[ It always starts with at least one dead parent, doesn't it? It's hard to imagine how something like that could have gone on to the extent where someone was murdered before Bruce caught on, but it's impossible to know what the circumstances were, let alone the fact that this Bruce isn't the one he knows so well. For as much as they have in common there's still a lot that could be very different.

He's taken the cowl and his coffee with him to the table, pushing aside a stack of old police files so that he has some elbow room, angling himself so that he can still see Terry. He'd have to admit that part of this is easy because he has exactly the right kind of look to fit right in with the rest of them, handsome and broad-shouldered with the dark hair and blue eyes, a shade or two lighter than his own. ]

I'm sorry about your dad. That's how most of us ended up here, but it doesn't really get easier. [ Or safer to be around them. ] Was he just saying that to try to get you to leave it alone?

[ Bruce wouldn't have just brushed it off, would he? Even if his age had caught up with him, and he wasn't physically able to keep up anymore. ]