Chapter Text
Mikey doesn’t see a person. He sees a shape tall and wrong, a figure wrapped in darkness like it belongs there. The cave light barely touches it, but the eyes cut through everything. White. Glowing. Watching him.
A predator's eyes.
His breath stutters painfully in his chest. The crack in the ceiling feels too small, too exposed. His claws bite deeper into the stone without him realizing it, sending tiny avalanches of grit raining down.
The figure shifts.
Just a fraction. A subtle movement, almost cautious. It’s enough. Fear detonates inside him.
The glow beneath his skin surges violently, heat ripping through his veins like wildfire. Mikey’s mind blanks, no thought, no memory, no choice. Only instinct screaming NOW. Golden light erupts from him.
Chains explode into existence with a deafening crack, molten-bright and jagged, forged from panic and desperation. They whip through the air with brutal force, slamming into the dark figure below. The impact is massive.
The figure is thrown back hard, crashing into the cavern wall with enough force to fracture stone. Dust and debris rain down as the chains recoil, dissolving into sparks of gold that fizzle out against the rock.Mikey doesn’t wait to see if it moves.
He scrambles backward out of the crack, limbs shaking, heart pounding so hard he thinks it might tear free. He drops from the ceiling badly, hitting the ground in a rough roll that knocks the air from his lungs.
Run.
He bolts.
Pain screams through his legs as he stumbles through the tunnel, vision swimming green again. His movements are clumsy now the adrenaline crashing, his body heavy and wrong, every step echoing too loud in the narrow passage.
Behind him, something shifts.
A sound not snarling, not roaring. A sharp exhale. Controlled.That makes it worse. Mikey’s foot catches on a jut of stone slick with moisture. He trips, pitching forward with a broken cry, claws scraping uselessly against the floor as momentum carries him down. He hits hard, chest slamming into rock, pain exploding through his ribs.
He tries to push himself up. His arms tremble violently. He’s too slow. There’s a sharp thunk.
Something bites into his shoulder. White-hot pain flares, then fades almost instantly, replaced by a spreading numbness that creeps through his arm like ice water.
“No!” His voice cracks, barely a sound.
His vision blurs, the edges dissolving into haze. The glow beneath his skin flickers wildly, flaring once, twice, then stuttering like a dying flame. His limbs feel impossibly heavy, refusing to obey.
Mikey collapses. The stone is cold against his cheek. His thoughts scatter, slipping through his grasp no matter how desperately he tries to hold onto them.
Don’t… don’t go…
The dark figure looms closer, white eyes burning through the fog. Mikey’s chest tightens, panic clawing weakly at him, but his body won’t respond. The last thing he feels is a careful hand at his side, steady, firm, not hurting. Then everything goes dark.
Batman lowers his weapon slowly, pulse steady despite the adrenaline still thrumming through his system. The tranquiliser had been a calculated risk the dosage adjusted on the fly for an unknown physiology, balanced between incapacitation and survival. He watches closely for several long seconds, monitoring the creature’s breathing.Fast and shallow.
But stable.
The golden glow beneath its skin flickers faintly, then settles into a low, uneven pulse.
Bruce exhales through his nose. Whatever crawled out of the Lazarus Pit had reacted exactly as he’d feared, not with malice, but with terror amplified into violence. The attack hadn’t been precise or controlled. It had been a panic response, raw and overwhelming.
He approaches carefully, every movement deliberate.
Up close, the creature looks… smaller almost. Curled on the cavern floor, unconscious, it’s clear how compact its frame really is. Not imposing. Not even monstrous. Just wrong in subtle ways. altered, reshaped by forces that shouldn’t have touched it. Batman kneels beside him
The shell is cracked with glowing seams, gold light faint but persistent beneath the surface. Not superficial damage. Structural. Like something had shattered him once already and forced him back together. Bruce slides an arm beneath the creature’s shoulders and another beneath his knees, lifting carefully.
He’s heavier than expected.
Dense and solid. More weight than his size should allow, muscles packed tight beneath scaled skin. Bruce adjusts his grip instinctively, supporting the spine, keeping the head from lolling back.
The creature lets out a faint, broken sound — not a growl. Not a hiss.
A whimper.
Bruce’s jaw tightens.He carries him out of the cavern system at a measured pace, boots echoing softly against stone. The Lazarus Pit’s glow fades behind them, replaced by the colder darkness of Gotham’s underground veins.
As he walks, his gaze keeps drifting back to the unconscious form in his arms.
That’s when he sees the scars. They run in precise, unnatural patterns across the creature’s arms, geometric lines etched deep into the skin, angular and deliberate. Not the jagged marks of battle. Not accidents.
Designs.
They trace from his three-fingered hands up along his forearms, branching and intersecting like circuitry, disappearing beneath fractured seams of shell and reappearing higher on his shoulders.
Bruce slows.His expression hardens.These weren’t Lazarus scars. They predate the resurrection. Someone had done this.
Experimented, modified and altered is ways he couldn’t possibly understand. His scanners confirm it, residual energy embedded in the scar tissue, foreign and structured.
Technology, or something like it, fused with mystic signatures he doesn’t recognize. Curious, indeed. And troubling. The creature shifts faintly in his arms, claws twitching once before relaxing again. Bruce tightens his hold slightly, grounding, careful not to restrain more than necessary.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs quietly, though he knows the other can’t hear him. “For now.”
They emerge into a forgotten service tunnel, one of Gotham’s many buried arteries. The distant hum of the city filters down faintly, traffic, power lines, life continuing above, oblivious.
Bruce activates a secure channel on his cowl.
“Alfred,” he says softly.
“I’m here, sir,” Alfred replies at once.
“ I have encountered a Lazarus Pit it it was disturbed recently,” Bruce continues. “Something had crwled out if recently, non-human. Juvenile. Heavily altered. And possibly traumatised.”
A pause. Then, carefully, “Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Then I suggest we proceed gently.”
Bruce almost smiles.He adjusts his grip again, cradling the unconscious figure with a care that would surprise anyone watching. As he moves deeper into the tunnel, golden light pulses faintly against his chest, warm even through armor.
Whatever this child was… Gotham had found him at his worst. Bruce intends to make sure it doesn’t finish the job.