A/N: This isn't just retelling comics!Edward's back story, but this is influenced by what we saw of his childhood in Detective Comics #8.

Understanding was what he had always hungered for. His parents swatted off his questions like irritating insects, put the weight of a book in his hand, and told him to go outside and out from under their feet. They didn't know that he fell into the pages of those books like Alice head first down the rabbit hole.

If Eddie had had questions before, they only grew as he wandered the Savana through the sleek pages of library books and explored the cold heart of space in wrinkled old copies of his dad's National Geographic. Eddie was a familiar face in the school library, always wobbling to the circulation desk with a stack of new books about anything and everything he could get his hands on.

Once the librarian raised an eyebrow as her eyes skimmed the title of a book about the Spanish Inquisition. "Are you sure that you're old enough to be reading this? The vocabulary might be too advanced for you, and some of the concepts might go over your head."

Eddie shook his head and adjusted the large glasses that had slipped down to the edge of his nose. "Oh no, I don't think so. I finished three books last week about Alexander the Great, and I understood all of it."

The librarian just wrinkled her brows and twisted her pink lips but scanned the books for him anyway. Eddie grabbed the books off of the circulation desk and piled them into his backpack. Rather than frown at the weight that the books put against his small back, he just tottered home with a smile, anticipating pouring new information into his mind.

Eddie's classmates didn't really care about the things that he knew either. When everyone else was running around during recess, he was sitting hunched under a tree with books surrounding him like a miniature scholar. Sometimes he would find something of particular interest and approach his peers, because what good was keeping wonderful things like that to yourself? The world was exciting and strange and he had to tell everyone.

"Did you know that in the middle ages, they thought that if you had a strange mark you must be a witch?" he once asked a girl named Sandy.

She just glared at him. "Are you saying I'm a witch?" She waved her hand at her freckles.

"No, I just thought you might find it interesting, because things have changed so much. If you lived then they would have—"

But she just walked away from him, leaving him blinking. Why hadn't she wanted to hear the rest of it? It was so fascinating how superstitions changed, how something completely harmless and natural likes freckles or a birth mark might be misinterpreted. Eddie just shrugged and went back to his tree.

Mostly his classmates just learned to ignore him. There was an unspoken understanding that Eddie was odd, and that if he came to you with some sort of strange fact you should just walk away, because saying anything would just encourage him.

Eddie didn't understand it. He had read about the evolutionary advantages that virtual invisibility called camouflage gave some animals. It kept them from being eaten by other creatures.

But invisibility wasn't an adaptation that Eddie wanted to have. What was the use of being invisible when there was so much information to share, but when you tried all anyone did was look through you?

For a while, Eddie was part of an after school Trivia Club. When he brought it up to his parents, he was surprised that they supported his joining it. Maybe they were growing to accept his questions.

When he walked in the first day with a smile on his face, his peers sunk down in their chairs a bit. Eddie took a seat in the corner of the room by a boy named Wallace, who had actually been friendly to Eddie a few times before. Eddie counted him as a friend in his mind, but Wallace might have disagreed. Wallace saw the other boy and felt sorry for him. Pity was not a strong foundation for friendship.

At first, Eddie was excited to finally be part of something. Maybe these people would understand what he felt; after all, if they were part of a Trivia Club, so they must also want to put their knowledge to use. And at first the teams he ended up on were happy to have him. He was sharp and fast and made them win quickly. One team member even invited him to hang out after school once.

But it didn't stay that way for long. When he slammed his palm down on the bell to answer the question first, his teammates would look at each other in mutual annoyance. Eddie didn't understand why they didn't like him answering first; he just wanted to help the team win. And he almost always got the answers to the questions right, so it only made sense that he answered first before anyone on the rival team could.

He tried to make conversation with them after Trivia Club had gotten out, but either they would pretend he hadn't said anything to them or give him an excuse like, "My mom wants me to help with the dishes. I'm sorry I can't talk, Freddie."

"Actually, it's Eddie," he said, but the one he had spoken to didn't stay long enough to hear.

Eddie talked to Wallace a few times and was glad for the companionship, but always saw something there in his friend's eyes that seemed off. Like maybe he didn't really want to talk to Eddie, but that he felt he had to anyway for some reason.

Eddie didn't want to give up the Trivia Club, but his teacher was giving him more homework than usual and he still wanted to have time to read his massive stacks of books, so he had to give it up. When he told the others in the club that he was leaving, they said they were sorry to hear that, but a few had smiles on their faces when they said it.

A few days after he left the Trivia Club, his glasses went missing. He found them later under some bark near the swing set, with no one nearby. He worked his thumbnail against the left lens, trying to scrap off some stubborn mud. And then he had a thought.

Maybe camouflage was a good adaptation. It kept the bigger, meaner things from picking on you because they didn't see you or simply didn't care because you weren't worth it. But even with that realization, Eddie knew that he never wanted to be invisible again. Better to be seen and bothered by the more brutish animals than to spend your whole life trying to make yourself small and keeping wisdom to yourself.

There was a whole great world out there, and everyone needed to know about it.