Chapter Text
Uptown Gotham wasn’t her first choice, but somewhere between the blaring sirens and the smog in the sky, Artemis found herself lugging boxes from the moving truck up the dimly lit stairwell. It was cramped, with the faded beige wallpaper peeling at the edges, threatening to tear off completely. Yet, this place was affordable.
Of course, it was affordable, she mused tiredly. This was, after all, one of the most crime-ridden cities in all of the United States. And affordability was exactly why she was here to begin with. Back home wasn’t safe anymore; not after what she had to leave behind. So while Gotham was dangerous, polluted, and far from a picturesque utopia, it was a fresh start.
After what seemed like hours, she finally reached the top of the building, where a red door glared back at her. Unceremoniously, the weary newcomer kicked it open, dropping the last box in the doorway and puffing air through her mouth to push her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. She was greeted with a small, barren room, now littered with a few pieces of disorganized furniture she had brought over — nothing too grand, but good enough to call it her new refuge. Nothing a coat of paint and imagination couldn’t hide. Locking the door behind her, she stepped over the creaky floorboards, collapsing onto the worn black couch, letting her back sink into the first comfort she’d felt in days.
Artemis let her eyes drift shut, allowing the tension to slowly bleed out of her shoulders — yet every few seconds she found her gaze flicking back to the heavy door, wondering if she should check the locks once more. Old habits were, after all, hard to shake off, especially now. The apartment was quiet, save for the muffled hum of traffic and the now distant sirens wailing somewhere far below, but her nerves refused to settle. Just as she exhaled and contemplated relaxing again, her phone buzzed against her thigh.
Fishing the device out of her pocket, she watched as the screen lit up: Blocked Number.
Her breath hitched. For a split second, her chest tightened, panic clawing its way up her throat. She hesitated, thumb hovering, until the second buzz revealed a follow-up text.
“Your package delivery attempt was unsuccessful. Reschedule here.”
A shaky laugh bubbled up past her lips, equal parts relief and exhaustion. It wasn’t him. She set the phone face down beside her and rubbed her palms over her eyes, dreading what was coming next: unpacking. And so, with a resigned groan, Artemis pushed herself upright, dragging her unwilling legs towards the mountain of heavy cardboard boxes. She grabbed the nearest one toward her feet and tore the tape open with a sharp flick of her keys. The first thing on top was a stack of battered notebooks. Of course. Her life, in paper and ink — some pages filled with song lyrics, some with unfinished stories, others with rambling thoughts she never intended to reread. She thumbed through the top one absently, stopping at a page where dented pen marks had nearly torn the paper. The writing there was jagged, panicked, and furious.
She closed it immediately.
Not that box, then.
She set it aside and reached for another. And then the next one. Over and over again. For a moment, the apartment felt too quiet — echoing, almost — and she caught herself listening for footsteps in the hall, for breathing that wasn’t hers. Nothing. Just the groan of the old building settling, and the faint sound of rain starting to patter against the metal fire escape outside.
Maybe, she told herself, I could get used to this. Eventually.
And so she pressed on, unpacking the boxes until the apartment slowly began to resemble something lived-in, rather than the abandoned heap she had first entered. By the time she looked up and realized she was satisfied with the progress she’d made, night had already settled over Gotham. Curiosity tugged at her, pulling her toward the lone window at the far end of the room. She padded over, stepping around the now flattened pieces of cardboard, and pushed aside the thin, dusty, and yellowed curtain. The glass was cool beneath her fingertips as she leaned closer.
Uptown Gotham stretched out below her in a messy sprawl of flickering neon, with glistening puddles reflecting the city’s glow. A soft drizzle had begun to fall, blurring the edges of streetlamps and turning the asphalt into a shimmering, restless river.
As she traced the city lights with her eyes, movement on the street below caught her attention: a figure lingered on the opposite sidewalk, half-hidden beneath the awning of a boarded-up, rundown restaurant. At first, Artemis thought he might just be another pedestrian trying to stay dry, seeking shelter from the droplets of rain falling from the sky, but something about the way he stood, too still, too intent, made her pause.
He wasn’t on his phone. He wasn’t smoking. He wasn’t waiting for anyone. He was simply… watching. Not at her window, not at anything in particular, just taking in the street with an almost military posture. A brown leather jacket clung to him in the rain, a hood pulled up, obscuring his face. And when a car sped past, his silhouette didn’t so much as flinch.
Artemis held her breath without meaning to.
Gotham, she reminded herself. People here were strange in all sorts of ways. Maybe he was just a night owl, or someone avoiding the rain, or…
The man suddenly turned and walked into the alley beside the restaurant, disappearing into the shadows as if he’d been swallowed whole.
A faint chill crawled up her spine.
“Welcome to Gotham, I guess,” she muttered under her breath, letting the curtain fall back into place.
She pulled away from the city view, slumping back onto the couch and drawing a thin blanket around her shoulders. Her thoughts kept drifting to the figure she had glimpsed outside — not that he had acted threateningly, it was simply the way he lingered, poised, attentive. Her mind offered familiar explanations: a late-night wanderer or a passerby with no purpose. But the way he moved suggested something else entirely; it was deliberate, controlled, and quietly tense, enough to make her chest tighten despite her insistence it was nothing. It felt like a premonition, a marker of something to come.
She tugged the blanket closer, her gaze fixed on the window facing the alley where he had vanished, almost expecting him to reappear in her apartment. Ridiculous.
The thin layer of fabric scratched faintly against her skin as she pulled it higher, cocooning herself in it as if it might somehow muffle the city outside. She stared at the white ceiling, at the thin crack running along one corner of the room, where she was sure a leak might come through in the next few months, and focused on breathing evenly. In. Out. Slow. Measured. The way she’d taught herself to do when her thoughts started to spiral.
She was safe.
She was alone.
No one knew she was here.
Eventually, the tight knot in her chest loosened. Her limbs felt heavy, leaden, every muscle protesting the day she’d forced them through. And as her eyes shuttered and her vision blurred, the city hummed on beyond the walls.
Sleep crept in cautiously.
It wasn’t deep, not at first. It never was. She drifted in shallow waves, half-aware of the pleather couch beneath her, uncomfortably clinging onto her skin, half-lost in fragmented thoughts that refused to settle into anything coherent. Shadows shifted behind her closed eyelids. Noises blurred together.
Then — a sound. Dull yet distinct.
Artemis stiffened.
It was faint, almost easy to miss: a low thud from somewhere above her, slow and deliberate. Not the sharp crack of something breaking. It sounded heavy, like a stomp trying to remain silent.
Her breath caught.
She didn’t move. Didn’t dare. She laid there, heart pounding hard and fast enough that she was certain it would give her away. Another sound followed — the muted shift of weight, repeating a few more times, and finally fading into nothing.
Someone was walking on the rooftop. Artemis slowly sat up, reached for her phone, which had fallen into the crack of the couch, pulled it out, and checked the time; the screen glowed softly in the dark as it came to life.
12:47 a.m.
Too late for construction. Too late for maintenance. Too late for anything that required someone to be pacing back and forth above her ceiling.
Artemis swallowed.
The building creaked faintly around her — metal contracting in the cooling night — but the rooftop had gone quiet. No more footsteps. No weight shifting from heel to toe. Her pulse thudded in her ears anyway. Rooftop access, she told herself. Maybe someone was smoking? Maybe a tenant with insomnia? Big cities were full of restless people who wandered when sleep refused them. That didn’t make it dangerous. That didn’t mean...
Another sound interrupted the thought.
A soft clang, distant but unmistakable, like metal brushing metal.
There was one last reason she could think of: vigilantes.
The word sat heavy in her mind, unwelcome but unavoidable. Gotham had a reputation for them, whispered about on late-night news segments and buried halfway down online articles she’d skimmed during sleepless nights. Capes and masks, shadows that moved across rooftops instead of sidewalks. People who didn’t exist during the day but ruled the city after dark.
Still, the unease refused to leave, so she slid off the couch as quietly as she could, bare feet barely whispering against the warped floorboards. The blanket, once draped over her sleeping form, slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her feet, left forgotten. She hesitated for a moment before moving toward the window, pulse ticking steadily upward with each step. This time, she didn’t pull the curtain aside all at once. Just a sliver. Just enough.
The alley below was empty. At first, at least. A shadow lingered in the corner of her eye, an umbral apparition that floated before her vision before disappearing again in a flash.
Rain slicked the pavement, reflecting the dull orange glow of flickering lights, and trash bags huddled against the brick wall where the leather clad man had disappeared earlier this day, unmoved. No figures lurking to be found anymore. No disturbed puddles or ripples. It was like a ghost sighting; no movement or sign betrayed that anyone was walking or moving down below.
She stepped back from the window, letting the side of the curtain fall, the fabric softly brushing against the cool, tear-stricken panes, and glanced toward the door again, reassessing it with a critical eye. The deadbolt was still thrown, the chain hung loose but intact. She reached up and slid it into place anyway, the soft click absurdly loud in the quiet apartment.
Artemis settled back on the couch. Whatever was happening outside, it wasn’t her problem; she was just another tired woman in a too-small apartment, trying to sleep. Eventually, she curled back into a fetal position, pulling the blanket over herself again. The city didn’t offer silence, but it did offer distance. Cars hissed over wet pavement. A cat wailed into the night.
At last, above her, nor near her window, nothing moved again. Sleep returned slowly, cautiously, as if testing the ground before committing. This time, it stayed.
Yet, unseen, on the rooftop, the rain continued to fall — washing footprints toward the edge and carrying secrets down into the gutters below.