Chapter two:

Take things in from the random red-head's point of view. The one little 12 year old red-headed boy who was present in the crowds the day the boy fell. He saw the child die right in front of his eyes. He saw heard every step and saw everything spill out, and to be honest this was the first time the twelve year old had ever seen a dead body up close before. While this horrid event should have scared him for life, instead, the boy found himself intrigued by this, by the way that the boy had fallen. It was obvious to the all the sharpest members of the crowd that night, that this was no accident, and was indeed a murder. Though, the only one sharp enough to take notice, seemed to be this one random little boy. So from his spot in the stands, the young Wallace West sat as still as stone, one question bonding about in his head. Just a two word question.

"But why..." And those were the words, just those two little words, that had sparked the beginning of young Wallace West's career as a private investigator, but before that happened, a little research had to have been done.

So rather than returning home from the circus and going back to working on his science project, which had been the same one that his uncle had been working on years before him, the young boy named Wallace West found himself in his room that night, reading page up on page of any information given to him from his laptop. All of a boy formally known as Richard 'Dick' Grayson.

He learned that night and the following morning, that not only had the boy been close to his age, Dick being just three years younger than him, but he also discovered during his research that the boy and him had gone to the same preschool at one point. White Bridge Preschool as it had been called. In White Bridge, it was required that you interact with everyone in the building at least once. So to keep up to the rules, the two boys had spent there afternoons doing small things that would count as 'interaction'. Even going as far as sharing their wooden building blocks at one point. It wasn't much, and didn't even include talking, but it met the school's standards.

Another interesting bit Wally would soon learn, is that at the ages of 7 and 4, the two had lived just two blocks away from one another on opposite sides of the street and the more the boy thought of this, the more he realized that he had passed that powder blue house many times on his way to the park as a smaller child and while it may have just been his excitement playing with his head, he began to vaguely remember a little ravened haired boy, sitting on the front stoop of his house with an annoyingly colored ball. You could barely call the two friends, but with this information in mind, and the gentle heart he had, to Wally, that was enough to put Richard on his list of people to avenge. Now with this in his young, little mind, that an 'old friend' had been murdered, the boy quickly began his pursuit in the field of criminal justice. Or at least as much as he could do, given his age.

AU to Chapter two:

Richard 'Dick Grayson's' story played out a little differently than Wallace's. If the boy hadn't fallen to his death that night, but instead left the tent with just a small break in his arm, then the red headed boy in the crowd had no need for his extensive research and would have just gone home. Poor Grayson however, left the tent and went straight to the hospital to have his arm fix and set in a sling. His mother was in a panic, reminding her husband of all of the past circus deaths and how their son might have been one of them had he not been caught. Her husband had to agree with her, and while their boy was still under, high off of his pain killers, they made the final arrangements to withdraw from their spots on the circus roster. Mary Grayson, the boy's mother, had even made arrangements to have the family live with some out of town relatives.

"Mom, I said I was fine." The young boy complained as his doting family helped him from his loaned wheelchair and into the family car later on that night.

The family, all alive and well, were on their way to the old and withered tan house, stationed just three hours away and belonging to Richard's maternal aunt, Harriet Bets. He didn't know much about her other than that she was his mother's older sister and was quite friendly to those young than her. He also knew, having been told just eight minutes, that his temporary state of residence would be at her house.

"You can never be to careful." Mary reminded him, about to return the wheelchair to the waiting nurse when she saw a raven haired man approaching them.

This man was known well as Bruce Wayne, who had been in the stands that night, right next to the sharp little red-head and was the only one from the crowd to come see if the boy was alright, and even before arriving had paid off the hospital bill for the family. So you can imagine that the mother was more than happy to talk to him. For the next fifteen minutes she buzzed about the 'old set of wires that had snapped finally'. She added in that she felt it was somehow all planned by the way that they snapped the night her son performed without the net, falling just in the right spot that he was caught and survived. By the time she had finished her story, she was in such a frenzy that she simply hugged the man in front of her before getting back into the passenger side of her car and attempting to take some deep, calming breaths before another round of tears could spring up.

After a final set of goodbyes, the old blue car was off and down the rode, heading farther and farther away from the raven haired man and the town called Gotham.