another few minutes. I can comfortably stay down here for a while,” Alfred said.
Bruce didn’t want to take that chance, but he chose his words carefully. “I need to be alone, Alfred. It’s…”
He lacked the words but Alfred seemed to understand. “Of course, sir.” He turned and returned to the base of the stone staircase. He looked back. “I will come retrieve you in the morning.”
“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce said.
He watched the man return to the top of the stairs and then listened to the passage close behind him. Just like that, Bruce was alone.
The bats continued their chatter. Well, almost alone.
Time seemed to simultaneously move too fast while still stretching in an endless sense of waiting. No matter how big the cave was, it was still just a cave and part of Bruce longed to be able to watch the sky when the moon finally crested.
Minutes passed, further, and Bruce shifted uncomfortably as the waiting went on and on. It took him far too long to realize that some of his discomfort didn’t come from waiting, but the itch-like feeling that crawled beneath his skin. With that realization came a sense of warmth, like running a fever. Bruce was sure there was a flush on his skin.
Both sensations built past the point of discomfort, bordering on a sensation of pain.
It was nothing compared to the feeling of his shoulder joints popping out of place. He cried out and his hip popped. Bones grew and stretched, skin struggled to keep up with the change. The itching grew worse until Bruce watched as fur sprouted out of skin. More bones cracked or stretched and Bruce couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
The change was grotesque to watch.
Eventually his vocal cords adapted and his cries became howls, filling the chamber and echoing. He dropped to his knees and his hands landed on damp rock. Teeth turned sharp and sliced into his tongue, he tasted blood before he swallowed.
It was the most excruciating pain that Bruce had ever experienced. And then, just like that, it was over and the pain was gone.
Bruce panted and the action felt weird with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. His body didn’t feel right, not that he’d expected it to. His tail swished behind him without much of a thought and then he stepped forward.
His nails clicked against the stone floor and he took a step back only to click again. That would take some getting used to. He stepped forward again and then took another, another. Slow, cautious steps turned into a quick trot and then a full out run through the cave.
He dodged the stones and leaped over puddles. A group of low hanging bats snapped leathery wings and flew up to the top of the cave and Bruce’s eyes could make out each individual bat now.
Didn’t make them any less creepy to look at.
Water splashed up from one of the stagnant puddles and Bruce shook it off. He looked down, the ripples distorting his reflection for a time and then the water stilled. His fur was black, the same shade as his hair, and two bright blue eyes reflected back to him.
Those were both signs of a werewolf, as opposed to a natural wolf. Coloring was usually a good sign.
Two pointed ears, a mouth full of canines. He stepped a paw into the water to ruin the image and walked away.
A monster.
His nails clicked against the stone and something about the sound just drove him to madness. He hated it. Hated the sound. Hated the body.
Hated the moon hanging somewhere outside.
The feeling built up into his chest and he tipped his head back and howled. All that did was make him hate himself too.