A/N: This is my first Gotham fanfic. I originally started this right after the episode aired, but I got a bad case of writer's block, haven't written anything for any fandom in a while. But then I browsed through my unfinished works one day, saw this and thought I would give it another try. So this is what I got. Some parts are probably not for the queasy and faint of heart – you've been warned.

Spoilers: For season 2 episode 17: Into the Woods.

Disclaimer: If I owned a city I probably wouldn't be able to come up with a name as cool as Gotham. But I don't own a city and I don't own the rights to the TV-show Gotham either.

A spilt second. That's how long it took for his meticulous conditioning to wear off. One cherry decanter, one dog, one drink, one realisation. They'd killed him.

He felt like himself again. And it felt great.

Now all he needed to do was to come with the most diabolical plan he'd ever had; so that he could avenge his father.

And what he came up with was pretty damn clever, if he had to say so himself.

xXx

He enjoyed watching his greedy stepmom as she gulped down piece after piece of roasted meat, all the while waiting impatiently for her kids to show up at the dinner table. Little did she know that they were closer than she thought. Once he felt she had eaten enough for his revenge to cut deep enough he told her what had been on the menu.

Eating your own children was not really something he had any experience in, but he did know grief, and disgust and also fear and loathing. And she pretty much displayed all of those emotions, so he felt like his plan had been a success.

Such hateful people deserved a hateful end. There was no pity left in him, all that had been washed away. Though a little pang remained in a corner of his chest at the irony; they could have been happy. Had they not been greedy, money grubbing, murderous people then they could have been a family. They had unleashed their own doom – made him who he truly was again, sure – but had they not done anything, chances are that they would still be alive and he would still be a good, well behaved puppy. Well the joke was on them. He wasn't in it for the money, but they clearly had been, he could see that now that the veil of niceness had been lifted from his eyes. He had had a father for the first time ever, that had been his driving force, love not money, his father's wealth had been of no consequence to him, it didn't make him any more or any less of a father, and as an added bonus he'd even had siblings for a little while there too.

Had he not been programmed so nicely by Dr. Strange from Arkham Asylum he might have noticed the signs earlier. He could possibly have done something. Maybe his dad would still be alive. It was almost as if life kept dealing him a bad hand. Being bad got him punished, but being good had the same outcome, he had lost both his mother and his father, so he had decided that it wasn't all so black and white, there were plenty of grey areas, maybe even some blue and red once, the whole colour palette actually was represented out there. The point was that he understood now; that no matter what he did he couldn't win, all he could do was survive. He had been doing that for a long time already, so leaving a few more dead bodies in his wake didn't really bother him in the slightest, as long as he was still standing.

xXx

He had felt so liberated with each blow he had landed on his "siblings", and each time his knife pierced their skin he felt a bit better. The exhilarating thrill of revenge and vindication. The roars of pain, breaking bones, oozing blood, and the crack of their sculls, all sounds he hadn't realised he'd missed.

He prepared the meal himself, and watched carefully as they were skinned, gutted, churned and then turned into what looked like a gourmet supper, a good roast. Had the dog still been alive he would have fed it the scraps. They really didn't deserve to be turned into anything more.

Sasha and Charles had been party to the crime, but there was no doubt in his mind that his stepmother Grace was the mastermind behind what had happened. So her punishment had to be equally harder. Physically torturing her, like he had her children, and feeding her to the dog wasn't enough, no she had earned the mental torture as well; of knowing she had eaten her children, her own flesh and blood, that which she had given life, her legacy, was now nothing more than meat on a plate. As well as dead inside of her.

It was a fitting end, the crescendo before the final silence. All her whining and begging amounting to nothing, other than satisfying his built up vengeful anger with blood thirst. That last wild thrust finishing her off, resulting in a blood spattered dining room, made him feel completely free; wild and free. Serving justice had never before been so satisfying.

A/N: Did I make the penguin sound too mean? I'm no psycho (I hope) but I still feel for Oswald Cobblepot, he can't catch a break. Many of the characters on the show can't; it's a rather tragic show actually, if you think about it.

But he did do a Hannibal, or half a Hannibal, so I just had to write something.

If anyone was wondering, yes the title is an intended pun.