Gotham doesn't ask who you are.
It asks whether you belong.
That realization settles in sometime between my third night sleeping in abandoned spaces and my second cold meal eaten out of a convenience store bag. Gotham doesn't care about origins, destinies, or tragic backstories. It cares about patterns. If you move like you belong, it leaves you alone. If you hesitate, it eats you.
Which means my next priority isn't magic.
It's paperwork.
The first lie is the hardest.
After that, they stack easily.
I start with the name.
Evan Cole.
It's unremarkable. Forgettable. The kind of name that doesn't echo in hallways or stick in people's memories. Evan Cole is someone you pass on the street without looking twice at. Evan Cole doesn't invite questions.
I repeat it silently while riding a late-night bus, hunched forward, hood up, hands shoved into my pockets. The bus smells like wet clothes, cheap cologne, and exhaustion. A dozen people ride with me—workers, students, men who look like they've lost something important and never found it again.
No one looks at me.
Good.
I get off six stops later, not because it's my destination, but because routine matters. Predictability matters. Evan Cole doesn't ride buses aimlessly or teleport across rooftops. Evan Cole lives a small, boring life.
I need that life.
The fake ID takes time.
Not magic—never magic. That temptation comes easily. I could forge something perfect. Something flawless. That's exactly the problem. Perfect things attract attention. Bureaucracies distrust perfection.
Instead, I work through layers of mundanity. I buy access before I buy documents. I listen more than I speak. I pay in cash, always in amounts small enough not to trigger curiosity.
A guy named Marcus introduces me to a guy named Len. Len doesn't ask questions, because questions cost extra. He squints at me through cigarette smoke and bad lighting, measuring whether I'm a liability.
"How old?" he asks.
"Eighteen," I reply without hesitation.
A lie.
But not one that matters.
He grunts. "You look younger."
"Bad genetics."
That gets a laugh. Not a friendly one—but it's enough.
Two weeks later, Evan Cole exists on paper.
Not clean paper. Smudged paper. The kind of documentation that survives because nobody wants to look too closely at it.
Driver's license. Student ID. A partial school transcript from a community program that technically exists. No social media. No searchable past. Evan Cole is new to Gotham. Recently displaced. Quiet.
Believable.
I memorize every detail. Birthdate. Address. Fake mother's name. Where I supposedly grew up. Lies fall apart when you hesitate.
Once Evan Cole exists, I build the rest of his life.
Supplies come next.
Mundane ones.
I shop like someone who expects to be poor for a while. Discount stores. Secondhand clothing. Generic brands. Nothing flashy. Nothing distinctive. Clothes that disappear into crowds. Shoes that can walk for hours without complaint. A backpack that looks like it's been owned too long to be stolen.
Food that doesn't spoil quickly. Protein bars. Canned goods. Cheap bread. Peanut butter. Evan Cole eats to survive, not to enjoy.
Tools come quietly.
Flashlight. Batteries. Duct tape. Notebooks. Pens. A prepaid phone I never turn on in the same place twice. A cheap wristwatch—not for style, but for discipline. Time matters when you're pretending to be normal.
I avoid anything that looks tactical.
Gotham notices tactical.
I rent a room under Evan Cole's name.
Not an apartment. A room. Second floor of a crumbling building owned by a man who cares more about rent arriving on time than who's paying it. The walls are thin. The lock is mediocre. The window sticks.
It's perfect.
I clean it myself. Wipe surfaces. Learn the sounds of the building. Footsteps above. Pipes knocking. Someone coughing through the wall. The city speaks constantly if you listen.
Magic stays silent.
That's deliberate.
Every night, I feel it there—coiled, patient, ready. My instincts itch to reinforce locks, lay wards, hide my presence properly. I refuse.
Magic leaves fingerprints, even when you think it doesn't. Patterns accumulate. Someone notices eventually.
Batman notices.
So I live like a civilian.
I shower at normal times. I sleep at normal hours. I leave and return like someone with nowhere important to be. I read newspapers in public. I listen to conversations I'm not part of. I learn which streets empty fastest when sirens sound.
I take a part-time job.
Stocking shelves at a late-night convenience store.
The pay is terrible. The hours are worse. The benefit is anonymity. Nobody questions a quiet kid working nights. Nobody wonders why Evan Cole knows the city well. Everyone assumes it's necessity.
They're not wrong.
The work is mindless, which gives me space to think.
To catalog.
To observe how Gotham's criminals move, how its cops react, how often vigilantes intervene and where. I notice patterns forming—not to exploit them, just to understand the ecosystem.
Power without understanding is suicide here.
I make friends carefully.
A cashier named Rosa. A delivery driver who complains too much. A regular customer who smells like oil and despair. I listen. I nod. I never overshare.
Evan Cole is polite. Evan Cole is forgettable.
That's the second lie.
The third lie is harder.
I lie to myself.
I tell myself this is temporary. That I'm just laying groundwork. That one day I'll use magic freely again. That this restraint won't cost me anything important.
Some nights, I believe it.
Other nights, when I wake up to sirens and gunshots and screams that echo too long, it's harder.
I keep my hands empty.
I don't cast spells in private. I don't practice. I don't even think in structured spell frameworks. That's discipline. Thought precedes action. Patterns start there.
Instead, I journal.
Not spells. Observations.
Who controls which blocks. Which gangs are expanding. Which nights Batman appears more frequently. When Robin's presence is rumored but unconfirmed. I don't chase them. I don't want confirmation.
Attention is expensive.
I live small.
Weeks pass.
Evan Cole becomes real.
That's the dangerous part.
When people say my name, I answer without hesitation. When someone asks where I'm from, the lie comes easily. When my boss yells, I accept it like it matters. When Rosa asks if I'm okay, I smile and say I'm tired.
All true.
Magic remains untouched.
Unused power isn't wasted power. It's stored potential.
And potential is safest when hidden.
One evening, as I lock up the store, I catch my reflection in the glass.
Sixteen—or close enough. Tired eyes. Neutral clothes. No glow. No aura. No myth.
Just a kid in Gotham trying to survive.
For the first time since arriving, I feel something close to stability.
That terrifies me.
Because stability invites disruption.
I turn away before the thought goes further.
Back in my room, I check my supplies one last time. Everything accounted for. Everything mundane. Everything boring.
Perfect.
I lie down fully clothed, listening to the building breathe around me.
Evan Cole sleeps.
Valerian Nightseeker waits.
And somewhere out there, Gotham continues doing what it does best—creating monsters out of people who just wanted to live.
I refuse to become one.
Not yet.