Oswald Cobblepot had always disliked Wintergreen Station.
Too exposed. Too honest. The old transit hub had been shuttered for decades, stripped down to concrete, steel, and long shadows. No corners to disappear into. No noise to hide a mistake.
Which meant anyone who chose this place wanted everything seen.
Cobblepot stood near the edge of the platform, umbrella resting against his shoulder, two of his men lingering several paces behind him. Not guards, not quite. Witnesses.
He checked his watch.
Late.
Then he heard footsteps echoing down the tunnel.
Kieran Everleigh emerged from the darkness, alone. No guards. No visible weapons. He approached the table and stopped, eyes briefly sweeping the space—not for threats, but for confirmation.
Satisfied, he pulled out the chair Oswald set up before the table and sat.
The station seemed to hold its breath.
"Cobblepot," Quentin said evenly.
Cobblepot leaned back, folding his hands atop his umbrella. "Last time we met, you were asking for breathing room."
Quentin's gaze remained steady. "Last time, Gotham was a little bit bigger than it is now it's interesting how the smaller it has gotten the easier it is to breathe."
Cobblepot's mouth twitched. "You've got a poetic way of describing a citywide bloodbath."
"I have a practical one," Quentin replied. "Which is why we're here."
Cobblepot studied him, eyes narrowing. The man across the table wasn't nervous. Wasn't eager. Wasn't bluffing.
That bothered him.
"Alright," Penguin said. "Let's negotiate. You talk. I listen."
Nolan nodded once.
"Chinatown proved something," he said. "Large-scale conflict draws too much attention. Everyone loses reach. Everyone losses men and everyone well losses don't they?"
Cobblepot scoffed. "Funny coming from someone whose people rained bullets from rooftops."
Quentin didn't deny it. "And ended the conflict faster than anyone else."
Silence.
Cobblepot tilted his head. "You're saying you want order."
"I'm saying I want predictability. This war has changed a lot I don't doubt we will see more changes branching from the acts committed from the war in the future."
Cobblepot drummed his fingers on the table. "You're looking to expand I assume."
"Of course it's the only logical move."
"You're cutting into existing lanes."
"No," Quentin said calmly. "I'm sealing gaps."
Cobblepot barked a laugh. "That's a matter of perspective."
Quentin leaned forward slightly — not aggressive, just engaged.
"Here's my perspective," he said. "You retain your Iceberg routes, your docks, your entertainment fronts. I don't interfere. In return, Underpass logistics operate unchallenged through the Narrows and adjacent corridors."
Cobblepot raised a brow. "That's not a negotiation. That's a proposal, I already own those routes."
Quentin met his gaze. "As I own the routes I have, I don't see why we can't coexist."
Cobblepot's smile faded. "Coexist until you get greedy."
"Or you do."
Nolan slid a thin folder across the table
Cobblepot hesitated, then opened it.
Inside: dates, times, locations. Disrupted shipments. Arrests that shouldn't have happened. A pattern.
Cobblepot's jaw tightened.
"You didn't cause these," he said slowly.
"No," Quentin agreed. "But I could have prevented them if you used my relocation services."
A beat.
Cobblepot closed the folder, expression unreadable.
"You're bold," he said. "Sitting across from me like this."
Quentin smiled faintly. "You wouldn't be here if bold didn't work."
Another long silence.
Finally, Cobblepot leaned back, exhaling.
"Alright," he said. "Boundaries. Communication."
He tapped the table once.
"But if you step out of line—"
Quentin rose from his chair smoothly.
"—you'll do what you always do," he finished. "And I'll adapt."
Cobblepot watched him stand, that same unsettling calm radiating off him.
As Nolan turned to leave, Cobblepot called after him.
"You've changed, Everleigh."
Nolan paused, glancing back.
"Gotham does that," he said.
And walked away.
Cobblepot remained seated long after, staring at the empty chair.
One of his men stepped forward, "Boss, why did you agree?"
Cobblepot took a cigar from his pocket, "Because the underpass is expanding faster than anyone has expected. Playing friendly for now is the best option lest we get into a war."
He smiled vindictively, "And with everyone eying the underpass who will pay attention to us?"
***
The penthouse was silent except for the soft rasp of tools and the low hum of the city far below.
Nolan sat at the worktable near the window, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a half-assembled mask resting in a padded vice. The previous one—shattered in Chinatown—had been laid out in pieces nearby, its broken surface serving as reference rather than memorial. He worked with slow precision, layering composite plates, reinforcing stress points, subtly adjusting the geometry around the eyes.
Beside it lay sections of his suit: rethreaded seams, reinforced joints, plates thinned and reshaped for mobility rather than brute endurance. Small improvements. Necessary ones.
A third object rested farther down the table—long, dark, unfinished. Nolan adjusted it occasionally, measuring, sanding, setting it aside again without comment.
Across from him, Quentin sat in a chair that hadn't been there a month ago.
Not metaphorically. Actually there.
Leg crossed over knee, posture loose, eyes sharp. He watched Nolan work with the faintest hint of amusement, like a man observing a craftsman refine a blade he knew would be used soon.
It was still strange.
Nolan didn't look at him when he spoke.
"I respect what you did," Nolan said quietly. "At Wintergreen."
Quentin's eyebrow lifted slightly. "That 'but' is coming."
Nolan exhaled through his nose, adjusting the inner padding of the mask. "But don't you think you were too forceful? Penguin isn't small-time. Pressing him that hard invites backlash."
Quentin didn't answer immediately.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
"That thinking," Quentin said at last, "is how small organizations survive. We aren't small anymore."
Nolan paused, fingers still.
Quentin continued, voice even. "We don't get to absorb social losses now. Not with the attention on us. Not after Chinatown. Every meeting, every interaction, sets precedent."
Nolan finally looked up.
"You think restraint looks like weakness."
Quentin smiled faintly. "I think ambiguity does."
He gestured vaguely, encompassing Gotham itself. "Right now, everyone's recalibrating. Falcone's licking wounds. The Triads are fractured. The cops are congratulating themselves. In that environment, hesitation gets labeled."
Nolan returned his attention to the mask, tightening a fastening. "And you wanted to label us."
"Correct."
Quentin leaned back. "Penguin respects leverage. He always has. The deal we offered is good for him—clean borders, fewer surprises. He'll take it."
"And then?"
"And then," Quentin said, eyes sharpening, "he'll use the fact that everyone's watching us to make moves for his own organization."
Nolan's hand stilled again.
"You're not worried about that?"
Quentin shook his head. "No. Because we planned for it."
He tilted his head slightly. "Let him expand. Let him think he's outmaneuvering us. That only works if he believes we're playing the same game he is."
Nolan studied him for a moment—this version of Quentin, solid and present, speaking like a strategist who had never doubted his place at the table.
"You really think that was the only way."
Quentin met his gaze without flinching. "I think it was the cleanest way."
A quiet moment settled between them.
Nolan returned to his work, fitting the final plate into place. He lifted the mask, turning it slowly in the light, checking balance and symmetry.
Across the table, Quentin watched, satisfied.
"Welcome to being big," he said lightly. "It's not about winning fights anymore."
Nolan set the mask down beside the suit… and then reached for the long, unfinished object, making another careful adjustment.
Quentin's eyes flicked to it, curious—but he said nothing.
***
The laboratory was quiet in the way only abandoned places ever were.
Not silent—never silent—but filled with the soft burble of chemicals cycling through glass coils, the low whine of outdated refrigeration units, and the faint tick of a hanging fluorescent light that refused to die. Rows of vials glowed faintly under sodium lamps, their contents swirling in sickly greens and ambers.
Dr. Jonathan Crane stood at the central table, hunched over a tray of syringes, carefully adjusting the concentration of a compound with a gloved hand. His burlap mask hung nearby, its stitched grin watching him work.
The door at the far end of the lab opened.
The sound was small, deliberate—and wrong.
Crane spun, heart lurching, already reaching for the canister at his belt. His fingers curled around the trigger as his eyes locked onto the figure stepping inside.
A man.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in dark, reinforced layers that drank in the light. His face was hidden behind a mask—smooth, angular—
The eyes burned yellow.
Glowing in the darkness of the laboratory.
Crane's breath hitched. "Don't move," he hissed, thumb tightening. "You have no idea what you're walking into."
The man raised his hands slightly—not in surrender, but in restraint.
"I'm not here to fight," the voice said. Calm. Measured. Distorted just enough to be inhuman.
"I'm here to make you a deal."
Crane hesitated.
Just a fraction of a second—but enough.
The man took one step forward, slow and unthreatening.
"I've heard," he continued, "that you have some… enmity with Kieran Everleigh."
The name landed like a scalpel.
Crane's grip loosened.
Not because the threat had vanished—but because curiosity had replaced fear.
"Kieran Everleigh," Crane repeated softly
The yellow-eyed mask inclined slightly, acknowledging the truth of it.
Crane let out a thin, humorless chuckle and lowered the gas canister an inch.
"Well," he said, stepping back toward his worktable, eyes never leaving the man, "you've chosen the correct opening line."
He gestured faintly with two fingers.
"I'm listening."
—
A/N: sorry if the chapters after the war have seemed slow, I had a roadmap that I stupidly deleted. Definitely going for an angle to finally have Nolan enter the big scenes I'm guessing most DC fans can tell who approached crane especially after his gala speech lmao.