The transition from my old life to the grime of Gotham City was like waking up from a fever dream into a cold, wet nightmare. I was a ten-year-old kid named Arthur, alone and starving in a city that chewed up the weak and spat them out. My mind was a chaotic library of skills I hadn't earned—the silent movement of Cassandra Cain, the tactical precision of John Wick, and the rooftop instincts of an ancient assassin. But none of that mattered because my stomach was empty and my small hands were shaking from the biting wind.
I was living in the Bowery, the worst part of the East End, sleeping in a cardboard box. I spent my nights practicing in the shadows of Crime Alley, trying to mimic the "Eagle Vision" I remembered, focusing on the heartbeats of the thugs who prowled the streets. I didn't realize it, but my "practice" was what drew the Bat's attention. Most kids in Gotham run with their shoulders hunched and their heads down. I moved with my weight centered, my eyes constantly scanning the "exit points" of every street, and my footsteps making absolutely no sound on the gravel. To a normal person, I was just a stray kid. To Batman, I was a tactical anomaly that didn't belong on a playground.
One freezing November night, I decided to go for a big score. I spotted a man in an expensive wool coat walking near an alleyway—he looked like he didn't belong in this part of town. I didn't know it was a sting operation. I didn't know the "victim" was an undercover cop working a bait-and-switch. But Batman knew. He had been perched on a gargoyle three blocks back, intending to bust the undercover operation, when he saw me. He stopped what he was doing because he couldn't take his eyes off my movement. He watched me scale a vertical brick wall with the fluid grace of the Creed and then drop into a crowd without breaking my stride. He trailed me from the shadows of the rooftops, fascinated and disturbed by a ten-year-old who moved like a member of the League of Assassins.
I used the crowd to my advantage, moving with the deceptive, clumsy gait of a normal child to mask my true intent. As I brushed past the man in the coat, my fingers dipped into his pocket with surgical precision. I felt the leather of a wallet and slid it out, already planning my escape toward the fire escapes. I had barely taken three steps to make my getaway when a gloved hand clamped down on my shoulder like a steel trap.
I didn't panic; my John Wick instincts screamed at me to drop low and strike the knee, while the Cassandra Cain part of my brain analyzed the man's weight distribution. I spun around, attempting a high-level martial arts sweep that should have dropped a grown man, but my legs were too short and my strength was non-existent. The man didn't even budge. I looked up and saw the pointed ears and the terrifying white lenses of the Batman. He hadn't just caught a thief; he had caught a mystery.
"Where did a boy like you learn to move like that?" Batman's voice was a low growl, but I could hear the confusion behind the mask. He saw my combat stance—the way my hands were up and my chin was tucked, a perfect MMA guard that no street kid should know.
Instead of handing me over to the police, Bruce Wayne took me to Wayne Manor. He told me he was giving me a home, but I knew the truth: he wanted to keep the world's most dangerous ten-year-old where he could see him. I became the first orphan of the Manor.
The move from the freezing alleys of Gotham to the quiet halls of Wayne Manor felt like moving to another planet. For the first two months, I wasn't a hero; I was just a ten-year-old kid named Arthur trying to remember how to be a person. My head was full of skills I hadn't earned—the way Cassandra Cain read a person's muscles, the tactical mind of John Wick, and the gadgets of a secret agent. But in that big house, I was just a ghost.