"If you're a serious criminal, or working hard to become one, come to Gotham. It'll satisfy every fantasy you've ever had about scale and method."
"Small-time fraud and theft, armed robbery, or maybe some lunatic straps explosives to your chest and makes you solve his pointless riddles while a countdown ticks in your ear."
"The crime-ridden East End, the filth-soaked sewers, Blackgate Prison, City Hall... oh, I almost forgot. Arkham Asylum, wrapped in layers of rusted barbed wire. Plenty of people like you have already paid it a visit. Trust me, it won't disappoint."
"Wait, you're worried about that freak in the skintight suit with the bat ears coming after you? Hahahaha. You must be joking. This isn't a comic book."
"Idealism doesn't bloom in poisoned soil."
"Since we're on the subject, let me add one more thing."
"A lot of people think Falcone ordered the hit on the Wayne family. A few say it was the Court of Owls- Wayne Enterprises' plans to clean up Gotham were stepping on the wrong toes. Either way, take my advice: don't look into it. Don't even ask around."
"Alright. That's all. Hope you enjoy your time in Gotham."
Will Quinn jolted awake from the same familiar dream, the yellowed sheets beneath him soaked with cold sweat.
He pressed a hand to his throbbing head and shuffled out the door. The floorboards groaned under his feet. The smell hit him right away, mold and damp with something faintly sour underneath, like someone had cracked open a tin of peanuts expired ten years ago and held it over his face.
He could barely breathe.
The corridor was narrow and dark. Noise spilled through every peeling door: old TV static, an argument, a woman's working moans.
He made it to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The bulb stuttered between yellow and nothing.
Under the sharp smell of rust and grime, Will ran the tap and scrubbed his face hard until his head cleared a little.
Three months in this body, and the mirror still startled him every time.
A Western face. Dark brown hair dried into curls, deep-set grey eyes shot through with red. Better looking than his original face by a fair margin. The only problem was he looked nothing like a living person. His complexion was that of a vampire.
Still, better than where he'd started.
Three months ago he'd come to in a gutter next to a dumpster in the East End. Stark naked. No ID, nothing to prove who he was. The only clue was a stab wound through his abdomen, fresh, the skin still swollen, the stitching a careless mess.
Whoever owned this body before him had enemies serious enough that a knife in the gut didn't warrant a hospital visit.
Will turned that over in his head and quietly dropped the idea of grabbing a random stranger off the street to ask if they recognized him.
He had nothing. What he did have was a crumpled old newspaper from the dumpster, and on it, a city name that made his stomach drop.
Gotham.
Good people in Gotham, great minds in Arkham. That single joke was the full extent of everything Will knew about this place. Beyond that?
Nothing.
He wasn't a comic fan. His knowledge of DC came entirely from a few films he'd half-watched. If he was going to end up anywhere it should've been Queens, hanging around some neighborhood kid named Peter, or Metropolis where at least Superman kept the worst of it in check.
Not Gotham. Not this hellhole.
"You could've just let me die. But no. you had to go through all this trouble to dump me here. Really appreciate it."
He didn't know who he was talking to. He flipped his middle finger at the ceiling anyway.
But whatever else he didn't know about DC, he knew Batman. And right now Batman was the only lifeline he could think of.
So that day the East End got an unusual sight... a naked man with a sheet of newspaper pressed to his groin, wandering down the sidewalk asking passersby if they knew anything about Bruce Wayne.
Nobody gave him the time of day. Nobody except the police, who showed up not long after.
They had him face-down in a cold, reeking puddle at the street corner. The newspaper didn't survive.
Will fell apart after that. He stayed that way all the way to the wooden bench outside the interrogation room, where things improved, slightly.
The hallway smelled of cigarette smoke. On his left sat a biker with smudged eye makeup and a ridiculous spiked mohawk. On his right, a heavyset man in a jagged-sleeved undershirt with a smell that arrived before he did. Will sat between them with both hands covering himself.
The two weirdos flanking him somehow made the naked guy look like the normal one on the bench.
He was called in quickly. The detective across the table was middle-aged and slightly heavyset. Unlike the rest of the precinct's rumpled officers, he kept a neat trimmed mustache and his dark brown suit was spotless. The old scars packed across the backs of his hands pointed to someone with a long career behind him.
"Name?"
Will shook his head. Hesitated.
"...You can call me Will."
"Any history of mental illness?"
"No! Absolutely not!" Will pulled up his shirt immediately to show the stab wound, terrified of being sent to Arkham before he got a single word in. "I was attacked. I lost my memory. That's it."
"Alright. That still doesn't explain the nudity. Your conduct violated the Gotham Public Health and Safety Code. three days' custody. I'll try to locate your family in the meantime..."
"Hey, Gordon!" A uniformed officer crossed the noisy floor and waved. "Drinks after shift?"
"Sorry. Barbara's ordered me to quit."
"That's a shame."
Will caught the name and held onto it.
Gordon.
It surfaced slowly. The Commissioner. The Bat-Signal. Batman's contact.
The moment the other officer moved on, Will leaned forward and dropped his voice.
"Can you take me to Batman? The one with the black cowl, two points on top of his head."
Gordon's left eyebrow went up. His expression was full of confusion, like the word meant nothing to him at all.
Will misread it completely.
Gordon being Batman's contact wasn't exactly a secret. Everyone wanted to reach Batman through him. Maybe he needed to be more direct about it.
"I have information for him. About the Joker- you know who the Joker is, right?"
The right eyebrow joined the left. Some of the confusion cleared, and something underneath settled into a quiet decision.
Will felt the urgency climbing.
"Then take me to Bruce Wayne. That works too, right?"
That one got a real reaction.
Gordon set his pen down. Let out a slow breath. Crumpled the interview sheet and dropped it in the bin by his foot.
"I'll contact Arkham's staff to come collect you..."
"No. wait."
The word Arkham hit Will like a bucket of ice water. He grabbed Gordon's sleeve without thinking.
Gordon's hand went to his holster fast, then stilled when he registered no threat. His expression cooled but settled.
"Patients rarely recognize when something is wrong with them."
"But I'm not sick."
"You keep insisting you know Bruce Wayne." Gordon's voice was level. "Everyone in Gotham knows Bruce is dead. He died in Crime Alley. With his parents."