(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)
Nemuri managed a sad smile. "Because the worst thing you could do to me isn't shooting me. The worst thing already happened, I spent nineteen years not knowing if you were alive or dead, carrying guilt that's been destroying me slowly. Meeting you and having you hate me, having you point a gun at me, having you reject me completely—these are all things I've imagined and feared for years. I'm already experiencing my worst nightmare just by being here. A bullet would almost be a relief."
Something shifted in Suguro's expression. Nemuri didn't pick it up but it's almost as if he wasn't thinking about the gun when asking her that question.
He studied her for another moment, then slowly lowered the gun completely, though he didn't put it away. "I believe you. That you're not here to arrest me"
Suguro glanced around the park—fully dark now, the only light coming from distant streetlamps.
"You still need to leave, this park isn't safe after dark, even for a Pro Hero."
"Will you answer a few more questions first?" Nemuri asked. "I know I'm pushing my luck, but there's so much I still want to understand."
Suguro seemed to consider this, then gestured slightly. "You have until I decide we're done."
Nemuri's mind raced, trying to prioritize the thousand questions she had. "Your grandmother, what happened after I left you with her? Was she… was she good to you?"
"No," Suguro said flatly.
"She was violent, alcoholic, and resentful of my existence. She viewed me as a burden she'd been forced to accept, and she expressed that through physical and verbal abuse throughout my childhood.
She died when I was fifteen—jumped from an apartment building during what appeared to be a psychotic episode."
The casual way he described it was somehow more horrifying than if he'd shown emotion. Nemuri felt her legs going weak, felt the full weight of what her choice had done.
"She hurt you," Nemuri whispered, her voice breaking completely. "I left you with someone who would—oh god, I left you there—"
"The past can't be changed," Suguro interrupted, his voice cutting through her breakdown with clinical precision.
Nemuri nodded, wiping tears from her face. "Were there… was there anyone good in your life? Anyone who helped you, showed you kindness? Please tell me there was someone."
For the first time, something that might have been actual emotion crossed Suguro's face—a flicker of something that looked almost like grief.
"Professor Alicia Webb," he said quietly. "I met her when I was seven, at a library in the Narrows. She was a university professor who saw me reading advanced textbooks and took interest. She started tutoring me, teaching me science and chemistry. Her daughter Charlotte became the closest thing I had to a friend, they were…" He paused, searching for words. "They were good to me. The only people who were genuinely good to me as a kid, without wanting anything in return."
"Charlotte was murdered when we were both young—killed by some psychopath in Gotham. Professor Webb died in a car accident a few weeks later. "She left me research materials and a letter. She'd suspected I was being abused at home but didn't have the resources or authority to intervene effectively. She hoped I'd use the education she'd given me to escape eventually."
He glanced at the sky again, then back at her. "I have my own question now. Fair exchange for what I've told you."
"Anything," Nemuri said immediately.
"Why did my father not raise me?"
Nemuri felt shame wash over her again—this was another part of the story she'd hoped to avoid, but he deserved the truth.
"I don't know who your father was," she admitted, her voice small. "I met him during a hero mission in Gotham, years ago. It was… one night. I was young, he was a hero too, I think. When I realized I was pregnant, I tried to find him, but he'd already gone missing—disappeared on a mission or died, nobody knew for certain. I contacted his mother through investigators, and that's how I ended up leaving you with your grandmother."
Suguro was quiet for a moment, processing this. "So I was conceived through what amounts to a one-night stand between two heroes and my father disappeared or died before knowing I existed, and you abandoned me with his mother to preserve your career. That's my complete origin story."
"Yes," Nemuri whispered. "I'm sorry. It's sordid and shameful and you deserved better than being created from such careless circumstances."
"Do you have a Quirk," she said, seizing on something that felt safer than the emotional minefield they'd been navigating. "Did you inherit something from me or your father?"
"It's not impressive," he said after a moment. "Smoke generation, essentially. I can produce a dark gas from my skin. It's not toxic or harmful, just for creating cover or confusion in combat situations, I think I saw you on Tv once it kind of looks like yours"
It was a lie. Nemuri knew it was a lie—could feel it in her bones, could see it in the slight tension in his posture. His Quirk was something more than simple smoke generation, something he was deliberately concealing from her. But she didn't call him on it, recognizing that he was entitled to his secrets, especially from someone who'd forfeited the right to know him intimately.
"I see," she said simply. "Well, even so-called weak Quirks can be powerful in the right hands. I've seen students at U.A. with modest abilities do incredible things through creativity and training."
Silence fell between them again, but it felt different now, less hostile, though no less distant. They were no longer strangers but nowhere near family yet.
"You're my son. That comes first. Always."
Suguro didn't respond to that, just watched her with those unsettling dark eyes that revealed nothing.
Nemuri took a step back, then another, preparing to finally leave. "If you decide you want to see me again—even just to talk, or if you need anything—please reach out. Through Eraser or however you want to arrange it. I'll be in Gotham for a few more days at least."
"I'll consider it," Suguro said noncommittally.
"Goodbye, Suguro. Thank you for this. I know it's not enough, but thank you."
She walked away without looking back, knowing that if she turned around again she'd never be able to leave. Her vision was blurred with tears, her chest tight with grief and guilt and a complicated kind of relief that at least he was alive, at least she'd gotten to meet him, at least he hadn't completely rejected her.
She reached the park entrance and finally glanced back one last time.
Suguro was still standing by the fountain, a dark silhouette against the night sky, watching her leave. His posture was relaxed now, hands no longer gripping weapons, just standing there in quiet observation.
Nemuri raised her hand in a small wave, uncertain if he could even see it in the darkness.
Robinson Park - Suguro's Perspective
Suguro remained motionless by the fountain for several minutes after Nemuri disappeared from view, his mind processing the conversation from multiple analytical angles.
His mother. Midnight. A Pro Hero from Japan who'd come to Gotham specifically to find him, knowing he was involved in criminal activity, and had chosen him over her professional obligations.
It was fascinating and troubling in equal measure.
Because through the meeting as it got darker he had been flooding the area around them with his fear toxin.
And she hadn't responded at all.
The toxin had been in the air for nearly twenty minutes— She should have been experiencing paranoia or terror. Instead, she'd shown no signs whatsoever of being affected.
He then realized
she was already experiencing her worst fear. Meeting him after nineteen years of guilt and uncertainty, having to confront the son she'd abandoned, facing the reality of what her choice had created. That was her nightmare made manifest. And if someone was already experiencing their deepest fear in reality, fear toxin had nothing new to offer. You couldn't make someone more afraid of something they were actively living through.
Suguro found himself smiling slightly in the darkness—not warmth, but genuine scientific interest.
A Pro Hero who'd come to Gotham despite knowing it was dangerous. Who'd sought out her criminal son knowing what she might find. Who'd stood in front of a loaded gun without flinching because she'd assessed that dying would be less painful than continuing to live with her guilt.
True fear wasn't always about immediate physical threats. Sometimes the worst nightmares were the ones that played out over years, slowly, relentlessly, destroying you from within through accumulated psychological damage.
His mother had been living in her own personal horror story for nineteen years—a walking experiment in long-term fear exposure, self-inflicted and maintained through guilt that she couldn't escape or rationalize away.
She was already in hell. His toxin couldn't make it worse.
Suguro looked at the direction Nemuri had gone. She'd be back at her hotel soon, probably crying, possibly drinking to numb the pain of their conversation. She'd told him she'd be in Gotham for a few more days.
Suguro finally turned away from the fountain, heading deeper into the park rather than toward the main entrance. He had other business tonight.
His life didn't stop just because his mother had suddenly appeared in it.
Above him, the sky was fully dark now, clouds obscuring the stars, the city's pollution painting everything in shades of orange and grey.
He didn't know what to do…
Nemuri's Hotel Room - Later That Night
Nemuri made it back to her hotel room and immediately collapsed on the bed,
Her beacon buzzed—the daily check-in with U.A. She composed herself enough to answer.
"This is Midnight. Daily check-in."
"Confirmed, Midnight. Status?"
"Safe. No incidents." The lies came easily now—she'd been practicing them for years.
"Understood. Stay safe."
Outside her window,
The sound was distant but massive—a deep BOOM that rattled the hotel windows and set off car alarms across the city. She was on her feet immediately, rushing to the window, pulling back the curtains to see what had happened.
In the distance, maybe three miles away, a fireball was rising into the night sky. Even from here, she could see it was huge. The flames painted the underside of Gotham's clouds orange and red, and as she watched, secondary explosions rippled through the burning site.
Emergency sirens wailed across the city, but they sounded different than in Japan—fewer of them, responding slower, carrying less certainty that help would actually arrive. Through the hotel's walls, she could hear other guests reacting, voices raised in concern or fear.
Nemuri watched the fire burn for several minutes, seeing the flames spread, wondering how many people had just died, wondering if anyone would even properly investigate or if this would just become another statistic in Gotham's endless casualty count.
Around 2 AM, the fire finally began to die down, and Nemuri was watching the news
"Batman has captured the culprit for explosion of fire that has claimed 250 lives we can confirm so far" the first anchor began
The camera flipped to the scene "the culprit is one Bridget Pike AKA Firefly" the camera pans on the heavily restrained young woman, she had red eyes and insectoid wings with golden skin and was screaming in anger
"Police tell us she is to be sent to Arkham and she will—"
Nemuri turned it off not wanting to see more of this cities chaos and destruction.