Injustice of Living
Chapter Eleven

Chapter 11: A Ride

The inside was dim, many of the windows being blocked by the odd storage item or so over run with grime and dust, light couldn't get through. I paused, giving my eyes just a moment to adjust to darkness in the wake of being dazzled by Metropolis' brightness. The building smelled like rotten concrete and mildew all topped with a whiff of industrial chemicals. But, there was something else to…

I paused to inhale. ...Spearmint?

I barely registered the sound of the door clicking shut behind me when I felt my head colliding with a brick wall.

A ricochet shot through my skull, stunning me instantly. My ribs were crushed by a heavy weight, arms ripped from my side and held tight behind my back. My busted wrist exploded in electric pain that made me scream.

It was terror and panic that made me fight back.

Despite being in the best shape of my life, my violent flailing did little to deter my attacker. I tumbled to the ground, awkwardly lodged halfway against the wall. I felt the sole of a large boot dig into the back of my right leg while they pressed all their weight into holding down my upper body. Their knee pressed down on my spine with excruciating pressure, making it extremely difficult to move any part of me below my waist. The circulation to my hands was painfully cut by their grip, leaving my wrist brace to chafe the delicate skin it covered. Again, I tried to thrash, only to twitch and flail hopelessly unable to break their constraint. Every move I made was painful and easily countered by the restrictive hold of my attacker. I was trapped.

Instinct left me and my training finally kicked in.

I rolled my shoulders forward, tucking my chin before swinging my head back into my assailant's chest.

I heard the solid thump of their body falling to the ground as they gasped back the breath I had just taken away from them. Before a moment could be wasted on their recovery, I flipped onto my side and blindly thrust back my elbow as hard as I could. They heaved once and coiled into a ball.

Gutshot. Worked every time.

I lept to my feet, shaking off the painful tingle of bruises forming over my arms and legs. Blood trickled down my cheekbone from a scrape near my hairline, sticking a few strands of my hair against the side of my face. Even with the surging onslaught of pain and blood, all I cared about was throwing a decent punch at whoever the fuck decided to jump me in a dark warehouse.

But just as my first drew back, I stopped short.

The assailant wore a motorcycle jacket and had an unmistakable mop of messy black hair.

'...Found him.'

And as much as I still wanted to follow through with my punch, the relief that washed over me was just too great. My arms fell to my side.

"Thank god," I breathed, ready to drop to my knees again.

"Goddammit!" Jason grumbled, clutching his midsection. He rolled over and shot up into a crouching position, ready to attack again when he saw it was me standing over him. "M-Maddy…?"

I offered him a hand which he gladly took, swaying awkwardly as he stood upright. His right arm stayed wrapped around his midsection, tenderly rubbing near the bottom of his ribs where my elbow made contact.

"What are you doing here?" he seethed, confused and frustrated.

"Looking for you, jackass!" I shot back, shoving him gently by the shoulders.

He stumbled despite my soft hit, hopping on one foot and grabbing a nearby crate for balance. That's when I saw his leg. His pants had been torn away to the knee, a bloodied bandage sticking to raw, burned skin, turning yellow at the edges with infected puss. A few weird patches of blue spotted the injury as well.

"What happened to your leg?" I gasped, now feeling extremely guilty for shoving him even though he had easily knocked me to the ground a minute ago.

"What happened to your wrist?" he countered, nodding to my brace, brow furrowed in concern.

"It's sprained," I huffed, hands going to my hips in a way that would probably remind him of my mother. "Now what the fuck happened to your leg? How are you even standing right now?! I mean- Shouldn't we get you to a hospital or something? That shit looks bad!"

"No," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "It's fine! Gonna leave a mark, but I'll live…" he paused, glancing over me, lingering on the gym bag that had been hastily thrown aside during our struggle. "Still...You don't have any lidocaine by chance, do you?"

I frowned with a shrug, scooping up the bag by the handle, retrieving a dollar store first aid kit. After the incident with my wrist and the growing amount of bruises I was gathering, I figured it wouldn't hurt to keep with me.

I watched silently as he dug through the cheap plastic box, pulling out the small bottle of generic pain reliever. I watched in fascination as he swallowed its entire contents dry. He chucked the kit back at me, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

"How'd the hell you find me, anyway?"

There had been such a long stretch of silence between us, I was startled when Jason finally spoke. Again, instead of responding, I just reached into the bag again. His eyes widened a bit as I pulled out the laptop and map, handing him the computer and unfolding the map on top of the crate he leant against.

I pointed to our location which I had marked with a red 'X.'

"I found this at our base not long after you left. I didn't think anything of it until I hacked into your laptop and found the Metopolis research file. All the articles you had saved were recent, and the city was in driving distance, so I figured this would be my best bet in finding you."

I had gotten lucky. This map could have easily meant nothing. For all I know, today was just a crazy line up of perfect dumb luck. Maybe karma was finally giving back to me after having to worry for so long. Maybe I was finally getting my cosmic reward for taking care of Jason Todd.

"You hacked my computer?" he asked, incredulous.

I shrugged, twisting my mouth to hide a smirk. "It was easy, I guess. Your password wasn't hard to figure out."

I wasn't going to tell him it took me seven hours and a bottle of vodka to do it.

"Oh," he deadpanned, rolling his eyes. "Maddy, it's not 'hacking' if you just guessed my password." He popped the screen up, triggering a wave of anger and nausea to sweep over me as I read the familiar red text.

PASSWORD:

I noted how he shot me an uncomfortable glace as he typed in the word "Crowbar," almost as if he was embarrassed. I did my best to keep from looking too judgemental. My bank account's PIN was the date of my mom's death, which is almost as morbid. In a way, these were great passwords… It's not like we'd ever forget them.

Jason cleared his throat, spinning the cursor over the desktop. "Looks like you had perfect timing. The hard drive is programmed to erase itself every thirty days, and all backup data is collected on a server outside of the country."

I blinked a few times, again deftly reminded of how little I knew about computers. "Like a burner phone…?"

"Sort of," Jason shrugged. He opened the same file I did, cursing under his breath as he read over what appeared to be a police report. "This isn't right… I should have double-checked my sources… Ugh, I'm such an idiot! Bush League mistakes..."

My brow furrowed as I stared at his profile. I've never seen him like this… Embarrassed, tense, frustrated, and just on the brink of losing his ever-present cool. I mean, he had never been quite as cool as he liked to think he was, but I can't really recall a time when he let me see him this out of his element…

Jason had his moods, of course. We all do. At his mother's funeral, I remember he just shut down. He didn't speak, didn't cry… He just... stopped. For weeks after, I would sneak him what meager food I could scrounge up from my kitchen, watching as he let it grow stale, refusing to even look at it. To even look at me. I would cry and scream at him to eat, to sleep or to talk. I had begged him to come back after shutting down, only to realize silence was what he needed. "Catatonic," I think… that's what the counselors call it.

His first "defeat" as Robin had been just as difficult. Bruce decommissioned him to weeks of bed rest, much to Jason's despair. I had a chance to visit him in the hospital right before he was released back to Wayne Manor. He had a broken arm and rib fractures. Everything from the neck down was covered in bandages. All I knew was that there had been an explosion, something to do with Two-Face. The brief interaction made me feel dejected and frustrated, more so than a supportive best friend had any right to be. He wouldn't even look at me. And even though I knew he was in pain, I got angry. In the end, the nurses asked me to leave. I guess that's just the type of effect Jason had on people… he could bring out their extreme. Or maybe it was just me.

Jason didn't seem to notice my scrutiny, "A drug cartel has been smuggling drugs into the U.S. via Gotham Harbor… They're being protected by one of the gangs in the city, probably the Russians. When I found out they were exporting beyond Gotham, I figured it would be a good idea to break down one of the smaller branches. ...I planned to extract information and shake up their business all at once, giving whoever's protecting the cartel a reason not to trust them any more…"

The way he spoke, the tired look in his eyes, his blank expression… Jason was starting to remind me of Bruce.

"Everything that could have gone wrong did. My arms supplier ghosted me, my information wasn't as accurate… They're were more of them than I had anticipated. They were armed to the teeth despite being low-ranking members. Street thugs with a military-grade arsenal. This goes further down than I thought, they're part of a serious operation... Metropolis is a whole new league of corrupt."

He scoffed like a jilted child, snapping the laptop shut with the same amount of frustration as I had. "This was supposed to be a cake walk… fuck."

"At least you're alive," I offered, placing a hand on his shoulder. "That leg looks bad enough, but it could have been worse…"

"They're bringing in heavy stuff," he growled, brushing off my hand. "They sell to anyone, it's getting to children. A dumbass like Superman might be blind, but I know Bruce is seeing this."

My brow furrowed, "But if he knew wouldn't Batman put an end to it?"

"Batman doesn't 'end' anything. He's the world's greatest detective, he knows about the four hundred pounds of amphetamines being created in."

I shook off my doubts. Part of me was getting annoyed at Jason's pessimism. Batman protected Gotham. But I couldn't bring myself to argue.

So I changed the topic, "I'm glad I found you. Didn't think it would happen so fast. I was ready to tear this city down."

"I would have been back in a few days," he scoffed, handing me back the computer like it was garbage. "Might as well turn back early. Either way, coming out here was too reckless. You could have compromised my mission and gotten yourself hurt. I mess with dangerous people, Madds-"

'Is he fucking serious right now? That ungrateful sonofa-'

I shook my head, a disbelieving laugh coating my words, "Yeah, but the whole point of my training-"

"Was to keep up!" He interrupted. "If you wanted to help-"

"You wanted my help-"

"What I wanted was for you to listen-"

"And follow orders?!" I finished for him. "Like a soldier or something? A dog? I'm not gonna just sit on my ass waiting to be summoned-"

"You can't just go off on your own, you don't know what you're getting into!"

That urge to punch him came back, "I'm not some dumbass kid anymore, Jason!"

"That doesn't mean you're in any less danger!" His expression turned to stone, "I was ready to take you out when I heard you walk in, just consider yourself lucky I didn't have a gun on me when you came through that door."

That shook me. Hadn't thought about that...

"I-if you had just told me what you were doing… Jason, I thought you left again. I-I was worried… and my car…"

"Look, I'm sorry," he muttered through a clenched jaw, "I should have checked in. But in my work, discretion is key. Clumsy slip-ups get people killed. Do you know what people like that would do to you? If one of my enemies finds out about you, they wouldn't hesitate to use you against me. I need to fly solo here-"

"Okay, asshole!" I finally shouted. "You may have gotten used to being on your own, but I sure as hell haven't! You can't keep leaving me hanging and expect me to be chill about it. If I had known- If I had known you were alive for even a second, if I had known you were out there somewhere, I would have stopped at nothing to get to you! And now that you're back, I'm not gonna let you leave me again." I couldn't contain my tears much longer, only able to cringe through my sobs, "There hasn't been a damn person in my life who didn't leave me when things got bad. Everyone leaves, because they don't get it! They- they... they're-!"

"...they're not you."

Sniffing, I rubbed my face into my sleeve, messily soaking up the embarrassing amount of tears on my cheeks. "You can't do this to me, Jason… Please, I-I'm begging you… Don't leave again…"

Just thinking about it made me shatter. Even though he was standing right in front of me, the idea of him not being there was like being stuck in a vacuum. No air, no gravity, just numbness… All while the world around me kept turning. All while my heart kept beating and my lungs kept breathing. I couldn't go back to that place, staring down the edge of a cliff waiting for a reason to go off. I couldn't go back to talking to a headstone, preoccupying myself with what little time Tim could spare me, delaying my jump a day at a time…

The worst thing about losing someone is that everything else keeps on going. The world continued to spin, but now for no reason. You can't do anything to stop it and it hurts the whole time.

"You were watching me, right?" My gaze slowly lifted back to his face, searching for something I couldn't name.

I didn't find it.

"When you were- when you were gone, you watched me. You stole the mask from me…How else would you have known I had it? You knew where I lived, how to get into my apartment. Were you watching me?"

To his credit, he managed to look a little ashamed. "... I wanted to know if you were okay."

His response broke my heart. Even though I knew, it still hurt to know he had lied for so long. He had been so damn close this entire time…

"So you had the pleasure of falling asleep at night, knowing your loved ones were safe and sound. … And you didn't think I should have that, too?"

"I told you Maddy," he sighed, "I wasn't myself after the Lazarus Pit. For a while, I was just lost… It's hard coming back to life. I couldn't bring myself to go back to Gotham. It hurt to much."

I was doing it again. I was being selfish. I wasn't the only person in Jason's life who had been hurt. If he revealed himself to anyone else, Bruce would know. I couldn't even fathom what a confrontation like that would be like. Even now, I couldn't picture what Jason would say. Maybe this whole "lost in the shadows" vigilante bullshit was just so he could avoid Batman while still getting close to him as possible.

Looks like the world hadn't stopped for Jason, either.

"I'm sorry," I said. "But I'm worried something might happen to you."

"I shouldn't have taken your car," he nodded, "That was a jerk move."

Even though the air between us was still tense, I cracked a smile. "I had to take the bus."

"You hate the bus."

"Yeah, well," I shrugged, "I hate being unemployed more."

"Now that's something I never thought I would hear you say. What happened to the nihilist street kid I knew back in the day?"

"She has bills to pay!" I laughed, adjusting the gym bag on my shoulder "Speaking of, where's my car, by the way?"

"Hm? Oh, on the roof of a parking garage a few blocks over… I'll take the bus next time," he said with a sheepish smirk.

I shook my head, "No. Next time, I'll drive."