TW: Brief graphic depictions of violence, blood, death

PART ONE: A NEW ERA

'We should not be afraid to go into a new era, to leave the old beyond.'
Zack Wamp

January 9th, 2016
Park Row, Gotham City

There was an alleyway in Gotham City, and on one winter night in January 2016, Death took a walk down it. She was well acquainted with the metropolitan by this point—had taken many strolls down many alleyways in Gotham, but the city favoured this one the most. And if she was being honest, so did she.

She remembered the sound of pearls on concrete and trembling sobs. She remembered the air choking on gunpowder, perfume and blood. She remembered how she shook hands with Thomas and Martha Wayne, her shadow cast over their son, the boy just out of her reach. The boy who quickly—too quickly—grew into a man who continued to step just out of her reach, in many more alleyways and locations in Gotham in the years to come.

That is what made the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne memorable to her. Not the people themselves, insignificant to the cosmos and adrift in the ocean of time, but rather the boy they left behind—the man who, unlike those who had tried and failed before him, continued to successfully deny his own mortality.

Death had offered her hand to Bruce Wayne countless times before, and each time, the man didn't even look at it. It wasn't an option.

The night that Thomas and Martha Wayne died was truly one of the rare occasions that she had seen herself not just take something from the world, but give back to it. For she may have taken Thomas and Martha Wayne from the world that day, but the world ended up with the better end of the transaction, for in return, she had given it the Batman.

It was only fitting, then, that in this alleyway—Park Row, Gotham City—Death once again shook hands with two insignificant human beings, and once again, in some fluke of the cosmos, gave the world something in return.

Evangeline Winter glanced down at her half-finished popcorn, forlorn. The bear fight truly does no wonders for one's appetite.

Discarding the semi-stale, cold snack in the trash can sat outside, the raven-haired woman stood underneath The Monarch Theatre sign that buzzed above. The first 'a' and the 'he' wasn't working, and the 'r' in 'Theatre' flickered erratically enough to give her a mild headache if she focused on it for too long.

The Revenant had started at eight-thirty, but between the ads and long run-time, it was eleven-thirty by the time that she left the theatre. The session was far later than Eve usually indulged in, but the private investigator was very much so in a 'treat yourself' mood after closing today's exhausting case. Thirteen hours of sitting on a fire escape with a camera waiting for her client's ex-husband to step in to view in the apartment window across the road with her client's currently missing Maltese terrier—one that Ms Hudson very clearly won custody over in their divorce—was definitely not one of Eve's more entertaining days on the job. It was, however, an unfortunately common one.

Jim's been spoiling me, Eve grudgingly admitted. Every other case feels lacklustre in comparison to the ones he's been handing me.

A small 'oof' wheezed past the investigator's lips, so lost in thought and fixated on the headache-inducing theatre sign that she failed to move out of the way as another moviegoer exited the building. The middle-aged man scowled as he shoulder-checked her, jerking an apologetic lady along and muttering obscenities under his breath.

Eve winced, her apologetic 'Sorry!' lost on deaf ears as the couple passed a dimly lit alleyway. Like a change in the wind, her attention flew from them to the alleyway—to the weatherworn street sign that tiredly clung to the flickering street lamp.

What once was a barely discernible 'Park Row' had been crossed out and rewritten in an alarming shade of red as 'CRIME ALLEY', and despite the lack of wind, Evangeline Winter tugged her coat tighter around her. Her gaze dropped to the empty space below the street sign. An unshakeable cold had taken residency in her bones, and admittedly—

She was early. Some may call it a morbid fascination with the alleyway where she had singlehandedly made her least profitable business transaction twenty-seven years ago, but Death liked to think of herself as ever-punctual. She couldn't afford to be late, not in a profession like hers, and if she had to collect another two souls from this alleyway again then she was at the very least going to view the lead-up in full this time.

Stood below the street lamp, she waited. And then, curiously, she felt a set of eyes on her. Turning her head, she noticed a lone woman in a white trench coat underneath The Monarch Theatre sign. Her searching gaze flitted around where Death stood, but Death knew she could not see her—no human could, not until their time had come, and this woman's gaze could not find purchase on whatever it sought. And yet, the lady's slow stride made its way towards her, eyes ever searching, scrutinising—working as if they're piecing together some grand puzzle. Hm, Death hummed. How—

—curious, Eve thought, finally having realised the sign for what it was. The infamous alleyway of the Wayne murders.

'I was still a rookie cop then,' Jim told her. A fatigue so deep that it was now as much a part of his body as his bones weighed him down. 'And if I never have to look an eight-year-old kid in the eyes and tell them everything will be alright—when he and I both know that it won't be—ever again, well… it will still be too soon.'

With a startling lack of control over her own feet, Eve began to walk down the alleyway. She didn't make it far before her ears began to piece together a string of hushed voices from behind the theatre.

'…. – cut off all ties with you. You're nowhere near as successful as your old man was, there's only so much time until someone fuckin' knocks you from your high perch.'

The investigator's eyes narrowed. Ears sharpened. Male. Deep, but not too deep. Estimated age is somewhere in the mid to late twenties. Slight softening of vowels and hardening of consonants, as well as dropping all g's. Inclines towards a small roll of the Irish accent. Mocking language and pitch, leaning into a scowl. Doesn't hold the person he was conversing with in high respect, yet tone is confident and authoritative, which means he holds himself in high regard. Formal, with thinly veiled but not outright threats.

Eve's conclusion: someone within an organised crime syndicate, likely the mafia. Gangs weren't so formal, and often weren't hereditary or kept in the family like the mafia. She considered the fact that he had a tinge of an Irish accent and he disrespected someone within an evident hierarchy, which meant he must've been at least a semi-important figure within the O'Reilly crime family, the only Irish crime family in Gotham.

'And you think your parents are foolish enough to disrespect and toss aside my services? You're still juveniles, sat at the children's table whilst the adults break bread and drink wine over the important business. Your families are even lucky that Falcone and my father allowed you a seat at the table. Don't dishonour your family names with such… rash behaviour.'

Male. Deep, properly deep, yet not raspy from probable sickness or old age. Estimated age is somewhere in the thirties. Has a softly stern way of talking with a blended 'th' and slightly drops the d's, maybe Italian. Italian and mafia theory further supported by mentions of ominous 'important business', high regard for family, family names and the esteem attached to them, and obvious name drop of Don Carmine Falcone. The comment from the previous gentleman refers to the current man being 'nowhere near as successful as your old man', and the current speaker equated his father's importance to that of Don Falcone. Father was successful, most likely Italian, as influential as Don Falcone, and is now dead.

Eve's conclusion: Don Salvatore Maroni, the only Italian mafia boss in the past ten years who lost a father as close to influence and power as Don Falcone.

What are Don Maroni and a relative of Colin O'Reilly doing here? She faintly recalled spotting a few men in suits towards the back of the theatre room she was in, but merely skimmed her gaze over them and presumed them to be businessmen or lawyers. She should've known better—between the late hour, the secluded seating, the odd entourage-type bearing and positioning of them, and the notoriously dodgy reputation of the area she was in, she should've pieced together their importance. The lapse in her skill and judgement made her twitch.

Eve tread closer as the faceless voices talked, coming from around the dark corner. She scouted the area in her panic, senses suddenly in overdrive. Fire escapes. Alleyway entrances and exits. Rooftops. Building windows. Dumpsters. None of the prime locations were covered by guards, it seemed. And yet, the chill would not leave her body. It was as if—

—she wanted to be killed, Death mused as she stood directly behind the southerner. Evangeline Winter had such a bright soul, the kind of light that Gotham tended to snuff out far too quickly. And yet, it was not her time. So what was she—?

—doing? Eve scolded herself, trying not to have a panic attack as the gravity of the events and situation that she voluntarily just walked into washed over her like a bucket of ice water. It was one thing taking on the petty theft cases that Jim gave her, but an entirely different ballpark meddling with the freaking mafia. The Gotham mafia even more so.

'We're only eight years your junior, Maroni, so don't hide behind the excuse of an age difference,' a third voice sneered, catching Eve off-guard. 'And you certainly aren't one to lecture us on rash behaviour when you are the one conspiring against our fathers in secrecy. It's only a matter of time until the other families cast you out like Sionis.'

Female. Young, apparently the same age as the O'Reilly boy. Slight lengthening and accenting of vowels from time to time, teetering in the direction of a Russian accent. Mentioning of 'our fathers'. Must be related to another crime boss. Age difference between the O'Reilly boy and this woman in comparison to Maroni is apparently eight years, and Maroni is currently thirty-five years of age. Oh, and Maroni suspicion is confirmed.

Eve's conclusion: the woman was Alexandra Markovic, the twenty-seven-year-old daughter to Dmitri Markovic, the only Russian mafia boss—technically head of the Gotham Bratva—in Gotham. The O'Reilly boy from before must've been Seán O'Reilly, Colin O'Reilly's only twenty-seven-year-old son.

Three important figures of three important families are all having a spat in the same alleyway that took Thomas and Martha Wayne from the world. If the investigator wasn't having a mild panic attack, she would've pieced together the cause of contention between them by now. If her mind had processed the content of their spoken words as quickly as how they spoke them, then perhaps she would've caught on to the situation quicker. Perhaps, Don Maroni's next words wouldn't have been the punch to the gut that they were.

'Conspiring against your fathers?' His voice was disbelieving and venomous as if a bitter, repulsive taste lingered from having uttered the very words. 'To do such a thing would stir the established peace between the families. A mob war would arise. No one, not even Sionis or Dent would be arrogant or irrational enough to threaten or advocate such copious amounts of bloodshed.'

A mob war? Eve pressed her back further into the wall near the corner. She grounded herself in the harsh sensation of the unforgiving brick. One side is lying. Whether that was Don Maroni or Alexandra and Seán, Eve didn't know yet. She didn't have enough context. As always, she needed more information.

'Don't play us as fools Maroni,' Seán chastised, no small amount of malign interwoven into his tone. 'We only came here tonight to offer the courtesy of a warning. If you continue to collude against our fathers, we will inform them of your ill intentions. Then, when it's all said and done, we'll see who is left sitting at the table—who has earnt their place there.'

Eve flinched. In her opinion, they were addressing the possible threat of Don Maroni's plotting quite well up until that point, but Seán just had to throw in the last unessential comment that teetered into an entirely transparent threat.

She didn't need to peek around the corner to know Don Maroni's physical reaction. She felt the animosity rolling off him. It choked the air, making it so hard to inhale that Eve was sure it had turned solid. Despite this, her mind was working a thousand miles per hour; piecing, deciphering, unravelling—

Searching. Death could tell Miss Winter often operated off a visual medium from the way her eyes had nonstop searched and drank in the smallest details around her. She could tell that she struggled to work from sound alone, but behind those sharp hazel eyes her brain still went off like a computer.

Death glided around the corner but didn't take her eyes off Evangeline Winter. The two souls were in reach, but she knew how they died. It was known, expected. Evangeline Winter was not. She was—

—screwed. Royally screwed. Eve can hear her mother's saccharine voice chastising her foul language, and promptly shoved the voice into the recesses of her mind. The last thing she needed right now was to hear the sugar-coated tone of Julia Winter. It would crack her composure.

'You accuse and disrespect with a pretension that will end your families should you ever take charge.'

Eve shuddered but was almost grateful to be brought back to the situation at hand. Maroni's voice was ice, and judging by the sudden thick silence that befell the alleyway, it had struck a similar effect onto Alexandra and Seán. Eve's ears were so numb she couldn't hear her breath. Was she even breathing at all? She wasn't sure.

'But it won't end your families' legacies. I'll make sure of that.'

Make sure of that—?

BANG BANG–THUMP, THUMP.

The air froze in her lungs. Her body recoiled so sharply that her palms roughly grazed the brick behind her. Torn skin, blood, and grime smeared across the wall. The crack of two bullets tore any coherent thoughts asunder. The sound of two heavy, fleshy masses met the concrete.

But then, just like a slap to the face, the crack of more ensuing gunfire—incessant, erratic, a storm—jumpstarted Eve's brain, and instead of the panic and obscenities that should've flooded her system, the investigator's body spiked with enough adrenaline to launch her mind into 'common sense mode'.

She scrambled to the closest dumpster and slid between the back of it and the brick wall, pressed against the darkest corner of it. An up-close inspection would've given her away in a heartbeat—fortunately, however, it seemed that all gunmen in the alleyway around the corner were pretty preoccupied.

It probably only lasted a minute, maybe more, but it was the soldier's minute. Before and after did not exist, and with everything happening at once—every strangled breath, thundering step, gunshot, shout, misfire, heartbeat, blink—it dragged into an imperceptible amount of time. But it did eventually end—heavy shoes made splashes in the tiny puddles that littered the alleyway as bodies fled past her hiding spot. The investigator could smell the gunpowder rush past her, and the crack of gunfire die out.

She doesn't know how long she waited until she stumbled out of her hiding place, living in the aftermath of the soldier's minute. But there was that faint ringing in the air—the ringing of silence after so much noise. Even the perpetual sounds of sirens, barking dogs, car horns and indiscernible city bedlam were muted by the silent ringing.

Before Eve knew it she had blinked and was there. The minimal light that once felt non-existent was glaring, blinding. Anxiety and Dread clambered up her body with clammy, bruising hands. Her eyes flitted, squinted, erratic, back and forth, suddenly finding too much to focus on.

Men in suits. On the floor. Stilled or stilling. Gurgled.

The scent of eggs—rotten eggs? No, gunpowder. Metallic.

The puddles. Clear and dark. The dark sat over faded ones, similar.

One woman. Smeared red lipstick. A bubbling hole in her throat, matching in colour.

One man. One ice blue eye. One mangled caved-in one. Splatters of dark.

Evangeline Winter stood before the two bodies in the centre of the alleyway. There was no mistaking them, even if she hadn't seen them before today. Seán O'Reilly and Alexandra Markovic had met an end that was perhaps fitting for their lifestyle—violent, sudden, another two bodies surrounded by the many. Another day in Gotham—

'A mob war would arise.'

'Copious amounts of bloodshed.'

'A seat at the table.'

'I'll make sure of that.'

No.

Eve glued up the cracks in her composure.

Someone started this. One side was lying.

Her gaze flickered to the other bodies, the henchmen, the cannon fodder. They were corrupt. Criminals. But they were people—they had earthly attachments, friends, family, passions, lives.

This is what the streets will look like.

'A mob war would arise.'

'A mob war.'

Eve felt it. The immovable resolve. The determination. The exhilaration.

If anyone was left, they would have seen it. Would have seen the decision definitively made. All in—

—that look. Death quirked a brow, intrigued. I know that look.

A flash of blue eyes. A cape and cowl. A shadow in the night.

Turning from the live woman, Death met the confused gazes of Seán O'Reilly and Alexandra Markovic. They stared at each other, their bodies, the bodies of those around them, and the other confused souls who stood over their bodies in shock.

'I know it might not seem like it, but today's your lucky day,' Death greeted them, startling the two twenty-seven-year-olds into noticing her presence.

'You're about to be remembered for your deaths more than you ever could have been remembered for your lives.'

A/N: Hello! Welcome to my lil' old story! Won't keep you long, just wanted to share that this story is currently undergoing editing/rewriting, so you will notice minor grammatical/characterisation/tense/dialogue differences and discrepancies between the edited/rewritten chapters and the older ones. Nothing super major! Just something to keep an eye out for.

As of writing this author's note (03/07/2022, DD/MM/YY), I've managed to polish and rewrite the first three chapters as well as post the latest chapter. Hoping to chip away at the other chapters as we go!

Thank you for clicking on and reading though! That's all for now, bye :) xxx

T.L