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Chapter Text

Francis “Foxy” Tetch had two loves growing up. One was pirates, swashbuckling heroes of the seven seas, and the other was Lewis Carrol’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. Foxy was never sure what it was about the two dissimilar topics that drew him to them; maybe it was epic battles and tales of adventures that attracted him to pirates; maybe it was the madcap tales of whimsy and imagination that drew him to Wonderland, either way, from an early age, Foxy used the two to escape his reality.

At home, he used them to escape the constant arguing and fighting and bickering that his mother and father were always engaged in, the two seeming to hate the other’s guts, and yet refusing to get a divorce, despite the signs that all the love in the marriage had died ten years and one child ago. At school, he used his stories to escape the copious amounts of bullies who tormented him, and his extreme lack of any real friends. He knew why no one liked him. He once wore an eyepatch for a whole month, even though he didn’t need it. He then only talked in rhyming limerick for another month after that. After that, he only talked like a pirate for another month. People grew tired of his antics, and soon began to mock him for them. But Foxy could care less about his classmates and their thoughts of him. As long as he had his pirates and Wonderland, Foxy was content.

…

Once he graduated high school, Foxy moved out of the battlefield that was his family’s house, and into his own apartment. He was able to land a job that satisfied one of his two loves, working as an entertainer at a pirate themed park on Gotham’s boardwalk. Every day, Foxy would wake up, walk to work, and put on his costume, put on his fake eyepatch, put his fake parrot on his shoulder, wield a fake sword and fake hook for a hand, and tell fake stories of daring adventure and drama to a bunch of bored preteens and toddlers for eight straight hours. Every day, of every week. Foxy hated it. The fake eyepatch, the fake parrot, the fake sword, the fake hook, and especially the fake stories. It was all so boringly fake, it made him want to gouge his eyes out with his fake hook. For four years, that’s all Foxy had going for him. A fake pirate personality, a shitty, low paying job, entertaining annoying brats who threw soda cans and popcorn at him during his shows. Foxy nearly went mad, but then, she arrived

…

Across from the stage where Foxy performed, there stood a concession stand that sold soda, popcorn, candy and other such treats to messy children and their bored parents. The stand was usually staffed by a rotating door of undertrained, underpaid, overworked workers whose ages ranged from sixteen to sixty. They usually watched Foxy’s shows with either disinterest, contempt, or annoyance, seeing as Foxy was the only entertainment for the next eight hours. Foxy never cared to befriend or talk to these workers, until the day his Alice arrived.

With long, blonde hair that caught the sun just so, deep blue eyes that rivalled the Caribbean Sea with their beauty, Foxy was hooked on Alice Woodson the moment he saw her. 22 like him, Alice had just moved to Gotham, and had taken the first job she could get. Compared to the slew of workers before her, she actually watched his shows with a kind smile, and a slightly enraptured look in her eyes. She laughed, she clapped, she responded to his calls alongside the smaller children in his audiences. God, she treated him like he existed, like he wasn’t someone to just ignore or make fun of. Foxy would have swept her off her feet and married her right then and there, if it wasn’t for one. Tiny. Problem.

B R A D.

…

Ah yes, Brad Queenly, Alice’s boyfriend who worked in the park’s maintenance department. How Foxy loathed Brad, the absolute oaf, who didn’t understand, nay, appreciate the woman to whom he lived with. Every day during their breaks, Foxy would share a bag of popcorn with Alice, and listen to her complain about Brad and his boorish ways. He left the seat up, he left his clothes on the floor, he left dirty plates on the counter, and never lifted a finger to help around their apartment, only seating on the couch, feet on the coffee table, watching late night television. Foxy always told Alice the same thing when she complained, “Leave him, find someone who will appreciate you for the wonderful person you are.” But every time, she would brush off his advice, saying how they’ve been together since high school, how it’s just the stress from the move, and that in due time, Foxy would see how good of a man Brad could be.

Foxy didn’t believe her and was always on the lookout for the moment where he could swoop in and take Alice away from the dreadful beast that was Brad. He knew he had to wait for the right moment, or else he could risk losing his Alice forever. The one day, almost a year after Alice had started working at the park, Foxy’s moment arrived.

…

It was a Monday morning, and the park had just reopened after a weekend of maintenance checkups and cleaning. Foxy was already on his stage, waiting for Alice to arrive. But when she did, Foxy was struck dumb, the air stolen from his lungs, horror dawning on his face and his anger slowly rising. Alice’s face and arms were covered in a horrible collage of cuts, scrapes, and bruises, all of which ranged in color from purple to pale yellow. Foxy looked her over in desperation, demanding to know what happened, to know what scoundrel knave had laid a hand on her. Alice attempted to calm him down, explain that her injuries were from falling down the stairs, that it was all her own clumsy self’s fault, and that Foxy didn’t need to do anything.

Foxy didn’t believe her for a second. On her cheek, Foxy had spotted the faint outline of a ring, a class ring, cut into poor Alice’s cheek, a class ring that Foxy knew Brad wore all the time on his fat, sausage finger. Foxy could also recognize the purple circle of bruises around Alice’s wrist for what they were, Foxy imagining Brad’s meaty claw of a hand wrapped around her delicate wrist. Foxy knew that now was the time to act, to save his Alice from the beast that was Brad. That night after work, he would make his move.

…

When his shift ended that day, Foxy didn’t remove his full costume like usual. He took off his fake parrot and fake hook, but left the fake sword at his side, and the fake eyepatch on his face. He watched and waited for Brad and his Alice to leave, and soon the two were exiting the park, heading to their shared apartment.

Foxy followed at a distance, never letting the two out of his sight. Thankfully for him, Gotham had been dealing with a rash of costumed weirdos, so no one questioned the pirate skulking down the street, and peering around corners. Foxy needed to wait for a more secluded spot to make his daring rescue, and soon got his wish as the couple turned to walk down an alleyway. From the mouth of the alley, Foxy watched as Brad and Alice started to argue about something, Foxy couldn’t catch the whole conversation, and before he even realized what was happening, Brad raised his hand, and slapped Alice across the face.

In that moment, all Foxy could see was red. With a furious roar, he drew his fake sword and charged at Brad, swinging repeatedly at the man. Brad was caught off guard and took several blows to the head and chest before he started trying to block and strike Foxy back with his fists. As Foxy dueled with Brad, he glanced at Alice hoping to see his darling looking at him awe. But instead, she stared at the two men in muted horror. This confuses Foxy greatly, she should be looking at him with joy, he’s saving her for god’s sake, can’t she show a little appreciation? What would make her so scar- oh, that’s right, Brad’s still here. She’s just scared of Brad, that’s it. With a renewed vigor, Foxy swings his fake sword even harder and faster at Brad.

But in Foxy’s haste to finish off Brad, he doesn’t notice when the tip of his fake, wooden sword snaps off, leaving behind a row of jagged edges. With one last animalistic roar, Foxy thrust’s his sword into Brad’s diaphragm with the intention of knocking the wind out of his sails. But instead, Foxy’s sword sinks into Brads gut, a good five or six inches deep before Foxy realizes what’s happened. As Foxy stumbles away in horror, Brad shakily looks down at the sword sticking out of him, blood already blooming behind his shirt. He coughs, and tastes blood vaguely in the back of his mouth. Brad stumbles back, falling down back first, and lands on the alley floor. His chest shakily rises once, twice. Then never rises again.

Foxy can only stare at Brad’s body in horror, staring down at his shaking hands in disbelief. That wasn’t supposed to happen, he just wanted to drive Brad away from Alice, not this, what the hell happened, what is that FUCKING shrill shrieking?! It’s poor Alice, screaming in horror at the murder she just witnessed. Screaming for help, at Foxy, at Brad’s body. Screaming at nobody and yet everybody. Foxy walks towards her, begging her to be quiet, to stop screaming in his damn ear for FIVE seconds, please? But she keeps screaming, calling him a murderer, a monster, a goddamned psychopath. He isn’t, he's supposed to be the hero, like his pirate idols, or the comic relief like the Mad Hatter. He’s not the villain here, why can’t Alice realize that?

As Foxy backs Alice against the wall of the alley, he places one hand over her mouth, and the other around her throat, begging her to please shut up, to stop screaming. Stop it Alice, stop it, stop it Stop It Stop IT Stop IT STOP IT STOP IT, BE QUIET ALICE FOR GODS’ SAKE, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!

By the time Foxy comes back to his senses, Alice has stopped moving underneath his hands. Her face has gone a terrible shade of purple and blue, red from burst blood vessels mixing with the deep blue of her eyes.

Alice? Wake up Alice this isn’t funny, wake up. Alice please, wake up! Why won’t she answer me, why isn’t she moving, what could have done this to his sweet Alice-

Foxy’s thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a flapping cape, looking up, he spots a dark mass flying overhead, heading towards a beacon of police lights in the distance. The Bat, Foxy thinks, everyone says that their some kind of demon, a monster even. Yes, yes that’s it, the Bat, that Jabberwocky, they must have placed some kind of curse on his darling Alice, trapping her in this eternal slumber.

That’s it, all Foxy has to do is slay that cursed Jabberwocky, and his sweet Alice will be all his.

With a deranged laugh, Foxy runs down the alley, back towards his apartment. But to slay this monster, Francis “Foxy” Tetch isn’t enough. He needs to become something new, someone different.

He needs to become a mad pirate, no, THE Mad Pirate.

With a demented cackle, The Mad Pirate dashes through the city, dreams of dead Jabberwocky’s and tea with Alice on his ship already filling his head.

Chapter Text

Since she was a little girl, Roxanne “Roxy” Kyle has always been looking for her next adrenaline rush. She didn’t care where it came, or how dangerous it was for her. Fighting the older kids at school, talking back to the nuns at the orphanage her parents stuck her in at age 4, running from cops and overzealous security guards, or bolting across traffic heavy streets, Roxy just wanted to get her heart pounding, to feel something other than the sting of the cuts and bruises from her fights with other students, and the nuns’ punishments for her “wicked, sinful ways”. She still doesn’t regret telling that sister where to stuff her frock.

At age ten, Roxy ran away from the orphanage, tired of the utter lack of care and compassion from the nuns. (Roxy shouldn’t be surprised, her parents were the ones who left her there, and they wouldn’t know love and compassion if it punched them.) She quickly made a name for herself on the streets and in the alleys among other street kids, mostly for her irritable nature and swift left hook, which claimed the noses and front teeth of at least twelve other kids. She still made life hell for random beat cops, leading them on wild chases down streets and back alleys, dumping trash on them, or tripping them into muddy puddles, never being caught with her pickpocketed goods, or shoplifted snacks and drinks. It was on one of those chases that Roxy’s life took its first major left turn.

…

Roxy had been twelve, four months from her thirteenth birthday, running from the most determined GCPD cop she’d ever seen, the guy had been chasing her for the last ten minutes at least. Looking for any opportunity to disappear, Roxy spotted a huge crowd entering the Gotham Motor Speedway, and quickly slipped into the mass of bodies, using her smaller size to squeeze past and quickly lose the officer. Once she finally pushed out of the crowd, she found herself near the track, and her breath caught in her throat. Now, Roxy grew up in Gotham, one of the most congested urban hellscapes in America, of course she’d seen a car before. But she had never seen anything like the race happening in front of her. From their speed, the roar of the engines, the potentially dangerous passes, and almost crashes, Roxy had never seen anything that filled her with such excitement, and better yet, adrenaline.

After the race had ended, Roxy bolted from the track, heading straight to the local library. Loathe as she was to admit it, Roxy knew next to nothing about and how to drive them, so if she wanted to race like the drivers she saw, Roxy had to start reading. Book after book, ranging from “The Idiots Guide to Cars” to “A Complete History of Ford”, Roxy read any book on cars she could get her hands, spending hours in the library, and then hours more in her little makeshift camp after the library closed, reading page after page. Roxy also read up on motorcycles, since they seemed over more potentially dangerous than normal, meaning the inevitable rush would be even better. She learned about every brand of car and motorcycle, how they worked, how rare they were, and most importantly, hoe much easier or harder it was to control them.

…

A week after her fifteenth birthday, Roxy stole and drove her first car, a random black sedan that parked around the corner from Roxy’s alley every day. Roxy picked the cars lock, then hotwired it, and she was off. Roxy was over the moon, she was driving! Actually driving, not just reading about it, or watching others, she was behind the wheel. Sadly though, Roxy also crashed her first car ten minutes after, so caught up in the euphoria that she failed to notice the red light in front of her. Roxy ran from the crash before anyone had a chance to even contemplate calling 911. But Roxy didn’t let this minor setback deter her, and soon, she was driving cars like a pro less than five months later. She decided then to enter her first ever race. An illegal street race, but a race none the less. Roxy knew no racing league would let a fifteen-year-old race, so she went to the mush seedier race organizers, knowing they didn’t give a shit how old she was. She still wore a hoodie, shades, and a face mask to conceal her identity, didn’t know what weirdos or undercover cops were at these kinds of events.

Roxy gave her name as The Wolf to the guys running the race and pulled up to the starting line in a speedy little car she had nicked from some schmuck financer downtown. As soon as the flag was dropped, she was off, racing thought the tight and narrow streets she knew like the back of her hand, and soon, Roxy crossed the finish line in fourth place. Out of five racers. Undeterred, Roxy kept coming back, night after night, to get better. And slowly but surely, she did. She started placing third, the second, and finally, a month after her seventeenth birthday, Roxy won her first ever race, and soon every single race she entered after that. She never raced in the same car twice, stealing a new one every day, and abandoning them after the race was finished. Soon, that little detail got to certain ears, and she was soon approached after one race with an offer.

…

The mystery guy told Roxy of some super fancy (and extremely expensive) sports car some local businessman owned, and how his boss would pay her a boatload of money to steal it from the pricks garage. Little security, just a wall to scale, and a locked garage side door. Roxy agreed, seeing an opportunity for a new type of adrenaline rush. In preparation, Roxy crafted a pair of gloves with claws to climb the wall, adding the same type of claws to an old pair of boots she had laying around. One of her fellow racers, seeing her new upgrades, joked she looked like a real wolfwoman now. Roxy liked the sound of that, Wolfwoman (She still kneed the asshole in the dick after he said the claws made her look sexier).

Stealing the car was even easier than Roxy expected, making it out of the garage with only some minor damage to the garage side door, where she cut a circle out of the doors glass window to reach the doors lock. The guy who hired her collected the car, and gave Roxy her payment; nearly ten grand, the most cash Roxy had ever seen in her whole life. And like at the racetrack, Roxy’s life took a left turn. Roxy now saw the major potential there was in not just stealing cars for racing, but also for profit. She soon started selling the cars she stole after races, and took more jobs to steal even more cars, and even motorcycles. Soon, Roxy cultivated a reputation with her Wolfwoman identity, as both a fearsome racer, and as a skilled car thief. Then Roxy learned how much more there was selling parts of cars, instead of just the whole vehicle, and began to chop any cars she stole for even more profit. By the time she was twenty-one, Roxy was flush with cash, but this attracted unwanted attention. But not from the GCPD, but from the IRS.

…

Now, Roxy may have been an illegal street racer and skilled car thief, but she wasn’t suicidal. She knew that if she didn’t start explaining where all her new revenue was coming from, she was going to go down harder then Al Capone, and like hell was she going to prison over fucking taxes. So, Roxy bought up a small mechanics shop, rebranded it “Roxy’s Raceway”, and suddenly all her worries disappeared. Plus, her shop was legitimately successful, Roxy only hired mechanics that knew as much about cars as she did, and soon the Raceway became so popular, Roxy opened two more shops around Gotham, and between her the shops and her night life, Roxy never had to worry about money again. For the next four years, Roxy’s life followed a simple routine: race semi regularly in various street races to maintain her cred, steal and chop cars for a customer, or for an out of town of buyer, then run her auto shops during the day for some extra, legitimate cash, laundering her car theft profits through the shop to keep the IRS off her back.

Roxy at this point was pretty content with her life, what more could she ask for? So what if she went to bed alone with only her depression, anxieties, and a bottle of whiskey her only company. So what if she embraced her Wolfwoman identity to feel more love and adoration from her racing fans, since she got none as Roxy. I mean, no one ever loved Roxy, her parents didn’t, the nuns didn’t, the cops didn’t, not even her customers, since no matter how good of a job she did, they never seemed to remember her damned name, despite her name being on the fucking sign. So what if racing and stealing cars didn’t have the same rush they used to. She was happy, she HAD to be happy, even if no one, not even herself, loved Roxane “Roxy” Kyle. She was content, and that’s all that mattered.

But then, a bat cloaked in shadows crawled out of the darkest corners of Gotham to terrorize its criminals.

And Roxy’s life took its sharpest left turn yet.

Chapter Text

Ever since she was a little girl, Chica Isley has been mesmerized by plants. From the smallest dandelion to the mightiest Oak tree, she was fascinated by them, and how they grew and thrived. When other children were playing tag or hide and seek during recess, Chica was either reading about plants, or studying the small plant life that attempted to live between the cracks of the playground blacktop. Chica’s father liked to joke that Chica had more empathy for flowers than other people, and for a while, that was true. Chica saw someone getting mugged in an alley? Oh well, it’s Gotham, not that surprising. Step on a flower by accident at the public park? Chica would give you a lecture on respecting plant life with all the fire and zeal that a twelve-year-old could muster. But that all changed after her father’s diagnosis.

…

Cancer. More specifically, bone cancer, stage four. The doctors said there was little they could do now, besides ease her fathers suffering in the coming months. Chica was devastated, her father was her biggest supporter in her love of plants, he bought her books on plants, small flowers to care for, and had even made a small garden for her twelfth birthday. And now she would have to watch him suffer for the next six to eight months, unable to do anything? Chica refused to accept that and started to use her knowledge of plants to help her father, however little that help would be. She began researching the different effects some plants had when combined, and started experimenting with plants from the store, and her small garden. She would then give these experiments to her ailing father, in a desperate attempt to save him. To the doctor’s surprise, Chica’s experiments worked, if only a little. Her father sadly still passed away a year after his prognosis, four months longer than predicted.

At his funeral, a now thirteen-year-old Chica vowed that she would use her plants to save other children like her the pain of seeing a parent wither away like her. She threw herself into her schoolwork, day, day out, through the rest of middle school, and then all of high school. What little social life she had soon disappeared entirely. Chica’s efforts paid off though, as she graduated as valedictorian if her class, and with a scholarship to Gotham University. She threw herself into her schoolwork again, seeking a double major in chemistry and botany. Her life was focused entirely on her plants, with two exceptions; her mother, who she visited frequently, and baking. Chica baked whenever stuck on a problem, or became overrun by stress, doubts, or nightmares of her fathers’ illness and death. She baked cookies, brownies, even cakes, donating most of the baked goods to youth centers and homeless shelters.

…

Chica graduated at twenty-three, doctorate in hand, head of her class, and with a sizable grant from Gotham University to continue her studies into creating new medicines for combatting cancer, and other such illnesses. Chica took this grant and purchased a plot of land just on the outskirts of Gotham, built a moderately sized greenhouse, and then threw herself into her work. For the next four years, Chica worked tirelessly, creating new types of plants via combining seed DNA, new fertilizers with chemicals, and designing and testing new kinds of medicines. Her work was coming along wonderfully, and she was sure that in another year or so, she would have the breakthrough she’d been dreaming of since she was thirteen. But then, Axle Energy entered the picture.

Axle Energy was one of the largest Gotham based power companies on the East Coast, and were known for being major polluters, dumping waste in Gotham Bay, coughing out smog into the air, and dumping barrels of industrial waste near highly populated areas. Now, they were looking towards Chica’s land. The company wanted to build a new power plant, but Chica’s greenhouse lab was right in the middle of their intended build site. They sent her multiple letters, hoping to entice her with increasingly larger sums of money for the land. But Chica was resolute and refused every offer in a return letter. Then, one day, and Axle Energy executive showed at her lab in person, with the biggest deal yet, over half a million for her land, right there, on the spot. Hell, the man even brought an actual briefcase full of money. But once again, Chica shot down the offer, swearing that she would remain there in her lab until the day she died, then kindly told the executive where to shove his briefcase of money, and slammed her greenhouse door in his face. The man though, was not perturbed. He simply pulled a phone out of his coat pocket, sent a single text, and walked away.

…

That night, as Chica burned the midnight oil, a gang of five men snuck towards her lab, armed with baseball bats and cans of gas. Before Chica even knew what was happening, the man kicked down her lab door, and began destroying the lab, smashing her planters, equipment and all of her samples, while simultaneously dousing everything in gas. Chica wasn’t spared, and the leader of the group began to assault her with his bat, beating the poor woman senseless, before finally picking her up by the throat, and slamming her through her chemical workstation. The men then through down a match, engulfing the greenhouse in flames, and left the poor scientist to her fate. As Chica ley there, dying, her experimental growth formula seeped into her, combining with the various other chemicals pooling around her bloody body. She began to change, her blond hair turning a pale white, streaks of pink the only color, her skin turned a pale green, as chlorophyll replaced the blood in her veins. Then, Chica, gasped for air, the life quickly returning to her, and felt nothing but fury.

Outside, the small gang of men shared a quick smoke as their boss texted confirmation of the job’s completion to their employer. Suddenly, the ground around them ruptured, as large vines encircled the men, crushing their bodies in vice like grips, cutting off their screams in their throats. All of the, except for the leader, left suspended over the ground, he fearfully looked around, screaming for help, until he saw the figure walking towards him from the burning remains of the lab. The woman tilted his head towards her, calmly asking who sent him. As the man gasped in fear, he unknowingly breathed in the pheromones secreting from Chica’s body, which dulled his mind, making him susceptible to her questions. He quickly gave up Axle Energy as his employers, earning a quick kiss from Chica in thanks. She let her vines drop the man, starting her way towards Gotham, ignoring the mans choked gasps for life as her toxin strangled his lungs, visions of revenge in her mind.

…

The next morning, Gotham awoke to two confusing, yet disturbing news stories. The first spoke of a small fire on the city limits that claimed five victims, yet none of them were killed by the fire, four having been crushed to death, the fifth apparently having his lungs melt inside his chest. But, the more pressing story, was that of the discovery of the bodies of all twelve members of the Axle Energy board of directors. The group of men and women were found in the main board room at Axle’s main offices, all of them killed by some form of plant life. One man had ears of corn coming out his eyes, one woman had a whole bouquet of roses coming out of her mouth, and one man had a small apple tree growing out of his stomach. What confused the GCPD more than the methods of execution, was the message written on the wall in a mix of blood and dirt; “Nature always wins”.

That day, two things became clear; the first was that Dr. Chica Isley had died at the hands of a greedy energy company. And the second?

Poison Ivy had bloomed in her place, to seek out revenge.

Chapter Text

The first thing Montgomery “Monty” Jones heard upon being born, was the horrified screams of the nurse helping to deliver him. The first thing he saw was the disgust in his fathers’ eyes, as he attempted to cut baby Monty’s umbilical cord. And one of the first things Monty felt, was the shaking, quivering fear in his mothers’ hands, as she held him in her arms, horror etching out every lone of her face. From the second he was born; Monty was seen as a freak. An abomination. A monster.

He had those words hurled at him every day at school by the other children. His parents practically cared the words into the young boy’s head, the various members of the Jones neighborhood in Baton Rouge whispered the words to each other when they believed young Monty wasn’t paying attention, or sometimes just screamed them into his face, alongside a thrown bible, his more religious neighbors believing he was a curse crafted by Satan himself. Monty hated it, but he endured. Then, his father began beating the words into Monty’s thick skull.

…

The beatings began when he was nine, and they continued for the next three years. Everyone could see the healing bruises, and small cuts on Monty’s face and arms, but no one ever called CPS. They all thought he deserved it, that he wanted to be born an alligator skinned freak. Monty endured the beatings, until one stormy night when Monty was Twelve. His father had too much to drink that night, and as such, felt no need to let up on wailing his fist into his monstrous son’s head, until a sharp *C R A C K* filled the silence of their home. Monty’s father had beaten his fist into his son’s skull so much, he had snapped his own wrist. Flying into a rage, the man began to now kick his son, letting all his anger at how much Monty’s very existence had ruined the family. Finally fed up with his father, Monty roared in fury, and grabbed the nearest object, an ornate lamp, and smashed it over his father’s head. The man dropped like a sack of flour, and Monty’s mother screamed in horror. Monty, realizing what he had done, quickly fled to his room, and packed what meager belongings he had into a bag, already hearing his mother calling the police in the other room. He fled out his room’s windows, charging headfirst into the stormy night.

Monty ran deep into the woods surrounding his neighborhood, kicking up mud and puddles of rainwater as he did, not caring where he ran, as long as it was away from his parents. Eventually, he burst into a partial clearing, split in half by set of railroad tracks that Monty could barely see in the low moonlight and occasional flashes of lightning. Before Monty had a chance to catch his breath, he saw a beam of light coming down the tracks, as a large train began to pass him at a moderate pace. On the side of some of the train cars, he saw the name “Alexander’s Circus of Wonder”, and an idea came to the young runaway. Seeing one car’s door slightly opened, Monty used his powerful legs to run alongside the train, and pulled himself in. He closed the train car door behind him and found himself in a storage space full of rolled up canvas, and large crates with words stamped on to them. Figuring he would be safe in here, Monty curled up on top of some the canvas sheets and fell into a calming embrace of slumber.

…

Monty was awoken a few hours by shocked yells and screams and found the various members of the circus surrounding him, staring at him in various states of shock and horror. The first to pipe up is the apparent ringmaster of the circus, based on him resembling the man Monty saw painted on all the train cars. The man, Vincent as he revealed, demanded to know what Monty was doing on their train, and what had happened to him. Monty explained his skin condition, and how he was running from home, and figured that the circus was better than nothing. The ringmaster seemed to accept that and agreed to let him join the circus; just with the other “Freaks like him.” Monty accepted it, along with the nickname given to him for shows: “The Gator Boy”.

For the next eleven years, things stayed relatively normal for Monty. He assisted in setting up the camps and show tents, thanks to his exceptional strength, performed feats of strength and water tricks for crowds, and withstood the verbal abuse from the ringmaster and the “Normal” members of the circus. Thankfully, Monty grew close to the other “Freaks”, and slowly began to feel like he found a home. He even started to begin his education again with, some of the older “Freaks” teaching him how to read, write, and do simple math, a lot of which he forgot in his eleven years without school. But everything fell apart a day or so after the circus set up their next show in Gotham, New Jersey.

The show that day had been one of the weakest, with the acrobats almost killing themselves after a rope snapped, the clowns’ jokes falling flat, the lions falling asleep during their act, and a myriad other problems. The only act to go well was Monty’s, as the now 7ft 2in tall twenty-two-year-old frightened and entertained the crowd with his skin condition, and dead lifting two of the circuses baby elephants at once. After the show, the circus ringmaster caught Monty cleaning up, and began to chew him out, a half empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. He shouted at and berated Monty, falsely accusing him of sabotaging the other acts, insulting his act, and the finally mocking Monty for his skin condition, which had only worsened after more than a decade.

After almost fifteen minutes straight of repeated insults of freak, abomination, and walking nightmare, Monty began to be reminded of his father, and slowly started to disassociate. As the ringmaster threw a final, rageful monster at him, Monty snapped. With a furious roar, Monty uppercut the ringmaster, snapping his head back with a horrible CRACK, and sending the drunken man flying up into the air, through a small arc, and then crashing back to earth through one of the still standing bleachers with a horrible, meaty THWACK. As other members of the circus rushed to check on the ringmaster, Monty only stared at his hands in muted horror, realizing what he had done. When he faintly heard someone yell to call for the cops, Monty fled out of the circus, into the perpetually stormy Gotham night.

…

Much like eleven years ago in Baton Rouge, Monty charged through the rain, desperately seeking salvation wherever he could find it. As he ran, he heard the stomping of footsteps, not behind him, but above. Risking a look back, Monty spotted a dark shape running on roof of the building to his right, and Monty suddenly remembered other members of the circus talking about “The Bat” that plagued Gotham’s nights. Knowing that if the shadow caught him meant a vicious beating, Monty lowered his head and kept charging forward into the night, desperately trying to lose his shadowy tail.

Concrete walls gave way soon to large stacks of metal boxes as Monty’s blind run into the night led him Gotham Harbor. Soon finding himself at the edge of the harbor overlooking Gotham Bay, Monty stared into the dark waters of the bay, trying to decide whether jumping was worth it. He soon heard the wet splash of boots hitting the ground behind him and turned to find the Bat staring him down. As Monty breathed in, two things became apparent. One, the rumors of a “Batman” were off, as he was certain the shadowy figuring staring slightly up at him was a woman, and two, the Bat was tensed for a fight. Deciding that he was done being beat, Monty decided to strike throwing out a wild left hook, which the Bat deftly dodged. The two were soon locked in a dance of punches, kicks, and dodges, both combatants trying like Hell to bring the other down.

As Monty blocked another of the Bat’s punches, he soon began to feel something warming his chest. Confused for a fleeting moment, Monty faltered, allowing the Bat to strike his knee bringing down to the ground. As the Bat leapt onto his back and attempted to grapple him, Monty tried to grapple the new emotions in his chest. He soon realized that what he was feeling, was actual joy, for the first time in his life. Monty had never felt so, alive before, than as he felt now, fighting the Bat. He soon realized, he wanted to feel like this again, but that he needed to get away, to prepare for a round two. So with a quick snarl, Monty bit down on the Bat’s forearm wrapped around his torso, eliciting a pained (and feminine) shout from the Bat, who lost their grip, giving Monty the opportunity to dive into the dark waters of the Bay.

…

Monty was soon able to pull himself into a sewer pipe under the waters, and made his way into the Gotham sewer system, where he began to hear things. Listening to conversation through sewer grates, Monty overheard multiple citizens talk about his brawl with the Bat, and how some newspapers were labeling him the Crocodile Man, which he liked slightly better than Gator Boy. Monty knew he wanted to fight the Bat again, just for a chance at feeling that same joy and life he had felt at the harbor, the happiest he had probably been in years.

But Monty also knew he needed something to get an edge over the Bat, to separate him from other criminals, and ensure that she (He was confident the Bat was a woman, even if most Gotham newspaper called her a man) would try to fight him, and not GCPD. Listening in on some chatter near the Gotham Harbor, gave him the perfect idea.

…

Vanessa “Ness” Anderson was having a pretty shitty two weeks. Between the killer circus strongman who took a chunk out of her armor escaping, the theft of a shit ton of medical equipment from Gotham Memorial Hospital, and then the theft of a container of experimental cybernetic and robot parts that belonged to HER god damn company, Ness was on a bit of a losing streak. Poor Freddy tried to comfort her with some tea and brownies, but they did little to lessen her sour mood. As she idly went through the police reports from the two robberies, she noted how they had similar MO’s. Mainly that something VERY big and VERY strong ripped open all the doors between them and their loot; or in the case of the medical equipment, also burst through a whole brick wall to get outside. Her only lead was that a Neurosurgeon went missing at the same time of the hospital break in, GCPD suspected they were an inside man, but Vanessa had her suspicions.

Suddenly, her police scanner lit up, reports of a giant crocodile man kidnapping a cybernetics’ engineer and fleeing into the sewer. Before the police dispatcher had even finished, Vanessa already had her backup suit on, already knowing who had to be behind the thefts. As she roared out of the Bat Cave on the Bat Bike, Vanessa went over all the reasons why a circus performer wanted for killing his ringmaster would steal so much tech, medical equipment, and two people from different yet similar fields of research. She couldn’t come up with one as she pulled up to the closest sewer entrance near Montgomery’s last known location and leapt down.

But as the Batman made her way into the labyrinthian sewers, she had no idea that she wouldn’t be meeting Montgomery “Monty” Jones, nor would she be meeting the “Gator Boy” or “Crocodile Man”.

No, for the first time she would be meeting Killer Croc.

And he was starving for a rematch.

Chapter Text

Dr. Henry Emily was never a perfect man. He was never the perfect son to his parents, pursuing a career in science when they wanted him in law or even politics, he was never a perfect friend, blowing off parties and get togethers to study and research, and most of all, he was never the perfect husband to his wife, Nora. He was late to dates, always planned lackluster dates, and on more than one occasion forgot either their anniversary, or her birthday. Granted, Henry frequently forgot his own birthday, so wrapped up in his research into cryogenics, as well as his study into biological chemistry. Henry was a man focused mostly on his science, and usually let the rest of the world fall away. He was honestly a little surprised that Nora never left him, but he was grateful that she didn’t, as a few weeks after his 25th birthday, Nora announced that she was pregnant.

Henry, for the first time since his discovery of science, felt a sense of joy and happiness build up in him. The prospect of being a father was always on the edge of his mind, but now that the opportunity was in his face, he was wholly enamored with the prospect. For the first time ever, Henry was focusing not on his research, but on another person, unborn as they may have been. He began to check out parenting books, actually took days off work to take Nora to her checkups and began preparing a nursery at his and Nora’s home. When the news came in after the first sonogram that their baby was to be a girl, Henry joined his first ever party, celebrating with friends and family over his coming daughter. He was fully prepared for when his child would come, although he wasn’t prepared for when he lost Nora.

…

Nora went into labor while Henry was at his job working in Goth Corps research lab, and he quickly rushed to Gotham Memorial when he received the call that his wife had been administered. When he arrived, he was barred from entering the examination lab, as according to nurses, there were problems with the birth, and the doctors couldn’t have anyone other than medical staff in the room. Henry was furious, demanding to see his wife and daughter, but the staff continued to bar him, until eventual two security guards forcibly dragged him to a chair in the waiting area, threatening to hand cuff him to it if he didn’t calm down. For the next hour and a half, Henry sat, stewing in his anger, until finally a mournful doctor exited the exam room. Sadly, Nora didn’t survive the birth, bleeding to death before the doctors could save her.

Thankfully, the doctor did have one bit of good news. Henry’s daughter had survived and was perfectly healthy according to the doctor. Henry was quickly brought his baby girl, swaddled partially in a blanket, some bits of blood and viscera still clinging to her tiny body. From the very minute, no, the very second Henry held in his arms, he made a simple vow. That despite not being a perfect man most of his life, Henry swore that he would always be the perfect father to his daughter. A daughter named Charlotte, after his wife’s grandmother, a name they had agreed on weeks after the first ultrasound. And for the first ten years of little Charlottes life, Henry kept his vow.

…

Henry did everything in his power to be an active part of Charlottes life, as well as being an attentive father. He always made time for her check ups and any extracurricular activities she participated in, he always hired the best, most trustworthy babysitters he could find in Gotham, always made sure to home before his daughter went to bed, so that he could tuck her in, and read her a bedtime story. He also paid attention to whatever caught his daughters’ attention. When she was five, Charlotte became obsessed with marionettes and puppets, and so Henry went out to buy her a doll of her choosing. She eventually chose a lanky and thin black and white doll with purple accents, red cheeks, a white face, and all black eyes, whom she named Mr. Puppet. The thing creeped Henry out, but Charlotte loved him, and took him with her everywhere. Henry also noticed when all of Charlottes friends at school began calling her Charlie, as apparently “Charlotte is too old sounding Daddy!”, at least that’s what Charlie told him, but he still respected her wants. Everything in Henry’s life finally felt normal again, almost like before Nora passed. But then Charlie got sick, and everything changed.

…

It began a month after Charlie’s tenth birthday, Henry started to notice how often Charlie got dizzy, how much more she was coughing, how she was more tired than normal after a day at school. Then one day, his darling Charlie passed out at the dinner table, right in front of Henry, terrifying Henry, who quickly rushed her to the hospital. The doctors performed a litany of tests, and after three days of observation, they came back with the grim prognosis. Apparently, Charlie had MacGregors Syndrome, a near fatal illness that filled the lungs with fluids; and Charlie was in the latest and most fatal stages of the disease. Henry was distraught, according to the doctors his little daughter only had three, maybe four weeks to live before she passed, and there was nothing that he could do. Henry refused to accept that though, he was a scientist damnit, solving the impossible was his specialty.

So as his daughter stayed in the hospital to be monitored, Henry locked himself in his lab, and began working tirelessly on a cure. But his research was slow and stymied by the lack of information on the disease slowly eating away at his daughter. Henry was furious and heartbroken, damning the march of time for taking his daughter, when it struck him. What if he froze Charlie’s clock? Henry had been working on a prototype cryo tube for Goth Corp that was supposed to freeze and preserve any organic material. What if he put Charlie in it? It should slow the disease long enough for Henry to save her, and then allow him to bring her back, no worse for wear. With determination filling him, Henry checked Charlie out of the hospital and brought her to his lab, promising her that he had a solution that would save her. Charlie, full of love and respect for her father, listened and followed his every order, laying down in the tube, Mr. Puppet clutched in her hands. As the door of the tube closed, the last thing she heard was her fathers anguished call of love to her. Then all she felt was cold.

…

For the next five months after freezing Charlie, Henry worked solely on a cure, using the resources available to him at Goth Corp. He ignored any orders form his superiors, questions from Nora’s side of the family on where Charlie was, and inquiries from the police on her disappearance. She was safely hidden in small alcove of his lab only he knew of, and constantly monitored by a program Henry designed, nicknamed PUPP3T, that focused on her vitals and brain activity, to make sure she was still alive in the tube. Everything was looking up, Henry was sure he was on the cusp of a breakthrough, when his boss barged into the lab. Ferris Boyle was furious with Henry, apparently, he had known that Henry froze his daughter, thanks to hidden cameras in the lab, but had allowed it, as the potential profit from a cure for MacGregors would do wonders for the company. But Henry’s lack of progress on other projects, and little ground made in the pursuit of a cure, had pushed Boyle over the edge. He decided that Charlie was a wasted investment, and that to cut losses, should be allowed to die. When the two security Boyle brought moved to deactivate Charlie’s tube, Henry panicked. Grabbing a gun from the holster of one guard, Henry threatened the men to stay away from his daughter, not seeing Boyle sneaking behind him.

Before Henry realized it, Boyle shoved him into a table of chemicals and equipment, Henry also catching a pipe of freon with his foot, breaking it and flooding the lab. Boyle and his men quickly escaped, leaving Henry trapped in the room, desperately clinging to Charlie’s tube. But, instead of freezing t death, Henry changed. His skin turned ice blue, all the hair fell off his body, and ice crept up and down his veins. Henry didn’t know how, but he was alive, but he also had the feeling that he was changed. Deciding to question it later, Henry instead focused on escaping. Loading Charlie onto a pallet jack, Henry donned a hazmat suit, set it to its coolest temperature, and quickly ran from the Goth Corp building in a stolen van. Henry could tell something was wrong with his body, as he was quickly overheating in the hazmat suit and van, despite it being early February. Escaping to his home, Henry grabbed all extra copies of his research as well as his personal lab kit and fled into the Gotham night.

…

A month and a half later, Henry’s life had changed drastically. He and Charlie were hiding in an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district, Henry now lived fully in the hazmat suit, which he had modified to maintain extreme low temperatures. Despite everything though, Henry still pushed forward in trying to cure Charlie, but he was soon distracted. On a television he had stolen, Henry saw the familiar face of one Ferris Boyle, who had apparently been named Gotham’s Humanitarian of the Year. The news filled Henry with furious anger, humanitarian? What a joke! The man had been willing to let Henry’s daughter die a month ago, what made him a humanitarian, the hypocrite. As the venomous thoughts filled his head, Henry saw a plan beginning to formulate. A way to embarrass, humiliate and ruin that bastard Boyle in front of the whole of Gotham, and expose him for the monster he is. It would take time, and more equipment than he had available, but Henry was determined to get revenge on his daughter’s behalf, and no hurdle would stand in his was.

Dr. Henry Emily may not have been the perfect man.

But Mr. Freeze would make sure that he was the perfect father.

Chapter Text

Since he was a young boy, Samuel Dent has always tried to look on the bright side of life. His constant positive outlook on life even earned him the nickname of “Sun” from other kids at school. Despite the bullying he received at school, and the abuse he suffered under his alcoholic priest father, Sun always kept a smile on his face. He thankfully had one reprise at school though, and that was Vanessa Anderson, the rich kid having befriended him on their first day at Gotham Prep when they were ten. She had already been without her parents for about two years by then, and Sun was confident that it was her android butler that had pushed her to befriend him, but he didn’t care. She looked out for him, and didn’t find his constant positivity annoying, at least not all the time. She still grumbled at him when he was beaming like a lighthouse at eight in the morning, but he knew that was just because she was never a morning person.

The two always had each other’s back at school, and outside of it as well. One memory of Sun’s that stands out is when they went to a local arcade after school. The two were terrible at all the games, making a meager pile of tickets between the two them, but they didn’t really care. Once Sun was on his final token, he decided he’d go for something simple like one of the claw machines, when the token was snatched from his hand. A bully from school had caught up to them and was tauntingly holding the last token out of Sun’s reach. Before Sun had a chance to lose his cool, a wild left hook caught the bully across the face, Sun able to hear the audible “crunch” of the boy’s nose. As the bully runs away, cursing a storm about his broken nose, Vanessa picks up the token from where it landed on the ground, wiping a few bits of blood off the coin. She hands it to Sun, a curt “Better hold on to that a little better.” The only thing she says on the matter, before walking towards the prize counter. Sun never let’s go of that token, taking it with him when they leave, pulling it out whenever the darker parts of his mind start to bubble up, idly flipping it while humming cheery tunes to himself.

…

Near the end of Sun’s time at Gotham Prep, Vanessa disappears from Gotham, on a journey of “self-discovery” according to Freddy, and her leaving reopens some of the dark pits in Sun’s mind. Thankfully, Sun’s acceptance to Gotham University on a criminal justice major helps him push those ugly pits deeper down in his psyche. Sun studies as hard as he can, and graduates from GU top of his class, moving on to studying law at Harvard next. When he finally returns to Gotham after passing the bar, it’s to a city embroiled by crime, a justice system drowning in corruption, and his father’s funeral. A week after the bastard is in the ground, Sun has a job in GCPD Internal Affairs, and quickly makes name for himself. None of the officers like him, but Sun never expected them too. No one likes Internal Affairs, and with the intense crusade Sun leads on the corruption rotting the department, he quickly makes it to the top of every cop’s shit list.

But Sun’s crusade at least bears fruit, and he quickly gains the public’s favor. A “shining knight”, blazing like the sun in his brightly colored three-piece suits, all of which incorporate red, yellow, or orange in some way. He soon use’s that favor to run for DA, and easily wins in a landslide victory. But that’s when old, and new, faces began to appear. First, it was Vanessa, finally returned from her globe trotting trip, a much different woman. She’s more withdrawn and quieter, no longer the bombastic young girl who protected Sun at school. But Sun, ignoring the little voices at the back of his head saying that somethings wrong, was just happy to have his best friend back after so many years. But sadly, even having Vanessa back doesn’t help stabilize Sun’s life. As soon, a dark shadow descends on Gotham.

…

The first time Sun heard the rumors of “The Bat”, he thought people were being too suspicious. At least, until he saw it with his own two eyes. Gliding across the moonlit Gotham sky, the large, black mass almost seemed to absorb the light of the stars and moon. Sun was both awed, and terrified of it. The Bat claimed to seek justice, but repeatedly put men in hospitals, sometimes the damn ICU. Most of the time, Sun couldn’t do anything to prosecute the people the Bat left strewn up on lampposts or beaten in back alleys. There was never enough evidence, just the word of a vigilante dressed like a bat of all things. Sun resented the Bat, but he also knew that the two of them had the same goal: cleaning up Gotham. So, putting aside and ignoring the voices in his head, he trusted the Bat. And things started to look up for Sun. Then the nightmares started. Then, Sun started to black out when he got annoyed or angry. Then Rupert Thorne happened.

Rupert Thorne was the biggest horn in Sun’s side, a “legitimate” businessman who had a hand in most of the organized crime and corruption that plagued Gotham’s streets. Worse though, was that anytime Sun get anywhere near locking up Thorne’s people, all the evidence, any witnesses, hell sometimes the suspects themselves, would just up and vanish. That pushed Sun to the edge, and that’s when things began to fall apart. He started to get nightmares, horrible nightmares. A version of himself, half cloaked in shadows, stalking him through a darkened street, flipping his token and telling him that “It was time” and that “Together, they could clean up Gotham forever”. But never in Sun’s exact voice, no his nightmare twin spoke in a deep, gravelly version of Sun’s voice, laughing cruelly at him, and always humming some kind of a children’s lullaby. At the same time as the nightmares, Sun began to black out. He would get annoyed, or angry at something, and the next thing he knew, he would be missing a minute or two, there would be a huge mess, something usually broken, and anyone nearby looking at him in shock and fear. It terrified him.

Sun started to attend therapy by that point, and his therapist came to a swift conclusion: dissociative identity disorder. She believed that Sun’s constant pushing down of all his negative emotions growing up caused him to lock the negative parts of his personality away, where they formed their own identity, and now with the constant stress from his job and the inability to lock up Rupert Thorne, that personality is trying to break out, using any slip ups in Sun’s emotions to worm its way out. The revelations from his therapist struck fear in Sun’s heart. Fear over losing everything he had been working for in his career. If word got out that he was mentally unwell, he could lose his position as DA. Worse, there also stood the possibility that any number of trials he stood as prosecutor for could be relitigated, or even overruled due to his mental health. Which is why when Rupert Thorne called him two days after a raid on one of his safehouses, Sun only felt dread pooling in his stomach.

…

As Sun listened over the phone, Thorne revealed how his people tracked him down to his therapist’s office, and how they were able to get their hands on his file. Their demands were simple: meet at a chemical plant Thorne owned in order to discuss a deal that satisfied everyone; or else. Sun had no choice, and after making an excuse to his secretary, left for the factory, not noticing the black shadow following him on the rooftops.

Thorne’s “fair” deal was fair for everyone that wasn’t Sun. Sun worked his legal magic to free Rupert’s men, as well as giving a word of warning when the GCPD was on to him, and Thorne wouldn’t mail Sun’s file straight to the Gotham Herald. The more Thorne discussed the deal, the more Sun began to feel himself sleeping, those darker thoughts he always pushed down rearing their heads like a particularly pissed off dragon. As Thorne leaned over the desk to mock and leer, Sun grabbed him by his suit jacket, lifting the portly crime boss out of his seat, snarling at him that he was going to make Rupert regret the day he started sucking air though his poisonous lips. It was at that moment, that a large black mass crashed through the ceiling, knocking Thorne and Sun to the floor as it landed on the desk. Towering over the quivering goons, stunned DA, and shocked crime boss, stood the Bat in all their terrifying might.

As the goons in the room shook off their fear and charged at the Bat, Thorne snatched up the file off the floor and made a run for the exit. Sun, still full of fury at the crime boss, gave chase, ignoring the Bat’s calls to let him go. As Thorne bolted across a metal catwalk hanging over large vats of chemicals, Sun followed close on his heels, yelling at him to drop the file. Before either could get far, a speeding blur sped past, catching Thorne in the back of his knee, buckling him, and causing him to drop the file off the edge. With a shout, Sun leapt towards it, stopped only by the metal railing of the walkway, and watched as the file fluttered through the air, and straight into a boiling vat of chemicals. Letting out a sigh of relief, knowing that without that file, any allegations Thorne made would have no weight behind. Suddenly, Sun’s attention drawn behind him as he heard a shout, and saw the Bat slam their fist into a goon’s face, as well as the grenade in the man’s hand go flying, in Sun’s direction. Sun slammed to the metal walkway, covering his head as he heard the grenade sail pass and down. Daring a peek over the edge, he saw the grenade swan dive into the same vat his file landed in, and before he could react, the whole thing went up in a huge fireball. The last thing sun felt before he passed out, was his whole left side burning.

…

The next time Sun woke up, it was to the blinding light of a hospital room, the whole left side of his body aching. A nurse noticed his eye fluttering open and oh what joy, he could only see out of one eye. By the time Sun became cognitive of that fact, the doctor had arrived, alerted by the attending nurse. After a brief discussion on what had happened, and the fact that he had been in the hospital for almost three weeks now. The doctor told him that it was great timing he had, waking up when he did, as they were just about to remove the bandages from the left side of his face, and the rest of his body. The doctor and nurse quickly got to work, cutting and peeling off the tapestry of cloth that entrapped the left half of Sun’s body. But, as the last of the bandages were removed, Sun heard the doctor gasp in horror, the nurse dropping the tray of medical supplies she was holding out of horror. Sun demanded to know what was wrong, the doctor warning him it wasn’t pretty, to which Sun swiped the side table next to him, knocking everything but a small mirror off in his rage. He snatched up the mirror, noticing that his left hand was horribly burned, and hurt like hell to lift, but Sun found he didn’t care. As he lifted the mirror to his face, Sun got a full look of the new him, and dropped the mirror to the floor. As it shattered into a thousand pieces, Sun clutched at his face, sobbing, which quickly turned to broken laughter, and then final, a tortured scream, as something finally snapped in Sun’s mind.

…

Vanessa Anderson made her way down the halls of Gotham Memorial, a bouquet of sunflowers held in her arms, and continued to kick and berate herself mentally over the events of three weeks ago. She should have been faster, should have seen the goon with the grenade earlier, hell, at the very least she should have caught Thorne, the bastard having escaped in the confusion after the explosion. Now because of her failure, little Sammy, Sun, her best friend, and the closest thing to a brother she ever had, was now in a coma, healing from his wounds. As she neared his room, she a bloodcurdling scream, terrified yelling, and the sound of scuffling from the room. Before she had a chance to react, the door slammed open, and a man in a hospital gown stumbled out, his head held in his arms. With a strangled gasp, the man turned to Vanessa, and she got a full look at Sun’s new body.

The whole left side of his body was scarred and burnt, exposed muscle and bone clear on his arm and hand. But the worst part had to be his face; it was twisted, and pock marked, all the skin of his cheek burnt and twisted into a horrible grin on only one half of his face. His ear was nearly gone, only a lump of burnt flesh indicating where it used to be. His hair, usually a bright blond, was now a shocking white on only his left half. His eye was bloodshot and beady, staring at her in fear, tears pooling at the edges. As Vanessa took a tentative half step towards her friend, raising one hand up in a placating manner, he turned and bolted down the hall away from her, towards a window open to the dark Gotham night. Vanessa dropped the bouquet, sprinting after Sun, but the DA already had a head start, and just Vanessa’s luck that the janitor chose that moment to roll out of another room, and right into Ness, knocking her off balance. By the time she got to the window, Sun was gone, disappeared into the darkness that filled Gotham’s nights.

…

As Sun ran, two voices argued in his head. One, Sun’s own voice, argued that they turn around, head back to the hospital, to Vanessa, and get help. But the other voice, the one that had haunted Sun’s nightmares for weeks, was much louder, and much, much stronger, arguing that they could never go back, that they were a freak, that no one but themselves could help them now. Only they could clean up the filth that filled Gotham’s streets, only they could drag the corrupt officials out of city hall, and put them down like the rats they were, and that only they could bring real justice to the city, unlike the Bat, who let men like Rupert Thorne run wild and unopposed. The first voice, though much quieter, still argued that it wasn’t fair to judge like that, that they still needed something final to decide the city’s fate. So, Sun uncurled his fist, looking down at the only thing he took from his hospital room; his lucky token, clean on one half, scarred on the other. The perfect reflection of Sun’s new look. So, with a single flip, Sun called it. Head’s, they stop running, and go back. Tails, and Gotham faces real justice.

As the coin landed in his hand Samuel “Sun” Dent closed his eye for the last time.

And Two-Face opened his for the very first time.