What can you know about a person? They shift in the light. You can't light up all sides at once. Add a second light and you get a second darkness, it's only fair.

Richard Siken, War Of The Foxes

Ha-neul Kim believes true justice died long ago in Gotham. She still remembers the day of her father's trial and the words guilty ringing in the courtroom like church bells. She still remembers clutching her mother's skirt during visitation hours at the prison. Remembers her mother turning into a ghost as she scoured for evidence to prove her husband's innocence while the time of his execution drew nearer and nearer. Doing something over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Ha-neul's mother had gone insane, trying to find something, anything, to help her husband off death row. Desiree Kim died on a Monday. She was found on the street, a few blocks away from her lawyer's office. Beaten to death, clothes ripped apart like confetti, blood pooling in the street and seeping into the city's veins. On Tuesday, the church declared it would pay for the funeral services. On Wednesday, Ha-jin Kim learned the truth before being injected with poison. On Thursday, Ha-neul Kim attended two funerals. On Friday, Ha-neul's godfather welcomed her into his home. On Saturday, the news stopped mentioning the Kims and started singing about the Waynes' tragedy. On Sunday, Ha-neul swore she would bring back real justice in Gotham.

It's hard to keep promises. Especially those made to oneself. But Ha-neul never stops trying. She gave up on her dreams of moving to Central City and pursuing music to help pull Gotham out of the darkness. Which is how she ended up in the Gotham City Police force. Ha-neul roams about the streets in the squad car breaking up petty fights and solving small burglaries. She wants to do more, be more, like her uncle -- a philanthropist in his own rights. Michael Carney is the CEO and founder of Carney Industries, a shipping company operating at the docks of Gotham, and more than half of the funds are set aside to help the city grow and prosper. To no avail though, Gotham remains what it always was, stubborn. And Ha-neul's getting tired of her methods that seem to give no results.

But there's this new guy about the streets who doesn't pull his punches and dresses up in a ridiculous getup, and who her lieutenant seems to think might help them better the city. But darkness and darkness don't make light. He's selfish and cruel and merciless. He isn't a hero. He's barely even a vigilante, but he doesn't strike to kill, and in Jim Gordon's eyes that makes all the difference. They start working with each other before the rumors, and they don't stop after them. 

Ha-neul carries a filthy resentment towards the decked-up freak who thinks vengeance is justice. But isn't that what she wants, too? Isn't that what she has been looking for all her life? Someone has to pay the price of making Moira attend both her parents' funerals on the same day. Someone has to pay.

Someone does pay. 

And Ha-neul is dressed up in black again, a ten-year-old boy clinging to her skirts. Two wrongs don't make a right, Ha-neul knows that. But she forgets about all that when she sees Marc Carney's face like the ghost of his mother. The choir is singing Ave Maria, Rosemary Carney lies under a pall pretending to sleep. Ha-neul Carney sits in the chapel, her legs crossed, her hair combed, and her boots shining in slatted light. She's thinking about when they were little and made houses out of cardboard boxes. Your pillow, my pillow, the blanket that we both wrap around ourselves. Marc looks at her, tears in his eyes. My dragonfly, she wants to say, my black-eyed fire. Rosemary Carney, the priest tells her, has made her journey to the landscape after cruelty, which is of course a garden, by which he means tenderness.

The somber apologies at the wake fill Ha-neul to the brim until the sadness threatens to spill from her eyes. They are kohl-lined and ringed with dark circles. She finds a quiet, empty corner and cries. Slaps her hand over her mouth because it is weak but she can't help it, goodbyes make her sad. And then again, Rosemary Carney was her sister in all but one sense of the word. If your sister dies, are you still a sister? Somebody offers her a tissue like a truce and she accepts. You're crying mascara, he says. Ha-neul chuckles, serves me right for wearing makeup at a funeral. Quietness settles like a heavy blanket, but it's serene, it's warm, it's a fairy tale. A story underneath the story. Ha-neul looks up and catches his eyes, a storm brewing over an ocean, lightening here then gone. She recognizes him a second too late. Bruce Wayne. She knows him, sure. Seen him before at a few of her godfather's arrangements. Half of the people say, poor boy, the other half say, he's had it easier than the rest of us. But who to believe? 

Bruce apologizes too, there's nothing more anyone can do. But he looks at Marc with a pain that Ha-neul understands. Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it? she asks. You're asking the wrong person, Bruce says, the wrong question. Forgiving's hard. It's not everyone's cup of tea. Ha-neul wonders if there's more to Bruce Wayne than meets the eye. Sometimes, there are parts of his act when Ha-neul can see right through, she can tell he's about to burst into tears. 

But Bruce is a good liar, he's had years of practice, and he stumbles through. Makes it past the gates, in and then out again, formal greetings every which way and a practiced smile on his face. He prefers the shadows though. Even in a crowd, he prefers the sidelines which is where he found her. To Bruce, Ha-neul Carney is like a city under crowns of snow. Not the dirty kind of snow, trod upon by muddy footprints. But pure, and angel white. She's . . . wait. Let's save that for later. Because Bruce wants to tell this story without having to confess anything. He wants to tell this story without having to say that he ran out into the streets to prove something. And the streets of Gotham are a prison, they are an addiction. It's a loose tooth that you can't help but bother. It's where he finds her, Rosemary Carney, stripped of her dignity and lying face down in the muddy snow, the smell of her blood mixed with creosote and exhaust. 

She was lying in an empty back alley. The sky was red and the snow was red and she was wearing a brown coat. The dawn was breaking when he informed Lieutenant Gordon about the horrible crime. His heart was breaking when he offered Ha-neul the tissue to wipe her tears. 

It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed. There's a secret haunting the seawalls of Gotham, the slimy moonlit shores canopied with devastated clouds. The same hands that killed Rosemary Carney are roaming free and Bruce hates the pain in Marc Carney's eyes. Someone has to pay. Nobody gets to steal a kid's parents. Not anymore.

There will be vengeance.

Who do you think I am uncle, uncle? Sad Hamlet with a knife, where do you stash your life?

Sylvia Plath, Stopping Dead

Go Youn-Jung . . . . DETECTIVE HA-NEUL KIM "HELEN" CARNEY

Robert Pattinson . . . . BRUCE WAYNE

Un diavolo scaccia l'altro.

. . . . with

Julian Hilliard . . . . MARC CARNEY

Song Joong-ki . . . . DANTE CARNEY

Toby Moore . . . . TONY DESARIO

 . . . . and

SELINA KYLE / CATWOMAN

THE LIEUTENANT / JIM GORDON

MICHAEL CARNEY / THE GODFATHER

THE UNLUCKY / ROSEMARY CARNEY

CARMINE FALCONE / THE ROMAN

THE KEEPER / ALFRED PENNYWORTH

🗡️ Content Warning: Canon typical violence, character death, graphic description of death, blood, injury, murder, crime, suicide attempts, child abuse/neglect (referenced or otherwise), mental illness, alcohol-abuse, religious conflict, nightmares, and terrible family dynamics.

🗡️ idk what to say for this story so i'm just gonna let this go, okay?

🗡️ the timeline is after the origins but set before the batman (2022). the battinson timeline is of halloween, this takes place in the winter before it. there's gonna be some/a lot of au + inspo drawn from comics and canon divergence. so beware. still plotting this out, but impulse publishing to release tension and gain serotonin.