Chapter Text
Gotham, Wayne Manor, 1705
Bruce woke up and wished he hadn't.
The smell of blood was intense, it penetrated Bruce's nostrils and made him hungry.
He had never felt hungry, not really.
His family was rich, he'd had it all since he could remember. But now hunger was tearing him apart, making him crave something abominable.
Human blood.
Bruce sat up on the bed: his clothes were ragged, and the blood was everywhere, on his hands, on the pillow, on the sheets, on his damn mouth.
Shocked, the only coherent thought was What in heaven's name have I done?
Try as Bruce might, he couldn't remember anything from the previous night. Except his meeting with her.
"How are you feeling, my beloved?" a soft voice asked him.
Bruce didn't need to look up to know that Talia was standing at the bedroom door, sounding genuinely concerned.
Liar.
If he was like that, it was her fault.
"What did you do to me?" Bruce growled, his voice more like an animal's yelp than a human voice. He clutched the dirty sheets, trying to control himself.
It was hard, because he wanted to hurt her, even though the rational part of his brain told him it was useless: Talia would have torn him to shreds before Bruce could even touch her.
"You don't like my gift?" the woman asked him, tilting her head to one side and exposing her neck.
It was an inviting sight. There was no way she didn't know what he was doing to Bruce.
She wanted to provoke the beast that Bruce had become.
"Talia..."
"Are you hungry, my beloved? Do you want me to feed you?"
The voice was so soft, and smooth, she tempted him. Bruce wished he had something heavy at hand and threw it at her.
"Talia, what I am?"
"You are who you were always meant to be," was the reply. It didn't make any sense.
Bruce was born human. He had human parents, he was raised as a human.
He was human, not a beast that craved blood.
"I'm human," Bruce retorted, hearing a rumble coming from a dark part of him. He clung to lost humanity, refusing to think of anything else.
Also, Talia was adamant, "You are so much more. You are darkness incarnate."
"Talia...what have you done to me?" Bruce asked again, and this time he would demand a true answer.
The woman didn't answer, and he yelled at her, "What have you done to me?"
The glass in the windows vibrated, the world outside silent, frightened by the beast that was about to wake up.
Talia looked into his eyes without a hint of fear, proudly. She didn't fear the monster she had created. She should have.
Bruce was hungry, and the smell of Talia was going to his head.
"You are like me. A creature of darkness. Now nothing can separate us."
Bruce angrily pulled the blanket off him, avoiding looking at the blood, knowing that if he did, he would lose what ounce of lucidity he had left.
He stood up, approaching her. Bruce stopped a few feet from Talia, unsure of what he would do if they were face to face.
"You did it without my consent," the man said, his eyes turning red.
"You turned me into this…monster…and you expect me to thank you?"
"We have eternity together," Talia told him, as if that were enough of an explanation as if she hadn't ruined Bruce beyond repair.
Talia took a step towards Bruce. Bruce backed away, unable to bear the idea of her touch.
"If this is the price of eternity, I don't want it."
"We'll be together," she insisted, unable to understand his lover.
Bruce would have preferred a short, human life with her. Not eternity as a soulless monster.
He turned his head towards the window. Even through the curtains, he could see that the sun was high in the sky. That could be his escape route.
"Not if I still have a say in at least one thing," Bruce said. He had made his decision. He wasn't going to live like that.
Talia realized two seconds too late. She had time to yell No as Bruce opened the curtains and let the sunlight hit him.
He no longer smelled the blood, but the stink of his burnt flesh. The man didn't scream, he didn't make a sound.
He closed his eyes, holding the sweet relief of death.
"Free, finally," Bruce thought, as he fell to his knees, his body consumed by flames.
He couldn't see Talia close the curtains, nor her kneel and mutter something as her hands lit up.
He saw none of this.
But before the Angel of Death came to get him, he heard Talia say, "I won't let you go, it can't end like this. You..."
He didn't hear the end of the sentence.
Gotham, Wayne Manor, Wayne Family Cemetery, 2005
“Hurry up, boy. We don't have all night."
Jason clutched the shovels to his chest and loped after his father. He wasn't afraid of the dark, he was a big boy – even if it was questionable at eight years old – but it was cold, he couldn't see an inch of his nose and only his old man had a flashlight to see where he was stepping.
Jason had to carry on and hope he didn't end up in some open grave.
"Dad, are we there yet?" he asked, hoping not to sound desperate. His hands ached, ungloved, and red from the cold. Holding the metal handles was making the pain worse.
"Not long now," spat his father, but Jason could hardly believe it. He bet that Willis too had no idea where to go.
The Wayne cemetery was huge. Some would say that was normal for Gotham's more ancient family. Jason thought it was creepy to build a house next to a cemetery, but everyone knew the Waynes weren't into it.
He tripped over something and landed on his face in the mud. Jason raised his head, spitting, as his father approached him, “Stupid! Do you want someone to find out?”
It was more likely that they would get caught because of Willis' screams than Jason's, but the boy had enough experience to know that he didn't have to talk back to his father or else it would be worst.
“If CPS wasn't after me, I would have left you at home, you little…oh. Look'."
The light now fell on the marble slab of the grave Jason had fallen next to.
It said BRUCE THOMAS WAYNE1677-1705.
"Shit."
Because even though he was a poor idiot from Crime Alley, Jason knew who that guy was. Everyone in Gotham had at least once heard of Bruce Wayne, the responsible for the Wayne family's madness.
The mysterious death of Bruce Thomas Wayne in 1705 had become the occasion for the strangest kind of rumors to circulate.
The family had arranged not to let anyone near the body, and even the priest had been able to give extreme unction. Some said he was killed by a husband betrayed to avenge lost honor. Others that it was one of his lovers who had scarred him and that he, seeing his lost beauty, had preferred to commit suicide.
In that case, the body would have had the signs of such an unnatural death, and the family would not have been able to have it buried in consecrated ground.
If you were sane, you knew that dealing with Bruce Wayne, even in death, was going to bring you bad luck. But Willis Todd wasn't sane, he had played his last neurons in poker with Harvey Dent, and he decided that such an old tomb must necessarily have a lot of precious stuff inside him.
“Start digging.”
"Dad…"
“Did I stutter? Dig.”
Jason grimaced, but he had no choice but to comply. If he was lucky, maybe the Wayne curse would kill his father. Jason wasn't even too worried, he was sure that without that piece of shit around he would have managed great.
He grits his teeth and prayed, to God, Satan, whoever was listening, to make Willis' death as painful as possible.
They began digging with only the dim light of the torch. Soon, Willis shoved Jason away, saying, “You're fucking slow. Might as well do it myself."
Jason was fine with it. He wouldn't be the one to open the coffin.
An hour later, Willis reached the coffin. Jason couldn't see well, but it looked like good-quality stuff. Even though it had been centuries, there were no signs of mold or anything to suggest that it would break if someone opened it.
His father smiled, “Jackpot.”
Willis hit the coffin lid hard, once, twice, four times. On the seventh hit, Willis broke the lid. What was inside left them both speechless: Jason had seen bodies before. Whether it was in the middle of the road or cemeteries when he accompanied the old man.
He was used to filth, the stench of putrefaction, worms and so much other stuff that it was better not to know if you wanted to keep food in your stomach.
Jason had never seen a corpse like this, though.
Bruce Wayne looked like he was sleeping, his skin was pale and there was no insect in sight.
It wasn't a decomposing body. Jason could tell for sure. It wasn't even a skeleton with randomly scattered bones.
The kid shivered, and not from the cold.
It wasn't possible that after three hundred years a corpse was in that condition. There was no fucking way!
Jason was good at recognizing trouble, and there was an avalanche coming.
He tried to walk away, leaving his old man to his fate, but Willis yelled, "Brat, come help me out."
"No."
“Come down!”
"Not even dead," the kid spat. He was poor, not stupid. Better to leave when he still had time.
But Willis wasn't a patient man. He stepped out of the pit with unexpected agility for someone his age, his expression leaving no doubt as to his intentions.
Jason tried to run away, but Willis was faster: he grabbed Jason's arm, squeezing until Jason heard the sound of breaking bone.
"Now you go down there and do your job."
"I don't want!" Jason screamed, trying to pull his arm away but failing. The man was much stronger than him.
"You've always been a waste of space. As soon as we get home…"
Jason didn't hear the end of the sentence. His attention was on the figure emerging from the pit.
Holy shit, Jason thought, as he recognized Bruce fucking Wayne's corpse.
Willis kept talking, unaware that a zombie was behind him.
Jason knew it, and he didn't want to stay a minute longer.
"Let me go! Let me go, you fucking bastard!"
"You little bitch…"
Willis didn't finish the sentence: he had been bitten by a dead man over three hundred years old.
Willis released his grip on Jason's arm and rather pathetically tried to push away the monster that was biting him.
The creature didn't even seem to notice the blows, sucking on, red eyes glowing in the darkness.
Willis's blows became weaker and weaker until the man stopped squirming.
It was Jason's chance to escape, no one was looking out for him. But his body didn't respond, he was paralyzed by fear.
When there was no more blood to suck from Willis, the monster let him go, knocking him backward.
Ironically, Willis ended up in the grave he intended to rob.
Now it was just the monster and Jason.
"I'll die," the boy thought.
"I will become its dessert!"
He'd always known he'd die young, but never imagined he'd die at eight years old. He thought he'd at least make it to fifteen.
He looked around for something to use as a weapon and saw the shovel he had abandoned. Jason grabbed it and put it in front of him like a sword. It wasn't much, but he wasn't going to die without a fight.
Meanwhile, the monster was looking at him without moving, looking confused.
It blinked, its eyes no longer red, and crabby, "A kid? What…"
It was interrupted by a shot from a rifle, which left a large hole in the center of its chest.
It fell flat on its face, narrowly missing Jason.
Jason was afraid to even breathe, holding his breath.
An elderly man with a shotgun came up and stood next to Jason.
What a bizarre sight it was that must have presented itself to him: two dead bodies, one of them three centuries old, and a child with a probably broken arm who thought a shovel was a sword.
If Jason could, he would have laughed.
"Are you alright?" the man asked, with a thick accent Jason didn't recognize.
Instead of answering Jason asked, "Is that thing dead?"
"What?"
He pointed with the shovel at the monster that had bled his father dry, "Is it dead?"
"Ah…I'm afraid it takes more than a rifle to kill it. This just stunned it."
"What do you need?" Jason asked.
“According to old stories, an ash stake and sword to behead the corpse.”
"What are you waiting for? Get it!" Jason snapped, fearing the monster would get up at any moment.
The man didn't move. Jason pressed him, "Hey, so? Do you want to hurry? He could kill us both!"
"No."
"Huh?"
The man lowered his rifle, "It's more useful alive."