Chapter Text
June 26, 20XX
Bruce walked out of the theater, leading his parents—his mother always said he was a fine leader, he was always sure to emulate that when with them—out. They walked shortly behind him, speaking quietly about the movie: The Mark of Zorro. They had liked it. He wasn’t sure about all of what happened—some parts were confusing, weird—but as far as they needed to know, he understood all of it and was quite entertained by it.
His parents always held a different air than they did at home, Bruce noticed. He fell back to walk in line with them, his mother resting a fond hand on his shoulder. He looked up at them, tuning in to their voices. They spoke somewhat posh ly, a bit haughty, a vague English or trans-Atlantic accent falling into their voices. He thought it odd, but he tried to mimic them, but they tended to laugh at his attempts, cooing over him as though he was a baby.
Bruce wasn’t a baby. He was almost ten, and that’s double digits! That’s not a baby. He didn’t protest, though, because it was his parents and he loved them and as far as they said, they loved him, even if they did spend a lot of time out and about without him and wouldn’t let him hang out with them and he never saw or heard Father after dinner. Bruce asked Mother once, where Father always went; she seemed uncomfortable: “Thomas is busy, Bruce. He has… business to attend to.” He didn’t ask again after that.
Bruce let his parents lead him to the car, which they’d parked in an alleyway a block or so away from the theatre. He halfheartedly listened as they spoke, hearing weird words about brokers and agents and the stock—he knew that one!—market. He figured he wouldn’t care, anyway, if he did know what they were talking about.
He looked up at his father. Father—Mr. Thomas Wayyyynnne, as the people (trying to get close with him for his money) called him (that’s what Mother had told Bruce, he was unsure of its accuracy)—had light stubble and, as one of the ladies at the dumb parties and galas Father and Mother made him go to, a jawline which could cut diamond, and a straight nose, and firm blue eyes. The eyes were the only resemblance he could find between himself and Father, but Mother told him on the regular that Bruce was growing more and more to look like his father every day. One time, Mother had even told him that he was developing the brains of his father—that had made his day. Maybe his week. He hoped she was telling the truth.
Bruce watched Father fumble with the keys in the door. He looked at Mother.
She was wearing pearls tonight, dressed very well, but they looked different from her usual that she wore to galas and whatnot. They were smoother, less shiny, a brighter, cooler white. He vaguely wondered why she’d worn them. Probably for a good reason—he frequently heard Father tell Mother how bright she was. Father wouldn’t lie.
As he was watching his mother, he was vaguely aware of an incredibly loud bang! and red spilling down her sternum and pooling at the neck of her dress before dribbling over that and soaking the lilac. Red spilling from a hole. A hole in his mother. Mother had a hole in her—she didn’t usually, did she? Where did that come from?
Bruce heard another bang! and turned to see his father crumple to the ground on the other side of the car, a broken shout coming from him. He heard the keys clatter on the ground. A strange sense of confusion overcame him. He whipped back to his mother, who was now kneeling beside him. He crouched down. “Mother?” He asked softly. Her pearls had been torn and were now on the ground. “No, don’t worry, Mother, I’ll collect them for you.” Bruce begins to gather the pearls, offering them to Mother as he does so. She doesn’t take them and he sighs. “Mother, can you take these?” He asks. She doesn’t answer, so he resolves to continue collecting them. He hears his father cough, a wet sound, and go silent.
Bruce drops a pearl, and tries to grab it, but in the action just drops another. He sighs. “Mother, please, take them?” He continues collecting, holding them close to his chest to try to avoid scattering them again. A few drop from his fist—too small to really hold so many!—but he continues picking them up. He hears someone run up to him, their footsteps rapid and frantic. Someone rests their hand on his shoulder and he looks up, holding the pearls. Mother’s red dress was quite lovely. She should wear more red. His eyes wouldn’t quite focus, but after a few moments he recognised the someone as Alfred, his parents’ butler. He looked at him blankly, holding the pearls.
After several seconds, he greeted the butler, standing to meet him and to be a little closer to his eye level: “Hello, Alfred!” He grinned. “Mother dropped her pearls. I’m collecting them for her. Can you hold them? My hands are too small to hold them all.”
Alfred looked weird. Scared. Bruce giggled. “What’re you so scared of, Alfred?” He handed the red pearls to him. “It’s okay, I have bad dreams sometimes, too.”
Alfred took Bruce’s little hand, neglecting the red pearls. “I… I’ll be back, shortly. Master Bruce. Stay here.”
Bruce watched Alfred walk away. He watched his back as he left the alley. His gaze returned to the ground, finally free of pearls. “Mother, do you want these back?” He asked. She still didn’t answer. She must’ve been taking a nap.
Bruce still clutched a few of the red pearls. Bruce looked around the alley, a curious look on his face. A curious feeling in his chest. A weird feeling. He opened his palm to examine the red pearls. Those pearls shouldn’t be red. They should be white. They’re red. They’re supposed to be white. Covered in red liquid. In dark red liquid slowly turning brown, dark red which covered his hands and which he felt seeping through the knees of his pants. Blood. He was covered in blood. In his mother’s blood, which had covered her lilac dress. Which had seeped and oozed from the hole in her chest. Bang ! His mother was dead. Bang ! His father was dead. They were both dead and he was an orphan. He was an orphan at nine years old. Not even double digits. He felt the white pearls drop from his hands and sank to his knees. “Oh my god,” he whispered. Tears welled in his eyes. He felt as though he, too, had been shot, just below his ribs. He was shaking. “Oh, my god ,” he muttered. He felt as though someone was scraping his insides out and dropping them to the ground where his mother lay dead. Bruce looked around frantically.
“Help!” He screamed, horrified. “Please, please, help me!” The tears finally spilled over and he tried to scrub them away but he was just rubbing blood all over his face . His mother’s blood. He was covered in his mother’s blood and—
Bruce frantically tried to cover the wound, to stem the bleeding, but it had already clotted, it was already sticky and yucky and she was already dead and he was so scared and couldn’t bring her back and “What do I do?!” He shrieked. He really was so small and helpless. His father—his dead father —was already gone and couldn’t help him and Mother would be so disappointed— why can’t you be more like Thomas— he was so so scared. His breath picked up desperately. Terrified. “Mother!” He screamed.
It felt as though he knelt like that for a month, a year, screaming his lungs raw. His throat hurt. He heard footsteps, familiar footsteps, Alfred’s footsteps, approaching him, accompanied by a few others, somebody new. “Bruce?” Alfred’s voice called. Bruce looked up, horror in his face. He stood and ran to Alfred, fisting the butler’s coat and clinging onto him. “Alfred, Alfred they’re dead, ” he stammered. He looked back to Mother, the blood pooled around her, and spun to face from Alfred. He vomited on the ground. His bile mixed with Mother’s blood. Tears streamed down his face again, drawing tracks through the blood.
Alfred drew him closer, wrapping his arms around Bruce in a comforting gesture. His eyes were wide. He hushed Bruce: “Shh, Master Bruce, calm yourself. You’re—you’re safe. You’ll be okay.” He stroked Bruce’s back, turning him to face Alfred. Bruce buried his face in Alfred’s side, his tears staining the man’s black blazer.
The next days Bruce spent in a blur, falling between fits of tears and screams and numb silence. He was fairly sure he’d eaten, but he couldn’t risk eating any more than he must’ve, lest he vomit again and be struck with the image of his mother’s blood mixing with the sickly chartreuse bile. He ignored Alfred’s worried looks and attempts to feed him while he lay in bed, instead opting to spend his days crawling into his parents’ bed and sobbing at pictures he’d drawn mere weeks ago, of the three holding hands in a grassy field, a yellow sun in the right corner.
Bruce laid there. He hadn’t thought much over the past however many days, nor eaten, he recognised that. He was lucid for the first time in nearly a week and his hair was mussed and tears were crusted around his eyes. Alfred’s soft footsteps padded down the hallway, and Bruce tried to sit up but his body felt weak. A sharp pang of hunger washed over him, and his stomach growled.
Alfred knocked on the door and, after waiting a few seconds for no response, opened the door, poking his head in. “Master Bruce?” He asked, his voice soft. Bruce stared at him, his eyes drooping with exhaustion.
Alfred stepped into the room. “How do you feel?” He seemed to recognise Bruce’s consciousness. He held a tray of—praise the lord—cut-up fruit and a glass of water.
“Awful,” Bruce mumbled, his throat raw and dry. He felt so small as Alfred sat on the edge of the bed next to him. Bruce again attempted to sit up, managed, and took a square of melon. He chewed it thoughtfully, the fluid sliding down his dry throat and cooling him.
Alfred looked somewhat relieved at Bruce eating. Bruce tried not to feel guilty for his effects upon Alfred’s well-being. Bruce pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging himself into a small ball.
Alfred was silent for a while, just watching Bruce slowly eat the fruit. “I’m glad you’re eating,” he finally spoke. Bruce gave a noncommittal grunt in reply. Alfred looked saddened at that reply (or, more accurately, lack thereof) but didn’t comment on it. “You’ve grown so much,” Alfred mused.
Bruce frowned. “I haven’t been eating. Should’ve done the opposite.”
Alfred shook his head: “No, not in that way—you seem… older. You act beyond your years.” He hesitated. “That worries me, Master Bruce.”
Bruce didn’t answer, instead opting to drink the glass of water. He felt exhausted again and leaned back to his pillow. He knew he looked awful—he felt it. “I’m going back to sleep,” he muttered. He turned to lay on his side. Alfred didn’t leave, which was unsettling (yet comforting).
The last thing Bruce saw, before letting go to the fog which clouded his thoughts, was Alfred staring at him, somewhat longingly, somewhat sadly, as though he were grieving not for Bruce’s mother and father, but for Bruce, himself.