April Yang and Dick Grayson share deep-rooted connections to Gotham, even if they prefer not to give them much thought and keep their emotions to themselves. When Dick turns up in Devon City, where April works towards becoming a surgeon, she inevita...
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Noah Goldstein was born on the same day on which his grandparents were brutally murdered in their own home. It was a premature birth, so consequently and, quite frankly, irrationally, his parents blamed his birth for not being at his grandparents' house that Sunday.
It was in Hazelton, Idaho, and the murder caused quite the storm all over the county. The family decided to drop the investigation after a month or so, instead letting newborn Noah take some of the subconscious blame. Even the town people talked; It soon was okay to call him a bad omen and not let other children play with him or his little sisters.
The Goldsteins were German Jews that emigrated at the end of the 19th century. Unlike the other side of the family(which Noah had only heard of), who made a name for themselves on the East Coast, they decided to lead a small and simple life. Noah was never encouraged to go on school trips, and even less so to leave the State.
When he was ten, though, he desperately wanted to fit in with the older kids. They were the opposition to the town folk, and so he could find solace in hanging with them because they didn't take the whole bad omen thing seriously. Noah would follow them wherever they went, often smoking cigarettes behind dumpsters and hunting stray cats for fun.
There was a school trip to Boise, to which his parents said a hard no, but the older kids had an opportunity to go to Devon City. It was, by far, way more dangerous than the Boise one, but in the week that followed the first rejection, Noah had acted like the golden child. He never made a sound if he wasn't asked, never complained, and woke up early to milk the cow which he would never ever do.
They said yes. His father gave him a lecture about atheists, his mother warned him of the homosexuals, and they hesitantly sent him away on this six days trip.
If they knew that the time they watched him leave in that yellow, dirty bus, would be the last time they saw him at all, Noah was certain they wouldn't do anything differently. They never wanted a boy, he knew that, and his father would hardly look at him throughout the ten years they had spent together.
In Devon, Noah believed that he had been transported to another dimension. As soon as they got there, as soon as he stepped onto the main square, he was sure this is what God feels like. Some of the older boys took pictures, but some, the ones that Noah usually hung out with, were planning to ditch the group and go smoke.
He went with them, of course, as they were his only friends. They ran away quietly and hid in an alleyway. Then, usually, one of the boys would take out a cigarette and let everyone take a puff or two, but this time was different.
