Gotham City – 6:52 AM
The world outside Ethan's apartment was grey.
Not the grey of clouds or morning fog, but the grey that stained everything in Gotham—the cold steel of water towers, the soot-dusted gargoyles perched over crumbling windows, the muted concrete of every tenement in sight. Gotham didn't wake up. It endured.
Ethan, by contrast, woke quietly.
Today, he simply stirred from slumber, opened his eyes, and rose with a slow breatg.
He walked on top of the floor of his apartment—a modest space without many luxuries.
On the tiny kitchenette counter sat a kettle.
He poured hot water into the chipped mug of cheap instant coffee.
It tasted like burnt wood and bitterness. But it was warm.
He stared out of his fogged window while sipping. Smoke trails from nearby factories danced in the cold air. The low hum of streetcars had begun. Sirens in the distance. The soundscape of Gotham's heartbeat.
Then, with a flick of his fingers, he opened his computer.
The dashboard loaded with flickering graphs and numbers in green and red. Ethan scrolled through his portfolio: a neat half-million invested in seventeen small-to-mid ventures throughout Gotham and the northeast corridor. Some were tech startups. Others were old-world businesses—steel refineries, publishing houses, agriculture revitalization programs outside Gotham.
He didn't invest for greed.
He invested so he could give back.
As he reviewed his balance sheets, one company stood out: a renewable infrastructure firm downtown had finally stabilized after a volatile year. Its stock was up 13%.
"Forty thousand's in," he muttered, sipping his coffee. His voice barely registered above a whisper. "That's... five thousand profit."
He transferred the gains to a side account. Then, without hesitation, earmarked thirty-five thousand for anonymous donation.
Most of it would go to the East End Children's Shelter and to St. Adrian's—a school that still tried to keep the lights on for kids living under the Iron Heights shadow.
He didn't believe in redemption.
But he believed in mitigation.
After setting the auto-donation path, Ethan grabbed his scarf, his long black coat, and his gloves. He stepped into the biting wind of Gotham morning.
8:03 AM –
He didn't take the subway.
He walked.
Always.
Through the fog-wrapped alleys of Park Row. Past the rusted ironworks and ancient brick buildings, their faces carved with grotesques and faded coats of arms from industrial dynasties long dead.
He walked past old churches blackened by fire and through tunnels where the old Gotham tram once roared. He crossed a bridge where beggars lit fire in old soup cans and ravens gathered by the dozens.
He loved the architecture. The Gothic chaos of it.
Every corner looked like it had once housed ghosts. Every column was built to withstand siege. Towers spiked skyward like claws, and statues of saints bore cracked faces and bullet holes.
Gotham didn't pretend to be clean.
It was honest.
It showed its wounds.
And he adored it for that.
He also hated it for not trying to heal it's wounds.
He arrived at the librart just before opening.
"Good morning, Mr. Morgan," said Elly,the librarian who bordered on gothic fashion.
"Morning," he replied softly, brushing snow from his shoulders" How are you?"
"Good."
"Good....good is good."
She smiled.
He passed the atrium—where children's story time would start in three hours—and climbed the old marble staircase to the south tower archive room.
The door creaked. The lights hummed. Silence greeted him.
This was his favorite room.
Here, the forgotten bled into the preserved. Here were journals from the Gotham Reclamation Period, court transcripts from the Falcone trials, handwritten memoirs from early settlers who described Gotham as a "wet pearl on a broken crown."
He spent hours cataloging, scanning, annotating.
By midday, he was absorbed in the final papers of Professor Aldrich Zoran—a former historian who had vanished during the 1999 riots. His final essays warned of a "philosophical sickness" spreading through Gotham. Ethan underlined every mention of systemic neglect.
He paused only twice: once to eat an apple from his coat pocket, and again to help a blind old man find an audiobook terminal.
The rest of the day passed like drifting smoke.
He helped as the assistant librarian,read some children their faviourite stories and gave some students advice on their bio test.
He was a biologist before after all.
6:47 PM –
As the sun began to die behind the clouds, Elly peeked into the archive.
"Heading home soon?" she asked.
"In a bit."
"You always say that."
"And I always mean it. Just never specify when 'a bit' ends."
She rolled her eyes and left. He gave it ten minutes. Then exited out the side door that led into the alley, where his black motorcycle waited under a tarp of ice and grime.
9:12 PM – Ethan's Warehouse, Gotham River
The warehouse was quiet.
The last of the daylight filtered through the fog-stained windows above, casting long, bony shadows across the floor.
He sat in the center of the chaos, cross-legged on the concrete, staring at the death mask mounted on a pedestal before him.
The death mask of Matthew Stafford.
Ethan stared at the thing.
He'd memorized the locations of each Party Animal den. He'd reviewed the timestamps of shipments, cross-referenced it with delivery routes, interrogated bartenders, data miners, and even one of Penguin's maids.
Black Mask was moving something.
Something big.
And if the rumors were right, Sionis was planning to unleash it through the Party Animals.
They called it "Purification Day."
Ethan whispered: "Not on my watch."
He pressed a button on the console.
A monitor flickered to life with satellite feeds from across the city.
He typed fast—switching between grid maps, police bands, encrypted forums. One of the drop zones tonight was in Midtown.
The Party Animals would be moving crates through the roof garden of the Halberd Building—just blocks from the financial district.
He had mapped their route. Anticipated their pattern.
Tonight, he would strike.
11:52 PM –
Ethan scaled the skeletal iron scaffolding of a Building like a shadow reborn. His suit clung to him like ink—black polyfiber, reinforced joints, silent weave.
The sword was across his back.
He reached the top.
He saw them.
Six Party Animals—one hyena, two wolves, a stag, a pig, and a bear. All dressed in their grotesque animal-themed black masks. Crates stacked around them, some open. Inside: modified arms, stimulant inhalers, and a few steel containers marked with weapon symbols.
The bear laughed. "Dead Knight's not real," he grunted.
Ethan landed behind him.
His sword whispered out of its sheath.
Two minutes later, they were unconscious.
Some bleeding.
None dead.
The rooftop was a mess of groans and broken steel.
Then he sensed it.
A tremor through his boots.
Not footsteps.
Impact.
He turned.
The Dark Knight landed opposite him.
Massive. Silent. Cloaked in black. Eyes glowing beneath the cowl.
Ethan's fingers curled around his blade's hilt.
Batman didn't speak.
Neither did he.
Then the Bat charged.
And Ethan met him, blade raised—not to kill, but to test.
One of them had to break the stalemate.
And tonight, it would begin again.