The apartment was dim, lit only by the dying glow of late afternoon filtering through the blinds. Nolan dropped his keys on the counter, tugged off his hoodie with a wince the bruises on his ribs were still blooming deep purple and collapsed onto the couch. He exhaled, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The silence stretched long. Almost comfortable.
Then a voice echoed quietly in the back of his mind.
"You ready to talk?"
Nolan closed his eyes.
He was tired in his bones, in his soul, tired. But there was no avoiding this anymore. No more running from it.
He sat up slowly, nodded once to the room, to no one in particular. "Yeah," he said aloud. "Let's talk."
The shift wasn't physical. Not really. But it felt like something changed in the air like the temperature dropped a few degrees, like the shadows leaned in.
And then they were there, not in body, but in presence. Quentin. Kieran. Maybe even the Fighter, lurking silent in the far recesses.
Kieran appeared first his voice was a whip-crack, smooth but edged, "You can't just lock us out like that."
Nolan scoffed. "That's rich coming from you. You hijacked my body in the middle of a phone call. You agreed to help Penguin before I even had a chance to think."
Kieran's voice rose, sharper now. "And what would you have done? Hung up? Run away? Let penguin threaten the homeless? You think you get to keep playing the scared kid while the rest of us clean up after you?"
"I didn't ask for any of you!" Nolan shouted, shooting up from the couch, pacing now. "I didn't ask to be split into pieces. You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to wake up in alleys and interrogation rooms and bloodied rooftops with no idea what the hell just happened?"
Kieran's presence loomed larger louder. "You're squandering everything you could be! You have potential, Nolan! And instead of using it, you're busy playing busboy, handing out food like it makes up for what you really are."
Nolan turned, fury burning behind his eyes. "And what am I, huh? Some broken little tool for the rest of you to use? Just a meat puppet you can hijack anytime things get hard?"
"We're here to protect you!" Kieran roared. "That's all we've ever done! You have no idea what it was like before we came along the beatings, the jobs, the pain. You were getting torn apart. If it weren't for us, you'd be dead!"
"Oh yeah?" Nolan grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it up, revealing the taped gauze along his ribs, the stitched wound on his shoulder, the half-healed bruises across his chest. "Real great job protecting me!"
Silence fell for a moment.
And then Quentin's calm voice slid in, low but firm, "Enough." He stepped forward in Nolan's mind the planner, ever in control.
"This isn't helping. None of this is helping."
"I didn't want this life," Nolan muttered, falling back onto the couch. "I didn't want crime. I didn't want safehouses and stolen IDs and fighting Batman on a rooftop. I just wanted to live."
"But you couldn't," Quentin replied softly. "You can't. Not in Gotham. Not with what you've done. We didn't choose this either, Nolan. But we're trying to survive. And every time we fight for that, you try to pretend it didn't happen. And don't forget you wanted the fake ID, you wanted to build the network, you wanted this as much as we did. Why are you blind to your own desires?"
"Do you really think the penguin would have taken no for an answer? We already had proof he was moving around the homeless OUR PEOPLE! He doesn't have the moral hiccups you have he would have killed them until you surrendered. Why do you insist on acting like you can't see the bigger picture."
"Because it's easier!" Nolan snapped. "Because it hurts less when I act like I'm still the guy whose biggest worry was what shrink he was going to see that week! I mean there was periods of time were I wouldn't remember weeks, I just started trusting you!"
Kieran was quiet now. Quentin too. A heavy pause stretched between all of them.
"I know we made mistakes," Quentin said finally. "But everything we've done has been for you. The network, the relocation jobs, the plans it's all been about giving you something to hold onto. Something that's yours."
"Then stop taking it away from me," Nolan said, voice cracking. "Stop taking me away from me. I'm not your project. I'm not your soldier. I'm me. I have to be."
Kieran sounded tired now. "We only took the wheel when you froze."
"Well I'm not frozen anymore," Nolan said. "So stop driving."
The room stilled again. This time, it felt different. Not tense just… tired. Like all the shouting had burned the energy out of them.
"…I'm sorry," Quentin said.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. But it hit Nolan like a brick to the chest.
Kieran followed, reluctantly. "Yeah. Me too."
Nolan closed his eyes. The rage had passed. All that remained now was the ache.
"I don't know how to fix this," he whispered.
"We don't either," Quentin said. "But we're here. For whatever that's worth."
And they were. Broken, fragmented, clashing voices in the same storm — but here.
It was a start.
***
Nolan sat at his desk, the warm blue glow of his monitor painting shadows across his tired face. A half-eaten bagel rested beside his keyboard. The apartment was silent, save for the occasional creak from the radiator and the soft hum of an old fan oscillating lazily in the corner.
The burner phone rang.
Nolan didn't need to check the ID. Only one caller used that number.
He picked up.
"Penguin," he said flatly.
"Now, now, don't sound so grim. You've done good work, kid," came the smug rasp. "Very good work."
Nolan leaned back in his chair. "You got your guy."
"I did. Not a scratch on him, too — which is rare these days. Most of the time, my boys come back missing fingers or teeth. But yours? Clean. Efficient." Penguin paused, then added with a smirk Nolan could hear. "Elegant, even."
There was a clink of glass on glass. A drink being poured.
"You'll be hearing from me again, Nolan. I'm not in the habit of repeating deals, but your operation… it has a certain appeal. I could use someone like you in my Rolodex."
"You already do use me," Nolan muttered.
"True. But I might start using you more… formally."
The line clicked off.
Nolan dropped the phone onto the desk and let out a slow breath. His muscles were still sore from the fight with Batman. Every time he twisted the wrong way, his ribs flared up in protest. He rubbed at his side and stood, limping slightly as he crossed to the fridge.
The cool air greeted him as he pulled out a half-finished energy drink and took a long sip. He leaned against the counter and looked around.
He checked his tablet, flipping through the logs and reports from the network. Message after message was being handled by others. Most of the safehouses were operating smoothly. There were food deliveries scheduled. Patrol rotations. Maintenance check-ins. And Nolan hadn't touched any of it.
It was a trend Nolan had been noticing recently, it seems like he was only getting calls about the important things these days.
The network was running on its own.
Not perfectly there were still things that needed his touch now and then but the bones of the system? Solid. Self-operating.
And the people… they were thriving.
Nolan clicked through a few of the local network camera feeds. In one, he saw a group of homeless teens laughing in an alley, tossing a deflated basketball between them. In another, a man was patching a broken window at one of the safehouses, wearing a reflective vest someone must've given him. On a third, two women were sorting blankets and water bottles into piles for redistribution.
He hadn't told them to do any of that.
They were organizing themselves.
He opened one of the chat threads. The messages were fast, casual, filled with inside jokes, nicknames, even light arguments about which corners to avoid or who owed who a sandwich. It read like a family, not a network of fugitives and outcasts.
For a long time, Nolan stared at the screen.
The system he'd built out of desperation, out of necessity had grown beyond him. Quentin had helped plan it. Kieran had helped fund it. The Fighter had defended it. But it was Nolan who had sown the seeds.
And now it was blooming.
He didn't feel triumphant. He didn't feel proud. He just felt… still.
He slid back into his chair and rested his head against the top of it, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe… maybe it was time to give this thing a real home.
Not just scattered safehouses and borrowed corners of the city. Not just stolen burner phones and handwritten ledgers.
A home. One place. One structure. One central hub.
But that was a thought for tomorrow.
For now, he opened a new file and began typing.
"Weekly Resource Allocation: District South."
And the machine kept turning.