Chapter Text
Desmond Miles woke to rain.
For one stupid, disjointed second, he thought he was still in the Temple.
Not because it looked anything like it—there was no cold white glow, no impossible architecture, no humming machinery older than history—but because pain was the first thing that found him, and pain was the last thing he remembered.
It came back all at once.
The pedestal beneath his hand.
The light.
Juno’s voice, smooth and poisonous in his skull.
His father shouting his name.
The feeling of something vast and merciless moving through him, like a star had been threaded through his bones.
Then fire.
Desmond sucked in a ragged breath and jackknifed upright so hard his vision went white.
Bad idea.
His stomach lurched. The world tilted. He braced one hand against slick concrete and nearly pitched forward anyway, retching hard into a puddle that tasted like oil and old rainwater and whatever the hell this air was made of.
He stayed there on hands and knees, breathing through his teeth while rain soaked through his hoodie, ran down the back of his neck, plastered his hair to his forehead.
Cold. Real cold. Not temple cold. Outside cold.
Alive cold.
He spat, swallowed against the acid in his throat, and sat back on his heels.
“...Okay,” he muttered hoarsely, because apparently talking to himself was where his life was now. “That’s new.”
His voice sounded wrong in the narrow alley—too human for what he remembered last.
The alley itself was a cramped slit between two brick buildings, overflowing dumpster on one side, rusted fire escape on the other, trash bags split open and bleeding rotten takeout into the gutter. Somewhere nearby, a generator buzzed. Farther off, a siren wailed and cut out. Above him, a rectangle of black sky glimmered with dirty yellow windowlight and rain.
Not the Grand Temple.
Not New York.
Not anywhere he’d ever been.
Desmond scrubbed a hand over his face, rain and grime and disbelief smearing together.
He remembered dying.
Not abstractly. Not philosophically. Not in some “I saw the light” near-death bullshit way.
He remembered it.
The moment his palm hit the device.
The surge.
The unbearable brightness.
His body locking up around a force no human being was supposed to survive.
And then—
Nothing.
He stared at the puddle between his knees, watching raindrops destroy his reflection.
“Cool,” he said weakly. “Great. Love that for me.”
A laugh tried to happen and came out more like a cough.
He pushed himself to his feet, swaying immediately as blood rushed out of his head. His legs held, barely. Every muscle in his body felt wrung out, like he’d been fed through a turbine. His joints ached. His ribs hurt when he breathed. His skin felt wrong, tight and overheated under the cold rain.
And his right arm—
Desmond froze.
The pain there had been loud enough to drown out everything else until now. Not gone, exactly. Just... waiting. A deep, pulsing heat under the skin, mean and patient.
He looked down.
The sleeve of his hoodie was half-burned away from elbow to wrist.
For a moment, his brain refused to process what he was seeing.
The skin beneath wasn’t skin anymore.
It was black.
Not bruised-black, not blood-black. Charcoal black. Burned black. Like the arm had been dragged out of a fire and somehow never decided whether it was done burning.
Marks wound through it—raised and jagged and too deliberate to be random scar tissue. They spiraled from the back of his hand up beneath the shredded sleeve, overlapping in thin, angular lines. Glyphs.
Not exactly the ones from the Renaissance. Not exactly the ones Subject 16 had hidden in walls and paintings and screens until they crawled into Desmond’s head.
But close enough that his stomach dropped.
“No,” he said immediately, sharply, like the word could make it untrue.
Rain hissed against the arm.
Steam lifted.
He jerked his hand back on instinct, staring.
The scars pulsed once beneath the blackened skin—not bright, not yet, but something moved there, deep under the damage, a thread of pale gold like light trapped under ice.
Then it vanished.
Desmond stood very still in the alley, rain pouring around him.
“Absolutely not.”
His voice came out flat, furious, and a little bit desperate.
He flexed his fingers.
They moved.
He rotated his wrist. Bent the elbow. Opened and closed his fist.
It worked.
Mostly.
There was feeling there, but it came muffled, like his whole arm had been wrapped in thick cloth. He could tell the rain was hitting him, could feel the cold, the sting, the pressure—but it was all blunted, distant. Wrong.
He touched the blackened skin with his left hand.
Pain lanced up to his shoulder so hard his knees nearly gave out.
Desmond bit back a shout and stumbled into the brick wall behind him, breathing in short, vicious bursts until the worst of it passed.
“Okay,” he hissed at nobody. “Don’t do that again.”
Somewhere above him, a window slammed shut.
He forced himself upright, jaw locked so hard it hurt.
Inventory. He needed inventory. Panic later.
His hoodie was scorched and wet but mostly intact. Jeans. Shoes. Belt. No hidden blade.
Desmond checked again, more frantically this time.
No hidden blade. No second blade. No knife. No gun. No phone. No wallet. No Apple—thank Christ for small mercies. No anything, really. Whoever or whatever had dragged him out of the Temple and dropped him in this alley had apparently decided he’d be doing it on hard mode.
He found one thing in the inner pocket of his hoodie: a black compression glove, long enough to cover to just below the elbow.
Desmond frowned.
It wasn’t his. At least, he didn’t think it was. He had no memory of owning it, packing it, or even seeing it before.
That should have been more alarming than it was. At the moment, it barely made the list.
The glove was dry.
He stared at it for a second too long, rain running off his eyelashes.
“Sure,” he muttered. “Why not.”
He pulled it on over the ruined arm.
The fabric slid over the charred skin with only a dull, ugly throb this time. Tight enough to stay put. Flexible. Black on black, swallowing the worst of the damage whole.
The moment the glove covered the scars, some of the raw exposure in his chest eased.
Not the pain. Not the exhaustion. Just—
Control.
No one could stare at it if no one could see it.
No one could ask questions he couldn’t answer.
No one could look at him and know, at a glance, that something impossible had happened to him.
Desmond tugged the cuff higher, hiding the last visible edge of blackened skin beneath the sleeve.
Better.
Marginally.
He leaned against the wall and looked up.
At the top of the alley, beyond the dripping fire escape and leaning brick, neon bled red and blue across wet asphalt. A flickering sign buzzed somewhere out on the street. The buildings were wrong—older than New York in the bones, too ornate in places, too narrow and mean in others. Gargoyles crouched on rooflines. Stone facades hunched over rusted metal shutters and barred windows. The whole city felt like it had been built by people who distrusted sunlight on principle.
A rusted delivery truck rumbled past the alley mouth, tires hissing through standing water.
On its side, in faded white letters:
GOTHAM WHOLESALE PRODUCE
Desmond stared at it.
Then he laughed once, breathless and disbelieving.
“Of course it is.”
Because apparently saving the world wasn’t enough. Now he got comic books.
He pushed off the wall before his legs could decide they were done cooperating.
First priorities:
- Get out of the alley.
- Avoid people.
- Figure out if he was hallucinating, dead, in a coma, or in the worst possible version of reality.
Four, maybe, find food before he passed out in a gutter.
He made it three steps before his right arm seized.
The pain hit like a live wire jammed through the shoulder socket.
Desmond choked on the breath he’d been taking and slammed back into the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth. White flooded his vision. The gloved hand curled involuntarily, fingers locking so tight his knuckles creaked.
No warning. No buildup. Just agony.
Not surface pain. Not burn pain.
Deep pain. Electric and ancient and wrong, like the arm was remembering the moment it had been destroyed and deciding to do it again.
He bent forward, forehead hitting wet brick, and held there, every muscle rigid.
Move.
Couldn’t.
Breathe.
Barely.
Rain drummed on metal overhead. Somewhere out on the street, somebody laughed. A car horn blared twice. The city kept going, indifferent.
Desmond counted because it was that or scream.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four—
By eight, the spike broke enough for him to drag air into his lungs again.
By twelve, his knees unlocked.
By fifteen, he could uncurl his hand.
He stayed where he was, shivering, one palm braced against the wall, breathing like he’d just run a marathon.
“...Awesome,” he whispered to the brick.
He waited another minute before trusting himself to stand straight.
That changed things.
Whatever this arm was—scar, curse, souvenir from touching god-tech—it wasn’t just ugly. It was a liability. Maybe a catastrophic one.
Which meant no picking fights. No grand investigations. No trying to be clever until he knew the rules of the board.
Survive first.
Then ask questions.
Desmond edged toward the alley mouth, moving slower now, keeping to the shadows by instinct.
The street beyond was a mess of rain-slick blacktop, buzzing signage, steam rolling out of manhole covers, and people who all seemed to have mastered the art of pretending not to see anything. A man in a stained coat slept beneath a bus stop bench. Two women in heels smoked under the awning of a shuttered storefront, their umbrellas tilted like shields. A group of teenagers cut across the opposite sidewalk, laughing too loudly, shoulders hunched against the cold.
No one looked down the alley.
Good.
He slipped out with the flow of the rain.
The city hit him all at once.
Noise, light, stink, motion.
It smelled like wet brick, hot grease, old cigarettes, gasoline, and the sour copper tang of too many people living too close together. Elevated tracks rattled somewhere overhead. Neon signs reflected in puddles like smeared blood. Every third building looked like it had once been beautiful and had since been personally offended by time.
Gotham.
He couldn’t decide if it felt fake or too real.
Desmond kept his head down and moved.
Not too fast. Not too slow. Shoulders rounded. Tired, but not helpless. Blend in.
The old habits rose up easy. Don’t draw the eye. Read windows. Watch reflections. Clock exits. Measure the rhythm of foot traffic. Listen for the shift in tone that means trouble before you see it.
He passed a liquor store with bars on the windows, a pawn shop with a cracked sign, a diner still open despite the hour, its fogged-up windows glowing soft yellow onto the sidewalk.
Food.
Warmth.
Maybe a bathroom where he could look at himself and confirm whether he was still recognizably human.
He was halfway to the door when he saw them in the reflection.
Three men, posted beneath the dark overhang of the building next door. Too still. Too interested in the diner’s register. One smoking, one pacing, one with his hands buried in the front pocket of his hoodie in a way Desmond knew too well.
Waiting to rob the place.
Desmond stopped walking without seeming to.
The smart thing—the correct thing—was to keep moving.
He had no weapons. No money. No backup. One arm that occasionally tried to set itself on fire from the inside. If this was the comic book Gotham he remembered, there were probably six worse things waiting in the next two blocks alone. A diner robbery wasn’t his problem.
He started walking again.
Made it half a step.
Inside the diner, through the fogged glass, the waitress laughed at something the cook said. She looked exhausted. Young. One of those smiles people used when they were too tired to do a real one.
The pacing guy reached into his jacket.
Desmond stopped.
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
He turned away from the diner and cut into the narrow service passage beside it, staying out of the men’s sightline. Dumpster. Grease bins. Locked back door. Fire escape ladder just out of reach.
Not ideal.
He grabbed the lid of the nearest metal trash can with his left hand and yanked it free. It came off with a screech loud enough to turn heads.
“Hey!” he shouted, pitching his voice rough and angry. “Back off!”
The three men whipped around.
Desmond flung the lid down the alley mouth. It ricocheted off brick, slammed into the pavement, and spun under the pacing guy’s feet. He stumbled with a curse, nearly went down. The smoker jerked back. The third guy—the one with the hidden hands—pulled a handgun halfway free on reflex.
Too fast.
Desmond was already moving.
He vaulted the grease bin, planted a foot on the brick wall, caught the bottom rung of the fire escape with his left hand, and hauled himself up before the gunman had a clear shot.
His right arm screamed in protest but held.
“Jesus—!” somebody barked below.
A shot cracked.
Brick exploded inches from his foot.
Desmond didn’t look down.
He climbed.
Up one level, swing, pull, pivot, onto the landing. His breath tore in his throat. His muscles shook with the effort. He hadn’t felt this wrung out since waking up in the Animus after too many hours, except this time there was no Lucy telling him to take it easy and no Shaun being sarcastic in the corner.
Another shot.
Metal rang beneath him.
Desmond grabbed the next ladder, kicked it loose, and sent it crashing down between himself and the alley below. Somebody yelped. Somebody else cursed. The gun fired again, wild.
Then the diner’s back door burst open.
The cook, built like a refrigerator and wielding a frying pan the size of a hubcap, charged into the alley screaming things that were probably English in spirit if not in structure.
That did it.
The would-be robbers scattered.
Desmond crouched on the third-floor landing, soaked to the bone, one hand braced on rusted rail, and watched them go through the slats.
The cook stood in the rain a second longer, pan raised like he wanted the city itself to square up, then retreated back inside.
Silence returned in pieces.
Desmond exhaled shakily.
“Glad that worked,” he whispered.
His arm throbbed, hot and deep, but no fresh spike. Not yet.
He stayed there until his pulse slowed.
Then he kept climbing.
The roof was flat, tarred, and scattered with puddles and ventilation units. From up there, Gotham unfolded around him in jagged black layers—water towers, gargoyles, antennae, smokestacks, cathedral spires shoved up against modern high-rises like the city couldn’t decide what century it wanted to rot in.
Somewhere far off, lightning flickered behind the clouds.
Desmond crossed the roof in a low crouch and jumped the narrow gap to the next building.
His landing was ugly. Too heavy. Too loud.
He winced.
“Rusty,” he muttered.
Still alive, though.
He moved more carefully after that, sticking to the rooftops, following the city’s spine away from brighter streets and sirens and people. His body remembered the logic of it even when his strength lagged: angles, ledges, drainpipes, weight distribution, sightlines. The world became vertical, and for a little while that made more sense than anything else had tonight.
Not home.
But familiar enough to survive.
Twice, he had to stop and brace against a chimney or crouch behind an HVAC unit while the pain in his arm flared hot and ugly. Not full lockup, not like the alley, but enough to make his vision swim. Each time he waited it out, breathing through his teeth, glove clenched tight in his left hand until it passed.
At one point, while he crouched beneath a stone parapet overlooking an avenue six stories down, the pain sharpened so suddenly he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood.
And under the black glove, something lit.
Just for a second.
A thin, golden-white glow bled between his fingers and the seam at his wrist.
Desmond froze.
Below him, a black sedan rolled slowly through the rain, too sleek for the neighborhood, windows tinted dark. It paused outside a boarded-up antique shop with iron shutters and an owl worked into the rusting sign bracket overhead.
The glow in his arm pulsed once. Twice.
Then the sedan drove on.
The light vanished with it.
Desmond stared after the car, pulse thudding in his ears.
“Nope,” he said immediately, to the rain, to the city, to the invisible forces of the universe that clearly hated him. “Not tonight.”
He pulled his sleeve lower over the glove and stood up.
Whatever that was—artifact, signal, Isu nonsense, cosmic practical joke—it could wait until he wasn’t half-dead and broke in a city full of gargoyles.
He needed shelter.
Not a hotel. No money.
Not a homeless shelter unless he absolutely had to—too many eyes, too many questions.
A rooftop access shed on an abandoned building would do. Somewhere dry enough to sit down without drowning. Somewhere with a door he could wedge shut.
He found it three blocks later on top of an old textile warehouse whose windows had all been bricked over except the top floor. The roof door was chained from the outside.
A joke, normally.
Tonight, it took him two tries.
His fingers slipped on wet metal. The dampened touch in his right hand made leverage weird and unreliable. His arm ached with every pull. But the chain was old, and old things broke if you knew where to hurt them.
Desmond wedged a rusted pipe through the links and leaned his weight into it until the metal shrieked and snapped.
Inside was a narrow maintenance room smelling of dust, mildew, and old electrical wiring. A coil of cable in one corner. A dead breaker panel. A broken folding chair. Blessedly dry.
He shut the door behind him, threaded the broken chain back through the handle as a token gesture, and slid down the wall to the floor.
For a long time, he just sat there in the dark, head tipped back against peeling paint, listening to the rain hammer the roof.
His whole body hurt.
The adrenaline had burned off, leaving behind bone-deep exhaustion and the kind of emptiness that comes after too much impossible too fast. His wet clothes clung cold against his skin. His shoes squelched when he shifted. His right arm throbbed in slow, vicious pulses under the glove.
Alive.
In Gotham.
Possibly hunted by ancient alien bullshit already.
His father thought he was dead.
Rebecca. Shaun.
If any of this was real, they thought he was gone.
The thought hit harder than the pain did.
Desmond swallowed and stared into the dark.
He pictured his dad at the Temple. The look on his face in those last seconds. Not cold, not distant, not William-Miles-the-grand-master.
Just a father watching his son die.
“...Sorry,” Desmond said quietly, because the word was useless and still all he had.
The room gave him nothing back.
After a minute, he peeled off the glove.
Even in the dark, the arm looked wrong.
Faint ambient city light leaked through the grime-caked roof window, enough to show the blackened skin in broken silver-gray. The glyphs curled over the back of his hand and up his forearm like a language written by something that had never needed human bones to hold it.
He flexed his fingers.
The hand obeyed.
He pressed his thumb into the inside of his wrist and felt only a distant pressure, dulled and warped.
Then, because apparently he never learned, he brushed one fingertip across one of the raised spiral marks.
Pain flashed hot and bright enough to make him suck in a breath through his teeth, but no full seizure this time.
Progress.
“Still hate you,” he told the arm.
A soft hiss answered him.
He went perfectly still.
For a heartbeat, one of the deeper glyph-lines near his wrist shone faintly under the blackened skin. Gold-white. Clean and terrible.
Then darkness swallowed it again.
Desmond stared.
The corner of his mouth twitched in something that wasn’t humor and wasn’t quite despair.
“Yeah,” he said to the dark. “That’s about right.”
He pulled the glove back on with careful, practiced motions, even though there had been no practice before tonight. Pulled the sleeve down over it. Hid the whole mess away.
Then he shifted onto his side against the wall, one hand tucked under his head, the other curled against his chest, and let his eyes close for just a minute.
Just long enough to think.
Just long enough to rest.
Outside, Gotham breathed in rain and sirens and distant engines.
Above him, thunder rolled low over the city’s black teeth.
And somewhere beneath all that stone and steel, unseen and patient, old things waited.