#and how its not fair and she didnt deserve to die only halfway through a lifetime. but its not about fair and its not about deserving.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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[scaryscarecrows]

Roots and Leaves, Pt. 6

DC did it first. Take your grievances to them.

Jason and Sheila e-mail back and forth for about a week before she says that she has Thursday off so if he has Thursday off does he want to meet for lunch again?

Last time wasn’t bad. Not a lot of staring or people or anything. He can…he can probably do it again. And it’s a few days away still, so he has time to psyche himself up or, worst case scenario, fake his death and move to Canada.

And it’s been a week and she hasn’t pulled out the Pity Card on him yet and maybe…maybe this’ll all work out okay. She might never be Mom, because Catherine’s always gonna be Mom, but…but she could be Mother, maybe. He can see that in the distant (or not-so-distant?) future.

But he’s not going to rush into things, that’s what got him here in the first place. Patience, grasshopper.

Thursday rolls around and he hasn’t faked his death and moved to Canada, so he has no choice but to put on jeans and a hoodie and resign himself to a couple of hours, easy, of no sunglasses and no e-book shield.

Sorry, any small children who might come out of this traumatized.

Okay. He brings his Kindle anyway, and his sunglasses for the journey, and sticks to his normal Civilian Weaponry-couple’a knives, one pair of brass knuckles tucked into a hidden pocket in his hoodie. Last thing he needs is for someone to pick up a bullet, match it to the Red Hood’s, and come knocking on his door. His luck is bad enough that’s exactly what would happen.

Besides, it’s noon on a Thursday, and even in Gotham that’s a slow hour. Bank robbers gotta eat, too.

The monorail ride there is literal Hell (three fighting couples, two crying kids and old man with no personal spaaaaace!) and he’s literally gasping for air when he stumbles out of the car. He likes people. Honest. If he legitimately hated them all, he wouldn’t risk his life to help them. But interacting with them…he could do without that, mostly.

Whatever. Whatever. It’s over, he lived, he’s had worse.

(And no, he doesn’t hear faint cackling in his head, and that’s final.)

It’s windy today, the type of wind that buffets people every which way and is determined to keep his hood off his head. He fidgets with the drawstrings until it’ll stay and buries his hands in his pockets. Wind sucks. He can feel pollen and dust and Gotham Grime being blown onto his skin.

“Jason!”

Is he there already?

Sheila…looks a lot more haggard than she did before. He tries to remember if she’d mentioned being horribly busy, doesn’t think she did, and figures that to be fair, he hasn’t mentioned the bruise that goes halfway up his back.

She smiles, her awkward driver’s license smile, and waves. Yeah, she doesn’t…it must’ve been a long week, or maybe a rough drive or something. She looks tired.

“Hi.” He’s not sure what to call her, still. Miss Haywood is too disconnected, Sheila’s too personal, and it’s way, way too soon for Mother. Names are a pain. “I’m not late, am I?” He knows he’s not. “Monorail was packed.”

“So was the subway. Can I…?”

Her arms are half-out and he figures she’s asking for a hug. He can do a hug, as long as it’s a short hug.

“Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”

Holy crap, she feels frail. But to be fair, barring Dick’s tackle-hug, everyone’s felt frail since…since. So it could just be him. Hugs are weird now.

(“HUG YOUR DADDY!”)

No. Not today. Everything’s fine.

It’s a sort-of short hug, short enough, anyway, and he wonders, abstractedly, if a day will ever come that he’s used to that sort of thing again. If it even matters whether he does or doesn’t.

It does. Of course it does. And the day will come, in time, and he’ll be better, be normal, be what people want him to be.

Little steps.

* * *

They’ve fallen into a companionable silence and for once Jason’s not jumping whenever someone walks by in a purple sweater or anything when Sheila forces her lips out from between her teeth and says, “I know you were Robin.”

Well. That’s, uh, there’s that out of the way.

“Yeah.” There’s clearly no point in denying it. She probably put it together when Batman came knocking. “For a little while, yeah. I was.” He tastes blood, wonders how long he’s been doing that, and wishes he had gum. Or a mint. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right off, I just…old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Oh God, no, no, I didn’t mean-” She takes a drink. Her hands are shaking, she’s shaking and he doesn’t know what’s wrong. “I just. I thought I should probably make it clear that I did know, so you wouldn’t…I know I was absent, but I don’t want…you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide things from me.”

Oh. That’s. He doesn’t know what to say. Bruce, God knows, has the emotional capabilities of a Himalayan Salt Lamp. Thankfully Jason hadn’t been the type to go through crushes every two weeks, or he probably would have been in Hell. He certainly wouldn’t have…it’s not like he would have shut down the conversation, but sharing and caring? That would have been awkward and best not repeated. Alfred was the go-to for that sorta thing.

All right, then. Since they’re dropping sudden bombshells ‘n all…he has to know.

“You worked for Joker.” There. It’s out. He said it.

And now he kinda regrets it-the self-loathing on her face is a pretty good match for his own, and he can’t tell himself it’s anything less than deep, deep wishing to have made better choices.

“I did.” She straightens up, begins tearing apart a piece of bread on her plate. “Briefly. I’m not proud, but he had a line to my mother, knew where she lived, knew her schedule…knew.” She swallows hard. “Knew she had to rubber-band her jam jars because she couldn’t open them otherwise. I panicked. But it was only for a couple of months-pills, he wanted pills, as much as I could get him. And then he just…went away. I don’t know what he did with them.”

Honestly, after everything, he can’t…he doesn’t have the right to say much. And honestly? There was that one guy, who accidentally cut the fucker off in traffic and couldn’t get away from him.

And look at him. The first man he killed, that wasn’t…oh, sure, he probably had it coming, at least a little, but Jason wasn’t thinking about that or considering it like he does now, he just…he wanted to kill Bruce. Because that was right and reason at the time even though he knows it’s insanity now.

No, he can’t say much.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and it’s suddenly easier to look at his hands. “I didn’t…that sounds awful.”

“No.” She tips his chin up and it’s an effort not to pull away and to remember that it’s fingers, warm human fingers, and not the pointy end of a crowbar against his skin. “You deserved to know. It’s only fair.”

Truth be told, it’s a relief to know that she hadn’t…yeah, technically she could’ve…maybe done something different, but she hadn’t wanted to work for him. She wasn’t like the ones he’d christened Dumb and Dumber that…they enjoyed that kinda work.

Lunch is finished in relative silence after that, though, and he’s wondering what’s going to happen now when she rifles through her purse and swears.

“Damn…I meant to grab an old photo album I wanted to show you, with some old family pictures and things.”

Pictures of Willis? Yeah, he’s good. Pictures of other people might be interesting, though.

“Next time?”

“My apartment’s a few blocks over.”

Something feels off. He’s paranoid, he knows he’s paranoid, but something…she’s been shaky and weird all afternoon and he doesn’t…

Calm the fuck down, you freak out when someone window-shops for too long!

“Is everything…is everything okay?”

Or maybe something is wrong-she pulls a napkin over and there’s suddenly a pen in her hand.

“I really do want you to see these pictures, Jason,” she says, but her hand is moving and there’s the ever-so-faint skrit-skrit of pen on paper. “I swear you got my mother’s eyes.”

The napkin slides over to him and he glances down. Her handwriting’s spikey and awful-doctor writing to the bone-but his is no better and he can read it well enough.

An old colleague has been hanging around the hospital lately.

Oh.

That explains a bit.

“Sure.”

Her shoulders drop and she crumples the napkin, nails picking it into shreds.

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she says softly, nearly too soft for him to hear, and he’s quick to shake his head.

“No, no, I don’t mind, I’m glad you…if there’s anything I can do to…”

Shit, she looks like she’s going to start crying and that is indeed PANIC in his throat. Tears are not good.

“You’re a good boy.” Her voice is watery but there are no tears to be seen. Thank Jesus. “I promise next time we have lunch it’ll be normal.”

Oh, good, things haven’t plummeted down to fiery Hell because of all the revelations flying around.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he says, and whoops that’s his ‘all will be well, citizen, never fear!’ voice. But it must work, because the about-to-cry look disappears. “Um. Do you wanna…it looks like it’s gonna rain, should we get going?”

And so they do.

* * *

The wind has picked up and it smells like rain. He’s not looking forward to patrol later.

The wind’s not so bad, though, to stop Sheila from lighting up with a self-depreciating, “I know I’m a doctor and should know better, but I honestly don’t care.”

“I can’t really say anything.” He holds up his own pack and rattles it before pulling one out. It’s not as calming as it usually is and he doesn’t know why.

Eh. It’s been a long day, that’s all. He’s not used to interacting with people on a personal level anymore, which is his own fault and probably not necessarily a good thing.

The first few drops have started to fall when they arrive at her building-big, square, and simplistic. She fishes out her keys while they’re in the elevator (which smells like new car, for some reason).

The hallway is deserted. It’s a little creepy, to be honest-his own building might be crap, but there’s always activity. And then, of course, there was Arkham’s hallways, or what he could hear of them. Noisy. Always noisy. But this? Wayne Manor was silent like this. It unsettled him then and it unsettles him now. Call him a city boy, whatever, but he needs noise.

The brass knuckles and knives in his jacket are warm and comforting and he knows he’s not gonna need ‘em, but they make up for this creepy-ass silence.

Sheila opens the door and motions him inside. It’s dark inside-blackout curtains, probably-but he can hear the rain. It smells like new car in here, too, and he wonders, off-handedly, why-

-it’s not empty. He’s walked into one too many ‘empty’ buildings to be very, very attuned to the sound of somebody breathing. Okay. Be calm, back out and shut the door.

He’s about to do exactly that when the light switch clicks and bathes the whole place in stark white. White walls, white floors, white furniture.

Which only makes Harley Quinn stick out like a sore thumb in all that red and black.

“BAY-BEE!” She could never hope to match Joker’s grin, but she gives it a good go, stretching her makeup. Okay. Change of plans. Get Sheila out of here (and preferably out of the building), deal with Quinn. “It’s been a whiiiiile!”

He takes in the mallet leaning against the couch and the shotgun (are those fuzzy dice? Really?) in her hands and comes to the conclusion that great, she’s riding the crazy train.

But maybe she hasn’t seen Sheila yet. Where’s that goddamn light switch?

He moves, only a little, only to feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his lower back.

“Don’t. Move.”

And the world drops out from under him.

No. No, no, no, she said she quit, it was over, she said they’d let her go, she said-

The door shuts. He twists so he can still see Quinn in his peripheral. Sheila’s face is a blank mask-no tears, no joy, no nothing. Just quiet determination and he doesn’t understand, she said…

“Mom?” The word feels thick and wrong in his mouth, but maybe…maybe she’s brainwashed or hypnotized or something, maybe she doesn’t…isn’t…

“Sorry, kid.” The words are harsh but her tone isn’t. Quinn giggles in the background but she sounds so far away and Sheila’s still pressing a gun against him. “It was you or me, and, well…it had to be you.”

What?

“Aww, come to mama, baby!” Quinn giggles again before straightening up and scowling. “Now.”

His feet drag him forward, sneakers scuffing against the white carpet an’ Heaven’s s’posed ta be white, innit, so why does this feel like Hell and what’s going on she said she said-

For once horrible, desperate second, he wants Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t…yeah, he’d thought, at first, that he’d left him but he knows that he didn’t, he really didn’t, he just…

Bruce wouldn’t have pulled a gun on him, he wouldn’t and God, if he’d just fucking talked to him-

“I did what you wanted, Quinn.” Sheila’s voice is so, so flat and is this all she wanted from the beginning? Is it? “Now call your man.”

Quinn doesn’t even look at her. She’s looking at Jason like she always did-like she’s torn between wanting to rip his head off and wanting to wrap him in a blanket and keep him.

This is his own goddamn fault, he just thought…just once, just once-

“Quinn!” Desperation now, and the gun wobbles against his hoodie as she steps out from behind him. “I did what you said! Call your man!”

Okay. Okay.

He forces himself to take a few deep breaths that taste like that last cigarette outside and says, voice as steady as he can make it, “Let her go, Harley. Leave her alone, I’ll. I’ll do what you want, just. Just let her go.”

“Aww, look at you!” Her pigtails sway and he finds himself oddly hypnotized by the movement. “I knew ya had to be Robin for a reason.”

Yeah. Yeah, he was Robin and that’s all he’ll ever be, the one that fucked up.

“Please, Harley.”

“Nyeh…” She adjusts her grip on the gun, finger dancing near the trigger, and looks down at her knuckles. “Eeny, meanie, miny, moe, catch a Batman by the toe. If he hollers, let ‘im go, eeny…meanie…miny…moe!”

He sees it before she does it, but there’s no time-he’s moved maybe half a centimeter before the gun goes off-

-and Sheila.

Falls.

His ears are ringing. They’re ringing and everything’s so white except her, all blonde and blue and so fucking red because Harley didn’t miss and if he’d been quicker, he should have been-

“Aww, don’t be sad!” Harley’s not alone, of course she’s not. He should have known from the start stupidstupidstupid. “Doncha know what happens to people who know too much?”

Her eyes are open. They’re open and they’re looking at him like this is his fault and it is if he hadn’t…

S’like Joker said, once.

“Good boys know how to lay down and DIE.”

“Mistah J had a spot for ya, baby.” Huh? “But you up an’ left us before it was time! So since it’s his birthday-” The fucker has no birthday he just appeared one day too evil for Hell. “-I thought I’d get my puddin’ somethin’-” She winks. “Real nice.”

And they’re on him.

Harley’s goons are dumb, but they’re also big and they manage to drag him down for a minute before he gets a knife out of his sleeve and drives it into the nearest jaw.

“Andre!” Yeah, Andre ain’t comin’ back from that any time soon. “I thought we taught you manners!”

He reclaims his knife and scrambles back up and okay okay maybe he can get outta this-

WHAM!

Lights out.