Chapter 9: Gotham Academy

Gotham has history. No one can deny that, in every corner, you look in you will see a piece of it. 

The almost ancient stone slabs paved over by asphalt, broken shards of stained glass and shattered gears scattered about—tossed from old homes renovated anew. But no one could argue it was dying. An imposing church and its bell tower besieged by a chemical factory to its left and a modern office barely half the size to its right. 

The skyline was yet another example. The Wayne tower dwarfing everything by an order of magnitude, at the same time a crooked sign advertising some new stripper club a building over, and a tiny house under construction just to the side. It was chaotic and messy, the history of Gotham was being torn down—slowly one house at a time and rebuilt. 

"A sight to behold isn't it?" Bruce asked from beside her, accompanying them were Damian and Tim, him being the driver and Damian a fellow student. 

"This mess?" She looked at him with furrowed brows. And Damian snickered, "I told you father it sucks." 

"Oh please, it is not that bad, if you can ignore the newer additions," He defended. "It is a jigsaw of modern mixed with old gothic," She jumped at his words. 

"Neon lights line the billboards and dump bags line their legs, how is any of it beautiful?" Damian added to their argument. 

Bruce shook his head and shut up, these kids, they were probably right, but they didn't share his love for this city, a hellhole it might be, but this was a hellhole that generations of his family had fought to improve, once he curbs the crime curve enough. Besides this chaos was a playground for his family, the jagged heights helped give them grapple points, vantages to scout, and a multi-directional approach to combat.

"So, what's my school?" She asked, not having been told yet, probably because it was a surprise. 

"You'll see when we get there, it will be fun." 

She nodded and situated her gaze to the outside, they were driving through the main roads of this city, and outside she could see the multitude of cops mingling with the common folk, some even brought chilled drinks to them. 

"There are so many of them here," She said, a little absent-minded 

"The GCPD fought a war for the main roads, they won't be giving them up any time soon," Tim said leaning back from the driver's pouch.

"A war?"

"Yep, I don't remember much, I was too young to care, it was a bloody fight though it was on the news too, nasty stuff," Tim lied, he didn't want to tell a kid what had happened then. If she wanted to know she could look it up herself. 

Bruce's face contorted as he remembered the sights, after all, Batman and the family were heavily involved in this 'blood-letting.' 

She saw it too, she didn't ask further, she would just look it up herself. 

——— 

"Taxi's over, your drop's here," Tim said as the rest walked off the car. 

The sight of where they were was a famous one in Gotham, a massive school of stone and tiles, gargoyles hanging off the massive towers that dot the building, it was the famous Gotham Academy. Something even she had heard of. 

Of course, as someone who had lived with the internet in her previous life, she had read about Batman and watched some of the movies but this was DC, one couldn't be sure if Darkside would destroy the JL like in the Dark continuity or get beaten back like in the Animated continuity and that was just the cartoon versions, the comics were terrifying in how batshit I saw they went. This was the DC she knew but which DC? She had no idea. 

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Hence why she wasn't even sure that this place existed until the day she saw some students of this academy walking by the main road. 

And now here she was, "You said you wanted to study right? I got you into the best school around," Bruce said with a smile, he was expecting smiles in return but only got a weirded-out face in response, "I don't know if you know this but I am essentially uneducated?" She had no academic background in this world, a decent one in her previous life, but not here. 

Bruce paused and so did his two sons, they had completely forgotten about that, "...Right," He said, "Barbra is a decent teacher," Tim added, "Let's ask her for help." 

"This is stupid," Damian said, "She'll be a third grader, we just need to teach her some basic stuff." 

Bruce found himself troubled over this, not because he was stupid but simply because he was unfamiliar with the schooling system. He was homeschooled, everyone in the bat family was homeschooled. The only reason Damian and Mira were being admitted to the academy was to let them experience a normal life. They needed it.  And if needed he just let Alfred handle it. Hence why this was a novel experience for him.

"Let's just go inside," Bruce said as he lead them inside, Damian broke off to head to his class while the other three headed to the principal office. 

Inside the room, there was a lean old man with grey pointed triangles for a beard growing in three cardinal directions sitting behind his desk, "The name is Collingwood Hammer, what is the famous playboy doing here?" 

"My son is studying here, why can't I be here?" He said as he slid back a chair and took his seat. 

"Your butler always comes, you never," Hammer defended his words, "New admissions?" He said as he pointed to the two kids that stood behind the man.

"Admission, my new adopted daughter, Mira Dracina," He said as he slid over the prepared files. 

"You know I don't handle this don't ya?" He said as he opened the files, "Oh we are done with all the processes, just wanted you to take a look." 

"Then who am I to deny the academy's most valued supporter?" His tone was sarcastic as he put the flies down, "Miss Mira Dracina, welcome to the Gotham Academy, hopefully when you leave us, you will have become a better human being." 

[A/N: Thanks for reading and please give feedback.] 

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