(I wrote this chapter months ago and have been tweaking and rewriting it as the story has progressed as this is basically the end of the setting up of the story if you know what I mean so I hope you like it it was the hardest thing to decide how to do)
**Crane's Wings Main office, other perspective**
"We have a call," Jaina said, "It's Eraser, asking for you Crane. Says it's business that can't wait."
Suguro stood from his desk "Eraser? I don't have any business with him. We only worked once since I left working for Rossi and Maroni. Did he say what he wants?"
"Just that it's personal business relating to you…"
"I'll speak with him, this shouldn't take long." and he took the phone from Jaina
"Crane,"
"What do you want?" Suguro asked, his voice flat.
"A woman approached me tonight at my club. But this woman isn't looking for evidence cleaning, she's looking to contact someone specific." Eraser paused, "she's looking for you."
Suguro felt something cold settle in his chest, but his tone remained neutral. "Looking for me. By name?"
"By your actual name. Suguro Crane." Another pause, Eraser seemed to be choosing his words carefully, "she says she's your mother, she told me how she left you with your grandmother in the West end, though I suppose only you know if that's true."
The world seemed to stop.
The woman who'd abandoned him as an infant, who he'd spent nineteen years assuming was dead or had forgotten his existence entirely, was here. In Gotham, looking for him.
"That's impossible, why would she suddenly show up now?"
"Did you tell her anything about my work?"
"No but if she came to me she probably knows or can guess about your work in the Maroni Family- how's that going by the way?."
"It's fine." Suguro was quiet for a moment. Eraser wasn't someone who was high up enough in Gotham to know he's moved past that and he didn't feel the need to share.
"One meeting I'll hear what she has to say and I'm not going to your club, tell her to go to Robinson Park."
"I'll relay that." Eraser paused. "For what it's worth, Crane, she seemed genuine when I talked to her. Scared, guilty, desperate, but mothers randomly showing up after nearly two decades doesn't usually end well."
And hung up
"Everything handled?" Jaina asked, unaware of what the conversation was about.
"Personal business, continue as you were."
The rest of the evening passed in a blur while his mind spun with implications of tomorrow's meeting.
**Thursday Evening - 6:47 PM**
Robinson Park in the fading light looked almost beautiful, one of Gotham's few remaining green spaces managing to hold onto some semblance of what it had been before the city's collapse. The old botanical gardens had been converted to public parkland decades ago, and while it showed the same decay as everything else in Gotham, but in the golden hour before true sunset, it almost looked peaceful.
Nemuri arrived twenty minutes early after checking in with U.A but was once again not Nezu, just some staff member,
She'd dressed carefully, civilian clothes that were modest and practical.
She found a spot near the central fountain, a large stone structure that had once been grand but now showed cracks, though it still functioned, and she then noticed the park was almost completely empty there were a few homeless people who had claimed far off benches in the distance, and some some teenagers were smoking near the tree line, clearly engaged in some kind of illegal transaction.
Nemuri stood by the fountain, trying to control her breathing and racing heart, watching the sky turn from blue to orange to purple as sunset approached. Every minute felt like an hour. And every figure in the distance made her wonder if it was him.
She'd spent the entire previous night and morning preparing what she'd say, how she'd explain, what questions she'd ask, after hearing from Eraser her son wanted to meet her here.
But now, standing here waiting, all her preparation felt inadequate.
How did you greet a son you'd never knew?
The sun touched the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and crimson, and Nemuri realized with a start that she wasn't alone anymore.
One moment she was alone by the fountain, the next a young man was standing about ten feet away, hands in his pockets.
Suguro Crane.
Her son.
He was tall well over six feet. He wore dark jeans and a plain black hoodie, clothes that could blend into any crowd, nothing distinctive or memorable. His hair was black and somewhat long.
But it was his face that stopped her breath.
He looked like his father, that man she spent only one night with all those years ago
but his eyes
They looked just like hers…
"You're early," he said, his voice flat and emotionless,
"That's good. Shows you actually care about making an impression, even if it's nineteen years too late."
The words were delivered without anger, and somehow that made them cut deeper than rage would have.
Nemuri opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. All her prepared speeches evaporated in the face of actually seeing him, actually hearing his voice, actually confronting the reality of what she'd done.
"Is that all?"
Nemuri forced herself to find her voice.
"Sorry. Thank you for agreeing to meet me at all… I haven't slept well in… years, the guilt has been… overwhelming."
"At least you're honest about it." Suguro moved slightly closer, still maintaining careful distance.
Nemuri wrapped her arms around herself, trying to maintain composure. "I'm not trying to justify anything. There is no justification. What I did was unforgivable. But I need you to understand that it wasn't because of anything you did or were. You were abandoned because I was selfish and weak and terrified of what having a child would do to my career. That's all. It was my failure, not yours."
"Obviously it was your failure. I was an infant. Infants don't make decisions about whether they're wanted." He said it matter-of-factly, without apparent emotional investment.
"But why are you here now and what are you hoping to achieve?"
"I… I don't know exactly. I wanted to see you. To know you were alive. To apologize, even though I know it's inadequate. To understand what happened to you after I left. To see what kind of person you became."
"What kind of person I became." Something that might have been dark humor flickered in his expression.
"What do you think I became? You've been searching for me, you must have formed theories."
"I went to the apartment building where I left you. I spoke to the building manager. He told me about your grandmother's death, about how you disappeared afterward." She paused, gathering courage. " Eraser said the name Crane was connected to someone important in Gotham's criminal structure. Someone powerful."
Suguro's expression didn't change,
"And what conclusions did you draw from that?"
"I didn't come here to judge you or try to reform you. I came here to understand and to apologize. Whatever you've had to do to survive in this city, that's my fault for leaving you here."
"The people I talked to mentioned you were connected to criminal organizations. Is that true?"
Suguro was quiet for a moment, realizing she knew nothing of who he really was now.
"I worked for Don Salvatore Maroni and his lieutenant a man named Rossi "
He'd admitted to working for the mafia, said it so casually, like it was obvious. Nemuri felt something complicated twist in her chest: relief mixed with horror. Relief because he'd admitted to criminal activity but hadn't confirmed being the masked villain,
he was just a low-level criminal trying to survive rather than a supervillain mastermind. Horror because her son had still been forced into criminal life, had still been corrupted by Gotham's darkness, had still become someone who worked for organized crime.
But if he was just someone who'd done some work for the mob to survive—that was different from being a villain who terrorized the city. That was someone who could potentially still be saved and still have a future beyond crime.
"Don Maroni," she repeated, her voice shaking. "You worked for the mafia."
"Yes. Is that surprising?" He tilted his head again, studying her. "You seem almost relieved by that admission. Why?"
"I'm not here to judge you or condemn you. I'm here as your mother, trying to understand my son."
"Except you're not my mother in any meaningful sense," Suguro said,
"I don't even know your name"
The words hurt more than any physical blow could have. Nemuri felt tears finally spilling over despite her efforts to control them.
"You're right. I don't have the right to call myself your mother. I forfeited that through my choices. But I'm here anyway, because I need you to know that you weren't unwanted because of anything wrong with you. You were abandoned because I was selfish"
Suguro watched her cry
"That's… something, I suppose. At least your regret appears to be authentic rather than performative."
"Of course it's authentic!" Nemuri said, her voice breaking. "I've thought about you every single day for nineteen years. I've wondered if you were alive, if you were safe, if you hated me, if you even knew about me. I've carried this guilt like a physical weight, and it's been destroying me slowly."
Suguru just watched this woman continue
"I know I don't deserve sympathy. I know I deserve to suffer for what I did. But I need you to know—I'm so sorry.
"I'm sorrier than I have words to express. "
"Let me tell you who I am, and what I do."
Suguro tilted his head slightly.
Nemuri took a breath, " My Name Is Nemuri Kayama and I'm a Pro Hero in Japan…
My hero name is Midnight, and I work at U.A. High School,"
The reaction was immediate and dramatic.
Suguro's entire body language changed in an instant. His hand moved with speed that suggested combat training, pulling something from inside his hoodie, and in almost an instant Nemuri found herself staring down the barrel of a compact pistol.
His other hand remained in his pocket, positioned in a way that suggested he might have something else.
"A hero," Suguro said, his voice carrying an edge it hadn't had before. Not anger exactly, but something sharper, more dangerous.
"You're a Pro Hero, and you came to Gotham to find me, why? To arrest me? To 'save' me? Or do you plan to drag me back to Japan for rehabilitation?"
Nemuri didn't move, didn't flinch away from the gun. She kept her hands visible at her sides, her posture non-threatening.
"No," she said simply. "I came to find my son."
"Heroes enforce the law, I'm a threat by your own rules." The gun remained steady, aimed at her head. "So explain why I shouldn't assume this entire conversation was just you trying to take me in."
"Because I'm not here as Midnight, I haven't believed in that hero in years"
"I'm here as Nemuri Kayama, a woman looking for my son."
"That could end your hero career if it came to light."
"Then it ends," Nemuri said simply. "I don't care."
For the first time in their conversation, Suguro looked genuinely surprised. His eyes narrowed behind the gun sights, studying her face for deception.
"You really mean that."
"I do," Nemuri said.
"I've been successful professionally—I'm a teacher at the top hero school in Japan, I've helped train the next generation of heroes, I've saved lives. But none of it has ever felt like enough to justify what I did. Every student I teach, every life I save—I think about the one person I didn't save, didn't teach, didn't even try to protect."
Her voice broke slightly. "It's hollow, all of it, the hero work, the recognition, the students who look up to me, it's all hollow because I know what I really am underneath the costume. I'm someone who abandoned her child to save her career. So if that career ends because I finally tried to do the right thing? Good. Maybe I deserve that."
Suguro was quiet for a long moment, the gun still trained on her, his other hand was out of his pocket slowly moving as if he had done something…
The park had grown darker around them, true night falling, the last remnants of sunset fading from the sky.
"You're not afraid?"