Eli didn't leave the swamp and go straight back to Gotham.
He sat at the edge of the road for a long time, boots muddy, jacket damp, gray hands resting on his knees like he needed to remind himself where they were. The night insects sang in layered rhythms, not chaotic like Gotham's sirens, but patterned, patient. The Green still pressed faintly at the edges of his awareness, not tugging now, just present. As if it had marked him and moved on to other things, confident it could return whenever it pleased.
That confidence bothered him more than hostility would have.
He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the way his muscles moved under gray skin. They obeyed him. They always had. He took some comfort in that—small, but necessary. Control mattered. Choice mattered. If he ever stopped believing that, he wasn't sure what would be left.
The bus ride back was quiet.
Too quiet.
A few people sat scattered through the seats, all of them tired in ways that had nothing to do with heroics or monsters. A woman in scrubs leaned against the window, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap like she was bracing herself for the morning. An older man clutched a paper bag full of groceries with unnecessary intensity, like it might disappear if he loosened his grip. No one stared at Eli for long. In Gotham, unusual appearances were background noise.
That almost hurt more.
He wondered, briefly, if that was how Grundy felt when people looked at him—not fear exactly, but dismissal. A thing to be avoided, ignored, survived. Eli shook the thought away. Grundy didn't sit on buses. Grundy didn't wonder what people thought of him in the quiet moments.
When Eli stepped off near his apartment, the city felt heavier than it had before. Not louder. Just more aware. He walked past familiar streets with a different kind of attention now, noticing cracks in the sidewalk, weeds growing through concrete, ivy creeping up brick walls that no one had bothered to tear down. The Green wasn't doing anything dramatic. It didn't need to. It was already everywhere.
That realization followed him into the corner store.
The bell above the door chimed softly. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering in a way that suggested they'd been threatening to die for years but never quite committed. Behind the counter, Mr. Alvarez looked up from his crossword and squinted.
"You look like hell," he said, then paused. "More than usual."
Eli huffed a quiet breath. "Long night."
"You always have those." Mr. Alvarez slid a bottle of water across the counter without being asked. "You bleeding?"
Eli glanced down at his jacket. The bullet tear had crusted over. "Not anymore."
Mr. Alvarez raised an eyebrow, but didn't press. Gotham taught people when not to ask questions. "That's good. World's got enough mess without you adding to it."
Eli paid, thanked him, and lingered a moment longer than necessary. The normalcy grounded him. The exchange mattered more than he wanted to admit. This—small talk, routine, human acknowledgment—this was what he was protecting.
Outside, a group of kids argued loudly on the sidewalk about a game Eli didn't recognize. One of them bumped into him and froze, eyes wide at the sight of gray skin and broad shoulders.
"Sorry," the kid blurted out.
Eli smiled, awkward and careful. "You're good."
The kid stared for half a second longer, then ran back to his friends. Eli watched them go, chest tightening. They hadn't screamed. They hadn't laughed. They hadn't pointed. They'd just… moved on.
That mattered too.
His apartment was small, sparsely furnished, and entirely his. No vines. No roots. No whispers. Eli dropped his jacket over a chair and sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees. For a moment, he just breathed.
The pressure returned then.
Not strong. Not urgent. Just present.
He closed his eyes.
I know you're there, he thought—not to the Green exactly, but to the part of himself that felt it. I'm still choosing.
Sleep came in fragments. Dreams crept in like fog, not images so much as sensations—weight, stillness, the feeling of standing beneath something vast and patient. When he woke, it was morning, and Gotham was already loud.
He went to work anyway.
Routine was armor.
The docks were busy, louder than usual. Word had spread about the fire, about the gangs scattering, about something else moving through the city that night. Rumors traveled faster than truth in Gotham. Eli kept his head down, lifted crates, followed instructions. He felt stronger than usual—not in a raw way, but in endurance. Like the world weighed slightly less than it had yesterday.
He hated that.
During lunch, he sat with Marcus and Lena, coworkers who had long ago decided Eli was strange but dependable.
"You hear about that thing last night?" Marcus asked, chewing loudly. "Fire, gangs, Batman showed up late."
Eli shrugged. "City's always on fire."
Lena studied him for a moment. "You okay? You look… tired."
"I am tired," Eli said honestly.
Marcus laughed. "Aren't we all."
That was it. No suspicion. No fear. Just shared exhaustion.
Later, as the sun dipped low, Eli felt it again—that pull. Not toward the swamp this time. Toward something older, heavier. He followed it reluctantly, slipping away from the docks as evening settled.
The overpass was broken, half-collapsed, a scar the city never bothered to fix. The air smelled wrong—damp concrete, old rain, something rotten underneath. Eli slowed as he approached.
Solomon Grundy sat in the shadow beneath it.
He was larger than Eli remembered, hunched but massive, gray skin cracked like old stone. His movements were slow, careful, like he was afraid of breaking the ground beneath him.
Grundy looked up.
"You again," he rumbled.
Eli stopped several feet away. "Yeah."
Grundy sniffed the air. "You smell… different."
Eli frowned. "That so?"
"Green," Grundy said. "But not Green."
Eli felt a chill. "You feel it too?"
Grundy nodded slowly. "Grundy feels lots of things. Doesn't know what they mean."
They stood in silence. Traffic roared overhead. The city didn't care about either of them.
"You could be more," Grundy said suddenly. "Could stop hurting."
Eli shook his head. "I don't want to stop thinking."
Grundy frowned, confused. "Thinking hurts."
"Yeah," Eli said softly. "But it's how I know I'm still me."
Grundy looked down at his hands. Massive. Scarred. Uncertain. "Grundy doesn't remember being… me."
"That's what I'm scared of," Eli admitted.
Sirens wailed somewhere distant. Grundy shifted uneasily. "You should go."
"Probably," Eli agreed.
As he walked away, he felt the pressure ease—not gone, but quieter. For now.
Eli didn't know how long he could keep choosing.
But tonight, he had.
And that would have to be enough.