The bedroom is completely dark, not an ounce of luminescence in sight. When the door opens and I hear it, a miniature strip of hallway sprouts into my field of vision. It illuminates the carpet in a tiny, long shred and I stare at it in a dizzy fixation. I'm running a fever. I feel choked up. My back is still to the door.

A voice, impenetrable, harsh, speaks, "What's this I hear about you and a son?"

I flinch.

I know that voice.

Portuguese Bat-o-man.

"Need—a-a favor…" my tone dies out. I just wrap myself up in the covers and avoid the bulldozer-beast hidden in a blotchy shadow in the dark.

"Why should I do you any favors, Harley?"

The name is enough to make me want to fly out of bed and slap him across his rodent-of-the-night face.

"It'd be the right thing to do." I close my eyes and ignore his physique, broad and daunting before me. If I remember Mythology 101 well enough, I'd call him Zeus—no, maybe more Haphesteus. God of the Forge seems a lot more familiar for bat-for-brains than King of Gods.

"What? Like you did the right thing, Harley? Like you protecting him was the right thing?"

I get it, I made a mistake. Fuck. Can everyone just hop off my shit, here?

"Richard John," I rasp, and I remember a psychology technique burned across the ages. It'll be familiar to anyone who's seen Silence of the Lambs. "Richard John is his name. He weighs five pounds, his eyes are green and his hair is blonde. He doesn't cr-cry much, and he's pale and really little. When he does cry, it's pretty loud."

"Poison Ivy told me that you wanted me to take the boy. You would just trust me with something like this, with your own son?"

"Either I trust you or I trust Cleave with my son. I won't let him have the boy. He doesn't deserve. I want to fuck his life up so bad; I want to take this away from him."

Even in the dark, I can hear the Batman's startled hitch in breath for a fraction of a millisecond, like I've thrown a wrench into his composure-gears. I open my eyes, and my face is hot with what's either a red flush or pure, burning hatred materialized.

"I wa-want this to be his proverbial kick in the balls."

I love you so much that I hate you. Do you know that, Cleave? I hate the way I wish I hated you. I hate the way I want you to die, and even more than that I hate the way I know that, if you did die, I would mourn you worse than that psychotic Haversham lady from that movie I saw a really long time ago. I hate the way the mere thought of you is still enough to make me miss the quirky way you tried to make me laugh, how hard you pushed to amuse me, and how much harder you pushed when you realized it couldn't be done. I hate the way you exist on the same planet as I do, and the way you breathe the same air in the same atmosphere as I do. I hate the way my infant son makes me thing of the warm-fuzzies I miss with you; even if they were possessive, warm fuzzies.

Fuck the warm fuzzies.

"If you're any ounce a good guy, not a hero, but a good guy, you'll do this for me." I sound so resolute, so set in stone, and I lock eyes with his chilly ones. I imagine that they mirror mine by now; a grey hardened to a stone-marble shade, the chestnut in them left behind for a tenderer, doe-eyed creature.

He stops, and I can see the cogs turning in his brain. I hear his weird boot things shift on the carpet, and his gravel-and-sandpaper voice creaks out, "I will."

The baby cries.

I wonder how Ivy got him here so quick.

How long has it been?

I close my eyes again and just murmur, "Thank you."

Bye, baby boy.

Bye, Richard. So long, Richie. Never again mine, Dick.

My heart hurts more than ever before.

I just gave up my only child to spite the ever-loving fuck out of my ex-boyfriend.

Have I really become this person?

Goodnight, moon, I want the sun, if it's not here soon I might be done…