The Truth Behind His Life

Title: The Truth Behind His Life

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Batman

Part: 17

Pairing: Xander/Dick

Word count: 1,441

AN: I forgot to post this last week due to being completely absent minded. Oops. Sorry you guys.

*~*~*~*

Glaring at the computer screen before him, Bruce tugged off his gloves and stood, walking over to where his costume usually sat. He removed each piece, using the moments to focus his mind and calm his emotions. Once he had dressed in a pair of sweat pants and a simple t-shirt, he was settled and could see where Dick had been coming from with his words and advice.

As much as Xander unsettled him, Xander was a fellow hunter. But a hunter of what was still unanswered. Even after so much time spent watching him, Bruce didn’t have his answer, but he highly doubted that it was humans that he hunted. Even when the young male had been attacked by gangs, he had never hurt them beyond some stun gun marks and twitching muscles.

Sitting before the computers, Bruce took a deep breath and opened a search screen, he started to list in general terms everything he had on Xander. Joker, cross dresser, Sunnydale, fighter, graduate and several other lines appeared before him, finally prompting him to press enter to start the search.

Settling back, he picked up the legal pad he had been using for his notes on one Alexander LaVelle Harris. Writing down his conversation with Dick, Bruce glanced up at the screens as pages were compiled into a list that would then be compared and placed into a sorted out list for his perusal. He paused in his writing and contemplated Dicks words, a clue clicking in his head and making him curse softly to himself.

“Wonderful time to get cryptic, Dick,” Bruce growled, rubbing at his face and glaring at the computer screen. Alfred chuckled as he placed a tray with a plate filled with a grilled cheese on it and a bowl of steaming soup.

“Barbra made dinner, sir, saying something about men being impossible to understand,” Alfred said at the look that came from Bruce. “As for young Master Grayson, he did learn from the best, so it is not surprising that he would be so good at being cryptic.”

”Yes, I know,” Bruce sighed as he tapped his pen on the legal pad. “He told me I needed and open mind, but I took it that my mind wasn’t willing to take the truth as it is.”

“So it wasn’t that, sir?” Alfred asked, handing over the soup and sandwich, Bruce picking up one of the sandwich quarters.

“No entirely, Alfred. I do need a more open mind when it comes to Alexander Harris, but I also need to use Dicks computer program,” Bruce said, dipping a corner into the soup. “Said program is called Open Mind and can find sites and information that normal search engines can’t,” he stated, biting and chewing as Alfred’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“I see,” Alfred mused, sitting down and watching the younger man before him. “Sir, why are you so intent on finding out about young Alexander?” he asked after Bruce had eaten half of the sandwich and the soup. Bruce sat back once more and wiped his mouth as he stared at the screens, once more deep in thought.

“At first, I didn’t know why I didn’t like the young man, so I just thought it was unease at someone doesn’t know our night time careers,” Bruce started, rubbing at his chin. “But now that I think about it, it was because I could sense in him a fellow hunter, one in my territory.”

“So it made you feel territorial?” Alfred asked, Bruce nodding. “What else is making you so intent on finding out about him?”

“He knows what we do at night. Hell, he put things together with only a few clues and some news broadcasts,” Bruce groaned, rubbing at his face as he tried to keep calm. He ate another section of grilled cheese sandwich and calmed himself as Alfred waited patiently for him to continue. “He has a history that is so well hidden that there is no record for him beyond his schooling, and his birth certificate. Maybe his driver’s license. It’s like everything about him was sucked down a black hole.”

“It sounds as if Mr. Harris is well protected by someone,” Alfred stated as he stood.

“He is,” Bruce told him, nodding his head. “And Dick knows who he is and what he’s gone through the years, but he refuses to talk about it. Xander just talks in circles, telling me everything but nothing at the same time.”

“It also sounds as if you respect the young man for that fact,” Alfred said, Bruce nodding and finishing his food. “Miss. Gordon needs to let you do the research I believe.”

“Can you tell her that I’m using the Open Mind program?” Bruce asked, handing over the tray. Alfred nodded with a smile before heading upstairs to tell her that as the younger man went back to his note taking. Finishing with the conversation, he looked up as the program started to separate and categorize the sites before beeping three times.

Sitting up again, he moved closer to the computer and opened the first website. Before him was the information on one Alexander Harris, the Slayer’s heart and White Knight of Sunnydale. The site spoke of how he had been adopted at two months of age and moved to Sunnydale, becoming a Hellmouth baby. It continued on with his childhood and how he had met a young woman named Elizabeth Summers, otherwise known as Buffy, who had turned out to be a Vampire Slayer. She was just one of many in a long line of girls as he found out after he took a moment to read and research what a Slayer was.

Bruce continued to read about how one of Xanders best friends, a Willow Rosenburg and another male simply called Jesse, had been taken by vampires on the Masters command. Xander and Buffy had been able to save young Willow but Jesse had still been kidnapped and turned, used as bait by the Master during something called the Harvest. What he found out about both made him feel ill at the sheer violence that was shown and how the town seemed to be run as a slaughter farm.

To him, Gotham was a shining star of will power to the sheep like nature of Sunnydale.

Xanders stake had been the one to take out his friend, the demon wearing Jesse’s face going to ash. From there, Xander and Willow help Buffy take down those creatures that killed the innocents for fun, despite the two girls going on a ‘You’re normal so you need to stay away’ kick when Willow discovered her magic. Everything that Xander did, from facing down an insane Angelous in the hospital while Buffy was in the hospital all the way to helping them to blow up the school so they could stop the mayor when he turned into a demonic worm and starting to eat everyone, made Bruce wonder just how the young man had come away with his sanity.

Standing up, he rubbed at his tired eyes before standing with a groan. Using the bathroom he had built down in the cave, he washed his hands before walking back to the computer, sitting down and staring at the pictures of Xander with his friends, on his own and on patrol. His mind was whirling with all of the new information about Dicks young roommate, trying to fix the fact that his world had been turned upside down.

“And Dick knows all of it,” Bruce rumbled, eyes closing and letting his head drop back onto the back of his hair. “What am I going to do now?” he muttered. He had to talk with Xander again, but not as Batman, the caped crusader as he was labeled, but rather as Bruce Wayne, the information gatherer. Checking the time, he figured it would wait until the next day, after he had gotten sleep and spent another night watching the younger male with newly opened eyes and newly arms with full information.

Leaving the bat cave after saving the information, he walked down the silent hallways towards his bedroom, finding his night pants out on his bed and the blankets pulled back for him. Pulling off his clothes, he took a very hot shower to relax, his thoughts finally calming down enough to straight. Once he was dried and clothes, he climbed into his bed and found himself falling asleep easily, knowing he had made the right decision finally when it came to Xander.