Gotham Under Boogeyman part A(chapters 1-6) Chapter 1: Old Man Wick.

I had to split the short fic into two parts. Part A covers the first 6 chapters. Part B will cover the final 6(chapters 7-12).

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Chapter 1: Old Man Wick.

The room was silent. Not peaceful—just quiet in that way a room gets when death lingers nearby, waiting for its moment.

John Wick sat in the center, a lone figure in a worn-out chair, posture straight, hands resting over a small wooden table.

The dim light from the single overhead bulb barely touched him, leaving most of the room swallowed in darkness.

His once-sharp eyes had long faded into blindness, but he didn’t need sight. He could feel everything. The air shifting. The scent of gunpowder lingering on the edge of his senses. The presence of a stranger standing before him, heavy with hesitation.

John exhaled slowly, savoring the act. He could count how many breaths he had left.

"Who is it this time?" His voice, roughened by age and too many battles, carried no fear. No irritation. Just a quiet acceptance.

The moment of hesitation stretched. Then a voice answered. Young. Too young.

"I'm here for revenge."

John smirked mirthlessly. He tilted his head slightly, as if listening for something unspoken. Revenge. Always revenge.

"And who did I kill?"

"You killed my grandfather. He was part of the High Table." The words were laced with anger, but there was an unsteadiness beneath them. The boy was nervous.

John reached forward, feeling for the ceramic cup in front of him. His fingers closed around it with a surety that spoke of a man who had never needed eyes to kill. He lifted the teapot beside it and poured, the slow stream of tea filling the silence between them.

"Have a seat," John said.

"What?"

"Sit down boy."

The stranger hesitated again before sitting. The gun in his hand—it had to be a gun—stayed raised. John could feel the aim at his forehead, the tremor in the grip. The kid wasn’t a killer.

John took a sip of his tea. It was bitter. He set the cup down and exhaled.

"You don’t feel like the type cut out for this."

The kid bristled. "You don’t know me."

"I know enough. Have you ever killed before?"

The question hit like a bullet. Silence stretched between them, thick, heavy. The boy swallowed.

"No," he admitted.

John nodded, as if he had already known the answer. He took another sip, savoring the heat.

"Then don’t start now."

The boy flinched. "What?"

"Revenge is a waste of a life. You kill me, then what? You go back to the High Table, and they pat you on the head? They’ll send you on the next job. Then another. Until you’re old, like me, sitting in a chair, waiting for some kid with a grudge to come put you down."

The boy’s breathing was uneven. His hand shook. He was picturing it now—the life stretched ahead of him, a cycle of blood and death with no end.

"I don't have anywhere else to go," the kid muttered. "If I don’t kill you, they’ll exile me. I’ll have nothing."

John sighed. "Then you stay here. You leave that life behind."

The kid’s head snapped up. "Why would you help me?"

"Because I have no grudge with you."

For the first time, the boy’s aim lowered. His hands clenched at his sides, conflict raging inside him. He inhaled, as if on the verge of saying something—

Then, in an instant, a distant gunshot rang through the air.

The window shattered. The bullet struck true.

John Wick felt the impact before the pain, a sharp force slamming into his chest. His breath hitched. His body slumped forward, knocking the teacup off the table.

The kid gasped, stepping back, eyes wide with horror.

John exhaled. The world was growing distant, fading.

'At least I die the way I lived.' he thought.

And then, John Wick—the Boogeyman—died.

-0-

(Crime Alley, Gotham)

(1999)

(The Gang Wars Era)

The rain fell in heavy sheets, turning Gotham’s streets into rivers of filth and neon reflections.

It was the kind of downpour that drowned out screams, washing blood down storm drains as if the city itself was trying to forget.

In Crime Alley, no one came to help. No one ever did.

A four-year-old boy sat on the sidewalk, his back pressed against the cold brick of a decaying building. His small frame was soaked, his thin clothes clinging to his skin. Dark eyes, too knowing for a child, watched the streets with quiet patience.

He had no name, nor knowledge of his parentage, or if he'd been abandoned or lost...

People called him "Kid" or "Brat" or just shoved him aside like another piece of Gotham’s trash.

But in his mind, there was a name floating in the shattered fragments of strange memories not completely his own. A whisper.

John Wick. With a 'fucking' in the middle.

Thus he was John Wick and also not.

The original seemed more like a tragic action hero in the memories of his past life. A majority of which were fleeting and incomprehensible, though he still retained the bad luck that had plagued his previous existence.

His stomach growled. He ignored it. Hunger was like breathing or bleeding—a part of life.

Then, the night shifted.

From a nearby alley, a man staggered into the open. He clutched his stomach, blood seeping through his fingers. His breathing was ragged, his suit dark with rain and gore. He gasped, stumbled forward—then collapsed onto the wet pavement.

Right in front of John.

The boy didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Instead, he stared into the man’s eyes.

Because he had seen that look before.

It was the same look he’d seen when he found a broken mirror in a dumpster and stared at his own reflection.

The look of someone who was supposed to be dead but refused to go.

In the distance, sirens wailed. Not for this man. Not for anyone in Crime Alley.

John shifted slightly, watching. Waiting.

Because he wasn’t the only one who had seen the wounded man fall.

The hunters were coming.

The rain did nothing to wash away the smell of blood.

John sat still, his small hands resting on his knees as he watched the wounded man in front of him. Carmine Falcone.

The name meant nothing to him in this life, but somewhere in his memories—his real memories—he recognized the way the man held himself, even while bleeding out. A king among criminals.

Falcone’s chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven breaths. His fingers trembled against the gaping wound in his stomach, pressing down in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding. He was dying.

John didn’t care. Not really. Death was familiar, and Falcone was just another piece in Gotham’s cycle of violence.

But something made John stay.

Then, the footsteps came.

Slow. Unrushed. Confident.

John had heard footsteps like that before—killers who already knew how the night would end.

Two men stepped into the glow of a flickering streetlamp. They were dressed in cheap, soaked trench coats, their boots splashing through the flooded pavement. Their hands were steady on their pistols, their eyes sharp with cruel amusement.

They weren’t just thugs. They were professionals.

The taller one smirked as he nudged his partner. “Look at this pathetic bastard, Tony. Carmine Falcone, the great Roman, bleeding out in the streets like a stray dog.”

Tony grinned, lifting his pistol. “Looks like the end of the road, old man.”

John’s small fingers twitched.

He had seen this play out before—a wounded lion, the scavengers moving in. It was instinct. The weak were meant to be picked off.

Except…

John wasn’t weak.

Neither was Falcone.

The crime boss looked up at the two men, his breathing shallow, his face streaked with rain and blood.

John waited. He wasn’t strong enough—not yet. He was still small, still frail, still untrained.

But he had something else. Precision. Timing. Calculation. Instincts...all carried over from his past life.

Finally, he had the element of surprise.

The two men stepped forward, ready to put a bullet in Gotham’s greatest crime lord.

John didn’t hesitate. Hesitation got you killed.

His small fingers flicked forward, launching a tiny, worn object through the air. The dim glow of the streetlamp caught it mid-flight—a dull, round coin.

Clink.

The coin landed perfectly.

Right inside the barrel of Tony’s gun.

For a second, Tony just frowned. Confused. His finger squeezed the trigger.

Boom.

The gun exploded in his hand. A flash of fire, metal, and shredded flesh. Tony’s scream tore through the alleyway as he stumbled backward, clutching his ruined fingers.

John didn’t watch.

He was already moving in for the kill. Almost led by the shadow of old man Wick.

The taller man cursed, jerking his own gun toward the kid—too slow. Way too slow.

John’s small hands gripped a sharp, rusted blade—a simple switchblade he had stolen from a dead man weeks ago. He knew knives. He remembered knives.

He lunged.

The blade sank into Tony’s throat.

A wet gurgle. A spray of crimson against the rain-slick pavement. Tony dropped.

The taller man stumbled back, panicked. He hadn’t expected this. No one expected a four-year-old to be a killer.

His gun clattered to the ground as he scrambled, slipping on the wet pavement.

John stepped toward him, his expression calm. Too calm.

The man’s breath hitched. He was terrified.

John tilted his head, watching him. Calculating.

Then, in a voice too quiet, too cold for a child, he said:

"Watch your step. The sidewalk is wet."

The man’s eyes widened. His last expression.

John pulled the trigger.

A single shot.

The body slumped.

Silence settled over the alley. The only sound was the rain, washing away the blood.

John exhaled. Slowly. Steadily. He'd killed before, rats and pigeons for food but this was the first time in this life he'd taken another person's life. He wasn't sure how to react other than thinking it was too easy.

Then, he turned back to Carmine Falcone.

The crime lord had been watching.

His breath was still shallow, his wound still bleeding, but his gaze was locked onto the boy.

A child shouldn’t have moved like that. A child shouldn’t have killed like that.

John stepped forward, staring down at him.

"I saved your life," he said, voice even. "Now you save mine."

Falcone exhaled, slow and measured.

Then, for the first time that night, he slowly started chuckling.