Look at Me
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The stars shine brighter in New York than they do in Gotham.
Somewhere out in the city, Jason is investigating a string of strange murders. They'd gone over the case files earlier in the day, analyzing police reports and crime scene photos Thea hacked. Before leaving the apartment, Jason suggested Red Robin make an appearance.
"I wouldn't mind the extra hands."
Thea had turned slightly, inclined her head, let her fingers rub thoughtfully on the book she'd borrowed from Jason's sparse shelves. She thought about it, seriously, because this deserved serious thought, before shaking her head.
He hadn't pushed.
She sits on the roof of the apartment building instead as she waits for her friend-companion-something to return. Swings her legs over the edge with a borrowed sweater from Jason's couch because most of what she has right now is his.
It's soft. Warm. It smells like Jason, something she's coming to associate with a measure of safety. It's dangerous, she knows, like Alice falling into the rabbit hole, but she can't bring herself to do anything about it.
Thea hasn't gone back to her apartment yet – doesn't want to face the impersonal interior she hadn't bothered decorating since moving in. Doesn't want to face the mess of clothes and things, the life she'd made of hacking and casework and marathon days with only coffee to keep her going. She doesn't want to see the dead flowers that might have piled up on her doorstep or on her windowsills, from a small ninja stranger who – well.
Red Robin lives in that apartment.
Thea, somehow, lives with Jason.
It's still a strange thought, but no less true. The apartment is a bit cramped with two people living in it now, but there are blankets and pillows on the couch Thea sleeps on and an extra toothbrush in the bathroom.
Jason doesn't exactly make a lot of money. She's seen him counting out his funds on the kitchen table late at night sometimes when he thinks she's fallen asleep. She's seen him run his hand through his hair and then down his face as he looks at the pile of bills. The equipment and medicals supplies, as well as their maintenance, can't be cheap – aren't cheap, and there are reasons why most people can't maintain double lives for very long.
Thea's never been strapped for cash. She still isn't. She's got a pile of funds in the bank, from her parents and Bruce, and she can probably make more if she takes up a real job. 'Real', in that it actually pays her something.
Red Robin doesn't have a paycheck. Just … benefactors. A benefactor.
Thea doesn't even know what Jason's doing for a living now. It's sort of a tossup between living off the money he'd made as Gotham's temporary crime lord or turning into a small-time mercenary.
Honestly, it could be both.
Thea hums, watches the city lights, listening to the nightlife not too far below. Doesn't turn around when a muffled thump emanates from behind her.
"I hope you're not planning what you look like you're planning."
She says, "I'm not."
"Good, that's good." Jason sits down beside her in his Red Hood gear sans the helmet. A sideway glance reveals he's kept the mask on.
Boy scout.
"What're you doing out here?" he asks, because this is what he does now. Which is strange and delightful, having someone to ask that again. Strange and delightful and somewhat terrifying.
"Nothing," Thea says. "Thinking."
Jason hums idly. "Anything good?"
"I should probably get some things from my apartment." She inclines her head, trying to make it look thoughtful. Because she is. Being thoughtful. Full of thoughts. So many. "I can't keep borrowing your stuff."
"Sounds like a plan."
Thea tucks her knees under her chin.
"Know when you're gonna do it?"
"No."
Jason nods, eyes on the city. "Leave a note before you go, or I'll think you've been kidnapped."
What escapes Thea isn't a proper laugh. More of a snort than anything, followed with a giggle. She tosses her head back and looks up at speckled night sky and listens to the sound of the Red Hood slipping away to discreetly enter the apartment somehow. Eventually, she follows him inside, into the warmth, where he smiles at her under the warm glow of the artificial lights and she can think that maybe one of these days, she'll be able to smile back.
,
Somewhere out in the world, there is a child of dubious relation to Thea. A child, who has … problems, if the amount of flowers on the doorstep and windowsills of her apartment are any indication.
Going inside would be incredibly stupid at this point.
She unlocks the door and lets it stay open as she steps through the threshold.
The furniture is wrecked, and angry scratches mar the walls. Pink carnations lie on the floor, scattered around. Some of them even make it in her drawers and the cupboards. The air smells overwhelmingly of dead flowers as Thea shoves her clothes and necessary items into a duffel bag. Every second strings a wire inside her chest tighter and her hands are shaking and she needs to get out.
She can't find her mother's shawl.
Never mind; she can come back for it later. Her pulse drums in her ears and fills the seconds as she stuffs her laptop and charger and a few of the data banks into her backpack. Her wallet gets thrown inside, too, and she zips up the backpack and the duffel bag.
The bedroom door whines behind her. Thea whips around in a ready stance and sees–
Sees a child, a small one, maybe a little smaller than Damian, standing by the entrance. His dark brown hair is straight and short-cropped, facial features sharper than Thea's, and his eyes are a vivid, poisonous shade of green.
He stares at her and Thea stares back, trying not to look too much like a deer caught in the headlights.
How did she not smell him? Why doesn't she smell him now? Is there a suppressor in his clothes? Dear God, where did he get those fucking green eyes? Even Ra's' eyes aren't that green.
"Mother."
His voice, childlike but trying not to be, jolts Thea.
"I'm Gray," he says quietly, almost a whisper in the dead air between them. "I'm your son."
Thea nods. Straightens.
Her son. And a part of her knows it's true, somehow, even if it doesn't make sense. Without proof, without justification, she knows.
"Does Ra's know you're here?" Thea asks, her grip on the backpack tightening. Worst comes to worst, she's perfectly willing to abandon everything and make a break for the window.
"No," he replies dispassionately, not moving a step as he speaks, as he eats her with his wide, doe eyes. "Mother."
"You…" Thea swallows, tries to calm the beat of her heart. Ra's won't be coming. "You trashed my apartment."
"You disappeared."
"So you went to my apartment … and wrecked everything?"
"Yes."
Slowly, Thea edges towards the window, the duffel bag's straps in her hand, her backpack slung over one shoulder. She hopes for subtlety, but Gray's gaze follows her like an owl's: his head turns instead of moving his eyes. The rest of his body stays utterly still and there's something incredibly unnerving about the entire movement and lack thereof that crawls under Thea's skin.
The hell did Ra's do to him? Even Damian didn't move like that when he first came to the Manor. Damian.
"Father told me you weren't ready for a reunion yet."
Thea's heart jumps into her throat. Father. Right. Fuck. "Oh? Did he say anything else?"
"That you don't understand." Gray's voice remains flat, remains factual. Thea steps backwards, on petals, towards the window. It's not so far away anymore. "That you've committed yourself to a cause that will eat you alive."
"Did he tell you..." Thea swallows down her scream. "Did he tell you what he did to me?"
He can't really be that twisted, can he? Ra's, with all his pride, wouldn't tell his own damned child that the only way he got him was through – well. Not entirely legal or moral means.
"No."
For a moment, Thea is relieved – and grateful. So, strangely grateful. Then–
"But I looked up the security tapes."
Thea stares at him. "Security tapes."
Gray nods once, a bob of his little head. "Father had no pictures of you, so I hacked into the archives for the dates in which you would have had contact with him."
She feels faintly sick. "And?"
His lip curls slightly, the only hint of disgust. "I found you."
"Disappointed?" Thea knows she shouldn't antagonize him like this, that she doesn't know exactly what he's capable of, but nothing feels real. She doesn't feel real anymore. "With how your father got you?"
"Father is a bastard."
The admission relaxes Thea. This is something. Good because Ra's is a bastard and maybe not so good because Ra's is also the kid's – Gray's dad and what does that do to a child's psyche? What does it do to a child to watch his dad – to watch his dad rape his mom?
Her fingers tremble at the thought. At the admission in her head. Rape. That was what happened. That was Ra's did to her. And now here, in front of her, are the results of it.
Sort of.
"You were born in a lab," she says, though it comes out as a query.
"Yes."
"How?"
"After his failure to impregnate you traditionally, Father took some of your reproductive material and combined it with his. He then accelerated the rate of growth – half a year aged my body to almost a decade."
"So, you're ten. Physically."
Just like Damian was.
"Nine," he corrects blandly.
"Why doesn't Ra's know you're here?" Thea is close enough to the window now, close enough to run and jump out but curiosity bids her to stay. And something inside her, stronger than curiosity, stronger than the almost overwhelming instinct to run, needs to know.
"Father might know where I am," Gray concedes with a slight, calculated tilt of his head. "But if he does, he has not acted upon the knowledge." He pauses, piercing gaze narrowing; the crunch of breaking glass is deafening when Thea takes another step back. His finger twitches and she doesn't know what it means, doesn't know what he thinks, how he thinks, if she should base her assumptions off what she's seen from Damian or try to assume he's stranger than that or more normal.
Somehow, she doesn't think he's more well-adjusted than Damian. Sue her, but it might be the flowers and broken furniture.
"You're afraid of me," he says, softly, and his shoulders sag somewhat.
He doesn't want her to be?
"You did wreck the apartment." The words come out absurdly airy, but this is just not … there is no precedent, and Thea's mind is whirling.
"I did."
And Thea looks at the small child standing by the doorway, the child watching her, drinking in the sight of Thea. Hanging onto her words, throwing a temper tantrum when he couldn't find her and waiting for her to return…
She thinks of Damian, who wanted nothing more than his father's love and recognition, even when he didn't know the right way to get it.
She thinks of Dick as she lets go of the bags and goes down on one knee. As she gestures him forward, watches him slowly approach. His eyes are unsure, his movements just the slightest bit clumsy. He didn't anticipate this, and she wonders what that says about – everything.
It doesn't fully dawn on her until she's wrapping her arms around his stiff figure that he might expect her to hit him.
"Mother," he stutters. His arms hang by his side.
The seconds tick by and grow into minutes. Thea doesn't move, doesn't budge an inch from her position, resting her chin on the juncture between his shoulder and his neck. She hugs him close but not tightly, knows how such a thing can be misconstrued as a possible attack.
She doesn't know how long it takes before Gray finally lifts his arms around her. She feels his little hands settle against her back, only a year old and already so big. He should only be a baby, only a toddler by now, but here they are, as they are, and Thea can only hold him closer for it.
He is her son.
She is his mother.
These are the facts. Now, what will she do with them?
Gray's fingers dig into her clothes, grasping her, and he chokes, "Mother."
Thea breathes him in and calms herself. She breathes him in and tells herself this is real, that she needs to plan, that she needs to do something and there are things she knows and things she doesn't, but she can't be careless. She can't disappear. Not now.
Not anymore.
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Author's Note: I am so unbelievably afraid to post this chapter. But I've decided to finally reveal the character and let Gray and Thea meet, and I really hope I got the interactions right.
I am so incredibly grateful for the support and feedback I've gotten from everyone. And I hope that you were able to enjoy this chapter even with the turn it took.
Thank you for reading!