Chapter Text
In the heart of Wayne Manor, in a room painted with soft constellations and guarded by a mobile of planets, a little girl slept. It was Erika Wayne, all of four years old, looked impossibly small in her ornate crib. Her white hair, a stark, beautiful halo against the pillow, was the most striking feature of her albinism. Her eyes, closed in sleep, were the palest pink, a milky rose that saw nothing but perceived everything. To the world, and most importantly to her family, she was fragile. A delicate porcelain doll who needed to be carried, who sometimes tumbled because her legs were too short and her body too weak. She was the heart of their chaotic lives, the one thing that was untouchable, precious, and fiercely protected.
Downstairs, in the grand study, Bruce Wayne stood by the fireplace, a tumbler of untouched juice in his hand. Alfred had just assured him that Erika was sleeping soundly. Jason, brooding by the window, grumbled about a lack of action. Dick was trying to mediate, and Tim was scrolling through case files on his tablet. Damian sat sharpening a katana, his posture stiff, a silent sentinel. To them, this was a normal night. The house was quiet. Their most vulnerable charge was safe.
But the girl in the crib was not Erika Wayne.
It was an android. A masterpiece of engineering designed and built by the four-year-old they thought incapable of such things. It had synthetic skin that could bruise, a circulatory system that could pump and bleed, and a digestive tract that could process food. If Alfred were to check on her, he would find her breathing softly, her chest rising and falling with the perfect rhythm of slumber. It was the ultimate alibi, a perfect double.
The real Erika was miles away, perched on the gargoyle of a skyscraper, the wind whipping through the long, white wig tied in a high ponytail, a single braid coiled around its base. She was not small or weak here. Here, she was something else entirely.
Her suit was black, a void against the night sky that absorbed all light. A stark, crescent moon was emblazoned between her shoulder blades. Her black domino mask covered the upper half of her face, but the white hair was her signature. It was why they called her Moonlight.
Tonight’s mission was simple. A shipment of illegal arms was coming through the Gotham docks. The police had a warrant, the Justice League had been notified, and the local precinct captain had, after a ninety-second conversation, given her the go-ahead. This was the system she had established. Her targets were not petty thugs; they were the monsters who had already been tried and sentenced in absentia, the ones who had slipped through the cracks of justice. She was the final, lethal appeal.
She didn't move with a grappling hook or a cape. The gloves and boots of her suit were lined with a microscopic electro-adhesive, allowing her to walk on walls and cling to surfaces with unnatural ease. As the first truck rumbled into the warehouse district, she moved.
She was a whisper, a flicker of shadow. Her movements were a dancer’s, impossibly fluid and fast. Two men guarding the entrance went down before they could even register her presence, silenced by precise, non-lethal pressure points. Inside, chaos erupted. Gunfire blazed, bullets shredding crates. Moonlight wove through the storm, a pale ghost in the heart of the violence.
A thug leveled his rifle at her. She drew two matching knives from their sheaths on her back. With a speed that defied belief, she flicked her wrists. The blades spun through the air, not at the man, but into the path of the bullets, splitting them in mid-flight with tink-tink sounds that were lost in the gunfire. The man stared, dumbfounded, for the half-second it took her to close the distance.
She was efficient. She was terrifying. When the last body hit the floor, she stood alone in the silent, bullet-riddled warehouse. There was no triumph on her face, only a calm, focused purpose. She pulled a small, crescent-shaped piece of metal from her belt and placed it carefully on the leader’s chest. Her calling card. The mark of the Pale Ghost or The Crescent Moon Angel of Death.
Her internal monitor, a discreet function of her suit’s footwear, gave a soft, almost imperceptible pulse against her heel. A warning signal. Her energy was dipping. Her body, despite its incredible training, was still that of a small child with limitations. She couldn't afford to stay out.
With one last glance at her work, she melted back into the shadows, gone as quickly as she had appeared. Her mission in Gotham was over. Now, it was time to go home to her crib.
Jason Todd was in a foul mood. It wasn't unusual. But tonight, the source of his irritation had a name, and it wasn't the Joker. It was Moonlight.
“Permission to kill,” he muttered, kicking at the leg of the sofa in the Batcave. “She gets permission from Dad. From the damn Justice League! I come back from the dead, and I’m the monster for putting scum in the ground, but this… this ghost gets a hall pass.”
Nightwing, Dick Grayson, sighed, not looking up from where he was polishing his escrima sticks. “We’ve been over this, Jason. It’s different. Her targets are vetted. It’s a legal… gray area.”
“A gray area Dad doesn’t let me play in,” Jason shot back. “She’s probably what? Damian’s age? Some smug little ninja who thinks she’s justice. I just find her annoying. Annoying and… scary,” he admitted quieter, the last part sticking in his throat. He’d seen what she did to the Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime was now reduced to a screaming mess at the sight of anything white. A part of Jason, a dark, vindictive part, respected that. A much larger part was terrified of the ruthlessness it took to do it.
Upstairs, Tim Drake was staring at his tablet, the screen displaying the only known photo of Moonlight. It was a grainy shot from a Gotham Gazette, a white blur in a dark alley. It was useless. For months, the Batfamily had been trying to uncover her identity. She was a ghost. A myth who left a very real, very lethal calling card. She was too good, too clean. She could access the most secure places—she’d left intel for them in the Batcave once, a fact that still rattled Tim—and vanish without a trace.
“I’m going to find her,” Tim said to the empty room, his eyes tracing the outline of the crescent moon on the screen. “I just need to talk to her.”
His brothers, including a scowling Damian who had just joined them, thought it was a fool's errand. Moonlight didn't do interviews.
But Tim had a theory. She always helped when heroes asked. She was direct, almost brutally efficient, but not hostile. If they could arrange a meeting, on neutral ground, and simply ask to talk… maybe she would.
Later that night, in Erika’s room, the real girl was back in her crib, the android deactivated and hidden in a secret compartment beneath the floorboards—one of many she had installed herself. She was sleepy, her body protesting the night’s exertions. When Alfred came in to check on her, her eyelids fluttered open.
“Alfie?” she whispered, her voice small and sweet.
“Alright, little miss?” Alfred asked softly, his heart swelling with affection.
“Dickie carried me to bed,” she murmured, a small smile on her face. It was true. Dick had carried the android to bed, tucking it in and kissing its forehead. But the lie was seamless.
“He did indeed,” Alfred confirmed, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “Back to sleep now, Miss Erika.”
Erika closed her eyes. She could hear the faint thrum of her heart, feel the familiar weariness in her bones. To them, she was Erika, the child who needed to be carried. To the city’s underworld, she was the thing that went bump in the night. She was both, and neither. And she would die before she let them find out.
Tim’s gamble paid off. Three nights later, he stood on the roof of the GCPD building, a simple white light beacon flashing in a pre-arranged pattern. It was a long shot, a request for a parley, left on a frequency he hoped she was monitoring.
He didn’t have to wait long.
“She appeared out of nowhere,” Tim would later explain to his baffled family in the Batcave. “One second, the roof was empty. The next, she was just… there.”
Moonlight stood before him, her posture relaxed but radiating coiled energy. The wind made her white ponytail dance.
“You wanted to talk, Red Robin,” she said. Her voice was calm, modulated slightly, giving it an androgynous, detached quality.
“I did,” Tim said, forcing himself to sound professional and not like a fan meeting a legend. “We have a lot of questions. The Batfamily, I mean. We want to understand who you are.”
She tilted her head. “You already know what I do. That should be enough.”
“It’s not,” Tim pressed. “You operate in our city. You have abilities we don’t understand. You have… permission. We need to know if you’re an ally or a liability.”
To his surprise, she chuckled, a low, electronic sound. “I am an ally to justice. That’s all that matters. What else?”
He was taken aback by her candor. “Why Gotham? We’ve tracked your movements. You’re in Blüdhaven, Jump City… but you always come back here.”
“Gotham is where the heart is,” she answered cryptically. “And where the worst monsters hide. It’s the most efficient use of my time.”
Tim’s mind raced. She was answering everything. This was more than he could have hoped for. He felt he was on the verge of something monumental. He took a deep breath and asked the question that had been burning in him.
“Can I… can I take a picture of you? The press only has that one blurry photo. It would help my family stop… worrying.”
Moonlight was silent for a long moment. Tim held his breath. He expected her to vanish. Instead, she gave a slow, deliberate nod.
“Yes.”
Tim fumbled for his phone, his hands shaking slightly as he framed the shot. The camera flash illuminated her. Up close, he could see the details of her suit, the texture of the white wig—it looked astonishingly real. He could see the subtle platforms in her boots, designed to add a few inches to her height. He noticed a strange, faintly glowing circuit pattern on the soles of her shoes. He filed it all away.
“Thank you,” he said, the phone feeling like a holy relic in his hand.
“Don’t mention it,” she replied. And then, just like that, she was gone.
Back in the Batcave, the family huddled around the tablet, staring at the clearest image of Moonlight they had ever seen.
“She’s wearing a wig,” Tim pointed out, zooming in. “And the soles of her shoes… they’re complex. More than just for wall-walking. Jason, look at her height. With those heels, she’s maybe 5’6”. Without them… she’s shorter.”
“Damian’s height,” Jason grunted, though his eyes were wide. “Whoever she is, she’s young.”
“And polite,” Dick added, marveling. “She just… gave you the picture.”
“But it doesn’t help us know who she is,” Bruce said, his voice a low rumble. He was staring at the image, his expression unreadable. He, of all people, knew that the most dangerous things often came in the most deceptive packages. Yet, even he had no idea the angel of death he was looking at was the same little girl who had asked him for a pony ride that afternoon.
A week passed. The family dissected Tim’s photo, but the trail was cold. The wig was a high-end custom job with no digital footprint. The suit’s material was untraceable. Moonlight was a phantom. Their frustration mounted.
Tonight, they were in the Batcave, assembled around the main computer, going over a stale lead on a new syndicate. Bruce was typing, Dick was analyzing a map, Jason was pacing, and Damian was leaning against a console, arms crossed.
“I’ve hit a wall,” Tim admitted, slumping in his chair. “Whoever she is, she’s a ghost. She doesn’t exist.”
The sound was soft, almost inaudible. A faint scrape of a boot on stone behind them.
They all froze. No one had come down the stairs. The Batcave was secured. But slowly, one by one, they turned.
Moonlight stood by the Batcomputer, a data drive in her hand. She had been there the whole time, a shadow in a well-lit room, silent and still.
Jason instinctively went for a gun. Damian’s hand flew to his sword. Bruce tensed, ready.
“Peace,” she said, her modulated voice echoing slightly in the vast cavern. “I have information for you.”
She stepped forward and placed the drive on the console. “The new syndicate. Their financials, their meeting locations, their weapon suppliers. It’s all there.”
How? Tim’s mind screamed. How did she get in here? Without tripping a single alarm?
Before anyone could react, she spoke again. “You were wondering where I operate most. The answer is Gotham. My work here is… never done.” She recited the words Tim had spoken to her on the roof, confirming the voice modulator was not for privacy, but for disguise.
She looked from one stunned face to another. Then, her gaze seemed to linger for a fraction of a second on Bruce, a flicker of something unreadable in the blackness of her mask.
“I trust this will be useful,” she said.
In a single, fluid motion that was too fast to track, she stepped back into a deeper shadow near the cave’s rocky wall and was gone. The place where she stood was empty.
The silence that followed was deafening.
“She was in the Batcave,” Dick whispered, his voice filled with disbelief. “She walked right past us.”
“She could have killed us all,” Jason said, his fear and respect for her warring in his voice. He slowly lowered his hand from his gun.
Bruce snatched the data drive, his face a mask of grim intensity. But as he plugged it in, his eyes weren’t on the screen. They were on the empty space where the ghost had stood. For the first time in a very long time, the Batman was truly, deeply unsettled. He had given permission for a killer to work in his city, and he had just been reminded that he had no control over her whatsoever.
Upstairs, a small, sleepy girl was tucked into her bed, listening to the faint, distant sounds of her family’s shock from two floors below. A tiny, knowing smile played on her lips.
The next morning, the atmosphere in Wayne Manor was thick with tension. The Batfamily had spent the entire night verifying the information on Moonlight’s drive. It was flawless, 100% accurate, and had already allowed them to dismantle half the syndicate before sunrise.
Tim sat at the breakfast table, staring at the photo on his tablet again. The shoes, he thought. Those glowing patterns. They weren’t just for traction. They were too complex. Maybe… a regulator?
Bruce was silent, staring into his coffee. Jason was uncharacteristically quiet. The violation of their sanctuary had shaken them all.
Footsteps pattered on the marble floor. Erika walked in, holding Alfred’s hand. Her white hair was slightly messy, and she was rubbing her eyes with her small fists. Today, she wore a little blue dress, and she looked so small, so fragile.
“Morning, Erika-bird,” Dick said, his voice softening instantly. The tension in his shoulders eased. He stood up and walked over, scooping her into his arms with effortless grace. “Did you sleep well?”
“Mmm,” she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder. “I had a dream.”
“Yeah? What about?”
“A dream,” she said, her voice sleepy and innocent, “that I helped my brothers.”
Dick’s heart melted. He hugged her tighter. “You always help us, sweetpea. Just by being here.”
He carried her to the table and sat her in her booster seat. Erika yawned, a delicate, little-girl yawn. She looked around the table at her worried, overprotective family. Her brilliant mind, hidden behind the guise of a weak child, was already at work, thinking, planning, and protecting. They were trying to solve the mystery of Moonlight, but the greatest secret in Gotham was sitting right in front of them, eating a bowl of oatmeal.
She looked at Tim and gave him a small, sweet smile, completely unaware that he had been speaking to her just a few hours before. And in her tiny shoe, hidden beneath a frilly sock, a bio-monitor pulsed softly, a secret guardian watching over the Pale Ghost as she navigated the perilous world of the Wayne family. Her story of how she came to be here, and why she had become Moonlight, was another secret, one she would keep for a long, long time. For now, she was just Erika. And that was the most dangerous disguise of all.