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Part 1 of Crow-niverse
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Published:
2025-05-16
Updated:
2025-08-20
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3,004
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2/19
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When Life Gives You Crows, Steal

Summary:

On a heist gone wrong, Kaz and his crew are transported to Gotham, a city of mystery. Following a run-in with Batman, they need to figure out how to get home, but they might not be able to do that without the help of a few of Gotham's... shadier types.

But Batman sees Gotham as his, and sees these traumatized teens, and decides he must take care of them... no matter what they think.

Follow the Crows as they try to get home and stake their place in a city so unlike their own.

Notes:

I don't think anybody but me wanted this but I feel like the Crows would thrive in Gotham so here they are

Chapter 1: I

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The job had been easy, and that had been Kaz’s mistake. He knew the security had been unusual - he hadn’t known that the security would cause him to wake up in an unknown alley.

 

The waking up part was even more unusual than the unknown alley part. Why wouldn’t the owner have just killed him? All his crew were still alive as well - Inej, Jesper, Nina, Wylan, Matthias.

 

They were all (presumably) asleep. He couldn’t check right now, not when he could practically feel the hands of whoever had moved him.

 

Luckily, Matthias was stirring, so he could check the rest. As soon as Matthias’s eyes opened, Kaz stalked off towards the mouth of the alley, trying to figure out where they were.

 

The street was dimly lit, the city foggy. All in all, it felt like home. What was unusual were the moving hunks of metal, the glowing boxes people held, the fact that the lanterns looked like they could barely hold a single flame - they were somewhere else. Somewhere unusual.

 

Kaz walked back to the alley where everyone was awake.

 

“Kaz, darling,” Nina drawled, “where the fuck are we?”

 

Kaz frowned. “I’m not sure. It’s nowhere I’m familiar with, so not Kerch, Shu Han, Fjerda, or Ravka.”

 

Nina blinked. “Okay then.”

 

Inej dropped back into the alley. “People call this place Gotham. Apparently it’s in New Jersey, or the States? One of those two.”

 

“Anything else?” Kaz asked.

 

Inej hesitated. “People were talking about a ‘Batman,’ but I don’t know what they meant by that. Could be a gang leader, or maybe a rogue Grisha. They did say he could disappear into the shadows.”

 

“Another Darkling?” Nina exclaimed.

 

“Be quiet.” Kaz hissed. “We still don’t know how dangerous this place is.”

 

Jesper drew one of his guns. “Well, however dangerous it is, we can handle it.” He spun the gun around his finger and winked at Wylan, who rolled his eyes.

 

Kaz began moving pieces in his mind. New city, new people, new names. This plot would have to be incredibly complicated.

 

“Scheming face?” Nina said.

 

“Scheming face.” Inej confirmed.

 

“Right.” Kaz tapped his cane on the ground. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Get control of a building, figure out who the players are, go from there.”

 

“That’s shockingly short and simple,” Nina said, “How do we know we aren’t missing pieces?”

 

“Because I’m working on next to no information.” Kaz responded. “You’ll get an updated plan when we know for certain where we are and who this Batman person is.”

 

Before Kaz could delegate tasks, he heard a quiet thud from behind him. He whirled around to see a man dressed in all black with a flowing cape, a person in a red helmet, a man in blue and black, a figure in all black with yellow, a man in red, a girl in purple, and a kid in red, green, and yellow.

 

“I’m the Batman.” The person in black with the cape said. “Who are you and what are you doing in my city?”

 

Kaz ran his hand over the top of his cane as Inej disappeared behind him. “I wasn’t aware cities could belong to people.”

 

Red helmet person pulled a gun on him. “Want to answer the question or be shot?”

 

Kaz stepped forward so he was even closer to the gun. “Shoot me. If those are the options.”

 

Red helmet person faltered as Kaz’s crew looked on from behind him. They had seen this song and dance before, knew how it would go.

 

Kaz moved forward again. “The way I see it.” Step. “You need information from me.” Step. “And it is very hard to get information from a dead man.” Another step and his chest was pressed against the muzzle of the gun. “You shoot me, and none of my crew says a word. So I wouldn’t recommend shooting me. Besides,” Kaz nodded at Jesper, who pulled his guns in a single fluid movement, aiming them at two of the red helmet person’s team. “Your team will be dead before my body hits the ground.”

 

Red helmet person tilted his head as if listening to something, then clicked the safety back on his gun and dropped it. Jesper dropped his guns.

 

“How old are you?” Batman asked, causing Kaz to pause for a moment.

 

“Seventeen, why? You trying to arrest me?” Kaz gripped his cane tighter.

 

Batman seemed to frown and grunted. The mood throughout the whole group seemed to shift, which was right when Inej dropped back in. Batman immediately turned to her.

 

“Where did you come from?” Batman growled at her, and Kaz saw Inej readying a knife. Good.

 

“I’ve been here the whole time.” Inej said and smiled. Kaz saw a muscle twitch in Batman’s jaw, and that was incredibly fun to see. Kaz loved annoying authority figures.

 

“If we’re done here, we’d better get going.” Kaz said, and took a step toward the edge of the alley.

 

Red helmet person grabbed his arm before he could get further, and Kaz heard Inej gasp behind him and the Harbor, rising slowly, the trickle of water replaying in his ears. It seemed like red helmet person was trying to talk, but Kaz couldn’t make out what he was saying.

 

Kaz whirled around and slammed his cane into red helmet person’s helmet hard enough to crack the metal, causing red helmet to leap away and touch his head. Red helmet’s hand came away with blood.

 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Kaz hissed, “if you value your life.”

 

Black and blue man, who had approached him slightly, raised his hands and backed up a bit. Kaz stalked away, the rest of the Crows following behind him.




Bruce watched the young boy and his friends walk away, then turned to Jason. Steph had already checked his head, but he looked pissed. The top of his helmet had basically shattered. The kid - they didn’t even get his name - was strong.

 

“What the fuck’s his problem?” Jason asked as soon as his concussion test was over.

 

“I think he didn’t want to be touched.” Steph said, smirking. “He made that pretty clear.”

 

“Yeah, but,” Jason growled, “my helmet . It’s completely ruined.”

 

“Dangerous.” Cass said, cutting off Jason’s rant before it could begin. “But they won’t hurt us. Unless we give them a reason.”

 

“The kid with the cane looked like the leader.” Bruce said and tapped the comm in his ear. “Any info on them, Oracle?”

 

The sound of typing could be heard in the background. “Nothing. They just appeared in the alley. Alternate universe, I guess, especially with the readings we picked up. I do have a name for the kid with the cane. Kaz, apparently. The larger girl said it when they arrived.”

 

“Kaz is an unusual name.” Tim said, pulling something up on his wrist computer. “Not many people have it, and it can also be a last name. If it’s an alternate universe, though, these people may not exist at all in any of our databases.”

 

Bruce grunted. “We can try.”

 

“The cane will make him more recognizable.” Steph piped in. “And the big guy with the blond hair will also be pretty recognizable.”

 

“Oracle, keep an eye out on cameras. Everyone else, continue your normal patrol route.” Bruce pulled out his grapple and shot it towards a roof. “Rendezvous at the Cave. This is a big case, we need all hands on deck.” Bruce grappled up and made his way through Gotham. It was his city , no matter what Kaz said, and he would protect it, even from the seventeen year old if he proved dangerous.

Notes:

i really need to stop writing new stories

Chapter 2: II

Notes:

we’re back and this time with a beta and an outline!!!

enjoy :D

Chapter Text

It had only been a few days since they had been transported to this new world, and Kaz already had a place for them to stay.

 

Well, “place” might’ve been stretching it. They were camped out on a rooftop in a place the locals called Crime Alley. It was dirty, the building on the verge of collapse, but it suited their purposes fine. There was even a ledge to protect from rain! All of their crew had slept in worse places, anyway, and soon they would be able to rent a place out.

 

They even had some stolen cots, so they wouldn’t be sleeping directly on the concrete.

 

Nobody had come after them for the stolen cots, which made sense once Inej factored in the amount of crime, both petty and more major, they had seen in the two days they’d been there.

 

Occasionally one of the masked people they had encountered on their first day showed up to stop the crime, but more often than not it went unnoticed, and they went unnoticed. The ledge was good for more than just hiding from rain, after all.

 

The strangest crimes Inej had seen were the ones done by brightly dressed people with themes. Some guy named Condiment King had tried to rob a convenience store with a bottle of mustard. The masked people had shown up, escorted the “rogue” to somewhere called “Arkham”, and left again.

 

The masked people couldn’t, and didn’t, prevent all the crime. Inej had seen countless dead bodies so far. Many of them weren’t victims of crime, just circumstance, but still. It felt like the masked figures weren’t doing anything.

 

There weren’t as many bodies as Ketterdam, which may have been a result of the masked people, but also could have been the fact that Inej thought it was impossible to get a more crime-ridden city than Ketterdam. “Gotham” claimed to be bad, but Inej had seen worse.

 

One bonus because of the amount of crime was that it would be easy for them to find a job. Kaz was already looking, limping through the streets. He didn’t have his reputation here, didn’t have the whispers that followed him wherever he went, mothers telling their kids to stay back, people crossing the street as he drew close. But people here learned quickly, and by the next day nobody dared draw close enough to even brush Kaz’s sleeve.

 

“Inej.” He said, drawing up behind her. “I need you to check out these places.”

 

His gloved hand held a piece of paper written in his familiar Kerch script. They had different letters here, and different accents as well. On the paper was a list of directions and crude drawings of the symbols on the street signs that meant things to the people walking below. Inej knew how Wylan felt all the time now.

 

“I’ll be back soon.” Inej said, passing by him as he carefully took off his gloves, pale hands appearing in the moonlight.

 

 

 

The first place was only a few blocks away from the roof they were camped on. It was dimly lit, and people crowded below, shoving others aside for a chance to see the ring that contained two fighting men. It was chaos, colors and sounds everywhere.

 

A shadow appeared in the window. Inej froze on her rafter, watching the black and blue man from their first day in this city crash through the window, sending broken glass to the floor below.

 

“Let’s break this up, folks.” He said with a smile, flipping to the floor. The fighting men turned to attack him, but he twirled out of the way, taking two rods off his back. He attacked the men with the rods, and whenever they hit someone that person began to convulse and then fell to the floor, twitching. Inej made a note in her mind to avoid the rods.

 

Despite being outnumbered, the black and blue man won quickly, the rest of the men running away when they saw their fallen friends. Inej leaped to another rafter and snorted. Cowards, the lot of them, she thought, slipping out of the broken window and off into the night.

 

 

 

The next few places were all busts, either being too small for Kaz’s purposes, too close-knit, or the masked people shut them down. Along with the black and blue man, Inej encountered the girl in purple, the red helmet man (who had gotten a replacement helmet), and “Batman”.

 

The last place was the largest, and was situated on the water. It was in the shape of ice, tall peaks of blue and white making their way into the city sky. “Iceburg Lounge” Kaz’s messy scrawl read. No windows on the building that Inej could see. She walked toward the front door.

 

The bouncer looked her up and down. “Do you have an invitation?” He asked in that strange accent everyone in this city had.

 

“I wasn’t aware I needed an invitation.” Inej started at the man, channeling the acting skills Nina had taught her. She lifted her head. “Do you know who I am?”

 

The bouncer grinned. “No, and that’s why I can’t let you in. Scram.”

 

Inej stalked away, quietly slipping around the side of the building and to the back. A place this size, there had to be some type of delivery door.

 

It ended up being a large door with chains hauling it up and down whenever a delivery appeared.

 

Inej slipped under one of the incoming trucks, dropping down and rolling to the side right as someone came to inspect the goods. She was in a large room filled to the brim with crates of different materials. Inej saw food, fabrics, dishes, anything she could think of. To her surprise, the truck was loaded with crates again before being sent off.

 

Maybe this was some type of trader’s center too? Inej followed one of the workers towards the door. In order to get into the main part of the building, he had to scan a little badge attached to his pants. Inej just caught the door before it closed and shut it behind her.

 

Inside was chaos. People ran around holding trays of food and drink, all dressed in the same black and white suit. Other people, dressed in more causal clothes like the person Inej had followed in, moved around them, bringing and taking smaller boxes of supplies.

 

“Hey!” Someone snapped at her. “Suits are in the closet, rush hour is now. Get moving!”

 

Inej walked towards the closet the person had pointed her to, taking out one of the suits that seemed to be her size and slipping it on above her clothes. Someone handed her a tray and pushed her towards the double doors that led to the main lounge.

 

This seemed more like home. Drinking, gambling, smoking, cursing. Inej felt a pang of homesickness before following the rest of the servers, walking around the room offering drinks to the people.

 

Despite the security, this place seemed more or less like a place she’d find in Ketterdam, although they would need invitations if they wanted to get in the legal way. Kaz would figure that out if it came down to that, though.

 

Inej discarded the tray and suit behind a potted plant and walked out the front door, nobody noticing her. Turned out Kaz’s lessons were right regardless of universe.

 

 

 

Inej wandered back over the rooftops, taking the time to learn the city as well as she knew Ketterdam, before finally returning to their rooftop.

 

“What’s the verdict?” Jesper asked.

 

“Iceburg Lounge is our best bet, but we need invitations to get in legally. Otherwise we’d have to sneak in as servers.” Inej replied. “They also have a strange lock, it’s opened if you hold some type of flat white rectangle up to it.”

 

“Grisha work?” Kaz asked Nina.

 

“Not that I know of.” She replied. “But this world does seem more advanced than ours, maybe their Grishas are more advanced too.”

 

“We’ll see.” Kaz said.

 

 

 

Inej sat on the edge of the roof, swinging her feet over the street. People were walking around, streetlights flickering on them, or not on at all. The place they were staying was the type of place Inej would have found in the bottom of the Barrel: broken, creepy, weary.

 

Nina got up from her cot and slowly walked over to Inej.

 

“How’re you doing?”

 

Inej hummed. “This place is different from Ketterdam.”

 

Nina laughed. “Have you seen all the weird technology they have?”

 

Inej cracked a smile. “Twenty kruge Kaz takes some back to sell.”

 

“No deal,” Nina said. “We all know he will.”

 

“We also all know I have ears, Zenik.” Kaz yelled at them.

 

“Ears not fit for any city.” Nina yelled back. “You ready to get home?” She asked Inej.

 

“Yeah. I was meeting my parents a week from when we were transported.”

 

Nina tilted her head. “Do you think time passes the same here?”

 

This time Jesper chimed in. “It’s unlikely, considering the fact that our world seems technologically behind this one, and the probability of two completely different universes sharing the same time constantly is really low.”

 

Everyone looked at him.

 

Jesper shrugged. “I did go to college.”

 

Nina and Inej turned back to the street.

 

“We were making a difference. Back in Ketterdam.” Inej whispered.

 

Nina smiled sadly. “And now we’re here?”

 

“And now we’re here.”

 

A figure climbed to the top of the roof across from them. Inej slid Sankt Petyr and Sankta Alina into her hands. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nina lift her hands subtly, and the rest of the crew tense.

 

The figure waved at them. Everyone stood up, getting ready to fight.

 

The figure didn’t move until Nina hesitantly lifted an arm back. They pulled something in the shape of a gun off their belt and pointed it at the gargoyle on the corner of the building.

 

A metal hook wrapped around it, attached to a trapeze wire.

 

“Stay back.” Kaz said. “Let’s see what this person wants.”

 

The figure climbed on the rope and across the street, the people below oblivious.

 

The figure stepped into the glow of the bonelight Kaz had set up, revealing them to be a woman in skin-tight black clothes.

 

She held out a hand to them. “Catwoman.”

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