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To be completely fair, no one ever expected normal things to happen in Gotham.
Living in Metropolis, you got used to hearing headlines like “Lex Luthor Sued For Mind Control (Again)” or “Superman Stops Asteroid With Eyebrow.” It was weird, but it was predictable. But Gotham?
Gotham was where sanity went to die.
Still, when Jordan clicked on the morning news and saw the headline “17-Year-Old Enters Gotham Mayoral Race”, he spat his coffee so hard it hit his cat.
“What the hell—” he gasped, choking.
The article didn’t help. In fact, it made things worse.
> “Daniel Fenton, a seventeen-year-old reportedly from Amity Park, Illinois, has officially entered the Gotham mayoral race. When asked for comment, he replied: ‘I’m as surprised as you are, dude.’”
Jordan stared at the screen. “Why is this real?”
Jordan Michaels had lived in Gotham his whole life.
He’d survived three major Joker attacks, a Riddler-hosted game show hostage situation, and one unfortunate week where the city was under the control of fear gas.
The photo attached to the article was of a lanky teen in a secondhand suit, leaning sideways at the podium like he was trying to sneak out of the frame. There were three Gotham politicians in the background, all looking like they’d just bit into a lemon. One woman was visibly praying.
There was a quote in bold right under it:
> “Gotham bleeds in the cracks. You keep filling them with concrete, but never ask why they’re cracking in the first place. It’s not just roads. It’s people. You’re paving over pain and wondering why the city keeps sinking. You don’t fix a city by building up walls and pretending the cracks aren’t there. You fix it by standing in the mess and saying, ‘Hey. You matter.’ Even if you’ve been told your whole life you don’t.”
Jordan blinked. “Did that... did that kid just quote Maya Angelou and shame Gotham’s entire city council?”
His cat hissed at the screen.
Jordan rubbed his eyes, half-expecting to wake up and find this was some fever dream or a bizarre prank. But no — the screen kept rolling
Jordan’s cat gave a disgruntled yowl and stalked away, clearly disturbed by the whole ordeal.
Jordan exhaled, blinking at the screen.
“Well,” he muttered, “this city just keeps getting weirder.”
Jordan sat in his cramped apartment, flicking between Gotham news channels. The latest press conference was live, and on the screen stood Danny Fenton, Gotham’s apparently mayoral frontrunner.
The reporter, a sharp-faced woman who looked like she regretted her career choices, was holding the mic a bit too close.
“Mr. Fenton,” she said, voice clipped, “what is your stance on vigilantism?”
Danny shrugged, a cheeky grin playing on his lips. “Well, I agree vigilantes are helpful for communities that need them, and they should work with the police whenever possible. But honestly? The ideal city is one where vigilantes aren’t needed. Also — I fail to see the relevancy of this question. There are no vigilantes in Gotham."
Jordan blinked. That was surprisingly sensible.
The reporter leaned in. “What do you mean? What about Batman?”
Danny’s grin turned sideways, sharp as a knife.
“Nope. Batman isn’t a vigilante. Batman’s a crime lord.”
Jordan nearly dropped his phone.
The reporter’s jaw practically hit the floor. “Excuse me?”
Danny smirked. “Think about it. A man in a bat costume who controls the whole city’s underworld behind the scenes? Crime lord’s the word, not vigilante. But hey, that’s just me.”
Jordan stared, half horrified, half amused. “Oh man. This kid’s going to give the whole city an aneurysm.”
A few days later, Jordan caught a press conference clip where Danny, clearly fed up with the usual political dance, leaned into the microphone and said:
> "As mayor, I promise I won’t be infected by corruption. Not because of any moral high ground, but because I absolutely fucking hate clowns. As long as that guy — you know, the Joker — is still alive, I won’t accept a single bribe. Crime bosses, if you want to try and bribe me, you’ve got to kill him first or I won’t even consider it."
Jordan nearly fell out of his chair laughing.
The camera zoomed in as Danny smiled wickedly. “Yeah, that’s me putting a hit out on the Joker. Consider this public notice.”
But honestly, it was the back-and-forth between Fenton and Masters (Wisconsin's mayor) that was pure spectacle.
Jordan didn’t expect things to calm down after Danny Fenton won the election. Of course not. This was Gotham, and nothing stayed quiet for long. But he had hoped the chaos would at least shift back into the usual territory — organized crime, unexplained power outages, the occasional scarecrow-themed existential crisis.
Instead, they got Mayor Wars.
It started the week after the election. Jordan was scrolling through the Gotham Gazette's livestream during his lunch break when the feed suddenly cut to a chaotic city hall press conference.
Fenton was mid-sentence.
“—and so, we’re redirecting funds to make sure schools get better shields and that streetlight repair requests are handled within the same month. I know, radical concept.”
That seemed pretty normal, even for Fenton.
Then, out of nowhere, a silver hover-limo crashed into the plaza fountain behind him.
A white-haired man in a blood-red suit burst out of the smoking vehicle cape swirling dramatically.
"DANIEL!”
Danny groaned. “Oh goddammit.”
“I KNEW you would follow in my footsteps! You can’t escape destiny!”
Danny glared at him. “Vlad, this wasn’t because of you!”
“A WIN,” Vlad (apparently) shouted, pointing dramatically, “IS A WIN!”
By that point, Jordan had accepted a lot of things.
He’d accepted that Gotham’s mayor was seventeen.
He’d accepted that the mayor of Wisconsin has it out for the kid.
He'd also accepted that he may be a supervillain in a trench coat.
But what Jordan could not wrap his brain around was the ring girl.
She wasn’t always in frame. Sometimes she’d just appear, already mid-pose, behind a podium or sitting on a rooftop ledge. Always tall, always draped in black with smoke curling off her like fog from a swamp, always holding enormous cue cards like she was refereeing a boxing match.
And on the back of every single cue card?
Bits and pieces of Danny’s speeches. Scribbled in sharpie. Half-erased. Sometimes crossed out with glitter pen.
The official Gotham PR office simply issued a statement saying, “The mayor does not employ a cue card assistant at this time.”
Which was a lie.
Jordan saw her. The whole city saw her. She was there every time Mayor Masters threw a tantrum.
And boy, did he throw a lot of tantrums.
By now, Jordan Michaels had developed an eye twitch.
It flared up every time Danny Fenton opened his mouth.
He didn’t hate the mayor. In fact, Jordan was willing to admit — under duress and with plausible deniability — that Gotham was doing better. Public transportation had improved, the school lunch program no longer involved semi-sentient meatloaf, and the GCPD’s budget had been quietly restructured so most of it now went to fortfing the prisons.
Which was necessary.
But today, Jordan’s eye twitch had company. His whole face twitched.
Because he was watching that press conference.
It had started normally enough. Danny, in his slightly wrinkled suit, hair ruffled like he lost a fight with a wind tunnel, strolled up to the podium.
Danny took a breath and launched in:
> “My administration is committed to creating long-term change through—uh—sustainable infrastructure and increased transparency. We believe that a strong city begins with strong communities, and that means investing in schools, healthcare, and—”
He paused, glancing somewhere to the right of the reporter. His eyebrows pulled together.
> “—and implementing a tax incentive for residents who ‘look particularly kissable on Tuesdays’—”
There was silence.
Then Danny froze.
His eyes went wide. His head turned, ever so slightly, toward empty air.
Jordan, watching from home, sat straight up. “Oh my god. He’s gonna—”
Danny reached.
His hand extended into absolutely nothing and came back gripping a thick, mist-drenched cue card that absolutely had not been there a second ago. He snapped it in half like a popsicle stick and let both halves flutter to the ground.
He turned back to the crowd and cleared his throat.
“Sorry. Minor...teleprompter error. Moving on.”
Later that week, Gotham Now aired a pre-recorded interview with Danny, and Jordan made popcorn in advance. It was hosted by one of Gotham’s most seasoned reporters — Maria Alvarez, known for her "I don't take bullshit" energy and her startling ability to smell lies through the camera.
Halfway through the segment, she leaned in.
> “There’s been a lot of speculation lately about your speech preparation. Specifically... the appearance of a ring girl holding cue cards during your more, ah, combative moments with Mayor Masters. Do you want to comment on who she is or her role in your administration?”
Danny gave a tired smile, clearly trying for “charming and diplomatic,” but mostly achieving “I haven’t slept in four days and I’ve been haunted since age four.”
“We could discuss her identity and role in my team,” he said, visibly squinting. His eyes tracked slightly above Maria’s head.
Jordan paused the video. “Wait. Is he... reading again?”
Danny kept going.
"But I won’t. I don’t want to let her distract us from the real issues. Great job. You’re doing amazing, sweetie.”
There was a beat.
“...Fuck.”
Maria whipped around, looking over her own shoulder with a sharp “WHERE ARE YOU?!”
Nothing. Just air.
Danny sighed and slumped back in his chair, muttering under his breath, “Why would you write that on the card?!”
Maria turned back to him. “WHAT CARD?”
Jordan shrieked into a throw pillow.