Shifted

Ch-1

-The Start-

Bruce Wayne didn't mind being in Europe. It was certainly more enjoyable than some of the other places he has been, as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Dick often compared the dark overcast skies of London to Gotham. There was something about the undertone of rain that stuck to the air that reminded him so much of home. Home. He supposed that even the big, scary Batman was capable of getting homesick. It wasn't just Gotham itself that he missed though, Bruce was starting to miss all of his children and it made his heart ache remembering that he was so far away from them.

He had been in Europe for nearly two weeks working on an investigation for the JLA. A new drug had sprung up in most of their major cities. Ollie and Bruce had brought the issue to the attention of the League, and Bruce hadn't even noticed the drug until Ollie approved him about it.

According to Jason, who'd managed to snag some off of one of his sources, someone was cutting the opiate with chemicals, causing the chances of having an overdose to skyrocket. They'd gotten a tip that a wearhouse in London might be a stash house for the original source,so Bruce immediately hopped on a plane and made his way here. A quick call with his CEO's in London gave Bruce Wayne the perfect reason to be in London for the next few weeks.

The meeting with the supervisors had been yesterday, and Bruce spent the rest of the day scoping out the London docks for the source of the drugs. He came up empty, though; it looked like every warehouse that may have had something in it was clean.

For the first time in a while, Bruce found himself at a loss of what to do with his time. At least he now knew what his children meant when they said they were bored, despite the mountains of reports Bruce knew they needed to write for the League. This lead him to walk aimlessly throughout the streets of London, occasionally stopping at shops when something in the window caught his eye.

A pretty diamond cat had stood out to him a few blocks back, but upon entering the store and looking at it more closely, it turned out to be a fake. Never in a million years would Bruce gift fake diamonds to Selina. She would skin him alive before he could even think about apologizing.

Lost in his thoughts about certain cats and his children, Bruce didn't notice the boy until he, quite literally,ran into him. The boy hardly came up to Bruce's chest, so when he ran full speed into him, he knocked himself slightly off balance. Thankfully, Bruce has fast reflexes and was able to stop the kid from falling flat onto the sidewalk.

"Hey kid, are you alright?" Bruce looked at the child and took in his appearance with his concern growing rapidly. His clothes looked like they belonged on a whale instead of him, and the glasses he wore had cracks and fractures in places. Underneath the glasses were wide emerald green eyes that looked frantically around them. The boy was rambling off apologies, not allowing Bruce to eat a word in edge wise so he gently placed his hands on the kid's shoulders to calm him down. This had the opposite effect as he violently flinched away from the touch. Red flags flashed in his head in warning and Bruce prepared to look into the kid's family, if he even had one at all.

Bruce smiled and looked the kid in the eyes while promising him that it was okay. The longer he looked at the boy, the more similarities he found between the two of them. Their facial structure and eye shape were nearly identical, the difference being the vastly different colors of their eyes, and the kid's skin was shades darker than his. The green color of his eyes sparked a familiarity in Bruce, but he pushed it aside for the time being.

"Hey, kid what-" a tall, thin woman storming up to them abruptly cut him off as she angrily yanking the boy from him.

"Boy! What have I told you about bothering good people with your freakish presence?" The woman shouted disgustedly at the kid. The kid in question just stood there looking more bored and unamused than alarmed that the woman was gripping his arm tight enough Bruce was beginning to worry about circulation.