{AN-Note that up to chapter four, I am rewriting. You'll see another note similar to this on each, and I'll let everyone know when I'm done by chapter 5. Sorry for the inconvienience.}
Gotham rain had a smell to it—burned copper and mildew, like even the clouds were corroding. It clung to the tenements and the sidewalks, curled in the gutters like smoke. Jonathan Crane—not that Crane, no relation, thank God—shoved his hoodie tighter around his shoulders and watched his breath coil in the air.
They'd said it was just a vaccine.
A pop-up mobile clinic, a LexCorp van with clean white tents and bored-looking nurses handing out lollipops to kids and sterile smiles to their parents. His mother hadn't even questioned it. Free shots, fast lines. She'd practically dragged him there.
He remembered the cold pinch in his arm. He remembered how the nurse—white-blonde, surgical-gloved—had smiled at him too long, like she knew something he didn't. Then the van had rolled up and moved to the next block.
That was a week ago.
Now Jonathan felt like he was coming apart at the seams.
He'd spent the last two nights shaking with fever, skin twitching like there were ants under it, muscles contracting like piano wire pulling taut. Every breath tasted like rust. He couldn't keep food down. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't think straight.
And then, there was the lamp.
It was a cheap desk lamp, the kind that hummed when it got hot. His mom had bought it from a pawn shop two years back. But tonight, it buzzed louder than usual. Not a mechanical whine—something deeper, like the sound of electricity learning how to scream.
He'd leaned forward, already dizzy, and—
Pop.
A flash of white-blue light, the smell of ozone, and the bulb shattered in a crack of glass. At the same time, his vision blurred—not just blurred, but bent. The world around him shivered, colors doubling up like afterimages, and somewhere beyond the walls of his apartment, something hit.
Like thunder with no delay.
He didn't know it then, but the explosion had just torn STAR Labs apart in Central City.
And the wave that followed—unseen, unmeasured—swept across the continent like radiation's ghost, touching skin, metal, air.
It hit Jonathan mid-collapse, just as his head struck the corner of his desk. His blood pooled beside a jagged piece of lamp wire, sparking faintly. And in that moment—unseen by any eye, human or otherwise—the nanotech in his veins, designed to consume and analyze tissue, faltered. It paused. Then it adapted.
Where once it devoured, it now rebuilt.
Inside him, bones restructured. Nerves rewired. Neural pathways branched like lightning bolts. The nanites, drawn to the pulse of the Speed Force trailing through the air like a vapor, latched on.
Jonathan's body went still. His breath stopped.
And the world kept moving without him.
Three Years Later
The hospital room smelled like bleach and too many apologies. Machines hummed like cicadas on morphine. A single light flickered in the hallway outside, echoing with the slow shuffle of nurses who had long stopped expecting change from Room 4B.
Then—his finger twitched.
Small. Barely noticeable. But the machines noticed.
Beep. Beep. Beeeeeep.
Doctors came running. Orderlies dropped coffee. The nurse who'd done his chart that morning dropped it entirely. He wasn't just stabilizing—he was surging. Brain activity spiking, muscles activating all at once, as if waking from a dream that lasted too long.
Jonathan Crane, legally dead on paper for forty-three seconds three years ago, sat upright in bed.
And screamed.
Later, after the sedation wore off and the questions started, he didn't have many answers. His voice was hoarse, his body thin, but something in his eyes was too alert. Too sharp. He spoke with a calmness that didn't match his age. And when he touched the touchscreen pad they gave him to type on, the interface glitched, as if unsure how to respond to him.
He didn't ask about his mother.
They told him anyway.
Overdose. Two years ago. In an alley six blocks from where they'd lived. Unclaimed for nearly a week. Her name tagged on a city slab. She'd started using hard after his coma deepened. Lost her job. Lost her apartment. Lost herself.
Jonathan didn't cry. He just blinked slowly, once. And asked for silence.
He didn't remember falling asleep.
When he woke up again, it was to shadows.
And a man standing in them.
Tall. Black suit. Coat like a cape. Jaw like granite. The air around him seemed to quiet itself out of respect.
"Jonathan," the man said, voice low and deliberate. "I'm Bruce Wayne."
Jonathan narrowed his eyes. "You're real."
Bruce tilted his head. "Most days."
Jonathan smirked faintly, but it faded fast. "You're the billionaire. Why are you here?"
"There were... children affected by the fallout. From the explosion in Central City. STAR Labs' accident had a wider impact than anyone predicted." Bruce folded his arms. "I've made it my responsibility to check in on them. To offer resources."
Jonathan said nothing. His eyes drifted toward the window. The sky was dark, Gotham's version of a lullaby—sirens in the distance, rain on the panes.
Bruce waited. Studying him. Not the boy's face—but his micro-movements, his breath pattern, his blink rate. Jonathan didn't know it, but Batman had already run a retinal scan and voiceprint match in his head. He was cataloged. Flagged. Monitored.
"I don't want your money," Jonathan said finally.
Bruce nodded. "Good. It's not what I came to offer."
"What did you come to offer?"
Bruce paused.
Then: "A place where you won't be alone. And the truth, when you're ready."
Jonathan stared at him, and for a moment, Bruce could swear the air around the boy vibrated—just a tremor. As if the world around him wasn't quite solid anymore.
Something had changed in him.
Something dangerous.
Bruce kept his voice calm. Measured.
"I'll be in touch."
He turned and walked out, leaving the boy in the sterile glow of the room.
Behind him, the heart monitor skipped a beat.