It was late in the afternoon when Connor left his home in the Narrows. The good-byes were dispensed with, the night before, over beers and poker. It was a game he hadn't yet figured out, and he was content for his old... friends was too strong a word... associates, then - he was content to let his old associates win, having taken so much from them, in the first place. Only Mo remained, half-baked beside his radio, he tilted his head, measured him up, and said: "I'm gon' miss yuh, Stretch. Promise me somethin', alright? Never come back."

The sun was low, and painted Pete's Quick Stop in shades of orange and black, like a painting. And, like a painting, the place was still, lifeless. There was a weary punch-drunk slouch to the building that he'd never quite noticed before, like a seasoned fighter, long past its prime, staggering towards the next inevitable bout. When he took one last look, from the corner of the empty street, he had a feeling that when names like Mo, Turk, and Owlish were long lost to memory, Pete's would still be standing. And his old room, with its flaking drywall, and the smell of feet, would be keeping some other lost soul safe through the night. A sigh, of equal parts nostalgia and relief, drifted over dry lips. He adjusted the strap of his duffel, turned, and passed beneath the shadow of a lurching train.

There were four other people on the bus to Old Gotham. He took a seat furthest from the drunk, who belched into a brown paper bag at regular intervals, and muttered about someone called Fiona. A couple rows in front, there was a thin greying woman, with skin as dry and yellow as old library books. He recognised her from previous journeys, she was always very polite to the driver. There was a young girl, a waitress, maybe, who always wore the same uniform. She never looked his way. The other person was new. His hair was so short a stiff wind would finish it off, and although he wore a large winter coat, he somehow made himself shrink inside of it, like he didn't want to be seen. With every hiss of the breaks, his gaze snapped to the front of the bus, and Connor recognised that look, at once: that was a man with something to hide.

Outside, he watched the Narrows drift by, fishing memories from familiar sights: there was business at Bojack's Franks, Old Mariah's patch was conspicuously absent, and it looked like the record place, where Owlish once took a stray bullet to the foot, had closed down. The journey to Old Gotham had become so routine, of late, that it wasn't until he noticed the distant glare of Miller's Harbour, aflame from the setting sun, that he realised he was free. The Narrows was behind him, and he was never going back. His grin was tucked behind a fist, and he drank in the looming horizon of high rises. His thoughts raced ahead, to Oliver Queen, to something normal, to school. He shook his head, incredulous.

At the Clock Tower, he waited. The first hints of rain tapped the tin roof above, to articulate his shrinking patience. The second bus was larger, and crowded with people who did everything with their mouths but talk to each other. He was fine with that, although he could have done without the kid on the back seat, whose enthusiastic chip-munching fell upon his ears like the sound of a calving glacier. There was to be no relief from the munching, the crash and clatter of jewellery, the sandpaper chin-scratching, or the atomic bomb coughs for a whole 10 minutes, by which point, Connor practically charged from the bus into the thick stew of Gothamites, outside. Another sharp hiss, and the bus departed, clearing the way to what had become his favourite place in the city: Gotham Library.

Connor was not exactly studious, but he enjoyed the quiet, and the library offered him the opportunity to be surrounded by people, to watch them, and not be annoyed by them. And there was also a certain librarian that he was quite keen to see.