It's too late for any normal twelve year old to be outside in a city like Gotham, but you're not a normal twelve year old. You've been out here for about a year now, living among the steel forest of the worst of this place. You're scrawny, but muscular from the street, from walking everywhere or running from hustlers and stores where you've shoplifted.
The hunger gnawing at your stomach you've become good at ignoring.
Crime Alley is a place in Gotham that looks as rank as it smells. The musty, urine-ridden and choking exhaust permeates the air on the street, and you're used to it. You coast down the alley with your hood up, hands in your pockets, and in the distance, you see it. Just sitting there. Sleek, glistening, a smattering of black and grey so that it almost blends in with the shadows.
The Batmobile.
You come closer. You stop. You look around. You try to lean to peer into the single unit roof of the cabin, but it's opaque, offering you not a thing except your dirty and dingy, hungry-eyed expression. You knock on the window. What's going to happen really? Batman rolls it down and asks what you want? Nothing happens. You wait around a little more, keeping a watchful eye out, and nothing happens still.
So you leave. You double back to your little hideaway and dig out the tire iron you've squirreled away, and you carry it right back to Crime Alley. Your feet move a little faster. Your heart races thinking about how disappointing it'd be if you got there and the Batmobile is gone.
But it's not.
When you return, the Batmobile is still there. Like before, you edge up, keep an eye out. You knock on the window. Nothing happens. You think if you wait too long, it'll be too late. You're only twelve, but you kneel down by the front tire and situate the tire iron in place over one of the lugs and twist. It's tough. You're just twelve. You don't eat well. The muscle is all stringy. You have to sit on the tire iron with your weight and pray it won't break because you're not sure where you'll scratch up a new one.
The lug loosens, the iron swinging down and dumping you hard on the ground. But it loosens! You do the others exactly like it. On the Batmobile, of all things. You get the whole rugged tire off the Batmobile, and you roll it over to the front of the alley to lean it on a building. You go back to start on the next one, the back tire.
As you're turning the iron on the second lug, a deep and rough voice behind you asks sternly, "What do you think you're doing?"
The natural fear of living on the street and being caught spikes through you, and you whip around. Towering over you is what may be a man, or may be a monster. Humanoid, big, broad. He has a powerful-looking uniform on, a cape, and a cowl with two pointed tips, like ears. A bat. You can only see the white glint of the plates over his eyes. It's Batman. You've never seen him in person in your life, but like the rest of the people working Crime Alley, his legend lives in the back of your mind at all times. He exists. It makes the hair stand up on your arms.
"You do realize you parked your car in Crime Alley, right?" you ask back.
"Come with me," he says.
It's the last thing you think you want to do. Go with this weirdo chump. You aren't afraid he'll kill you because you know Batman doesn't kill. You are afraid of where he'll take you, though. To the police, to a foster system rife with terrible people and no stability. Not today, you think. You drop the tire iron, and it's like he already can tell you're going to bolt. As you twist to spring away, you only get so far before he grabs a fistful of your jacket from behind. And you try to fight him.
You fight Batman with what strength you have. It's so easy for him to lift you up off the ground, single-handed. It might be what clues him in.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
You don't want charity. You don't want some freak's handouts. But you wouldn't mind taking advantage of Batman just because he acts so tough, like he has all the answers, like he can do anything. And you know, deep down, you don't, you can't.
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