"We had time on our side
In the beginning we
We had nothing to hide
In the beginning you
You blame me but
It's not fair when you say that I didn't try
I just don't want to hear it anymore"
Three Days Grace, "Let it Die"
Moving the Harpers from the safehouse on Bleake to my firehouse was simple. Roy, and an admittedly adorable little three-year-old named Lian, only had a couple of duffel bags between them. The hard part was that they only had a couple of duffel bags between them. This was a single father, on the run and being blackmailed by criminals, carrying around his whole world on his hip.
My hands were elbow deep in the blanket closet in the dorms of the firehouse, trying to find softer ones in the back, when I heard them talk in lower whispers by one of the beds. Roy crouched, his ear bent to his girl, and when I walked over with the blankets, he had his hands on her shoulders. "Go on. Go ask him, see what he says."
Lian Harper looked up at me with doe eyes, black pigtails, and removed her thumb from her mouth to ask, "Uhm…" She turned to her dad, whispered, "What's his name?"
"Jason," Roy said, and I fought a smile as Lian tried again.
"Uh, hi Jason," She started, and when I got on one knee, her nose flushed pink. "Do you know what that is?"
She pointed at the hammock I set up at the back of the room. I stood up, and took her hand to lead her to it. "It's a hammock, you sleep in it."
Roy picked her up to hold her on his hip as I maneuvered into the hammock, and swung back and forth. Lian's eyes got big, and she whispered something to Roy in his ear, hiding her face in his hair.
"Does she wanna try it?"
"Yeah," He said, and smirked. "But she wants you out of the hammock."
I squinted at Lian, a wry smile on my face, and slipped out. Kids. First you get them away from blackmailers and murderers, and then nothing is sacred.
Roy laid her in the hammock, his hands I was sure were as rough as mine from fighting, but he treated her like glass. He rocked her, his eyes crinkled at the corners, and she giggled. After a minute of rocking, Lian's eyes were on her father before she finally let them close. I grabbed one of the softer blankets, and tucked it in around her in the hammock.
"Where's her mom?" I asked Roy when we started to move away so she could sleep.
"Dead," Roy frowned, and looked away from me, his jaw tight. "They killed her the first time I said no to helping them."
I grabbed his forearm and stopped him. "Anytime you wanna tell me who 'they' are, the sooner they'll be dead."
"I never saw their faces, okay? It was always an older woman," He said, his voice strained with discomfort. "She said she had a son-"
"-did you ever see her son?" Too easy. Talia wasn't even hiding her tracks. She was taunting me. I led him to the bathroom, and got out the duffel bag of medical supplies. "How old was he?"
"Couldn't be more than twelve." He stripped off his shirt, pale freckled skin, green tattoos down both arms, and thin scars around his torso. I had him turn around so I can fix up the gash my shuriken left on his shoulder. "Do you know who he is?"
I tore open a packet of sterilized needles for stitching with a little more force. "How much do you know about me?"
Roy stared at my reflection in the mirror. "Not much...I know you were a Robin, that you died a while back, and now you're here. That's it."
That's all the more anybody who ever worked with the Justice League was allowed to know. Oliver may have been closer to Bruce than say, Martian Manhunter, but that doesn't mean that he knew about what I did when I was supposed to be dead.
I threaded the needle, unscrewed the antibacterial cream jar and had him hold it while I stitched. Years of practice allowed me to do it relatively quickly, though it was still a long gash. "Oliver ever tell you who Batman was?"
"He didn't have to," His muscles tensed when I said his mentor's name. There was still some bad blood, maybe, but I didn't care about that. "I saw you once, y'know."
My hands stopped on the thread, and I looked at him in the mirror. "What?"
"Oliver took me to a Wayne Foundation gala right after I became Speedy," Roy said, something old and boyish in his voice. Like he was looking through his younger self's eyes. "I didn't talk to anybody really, but it wasn't much of a stretch to figure out that the people Ollie was shaking hands with were Leaguers. Clark, Diana...all of them. I recognized their eyes, their voices. And then Oliver walked to the main table where you and Bruce were. You were talking to him, you were smiling. And he was smiling back. I knew he was Batman and you were Robin. Partners. In all the ways Oliver and I just weren't."
I tore my eyes from him, forced myself to stare at the wound in his back with my shoulders tense. Anxiety bubbled in my gut as I sighed. "...We're not partners anymore. Far from it. That's not the point. That punk kid that's glued to Talia's side? That's her son. With him."
Roy's ginger eyebrows knitted in the mirror. "What? They've got a son. Like...a blood son?"
"Punches like him, too," I remembered, and something festered in me as I said, "Yeah, that little brat is his. Talia put something in his drink the last time he was in Metropolis, years ago. Date-raped the Batman. She talked like it was some romantic night of passion, but no…" I tied off the end of the stitch, my forearms flexing. "Right after it happened, I wanted to go get revenge for him, but...he said that she'd be long gone. And that it wasn't much use because nobody would believe him." The Batman, a rape victim. I still remember how angry Alfred was.
"You talk about him like Batman's still alive." Roy didn't say it like an accusation or with skepticism, just as an observation.
"He is."
Roy didn't gasp, or say 'oh my god', or anything like that. He barely reacted, just nodded.
"You don't seem surprised," I said, taking swipes of antibacterial cream and dabbing it over the stitch. Didn't want to get infected with a little girl around.
"He's Batman," Roy said, as if it explained everything.
"And now she's got a son that she can hold over his head," I took the jar from him, and he turned around. "I'll rip her head off for what she's done." To him, to you, to me, to everyone.
I went to move past him to zip up the duffel, but he blocked my way. "Shirt up, you've been holding your side all day," When I tried to move anyway, he pushed me back. "Nope. You're giving my daughter a roof over her head, let me at least help you. With your injuries and with the League of Assassins."
Roy didn't budge. I shook my head, lifted my eyes to ceiling to lament quietly as I started to shrug my shirt off. He took the hair-tie off his wrist and combed his hair back until he could put it into a bun. "What about you? Where'd you go all that time?"
What is it with me and inviting nosy people to live with me? Although, if I had to bet money, I'd say he was asking because he wanted to know the kind of guy he had his daughter around. I figured it was best to be honest. "...Fear Halloween."
"What about it?" He studied the purplish splotches that darkened my ribs, and retrieved one of the cooling pads from the duffel, along with the plastic wrap. I hesitated, and he looked up at me, "Dude, I had a kid with a supercriminal, and told Oliver Queen to kiss my ass if he didn't like it. There's zero judgment on my end."
"I'm-...was the Arkham Knight."
Roy's eyebrows lifted so high I thought his forehead might disappear. I waited for all the reactions I'd received from other people, all the possible reactions. Bruce's second, fighting chance. Dick's skepticism. Barbara's absolution and concern. Tim's anger and distrust. Abigail's anger. Or maybe a mix of all of them. I expected a punch, maybe. Or him to just start shouting. Or to leave the room and grab his bow and his daughter and leave. Maybe grab his bow, shoot me, then grab Lian and leave. Something in that order.
But Roy Harper surprised me.
He straightened, pushed a cooling pad against the bruises, and put my finger on the end of the plastic wrap. "Pirouette."
"What?"
"Pirouette," He said again, turning me until I got the idea. Every pass I made as I spun, he still wasn't fazed.
"Did you hear what I said?"
His lips popped on the 'p'. "Yep."
I waited until he stopped me, taped the plastic wrap to my side and handed my shirt back. His silence was beginning to unnerve me. I carefully put my shirt back on, and zipped the duffel bag to put it away. "You don't mind that I was the Arkham Knight."
"'Was' being the important word in that sentence," Roy pointed out. He opened the door, then met my eye and opened his arms. "Look man, I don't agree with what you did, but I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and act like I was the perfect sidekick either. Whatever drove you to do what you do had to be pretty bad, and I'm sure it has somethin' to do with the level of scar tissue on you."
My chest burned as he said that. I hadn't even noticed that in taking my shirt off to deal with my injuries, I had shown him my scars. A year ago, I would have refused outright. "It does, and it's a big part of why bringing Talia al Ghul down is important."
"Then whatever you need, ask," Roy lifted a hand, and walked out of the bathroom to the dorms. "I'll try to keep Lian out of the ammo."
"You sure it's alright for me to drop by like this?"
The armchair he'd corralled me into the moment I walked in had nearly swallowed me in softness. I curled my fingers around the cup of tea he gave me, the heat licking the cold from my fingers. Gotham never failed to take the earliest possible moment to freeze everybody solid, but the moment I was in Alfred's place at the Clocktower, I was surrounded with warmth.
"I told you the first time, Master Jason," He said, his sweater not hanging on him like last time. He was eating better, and I knew his eyes were checking me for the same thing. "You're always welcome here."
He sat in the chair opposite me in his small sitting room, coffee table sculpted to look like a clock face between us. It felt so much like our midnight talks at Wayne Manor that I smiled in thinking the clock had actually gone back years. Alfred wasn't talking about the first time since I'd arrived...he was talking about the first time we met. The first question I'd ever asked him is if I'd really be living at Wayne Manor, if the big bed was really mine. It was the same answer, every time I'd asked. You're always welcome here. You're always welcome here. And after my conversation with Bruce when I stole his watch, I believed it.
"So...I just did something that's either gonna go exactly how it went last time when I took someone in, or it's gonna gonna a bit better." I said, my eyes on my tea. I sipped.
I loved and hated looking at Alfred. I loved seeing him, knowing he still walked the earth and cared and worked so damn hard and deserved more. But seeing the extra lines that hadn't been there, the new gray hairs. I hated being reminded that time had gone where I wasn't with him.
I could sense his amusement. "Alright. What did you do?"
"Roy Harper, Oliver Queen's ex-ward...well, Talia pressed into him by using his young daughter as leverage to pin an assassination attempt on me," I met his gaze, briefly. Just enough to see if he disapproved. "I helped him out of the building and he got his daughter back unscathed. They're both at the firehouse, I'm letting them stay there until I can work out a next move."
Alfred drank from his teacup and looked at me. He took off his glasses, which he set on the coffee table. "Master Jason, you never tell me what you're up to unless you've already figured out the next ten steps. You only need a second opinion on those steps, correct?"
"Right."
"What's your plan?"
I sipped my tea and launched into my proposed course of action. "I play it out like Roy had succeeded, I let Lex point the finger at me. He won't take an assassination attempt lying down, not the man with a Kryptonite-powered warsuit in his closet. He'll put out a hit, a bounty, something with some heavy money behind it. He's got enough to lose to make a point."
"And as for his political gain?" Alfred asked, waving a hand. "He's running for President, mind you. America votes next month. I'm no politician, Master Jason, but I know there is a sentiment that those in your line of work are nothing more than criminals for acting outside the law, however altruistic your intentions may be."
"I know that," I said, "I tried to drill it into Tim's head after the old man disappeared. If Lex tries to spin it that way, there's gonna be a lot of backlash, regardless of sentiment. We may have acted outside the law, but we did a lot of good. I mean, not really me, but you get my point."
"Master Jason…" Alfred opened his mouth to say more, but decided better of it.
He'd already made the argument a thousand times since coming back to Gotham that I was a force for good, not for some twisted form of vengeance of my own making. I understood where he was coming from, but the word 'hero' was still a four-letter word.
"He may try to put American people against heroes," Alfred sounded worried, the same concern in his voice with warning me about storms and serial killers. "And if that day comes, I don't want you distancing yourself from us. I don't want you throwing yourself into the fire to save us." I started to protest, but he shut me down. "I know you couldn't if you tried, Master Jason...I just don't want you to try anyway, for our sakes."
"What makes you think I would?" My voice didn't sound like mine when it was that quiet.
Alfred leaned forward, and took one of my hands from my cup. I couldn't avoid looking at him then, and it hurt. His voice cut into me when he said, "I only got you back, Master Jason. I watched Master Bruce throw himself into the flame to keep the rest of you anonymous, so the public wouldn't heave you up on crosses for ridicule or pedantry or slaughter...I think what you're doing for that little family is outstanding, keep doing it. That's the kind of work you should be doing, and I know - in my soul - that if Master Bruce could be here to see you…"
I looked down at my scarred fingers between his hands. "He'd be disappointed. That I'm still killing."
"I was with Bruce when you reemerged as the Red Hood," Alfred's grip on my hand tightened. "He's slowly making his peace with it. He understands that one cannot come from what you did and not be changed, not in some way."
Guilt swirled in me, and I felt it around my neck, constricting and keeping me from taking full breaths. I removed my hands from his. "Alfred, I kill because they deserve it. I kill because I'm good at it...it isn't because of J-...because of him. I don't like that it's changed me in Bruce's eyes," Something in my chest cinched closed when I said his name. "But I know the change is irreversible. If...if he's hoping to try to change me back to who I was when I was Robin, Alfred…" I met his eyes and held the gaze. I shook my head minutely. "...I'm telling you, right now, it won't happen. I'll look you in the eye, so you can vouch and tell him that I mean it when I say I kill because it feels good to put a sick, twisted person that just wants blood out of their misery."
Alfred's eyes widened. He looked like he wanted to throttle me for a moment, just a moment. And the way the light of the lamp made his graying hair lighter reminded me of her, how she looked before she punched me when she found out my secret. But instead of punching me, Alfred said, quietly, "Did I ever tell you what I did before I worked for the Waynes?"
I shook my head. Alfred, when I was Robin, was always far too focused on me to talk about himself. Even down to how he was doing.
"I was a spy, employed from the time I turned legal age, until the time my parents retired from the Waynes' service and told me it was my turn. The Pennyworths have always been in service of others," He smiled, the old pride that he exuded in everything he did. "Before the Justice League or the Justice Society, I served through the Cold War, gathering intelligence on Russia for the UN. I've had to look evil in the eye, Master Jason, and I did what you do because I was ordered to."
"That's not the same as-"
"-I know it isn't," Alfred sighed a long breath, "But at times, I would have done it regardless of orders. So I will make you a promise, Master Jason. If Master Bruce stays away for much longer, I will drag him back here myself…" I let out a low chuckle, and he shared it. "...and I will make him understand. But I must tell you that I do not think he will put up a fight. The letters I wrote to you are more than enough proof that even when you're well and truly lost, that he would move heaven and earth to find you again."
When I returned to the firehouse that night after visiting Alfred, the place was more alive than it'd felt in months. The massive Walmart bags knocked against my legs as I walked to the source of the noise: the kitchen. Roy was in sweats and a tank top, a baby carrier he must have brought with him strapped to his back with Lian braiding his hair in her tiny hands. A pan of scrambled eggs was being drowned in peppers under his spatula, and when he caught sight of me, his eyes went straight to the bags after plating their dinner.
"Listen, if you want me to reimburse you for whatever you got-" He tried to say, but I put the bags on the table and lifted a hand for him to zip it.
"Don't sweat it. These aren't even all for you," I said, and looked over his shoulder to Lian, who hid in her dad's hair, peeking at me. "These are for the lady."
I opened up the bags and pulled out a box for a booster seat. Both Harpers' eyes only got bigger when I produced puzzles, blankets, clothes for both of them, a play tent, a bag of plastic dinosaurs, and ten kids' books.
I looked between them, father and daughter, and waited for some reaction. After a full minute of silence, little Lian's hand shot out for the bag of dinosaurs. "Daddy, daddy, look. Look, dinos! Can I have one?"
I tore into the bag and handed her a pterodactyl figure. "Here's this one, but they're all yours."
Roy still hadn't said anything, and I was getting antsy. His hair in his face, he bent to install the booster seat into one of my kitchen chairs. He then unstrapped the carrier from his back, carefully placing Lian into the booster seat with her toy dinosaur. He moved to the kitchen counter, no doubt feeling my stare on his head, and cut up Lian's dinner, the non-pepper plate of eggs. He spent twenty seconds blowing on it, testing it over and over with his finger until it was cool enough.
When Roy placed it in front of her, Lian was looking up at her father and asked, in the tiniest voice, "Daddy, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, baby," He said, and bent to kiss her forehead. He glanced at me, just once, just long enough for me to see how his eyes were full of tears, and then spun on his heel to leave the room.
I followed him into the hall, and turned him around. "Talk to me. What'd I do?"
Roy pressed his back to the wall and exhaled a shaky breath. A tear rolled down his cheek. "You did great. You did what I should be doing. You're providing for her...I'm barely able to keep us alive and afloat...You've been in her life a handful of hours and you're already a better dad than I am."
"Dude," I felt something like shame pull my shoulders down. "I didn't mean to make you feel like you weren't a dad, I…" I sighed, and ran a hand through my hair. "...I've been alone in here, for a goddamn year. The last person in here was...the best friend I ever had. And it's been hell in here, alone without her and I don't think she's coming back. So...I want to help."
"Jade, my wife- well…" I glanced down and saw that he was wearing a ring on his left hand. He furrowed his eyebrows and said, bitterness in his voice, "Oliver said it isn't marriage if it there's no wedding, that it wouldn't last, but...We were going to support our daughter. She was going to do one last heist, one last score to set us up for life. We were going to go somewhere warm, where Lian could see the sun. We were gonna make it work. Stupid in love, I guess…" Roy looked away, rubbed the back of his neck. "...But then she got killed, and now I'm alone too. Same as you. Here without my partner, raising a daughter that looks just like her."
I heard her voice when he said that, that last time we were just people in this firehouse, when she brought me home bags I never opened. Let me take care of you this time. Let me help you.
I swallowed hard. Even if it hurt to think about, she had taught me how valuable it was to have a friend when you're alone. And Roy was as alone right now as I was. I lifted a hand and placed it on his shoulder. "You ain't alone, Roy."
He met my gaze out of the corner of his eye, studying me. After a pause, I suppose he figured out that I meant it. And then he cracked a grin. "Don't tell me the hardass Red Hood is getting sentimental."
"Oh please," I took my hand back and rolled my eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm. "If I were getting sentimental, I'd put forth a lot more effort. Flowers, letters in the sky, the whole damn thing. Maybe we'd slowdance and you'd put your head on my shoulder."
"You see, I know you're joking, but somehow I can picture it." He followed me back into the kitchen, kneeling to pick up a dinosaur Lian had thrown onto the floor. "Would there be poetry?"
"I mean, I am an English sub teacher by day." I said, and he laughed, head thrown back as he sat by his daughter.
"Can you recite Lord Byron?"
I was glad my back was turned, my hand braced on the fridge door for a beer. The hours of reading with her echoed in my ears, and how she flushed when I recited 'She Walks in Beauty' smirking at her.
Even so, my mouth quirked a smile. "By heart."
