Chapter Text
Edward really didn't know what he expected when he began with all of this.
Well no, in theory, he knew what he wanted: He wanted to be successful, famous, recognized. After all, he liked the attention and that was the reason he was doing this in the first place.
But he didn't exactly have a plan at the moment, it was more of an impulse: One night he just installed all the basic programs he had read he needed, put a paper bag over his head -he now regretted that it was quite noisy and difficult to see through- and click the "stream" button at the right corner of the window.
Given that it was around 2 or 3 in the morning the first time he streamed he decided to play a horror game, and that has been his main thing ever since.
Naturally, in his first stream, not even a viewer stayed around for more than one or two minutes. Hell, his first follower was Selina, and just because she thought it would be funny to go and annoy him in chat sometimes.
But he kept doing it, it was fun to have an excuse to basically speak alone and tell his awful overelaborate jokes almost no one else understood. Eventually, though, he was found by those of his kind and a very little but nice crowd began to form and watch his streams.
In no time he would meet the basic requirements to become a twitch affiliated, not that he cared that much about the money, to be honest, but it was nice to know he was progressing in some way.
However, there was a thing that catches Edward's attention from day two: There was a mysterious viewer who always watched his streams from the very beginning to when he hit the end button, no matter the day, no matter the hour, they were always there. Edward knew it was the same person because they never left any comments, and he knew it wasn't him watching from his cellphone because the viewer counter was 2, not 1.
Selina -who was very early discarded since she "had an actual life"- told him it was probably just a very weird or useless bot, but Edward preferred to say it surely was a secret fan of his, so worried about anonymity that they swore they would never write in the chat or even officially follow him. Selina just rolled her eyes, sometimes she wished she had other more normal friends.
So bad neither Edward nor Selina could accomplish said wish, neither of them was especially popular in Gotham Academy, a school none of them could actually pay but attended anyway.
In Selina's case, it was thanks to a father who replaced his lack of love by providing the opportunity for a good education, while for Edward it was thanks to his excellent grades that he won a scholarship, he was the best of his year.
... Well, not actually the best, that place was occupied by someone else, someone who certainly didn't need the scholarship: Bruce fucking Wayne.
The heir of the Wayne family, the prince of Gotham as the papers had started calling him just about two years ago -Edward could still remember that awful header that made him cringe "The daughter of the Wayne family just came out as a trans man and says her name is now Bruce", fucking journalists-
The guy doesn't even actually go to school, he just shows up about once or twice a week for physical education or to present exams, but that was enough for Edward to hate him.
And oh he had reasons: Not only he was better than everyone, more intelligent than everyone, more athletic than everyone but somehow, for some reason, people still believed that they needed to feel pity and compassion towards him.
Oh look, the poor millionaire, genius, orphan boy with all his life already resolved since the day he was born, oh, poor precious thing.
"We are also orphans, and not because of that we have it easier" He used to tell Selina, she just rolled her eyes at him.
"No, you were an orphan now adopted, and even if my father is a dickhead he is still around. But more important: We are used to not having parents, he isn't." And even if Edward hated to admit it because it meant he was just being a dick, Selina was probably -most certainly- right.
That didn't take away from the fact that Bruce Wayne was a dick himself though. He never showed up to any teamwork reunion and did just enough to not be expulsed out of it, never helped anyone even if it didn't cost him anything, and never exchanged more than a word with anyone except maybe Clark Kent, a guy from out of the town who was way too tall to only be 15 years old -almost a year younger than most of his classmates- and wasn't the most intelligent person in the world, but without a doubt the best at football.
"Well, anyways" Edward dismissed this line of thoughts in favor of changing the conversation's topic "Today I was planning to go to the store and buy some things to decorate my room and celebrate that I'm now a twitch affiliated, wanna come with me?"
Selina doubted "I don't know, I still haven't finished that project that was due a week ago."
"Come on, you know I'll let you copy mine, pretty please?" He made his best kitty eyes which made Selina cringes
"I'm not really sure..."
"Okey, okay, what about this: while we're at the mall we can buy something for Gaturra, a costume maybe? I'll pay for it?"
"Uhmmm, okay that sounds like a plan, but you also pay for the bus"
"Oh come on!"
"Your idea, not mine." She said with a smug smile, going to one of the classrooms before Edward could regret it.
...
"There there, riddle me this my creatures of the night: What is green, blind as a bat, and now can capitalize the shit out of you? Me, that's right! 'Cause I'm now a twitch affiliate, Wo-ho!" Edward said at the time he popped up one of those confetti bombs, for once he had decided to stream a bit earlier so as to not scare the neighbors -who had already complained about him a couple of times in the past-.
Even if the stream had been unexpected, thanks to the earlier schedule more people than usual came to watch it, which actually made Edward pretty happy. Most of the people in the chat were congratulating him or saying that if they had money they would immediately subscribe and apologizing for not having the opportunity.
"Oh but it doesn't matter if you can donate or not, even if that it's helpful is more than enough if you're just here watching me or commenting on chat, after all an idol is not an idol because of his money but because of his followers!" He said with confidence, it was a little joke he had in the channel which may have been seen as weird or even scary at times, but he didn't believe himself to actually be an idol or famous at all, he really liked to pretend it though.
But when he was about to say something else an alarm captched him off guard, it was a new one he had never heard in stream before: The subscription one.
"Thank you for subscribing TheDarKnight!"
Read the robotic voice that Edward now hated and knew he had to change later.
"Hey, I always watch you but this is actually the first time I say something on one of yours streams. That annoying ghost viewer you mentioned once? That's me! Congrats man :]"
"What the-?" but even before he could finish processing the fact that A- Someone had actually subscribed and B- His secret fan wasn't secret anymore when another new alarm -the donations' one, this time- sounded.
"TheDarKnight donated $150, 'Now you may buy an actual mask lol' "
Interesting, really fucking interesting indeed.