Becoming Gotham
The alarm was nothing more than a faint click from the tripwire under the door.
Peter’s eyes snapped open.
Boots hit the floor in silence. He crossed the room in seconds, pressed his back to the wall beside the entrance, and waited.
Nothing.
A breeze rattled the cracked windowpane.
False alarm. Just the wind. Or the house settling. Or something else trying to remember how to breathe.
He exhaled through his nose, muscles relaxing. One hand reached for the burner phone. The other checked the latch on the door.
Still locked.
Still his.
He sat down at the tiny desk in the corner and opened a notebook he’d been working on. Scrawled inside were job listings, hacked IDs, potential drop points, and symbols Lady Gotham had whispered to him in dreams. Beneath it all: a crude schedule for his week.
It was time to move.
Nothing says "sweet dreams" like prepping for a home invasion before breakfast. Gotham hospitality really pulls out all the stops.
________________________________________
Gotham’s job boards were a graveyard of desperate gigs.
Cash-under-table listings. Low-level courier jobs. Electronics repair from “don’t ask where it came from” clients. Shady odd job construction work.
Perfect.
Peter grabbed one that had him delivering sealed cases to corporate rooftops and shady clubs. He didn’t open them. Didn’t care to. He didn’t want to know whether it was drugs, weapons, data, or something worse.
If curiosity killed the cat, Peter figured he'd live forever. Ignorance isn’t bliss—it’s job security.
He was fast. Quiet. Untraceable. And it paid.
He dropped off the third package just before noon, in the loading bay of an old nightclub-turned-front operation.
The man who took it didn’t say a word. Just handed Peter a slim envelope full of cash.
Peter counted it as he walked off.
"Always nice doing business with Gotham's silent majority," he muttered under his breath.
Then, he turned east.
Destination: Gotham University.
________________________________________
Peter didn’t go in right away.
He moved with a careful ease—hands in his pockets, shoulders loose, eyes tracking everything. Cameras above doorframes. The flicker of ID scanner lights. The bored guards pretending not to notice anyone.
He circled the admin building twice, watching the flow of foot traffic. Noted when the guards changed posture. Counted the seconds it took for the gate to close after a student badge pass.
Then he found a bench nearby. Pulled out a battered phone. Took pictures. Started coding a magnetic signature spoofer from scratch.
Honestly, he’d hacked alien tech with fewer firewalls. College security might stop your grandma, but me? I'm the final exam.
He mapped signal ranges. He spoofed the campus Wi-Fi ID and used it to backtrace encrypted connections. Every keystroke was clean. Fast.
This wasn’t just breaking in.
This was infiltration.
Lady Gotham's voice drifted like silk soaked in stone.
“This place is old. Not mine. Not yet.”
Peter kept his voice low. “Then let’s change that.”
He tapped into a private campus server—hiding beneath firewall bloat—and watched the permissions cascade across his screen. It wasn’t as clean as Stark tech, but it was enough.
Then something else caught his eye.
Hidden file. Misnamed. Buried too deep for regular admin use.
He cracked it.
And froze.
There were transfer logs. Donor reroutes. Payments supposedly for “science equipment” redirected into dummy accounts.
Connected addresses: off-site storage. Offshore banks.
Attached metadata:
Shipment manifests.
Names.
Codes referencing “Group Alpha.”
Linked: A donor. Board member. Photo ID attached. Smiling next to a loading dock. In the corner of the shot—blurred, but unmistakable—a white porcelain mask.
Doll Maker.
Peter leaned back, mouth tightening.
College scandal. Human trafficking. Surprise surprise, Gotham’s Ivy League also majored in horror shows.
This wasn’t just shady donations. Someone high up in Gotham U was funding a trafficking ring—possibly using the campus as a front.
He encrypted the data and slipped it into a ghost file inside one of his cloud drives. Hidden behind a network of fake online textbooks.
*Congratulations, you just passed Advanced Corruption 101. Now run before you get tenure in "Missing Persons."
He slipped away before anyone could get too curious. Back into the maze. Back to the shadows.
________________________________________
Peter cut across two districts, walking until the streetlights turned yellow-orange and the buildings wore their rot like armor.
Behind an abandoned tech shop, he found the jackpot: a half-busted WayneComm server, stripped laptops, an old biometric tablet still half-glowing.
He tore it apart quickly, working by instinct. Ripped boards. Pulled wiring. Siphoned battery power from a cracked drone battery.
Back at the bunker, he dumped the parts onto his desk.
His burner phone had served him well, but it was time for an upgrade.
Sentimental value aside, it was held together by duct tape and spite.
________________________________________
The new rig took three hours to build.
By the time he was done, the phone could bounce its signal across five shell towers, mirror any city-issued frequency, and operate fully off-grid. Encryption layered over quantum-coded firewalls.
Not quite StarkTech, but hey—no lectures about "with great power" either. Just me and my borderline unhealthy paranoia.
He called it Ghost Mode.
The web-shooters got an upgrade too—smaller, smarter. Pressure-adjusted dispersion. Programmable web density. Sound dampeners.
The ID badge blinked green.
Access: granted.
Peter leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, he’d walk through the university like he belonged. Enrolled under a fake name. On paper, just another student.
But underground?
He was hunting something.
Lady Gotham whispered.
“You are remaking yourself.”
Peter’s eyes stayed on the ceiling. “No. I’m becoming what I need to be. Something I was too naive to do before.”
Naive. Yeah, that guy died in Queens. This one's just here for the funeral.
________________________________________
The badge worked.
Security scanned it. Bored. Lazy. Unaware.
Peter slipped through the halls. Nothing flashy. Just another name in a sea of students with broken sleep cycles and crushed dreams.
He mapped the halls. Memorized the professor rotation. Synced his new ID with the course list.
At one point, a girl with a backpack full of bat patches stared too long. Peter gave her a smile that said nothing—and kept walking.
Welcome to Gotham U. Where trust goes to die, and paranoia gets tenure.
________________________________________
Corner seat. Flickering light. Tablet glowing.
Peter wasn’t digging for secrets this time—he was gathering intel. The smart kind. The kind that might keep him alive another week in a city built on madness.
He searched: Gotham Rogues Gallery. Names spilled out like a horror anthology: Joker. Scarecrow. Riddler. Bane. Firefly. Black Mask. Victor Zsasz. Poison Ivy. Killer Croc. Penguin.
Each name had a trail of chaos, body counts, and grainy footage that looked more like war journalism than criminal records.
Next search: Vigilantes of Gotham.
Batman. Nightwing. Red Hood. Batgirl. Orphan. Spoiler. Robin.
So... a bat cult. With accessories. Awesome.
Peter skimmed every file he could find—eyewitness blogs, hacked police logs, encrypted news forums. He compiled notes and pieced together patterns: when they moved, how they fought, who they avoided.
And most importantly—how much the city bled between their appearances.
This place doesn’t need a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. It needs a damn exorcism.
He leaned back in the chair, eyes burning from the screen. He rubbed at his face, adjusted his glasses, and muttered, “Okay, so… Gotham’s a hellmouth with a dress code.”
He saved the notes under a hidden archive: OPERATION: DON’T DIE.
Tomorrow, he’d go back out. Not as a hero. Not yet.
Just a ghost.
Watching the monsters before choosing how to haunt them.
________________________________________
The air smelled like wealth and rot—spiced cologne, burnt velvet, and the sour tang of fear too old to scream.
Peter adjusted the porcelain mask on his face, white and cracked like it had seen hell and come back wearing a smile. He’d found it behind a costume shop. Broken. Forgotten. Perfect.
Everyone here was pretending not to be monsters.
He didn’t pretend.
The room was low-lit and sleek, panelled in dark glass and red velvet. Clients sipped champagne, murmured behind half-masks, traded credits and cruelty with equal ease. The auctioneer purred like a well-fed cat.
Drugs came first. Then weapons. Then the people.
Then the children.
Peter’s chest tightened. His hands stayed still.
They brought him out barefoot, trembling, a slip of a thing with black hair and terrified crystal-blue eyes. Ten years old. Maybe. Maybe younger.
He didn’t cry. Just... stood there. Hollow.
“Like a young Wayne,” someone whispered.
“Those lips,” another crooned. “Perky little—”
Peter's breath stuttered. Rage boiled beneath his skin. He fought the urge to break every neck in the room.
Then his hand went up.
“I bid.”
A pause. Murmurs. Then amusement.
“New money,” someone chuckled.
Peter said nothing. He was already working—hacking accounts, bleeding wallets dry, siphoning funds from everyone around him. Bank by bank. Shell by shell. Crypto burned like fire through his ghost network.
His final bid hit like a hammer.
Sold.
The boy looked at him as if bracing for pain.
Peter stepped forward, then stopped.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly, barely audible through the mask. “I swear it. You’re safe.”
The boy didn’t move.
“You don’t have to come near me. I’ll walk ahead. Or behind. Just... not them. Never them.”
After a long second, the child stepped forward.
Peter turned. And they walked.
________________________________________
The alley behind the auction hall was damp, narrow, and lit by flickering neon. The door slammed behind them, shutting out the decadence and damnation.
Peter made it ten steps before he dropped to his knees.
And threw up.
Everything he’d held in—rage, disgust, grief—hit the pavement. His body shook. The mask clattered to the ground beside him.
He coughed hard, gasping, wiping bile from his mouth with the back of a trembling hand.
The boy stood a few feet away, arms folded over his chest, silent and scared.
Peter forced himself to sit up.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should’ve... I should’ve done more.”
He looked at the child, heart breaking. “You’re not going back there. Ever. I promise you that. I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you.”
Still, the boy didn’t move.
“Okay,” Peter said gently. “I’ll give you space. I won’t touch you or go near you. Not unless you say it’s okay.”
He slowly reached out for the mask, slipped it back on.
“Let’s get somewhere warm.”
________________________________________
Peter opened the bunker door and flicked on the low lights. It looked like hell—wires, junk tech, maps, tools. A lair, not a home.
But it was safe.
He showed the boy in, quiet and slow. No sudden movements. Pointed out the cot. The food. The clean water. The bathroom. Left the door open so the kid didn’t feel locked in.
Peter worked fast. Converted a far corner into a room—hung up sheets, laid out extra blankets, put a lamp nearby and turned it low. He grabbed soft clothes, clean ones, and left them folded on the edge of the cot.
He didn’t ask the boy his name. Didn’t push.
“Kid,” he said. “Or Kiddo. If that’s alright. You can tell me your name when you’re ready.”
The child just sat on the bed, watching him like an animal still waiting for the trap to spring.
Peter sat on the floor, back against the opposite wall.
Lady Gotham stirred like a storm crawling beneath his skin.
“You’ve seen it now,” she whispered. “The rot. The filth. The price of silence.”
Peter’s voice was a low, cracked thing.
“I’m done watching.”
He looked at the boy.
“I’m done letting monsters breathe.”
________________________________________
The bunker was quiet when Peter woke. He’d slept on the floor by the door, wrapped in a blanket, back to the wall. Not for comfort. For distance.
The kid still hadn’t said a word.
Peter pushed himself up, joints stiff. He stretched, cracked his neck, and moved carefully, not wanting to startle him.
He glanced over. The child was awake. Sitting curled up on the cot, small hands wrapped around his knees. Watching.
Still silent. Still unsure.
Peter offered a tired smile. “Morning, Kiddo.”
He didn’t expect a response.
He went to the corner where his kitchenette setup was—half a camping stove, a power converter, and a tiny fridge. He cracked open two eggs, added salt, found some nearly-expired bread, and tossed it all into a frying pan.
The smell of cooking filled the bunker slowly. Warmth in the metal and dust.
“You like eggs?” he asked over his shoulder. “Too bad if you don’t. It’s eggs or protein bars shaped like regret.”
Still nothing.
Peter plated the food and set it gently on the table closest to the cot. He grabbed his own plate and sat a fair distance away, cross-legged.
He didn’t watch the kid eat. Didn’t pressure.
But when he heard the soft clink of the fork, Peter let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
________________________________________
Scene: Little Shoes & A New Background
After breakfast, Peter booted up his rig.
He typed, fingers flying across the keys like his thoughts couldn’t wait to get out.
“You’re gonna need clothes,” he said casually, still working. “Can’t have you running around barefoot like some feral cryptid. That’s my job.”
He pulled up a dozen dark-web vendor pages. Looked for child-sized sneakers, hoodies, jeans, socks, gloves. Clicked and rerouted orders to drop-points across the city.
“Don’t worry. I’m not paying for this,” he added with a smirk. “We’re robbing bad people blind. It's tradition.”
Next came the harder part.
He opened his identity-forging protocols. Blank IDs. Digital birth records. Forged CPS files. He constructed a full, false identity for the child: name, birthday, vaccinations, parental loss report, emergency contacts—him.
A big red stamp: Rescued ward of the state. Placed under temporary guardianship.
“Fake kid for a fake world,” Peter muttered. “But it’s gonna keep the Bat’s nose out of our business. Hopefully.”
He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. Then looked over at the boy.
Still quiet.
Still watching.
“You’re safe here, alright? I'm not gonna ask you anything. Not unless you want to talk. You eat, you sleep, you get warm, you heal. That’s the only job you got.”
A long pause.
Then, a whisper. Barely audible.
“…okay.”
Peter froze.
Then gave a slow, warm nod.
“Cool. That’s a start.”