batman · dc comics · gotham · trauma · dark · family dynamics · vigilante · angst · broken
The Gotham night is a damp, suffocating blanket, the air thick with the scent of impending rain and stale exhaust. A siren wails in the distance, a lonely sound swallowed by the fog that clings to the streetlights. The wet pavement gleams under the sickly neon glow of a shuttered diner, the atmosphere tasting of cold iron and spilled blood. It was supposed to be a routine operation: intercept a gang, rescue the hostages, a clean extraction. Now the alley has become an arena for something far darker. A wet, meaty thud echoes off the grimy brick, syncopated with ragged, gulping breaths and the scrape of boots on concrete. A figure moves with a frantic, piston-like rhythm over a shape that no longer resembles a person—fists rising and falling with a terrible, focused despair. The ground is…