**Age 14**
Surviving on Gotham's streets required different skills than surviving in an abusive household, but Suguro adapted with the same cold pragmatism he brought to everything else.
He avoided the shelters and the places where runaways typically congregated; those places drew attention from social services, police, and predators who hunted vulnerable children. Instead, he found abandoned buildings in the industrial district, places that had been empty so long that even squatters had moved on. He created a rotation of safe houses, never staying in one location more than a few days, always maintaining escape routes.
Money was acquired through theft, shoplifting from convenience stores and occasionally pickpocketing tourists stupid enough to wander into bad neighborhoods. It wasn't pleasant, but it was survival, and Suguro had long ago learned to ignore discomfort.
But he needed more than survival. He needed resources, equipment, a proper laboratory where he could continue his work. And for that, he needed more money, serious money, not the pocket change he was surviving off of.
That's when he discovered that Gotham's criminal underworld had a market for exotic products, and his fear toxin was very exotic indeed.
His first sale happened by accident. Suguro had been in an abandoned warehouse when he encountered two men loading stolen goods into a truck. They'd spotted him and, assuming he was just another homeless kid, had tried to chase him off aggressively.
Suguro, cornered and outnumbered, had released his fear gas instinctively. Both men had dropped to the ground screaming within seconds, clawing at their own faces, fleeing from hallucinations only they could see. One had run directly into a wall hard enough to knock himself unconscious. The other had curled into a fetal position, sobbing.
Suguro had stood there watching, his heart rate barely elevated, until a third man emerged from the truck. This one was older, clearly the boss, and he'd observed the scene with calculating interest rather than fear.
"Kid," the man said carefully, hands visible and non-threatening. "That's a hell of a Quirk you've got there. That your doing?"
Suguro had considered lying but decided truth was more useful. "Yes."
"Can you control it? Turn it on and off?"
"Yes."
The man had studied him for a long moment, then smiled—not friendly, but appreciative in the way someone might appreciate a useful tool. "You looking for work? Because I know people who'd pay good money for that kind of ability. Interrogations, intimidation, making problems go away without leaving evidence. That gas doesn't leave traces, does it?"
"No."
"Perfect. How old are you, kid?"
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen and already got the cold eyes of a killer." The man chuckled. "Gotham breeds them young. You got a name?"
Suguro had hesitated, then said, "Crane. Just Crane."
"Alright, Crane. Name's Richie. I work for some people who are always looking for specialists. You interested in making money?"
Suguro had looked at the two men still incapacitated by his gas, at Richie's calculating expression, at the stolen goods in the truck. This was the edge of something—a decision that would set him on a path he couldn't return from.
But he'd already killed his grandmother. He was already a monster. He might as well be a monster with resources.
"Yes," he said. "I'm interested."
Richie introduced him to his employer, a lieutennant in the Maroni crime family named Vincent Rossi. Rossi was a practical man who cared more about results than ethics, and when Richie explained what Crane could do, Rossi had been immediately interested.
"Show me," he'd said, gesturing to one of his own men, a large enforcer who'd been standing guard.
Suguro had concentrated, releasing a controlled burst of his gaseous fear toxin from his hands. The enforcer had started screaming within seconds, backing away from something invisible, pulling his gun and firing wildly at shadows then turning it on himself. Rossi's other men had tackled him before he could hurt anyone or himself, and Rossi had watched the entire display with growing satisfaction laughing.
"How long does it last?"
"Depends on concentration," Suguro said, his voice flat and professional. "That dose will wear off in about an hour. Higher concentrations last longer but increase risk of permanent psychological damage or death."
"Can you make it so they just tell us what we want to know? Without all the screaming?"
"Probably. I'd need to experiment with dosages and delivery methods."
Rossi had smiled. "I like you, kid. You talk like you're some kind scientist. Richie says you're living on the streets?"
"Yes."
"That changes today. You work for me now, you get an apartment, nothing fancy, but safe and private. You get a steady income. And you get access to whatever you need for your... experiments. Lab equipment, chemicals, test subjects. In exchange, you provide products and services when I need them."
Suguro had understood the unspoken parts of that offer: he would be owned, controlled, trapped in a different kind of cage. But this cage came with resources, and resources meant power.
"I want autonomy," Suguro said carefully. "I'll provide what you need, but I continue my own research independently. And I keep samples of everything I create."
Rossi laughed. "Fourteen years old and already negotiating like a made man. Fine. You get your autonomy. But you don't sell to anyone else without clearing it through me first. This organization has enemies, and I need to know my weapons aren't being used against me, especially those Falcone bastards."
"Agreed."
They'd shaken hands, and Suguro Crane became a professional criminal at fourteen years old.
The apartment Rossi provided was in a newer building in east shores a nieghborhood just hanging on without falling into yet another slum, but it had running water, electricity that worked most of the time, and a door that locked. More importantly, it had a spare room that Suguro immediately converted into a laboratory.
Rossi was true to his word about resources. Within a week, Suguro had basic lab equipment, proper beakers and flasks, a functioning ventilation system, and chemical supplies that didn't need to be stolen. It was crude by professional standards, but to someone who'd been working with stolen school supplies, it was paradise.
He threw himself into his work with obsessive intensity. His first priority was refining his liquid fear toxin into something more reliable and controllable. The formula that had killed his grandmother was too potent, too unpredictable. He needed variants with different effects for different applications.
His first commission from Rossi was straightforward: create something that would make a rival mafia member talk during interrogation without causing permanent damage. Suguro approached the problem methodically, testing various concentrations on rats and stray animals until he found a dosage that induced fear and suggestibility without the extreme psychotic break.
The result was what he later designated as **Strain Alpha**—a moderate concentration that caused vivid fear hallucinations lasting two to four hours, with minimal risk of permanent damage if the subject was otherwise healthy. Perfect for interrogation because victims became desperate to make the hallucinations stop and would say anything to make it end.
Rossi tested it on a captured member of a rival organization who'd been refusing to talk. They injected him with Strain Alpha, and within ten minutes, the man was sobbing and confessing everything, locations of stash houses, names of corrupt cops on the organization's payroll, planned operations. He talked for three hours straight, revealing far more than Rossi had even hoped to learn.
"This is better than torture," Rossi had said afterward, while the test subject was sedated and being prepared for disposal. "This is fucking perfect, kid."
Suguro had accepted the praise with the same flat affect he showed everything.
Word spread quickly through Gotham's underworld. The Crane kid had something special, something that made even the toughest criminals break. Rossi started getting requests from the top members of the family and even Salvatore Marnoi himself, and he brokered deals carefully, renting out Suguro's services at premium rates while maintaining control over who had access to the toxin itself.
By age fifteen, Suguro had steady income, his own laboratory, and a growing reputation as the chemist who could make people talk. He'd also accumulated a small fortune that he hid carefully, maintaining multiple stash locations because he'd learned from his grandmother's example that depending on anyone for security was foolish.
But he wanted more than just being Rossi's pet chemist. He wanted to understand his Quirk at the deepest level, to push its boundaries, to see exactly what fear could do when properly weaponized.
That required better resources, better equipment, and knowledge he couldn't find in stolen textbooks or crude street-level experiments.
That required a real teacher.
Age 15**
One of the abandoned Syzser pharmaceutical plants in Gotham's industrial district had been empty for a decade, its machinery rusting, its refrigeration units long dead. It was the kind of place that existed in the margins of the city's awareness, too worthless to redevelop, too isolated to attract even squatters.
It was perfect for what Suguro needed: a private laboratory where he could conduct experiments that Rossi couldn't know about.
He'd been using the plant for three months, having discovered it while searching for secure locations to store his more dangerous chemical compounds. He'd set up a workspace in one of the old lab units, installing and repairing equipment he'd acquired through various means, some purchased with his criminal earnings, some stolen from Gotham University's chemistry department, some custom-built from scavenged parts.
Tonight, he was working on a new variant of his fear toxin, one designed for area dispersal. The goal was an aerosol version that could affect multiple targets simultaneously, useful for crowd control or defending territory. He was deep in concentration, measuring compounds with precise care, when he sensed he wasn't alone.
but he didn't turn around immediately.
This presence felt... different. Cold. Patient. Dangerous in a way that reminded him of himself.
"Impressive workspace," a voice said from the shadows, male, measured, with a slight mechanical distortion. "Impressive work, for that matter.
Suguro turned slowly, his hands ready to unleash toxin. The figure that emerged from the darkness was striking, a man in a full mechanical suit designed to maintain sub-zero temperatures, with a domed helmet revealing a pale blue face behind red-tinted goggles. Frost emanated from the suit in visible clouds.
"Mr. Freeze," Suguro said calmly, recognizing the villain from news reports. Victor Fries, the man who'd turned to crime to fund research to save his dying wife. "You're far from your usual territory."
"I go where interesting things happen." Freeze walked closer, his movements careful, his gaze fixed on Suguro's laboratory setup. "I've been hearing rumors about a teenage chemist working for the Maroni family. Someone with a Quirk that produces psychoactive compounds and the intelligence to enhance them. I had to see for myself."
"Why?" Suguro kept his body language neutral, unthreatening but ready. He'd fought before not often, and not well, since his strength was his mind not his body, but he knew Freeze could kill him easily if that was the intent.
"Because I recognize brilliant, undisciplined work when I see it." Freeze gestured at the laboratory. "Your setup is clever, your methodology shows promise, but you're making mistakes. Dangerous ones. That ventilation system you've rigged up isn't sufficient for the compounds you're working with. Your storage procedures are creating contamination risks. And your synthesis process, while effective, is inefficient in ways that could be corrected with proper training."
Suguro felt something unfamiliar stir in his chest—it took him a moment to identify it as indignation. "I'm self-taught. I'm doing the best I can with available resources."
"I know. That's what makes it impressive." Freeze stopped a few feet away, his red goggles studying Suguro with what might have been respect. "Most self-taught chemists in this city are making explosives in their basements."
"Why do you care?"
Freeze was quiet for a moment, then said, "I was self-taught too, in the beginning. Brilliant but lacking structure, making dangerous mistakes because I didn't know what I didn't know. I was lucky, I survived my errors long enough to get proper training. Many don't. I'd rather not see potential wasted through preventable accidents."
"That's generous. I didn't think villains did that."
"I'm not doing this for some purely altruistic reason. I'm pragmatic. If you blow yourself up through amateur mistakes, the world loses a potentially valuable mind. If you survive and continue making chemical weapons without proper training, you'll eventually create something you can't control and cause damage that draws too much attention to Gotham's criminal chemistry operations, which would affect my own work."
Freeze paused, then added, "And perhaps I'm tired of being the only competent scientist in this city's underworld. It would be refreshing to have someone who understands the work."
Suguro studied the older man carefully, looking for deception or hidden agendas. But all he saw was genuine interest, the kind of recognition Dr. Webb had shown years ago, someone who understood what Suguro was and valued it rather than feared it.
"What are you proposing?"
"Mentorship. I teach you proper scientific methodology, advanced chemistry, laboratory safety, and most importantly, patience and discipline. In exchange, you occasionally assist with my research and help me acquire materials I need. A mutually beneficial arrangement between two scientists who happen to work outside legal boundaries."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes for you to learn what you need. A year, perhaps two." Freeze gestured at the laboratory again. "I have a proper facility, temperature-controlled, properly equipped, with resources you're currently improvising. You'd work there, live there if you choose. It would be more efficient than this setup, and safer."
Suguro's mind raced through implications and possibilities. This was an opportunity for real education, for legitimate advancement of his knowledge. But it also meant trusting someone, depending on someone, potentially being vulnerable to someone who could betray or control him.
On the other hand, he'd reached the limits of what he could teach himself. His work was advancing, but slowly, hindered by gaps in his knowledge and limitations of his resources. With someone like Freeze teaching him...
"I keep autonomy over my own research," Suguro said finally. "I'll assist with yours, but my work remains my own. And I maintain my arrangement with Rossi, I still take commissions that don't conflict with your interests."
"Acceptable. Though I'll expect you to be more selective about those commissions. Rossi is a blunt instrument. Your talents are being wasted on simple interrogation work."
"Then what would you have me do?"
Freeze smiled, or at least, Suguro thought he did, it was hard to tell through the helmet. "Reach your full potential. Become not just a chemist who makes fear toxins for gangsters, but a scientist who understands fear at a fundamental level. Master your craft completely. Then decide what you want to do with that mastery."
Suguro considered this for a long moment, then nodded. "When do we start?"
"Now. Gather what you need. Leave the rest, this location is compromised now that I've found it. You'll have better equipment where we're going."
As Suguro packed his essential materials, his notebooks, his samples, his most valuable equipment, Freeze watched with what might have been approval.
"One more thing, Crane," Freeze said as they prepared to leave. "I'm not interested in reforming you or teaching you morality. I've seen your work, I know what you are. You're a killer without remorse, a mind without empathy. Some might try to fix that. I won't. But I will teach you that science without discipline is just chaos. If you're going to be a monster, be a methodical, precise monster. Understood?"
Suguro met his eyes or tried to, through the red goggles and said, "Understood."