Chapter 9 — Demon of Gotham, Part 9
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Huff. Huff. Huff.
Ben stepped back from the bag and put his hands on his knees. Sweat dripped from his chin and hit the concrete floor in a steady pattern. His shoulders burned. The gloves felt heavier than they had an hour ago, which meant he'd been at it long enough.
He straightened after a moment, rolled his neck once, and got back into his stance.
His form was a hybrid of things he'd taught himself — some of it from watching, some of it from trial and error, none of it formally coached. It worked well enough for what he used it for, which was less about sport and more about the practical question of how to hurt something quickly. He drew his right hand back and threw his weight into the bag.
"You're leaving yourself open."
Ben pulled up short.
"And you're throwing everything into every hit. You keep that up, you'll be gassed in two minutes."
Sully was leaning against the wall near the entrance, arms folded, watching with the expression of someone who'd been there long enough to form an opinion. He pushed off the wall and walked over, his limp more pronounced in the cold, the gym not yet warm enough to make a difference.
Ben lowered his hands. "Morning."
"Morning." Sully stopped behind him, took Ben's arms by the wrists, and adjusted — shoulders back, weight redistributed, guard tighter on the left. "Now try it."
Ben hit the bag.
The difference was immediate. Less effort, more transfer. The impact traveled through the bag instead of being absorbed by it.
Sully stepped back, satisfied, and moved toward the supply closet without ceremony. "I'm going to tidy up."
"I'll help." Ben pulled the gloves off and grabbed a rag from the bench.
They worked in comfortable silence for a while, the kind that had developed over months of early mornings and didn't require filling. Sully wiped down the ring ropes. Ben worked on the pull-up bar, getting into the joints where rust liked to collect.
Eventually Sully spoke, his tone carrying the particular casualness of someone who'd been thinking about what to say for a few minutes. "Can I ask you something?"
Ben kept wiping. "Sure."
"Why are you here every morning?" He said it without accusation, more like a man genuinely puzzled by something. "You're what, fifteen? You're in the prime of it. Girls, school, whatever score you're chasing in whatever game, what to wear — that's what your head should be full of. Normal kid stuff." He paused, wringing out his own rag. "Not this."
Ben was quiet for a moment, looking at the pull-up bar. His eyes dropped briefly to his left hand — to the bandaging, to the faint outline beneath it — and then back to the work.
"I feel like I have to be ready," he said. "For a choice I'm going to have to make eventually. When it comes, I want to be the best version of myself."
Sully was quiet. He said hmm in the way men do when something lands differently than they expected, and went back to cleaning. After a moment he spoke again, slower this time, like he was measuring it out.
"I'm not trying to discourage you. But I think you need to hear this." He folded his rag over the rope. "In this world filled with flying men and women and things that come through holes in the sky — ordinary people like us can't do much. We just can't." He paused. "Well. Unless you're Batman." A short laugh, dry and genuine. "Man's out of his damn mind."
Ben said nothing. His eyes stayed on the bar in front of him, and he kept wiping, and he didn't look at his wrist again.
---
The mansion was warm and smelled like breakfast when he got back.
Uncle Frank was at the head of the table in his work clothes, tie not yet knotted, reading something on his phone with the focused attention of a man already halfway into his day. Aunt Natalie sat across from him with a cup of coffee and the particular expression of someone who had been up late writing and was functioning on goodwill alone. Kevin was already working through a stack of pancakes with the commitment of someone who treated every meal like it might be his last. Gwen sat beside him, more composed, a glass of orange juice in front of her.
Ben greeted his aunt and uncle at the door and went upstairs.
The shower was hot and he stayed in it longer than necessary, standing under the rainfall head until the tension in his shoulders had loosened enough to be manageable. He dressed without particular attention — blue jeans, black and white sneakers, a black varsity soccer jacket. The number 10 was printed on the back in white, the same jacket he'd had for two years, the stitching on the left cuff starting to go.
He came back downstairs and sat at the table.
Aunt Natalie slid a plate toward him. "Good morning, again." Her tone was warm, the practiced warmth of someone who understood he needed a soft landing in the mornings and had quietly decided to provide it.
He started on the pancakes.
Uncle Frank set his phone down and made an attempt. "School starting back up. You looking forward to getting back into a routine?" He glanced at Ben over his coffee cup. "Coach Reyes was asking about you. Said the team could use you this season."
Ben cut into his pancakes. "I quit the team."
A beat of silence.
He kept eating. His aunt and uncle exchanged a look across the table — brief, careful, the kind couples develop over years of navigating things together — and then let it go. There was no good follow-up to that, and they knew it.
---
The trio begins their long walk to school.
Uncle Frank had offered the driver, but none of them had taken him up on it. The walk was theirs — had been since the first week in Gotham, an unspoken routine that belonged to the three of them and nobody else.
Kevin fell into step beside Ben with his hands in his jacket pockets, wearing the same beat-up combination he'd had since they were kids — dark jeans, the old jacket with the collar up. He'd shot up over the past two years and had the build of someone who'd spent time earning it, which he had.
He waited approximately half a block before bringing it up.
"You could've told me you were going out last night." He said it like it was a minor scheduling complaint. "The chase looked fun."
Gwen, walking on Ben's other side, turned her head. "Fun."
"Yeah, fun. Running across rooftops, cops on your tail — "
"Breaking the law, Kevin."
Ben said, "Gwen."
"No." She kept her voice low, aware of the street around them. "I'm serious. You know what happens if the League shows up? If Batman shows up? We talked about this."
"I kept to routine," Ben said. "No cameras. Transformed in the alley behind the loading dock on Fifth, same spot. Handled it fast and got out."
"What was it even for?"
" A woman was getting mugged, there were two guys, one had a knife." He paused. "I helped her, got rid of the muggers. She was fine."
Gwen's expression shifted — not softer exactly, but recalibrated. "And?"
"And when Wildmutt walked toward her after, she screamed, and a cop came around the corner and opened fire." He said it plainly, without complaint. "So I left."
Gwen pressed her fingers to her temple. "Ben, she screamed because you approached her as a giant, eyeless dog."
Kevin made a sound that was almost a laugh and converted it badly into a cough when Gwen looked at him.
"She's got a point though," Kevin said. "Wildmutt's terrifying."
"That is not the point — "
"I know what the point is," Ben said. "I'll be more careful."
Gwen looked at him for a moment, searching for whatever she was looking for, and apparently found enough of it because she let it go.
They turned a corner and the neighborhood changed in the way Gotham neighborhoods did — not gradually but abruptly, like a threshold being crossed. The buildings here were older and less maintained, the storefronts smaller, a few of them shuttered permanently. Trash had collected against the base of a chain-link fence. The sidewalk was cracked in long diagonal lines where the ground had shifted and nobody had repaired it.
Gwen slowed at a narrow alleyway between two buildings.
It happened quickly — a fraction of a second where her eyes caught something in the dark between the walls and her body registered it before her mind did. Not what was there now, which was nothing. What had been there, or what her mind had decided to show her regardless.
Blood spreading across concrete. A hand falling into it, fingers open, the motion of something that had stopped holding on.
Ben's hand found her shoulder. "Hey."
She blinked , coming back. "I'm fine."
He didn't push it. He knew better than to push it. "Kevin and I are here," he said. "Nothing's going to happen."
She looked at him, then ahead, and squared her shoulders in that deliberate way she had — the way that meant she was choosing to be okay rather than waiting to feel it.
"I know," she said, And kept walking.