The city stretched out before him in an endless sprawl of light and shadow, towering steel and neon veins pulsing with artificial life. From his vantage point on the rooftop of a Gotham skyscraper, he could see it all—the glitz, the filth, the excess, and the rot.
It was a place of paradoxes, where luxury penthouses overlooked streets filled with the destitute, where police sirens sang in harmony with the laughter of the rich at gala events. The air was thick with the scent of gasoline, damp concrete, and something more acrid—the metallic tang of blood, perhaps, or the chemical residue of industry. Steam rose from sewer grates, curling through the streets like ghostly fingers reaching for the unwary.
Gotham never slept.
It was a beast with a hundred faces, shifting with the perspective of those who lived within it. Some saw it as a predator, a crocodile lurking just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment to strike. Others saw it as a trickster, a Two-Face coin forever flipping between order and chaos. Then there were those who believed it to be a nightmare incarnate—a Scarecrow's playground of fear, twisting the minds of its citizens until they could no longer tell sanity from delusion.
And then there were the ones who called it a joke.
A cruel, endless joke.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Of course, in the next breath, that same person might drive a pencil into an unsuspecting stranger's eye, then grin at the corpse as if expecting it to laugh back.
But he already knew what city this was. He didn't need to ask the people.
He only had to look up.
Through the sheets of rain that had begun to fall, through the toxic gray storm that blurred the skyline, a single beam of light cut through the night. A silhouette burned against the clouds—a bat, its wings stretched wide.
He exhaled.
"Gotham."
The word left his lips, barely audible over the howl of the wind.
The rain pounded against him, its acidic bite soaking into the crevices of his armor. His vision blurred for a moment as the downpour intensified, but he hardly noticed. The cold wasn't what sent a chill through him.
It was the knowledge of who he had become.
His hands curled into fists, the thick material of his gloves creaking against the strain. The sensation of his armor—heavy, tactical, meticulously crafted—was both foreign and strangely natural. Every movement felt calculated, optimized. Every breath was controlled, measured.
This body was not his own.
Once, he had been just another nameless man, living a life so mundane it might as well have been written in grayscale. No family. No remarkable skills. No grand purpose. Just another face in the crowd, drifting through the motions of survival.
His days were a cycle of odd jobs—dishwashing, package delivery, security shifts at a steel factory. Anything to scrape by. His nights were spent in a tiny rented apartment, the hum of an aging laptop filling the silence as he lost himself in fiction. Fantasy worlds, hero stories, tales of warriors and villains—anything that made the monotony of his existence a little more bearable.
And then, in the blink of an eye, that life was gone.
No explosion. No dramatic accident. No divine intervention.
Just… a moment of dizziness.
And then he was here.
On this rooftop.
Wearing this armor.
With this face.
Slowly, he turned his gaze downward, toward the puddle forming at his feet. The distorted reflection stared back at him through the rippling water.
A sleek, battle-worn helmet of black and gold. A single glowing red eyepiece. Twin cloth straps fluttering at the sides like the tattered remnants of a war banner.
The right half of the mask? Pure black. A void.
He knew this face.
Slade Wilson.
Deathstroke.
A legend among assassins. A mercenary whose mere presence on the battlefield could shift the balance of power. A super-soldier with reflexes beyond human limits, a mind operating at near-total efficiency, a body enhanced to peak perfection.
And, most importantly—one of the most dangerous men alive.
His stomach twisted. This wasn't just some power fantasy. This wasn't a game.
This was Gotham.
And he was wearing the face of one of its most wanted killers.
He had fought Batman. Hunted heroes. Stood toe-to-toe with gods and walked away. His name alone could send chills down the spines of crime lords and vigilantes alike.
But the thing about being feared?
It made you a target.
And Deathstroke was never left alone for long.
His grip on reality steadied. He forced himself to focus, to think. If this was real—if he truly was here—then there was only one thing that mattered now.
Survival.
He exhaled again, slower this time.
Then, through the downpour, he turned his gaze back toward the city.
Gotham watched him.
And he watched it back.