2 Chapter 2: A new home and a new watch
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"Everyone has a vulnerability."
― Alfred Pennyworth [DC comics]
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"Do you want to wear the black suit or the beige one master Bruce. I do recommend the black one since it will go well with your skin tone." Alfred was holding two suits in his hands while comparing which one would look better on Bruce.
"I'll take the black one then. It would suit well with the dark and grim theme of Gotham." Bruce replied in a monotone voice at which Alfred just sighed.
Bruce was at last being released from the hospital after spending about another three days in there. The medical authorities actually wanted to keep him under observation for another week but Bruce with his current disturbed mentality didn't want to spend another moment here and thus made Alfred pressurize the hospital board to give him an early discharge.
He knew that for every second he spent here, the chances of people discovering that something was wrong with him was increasing. This was mostly because despite being transmigated inside the original Bruce Wayne's body, he had neither inherited his full memories nor his personality.
Well, perhaps he might have inherited some muscle memories or some deeply ingrained emotions from the old Bruce since he did feel relaxed after seeing Alfred near him every time but nothing above that.
He was lucky that the original Bruce suffered so much before his death since it was the reason that he could just give the excuse of 'trauma' to everyone to explain his present change in attitude from the old one.
But he didn't want to be near a lot of people and risk them suspecting something about him especially since the doctors and nurses were keeping a twenty-four hour watch on him due to him being a VIP.
In fact, a lot of people including the press, politicians, businessmen and everyone else who called themselves 'family friends', had tried to visit him to get into his good books. Of course Bruce denied all of them for now. He didn't want to meet anybody without any information about them and himself and his family first.
After Alfred signed the documents and completed the formalities on behalf of Bruce, they boarded their Rolls Royce parked in the front while avoiding the paparazzi trying to get a sad photo of Bruce's face for the next day's front page.
Alfred had already been given the legal guardianship of Bruce. Though there were a lot of people trying to prevent that from happening as well as people who wanted to adopt Bruce themselves due to being 'caring' towards the child, Alfred didn't face any hiccups especially since the late Wayne couple had mentioned in their will that if something were to happen to them, Alfred would be the first in line to get his legal guardianship.
"The paparazzi are the biggest gangsters of this town, I tell you. They are the devil incarnate." Alfred said in anger as he closed the door to the car.
"No, they aren't. The devil is much more fun." Bruce muttered to himself as he looked outside the moving car and gazed at the worn down condition of the city.
The Wayne mansion was only about a fifteen minute drive from the hospital but in that short time Bruce saw about five drug deals on the streets, half a dozen different mugging incidents and about a dozen hookers trying to sell themselves in broad daylight. He was sure that he even heard a few gunshots on the way. The condition of the city really was bad.
As they reached the gates of the mansion, Bruce's heart began to speed up. He knew that it was probably the leftover emotions of the old Bruce. But he himself was surprised at how luxurious and big the Wayne mansion was. The word mansion was probably downplaying it. It could even be called a palace. That's how big and luxurious it looked.
Bruce knew that he had severely underestimated the wealth of the Waynes. Perhaps the family was even richer than what Batman liked to show.
"Please master Bruce, after you." Alfred opened the car's door for him as he gestured towards the entrance of the house.
"Thank you." Bruce said. He had been trying to act all noble and courteous recently to imitate the role of a broody billionaire orphan well. He thought he was doing a really good job.
As Bruce entered into his new home followed by Alfred, he was sure of one thing, he was filthy rich indeed. The large living room in the mansion was decorated by what looked like priceless antiques. From a piano to a standing knight in armor, it had it all.
"Do you want me to take you to your room master Bruce or do you want to get a bath first? I can even fix up some food as well if you are hungry. Perhaps some garlic bread and scrambled eggs?" Alfred asked courteously.
Although Bruce had a literal chill run through his body after hearing the line about taking a bath from the butler, he still controlled himself from replying with 'No homo'. He just coughed lightly and told Alfred to take him to his new room first especially since Bruce didn't even remember where his old room was and he definitely didn't want to search the huge mansion to find out.
"Fine master Bruce, but you ARE going to have some dinner later. You need to eat to heal up quickly." Alfred said as he looked directly into Bruce's eyes to get his point across.
Bruce of course was quite amused. He had always thought that Alfred was a gentle person. He had no idea that the English butler could be strict as well when he needed to be.
He just nodded with a small smile on his face and followed Alfred who was himself pleased from Bruce's answer and thus smiling as well.
After they came in front of a large door on the second floor, Alfred opened the door for Bruce and gestured for him to enter.
As Bruce entered his room, he got the same luxurious old-money feeling he got from the rest of the house. There was a queen-sized bed in the massive room, multiple wardrobes, a fireplace, and even a work desk, as well as a large bookshelf. He even noticed two more doors in his room which he assumed to be the doors to a balcony and an attached toilet.
"It is as you left it, Master Bruce. I didn't let the maids make a single change." Alfred declared with what seemed to be almost a proud expression on his face.
"Thank you Alfred. I guess you are the only one that truly cares for me even after my parents are gone." Bruce said in a sad manner trying to act up the part of a boy who just lost his parents.
"Its my duty Master Bruce. I'll always be there for you no matter what." Alfred said after flinching a little as he heard him mention his parents being gone. He was trying not to talk about the death of Bruce's parents since he blamed himself for not being there in time, for not being able to save them.
"Actually I have something to give you master Bruce. Here, this is the watch that your father promised to give you that day after the show. Most of their stuff was taken by the police after their death as evidence, but I was able to pull some strings to secure this. It seems to be not working anymore but I am sure that we will be able to find someone to fix this later." Alfred took out a really expensive looking watch and handed it to Bruce.
"Umm, thanks. This means a lot to me.' Bruce said. It meant sh*t to him since he didn't remember anything about this watch but it looked like a really expensive limited edition Rolex piece and he was gonna keep it as a momento.
"It's okay. I'll be taking my leave now. Please call me if you need anything. Also, dinner will be at seven. I'll even tell the chef to prepare your favorite chocolate mousse cheesecake as dessert" The butler smiled a little before turning around and leaving while closing the door behind him.
'He is a really good butler, isn't he? I guess the original Bruce was really lucky to get him as his parent while growing up. Perhaps the luck passed on to me now.' Bruce thought to himself as he lied down on his comfortable and soft bed.
'I don't think think I'll be able to live much longer. A lot of people would want me dead and I doubt I currently possess the willpower and skills to become the Batman. I would probably die even before the canon starts. So I should just enjoy my limited days on this dark twisted version of earth by spoiling myself silly with all this wealth. Maybe I should just sell all this and escape to some no-name country to live out the rest of my days in peace and luxury.' Bruce thought as he fiddled with the broken watch.
The watch didn't have much damage on the outside except the slightly cracked glass but for some reason the seconds hand wasn't able to move from its place despite it still making the ticking sound. It seemed like something was stopping the seconds hand from starting its journey round the dial.
'I wonder how this watch works. Does it work like all watches do in the twentieth century or does it have different machine parts? Huh, I truly should be ashamed at myself. Two years of learning electronics engineering and I still don't even know how a simple watch works.' He thought angry at himself as he barely learnt anything about engineering. Even the only program he had learnt to write in his two years of study in his past life was 'hello world'.
As Bruce just blankly stared at the watch, his anger rising at the watch not working for some reason, he began to slowly lose himself into the constant rhythmic ticking sound. All he wished was to somehow learn how this broken watch worked and fix it just like he desperately wanted to fix his life.
And that was the moment which changed Bruce's life forever for he finally discovered his 'cheat' for his new life since under Bruce's watchful eyes, the Rolex soon appeared to break apart into holograms of its most basic components layer by layer as they lined up to show Bruce how they worked, to show him their secrets.
He immediately understood how the watch originally worked, its mechanism, the problem for which it was not working, even what it was made of. He was even sure that he could make the same watch himself if given the right tools.
'What the hell was that? It felt like I was high or something. It felt... awesome. Is that supposed to be my ability? I can know how stuff works?' Bruce laughed as he finally realized that what he felt might just be the key to his survival in this world.
"If this is real, I am going to spam the hell out of this" Bruce thought as he began to think how else he could use his power to make the coolest stuff or reverse engineer the most complicated technologies to give him an edge over the rest of the heroes and villains out there.
He was going to survive and he would do anything to make sure of that.
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