Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Incarnatio

The act of being made flesh

Bruce remembered dying. It was scalding and freezing at the same time. It wasn’t his chest that hurt first, despite the bullet nestled in his lungs, but his mind, focusing on his blood-drenched parents. Death was gasping for breath only to swallow water, to run a mile to take a single step, to jump up just to shatter your bones on the way down, to fall asleep only to wake up to harsh noise and bright light.

Death was torture.

Waking up again was worse.

Later, when Jason would be more than mortal, a little less human, but not quite like Bruce yet, watching over his part of the city, he’d ask him what it had been like to wake up properly.

Waking up was too much like being unmade and rebuilt from the ground up, tearing at the seams as they sew wounds shut that didn’t even exist yet. It was watching yourself fall apart, one thought at the time, still conscious enough to recognize what was done to you and understand that with your first breath in lungs that had not yet touched any air, you could not go back to what you were before, who you used to be. A million voices were in your head, all trying to talk through your mouth and gain your attention. You felt like death still despite this being your rebirth, and you knew that if you looked into a mirror, your face would still be the same, but you wouldn’t be able to tell it was yourself. In most cases, it was the worst tragedy you’d ever experience in your immortal, timeless life.

“It wasn’t as terrible as losing you,” Bruce would reply then, the first olive branch grown on the roof of a house settled on the border of Jason’s home.

But that was years from now.

Currently, Bruce Wayne was eight years old and dying on the dirty pavements of a place not yet called Crime Alley, not yet claimed by the Red Hood.

He took his last breath, and Gotham took its first.

He couldn’t forget his death, never would, though he wasn’t sure what claim he had on the life of the boy who feared for his parents. Some days he felt only pity for these beautiful souls who passed too soon, forgetting entirely that Martha and Thomas Wayne were the people who had told him bedtime stories and, at one point, had been his entire world. Small and young Bruce Wayne was far too distant in those moments. It made him wonder why he still put up with the charade and the pretending instead of getting lost in his city. A few seconds later his mind would clear up again, harsh headaches punishing him for even just entertaining the thought of abandoning his family.

Bruce wished he would be able to forget his awakening.

Gotham was a cruel city to become.

Chapter Text

Omnipresence

Being present always and everywhere

The voices wouldn’t stop talking. Sometimes they screamed, on other days they only whispered, but no matter what Bruce did, they wouldn’t mute. He could hardly concentrate on his own thoughts. The roaring of cars was followed by a rainstorm crashing on metal panels and frost biting on his toes and fingers accompanied them. Merely the neon lights of Cherry Street’s provided a distraction that was entertaining enough for her to be able to ignore the claws tearing into her stomach and knives cutting into her feet.

Bruce woke up screaming. The blanket Alfred had carefully tucked him in with now tangled around his feet, keeping him constraint. Bruce hated to be held down, he didn’t want any strangers touching him, taking more than she’d give them-

“Master Bruce!”

Someone was shaking his shoulders and he began to thrash, fighting off whoever wanted to take, hurt, have their way-

“Bruce, you need to calm down. Breathe with me. In and out again. Once more. Calm down, you’re safe. You’re home, sleeping in your bedroom.”

No, no, no, Alfred was lying, she wasn’t at home, she had run away after Dad had died and Mom hadn’t been able to put neither breakfast nor lunch or dinner on the table. She’d found work on the streets, terrible ugly work that made her throw up far too often, but it put enough food into her stomach that she could afford to lose some of it again. Summer had been a sweet time, autumn she had survived as well, but Gotham’s winters were so harsh and unforgiving, always had been, but last year she hadn’t had to sleep on the frosty asphalt right next to the trash cans.

Bruce choked on his tears. His shoulders trembled, the beginning or perhaps the ending of an earthquake shook him, forced him to find his ground again and plant his roots.

The manor was warm. His sheets were so much softer than the old blanket she was sleeping with.

“We need- need to-.” Bruce stumbled over his own words. His voice didn’t want to cooperate with him, swallowing all the sounds he could make.

Bruce screamed, tried to blow away all the stuttering. They didn’t have much time left, they had to go now, now, now before it was too late.

“Bruce, I need you to calm for me.”

He didn’t have the time to calm! Why didn’t Alfred understand?

“The city! We have to go to the city now!”

Bruce pushed Alfred’s warm hands off and jumped down from his bed, searching for his shoes.

“And we need soup from dinner, heat it up, please. Where are we keeping the spare blankets? And did we keep the winter coat Uncle Philip never came back to pick up last year?”

Bruce hurried through his room, looking for his own clothes, and Alfred just stood there. He was watching Bruce instead of beginning the tasks Bruce had given him.

“Alfred,” he spoke up again. “Haven’t you heard what I said?”

Bruce couldn’t understand his guardian lately. It was difficult enough to navigate his own self without having to grasp Alfred’s thoughts as well.

Alfred was made up of contradictions. He spoke with a British accent, but he bled Gotham. He cared for Bruce, but he was strict. He denied, but always gave.

His voice was soft, but his eyes full of conflict.

“It’s three in the morning Bruce, the middle of the night. There is nothing you could possibly want in the city right now that can’t wait until morning.”

“But there is,” Bruce insisted. “There is, and she’s important and we have to go now. Alfred, please.”

Silence stood in-between the two of them, massive like a gravestone. For the first time in months, Bruce knew what he had to do, what he could do. And Alfred simply had to help him, there was no other way.

“Alright,” Alfred finally gave in. “Get dressed properly. I’ll change, fetch the items, and start the car. But I want an explanation.”

“Of course.”

Bruce wouldn’t deny his own what he was fated to do.

Barely ten minutes later saw the two of them in one of the less auspicious cars, Alfred in the front and Bruce in the back. The coat, the blankets and the soup were sitting next to Bruce in one of the bigger shopping baskets. Bruce didn’t look away from them, fearing that they’d disappear as soon as they were out of sight. But he didn’t need to see any street signs to know where they had to go. He directed Alfred half across the city, closer and closer to that blood-drenched night’s scene.

Alfred tensed, his knuckles going white on the wheel. But then they passed that damned alley and he became even more concerned.

“It’s alright,” Bruce said. “We’re almost there.”

He told Alfred to park at the entrance to Cherry Street. All around them, people tried to subtly figure out what a child like him was doing here. Many kids were lingering in this part of town, much more than the police pretended to be here. Bruce could probably do a headcount if his migraine were to lessen.

With her basket in hand, Bruce led Alfred into a side street. It was small and dark, only illuminated by the neon signs from the main road. On his left, he could spot a couple dumpsters and hiding between them his goal.

If not for Alfred’s hand on his shoulder, keeping him close, Bruce would have rushed forward. The short walk to her little place seemed much too long for the few meters that it actually was.

“Master Bruce, what are you doing?” Alfred hissed. He kept looking around, waiting for another tragedy to happen.

Many tears would fall tonight, many hearts break and stop, but not here.

Bruce paid Alfred no mind as he finally came to a stop.

“Hello,” he said and crouched down in front of the cardboard box. “Are you still awake, Ariadne?”

The young woman with an ashen face and coal colored eyes was slow to react to Bruce’s presence.

“Who-?”

“Sssh!”

Bruce fished the thermos with the hot soup out of the basket and pressed it into her hands.

“This is for you.”

Ariadne stared at the bottle like she couldn’t understand what exactly was going on. She’d been out here sleeping in the frost, it was no surprise, really.

But Bruce been on time still. He had made it.

Then he handed Ariadne the coat and helped her put it on. Once she was settled again, he gave her the blanket as well.

“Take good care of it,” Bruce told her. “It is a gift. Keep it until you can give it back to me. I’ll find you then. Oh, and tomorrow morning you should go to Madame Angelica. She has work for you.”

It was another secret the streets revealed to him. If he listened closely, paid attention to what he wanted to hear, he could almost dull the buzz at the back of his head.

Ariadne was taller than him. It wasn’t particularly hard to be since Bruce was a child, never mind a somewhat short one. Yet here she was staring up at him like he hung the stars, the moon and the sun, and carved the names of these streets into the ground with his own blood.

 “Who are you?” Ariadne asked, her voice barely above a whisper, soft, unlike her surroundings.

He was Master Bruce, the billionaire orphan, the skyscrapers, the dark and murky waters of the harbors, the dirty alleys, the bright avenues, the green parks, the thousands of people waking up the sound of sirens and newspaper of horrible crimes covering up even more terrible monsters, the hope for a better future for this city. What would he be without these people to give him far more than he can carry?

“I’m Gotham,” he replied. “And I’m yours.”

From behind him, Bruce could feel Alfred watching him with something akin to fear in his eyes.