Seeds Of Change

The first rays of dawn did little to soften the hard edges of Gotham City. Cillian nursed a cold black coffee in Molly's 24-hour diner, the one decent place he knew that was open at this bruise-hued hour. He couldn't recall the last time he'd glimpsed the sky awaken without a haze of street-damp grime blurring the horizon.

Perched on a stool by the fly-specked window, Cillian half-listened as the Reporter—he hadn't caught her name, nor cared to—fired questions at him about the shadowed corruption rotting Gotham from the inside. Her manicured nails clicked impatiently around the blank pages of her tattered notepad.

Cillian swallowed the last bitter pool from the bottom of his mug and slammed it onto the pitted countertop with a hollow thump. Enough dancing around for this lady's satisfaction.

"Gotham, Gotham City..." Cillian straightened to his full height, finger jabbing toward the sun-faded map on the wall as if crucifying his city upon its surface "...some folks say the worst things about this place. That we're corrupt as last month's leftovers, rotting from head to toe."

The Reporter's pen hesitated over her notepad, hunger flashing behind her carefully neutral expression. Vulturine. Sharpening her beak on his words. Cillian pressed on.

"They say there's no hope here. No way to scrub out the bloodstains and bullet holes riddlin' our streets. And yeah"—Cillian snorted, breath fogging the cracked glass—"can't say they're wrong. But Gotham ain't just the shattered teeth they show the rest of the world to make themselves feel cleaner."

The Reporter's eyelids fluttered in an exaggerated display of exasperation. She rapped her pen against the notepad splayed uselessly across her lap, its pages still barren.

"So that's it? No criminal underground contacts feeding you tips? No breaking developments in the cold case files I could creatively tie back to official corruption?" She leaned forward, nails clacking together. "I came all this way at the crack of dawn for, what, a lecture about building communities?"

Cillian scrubbed a palm over his face. The first true double-shot rays of dawn were starting to spill over Gotham's skyline, limning City Hall and the Wayne Enterprises tower in gilded light. His city always managed to sucker him with her beauty just when he was ready to kick the curb. Sighing, he turned back to the woman watching him with famished eyes. Another parasite looking to fatten her name off Gotham's misery.

"You want the real news lady? Write this down..."

Cillian ticked the truths off on nicked and battered knuckles. How talk of cleaning up Crime Alley had the dealers clearing room for a neighborhood watch now. How Sonny's Auto was offering the kids from the youth center apprenticeships once they finished school. How everywhere from the East End to the Bowery, people were sticking fists and elbows into the cracks to shore their city up from underneath.

"But good news don't make your paper's front page now, do it." Cillian scooped his jacket off the neighboring stool. "You want Gotham's guts hanging out. Well, we got plenty of scars, sure. But looks to me like she's stitching herself up just fine these days."

The Reporter sat motionless as Cillian strode for the jingling doorway. Just before crossing outside, he glanced over his shoulder through a haze of fryer smoke.

"Write what you want, lady. My city doesn't beg for approval. We know we're worth believing in."

Dawn's rosy fingertips massaged warmth into Gotham's cramped brickwork alleys as Cillian stepped outside, the Reporter and her fruitless interrogation fading into the background of the waking city. He breathed deep, fumy air filling his lungs with the strange comfort of soot and damp and frying oil. The smells of home.

Exhaling a scoffing chuckle, Cillian made his way down the slowly brightening streets. His boots scuffed a meandering path around loosely jacketed kids kicking a soccer ball over the pocked asphalt, their shouts ricocheting between tagged walls. Hard to believe it'd only been a few months since he last wandered this neighborhood. Felt more like a lifetime judging by the lively young faces that now dotted the sidewalks.

New saplings girded some buildings, all twine braces and optimism. Old Mr. Li stood outside his corner store, unlocking the graffiti-tagged shutters to the sound of the morning's first gunshots, distant enough to ignore. An odd sense of cheer seemed baked into the very concrete this morning. Like the Gotham Cillian had known, of smoke-veiled skies and wary eyes, had been quietly busy mending itself while he was away.

Ambling past an alley mural of outspread batwings, Cillian spotted a crew of teenagers lining up paint cans and rollers beside the exposed wall of a burnt-out tenement. A nearby sign read Plans Submitted for New Community Center. Cillian almost laughed aloud. How had so much changed in a handful of months?

He still had a lot to catch up on, that much was clear. But Cillian walked on with eyes wide open, awash in the growing glow of hope and change blooming across his resilient home city.

Cillian crested the last gentle slope leading into Gotham Cemetery, where cracked headstones and weathered mausoleums stood sentinel over generations of the city's restless dead. His boots traced the familiar path to Iggy's grave by rote, the grass still torn up in muddy divots from his last visit over six months prior. Had it really been that long?

Kneeling before the simple granite marker, Cillian brushed a thumb over the letters spelling out his friend's name—Iggy Pank. Twenty-two measly years bundled up in that too-small coffin. Not enough time. But then again, no stretch could ever be called enough when you were cut down guts-first by some nameless mugger's switchblade.

"Hey, Ig. Sorry for ghostin' you like that." Cillian scooped a drifting oak leaf off the grave. "Been out helpin' an...acquaintance in Bludhaven past few months. But I came back as soon as things wrapped. Had to see for myself if the rumor mill was lyin'."

He tilted his face up to meet the cold winter sunlight as it crested the cemetery's eastern gates.

"All the word down in the Bowery is things are changin'. Got kids playin' ball outside the brownstones where the dealers used to sling. Shut-down clinics preppin' to be vet offices and grocery marts. Hell, even caught wind there are plans to redo that condemned lot on Pricker Street into a community center or somethin'."

Cillian sighed, watching his breath mist and fade over the engraving of Iggy's name. "I been fightin' for this city for a couple of months. Patchin' up what I could reach. But looks like while I was gone she went and started stitchin' herself up real nice from the inside."

He grinned, bittersweet. "What I'm sayin' is, I think I might hang this vigilante stuff up for good. Time I focus on puttin' my own life together, y'know? Maybe be a cop. Or hell—shoot for college." Cillian squeezed Iggy's shoulder stone. "Just thought you should know first since you were always ridin' my case to make something o' myself."

The wind whistled low among the graves in wordless reply. But Cillian didn't mind the quiet. For the first time he could remember, this city felt like a place where silence held as much hope as sound.

———————————————

The scent of fried dumplings and five spices trailed Cillian as he wound his way into Gotham's Chinatown enclave. Steam and Mandarin chatter billowed from open restaurant doors, hawkers hollering deals on woks and handbags. The chaos of it wrapped around Cillian like a familiar blanket—one he hadn't realized he missed until this very moment.

Taking the creaking iron stairs up to his third-floor walk-up two at a time, Cillian noted the graffiti scrawled across the buckling bricks was new. Fresh tags layered over waning gang symbols, the old guard making way for new blood, same as it ever was. Some things in Gotham resisted change.

At his front door, a folded eviction warning for six months of unpaid rent awaited. Cillian grimaced as he skimmed the blocky legal threats then let himself inside. "Not like I could wire cash playin' vigilante in Bludhaven," he muttered, shrugging off his jacket to drape across the thrift store recliner.

The air inside hung stale and cold, with only the cockroaches to welcome him home. His fridge gaped open, bare as bone. Cillian rubbed the hunger pangs from his belly and set to rummaging for a notepad instead. Priorities first—he needed income if he planned on keeping this roof over his head and food lining his guts.

Perching on a paint-flecked windowsill, light glinting off the memorial towers downtown in the distance, Cillian scratched out the start of a plan. Check-in with Sonny's garage, to see if the apprentice gig was still open. Swing by the youth center construction site, and offer an extra set of hands... He scratched his chin. college applications would come next. And maybe, just maybe, he'd ask around at the station about joining up.

A sharp rapping at the window tore Cillian's focus from his note-taking. He glanced up with a scowl, expecting some leather-jacketed troublemaker to come to give him grief for missing rent. Instead, a familiar cowled face grinned at him from the fire escape.

With a squeal of rusty metal, Batgirl slid the creaking pane open wider and slipped inside, black cape whispering around her sleek form. She always reminded Cillian of an amethyst—smooth, polished, but sharp enough beneath the surface to cut if handled wrong.

"Door's always been an option, BG," Cillian said, tone halfway between weariness and warmth at the unexpected visit.

"And miss your surprised face when you think I'm a supervillain? Not a chance." Her white lenses glinted impishly for a second before blink-and-you'll-miss-it sincerity softened her playful smile instead.

"How was Bludhaven? Nightwing give you too much trouble?"

Cillian rolled a shoulder, re-stacking his job-hunting notes into a pile. Trust Golden Boy to flap news of his whereabouts to every pointy-eared ally in his contact list. Although Cillian had to admit, after six months adrift it was kind of nice to know a few folks kept tabs on him.

Batgirl paced a lazy circuit around Cillian's cramped quarters, bootheels noiseless over the creaking floorboards. Cataloging potential risks and entry points out of habit, even here. She paused at the window and Cillian could practically hear the wisecrack brewing when her hidden eyes caught on the eviction warning pinned by the fridge. Jaw tightening, she turned to face him directly instead.

"So I gotta ask straight...you back in Gotham to stay this time? Could use you out on the streets again. Lot's changed even in just a few months."

Cillian leaned back, letting the rickety chair creak under his weight as he contemplated Batgirl's offer. Gotham sprawled behind her in a silhouetted skyline, all jutting black towers backlit by the setting sun. He used to know that jagged outline better than the chipped paint contours of his bedroom walls. Now it seemed filled with strange new shadows—and possibilities.

"I took B's advice to heart," he said after a weighty pause. "Gonna try life on the level for a while, y'know? Drive an honest nine-to-five somewhere. Get a better place than this roach motel." He gestured at the peeling walls with their constellations of suspicious stains.

Batgirl crossed her arms, unconvinced. "That team-up with Nightwing was just, what, a social call between totally independent operators?"

Cillian cleared his throat. No use denying their paths had crossed handling the latest Bludhaven venture. But he'd taken point. Batman's former protege was a ride-along at best.

"I don't do the whole bat-squad buddy system thing often. You know that. But yeah...I took a consult or two."

Cillian made his way toward the table and tapped his job-hunting notebook. "Might see if Sonny's garage has any openings. Or maybe even submit some college apps, try for a civil service track..."

Pushing off the ledge, Batgirl paced a quick circuit, cataloging Cillian's possessions with a sweeping gaze. What she saw disappointed her usual sleuthing instincts. Aside from a truly disturbing colony of roaches under the oven, zero clues on display to poke or prod at. Coming to an abrupt stop by the eviction warning pinned lopsided to the fridge, she pivoted on one bright yellow boot.

Cillian trailed off at Batgirl's amused little huff. He arched an eyebrow. "What, you got a better idea in that cowled head of yours?"

In answer, she plucked a Wayne Enterprises business card off Cillian's cluttered countertop—undoubtedly planted there without his notice during her earlier circuit of his apartment—and held it up between two gloved fingers.

"I happen to know WayneSec is hiring. Lucius Fox owes me a favor or two as well. I'm sure he could find a nice under-the-table spot for a brainy tough guy like you." Her smile took on a teasing edge. "Decent salary, benefits, and all the shiny corporate resources someone trying to 'go straight' could ever want."

Cillian bit back a grudging grin, eyeing the business card's embossed gold lettering.

"Wayne Enterprises, huh...?" It would definitely fast-track stabilizing his godawful finances. And provide ample excuses to catch up on all he'd clearly missed during his months adrift. He flicked the card onto his notebook with a conceding huff.

"Alright, BG. I'll bite."

As Batgirl perched birdlike on the windowsill, Cillian couldn't resist lobbing one last verbal jab—less barbed than their usual banter.

"So that's how it is, huh? The whole bat-squad knows every detail about my biz, even where I hang my mask. But I learn zip about who my friends are behind the cowls."

Batgirl glanced back, an impish smile playing across her shadowed face. "What happened to us just being 'acquaintances,' Cillian? I thought we weren't friends."

Cillian crossed his arms, leaning into the sagging cushions. "Just saying, feels a little one-sided is all."

"Aww. But I like one-sided," Batgirl chuckled, firing off a jumpline to whistle and snap taut around a far gargoyle. "Means I have all the fun advantages to hold over your head."

"Yeah yeah, just get outta here already." Cillian flapped a hand toward the window exit where early winter wind crept in. But amusement tugged his mouth despite the dismissal.

She offered a jaunty wave, ready to descend backward into the encroaching twilight. But she hesitated, cowl inclining as she seemed to weigh her next words.

"But tell you what—as soon as you land that job with WayneSec, I'll bring milk and cookies to your housewarming. Deal?"

Before he could muster a suitable retort, she fired a line across the narrow avenue, tethering herself to the adjacent roof's brickwork. With a jaunty salute, she stepped backward into open space.

Cillian huffed, unwilling amusement tugging his mouth. She'd always had a knack for getting the last word. Shaking his head, he latched the protesting window against the winter chill. Time to make good on that job hunt.