It existed as a monument against nature, an unholy matrimony of man and science. The result of decades of fighting.
But what mattered above all was that it still existed, that through clouded cab window she could still see it standing tall and proud.
The shadows fell in the same way they had when she left the city, swallowing the people and all that mattered whole. The buildings were still as old and faded as she remembered, certain windows still cracked in the places they had been in her childhood, the air still thick with the smell of iron and unidentified grime.
It was Gotham and it was welcoming her back the only way it could, through passing sirens and flashing lights beside her cab, screams surrounding as the cabbie seemed to yawn for the umpteenth time at the chaos unfolding.
For some of the people of Gotham this had become life, death threats had become lullabies.
It unnerved her none the less.
"How long have you been driving?" She questioned.
"Fifteen years, used to be a night cabbie." His voice was cracked, aged beyond recognition. If she had known him before she wouldn't be able to identify him now. "You get used to the wreckage when you work nights, get to know the streets well enough to navigate a few back alleys out of it."
"I see." She nodded, turning back to the window beside her. "How long has Harley Quinn been running alone? When I was a kid she wasn't exactly tickled pink to be free of company."
"Shit, 'bout two years or so, whenever the Red bat decided to blow up the Joker's hide away. A few years before the Wayne brothers took over for old Brucie Boy but not long after they announced the Pennyworth Gardens." The cabbie nodded to himself, seeming to reaffirm himself that the information was correct, that that amount of time really had passed and he wasn't going crazy. "How long you been gone?"
"Five," She replied evenly, "I've been gone five years. Got an internship at Metropolis, thought it was pretty nice and decided to stay there."
The cabbie gave an appreciative whistle, lurching the car forward just slightly in traffic. "Why'd you leave a swanky city like that for a dump like Gotham, you lose a bet?"
Shaking her head, "I'm a reporter, but I can't compete with Lois Lane. I got an interview at the Gotham Globe as a favor."
"Well then I'm rooting for you, Gotham doesn't need a Lois Lane." He ignored the massive vibration come down hard around them, taking whatever was happening in the city as none of his business. "You got a name I should be looking for when the time comes?"
Another vibration came near them, unnerving her slightly. The man up front lit the end of a cigar and opened the window to huff the smoke out.
Immediately the sound of screams echoed into the cab, the man taking his slow drag and ignoring it as business as usual.
She gripped the back of her seat as the sound of a baby crying hit the air.
"Whatever happened to the bats?" She changed the subject, very slowly beginning to regret her decision to return, her decision to come back to the town devoid of flying superheroes who could fix the world in a matter of seconds.
"Still active, a bit taller if you ask me but no one ever does. Ain't no girl anymore, but shit we all knew that was coming."
"Whatever happened to her?"
"Shit, I don't know." He replied, taking another long drag from his cigar. "Just disappeared one day out of nowhere, never to be seen again. That's the thing about these superheroes, they're never here when you need them." He paused, tapping the ashes off the end of his cigar. "Coulda asked Alfred Pennyworth about that before these fuckers blew him up, before these fuckers killed the everyman because the superman wasn't enough for the bad guys in this city."
"That's the thing about Gotham, it just keeps taking." She nodded.
"Damn right it does, girl." The line of cars moved once more, forcing him to finally drop his cigar and go up the line again. It occurred to her for a moment that perhaps the putrid smell of smoke wasn't from the cigar, but she buried it away before her mind could even begin to process it. "It keeps taking and taking, but some day it's gonna try and take some more only to find out that we ain't got nothing left. There ain't no hope in Gotham anymore, now all it's taking is people's lives."
"Was there ever really a hope in Gotham?"
"You'd be surprised how much I ask myself that." He ignored the turbulence his car was experiencing, now having climbed up a notch from the last time anyone had noticed. His eyes seemed to drift down for a second, the car pulling ahead slightly. "I'd say yes, but mainly cuz I got a daughter. There's a lot of hope in these young people these days, hope I wish I had."
Whatever it was, it was coming towards them.
"What's she like?" She questioned.
"Real cute, got ribbons in her hair and a smile longer than the equator." His eyes crinkled slightly at the sides. "She loves the supers, thinks they're just about the best thing to ever happen to this world. I ain't got the heart to say otherwise to her of all people."
Her eyes flicker out the window, taking in the desolation. "They were, for a while. I understand."
"She's got a cape and a mask, plays make believe. I sometimes wonder if that's how it all started for them? Playing pretend and believing you can save your city, wanting the world to be a different place." His voice was cracking, he was afraid. For her, for this city, for the girl sitting in the back of his car. "It must feel great to be a hero, til you get down to it. You're the good guy, everyone loves and respects ya. But then, well, you know, what happens to them folk's family? They watch their daughter's get beaten up, watching people slowly die without knowing why. I wonder what happens."
It hit home, he didn't notice the rigidness that accompanied her. The way she froze in such a timely matter and struggled to recover. "I think they just accept it, and move on."
"How do you accept when your baby's on a stretcher?" Thick tears welled up in the front of his eyes and were promptly choked down. "I ain't got the heart to watch my child up and die."
"I don't think anyone does, but if they don't do it then there's a higher chance that more people will go through that pain." She sighed. "It's one thing for just your child to be on a stretcher, it's another to have to scramble through rubble to find them, to watch the world around you collapse."
"I'm just saying," The cabbie paused, seeming to absorb the silence before another blow was made to the ground, the front of the cab raising with the trauma to the ground. "There can be all these supers, they can keep letting us down, but never let it be my daughter. I love her too much."
It was words that she wouldn't hear from her own father, words that were kept from her by her mother. Another reminder of why the business was both wrong and right.
"We should go," She suggested. "Before we end up being among the number of people that bats couldn't save."
"Naw, you'd be surprised. We'll be fine."
"I'm going to go." She replied, reaching for her belt buckle. She didn't doubt what he said, but rather her ability to sit there and be fine as chaos ensued around her.
"Trust me, this car is a thousand times safer than you'll be on the streets."
"I don't want to die in a tin can, and you don't either." She replied.
"Again, It's safer in here. You think a rusty tin can will crush you? Try walking around just yourself with whatever's lifting up the very streets here, you ain't gonna last a second if you leave."
Ah, there it was.
It was a rule of the world that at some given point for every day she was in Gotham, someone must oppose her in a question of strength.
"For anyone else that may be true," She responded, "But I'm Stephanie Brown," She shrugged off her seat belt, "and if there's one thing I've learned in these five years," Shrugged off her heels she shoved them in her bag before casting the cabbie one last look, a smile playing on her features before shoving the door out of her way, "It's that I'm one hell of a runner."
Her feet hit the cracking pavement before the cabbie's pleas hit her ears, begs to get back in the car being ignored in favour of the feeling of asphalt pounding under her feet. Air hit her hard, her knees hurt, and she was no speedster.
"You're safer in the car then you'll ever be out there!"
But she was back in Gotham, and the feeling of the road, the smell of smoke, the sounds around her; those made her feel more alive than she had ever in five years of Metropolis.
Who wanted to die in a mauled up aluminum can when you could feel the air from the harbor racing through your teeth? You'd have to be a sucker to want any different.
She felt the air in her lungs as she gave up the cowl, the thrill in disappearing, and the pang of all she had missed.
And while Gotham may be a mess, it was her mess.