Bruce Had Spent Years Abroad, Stuffing Lifetimes Of Experience And Training And Knowledge Into A Fraction

Bruce had spent years abroad, stuffing lifetimes of experience and training and knowledge into a fraction of time. There is an endless number of memories to dwell on, thousands of people, of smiles, of hands outstretched in welcome and of fingers wrapped around weapons. There is an endless number of memories to dwell on. But often since his robins he thinks of the six months of a Russian winter he spent learning what it meant to be cold, learning what it meant to survive alone.

Four months training, one month tracking caribou across the northern mountains with his trainer, and then a month to get back on his own. 

It might have gone well if not for the wolf that dogged their steps. His trainer had beaten him bloody and taken his jacket when he’d found Bruce leaving scraps in the snow for it. 

“You do not have enough to be giving what you have to a dog,” the man had spat. “If you want to throw your life away I will end you now and save myself a month of carrying you.”

Bruce had argued back, they could pull down another caribou, the meat would keep in the cold and he could carry it with him until they reached somewhere the wolf could find a pack of it’s own. His trainer had only looked at him in pity.

“I knew you had too much heart when I took you on, I do not enjoy training boys who will only go on to die, sobachka. You as you are now can only carry enough vital resources for yourself, any more and you will collapse before you reach safety, or you will give up too much food and find yourself starving and you will be it’s next meal” 

That night on watch the wolf had slunk up to his side, eyes gleaming like stars in the firelight and ribs showing clean through it’s fur. It had taken the last of his beef jerky gingerly right from his hands. He knew the wolf would continue to follow them, knew his trainer would kill it if he saw it the next day so he had gripped his hunting rifle in his hands and taken aim just to the left of it’s body. As if it knew exactly what the sight of gun meant it shot off, disappearing into the night before he’d gotten the sight up to his face. 

In a way the man had been wrong. Making his way back alone Bruce had made a fatal mistake, falling through a crevice in the ice and into water just above freezing he’d passed out moments after dragging himself out. He would have, should have, died. But the wolf had found him, had dug a den out of the snow and dragged him in out of the wind, curled up around him until Bruce could feel his fingers again and get out of his wet clothes.

In a way the man had been right. Bruce didn’t have enough for the two of them, hunting was hard and it wasn’t made much better with his companion. By the time they’d made it back to his trainers hut both of them were more bone than skin but Bruce had been so proud. He should have known, by the look on his trainers face, should have been better, faster, thought smarter. But he hadn’t, wasn’t, and the man had shot the wolf before Bruce could throw himself in front of the bullet.

Sometimes, on the worst of night in Gotham, he wonders, between him and Robin, who is the wolf, and who is the boy.

wagon wheels and dirt roads - exploration on the worst of the training instilled in Bruce and how he tries not to pass it on to his robins