take on me
song of the chapter: take on me by a-ha
young!batsis!reader x (platonic) bruce wayne
cw: i dunno, cursing, talks of kidnapping, reader is homeless, reader is slightly alt, reader is thirteen, reader has hair
wc: 1,6 k
the routine you were in was one you knew all too well. your friends - or well, that's a strong word in these circumstances, maybe associates were a better word - stood on the stage, doing some party song from the 80s, maybe abba, maybe madonna, your hearing wasn't the best.
all the while you were out in the crowd, smiling politely and pretending under your layers of hair dye and eyeliner that you were older than thirteen, and that it was indeed legal for you as you snatched their wallets. most people were too drunk or busy to even notice the form that bumped into them, the hand that went into their pockets.
you hid the stolen wallets in your too-big denim jacket's inner pockets, the one that were secret and that you kept a knife or two in. just for emergencies.
the lights would be blinding to an unprepared person, but the smart ones had brought sunglasses and something to put in their ears.
safe to say, you were in that category.
you were smart, had always been. maybe not in the school-way, but rather in the street-way. you knew how to hotwire a car, how to throw a punch and how to pickpocket off of rich people.
and of course you knew how to run. some would even say it was your speciality.
you had a grace to you, one that didn't go unnoticed by the billionaire in the corner of the bar, watching you and your nimble hands move through the crowd with fake smiles and short nails.
it was like you were dancing through everything, the chaos and the smelly breaths.
he stayed in that corner until the bar closed at three am. so did you. so did the band.
he watched you as you met up with them, handing them each some extra dollar bills from your pockets. not once did you speak or glance at their eyes.
bruce noticed.
in return for the money you got a pat on the back and something whispered in your ear.
when you went out the backdoor you had put in your ipod, it was playing some old rock band. they didn't make real music like that anymore.
bruce didn't know what led him to following you home. maybe it was the fact that you seemed dirty, your shoes falling apart and your hair was shaggy. but for all he knew that might be some knew fashion trend he hadn't heard about, he had to admit that he wasn't the best at modern fashion.
you noticed his presence following you, of course you did. but you pretended not to, mouthing to sheer heart attack as you listened with the ear that wasn't occupied, following the soft duns of his footsteps.
but deep in your pocket you had a steady grip around a pocket knife, the thumb outside of your fist.
in the turn between 14th and 16th you took in towards the left, knowing that it was practically a maze at this point, with all the new alleys and streets and shitty apartment houses.
you did not anticipate or notice that the man would somehow get on the roof, watching you from there as you took every unnecessary turn until you were sure that he could impossibly have followed you. it was nothing new with stranger men in their forties or fifties or thirties following you girls late at night, but it didn't make it any less creepy.
bruce watched from far away as you climbed a fire escape ladder into a third-storey apartment with three broken windows and a horrible wall.
he wasn't even sure what he was doing at this point, what he was trying to do.
it was obvious that there wasn't anybody else in the place. should he just go in; ask if you wanted to follow him home?
sure, that had worked with jason, but you did not seem to be that desperate.
he didn't know how it came to this.
bruce wayne took the stairs up to apartment number thirty-one on floor three, concerned but not surprised to see that there wasn't even a lock on the entry door.
there was graffiti everywhere, crossed shards of glass, both from windows and from bottles spread out on the floor.
the door leading to your place was broken down and had a hole in it. not optional living arrangements for a teen. for anyone, really.
he didn't care. he knocked anyhow.
you froze up when you heard it, of course you did.
no one had knocked on that door in forever.
you hid the money quickly, throwing it into a bag and into the bathroom without a door.
you still had one ipod in, mötley crüe playing on it. the other one was hanging down your shirt. the knife was gripped as well, and you kept it in attack mode as you neared the door.
the person who knocked talked first as you stood his just out of sight from the giant hole.
"hey kid. i'm bruce wayne."
those words would forever come to change your life.
"you want to come with me home?"
at that you scrunched up you nose, making sure to find another knife. one weapon had never been enough.
"shit. that sounded... really fucking weird." he muttered more to himself than you.
"yeah. anyways. i'm going to leave a card here. come by someday if you decide you want real food or an actual bed."
the whole thing was confusing as fuck, you thought as you pulled a strand of hair behind your ear.
-
you didn't know how you came to find yourself there. maybe it was becasue you got fucking cut off. with no income anymore, food was limited to things you could steal. people didn't hire thirteen year olds. and you didn't steal from people on the street. you just didn't. they hadn't paid a fortune to get into some fancy, overpriced club.
you couldn't know if they needed the money, if they had more.
at the club it was easier.
wayne manor was a big place, and you were supposed to knock on some big ass metal door before you were allowed entrance, but a car was passing through when you came there.
it was simple to sneak in with said vehicle.
now, standing at the door, you were unsure what to do. did you just knock? would that be weird? what would you even say?
but before you could even finish your thoughts, the door smashed open in your face, revealing a man with both white and dark hair, with a big-ass scar on his cheek.
you didn't say anything to him. he spoke first. duh.
"uhm. okay. who are you?" it wasn't as rude as it could've been. in fact, some would even consider the question said in a polite way. the tone wasn't posh as one would expect from this place, but rather filled with something from the streets that you knew much too well.
"bruce wayne?" you asked, voice harsh ad defensive altough you tried to cool it down a few steps. "is he here?"
the man looked at you like if you were the oddest thing on earth before he called out to someone.
"alfred! there's a kid at the door!"
the two of you kept eye-contact as 'alfred' came towards the door.
"yes, master jason?" asked alfred as he got to the door, catching a glance between you and said man.
jason didn't really speak, but he did open his mouth and gesture towards you.
"she says she wanna see bruce." jason said after a while of just stuttering.
"bruce wanna see me." you corrected loosely.
"follow me, miss...?" the old man dressed in black and white like a butler from those films from the sixties told you.
you didn't bother with telling him your name as you side-stepped jason into the house.
"master wayne is inside here, young miss." alfred had an incredibly posh accent.
he left you after that. it startled you.
the man left an unsupervised thief in a house filled with gold and silver and probably diamonds and rubies too if you looked after them.
you didn’t bother looking for it.
and so, you knocked on the scary, absolutely intimidating door that was bigger than doors should be and wider than any two human beings together that you had ever seen.
the man answered tiredly with a; “yes, dick?”
you didn’t bother with correcting him. you weren’t dick, you were you.
you made the door fly open fast, making sure that it wouldn’t be a startling move.
you didn’t speak as you went into the room, and he didn’t look up from his papers until you’d already closed the doors behind you.
if something were to happen, you had a knife and a hand-gun hidden in your black hoodie.
not a lot, but hopefully enough. the man hadn’t seemed like a threat.
when mr. wayne finally did look up from his papers, he seemed as freaked out to see you as you were to see him.
“it is you.” he stated before saying your first name, the one that nobody ever really used.
you wanted to ask him how the fuck he knew that, but you supposed that with this much money and probably connections, nothing were impossible.
“i was promised food.” you stated. maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to say to a complete stranger, but having survived three days with only two apples and a bottle of water, you were kinda desperate.
“of course.” bruce wayne said, ringing a bell. he seemed to be nervous. it was weird.
only a few seconds later, a whole buffet stood in front of you, filled with both apples and blueberries and pineapple and sandwiches and countless of other things. you did not wait for permission before diving into it all.
safe to say, that was the turning point of your life.