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The city tasted like cold iron and wet ash,the bitter flavor stuck to the roof of Bruce’s mouth. In the passenger seat of a dilapidated city car, he watched the view change as they drove from the dirty streets of downtown, to the immaculate lawns of Bristol.
The windshield wipers moved slowly—left, right, left—scraping against glass that was almost dry. The sky wasn't raining too hard yet; it was just starting to leak a few drops, as if it were crying for the family lost in the fire. The Drakes.
Truth was, Bruce didn't really know them. In Gotham society, they were like ghosts, a couple who cared more for archaic artifacts than the vacuous vanity of the elite. They were archeologists who stayed away from the city's big galas to study ancient things.
They had a son, he remembered. An eight-year-old boy. The name was hard to catch, like a scintillating candle in the wind. Timothy, if his memory didn't fail him. He looked at the report again; having searched for this boy’s name for twenty minutes, trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle. The boy had vanished overnight, mysteriously.
Bruce knew a kid that age would not just disappear in a fire—not without leaving something behind. Not unless the fire wasn't just heat, but something voracious.
“I’m telling you,” Bullock said, driving with one hand as he swerved around a pothole. “If I have to drink one more cup of that bad coffee, I’m filing a murder charge.”
Bruce didn't say much. He kept his eyes on the folder instead of Bullock. The report was too thin. Scarred hands turned the pages slowly, as if he wanted the ink to move and tell him the truth. On paper, it was a tragedy. To him, it looked like a premeditated lie.
“Are you even listening, Wayne?” Bullock asked, looking annoyed. “The Chief wants this done by Monday.”
“I hear you,” Bruce said quietly.
Bullock stopped the car. The Drake’s house looked like a skeleton in the rain. It didn't look like a building; it looked like a dead body. The stone was black and split open. It wasn’t just burned; it had given up.
“Hell of a thing,” Bullock whispered, sounding a little scared.
Bruce got out. The air didn't smell like the city, it smelled like electricity and metal. When he walked under the yellow tape, a cold prickle moved through his veins. It was a warning. The rules of the world didn't work here.
Inside, the fire made no sense. The burnt marks on the walls went straight up in violent streaks. The steel beams were twisted, as if something incandescent had pushed past them too fast. The fire hadn't spread out; it had run away.
He moved through the mess carefully, knowing exactly where he was going. He stopped at the door to the boy’s room. It was empty, but it felt wrong—like a hole where a tooth used to be. The bed was merelya frame of black metal. The marks on the walls didn't look like fire damage, they looked like labyrinthine claws reaching for the ceiling, desperate and frantic.
There were no bones, no ash that looked like a body. Just a heavy, cold silence. Bruce stood there for a long time,he wasn't looking for clues anymore. There was a spectral echo of a scream in the walls.
He went outside to the yard. The garden was worse,trees burned from the inside out, leaving only the bark in its wake. The hedges were smashed flat into a big circle. Bruce turned off his flashlight; he didn't need it for now. The air was humming with a vibration that tasted vaguely like copper.
Two eyes opened in the dark. They were low to the ground, watching him.
Bruce didn't move. He didn't reach for his belt. Slowly, he sat on his heels to make himself look small,holding out his hands, palms up. “Hey,” he said, his voice soft. “It’s alright.”
Something moved.A claw scrape against a stone path. A wave of heat hit Bruce’s face, smelling of smoke and primordial ozone. The eyes blinked—growing bright, then dim.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Bruce said. “You can stay right there.”
Smoke drifted out of the dark like a shaky breath. The golden eyes looked at his hands, then his face.
Bruce realized the truth then. The shiny powder he’d found inside wasn't dirt; it was skin. The house wasn’t attacked, It had been a shell that cracked open. Something old had been sleeping inside Timothy Drake, and now it was awake. The fire wasn't destruction, it was a metamorphosis.
“Timothy?” Bruce whispered.
The eyes got big. For a second, the smoke parted. The shape wasn't a boy anymore, limbs too long,skin slick like oil on water. There were scales shifting on the body, but it was shaking. It looked like a child who had lost everything.
The sound it made wasn't a growl. It was a sob—a broken, tearing noise.
Bruce stayed still in the rain. “You’re not in trouble,” he said. “You didn't do anything wrong.”
The heat went down. Bruce made himself look even smaller. “Yeah.Loud night. Too many people.”
The creature curled up. A wing moved, looking hurt and torn,eyes shut tight as if it were waiting to be hit.
“You’re hurt,” Bruce said. “And you’re scared. That’s fair.”
Minutes passed. Sirens wailed far away. When the moon came out, Bruce saw a small dragon hiding under a bush. It was young and tiny,scales scorched. Heat leaked off it as if it couldn't control its own power yet. It flinched when Bruce moved, like a child expecting to be yelled at.
Bruce saw broken glasses in the dirt. He looked away quickly so he wouldn't frighten the boy reaching out his hand slowly. “Is this okay?”
The dragon waited. Then, it leaned a little bit towards him. Bruce touched the warm scales, his fingers gentle. The dragon shuddered, then let out a long breath and began to relax.
“There you go,” Bruce whispered. “You’re doing good.”
The dragon didn't run. It watched him, the fear slowly leaving its eyes. “I can take you in,” Bruce said quietly. “If you want.”
The dragon looked at him, appearing hopeful for the first time.
“I have kids.They know what it’s like to be hurt. They know the kind of indelible pain that changes you.”
The dragon’s breathing slowed. It looked at the burned house, then back at Bruce. It took one small, shaky step forward.
Bruce stayed there in the ash and rain, his hand held out.
He waited until the small dragon walked out of the dark ,and pressed its head against his palm.