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schizoauthoress_libraryTitle: Down Into the Dark I Go
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: R
Spoilers: these events are based on, but not entirely the same as, those of Kid Eternity v2 (the Grant Morrison/Duncan Fegredo miniseries)
Warnings: Omegaverse, fucked up Alpha/Beta/Omega society, pregnancy, mpreg, sexual abuse, child abuse, child death, serial killer plot
Prompt/Fill: None
Word Count: 3205
Summary: Kit thought the worst that could be done to him was done already. He was wrong. And he does worse to the other predators, now that he's been brought back.
Note: This is possibly the worst, darkest, most horrifying thing I've ever written. And I couldn't get myself to go into detail, really. But mind the warnings -- this is more about what a crapsack world I've made, rather than A/B/O dynamics.
Word of the Day: piceous, adjective:
1. Inflammable; combustible.
2. Of, pertaining to, or resembling pitch.
3. Zoology. Black or nearly black as pitch.
originally posted on LiveJournal
Down Into the Dark I Go
He hates the Alphas. Not just the ones who take advantage of biological imperatives, not just the ones that corner half-willing Betas on the cusp of their time and force them into heat, not just the ones that trade Omegas like cattle and drug them with synthetic hormones so they can play their twisted little games. He hates all the Alphas, the ones that made this awful world possible. He hates them -- not for their natural dominance or physical strength or the power they get from those around them, but for how they use it.
Springtime is the worst. Autumn is safe, mothers of whatever stripe gone gravid and languid, their mates preoccupied with tending to them. Winter is even better, at least insofar as being left alone by the... more accepted segments of society goes. People still have sex then, he knows, but it lacks the urgency of the heat and nobody seems to be as hormone-stupid over it as they are at other times.
His fellow Omegas, those who came after, huddle together in the worst parts of town (no matter where he goes, it seems, their mistreatment is the rule rather than the exception, save one secret, special place) and even though the winter cold is miserable they watch for melting snow and new green with fearful eyes. He hates it. He hates their fear -- not them, not for being afraid, but the fact they have have to be afraid.
Alpha heat comes in the springtime, and there's an overlap with Beta heat which comes in late spring or early summer. The Omegas are at the mercy of circumstance, unable to control or predict when the heat will take them, because they respond (without fail, without choice) to the proximity of the more dominant types in heat. It's even worse these days, with the drugs that wealthy Alphas can manufacture and distribute. At no time of the year is it particularly safe to be an Omega, but springtime is the worst.
Kit Freeman reaches up, plucks a fluffy pink apple blossom from the branch of a stunted little tree in a city park. Twilight is falling, and this little blossom is still open. So now it will be open forever. Today his hair is dark, nearly the black of his eyes, and he wears his usual pristine white. The worst of them can hardly resist him in white, or rather, the idea of ruining that bright cleanness with their claim and their filth. He's counting on it.
When they come to him, they aren't finding the other Omega males -- always males in this world, and Kit wouldn't be surprised if the females were all killed off by Alpha stupidity, because he's seen too many Omegas dying from that -- who haunt the city. And when they come to him, he plays his part, luring and alluring. He welcomes them into his body like they want him to... and then he drags them down into the dark with him, where they can die like he wants them to.
He tucks the little apple blossom behind one ear and moves to a nearby park bench to wait. He never has to wait long, not in the springtime.
****
James Gordon sighs deeply, his breath showing as wispy plumes in the colder air of a spring morning. These days, he really hates the springtime -- all the sex crimes that get dropped at the doorstep of the Gotham City Police Department, it's enough to tarnish any shine that comes with what should be a time of new life. He's older now, too, and the urgency and importance of the heats is mostly behind him. He looks at the things that people do to each other at this time of the year, the hurting and the killing, and it all looks like a waste. Empty, pointless, anathema.
"It's Elliot," Montoya reports to him, in a low voice. For a moment, Gordon thinks maybe she means that he's done it, that they've finally nailed the son-of-a-bitch with some solid evidence left behind because he finally, finally got sloppy during 'playtime'. But Renee looks equal parts frustrated and happy, not the triumphant she should, and she finishes, "Somebody broke his neck."
"Right in the middle of everything, looks like," says the slim little M.E. who comes up behind Renee, stripping off his gloves. Palmer's hazel eyes look even bigger behind the large lenses of his glasses, and he laughs nervously, "talk about coitus interruptus."
"Classy," the Latina detective snorts, giving the bespectacled white man a little glare. Gordon shakes his head, and asks the question that he's learned has to be asked in these cases,
"Any marks on the body?"
"Oh sure, plenty," Palmer replies, in a somewhat insouciant tone, subsiding again when Renee's glare intensifies. He clears his throat, flustered, and says, "Yeah. The one you're expecting, sir? It's there."
Gordon stifles the urge to sigh again. The body is being wheeled out of the apartment building -- not Elliot's main base of operations, but he was known to keep the penthouse here -- and Gordon turns to intercept it. Palmer's underlings halt obediently, and then Palmer is beside him, pulling down the sheet to reveal Elliot's cold, dead face.
The younger man lowers it further, just enough for Gordon to take in some of those 'other marks' -- and Palmer wasn't kidding when he'd said 'plenty', but Gordon always knew from Elliot's 'alleged' handiwork that the rich man liked it rough -- in addition to the important one. Cut on Thomas Elliot's chest, into the left pectoral muscle, is the familiar character of a capital "omega," arch closed with the sideways figure-eight of an "infinity" symbol. Completing the mark are two thin, angled lines within the circle created by the symbols. As usual, these cuts have only a little blood -- it comes from being made into dead flesh, after the heart has stopped beating.
"Eleven twenty-five," Palmer says, even though Gordon can read a clock just as well as he can. "Based on body temp, that's the time of death."
"Like always," Gordon says, completely unsurprised. This has been going on for years, for as long as Gordon has been a cop. If the files were to be believed, even longer than that. It should have been a cold case by now, but the killer -- killers, had to be killers, nothing else made sense -- kept it hot with a dead Alpha body every now and then. "Kid Eternity is back in town."
****
It doesn't matter where he is, come springtime. There's always someone who just can't resist their urges, and when they smell of his brothers' blood and their awful eager kisses taste like his brothers' pain, Kit knows that he's found new prey. The Alpha predators who use up Omegas without caring that it's human life they're playing with... Kit likes surprising them. He's stronger than he should be, stronger than an Alpha, especially when he's meting out his brutal, harsh justice. He can be anywhere he needs to be, and he often is, for those fellow Omegas who know to call for him -- with voice or mind. Kit Freeman, Kid Eternity, is not quite human anymore. He's something more. He's a force of nature, a weight created to balance scales long thrown in favor of one side.
So this year it's Gotham City. It has been Gotham City before, and other times it's been Chicago, New York, New Delhi, London, Versailles, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow. It will be those places again. It will be Gotham again, later. It doesn't matter. Every place is the same, for the Omegas, and so he is always needed.
Kit cleans himself of Alpha blood and Alpha seed, watches it flow down the drain. It's not always Alphas. Every now and then, he finds a few Betas who decide to have a little fun with a weaker Omega. Maybe they're just acting out their own traumas, maybe they're striking out blindly from a selfsame rage at Alpha mistreatment and privilege. Kit doesn't care. He kills them anyway. Kills them because it's still wrong, what they're doing. And if their sad stories mirror that of the Omegas, of his own, then why should he forgive them for spreading such pain when they know what it's like?
On the other side of the bathroom door, someone knocks. After a moment, they speak, and Kit recognizes the voice. His friend Arnold, fellow Omega, whose apartment this is. He says Kit's name, the other name, and the thread of connection between them thrums. "Eternity? If you'd like to eat, Martin made breakfast."
He twists the knob to stop the water. Then Kit answers, "Thank you, but I'd rather just sleep."
He doesn't need to eat. And he certainly doesn't need to take food from the mouths of his struggling brethren. (Some of them do better than this, sometimes he breaks bread with them for politeness, but he doesn't feel like it right now.)
"All right." Arnold doesn't sound offended, which is good. They've known each other for long enough that Arnold can easily fall into old patterns -- offering the shower first thing, making up a bed, making the often-refused offer of food. When Kit leaves in the evening, Arnold won't expect to see him back, but he won't be surprised if Kit comes back to his door again later.
Kit is out of the bathroom soon after, dressed in clean clothes and dry save for his hair (still under the thin towel he was given). Arnold smiles at him, broad and welcoming, when he wanders into the kitchen. He manages a small smile back -- he really is fond of the man, who he's known since Arnold was a little slip of teenage boy with round, dark eyes in a round, dark face. Now Arnold's face is thinner, the dark brown skin lined with years and hardship, and his close-cropped natural curls peppered with grey. And Kit looks the same as ever, thin and pale and young, form chosen for the lure it is. He was never even this old -- teenaged -- in life.
Martin is new to him. Last time he'd been here, a little less than a decade ago, it had been Bautista who shared Arnold's home. Bautista was nice, with kind eyes and a ready laugh, and he'd always wanted to brush Kit's hair -- it had been a silvery blond in those days. Kit had even let him braid it once. But now Bautista is gone and Kit can't bring himself to ask how or why.
Martin watches him with watery blue-grey eyes, a rabbit crouched and frozen. Kit doesn't like it, but sometimes he unsettles his fellow Omegas. They've been scarred so deeply by the powerful in this world that all power means danger to them.
"I just wanted to say thank you, again," Kit says, soft and low, keeping his voice gentle for Martin's benefit.
"No," Arnold answers. "It was Tommy Elliot last night, wasn't it? The news said..." he trails off, and there's something in his eyes, something cold and so very alien to the Arnold that Kit knows... something like hate. His Arnold shouldn't. "You don't have to thank me. I'm glad he's gone."
And maybe that is the answer to Kit's unspoken questions.
****
Kit sleeps, while Arnold and Martin both go to work. And he'll go to work again when they are sleeping.
Like most Omegas, they work at drudgery that the other classes usually won't touch. Arnold is a janitor, or was when Kit was last in Gotham City. The last glimpse he had of Martin before closing the bedroom door, Kit saw him carrying gardening tools. The city used to subsidize training programs for Omegas to learn such skills -- janitorial work, pest control, construction, plumbing, landscaping. In Gotham City, as in most places, funds have been cut down until the programs are no better than a joke. A pittance. It's hard all around, and Kit knows his late-night murders don't help as much as they could.
He lies there, on that lumpy, creaky mattress in the small, rundown apartment, and he thinks of Bautista. Bautista, who had never been afraid of him. Hell, the man had hugged the daylights out of him moments after they met. Bautista had laughed at Kit's penchant for all-white attire and called him "lucerito". Arnold had loved him, fierce and wonderful and obvious, and something of Arnold was gone along with him.
Bautista... one of Elliot's victims. Kit curls up on his side. He doesn't want to think of his friend that way, doesn't want to remember what it had been like beneath Tommy Elliot and put bright, gentle Bautista in that place. He can't help the image that flicker across his mind's eye -- the pain on his friend's face, the sobs and cries for mercy, all of it too easy to fill in the blanks. Maybe killing the bastards doesn't do enough to help all the Omegas. But Kit will take what he can get.
Sleep comes slowly, his dreams dark and indistinct for a time. And then...
A hated voice murmured, "Where's my little chicken?", mocking tones garbled by salt water. He was lying in the surf, sand cold and wet beneath his small body. The ship swayed, the old man above him rocked, and Kit cried out in pain over and over and over again. Everyone knew. The journeys were long and eventually everyone knew. Trapped in a cold steel shell when the springtime and the heat came around, the smell of them and their lust driving him mad, and Kit didn't want it but his body reacted like he did. They listened to his body and not his voice, not his voice screaming "No" and "Stop" and "Please", because why ruin their fun?
He waits for the black to come. It always comes, in these dreams that are more memory than anything. Half mad with agony, the thing inside him straining to be birthed from a body not ready to give birth, Kit had attacked the captain -- the awful Alpha who'd done this to him, made him this way. There had been a fight, and then Kit was doubled over from being kicked in the stomach, and then he was in the water. Sinking into the freezing cold, and then it was water all around, Kit too weak to break the surface at all. And he went down, down, down into the dark...
The dream ends, and Kit sleeps deep.
****
James Gordon stands out on the roof of the police station, up into the overcast sky. The Bat-Signal shines steadily out into the night. He doesn't want to put them on the Kid Eternity case. But he'd rather that than have them go over his head. And they're going to hear about it. There are so many of them now, watchful eyes for the city. Whoever has taken on the Kid Eternity name is going to make a mistake, get noticed...
Things are different now. The last time that dead bodies started showing up with macabre clocks carved into them, there had been only three vigilantes, too busy with organized crime and costumed villains to pay attention to regular police business -- Batman, Robin, and his own Barbara hiding from him under Batgirl's cowl. But now Barbara's eyes are everywhere. And 'Team Batman' is on their third Batgirl and fifth Robin, all the predecessors having graduated up to different costumes. More attention to be spread out. Especially since this one is a killer, something the Batman (both, now that there's two) is staunchly against.
God, he feels old.
The first Batman's voice comes from the shadows, like always. "Commissioner."
Gordon feels his shoulders tighten at the sound, pure reaction. He's not really surprised anymore; they've been doing this too long. He glances over his shoulder. The second Batman is beside the first, and Gordon idly thinks that it was much less confusing when the young man went by 'Nightwing'.
"We've got a serial killer in town," he says, to answer the unspoken question, share the reason for his summons. His mouth twitches into the barest semblance of a wry smile, "A new one, I mean. Sort of."
"Elliot's killer?" Batman-One asks gruffly.
"Yes." Gordon shares the detail that he's kept out of the press so far, and hopes it won't be a mistake: "We've got it tied to Kid Eternity."
"The 'Eternal Omega'?" Batman-Two asks, a disbelieving note in his voice. "The Alpha killer?"
"He's been operating for a long time, and in a lot of places," Gordon says, "so I doubt it's really the same person, but all the details are the same as the last time, moreso than you'd see with a copycat crime."
Batman-Two frowns. "What 'last time'? When was this?"
The answer comes from Batman-One before Gordon can reply. "You were working with your team then. About a year before you left Gotham City. The first time." The man under the cowl turns more toward Gordon, addresses him. "You seemed to have it in hand well enough, then it stopped."
Gordon shrugs. "No real leads. My guys were chasing ghost stories, for all the good it did the investigation, and then -- like you said -- it just stopped. Around midsummer, it stopped. And didn't start up again until now."
"Not here..." Batman-Two says thoughtfully, "...but maybe somewhere else?"
"We'll look into it," Batman-One says decisively.
Before they can do their vanishing act, though, Gordon calls out, "Keep Robin off it." That stops them in their tracks, and the first Batman -- never been anything but Batman, even when he's wearing different masks, but there are things Gordon knows and will never say -- glares over his shoulder at him. Gordon narrows his eyes right back and repeats, in a tone he's rarely ever had to use and especially not with Batman, all Alpha-command, "Keep Robin off it."
The tension thickens the air, twisting tight between them, because James might be the police commissioner and one of the toughest Alphas ever produced by Gotham, but this Batman is cut from the same cloth and they've never opposed each other this way before. Gordon takes a step forward, and the second Batman flinches slightly in anticipation.
"Don't listen to me, if you want to lose another child to this war," Gordon challenges, knowing he's stepping dangerously close to the edge, "but if you want to keep him safe and sane and alive, you won't let Robin on this case."
Only part of Batman's face is visible with that damned cowl, but what he can see twists briefly into a grimace of remembered pain. Gordon hates that he's had to do this, but at the same time he's happy at the visual confirmation that he's won, small skirmish though this was. Batman-One concedes, "He will be otherwise occupied, Commissioner."
He moves again to leave, with Batman-Two darting worried glances between them, and this time Gordon lets them go.
****
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: R
Spoilers: these events are based on, but not entirely the same as, those of Kid Eternity v2 (the Grant Morrison/Duncan Fegredo miniseries)
Warnings: Omegaverse, fucked up Alpha/Beta/Omega society, pregnancy, mpreg, sexual abuse, child abuse, child death, serial killer plot
Prompt/Fill: None
Word Count: 3205
Summary: Kit thought the worst that could be done to him was done already. He was wrong. And he does worse to the other predators, now that he's been brought back.
Note: This is possibly the worst, darkest, most horrifying thing I've ever written. And I couldn't get myself to go into detail, really. But mind the warnings -- this is more about what a crapsack world I've made, rather than A/B/O dynamics.
Word of the Day: piceous, adjective:
1. Inflammable; combustible.
2. Of, pertaining to, or resembling pitch.
3. Zoology. Black or nearly black as pitch.
originally posted on LiveJournal
Down Into the Dark I Go
He hates the Alphas. Not just the ones who take advantage of biological imperatives, not just the ones that corner half-willing Betas on the cusp of their time and force them into heat, not just the ones that trade Omegas like cattle and drug them with synthetic hormones so they can play their twisted little games. He hates all the Alphas, the ones that made this awful world possible. He hates them -- not for their natural dominance or physical strength or the power they get from those around them, but for how they use it.
Springtime is the worst. Autumn is safe, mothers of whatever stripe gone gravid and languid, their mates preoccupied with tending to them. Winter is even better, at least insofar as being left alone by the... more accepted segments of society goes. People still have sex then, he knows, but it lacks the urgency of the heat and nobody seems to be as hormone-stupid over it as they are at other times.
His fellow Omegas, those who came after, huddle together in the worst parts of town (no matter where he goes, it seems, their mistreatment is the rule rather than the exception, save one secret, special place) and even though the winter cold is miserable they watch for melting snow and new green with fearful eyes. He hates it. He hates their fear -- not them, not for being afraid, but the fact they have have to be afraid.
Alpha heat comes in the springtime, and there's an overlap with Beta heat which comes in late spring or early summer. The Omegas are at the mercy of circumstance, unable to control or predict when the heat will take them, because they respond (without fail, without choice) to the proximity of the more dominant types in heat. It's even worse these days, with the drugs that wealthy Alphas can manufacture and distribute. At no time of the year is it particularly safe to be an Omega, but springtime is the worst.
Kit Freeman reaches up, plucks a fluffy pink apple blossom from the branch of a stunted little tree in a city park. Twilight is falling, and this little blossom is still open. So now it will be open forever. Today his hair is dark, nearly the black of his eyes, and he wears his usual pristine white. The worst of them can hardly resist him in white, or rather, the idea of ruining that bright cleanness with their claim and their filth. He's counting on it.
When they come to him, they aren't finding the other Omega males -- always males in this world, and Kit wouldn't be surprised if the females were all killed off by Alpha stupidity, because he's seen too many Omegas dying from that -- who haunt the city. And when they come to him, he plays his part, luring and alluring. He welcomes them into his body like they want him to... and then he drags them down into the dark with him, where they can die like he wants them to.
He tucks the little apple blossom behind one ear and moves to a nearby park bench to wait. He never has to wait long, not in the springtime.
****
James Gordon sighs deeply, his breath showing as wispy plumes in the colder air of a spring morning. These days, he really hates the springtime -- all the sex crimes that get dropped at the doorstep of the Gotham City Police Department, it's enough to tarnish any shine that comes with what should be a time of new life. He's older now, too, and the urgency and importance of the heats is mostly behind him. He looks at the things that people do to each other at this time of the year, the hurting and the killing, and it all looks like a waste. Empty, pointless, anathema.
"It's Elliot," Montoya reports to him, in a low voice. For a moment, Gordon thinks maybe she means that he's done it, that they've finally nailed the son-of-a-bitch with some solid evidence left behind because he finally, finally got sloppy during 'playtime'. But Renee looks equal parts frustrated and happy, not the triumphant she should, and she finishes, "Somebody broke his neck."
"Right in the middle of everything, looks like," says the slim little M.E. who comes up behind Renee, stripping off his gloves. Palmer's hazel eyes look even bigger behind the large lenses of his glasses, and he laughs nervously, "talk about coitus interruptus."
"Classy," the Latina detective snorts, giving the bespectacled white man a little glare. Gordon shakes his head, and asks the question that he's learned has to be asked in these cases,
"Any marks on the body?"
"Oh sure, plenty," Palmer replies, in a somewhat insouciant tone, subsiding again when Renee's glare intensifies. He clears his throat, flustered, and says, "Yeah. The one you're expecting, sir? It's there."
Gordon stifles the urge to sigh again. The body is being wheeled out of the apartment building -- not Elliot's main base of operations, but he was known to keep the penthouse here -- and Gordon turns to intercept it. Palmer's underlings halt obediently, and then Palmer is beside him, pulling down the sheet to reveal Elliot's cold, dead face.
The younger man lowers it further, just enough for Gordon to take in some of those 'other marks' -- and Palmer wasn't kidding when he'd said 'plenty', but Gordon always knew from Elliot's 'alleged' handiwork that the rich man liked it rough -- in addition to the important one. Cut on Thomas Elliot's chest, into the left pectoral muscle, is the familiar character of a capital "omega," arch closed with the sideways figure-eight of an "infinity" symbol. Completing the mark are two thin, angled lines within the circle created by the symbols. As usual, these cuts have only a little blood -- it comes from being made into dead flesh, after the heart has stopped beating.
"Eleven twenty-five," Palmer says, even though Gordon can read a clock just as well as he can. "Based on body temp, that's the time of death."
"Like always," Gordon says, completely unsurprised. This has been going on for years, for as long as Gordon has been a cop. If the files were to be believed, even longer than that. It should have been a cold case by now, but the killer -- killers, had to be killers, nothing else made sense -- kept it hot with a dead Alpha body every now and then. "Kid Eternity is back in town."
****
It doesn't matter where he is, come springtime. There's always someone who just can't resist their urges, and when they smell of his brothers' blood and their awful eager kisses taste like his brothers' pain, Kit knows that he's found new prey. The Alpha predators who use up Omegas without caring that it's human life they're playing with... Kit likes surprising them. He's stronger than he should be, stronger than an Alpha, especially when he's meting out his brutal, harsh justice. He can be anywhere he needs to be, and he often is, for those fellow Omegas who know to call for him -- with voice or mind. Kit Freeman, Kid Eternity, is not quite human anymore. He's something more. He's a force of nature, a weight created to balance scales long thrown in favor of one side.
So this year it's Gotham City. It has been Gotham City before, and other times it's been Chicago, New York, New Delhi, London, Versailles, Berlin, Madrid, Moscow. It will be those places again. It will be Gotham again, later. It doesn't matter. Every place is the same, for the Omegas, and so he is always needed.
Kit cleans himself of Alpha blood and Alpha seed, watches it flow down the drain. It's not always Alphas. Every now and then, he finds a few Betas who decide to have a little fun with a weaker Omega. Maybe they're just acting out their own traumas, maybe they're striking out blindly from a selfsame rage at Alpha mistreatment and privilege. Kit doesn't care. He kills them anyway. Kills them because it's still wrong, what they're doing. And if their sad stories mirror that of the Omegas, of his own, then why should he forgive them for spreading such pain when they know what it's like?
On the other side of the bathroom door, someone knocks. After a moment, they speak, and Kit recognizes the voice. His friend Arnold, fellow Omega, whose apartment this is. He says Kit's name, the other name, and the thread of connection between them thrums. "Eternity? If you'd like to eat, Martin made breakfast."
He twists the knob to stop the water. Then Kit answers, "Thank you, but I'd rather just sleep."
He doesn't need to eat. And he certainly doesn't need to take food from the mouths of his struggling brethren. (Some of them do better than this, sometimes he breaks bread with them for politeness, but he doesn't feel like it right now.)
"All right." Arnold doesn't sound offended, which is good. They've known each other for long enough that Arnold can easily fall into old patterns -- offering the shower first thing, making up a bed, making the often-refused offer of food. When Kit leaves in the evening, Arnold won't expect to see him back, but he won't be surprised if Kit comes back to his door again later.
Kit is out of the bathroom soon after, dressed in clean clothes and dry save for his hair (still under the thin towel he was given). Arnold smiles at him, broad and welcoming, when he wanders into the kitchen. He manages a small smile back -- he really is fond of the man, who he's known since Arnold was a little slip of teenage boy with round, dark eyes in a round, dark face. Now Arnold's face is thinner, the dark brown skin lined with years and hardship, and his close-cropped natural curls peppered with grey. And Kit looks the same as ever, thin and pale and young, form chosen for the lure it is. He was never even this old -- teenaged -- in life.
Martin is new to him. Last time he'd been here, a little less than a decade ago, it had been Bautista who shared Arnold's home. Bautista was nice, with kind eyes and a ready laugh, and he'd always wanted to brush Kit's hair -- it had been a silvery blond in those days. Kit had even let him braid it once. But now Bautista is gone and Kit can't bring himself to ask how or why.
Martin watches him with watery blue-grey eyes, a rabbit crouched and frozen. Kit doesn't like it, but sometimes he unsettles his fellow Omegas. They've been scarred so deeply by the powerful in this world that all power means danger to them.
"I just wanted to say thank you, again," Kit says, soft and low, keeping his voice gentle for Martin's benefit.
"No," Arnold answers. "It was Tommy Elliot last night, wasn't it? The news said..." he trails off, and there's something in his eyes, something cold and so very alien to the Arnold that Kit knows... something like hate. His Arnold shouldn't. "You don't have to thank me. I'm glad he's gone."
And maybe that is the answer to Kit's unspoken questions.
****
Kit sleeps, while Arnold and Martin both go to work. And he'll go to work again when they are sleeping.
Like most Omegas, they work at drudgery that the other classes usually won't touch. Arnold is a janitor, or was when Kit was last in Gotham City. The last glimpse he had of Martin before closing the bedroom door, Kit saw him carrying gardening tools. The city used to subsidize training programs for Omegas to learn such skills -- janitorial work, pest control, construction, plumbing, landscaping. In Gotham City, as in most places, funds have been cut down until the programs are no better than a joke. A pittance. It's hard all around, and Kit knows his late-night murders don't help as much as they could.
He lies there, on that lumpy, creaky mattress in the small, rundown apartment, and he thinks of Bautista. Bautista, who had never been afraid of him. Hell, the man had hugged the daylights out of him moments after they met. Bautista had laughed at Kit's penchant for all-white attire and called him "lucerito". Arnold had loved him, fierce and wonderful and obvious, and something of Arnold was gone along with him.
Bautista... one of Elliot's victims. Kit curls up on his side. He doesn't want to think of his friend that way, doesn't want to remember what it had been like beneath Tommy Elliot and put bright, gentle Bautista in that place. He can't help the image that flicker across his mind's eye -- the pain on his friend's face, the sobs and cries for mercy, all of it too easy to fill in the blanks. Maybe killing the bastards doesn't do enough to help all the Omegas. But Kit will take what he can get.
Sleep comes slowly, his dreams dark and indistinct for a time. And then...
A hated voice murmured, "Where's my little chicken?", mocking tones garbled by salt water. He was lying in the surf, sand cold and wet beneath his small body. The ship swayed, the old man above him rocked, and Kit cried out in pain over and over and over again. Everyone knew. The journeys were long and eventually everyone knew. Trapped in a cold steel shell when the springtime and the heat came around, the smell of them and their lust driving him mad, and Kit didn't want it but his body reacted like he did. They listened to his body and not his voice, not his voice screaming "No" and "Stop" and "Please", because why ruin their fun?
He waits for the black to come. It always comes, in these dreams that are more memory than anything. Half mad with agony, the thing inside him straining to be birthed from a body not ready to give birth, Kit had attacked the captain -- the awful Alpha who'd done this to him, made him this way. There had been a fight, and then Kit was doubled over from being kicked in the stomach, and then he was in the water. Sinking into the freezing cold, and then it was water all around, Kit too weak to break the surface at all. And he went down, down, down into the dark...
The dream ends, and Kit sleeps deep.
****
James Gordon stands out on the roof of the police station, up into the overcast sky. The Bat-Signal shines steadily out into the night. He doesn't want to put them on the Kid Eternity case. But he'd rather that than have them go over his head. And they're going to hear about it. There are so many of them now, watchful eyes for the city. Whoever has taken on the Kid Eternity name is going to make a mistake, get noticed...
Things are different now. The last time that dead bodies started showing up with macabre clocks carved into them, there had been only three vigilantes, too busy with organized crime and costumed villains to pay attention to regular police business -- Batman, Robin, and his own Barbara hiding from him under Batgirl's cowl. But now Barbara's eyes are everywhere. And 'Team Batman' is on their third Batgirl and fifth Robin, all the predecessors having graduated up to different costumes. More attention to be spread out. Especially since this one is a killer, something the Batman (both, now that there's two) is staunchly against.
God, he feels old.
The first Batman's voice comes from the shadows, like always. "Commissioner."
Gordon feels his shoulders tighten at the sound, pure reaction. He's not really surprised anymore; they've been doing this too long. He glances over his shoulder. The second Batman is beside the first, and Gordon idly thinks that it was much less confusing when the young man went by 'Nightwing'.
"We've got a serial killer in town," he says, to answer the unspoken question, share the reason for his summons. His mouth twitches into the barest semblance of a wry smile, "A new one, I mean. Sort of."
"Elliot's killer?" Batman-One asks gruffly.
"Yes." Gordon shares the detail that he's kept out of the press so far, and hopes it won't be a mistake: "We've got it tied to Kid Eternity."
"The 'Eternal Omega'?" Batman-Two asks, a disbelieving note in his voice. "The Alpha killer?"
"He's been operating for a long time, and in a lot of places," Gordon says, "so I doubt it's really the same person, but all the details are the same as the last time, moreso than you'd see with a copycat crime."
Batman-Two frowns. "What 'last time'? When was this?"
The answer comes from Batman-One before Gordon can reply. "You were working with your team then. About a year before you left Gotham City. The first time." The man under the cowl turns more toward Gordon, addresses him. "You seemed to have it in hand well enough, then it stopped."
Gordon shrugs. "No real leads. My guys were chasing ghost stories, for all the good it did the investigation, and then -- like you said -- it just stopped. Around midsummer, it stopped. And didn't start up again until now."
"Not here..." Batman-Two says thoughtfully, "...but maybe somewhere else?"
"We'll look into it," Batman-One says decisively.
Before they can do their vanishing act, though, Gordon calls out, "Keep Robin off it." That stops them in their tracks, and the first Batman -- never been anything but Batman, even when he's wearing different masks, but there are things Gordon knows and will never say -- glares over his shoulder at him. Gordon narrows his eyes right back and repeats, in a tone he's rarely ever had to use and especially not with Batman, all Alpha-command, "Keep Robin off it."
The tension thickens the air, twisting tight between them, because James might be the police commissioner and one of the toughest Alphas ever produced by Gotham, but this Batman is cut from the same cloth and they've never opposed each other this way before. Gordon takes a step forward, and the second Batman flinches slightly in anticipation.
"Don't listen to me, if you want to lose another child to this war," Gordon challenges, knowing he's stepping dangerously close to the edge, "but if you want to keep him safe and sane and alive, you won't let Robin on this case."
Only part of Batman's face is visible with that damned cowl, but what he can see twists briefly into a grimace of remembered pain. Gordon hates that he's had to do this, but at the same time he's happy at the visual confirmation that he's won, small skirmish though this was. Batman-One concedes, "He will be otherwise occupied, Commissioner."
He moves again to leave, with Batman-Two darting worried glances between them, and this time Gordon lets them go.
****
