Down the rabbit hole and into Xanadu.
As a child Bruce had always imagined himself, re-imagined himself, as an adventurer. Solitary of disposition, these adventures, more often than not, were pursued alone. He’d disappear into the grounds that surrounded their home (he was young enough then just to call it home) or perhaps into the basement or the attic and he’d emerge hours later, always dirty, missing articles of clothing, more often than not scraped and bruised and occasionally bloodied - the very antithesis of the child he appeared to be on every other occasion.
And as an adult nothing has changed.
Well. Perhaps his adventures now take him a little further than the back yard.
This is certainly further. One minute he’d been chasing The Joker across the rooftops of Gotham and then The Joker had simply… disappeared. It was on instinct that he opened the door, ran down the stairs, jumping over the railing, he felt like Alice in the rabbit hole, as if the downward spiral went forever. He started to fall. Even The Goddamn Batman, occasionally, takes a tumble - And then at the bottom he hits a heavy door with full force and falls out in a mess into the street.
Which was not Gotham. And the Joker was nowhere in sight.
And the door behind him had disappeared.
It’s late and the street is abandoned - he walks for a while, but with the growing sense that this is not the place for The Batman, the sense that Bruce Wayne would be a more appropriate persona here. There’s a row of stores and he enters one, with a little force but without making a great deal of mess. He takes what he needs, with a vague idea he’ll compensate the owner after. No shoes. That’s OK. For now.
When it starts to rain he takes shelter in the small alcove a store’s doorway. He’ll work out where he is in the morning.
And as an adult nothing has changed.
Well. Perhaps his adventures now take him a little further than the back yard.
This is certainly further. One minute he’d been chasing The Joker across the rooftops of Gotham and then The Joker had simply… disappeared. It was on instinct that he opened the door, ran down the stairs, jumping over the railing, he felt like Alice in the rabbit hole, as if the downward spiral went forever. He started to fall. Even The Goddamn Batman, occasionally, takes a tumble - And then at the bottom he hits a heavy door with full force and falls out in a mess into the street.
Which was not Gotham. And the Joker was nowhere in sight.
And the door behind him had disappeared.
It’s late and the street is abandoned - he walks for a while, but with the growing sense that this is not the place for The Batman, the sense that Bruce Wayne would be a more appropriate persona here. There’s a row of stores and he enters one, with a little force but without making a great deal of mess. He takes what he needs, with a vague idea he’ll compensate the owner after. No shoes. That’s OK. For now.
When it starts to rain he takes shelter in the small alcove a store’s doorway. He’ll work out where he is in the morning.