Title: Break My Fall
Author: Cyranothe2nd
Word Count: 22,768 (!)
Rating: NC-17
Beta: 1Bad_Joke and Siri
Disclaimer: This work is based on characters and concepts created and owned by DC Comics, Warner Bros. and other entities and corporations. No money is being made and no copyright and/or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: Nolan-verse, alt-canon, original character death, minor canon character death, violence, sexual violence, language, angst, internalized homophobia
Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Jack, Batman/Joker

Summary: Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes. Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.

Author's Notes: This is a completed story that was simply too long to post all at once. So, I have broken it into 15 parts and will publish one every day or two. This story will have an NC-17 rating for violence and violent sex. Please note the warnings and the pairing.

Please review!

Something is wrong with Bruce.

Everyone says so.

They call him 'Orphan Wayne,' or 'The Little Heir,' or, in one blatantly blue piece of journalism, 'The Loneliest Billionaire.' Alfred gathers the papers and throws them away with the rubbish, but Bruce sneaks them out and reads the articles, one-by-one. Each word catches in his chest and makes his throat burn, but he reads them carefully, writing down the words he doesn't know and looking them up in the big dictionary in his father's study.

Homicide.

Philanthropist.

Bereft.

He lays flowers on his parents' graves, dressed in crow-black, as the reporters circle and snap pictures. Alfred tries to prevent it, but it makes little difference.

Bruce pretends not to see them.

"Bruce, tell us how sad you feel to lose your parents," a reporter directs the silent boy. And Bruce is sad. But what he feels most of the time is not sadness.

It is rage.

Something is wrong with Bruce, and everyone can see it. His teachers treat him with ginger concern, always watching, as if they know some secret he doesn't. His peers don't like him. They think that he is an arrogant rich boy. They think he is weird because he has no family. They think he is stupid because he keeps quiet.

Bruce isn't stupid. He is bored. He has read each of his textbooks by the second month of school, memorized the biological classifications and the planets of the solar system. The other kids in his class don't read much outside of school. They certainly don't spend hours in the library, poring over college chemistry textbooks. They don't obsessively read the crime sections of several newspapers and keep a careful catalogue of notes, tracking patterns, sifting for clues. Trying to make order out of chaos.

Bruce wonders if it is him that is disordered.

The teacher calls on him, and he deliberately provides the wrong answer. His classmates laugh, and he smiles at them. Even the teacher is amused; he has been careful to maintain a rapport with all of his teachers.

Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Bruce recites in his head. Family, Genus, Species.

Something is wrong with Bruce, but whether the sickness was always there, lying in wait, or whether the death of his parents caused it, he does not know. What Bruce knows is that, deep down, he is not normal.

When he is thirteen years old, he is suspended from school for fighting. Alfred patches him up, face drawn and weary. He doesn't shout or lecture or any of the things that parents are supposed to do. He does not presume. Instead, he tells Bruce that his fitness as Bruce's guardian is being questioned. There will be a hearing and, until then, Bruce must go to counseling.

Bruce hates the councilor. He hates her hennaed hair and her tight-lipped smile. He hates the way she asks questions, and the way her eyes study him when he answers. Her eyes are beady and dark—crow's eyes—and he feels like an experiment in a dish.

"How did you feel when you struck the boy?" she wants to know.

And he answers truthfully, "Nothing."

Later, the woman pulls Alfred aside and says quiet words to him, watching Bruce as she whispers into the old man's ear. Alfred pulls away, his eyes going terribly livid for a moment, before he barks, "Come, Master Bruce. Let's go home."

It is the only time that Bruce has ever seen Alfred truly angry. The knuckles of the hand wrapped around the steering wheel are white. "I wish that I could forbid you to go back to that place," Alfred says, tightly. "But I cannot. Do you understand?"

Bruce nods. He does understand.

Bruce spends the entire next day in the library, reading every book on child psychology that he can get his hands on. He learns how to answer the councilor's questions in acceptable ways. He learns how to smile, and to nod, and to "make progress."

He learns how to pretend.

He pretends so well, that soon enough everyone forgets. The teachers lose their wariness. His peers invite him to their parties. The councilor testifies on Alfred's behalf. The reporters stop coming around. Everyone believes that he is fine.

But deep inside, Bruce knows that he is not fine. He does not fit. He is out of order.

He is alone.

Bruce is sixteen years old when he meets Jack, and everything changes.

Batman is thirty-four years old when he meets Joker, and everything ends.

Batman drops from the ventilation shaft into Joker's padded cell.

It has taken Batman a year to find a way inside Arkham Asylum. Now, it seems like it was a fool's errand. Joker sits unmoving on his narrow bed. His greasy green hair has been shaved close to the scalp, his makeup washed away to reveal a narrow, pale face bracketed with scars. His legs are splayed out in front on him, the left wrapped in a brace that covered his threadbare drawstring pants from calf to thigh. An injury from Joker trip down from the Pruitt Building; a compound fracture that never healed properly. Joker's eyes are glassy and unfocused. His hands, inside padded leather cuffs, lie bony and motionless in his lap.

He looks like a rag, folded in on himself, paper-thin and pale. His file says he is catatonic, unresponsive to therapy or medication.

Batman doesn't believe it.

"Joker," Batman hisses. His whisper seems loud in the still room. He hears the distant moan of another inmate, a shuffle of feet, the creak of a bed as someone turns over. No answer from the clown.

He crosses the room in an angry stride and shakes him. "Joker!" he tries again, more sharply. Joker's head flops loosely on his neck and Batman releases him, watching as he slumps over onto the thin bed.

Nothing. No movement. Not a snide remark, nor mocking smile, nor even a spark of recognition.

This is a waste of time.

Batman moves to go, when a low, hoarse sound stops him.

"Ah-" There's a long intake of breath, an obvious effort to try again. "I know why you're here."

He turns. Joker is still slumped over like a marionette with its strings cut, but his eyes have focused on Batman.

There is a long, tense moment where they simple stare at each other. Batman has forgotten the power in that gaze—uncanny intelligence and relentless obsession like a freight train running him down.

"Bruce," Joker slurs and Batman snaps into action, curling his fists into Joker's soft grey t-shirt and lifting him bodily from the bed. He slams him against the wall, Joker's knees knocking into his thighs with the impact and there it is-the mad swell of laughter. He cocks his fist back, wanting nothing so much as Joker blood on his gauntlet, when a noise makes them both freeze.

Footsteps outside the door, and Batman steps away, letting the clown crumple back onto the bed. He leaves as quickly and as silently as he can. He is barely outside Joker's cell when he hears the door crash open, and Joker's bright, "I'm glad you boys could make it," before the sound of the guard's shout and a fist impacting flesh.

Batman is gone before the fight is over.

"Hold him," Mario Maroni says.

Bruce's arms are yanked behind him and Mario's fist plants into his stomach. The blow knocks the wind out of Bruce, tears springing to his eyes. Mario draws back his fist and punches Bruce again. The pain is blinding, knocking his feet out from under him. He sags into the grip of the two other boys.

"Hey there, rich boy," Mario croons, cradling Bruce's chin in one hand. "You're in the wrong part of town." He smiles nastily at Bruce, brushing a hand against the collar of Bruce's coat. Bruce shifts away as much as he is able, and Mario lets him, a cruel smile still lighting his brutish face.

"I could break that pretty nose of yours. Really teach you a lesson." He laughs and his idiot friends guffaw, and Bruce tries to pull himself together and think. He gets his feet back under him, and kicks out, connecting with Mario's knee. The boy goes down and Bruce struggles against the hands holding him. He gets one arm free but then Mario is to his feet, pushing him against the wall of the alley and grinding his face against cold bricks.

"Now, that wasn't nice," Mario says. "Rich boys like you should learn who runs this town." He pulls Bruce around by the back of his jacket. The blow lands on his cheek, pain blossoming across his jaw. He pitches back, head ricocheting against the wall and into the next punch. He tries to defend himself, but there are three of them and, while he lands a few punches, he knows they are just toying with him. Another punch to his gut and Bruce is crumpling to the ground. He curls into himself as they kick him a few times.

"You want this?"

Bruce looks up, rage burning in his chest. The left side of his face aches with the movement. Mario is holding the necklace—Rachel's necklace, the one her mother had given her for birthday and that Mario had stolen from her locker at school—in front of Bruce's face. Bruce snatches for it, but Mario is quicker. He pulls it away, laughing. "You want it?" He cocks his arm back and throws it, the gold chain glittering as it arcs into the trash piled at the end of the alleyway. "Go get it!"

Mario kicks him one more time and he and his friends leave.

It takes Bruce a long minute to uncurl himself and scramble to the back of the alley. He digs carefully through leaves, broken bottles and other detritus, looking for the necklace. Rachel was crushed when she found it missing, and none of the teachers would do anything—even when Rachel had seen Mario wearing it the next day. Cold anger scorches him at the memory of Rachel's tear-streaked face. He shifts a large piece of glass out of his way, still probing for the discarded piece of jewelry. He is so intent on his task that he doesn't hear the other boy until he's right next to him.

High, eerie laughter awakens him to another presence and Bruce jumps, spins around in a crouch.

The boy is leaning up again the side of the building, and he's laughing like he's just heard the funniest thing in the world. Long streams of giggles bend him over, bony hands clutching his ribs in glee. He's dressed in a t-shirt and jeans that are at least two sizes too big for his tall, lanky frame. The t-shirt is a garish bright pink, and the blond hair that hangs in front of his face is long and stringy. He lifts his head, the giggles still bursting out of his wide red mouth and—oh my god, his face, Bruce thinks and stares. Long, angry red cuts extended the laughing mouth, dark thread binding the broken skin in uneven stitches that look swollen and painful. Bruce can see the skin break as the boy tips his head back and howls, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"You," the boy gasps, trying to speak past his mirth. "You just got your ass handed to you, didn't you?"

Bruce blinks, forces himself to stop staring at the horrific gashes that mar the boy's face. And he is a boy; Bruce can see that now. Despite his height, he can't be more than thirteen or fourteen, and painfully thin. He is mostly clean, but has the ragged look of someone who's lived on the street for a while. No track marks on his bare arms, though. No sores on his face or neck. Just those long, jagged cuts.

"I don't really see how that's so funny," Bruce says sullenly. He turns back to his task, dismissing the laughing boy.

"Of course you don't," the boy says gleefully. His laughter tapers off, and he unwinds himself from the wall, shivering all over in delight. "That's because you lost."

"I didn't lose," Bruce answers sullenly. He could kick himself. He doesn't know why he's letting this strange, and probably crazy, boy bait him like this. "There were three of them. It wasn't fair."

Bruce only has a moment to curse his inattention before the boy springs across the distance between them, his surprisingly strong hands gripping Bruce's shoulders painfully. "Fair?" he mocks. His face is so close to Bruce's that he cannot look away, watching in disgusted fascination as the gashes on his face bunch and move with the boy's words. "There is no fairness in this world, Bruce Wayne."

Bruce starts, surprised as he always in when people he doesn't know seem to know him. He twists away, shrugging the younger boy's hands off him. The boy leans back onto his heels, amused. He holds out his hand, Rachel's necklace dangling from his fingertips.

He pulls it away as Bruce snatches for it. "Fair doesn't matter," he says. He catches Bruce's eye and his eyes are green, bright and intense. Bruce was wrong about the boy's age. His eyes are old, far older than his thin, boyish body suggests. Bruce is trapped by that gaze, staring back for a long, dumbstruck moment. His brain is working to catch up, still reeling from the beating he received, and the boy's sudden and unnerving change of mood.

The boy seizes Bruce's wrist, uncurling Bruce's fingers and dropping the necklace inside. He closes Bruce's fingers around it, gives them a little pat and releases him. He stands, goes to the mouth of the alley. Bruce is still crouched next to a heap of trash, watching the boy as he hesitates between the darkness of the alley and the daylight beyond.

"What matters is who wins," the boy throws over his shoulder. He slips smoothly into the crowded street and disappears.