almost normal

The days bled together like cheap ink in the rain.

Nolan price if that was still his name woke up to the same rusted ceiling fan spinning over his head, the same cracked tiles beneath his feet. He made the same walk down to the same grease-stained restaurant just a few blocks away from his run-down Gotham apartment. He worked the same twelve-hour shifts as a busboy hands raw from scalding water and the weight of dirty plates.

It was the closest thing to normal he'd had in years.

The voices never stopped.

"You could be so much more."

That was Kieran, the suave con man, always lacing temptation into his words. "You're wasting your time with mop buckets and minimum wage."

"You know this won't last," came Quentin's voice, smooth like poison. "You're delaying the inevitable."

"You're going to slip. You always do." The fighter was silent most days, but when he spoke, it was like stone grinding against stone.

But Nolan ignored them all. He scrubbed, he stacked, he bussed tables. He tried to smile when his boss barked at him. Tried to laugh at the cook's terrible jokes. He even started talking to one of the waitresses Maria who smiled like someone who'd been hurt but hadn't stopped hoping.

For a while, it was almost peaceful.

The uniform itched, the nametag was crooked, and the job paid just enough to keep his closet-sized apartment from being a memory. But for Nolan, this was a beginning.

He scrubbed the same chipped plate for the third time, steam curling from the industrial sink. A bell rang, and someone shouted, "Order up!" from the kitchen.

Maria nudged him with her elbow as she passed, balancing a tray of drinks with practiced grace. "You know you don't have to treat the dishes like you're interrogating them, right?"

He blinked, shook himself from the trance, and managed the ghost of a smile. "Just trying to make them confess."

She laughed short, warm, genuine and moved on.

That first day, she was the only one who bothered learning his name.

The days bled together. Morning coffee. Walk to work. Lunch rush. Endless dishes. Side-eyes from the chef. Trash runs. Mopping. Walk home. Repeat.

Maria started sitting with him during their five-minute breaks in the alley out back.

"You're quiet," she said once, lighting a cigarette. "But you've got that look like you're thinking twenty things at once."

Nolan didn't answer, but he gave her a look tired, soft, grateful. She nodded like that was enough.

A few more days passed. Quentin hummed sarcastic tunes in his mind. Kieran made snide remarks about "wasting their potential." The fighter personality remained quiet, brooding beneath it all.

But Nolan ignored them.

This life wasn't glamorous, wasn't rich but it was his. And for a moment, that was enough.

A week passed. Then two. The voices dulled to murmurs.

And then he saw him.

It was a normal Thursday, a lull between lunch and dinner. Nolan was clearing dishes from table eleven when a sharp laugh cut through the haze of clinking silverware and frying oil.

Beckett.

Nolan froze, the tray in his hands tilting. A glass clinked against ceramic. Beckett, the rich prick whose hotel room and money he'd stolen. He sat at a corner booth surrounded by two suited goons, eating steak like a man who thought the world owed him comfort.

Nolan turned away, heart pounding, trying to make himself invisible. Maybe Beckett wouldn't recognize him. Maybe—

Their eyes met.

Beckett's smirk sharpened.

He didn't say a word. Just lifted his wine glass in a mock toast.

Nolan's shift ended at midnight. Maria had offered to walk with him said she felt weird about the way Beckett kept looking at him but Nolan insisted he was fine.

He wasn't.

As soon as he rounded the alley behind the restaurant, shadows moved.

"Thought I recognized that rat face," Beckett sneered. His voice was soaked in malice. "You stole my room. Spent my money. Thought you could disappear?"

The two goons closed in.

Nolan tried to run, but a fist caught him in the ribs. He crumpled. Another blow to the face. Blood filled his mouth. The pain sparked something. A tremor in his chest. Then—

Snap.

"Enough," said the voice inside.

It wasn't Nolan who stood up.

It was the fighter.

And the alley turned into carnage.

Fists moved like lightning. The first thug's jaw snapped sideways. The second tried to pull a gun but it was already too late—his wrist twisted, bones shattered, the weapon turned back on him.

*BANG*

Beckett screamed and tried to run.

He didn't get far.

The fighter caught him. Slamming him against the brick wall, the rage behind those eyes was primal.

"No loose ends."

One, two, three brutal strikes.

Blood sprayed the alley. Silence followed.

And that was when the sirens wailed.

A voice shouted: "Drop the weapon! Hands in the air!"

The fighter stood over three bodies—two limp, one very dead. The blood on his hands still warm.

And just like that—he was gone.

Nolan returned.

And what he saw made him scream.

They tackled him. Slammed him to the ground.

He didn't resist. Couldn't.

His mind fractured with horror.

Over the chaos, he heard Maria's voice calling from the alley's mouth, trembling.

"I didn't know—I just thought he was in trouble—I didn't think—"

The cops didn't care. They cuffed him, read his rights.

He barely heard them.

Inside his head, the voices were quiet for once.

But Nolan could feel them. Watching.

He had tried to go straight.

He had tried so hard to be normal for once.

The cuffs cut into his wrists as the squad car door slammed shut behind him.

Rain tapped gently on the windows, muffling the sounds of the sirens as they faded into background hum. Nolan sat hunched in the backseat, blood dried into the folds of his uniform shirt, throat raw from screaming… or maybe from silence. He wasn't sure anymore.

The officer driving didn't say a word.

Neither did Nolan.

The precinct reeked of bleach and old coffee. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like flies circling something dead.

"Name?" the officer at the booking desk asked without looking up.

Nolan didn't respond.

The officer looked at him this time, sighed, and typed something generic. "John Doe, pending ID confirmation."

They took everything — the wallet, the burner phone, the scraps of fake identity he'd built.

A gloved hand tugged his chin upward. A camera flashed — cold, sterile, uncaring. Mugshot.

Then the fingerprint scanner — red laser light tracing every ridge and valley on his fingers.

Right hand. Left hand. Thumbs.

The machine beeped. Data uploaded.

Nolan stared at the screen, his own face staring back at him, caught in that one frozen frame. He barely recognized the man in the picture — hollow-eyed, pale, jaw tight with exhaustion.

They moved him into a hallway lined with holding cells. The doors buzzed open with a metallic groan. Inside, a steel bench, a stainless-steel toilet, and four cracked tiles in the ceiling.

Nothing else.

He sat in the corner. His legs ached. His wrists stung.

His mind burned.

Quentin was quiet. Kieran muttered something unintelligible. The Fighter… was buried again.

He leaned back against the wall, exhaled through his nose, and waited.

It didn't take long.

Two officers came. One tapped the bars with his knuckle. "On your feet. Let's go."

They led him down another corridor and into a sterile room plain white walls, one metal table, two chairs, a mounted camera in the corner.

Nolan was pushed into the seat.

Across from him, a detective sat down she looked almost compassionate.

She dropped a folder on the table with a soft thud.

"Let's talk."