Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say Gotham City chews people up and spits them out.

I used to think that was just something bitter people said to justify why they gave up. But now… now I think I understand.

Because tonight, Gotham almost chewed me up. And if he hadn’t shown up—

No. Let me start from the beginning….

I’ve always admired my dad. Jim Gordon: Gotham’s last honest cop, people call him. He hates that label, says it’s not fair to the other good ones left. But deep down, I think he knows it’s probably true. He’s the kind of man who reads every case file three times, remembers victims’ birthdays, and still brings home paper files because he doesn’t trust the department’s “upgraded” system.

Even when I was little, I could tell there was something different about him. While other officers turned a blind eye or chased payoffs, Dad stood his ground. Always. Even when it cost him promotions. Even when it cost him friends.

Then there’s Bruce Wayne. Billionaire playboy on the outside. But I never bought the headlines. I mean, sure, he throws galas and flashes his charm, but the minute he came back to Gotham after all those years overseas, he started pouring money into things no one else would touch—rehab programs, orphanages, infrastructure. Real stuff. Not just tax write-offs and press photos.

People say he’s trying to make up for lost time. I think he’s trying to save the city in the only way someone like him can.

And then… there’s the Bat.

Some say he’s a myth. A story made up by desperate people who need to believe someone’s watching over them. Others say he’s real—and terrifying. The way the bad guys talk about him… like he’s a demon with eyes in the dark.

I believe them. I know he’s real. I’ve heard the stories. The drug busts, the interrupted gang wars, the disappearances. He’s out there. One man against the entire abyss of Gotham’s corruption.

But here’s the thing…

Saving Gotham? That’s not a one-person job. Not even three. Not even if one of them is the Bat.

So… I made a choice.

It was a stupid, reckless, idiotic choice—but I made it.

I spent weeks designing a suit, cobbling it together from secondhand gear and bits of things from Dad’s garage. I trained—YouTube tutorials, old police manuals I wasn’t supposed to read, and every self-defense book the library had.

I wasn’t trying to be a hero. Not really. I just wanted to help. Even just a little. Make someone’s night a little safer. Scare off a mugger. Call 911 before someone bled out. That sort of thing.

I wasn’t supposed to get caught up in an arms deal behind the old Narrows docks. I wasn’t supposed to get spotted. And I definitely wasn’t supposed to get chased.

They had guns. Real ones. And I… well, I had pepper spray.

Turns out courage doesn't do much against bullets.

I ran until my lungs were screaming, and when I tripped over a chain-link fence and slammed into the gravel, I thought: This is it. This is where I die. Fourteen years old and already a cautionary tale.

But then— A shape dropped from the sky. Silent. Swift. And terrifying.

The Bat.

He moved like smoke and hit like a wrecking ball. I heard bones break. Heard men scream. I think he even caught a bullet with his armor and didn’t flinch.

And then… he looked at me. Or through me. His eyes—white, cold, unreadable—met mine for just a second. I tried to say something, anything.

But everything went black.

When I wake up… if I wake up… I don’t know what happens next. Maybe he’ll take me to a hospital. Maybe to the police. Maybe he’ll make me promise never to do this again.

But I saw the way he fought. I saw how alone he was. And if I do wake up…

I’m not quitting. Because Gotham needs more than stories. It needs people who won’t look away.

Even if they’re just kids with big dreams and a knockoff utility belt.

Chapter Text

When I woke up the next morning, I was in my bed.

The window was shut, the curtains drawn, and my ceiling fan was spinning in that familiar lazy circle. My alarm was blaring, and my blankets were half on the floor. Everything was… normal.

Which made zero sense.

I sat up, slowly. No broken bones. No bullet wounds. Not even a bruise. My costume—what was left of it—was nowhere to be found. And for a moment, I wondered if maybe it was all just a dream. A really vivid, terrifying, weirdly specific dream.

But the ache in my legs told me I had definitely run like my life depended on it. Because it had.

And the image of him—the Bat—standing over me, eyes glowing in the dark… yeah, that didn’t feel like a dream.

Still, the house smelled like bacon and coffee, which meant Dad had made breakfast. That was one constant I could count on.

“You’re up late,” Dad said, sipping coffee in his usual spot at the kitchen counter, tie already crooked and badge clipped to his belt. “Big night?”

I shrugged. “Just didn’t sleep well.”

“Teenage angst already? At fourteen?” he joked. “You’re getting ahead of schedule.”

I smiled faintly and sat down. Pancakes, eggs, toast, bacon—the usual weekend-level spread he made whenever he had the energy to play Super Dad.

I ate. A lot. I mean, a lot. But something was off.

Even after all that food, I still felt… hollow. Not quite hungry. Not quite full. Just this low, strange tension under my skin, like something was wrong and I couldn’t figure out what.

School was normal. Or at least, it started that way.

I walked the halls, half-distracted. Everything felt a little too loud. Too bright. I could hear the hum of the overhead lights. I could hear people breathing.

At first I thought I was imagining it. Stress, maybe. Delayed trauma. Whatever. But then in third period, right in the middle of bio class, my stomach twisted so sharply I nearly doubled over.

“Barbara?” Ms. Denton said, raising an eyebrow.

“I—I don’t feel good,” I mumbled.

She sent me to the nurse. I didn’t even argue.

By the time I got home, the sky had turned gray and Gotham’s signature drizzle was just starting. The apartment was empty. Dad was probably still neck-deep in case files or interrogations. I texted him that I was home and okay, and he gave me the usual “rest up, no video games” response.

I wasn’t hungry, but I ordered pizza anyway. Habit, I guess.

When the delivery guy came, that’s when things got weird.

He looked totally normal—maybe nineteen, earbuds in, wearing a Gotham Slices hat. But when I opened the door, I heard something. Or maybe I felt it.

His heartbeat. It was steady, a little fast. And beneath that—blood. Flowing in his arms. Through his neck. His veins lit up in my mind like subway maps.

I stood frozen for a second, heart thumping in my chest for a totally different reason now.

“You okay?” the delivery guy asked, handing me the box.

“Yeah,” I said quickly, fumbling for cash. “Sorry. Just spaced out.”

I paid, took the pizza, and shut the door fast.

I didn’t eat any of it. Instead, I stared at the box, the smell of melted cheese and oregano suddenly nauseating.

My skin crawled. My hands were cold. I shoved the pizza into the fridge, climbed the stairs, and crawled into bed without even turning on the lights.

I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling.

Something’s wrong with me.

Something happened last night. Something real.

And I don’t know what I’m becoming.

Chapter Text

Pain.

That was the first thing I felt when I woke up.

It wasn’t the dull ache of sore muscles or the sharp jab of an injury. It was everywhere—burning just beneath my skin like someone had lit a match inside me and then forgotten to blow it out.

I rolled out of bed, skin clammy with sweat, and stumbled toward the mirror. No bruises. No cuts. Just… pale. Too pale. And my eyes looked strange. The whites were—off. Redder, maybe?

I splashed cold water on my face and opened the blinds slightly, hoping the sun would help me shake whatever this was.

It was a mistake.

The moment that faint beam of Gotham morning light touched my arm, I screamed. It felt like acid had poured directly onto my skin. I scrambled backward, fell over the laundry hamper, and slammed the blinds shut.

What. The. Hell.

The internet is a dark and stupid place when you’re desperate.

I searched everything I could think of: "sensitive to sunlight", "skin burning in daylight", "woke up with enhanced senses and nausea", "can hear heartbeats???", "mutations, viruses, Gotham unexplained phenomena"

But everything circled back to the same two things: Vampires. And The Bat.

Some forums even had wild theories that Batman wasn’t human—that he was an experiment, a creature of the night, a vigilante born from the darkness of Gotham itself. One post claimed he’d been spotted disappearing into the shadows like smoke. Another said he drank the blood of criminals. That one had way too many upvotes.

I closed the laptop and stared at the wall.

I’m not a vampire. I’m not some… bat-creature.

I’m Barbara Gordon. I’m fourteen. I take AP classes and watch anime and get stomachaches when I eat too fast.

I’m normal.

So why did the sun just try to kill me?

That night, I decided I needed proof. Real evidence. I needed to know what I could actually do. So I snuck out.

The parking lot behind the old hardware store was deserted—cracked pavement, busted lights, graffiti-splashed walls. It was the perfect place to fall on your face without an audience.

First, I tried speed. Sprinting across the lot as fast as I could. I knocked over a trash can and tripped on a bottle. So… nope. Not a vampire-level sprinter.

Next, strength. I tried lifting a rusty old parking barricade. Didn’t budge. Not even an inch. So, still Barbara-strength. Great.

Then, I climbed the fire escape to the top of the building. Just a few stories high. I didn’t want to jump. But I had to test it. If I was changing, I needed to know the limits.

I dropped. Hard.

Pain shot through my knees and back when I landed, and I rolled onto the pavement with a hiss of breath. Okay. Still mortal. Definitely still mortal.

I sat there for a while, trying to breathe through the pain and ignore the building dread crawling up my spine. And that’s when I saw it.

A rat. Skittering out from a dumpster. It stopped a few feet away, twitching its whiskers at me.

And then… it hit me.

The smell.

Not garbage. Not the city’s filth. But something warm. Coppery. Rich. Alive.

Its blood. I could smell its blood.

Before I could even think, I was on it. My hands snatched it up like they knew what they were doing. My teeth sank in before I could stop myself.

The taste was— God. Warm and sweet and wrong and perfect. Like quenching a thirst I didn’t even know I had.

By the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late. The rat was limp in my hands. Its tiny heart had stopped.

I dropped it, stumbled back, and nearly threw up.

I wiped my mouth and tasted blood on my tongue.

This isn’t a cold. This isn’t stress. This isn’t a dream.

Something changed me.

And I think…

I think he had something to do with it.

Chapter Text

If Day 2 was denial, then Days 3 through 5 were acceptance.

Well—adjustment. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually “accept” any of this. But after drinking a rat’s blood in a back alley parking lot, and after burning my skin in the tiniest sliver of sunlight, what else could I do?

I started making changes. First priority: Sunlight-proof the apartment.

Our place was already naturally gloomy—Gotham’s skyline doesn’t exactly let much sunshine through—but I couldn’t take chances. I ordered blackout curtains online, the industrial kind. The ones hotels use in vampire movies. They came in thick, heavy packages that I dragged inside when Dad was at work. I replaced the living room bulbs with red-tinted ones to be safe, and lined the edges of every window with duct tape and towels just in case the curtains slipped.

Second: Garlic purge. I didn’t know if it would affect me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I dug through the fridge and pantry like I was a health inspector on a rampage. Garlic powder, minced garlic, cloves, frozen garlic bread—all gone. Tossed into a trash bag and dumped three blocks away so Dad wouldn’t find it in the bin. He didn’t even notice.

He was busy. Dad’s been neck-deep in a case—something big. Murders happening all over the city. Brutal ones. No patterns, no motive, no fingerprints. He said something about “animalistic wounds,” like claws or teeth. I listened from the hallway when he took a call from the station late one night. I wasn’t supposed to be up, but I was always up now.

"Another one," he muttered. "No sign of forced entry. Victim was drained… like the others."

Drained.

I knew what that meant. And I hated that I knew.

He’s barely been home. When he is, he crashes on the couch with his shoes still on and a case file on his chest. Sometimes he mutters things in his sleep. Names. Street names. Details from crime scenes.

It should give me relief—his distraction. But instead, it fills me with dread.

Because eventually, the case will break. Eventually, he’ll be home again, alert again. And he’s not stupid. He’ll start noticing the blackout curtains, the food I’m not eating, the way I keep my hood up inside.

And when he does… what do I tell him? “Hey, Dad? I might be a bloodthirsty creature of the night now. Possibly turned by the Bat. Not totally sure. Still testing that part. Anyway, how was your day?”

Right.

I don’t sleep in a coffin. So at least there’s that.

But I haven’t slept well either. When I close my eyes, I hear heartbeats. Smell blood. My own? The city's? I don’t know anymore.

And deep down… something inside me is changing.

Not just the senses. Not just the cravings.

I’m getting stronger. Faster. At night, I can see in pitch black. I can climb walls like a cat. I feel energy surging in my muscles like I’m powered by something else now. Not food. Not sleep. Just… need.

And the worst part? It doesn’t feel wrong anymore. It feels natural.

And if my dad ever finds out what I’ve become…

He might not see me as his daughter anymore. He might see me as something he has to stop.

Chapter Text

I used to be afraid of the dark.

Not in a little-kid, monsters-under-the-bed kind of way. I mean real fear. The kind you learn growing up in Gotham, where darkness isn't just the absence of light—it's where the worst things in the world hide.

But last night?

Last night, something changed.

It started when the power went out. Just a typical Gotham blackout—maybe a grid surge, maybe a Riddler attack, maybe someone forgot to pay a bill. Who knows? The whole block went dark just after 1AM.

I had been up, of course. Restless. Twitchy. I was sitting on the floor of my room with a pile of books I couldn’t focus on when the lightbulb flickered once… then died.

Total darkness. Except… not for me.

I blinked. Once. Twice. And then I saw everything.

Not just vague outlines or shadowy shapes. I saw my room clearly—every dust particle in the air, every crack in the drywall, the tiny frayed edges of the carpet. It wasn’t even grayscale. It was just… hyper-clear. Like the shadows had peeled back, and the truth of everything was finally visible.

I walked through the hallway without bumping into anything. No flashlight. No phone screen. Just me and the dark.

I threw on a hoodie and slipped out the window. The city was in blackout too—streetlights dim, windows dark, cars parked and silent.

But I saw everything. I walked through the alleys and over rooftops like I was born to be there. Like Gotham wasn’t a beast to fear, but a kingdom I could rule.

Every gutter. Every rooftop ledge. Every flicker of motion behind trash bins—I saw it all.

Rats. Cats. Drunk guys stumbling home. People stealing bikes. A kid crying into a payphone.

The darkness wasn’t hiding anything from me anymore. It felt like—for the first time—I wasn’t a victim of Gotham’s shadows. I was the shadow

There was something exhilarating about it. I climbed a fire escape just to see how far I could go. My foot slipped once, but my reflexes snapped fast—I caught myself without thinking. No bruises. No panic. Just a smirk I didn’t even realize was forming.

I stood on top of a three-story building and looked out at the city like it belonged to me.

And for the first time since this whole nightmare started… I wasn’t scared.

I was curious.

Excited.

If this was what I was becoming—then maybe I wasn’t cursed. Maybe I was being reborn.

Not a vampire. Not a monster. Something new. Something else.

Something that could make a difference in Gotham.

Because maybe the Bat wasn’t a myth. Maybe he was a blueprint.

And maybe, just maybe… I was starting to follow it.

Chapter Text

It’s been a week.

Seven days since the alley. Seven days since the Bat. Seven days since… everything changed.

And for once, I wanted to feel normal. Not confined to blackout curtains, not experimenting with my limits in hidden lots. Just… normal. So I took a walk. A quiet one, by the water. No rooftops. No back alleys. Just the Gotham City Pier.

The lake looked dead under normal light—grey, oily, lifeless—but under my vision?

It was beautiful.

I could see everything. To the bottom. Crabs picking through trash. Schools of tiny fish slipping through the algae. A rusted shopping cart nestled in the silt like some kind of forgotten shrine.

The water shimmered in layers. Reflections danced like whispers across the surface.

It was the first time since that night I felt a sense of wonder…

That didn’t last long.

I heard it before I saw it. Three men—talking low, footsteps heavy, crunching gravel near the warehouses by the water. I slipped behind a rusted container and watched.

They were surrounding someone. A mugging?

I was ready. I had stealth. Reflexes. Speed. This was my moment to do something good—to test if these changes meant I could actually help someone.

But then he started laughing.

Not panicked. Not defensive.

Giggling.

High-pitched. Erratic. Unhinged.

And then… he moved.

Fast. Inhumanly fast. Like a blur with bones. He tore into the men like an animal, no—like something worse. He pinned one against the wall and bit his throat open. The next, he flipped over his shoulder and drained from the wrist. The last tried to run. Didn’t get far.

I couldn’t breathe.

It wasn’t the blood. It wasn’t the gore. It was how familiar it looked. How natural it was for him. The way his body moved—twisted and long, like he didn’t have bones, just spring-loaded madness.

And then… he stopped.

Sniffed the air. Tilted his head. Right toward me.

My heart jumped into my throat.

He couldn’t have seen me. I was crouched behind the container. Silent. Still.

But something in his posture changed. Like a bloodhound catching a scent.

Then—he smiled. Wide. Teeth like cracked piano keys.

I ran.

I don’t know how fast I was going. Just that it was faster than I ever had in my life. My feet barely touched the ground. My lungs didn’t burn. I flew between alleyways and behind fences and under busted-out bridges. But it didn’t feel fast enough.

Because somewhere behind me, I could hear him. Not footsteps. Not breathing. Just this awful, scratchy laughing. Following me like a shadow made of broken glass.

I dove through a chain-link fence, tore my hoodie, and stumbled into an overgrown garden. Old greenhouse maybe. Covered in ivy and choked by weeds. I dropped low behind a bush and forced myself still.

Then I watched.

He stalked through the brush, lanky and twitching. His shoulders hunched, his legs bending wrong. White face. Red smile. Black-ringed eyes.

Clown makeup.

But this wasn’t makeup from a cheap costume shop. This looked burned in. Like his skin had chosen it.

He sniffed the air again. Clicked his teeth. Muttered something I couldn’t hear, like a joke with no punchline. Then turned, slowly, and began walking in the other direction.

The sun was rising. I could feel it too—tingling at the back of my neck like a warning.

I didn’t wait. I slipped out the other side of the garden, sprinted through the fading dark, and ran all the way home before the first real rays of sunlight could reach me.

Back in my room, I collapsed. Not from exhaustion. From fear.

I thought I was alone in this. That maybe I was some accident. A one-off.

But now I know—I'm not the only one who’s changed.

There’s something else out there. Something that drinks blood and laughs like a maniac.

And whatever he is…

He saw me.

Chapter Text

It’s been three days since the clown vampire incident. And I haven’t left the apartment since.

I told Dad I was finally "catching up on schoolwork." He didn’t question it—he’s barely been home anyway. The string of attacks has kept him glued to the precinct. According to the news, they’ve doubled patrols around the waterfront and Narrows.

People are terrified.

And I’m starving.

Day 8

I thought maybe I could fight it. I buried myself in textbooks. Highlighted random lines in science classwork just to stay distracted. I forced myself to eat toast, cereal, whatever was around. But none of it worked. It was like trying to fuel a fire with wet leaves.

My vision started to blur around the edges. My body ached. My gums itched. I was hungry—but not for food. For something warm, rich… alive.

Eventually, I cracked.

I waited until nightfall, slipped out my window, and hunted.

A rat first. Quick kill. Blood was warm but barely enough to take the edge off.

Then a bird. Feathers in my mouth. Disgusting. Still hungry.

Then a stray cat.

I didn’t want to do it. I love cats. But I didn’t even think. I saw it, I pounced, I drank.

And even then… the hunger lingered.

Day 9

The next night, I went farther from home. Near the edge of the city where the lights dim and the concrete breaks apart. I wasn’t planning on anything, not really.

Then I saw him.

A homeless man. Middle-aged. Drunk. Barely conscious on a bench behind a busted-out gas station. His pulse was slow. His breath reeked of vodka. He wouldn’t feel a thing.

I crept forward.

Fangs ready. Eyes locked. One more step and—

WEEEEOOOOW!

Sirens.

Red and blue light splashed the alley like a punch to the face. Doors slammed. Footsteps thundered. Voices barked commands.

"Hey! Stop!"

"That her?!"

"She matches the description!"

"Jim! She’s heading east!"

Jim.

My dad.

My breath caught in my throat.

I pushed harder, every muscle burning but still running faster than I ever thought possible. I climbed a wall, vaulted over a fence, kicked off a dumpster. I could hear my name being called—but not my name. Not "Barbara." Just "Hey! Stop!"

I ducked into a warehouse loading dock and yanked a tarp over myself. Stayed quiet. Listened to the footsteps run past. Waited.

It was hours before I dared go home.

Day 10

I’m back in the apartment again. Curtains sealed. Lights off. Hunger worse than ever.

Dad came home this morning. He looked tired. Older.

He sat on the edge of the couch with a mug of black coffee and muttered, “She was just a kid. Real fast. Like a blur. Almost like…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He doesn’t know.

But he suspects something.

He thinks I’m out there somewhere. Maybe part of this string of attacks. Maybe responsible for it.

He doesn't know it's me.

But he will. Eventually.

And when he does…

What will he do?

Chapter Text

I woke up feeling… different.

Not in the "oh, I finally got a good night’s sleep" kind of way. No. This was something deeper. Like I’d grown overnight—like my body was becoming something else while my mind was still trying to hold on.

My skin felt tighter. My muscles pulsed like they were too big for my bones. And worse?

My back hurt. Bad.

I staggered to the bathroom, turned on the water, and peeled off my shirt. My whole spine ached like it had been wrenched out of place. The hot water helped, for about five seconds—until I looked in the mirror.

Two lumps. Right below my shoulder blades. Pale, sickly, bone-colored things pushing beneath the skin like they were trying to break through. I touched one. It twitched.

I gagged. What is happening to me?

Are they… wings? Bones? Parasites? Claws?

I didn’t know.

And that scared me more than anything.

I wrapped myself in a towel and collapsed onto the bathroom floor, shaking. I wanted to cry. Scream. Tear whatever was inside me out and just end this.

But I couldn’t.

Because I was starving. Not just uncomfortable-hungry. Not skip-lunch hungry. I mean aching, burning, blinding hunger. My fangs were out before I even realized it. My mouth was already watering.

And I knew what I needed.

It wasn’t another rat. Or bird. Or stray cat.

It was human. Blood. Nothing else would do.

I bit down on my wrist. Tried to drink my own blood. Spat it out. Wrong taste. Wrong texture. Wrong everything.
I rummaged through the fridge, searching for anything—anything—that might help. Raw meat. Nothing. Frozen chicken. Nothing. I even bit into a rare steak we were saving for Sunday dinner. Useless.

Then I looked out the window. Gotham was waking up. People walking the streets. Unaware. Unafraid. Alive.

And for the first time since this all started… I wanted to feed.

Not needed. Wanted.

I gripped the windowsill so hard it cracked beneath my fingers.

I need to find a way to survive this. A system. A method. Something that keeps me from hurting anyone.

Because if I don’t… if I keep getting worse…

I don’t know if I’ll be Barbara Gordon anymore.

I don’t know what I’ll be.

Chapter Text

I may be changing.

Growing claws. Fangs. Hunger. Whatever. 

But I’m still me.

I haven’t hurt anyone. Not really. I’ve wanted to, sure. The hunger practically screams at me now. But I haven’t given in. Not fully. That’s gotta count for something… right?

Today, I decided I was done hiding.

I put on clean clothes, brushed my hair, and left the apartment like any normal fourteen-year-old would. Except my sunglasses were bigger. And the hoodie I wore was tighter around the back—those bony lumps haven’t gone away.

I headed to the Gotham City Police Department. My home away from home.

Dad looked surprised to see me. “Barb? What’re you doing here?”

I offered my most innocent smile. “I wanted to check in. I… I think I saw something the other night. Something bad.”

His face changed instantly. “Go on.”

I told him about the clown-like man. The alley. The three muggers drained of blood. How he moved like an animal and laughed like a lunatic. I left out the part where I nearly became dessert. And the part where I’ve been drinking blood ever since.

His expression turned dark. “We’ve been chasing someone who fits that description. A lot of bodies turning up. We thought it might be some new rogue or a serial nutjob.”

I swallowed hard. “Do you think it could be… something not human?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Gotham’s seen weirder.”

While he was distracted talking to another officer, I made my move.

Slipped through the side hallway. Past the vending machines. Found Officer Talbot’s desk—known for being corrupt as hell but dumb as bricks.

His beat-up comm radio was sitting right there, still on the charger. I palmed it and tucked it into my hoodie pocket like I’d been doing it for years.

Dad might know how deep the corruption runs, but I’ve also seen the signs. Talbot’s always muttering about off-the-books calls and “clean-up jobs.” If anyone’s gonna hear about weird bodies before they hit the news, it’ll be him.

And if there are already-dead bodies out there?

Then maybe I don’t have to hurt anyone.

Maybe I can survive this… without becoming a monster.

Back home, I sat by my window as the city hummed below me.

The radio buzzed and clicked. Most of it was boring—traffic stops, petty thefts, loitering reports. But every so often…

“Unit 17, possible 10-54, warehouse off Crane Street. Three bodies, no ID, unusual state of death—callin’ it in now.”

Bingo.

I don’t want to hurt anyone. I won’t.

But if people are already dead… and the hunger’s not going away…

Then maybe I can still be Barbara Gordon. A version of her, anyway. With claws.

Chapter Text

The radio became my lifeline.

Every day, I’d slip it under my pillow, pretending to do homework while really listening for key phrases:

“Unusual condition.”

“No visible cause of death.”

“Drained.”

And when they came in, I moved.

Warehouse. Back alley. Abandoned park bathroom. I fed. Quietly. Carefully. Not proud of it—but alive. No one saw me. No one got hurt.

But the hunger never left. I was managing it… not winning.

And through it all, nothing. No trace of him. The clown. The monster who started this. Until…

Day 17

It was almost 3 a.m. I had just finished feeding off a freshly deceased gang enforcer—one of the Falcone crew, I think. Probably a hit job.

I was cleaning up when the radio crackled.

“Yo, I found him! Construction site off Bristol and Queen! It’s that freakin’ clown thing! Send backup, now!—”

Static. Then silence.

I didn’t wait.

The construction site was a skeleton of steel and concrete. Rusted beams. Half-poured floors. Silent except for the wind slicing between girders.

I followed the smell. And there he was.

Bent over the limp body of the dirty cop who’d made the call, blood dripping from his elongated teeth. Skin stretched thin like paper. Clown paint crusted into his sunken cheeks.

The clown vampire.

He turned, licking blood off his fingers.

“You again,” he chuckled, voice like cracking glass. “I smelled him on you.”

I froze. “Him?”

“The Bat.” His grin widened, yellow fangs gleaming. “Oh yes… that old rat. Never drinks. Never turns. Never breaks his little vows. So pure. So boring.”

He stepped closer.

“And yet… you happened. His little shadow.” He sniffed. “A fledgling. Untrained. Barely weaned off rats.”

He laughed, shrill and shrieking. “Oh, this is rich.”

I clenched my fists. “I’m nothing like you.”

He tilted his head. “You sure? You’ve been feeding off the dead like a proper ghoul. Listening in on your daddy’s little walkie-talkie. Wearing a mask of morality. Just like him.”

Then he lunged.

I moved fast—faster than before—but not fast enough.

His claws raked across my side.

I screamed. It wasn’t just a cut. It burned. Instantly. My skin blistered. My vision swam. I dropped to my knees.

He grinned again. “Garlic oil. Tingles, doesn’t it?”

I gasped, my throat tightening.

“Don’t worry, little Bat-pup. You’ll sleep this off. And when you wake up… we’ll talk again.”

The last thing I saw was his inhuman eyes glowing in the dark, staring down at me like prey. And then—

Blackness.

Chapter Text

Darkness.

That was all there was at first. No dreams. No thoughts. Just pain humming somewhere deep beneath everything, like the low rumble of a storm I couldn’t outrun. Then—

Whispers.

Boots on concrete.

A voice like gravel.

“She’s stable. Barely.”

I tried to open my eyes. Nothing.

Somewhere around Day 19, I think, the burning in my side came back with a vengeance. Like liquid fire in my veins. Like my body was trying to rip itself apart from the inside out.

Sometimes I heard murmurs.

“She’s rejecting it.”

“No. She’s fighting it.”

“Stronger than she should be...”

Fighting what, exactly?

The poison? The infection? The monster?

It was all the same.

Day 20. Or maybe just another dream.

A cold cloth against my forehead. Leather gloves. A hand—calloused, careful.

Then that voice again. Calm. Commanding.

“You’re lucky you didn’t die.”

I tried to speak, but my mouth felt packed with dust.

“You were poisoned. Garlic-based. Designed to shut your system down.” A pause. “He knew what you were becoming.”

I wanted to ask who he was. Where I was. But instead I just slipped away again. Back into the dark.

At least I was alive. That had to count for something. Didn’t it?

Chapter Text

I woke to the echo of dripping water and the faint hum of machinery. My eyelids fluttered open to half-darkness—rock walls stretching above me, lit by a single row of soft floodlights. My muscles burned when I tried to shift, and pain flared across my side. I groaned, head pounding, and tried to push myself up. My arms wouldn’t obey.

“Easy,” a deep voice said from the shadows. I blinked through the haze and saw him—tall, broad-shouldered, standing over me like the guardian of a crypt. The cowl hid his face, but I recognized the unwavering, white lenses of his eyes. The Bat.

My breath caught in my throat. The myths, the rumors—he was right here. I tried to speak, but my tongue felt swollen and thick. Instead, I managed a croak: “Wh-where… am I?”

He stepped closer. The black cape billowed softly behind him, his boots silent on the stone floor. “The Batcave,” he rumbled, his voice a low gravel I felt in my chest. “I brought you here after the attack. You’re safe.”

I swallowed hard, confusion and relief warping together. “How… how did you find me?”

His head tilted, as if surprised I didn’t already know. “I’ve been tracking you for days. Watching every move.” There was no accusation—only a statement of fact. “I saw you feed on animals and corpses. You’ve survived on them alone, but never on a living human. I know you’re struggling, but you aren’t beyond saving.”

I tried to sit up, but pain stabbed down my spine. Instead, I rested back against the cold stone. “I—” I paused, breath trembling. “I know I’ve changed. I thought… I thought you bit me when I was dying that first night on patrol.” My fingers trembled as they traced the ragged line of garlic burns on my side. “But I don’t want to be a monster. I still want to be me.”

He watched me for a moment, shoulders tense, then knelt beside me. The dim light caught the edges of his cape as he crouched, arms folded. “Biting you is the only way I could think of that would ensure your survival. You’ve maintained your humanity. That’s the strongest indicator that you can still control what you become.”

I closed my eyes, relief and fear warring inside me. “I tried… I tried to feed only on the dead. I thought if I kept it to corpses and animals, I could hold onto who I was. But the hunger kept growing.”

“Your body is changing,” he said quietly. “You have the gift of night vision, strength, speed—but also the curse: the growing thirst and those… appendages.” He gestured at the pale lumps I’d felt crawling under my skin. “There is a balance. You can fight this. But you cannot do it alone—or recklessly.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him, really looked. The silence stretched, and I saw not a mythic demon, but the weight of responsibility etched in every line of his posture. Finally, I nodded. “Teach me. Please. I don’t want to hurt anyone—especially not my father or any innocent person. I want to learn how to control this… whatever it is.”

He rose, extending a gloved hand to help me up. “Then you’ll train. You’ll learn how to use your abilities for justice, without giving in to the hunger. There are ways to manage it—methods that don’t require you to kill. And you must promise me: no more solo patrols, no more reckless feeding expeditions.”

I took his hand, standing unsteadily but determined. The cave’s cool air washed over me, and I felt both terrified and strangely hopeful. “I promise. I won’t go out alone again. I’ll learn to control this.”

I’m ready.

Chapter Text

The next week was brutal.

I always thought I was in good shape—gold medals, gymnastics trophies, late nights sneaking out to practice flips and kicks when no one was watching. But compared to the Bat’s training? It was like trading a kiddie pool for the Mariana Trench.

He didn’t let me rest, not really. One day it was sparring drills until my arms ached. The next, shadow exercises where I had to follow him through the cave without making a sound. He pushed me until I collapsed, then told me to get up again. And again. And again.

And I did. Because even when my body screamed at me to quit, something inside burned brighter—this stubbornness, this refusal to be just a monster.

But it wasn’t only the physical. Between sessions, he taught me things I’d never expected. Lessons on biology, on psychology, even criminology. He had this way of weaving it all together—how a criminal thinks, how a victim reacts, how the city itself breathes like a living organism. Sometimes I felt like I was in a classroom. Sometimes like I was in confession. Always like he knew more than any one man should.

Day 30

It ended with a fight. Not against criminals, but against him.

He stepped into the sparring circle with that silent confidence, no wasted movement, no hesitation. His fists were boulders, his stance immovable. I darted in and out, tried to use my speed, my agility. For every punch I landed, he landed three. Every time I thought I found an opening, he shut it down before I even moved.

The gap in experience was overwhelming. He’d been fighting for years—decades, maybe. I was fourteen and raw. And yet… I didn’t stop. I refused to stay down, even when my ribs screamed and my legs buckled.

“Good,” he grunted after sweeping me to the mat for what had to be the twelfth time. “You’re not broken yet.”

That’s when it happened.

A ripping, tearing sensation in my back made me gasp—and then release. For a split second I thought my spine was splitting apart, but then something unfurled from me. I looked over my shoulder and nearly forgot how to breathe.

Wings.

Two vast, dark wings stretched from my back, veins glowing faintly with crimson, like wine shimmering under moonlight. They weren’t heavy. They weren’t painful. They felt… natural. As easy as moving an arm or shrugging my shoulders.

Speechless, I looked at him for answers. He didn’t look surprised.

“Part of your training has been to prepare you for this moment,” he said calmly. And then—he did something I’ll never forget.

The cape on his shoulders shifted, seemed to breathe—and suddenly his own vast wings spread wide, casting me in shadow. Black as midnight, sharp as blades, powerful as the night itself.

I stumbled back, staring in awe. “You… you had wings this whole time?”

“They’ve always been my cape,” he said. “But now you understand. You’re not alone.”

And then… he reached up. Hands at his cowl. Fingers curled.

I froze as he peeled it away.

The mask, the ears, the shadow of the Bat—it all fell.

And what remained was a man. A man I recognized instantly.

“Bruce Wayne,” I whispered, stunned. The billionaire playboy, Gotham’s golden son, standing before me with the weight of a thousand nights in his eyes.

He nodded once, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to reveal himself to a half-vampire girl with brand new wings.

“If we’re going to keep working together,” he said simply, “you deserve to know the truth.”

And just like that, my world got bigger. Darker. And maybe—just maybe—brighter too.

Chapter Text

I almost didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.

The cowl fit snug, the purple accents gleamed faintly under the cave lights, and the reinforced armor hugged my frame like a second skin. The most surreal part was that it had been made for me—by Alfred Pennyworth of all people. Bruce Wayne’s butler. He was polite, sharp-eyed, and far too calm about stitching up a suit for a half-vampire teenager.

He’d even left the back open enough for my wings to emerge without tearing fabric. When I teased him about it, he only smirked and said, “Master Wayne warned me you’d have a flair for the dramatic, Miss Gordon.”

The mission was simple. My first official test in the field as his partner.

The target: a warehouse by the docks. Inside, Falcone’s men had been hoarding important documents—evidence of illegal shipments, the kind that could finally put the mob boss in a cell where he belonged.

Bruce’s orders were clear: “You retrieve the files. I’ll handle the muscle. Stay undetected.”

I nodded. The night air bit against my cheeks as I leapt off the rooftop. My wings unfurled like a shiver through my back, catching the wind as if they’d always belonged to me. They made no sound, nothing but the whisper of fabric brushing fabric.

I slipped into the warehouse through a broken skylight, hugging the rafters, a shadow among shadows. The lessons Bruce drilled into me replayed in my head: Step where the boards don’t creak. Stay downwind. Never let your silhouette cross the light.

It worked. I found the documents in a metal filing cabinet tucked behind stacked crates. My fingers trembled as I sifted through the papers. Shipping manifests. Bribery records. Enough dirt to bury Carmine Falcone ten times over.

I grinned under the mask. I did it. Then I heard it.

The muffled crack of fists hitting flesh. The grunt of a man being slammed into steel. The unmistakable voice of the Bat, low and grim, echoing through the warehouse as chaos erupted.

The thugs had engaged him. And he, of course, was dismantling them.

I felt the instinct to help, to leap into the fray. But then I remembered his words: Stay unseen. Stay focused.

So I clutched the documents to my chest, unfurled my wings, and vaulted out of the warehouse rafters into the cold night air before any pair of eyes could catch me.

The rush was intoxicating. I wasn’t just Barbara Gordon anymore. I wasn’t just a vampire. I was something else now.

Something new.

Chapter Text

The strangest part wasn’t the wings. Wasn’t the hunger. Wasn’t even fighting crime shoulder-to-shoulder with Gotham’s living legend.

The strangest part was how normal things started to feel again.

Nights were spent as his partner. My training never stopped, not even after patrols. Bruce pushed me harder every time—harder punches, longer runs across the rooftops, stealth drills that made my old gymnastics training look like child’s play. But I got faster, sharper, stronger. I learned when to strike and when to vanish.

And yet when the sun rose, I still woke up as Barbara Gordon.

For the first time in weeks, I didn’t dread mornings. And not just because I could go out in the sun again thanks to the special soap Bruce provided for me (it was lavender scented).

School became easier. My focus was sharper; my teachers noticed. My friends joked that I’d finally found “the magic formula” for balancing grades and gymnastics, and I laughed along without telling them the truth—that the formula was late nights, secret training, and a second life in the shadows.

Even gymnastics felt different. My body had changed so much, but the extra strength and balance I’d gained made me almost unstoppable on the floor. My coach said I moved like I was born to fly, and I had to stop myself from laughing. If only she knew.

The best part, though? Dad.

I started finding little excuses to spend more time with him. Movie nights. Breakfast runs. Even helping him sort through his endless stacks of case files, though he always insisted I didn’t have to.

Last night was one of those rare golden moments. Just the two of us, the TV humming softly, Princess Pumpkin Spice playing like it had when I was younger.

He glanced at me during one of the silly commercial breaks and said, “You’ve seemed… lighter lately, Babs. Happier. Almost like my little girl again.”

I froze for a second. Part of me panicked, worried he’d somehow pieced it all together. But his expression was so soft, so proud, that I couldn’t help but smile back.

I shrugged, casual. “I dunno. Maybe I just… found my place in the world.”

He chuckled, gave my shoulder a squeeze, and turned back to the cartoon.

And for the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like I was lying.

Chapter Text

The night smelled of rain and old stone.

I’ve never been to this part of the city before. Old Gotham looked like it had been plucked straight from a European fairytale—if fairytales were made of cracked gargoyles, black spires, and cathedrals that seemed to scrape the sky. The shadows here didn’t just sit still; they breathed.

I shivered, my wings folding tighter around my shoulders like a cloak. “It’s… huge. Beautiful, but…” I searched for the right word. “Creepy.”

Beside her, Bruce gave the faintest of chuckles. “I had the same reaction. The first time my parents brought me here.”

I tilted my head toward him, surprised by the softness in his voice. He rarely spoke about them.

“They told me,” he continued, “that some of our ancestors helped build this place. That the towers, the cathedrals—were our legacy.”

I blinked. “Wait, our? What do you mean by that?”

Bruce’s expression hardened slightly, but his eyes remained fixed on the gothic skyline. “Centuries ago, the Wayne clan wasn’t known for business. Or philanthropy. We were soldiers—Dracula’s soldiers.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“The Wayne line was among his most loyal and most powerful legions,” Bruce said quietly, each word deliberate, like it had been rehearsed in his head a thousand times. “But loyalty didn’t mean blindness. My family didn’t share his sadism—didn’t believe humans were just cattle. They saw power as responsibility, not entitlement. So one night, they gathered the humans from the villages nearby and fled.”

My eyes widened. “And they came here.”

He nodded. “Their journey brought them across the ocean, to this land. They built Gotham not just as a city, but as proof that vampires and humans could thrive together. The gargoyles, the arches, the towers—symbols of sanctuary and strength.”

I stared at the vast cathedral across the street, suddenly seeing it with new eyes. “That’s… incredible. Like Gotham itself is alive with their promise.”

Bruce’s lips pressed into a grim line. “A lovely tale, yes. But sins don’t vanish with geography. Hunters remembered. They remembered what the Waynes once did under Dracula.”

I turned sharply toward him. His tone had shifted—lower, darker.

“One night, after my parents and I left the Monarch Theater… one such hunter found us.” His fists clenched at his sides, almost unconsciously. “He shot them. Not because they were rich. Not because of greed. But because he believed he was purging the remnants of Dracula’s line.”

I froze. The breath in my throat turned sharp and cold. “The Wayne murders…”

My voice cracked. “I thought… everyone thought it was just a mugging.”

Bruce finally turned to face me, his eyes as sharp and haunted as the gargoyles looming above them.

“It wasn’t random. It was legacy.”

And just like that, the story I thought I knew—the story everyone thought they knew—fractured into something far older, darker, and far more personal.

Chapter Text

The city was rotting. I could smell it.

For the past week, Gotham’s alleys and riverbanks had been filling with twisted corpses—bodies half-dissolved into mud, their bones warped like melted wax. Some still twitched when they were found. The papers blamed “toxic waste,” the GCPD whispered “ritual killings,” but I knew better. I’d seen this work before.

The clown vampire.

The very thought made my wings twitch in unease.

Bruce, however, put the word to it. “Joker.”

We were perched on a rooftop overlooking Chinatown when he finally said it, his cowl casting his face into shadows. “That’s what he calls himself. Joker. No one knows where he came from. No records, no lineage, nothing. He doesn’t even know himself.”

I frowned. “You’re saying he doesn’t remember?”

Bruce gave the faintest of nods. “Only the chaos. Only the hunger. That’s all he embraces.” His eyes narrowed. “He’s more dangerous than any mobster. More dangerous than Dracula’s remnants. Because he has no code. No lines he won’t cross.”

And I believed him.

The next two nights blurred together in a relentless hunt. Bruce and I sifted through evidence like bloodhounds, slipping past yellow police tape, dodging beat cops, and—worst of all—risking being seen by my father.

Jim Gordon was everywhere lately, leading task forces, pouring over reports. I spotted him once through the blinds of his office—haggard, furious, exhausted. A part of me ached to knock on the window, to tell him I was helping, that I was fighting harder than anyone to stop this. But I couldn’t. Not until Joker was dealt with.

They pieced together what they could: fragments of torn playing cards left at crime scenes, witness statements about eerie laughter in the fog, whole families missing from tenement blocks. I saw the connections forming in Bruce’s mind, the way his silence grew heavier by the night.

And all the while, one thought gnawed at my insides: If Joker finds Dad first… I’ll never forgive myself.

The wings on my back tightened like a vice as I repeated it, a vow.