I don't think my life had ever been particularly normal. Not like I have much to compare it to, since I'm not the most social guy Having a hard time so much as looking at most people without wanting to punch them might have a little something to do with that.
It's not like this is the first time I've had to book it out of a city because I pissed off the wrong people. Think I mentioned a time in Star City earlier right?
Anyway, I'm thinking I'm either the luckiest bastard alive, or karma's really out to get me for some unforgivable wrong I've committed in a past life.
Let me explain.
After my last, er, run in with the law, I got sent to this fancy ass school where they feed me, give me a place to sleep, just about everything I need really, and all I have to do is sit on my ass listening to some old guys jabbering on about whatever for like six hours everyday.
That leaves me with like ten hours to do whatever, as long as I don't get into trouble while wearing the uniform.
Downside, a lot of those classes could be bottled and made into state of the art knockout gas, maybe they'd be interesting if they were teaching anything new, but come on, that stuff cant be tenth grade stuff.
I like my snazzy uniform, yeah I look good in anything, but I mean, it's cashmere or something… so soft and smooth I could just hold the fabric of the blazer against my cheek and snooze all day.
Actually that is exactly what I do, all throughout most of those boring ass classes.
Anyway, because I like my uniform so much, I don't really change it out for my torn up old threads much at all, and as you've probably noticed by now, I'm not the kind to stay out of trouble.
Would be kinda nice if that trouble weren't street gangs with knife fetishes though.
"Brentwood kid, aren't ya?"
I groan at the stereotypical thuggish voice without turning round to acknowledge its owner.
I've already been in like six fights just today. When they say Gotham had the highest crime rate in the country, they fucking mean it okay. This place is not a vacation spot, three out of ten stars would not recommend, you got that?
The asshole grabs me by my shoulder and stop walking, multicolored shards of broken glass crunching under my feet. I don't want to risk ripping my uniform by pulling away – I've only got four of these things okay.
"Rude." I shift my hands into my blazer pockets and direct my eyes over my shoulder. "Listen dude, I'm on a curfew and I got like an hour to get back so fuck off." I say it with a smile and everything, so polite.
He looks pissed for a second and his two buddies move to flank him, then he returns my smile, but the blade he flicks out kinda ruins the effect and I drop mine for a blank stare.
"Rich kids like you, thinking you can put down the rest of us." He tosses the knife and catches it again, guy can't be much older than me, not sure how old that is exactly, but still. "Pay up and maybe you only get a little blood on that snazzy suit of yours."
Well, at least the guy's got a good fashion sense. Too bad it doesn't extend to his own choice of clothing.
I begrudgingly turn around, reigning in all off myself control not to punch the guy in his poor attempt at a beard. All of them have knives and bloodstains'll be a bitch to get out of this green blazer. Gotta play this careful. Like a snake charmer gently coaxing a hissing viper out of its attack mode.
"Scholarship kid, sorry." I shrug, at least they don't have guns, means I can maybe talk them out of a fight that'll be ultimately pointless for all of us. I snap my fingers like I've had a grand epiphany. "But hey, you don't turn your stupid ass around and I might just put ya down anyway."
"What the…" Oh look, his eyebrow is twitching, actually his whole body is twitching. Oh god did I give him a seizure? Does giving someone a seizure count as manslaughter? Will manslaughter get me kicked out of school?!
"You need a hospital or something there bud?" I wave a hand in front of his face. "I didn't break your steroid addled brain, right?"
"You." He grinds the word out like it's physically painful for him and I take a step back, just so a have enough distance between us to keep away from that knife. My hands are still in my pockets though and I consider maybe pretending to have a gun in there.
Nah, they look dumb enough to believe me, but also cocky enough to try mugging me for the imaginary weapon.
He lunges forward and I duck neatly out of the way, but like sheep his pals move in to attack as well. Vicious, rabid sheep. With knives. One of them gets a bit close for comfort so I duck, sticking out my leg as I spin and knocking the guys feet out from under him.
There's a gross squelching sound from the dumpster he falls into, he practically leaps out and second later, covered head to toe in some – thankfully – unidentifiable sludge like the swamp monster out of that B grade horror movie I regret watching.
The smells what really gets to me, cause fuck that's disgusting, and no way in the ninth circle of hell am I letting any of that crap get on me. Way my luck's been going it'll probably turn me into some half baked supervillian.
"Okay, now you're ugly and need a bath." I say helpfully, shuddering as some of the sludge drips into his mouth. Fuck, all I did was look at it and I think I feel like I need a bath, and a tube of extra strength toothpaste too, more than one tube of extra strength toothpaste.
I'm still trying to figure out a way to win this thing without getting dirty when something flies out of the shadows, lithe and black, it swooshes past and knocks out the one closest to me with a spray of nose-blood that I have to remove my hands from my pockets to shield my face from.
The other is slammed into a wall and sludgy gets sent back to the dumpster where he will ultimately mutate into the larval form of whatever will be taking over the world in the near future. I consider moving over and pledging my allegiance in advance, but the black thing slips between me and the dumpster.
I'm ready to at least attempt going down fighting, but she – oh it's a she – doesn't attack.
"You are okay?" She caresses my head in her hands and gently turns it from side to side. That's weird, but weirder still is when she's tilting her head to the side like she's listening for something, then pats my head a few times. "Wait."
It feels like maybe waiting would be a good idea, but like every good idea a think I have, there's just something nagging at the back of my brain.
I take a few seconds to listen to mcSludge and his friends' high-pitched groans. Then I shuffle my feet and look down at my watch. Aw hell I've got like an hour to get back before I miss curfew.
My eyes move between the time, the creature to which I might still pledge my allegiance and the general direction in which the creepy girl disappeared.
"Fuuuuuuck." I draw out the word as I spin on my heel and high tale it out of there.
Being out of favor with the sludge overlord and getting my ass kicked by the weird ninja chick are distant possibilities. Missing curfew on my first night out could be a literal disaster.
By the time I make it back to Brentwood, my legs are numb and my lungs are those of a smoker on his deathbed. Still, as the gates close behind me with a final clang, I can honestly say I've never felt better in my life.
Have to have broken some kind of speed record to make it on time, they're gonna have to find some other reason to kick me out, cause missing the stupid curfew aint ever gonna be one of em.
And that reason might just be the bloodstain marring the front of my blazer. Fuck it.
x
x
x
The laundry room is dark, damp and creepier than any alley, smells a little better but not by much.
Same dumbass dress code that gives me the fancy ass uniform also mandates that I keep the stupid fucking thing clean. Unlike most of the kids that come here, I have neither parents to foist the thing off on, nor the money to just buy myself a new one.
So I'm stuck, by myself, in the creepy ass basement close to midnight while I try and make sense of the instructions on a bottle of stain remover.
I don't know why they're in German, I don't know how I can kind of read German, and I don't know how I let the skill slip so far that I can only kind of read the German.
What I do know is that I need to presoak the blazer in another product of the same brand and that I can't find that product anywhere.
The room is empty, so empty in fact that I'm considering using it as my personal hidey hole. There are long cabinets lining all of the walls, all filled with strong smelling detergents that I doub t are for students usage. Bet if a get creative I can make some kind of bomb out of…
"Hi Jason."
The fancy German soap flies from my hand, splattering all over the floor as a shriek that is definitely not mine bounces through the walls.
"Hello Timothy." I scowl as soon as my heart rate is back to normal and storm past him to retrieve the soap.
My little one-man fan club. Kid follows me around campus all fucking day long, and no that we have all the same classes doesn't make that okay.
Can't say I don't know what he sees in me , not to brag but I'm like the most amazing I know. (No I don't know any other people, but what does that have to do with anything.)
Really, though, I don't know what the fuck this kid sees in me.
"I guess you didn't get the note about the diner." He peers at the stain as I scrub, foregoing the presoaking, because who the fuck had time for that shit anyway?
I'd eaten my dinner in this little nook I found behind the wall surrounding the campus, because the cafeteria in this place is fucking packed and there are was not one empty table anyway.
"Bruce sent a car, to get you, and he got all worried, cause we couldn't find you anywhere, then Cass called in but…"
Huh, this blotch looks kind of like a smiley face, I scrub at it a little more vigorously. It's the blazers fault I'm stuck here in the first place burning my hands in soap that I'm only now realizing is labeled as machine wash only, it doesn't get to smile.
My stalker is jabbering in about how I don't know Cass, and how she can be scary, and I almost chuckle at that, because if he knew the kind of things I'd seen he'd know how whatever girl he was talking about wouldn't even faze me.
Apparently she was really looking forward to meeting me, but what girl wouldn't be. Look at me, being all domestic, getting the blood from my kick ass fight out of my own snazzy blazer. Trying to get the blood out, fuck it's still smiling at me.
"Can't you see I'm fucking busy?!" I wave my hand at the article of clothing in the basin. "I don't have time to fucking play with you now.
"You could have asked Alfred to get it out for you, I mean, he really wanted to see you tonight Jason, why didn't you come."
"Who's that, the laundry master?" I ask, wishing for a moment that I had gotten that sludge on me so I could develop heat vision and burn the stain away. "Cause you gotta tell him to get soap with instructions that are actually in English."
I angrily waved my hand, splattering the burning suds clinging to it all over the floor.
He chuckles, I just told some great fucking joke. "He'll wash out your mouth with…"
I rub at my tired eyes and shoot him a glare. "Anyone in this place tries to get soap near my mouth and I'll fucking end them." I'm too tired for this shit, so I abandon the blazer in the basin and turn to leave. I've got three others that are more reasonable, and thus more worthy of my love.
By the time classes are over tomorrow it'll either be stain free, or have come to life in that soap's toxic fumes and be some superheroes problem. Either way I'm going to bed.
Tim appears in front of me again and I fucking swear I'm going to die young of a heart attack if this keeps up.
"What do you want now you freakish little child?" I demand.
"Barbara Gordon." He says, his face so close to mine I could stick out my tongue and lick his nose. Not that I'll do it, because ew, but I could if I wanted to… maybe I will, later, see how he likes being creeped out. "Alfred Pennyworth. Dick Grayson. Eddie Bloomberg." He looks more and more desperate with each name he spits out.
"Sorry kid, if this is some memorizing the faculty game, you've lost me already." God I'm tired, and I think I've humored him enough for one night. Don't want him to get any ideas about being study buddies or something when I can barely get away from him as it is.
His voice cracks, his next words not even a shadow of his normally chipper tone. "Bruce Wayne?"
Okay that name, that one gets me. Gives me this weird feeling like I got a string tied around my heart and fuck, it might just strangle me. I must have gotten that soap in my eyes because they're prickling like a porcupine with a sewing kit and an acupuncture degree.
I don't answer him, brushing away the liquid, carrying on my merry way to bed where I can smother myself in that soft green pillow with the ridiculously high thread count and I can wake up to creamy oatmeal and another day of sitting on my ass listening to teachers tell me stuff I already know.
If the stalker crawls into his bed that night I don't see him, but the nest day the blazer I thought I'd ruined is draped over my desk.
It smells like lavender and something else that kind of makes me think of England. Maybe that Alfred guy found it taking up space in his laundry room, who knows.
I take one deep whiff of it and hang it carefully in my closet, not to preserve the smell, I'm not some weirdo that does shit like that, it's just… maybe it came to life last night, cleaned itself and is now baiting me into putting it on so it can take over my body and eventually the world.
I just don't want an evil, lavender smelling blazer to take over the world, that's all.