Prologue | A City of Constants

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Gotham is a city of constants.

What remains constant can be called into question—crime, for instance, has existed long since the city's founding, and, for that matter, stretches far beyond the city proper. But Gotham crime is not like other crime, for Gotham is a different breed of city and holds within her a different breed of people. There is no city as raw, nor as fierce as Gotham, no people more stubborn. Crime in Gotham is a category all its own.

But crime is not the only constant in Gotham. Heroes, too, have always existed in Gotham, heroes and hope that hangs by a thread. It is always in the darkest places that hope glows the brightest, and Gothamites hold onto hope the way most people hold onto dreams: with bloody fingers and a determination bordering on obsessive. Hope and crime and a fury that rings down to the bones—these are the Gotham constants.

The Bat is a new constant, one that emerges only as the Twenty-First Century dawns, but his influence sinks into the city and stays there. Decades pass and the time changes, but the Bat does not die as so many heroes have before him. No, the Bat becomes a part of Gotham, a part so integral to the city structure they could not shake him if they tried. To kill the Bat and his influence would require the end of another constant. So long as evil breathes in Gotham, so too lives the Bat.

Months turn to years turn to decades. Forty years after the Bat first came to Gotham, Batman and Robin try to save the city and each other. It's a new era, a new dawn, a new duo. And yet.

Gotham never really changes.

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A/N: Tadaaaaaaaa.

I've been wanting to write this story for forever, and now I'm finally getting somewhere! This is mostly here to remind me to stay on track, I'll begin posting the full proper chapters once I finish writing the full arc. Halfway done already, so it shouldn't take too long!

Any thoughts?