Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne was a teenager when he met Harry. Tall, scrawny, and lanky, Bruce had been ambling through a suburb in Surrey when he encountered the younger boy. Harry was thin, tiny, almost able to snap like a twig. Bruce had immediately decided there was no way that kid was going home to whoever he lived with, and had practically adopted Harry on the spot.
Harry was out in the front yard, weeding and pruning the hedges and doing all the gardening chores. He was wrapped up in oversized clothes, shivering in the late fall air.
Bruce approached him and started helping with the weeds. “It's a little cold to be gardening.”
Harry shrugged. “Aunt Petunia said that until the leaves start turning brown, I have to garden,” he said.
“Your family sucks,” Bruce told Harry. “I’m kidnapping you. You can come to all the places I’m going and then we can go back to America and you can live in my house and be my little brother or something.”
Harry, a scrawny six year old, had laughed and nodded in agreement, taking Bruce’s hand and letting him lead him back to the boarding house Bruce was staying in, although not with a stop by Private Drive so they could sneak in and steal Harry’s documents. They spent a few weeks there before Bruce was dragging Harry along to a dockyard. They stowed away to China, hiding in a crate together and sharing a bag of crisps while they whispered idly about their destination, and the martial arts Bruce wished to learn. Bruce explained that he was trying to become the protector of his city, the guardian of Gotham, and Harry had immediately expressed a wish to help.
“No way, kid,” Bruce whispered as the ship rocked on the sea. “You’re way too small to be a hero yet.”
“Nuh-uh,” Harry huffed. “If I learn all the things you wanna learn then I can learn even more stuff while you start being a hero, and then I can help when I’m done learning,” he explained.
Bruce sighed and smiled. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Fine, I guess you can learn with me,” he laughed softly, ruffling Harry's hair. Harry laughed as well, leaning into the older boy’s side.
The two of them lived like this for a long time, hiding in crates and doing chores in boarding houses. Harry and Bruce both seemed to be very good with languages, they both soon realised, as they easily got the hang of first Mandarin, then Japanese, and even some less commonly spoken languages in Asia, before they moved on to Africa.
They spent some time among tribal elders in the areas they stayed, but never stayed in one place for too long. Harry came to the eventual realization that Bruce was looking for something.
It was months before they found it, bouncing around from remote place to remote place, but their travels eventually took them to Tibet.
Harry stared up at the range of mountains, frowning slightly. “Are you sure we can make it? She said it's a hard journey?”
Bruce nodded. “Once we've tracked down Ra’s Al Ghul, he’ll have to teach me. Us. We’re going to be the strongest pair of brothers in the world, Harry.”
Harry beamed up at Bruce and tightened his climbing harness. “Let's go then. We’re wasting daylight.”
Bruce nodded, and the two of them started their trek up into the mountains. The guide recommended that they take someone up with them, but Bruce refused, saying that if he couldn't find his own way, he would be deemed unworthy, so the two of them were on their own. Sun set before they had even located the right peak, and Bruce said that he would know what he was looking for when he saw it, but Harry pointed out that they couldn't see it in the dark, and so they made camp.
The night was cold and the wind was sharp, and their little fire went out sometime before they went to sleep, and Bruce couldn't get it lit again, so the two of them wrapped up in their sleeping bags, side by side, a blanket thrown over both for good measure. The next morning, they set back off, climbing and hiking through the range and doing their best to keep their rations and rest their bodies. On the third day, however, Harry spiked a fever, and Bruce dragged him into a small alcove in the side of one of the mountain faces. It wasn't hardly big enough for just Harry, let alone Bruce, but Bruce had Harry rest there until he could set up their tent, and then the two of them curled up in just the blanket together while Bruce tended to Harry, keeping watch over him. Harry hardly remembered what happened, but he remembered the result. Agony, itching, crying, wailing, as his eyes became puffy and leaked pus. Bruce did his best to keep Harry calm and help him through the fever and eye infection, brought on by unknown cause and ravaging Harry's eyes. He didn't know how long it was before he began to feel better, his eyes beginning to heal, but Bruce said he had gone back to the village to fetch medicine while Harry was out. Harry's eyes were ruined, though. He could see, yes, but even his glasses didn't stop things from being blurry anymore, and Bruce said that his pupils looked unfocused all the time.
Finally, after almost a week, Harry and Bruce made it to Nanda Parbat. Harry got the idea that Bruce would have reached it sooner had it not been for him, but Bruce never said a word.
Their first night there, Harry's eye infection let itself be known again. Not finished with him, his fever spiked again, and Bruce, sore from his first trial, watched over him all night, whispering sweetly to him and telling him about his day. Harry sobbed through the chills and itching and pain while Bruce's new crush, Talia, tried to convince her father to use water from the Lazarus pit to heal Harry's eyes.
“I'm going to go blind,” Harry lamented quietly to Bruce.
“If you do, I’ll still be your brother. You'll always be my family, Harry,” he said quietly.
Harry cried softly at these words, and his cries turned into sobs when Talia returned with the news that Ra’s Al Ghul had agreed to let her attempt to heal Harry's eyes with Lazarus water. His eyes were held open and water was dripped into his eyes… And suddenly he was in the worst agony he had ever felt in his life, his eyes were on fire! They burned and he screamed and Bruce was holding his arms, holding him tightly and keeping him still.
“Shh, it’s okay, shh…” Bruce shushed, watching Harry thrash in his grip and try to wipe the Lazarus water from his eyes.
Talia’s presence beside him bolstered him, and he could feel the approval practically radiating from her as he followed her instructions to keep Harry from wiping his eyes.
“Look, it’s working,” she said quietly, gesturing to the way Harry’s eyes began to glow green.
Bruce nodded, watching Harry’s face as the green glow spread to that weird scar on his little brother’s forehead. “What’s it doing?”
Talia’s lips pursed. “There must be something in his scar. Where did he get it?”
Bruce shook his head. “I don’t know, he had it when we met. I think he’s always had it.”
Harry let out a sob as the pain finally let up, his eyes shooting open and piercing Bruce with a Lazurus green gaze.