AN: -Ground (Take Some Time to Warm It With Your Hands)
'Roots and Leaves' related. Title from Brand New's 'Sowing Season'.
EchokittyCat-It's because he's prepared, that jerk. Oh, well. They're not badly hurt.
Guest-'Cute'. Humph. M'not cute.-Jason
Bruce does not allow himself to speculate on the nature of the Light. Gordon turns it on for anything from 'take this piece of evidence' to 'we have a new serial killer' to 'there's been an Arkham breakout. Again'.
It isn't, at least, an automatic warning sign of mayhem.
Gordon, as per usual, is standing near it, soaking up the warmth, when Bruce lands silently on the rooftop behind him. Contrary to popular opinion, he doesn't come in from the back to be dramatic. He comes in from the back to avoid taking blinding, agonizing light to the eyes.
"Commissioner."
Gordon jumps and swears.
"Every time…Dove Marquis wants to see you. Says she's got temporary custody of one of your-and I'm quoting, here-'fifty thousand children', and would like you to come and get him."
Well. This is unexpected.
Dick and Tim are accounted for on the way, Dick covering the night shift for a friend and Tim…interviewing…some of Harley Quinn's on-again-off-again henchmen. Which leaves Jason.
Jim had not implied it was anything imminently fatal. And Jason, the last anybody knew, hadn't actively picked a fight with anybody overly dangerous. It's likely that he's got some sort of mild, but unpleasant, injury that's preventing him from getting home.
That sounds weak to Bruce's own ears. With Marquis calling Gordon about this, it's because it's serious or because Jason asked, and if it's the latter…
Marquis is on her balcony with a cigarette when he arrives. There's no sign of Jason, but surely that's not a bad thing. Surely. It's pouring rain, it's late…
She looks rattled, and she keeps twisting around to glance through her doors. The feeling of unease grows, and he scans the building. The only figure in the apartment is curled up on the couch, asleep. He deems it safe to land on the balcony railing.
"Jesus-!" Her cigarette lands in a puddle with a hiss! "Good God, that's creepy…are you socially awkward, or just an asshole?"
"Why did you tell Gordon to contact me."
Marquis rolls her eyes.
"Asshole it is...because he asked for you. So you have to take him." As though he wouldn't. "I don't know what happened. I don't wanna know. I found him wandering around a few blocks away. He was throwing up dirt a-and fucking worms, and I spent a good forty minutes pulling shards of wood out of his hands."
Sounds like someone thought it would be a good idea to bury him alive. Bruce will disabuse them of that notion as soon as he gets Jason home and under Alfred's care.
"Hn."
They go in. Jason's scrunched up on the couch with an electric blanket over him, face smushed into a pillow. His hands are wrapped from fingertip to wrist, and he's shivering, just a little. Bruce is more concerned about the fact that he's not waking. He's a light sleeper, always has been, and for him to be uncaring, unknowing, that he's not alone…
What happened to you tonight?
He whimpers and scrunches up under the blanket, hands jerking, and Marquis says softly, "Want me to try and wake him up, or do you want to risk it?"
Neither, preferably.
The whimpers stop and he goes still, sniffling softly. Bruce sighs, calls for the car-it'll be here by the time he gets downstairs-and pulls Jason into a fireman's carry.
"Thank you," he manages to say. "For. For watching him."
"Take it up with Harley," she says shortly, fishing out her cigarettes and heading for her porch. "Tell him I hope he feels better soon, huh?"
Jason stirs, a little, when he settles him into the Batmobile, but when Bruce tries to talk to him, his face scrunches up and he closes his eyes again. He's tempted, he really is, to go after Harley now; Jason's clearly all right, not even a hint of a low-grade fever, but…
But. He could have inhaled something, he could have been drugged. Bruce needs to take him home and have Alfred look at him. Harley can wait.
And this way, he'll be more likely to keep his temper when he tracks her down.
He tousles Jason's hair, covers him with the cape-he's shivering now that he's away from the electric blanket-and makes sure he's secure before hopping into the driver's seat and calling Alfred.
"I need you to prep the med bay," he says. Alfred does that thing where he doesn't really sigh, but he may as well.
"What happened this time, Master Bruce."
It isn't always his fault. Arguing will get him nowhere, but it really isn't always his fault.
"I've got Jason," he says, narrowly avoiding a fire hydrant that really is located too close to the curb. "He's. It appears that somebody attempted a live burial."
Alfred is silent.
"I will be ready and waiting for you, Master Bruce," he says at last. "Drive safely."
He does. Mostly. He takes care, anyway, not to come screaming into the cave in a cloud of dust and burnt rubber. Jason's still unconscious in the back, but he wakes, a little, when he's picked up.
"B…?"
"Hn."
"You came." The surprise in his voice hurts. "You really came for me."
"Yes." He sets him on a gurney. The clothes aren't his, and they don't fit him well. There's small cuts on his face and neck, and his hands are all but mummified. "Jay—"
"My fault, I should'a—"
What?
"Jason—"
"She said it was safe," he whispers. "She said. She said."
And then Alfred is there, shooing Bruce out of the way and humming, "Let's see what's happened, Master Jason…"
Jason blinks at them for a minute before his eyes roll back. Bruce has no idea what happened. He doubts Jason would have trusted Harley Quinn. Pitied, almost certainly, but trusted? No. Somebody else was involved, somebody he doesn't know about.
Bruce doesn't like not knowing about things.
There's a bump on the side of the boy's head, and when Alfred unwraps his hands...they're not a pretty sight. There's a few nails missing and the remaining ones are badly broken. They're riddled with cuts and punctures and oh. Coffin. There must have been a coffin, or at least a large wooden crate.
How did this happen?
"-ce. Master Bruce."
"Sorry, Alfred."
"Move aside, please...thank you. It's a miracle his fingers are still intact."
Bruce often thinks it's a miracle Jason's alive at all, after...after everything. And now, under the stark light of the medical bay, that idea comes back in force. He can't place most of these scars, even though he knows what caused them. That one's from a crowbar; he's got a few of those himself. They're a cheap, easy weapon. Or that one, there, that's from a knife. There's more than a few gunshot wounds, far more than he ever had from his time as Robin, and…
"There we are, Master Jason," Alfred says, forcefully cheery, even though Jason's not awake to care anyway. "I'm sure your father will take you upstairs."
Some father he is. This is his fault, none of this should have happened.
He wants Harley Quinn. And once Jason's settled in bed, he's going to find her.
Bruce decides, when he's back in the car (he isn't hiding from Alfred's disapproval, he's just…), that he'll start his hunt for Harley after getting what he can out of Marquis. He's hoping she'll be more cooperative about this than she's been about past cases, given the circumstances. Besides, Penguin's not involved (theoretically), so she doesn't have any reason to withhold information, not really.
She's still outside, but no longer smoking, when he lands on the balcony.
"Why are you here."
"What happened."
"Get lost."
"I need to find Harley, but I need to know what happened."
For a minute, he thinks she'll just go inside. But she sighs, mutters something about too many goddamn vigilantes and never thought I'd miss the weirdo with mommy issues, and gets up off the bench.
"I don't know," she says. "I found him wandering around a few blocks away, and he said Harley did it, and he was really, really upset about some woman named Sheila, but I don't know who that is and at this point, I don't care."
Sheila, Sheila...Bruce knows of a Sheila, but...no, that's too much of a coincidence...there's no such thing as coincidence...and Jay's always had near-comically bad luck. Rather like the Baudelaire Orphans.
"Where exactly did you find him."
"Ah...over in Sunshine Plaza."
Bruce has always wondered who, exactly, named that plaza. And why.
"Thank you."
"Now are you gonna go?"
He can take a hint. And also there's nothing else he needs here.
He brings up his file on Sheila Haywood on the glide over. She's still living exactly where she was the last time she was on his radar, when he'd been desperate. He'd thought that maybe...either Jason had found out, somehow, and gone after her, or that her connections to the Joker would…
He'd been desperate.
Sheila's apartment isn't far from here, and Bruce's unease only grows. The odds of there being another Sheila are...low...and Jason…
He lets himself in through the bedroom window. There's a body lying in the front hall, but no other signs of life.
The body is Sheila Haywood. Bruce sighs-he doesn't know why he expected otherwise, really-and sets up a virtual crime scene.
Sheila died from a bullet to the head, maybe...five hours ago, give or take. The shooter was waiting for her; she's still wearing her raincoat, and her purse is sitting on the ground where it fell when she died.
There's a gun near her hand. It hasn't been fired-it's not even loaded-but hers are the only prints on it.
Hm.
There was a struggle, at some point. The end table by the couch is tipped over and there's blood on the carpet. The blood is both Jason's and an unknown-likely a hired hench-and there's a hint of Quinn's perfume still lingering in the air.
So. Harley-or her goons-probably shot Sheila when she pulled the gun. That doesn't entirely explain her involvement, but Bruce wonders if Harley wasn't trying to get her to come back. She didn't take Joker's death well, and he knows she's been grasping for any last connection to him. Sometimes he feels sorry for her.
But not today. Today, her insanity killed a woman and could have cost Jason his life, and Bruce is not happy about it.
He calls Gordon about Sheila before following the perfume outside. There's not enough to track over a long distance, but it does lead him to the parking garage...and a set of tire tracks.
The first place the tracks go is a park, maybe two blocks away. Reasonable; Jason was either unconscious or restrained, but keeping him in a small car would have been risky. The car was parked, and…
Oh.
Oh, dear God.
He doesn't need to track anything to see the tear in the earth, the thick wooden shards and the torn roots. The scanner says the disruption goes down six feet, to a cheap coffin.
Oh, Jay-lad, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
His ear crackles and Alfred's voice hits him, colder than Freeze's gun.
"Master Bruce." Oh no. "What do you think you are doing."
"I need to find Quinn."
"You need to be with your son, who has asked for you twice tonight." The uncomfortable feeling in his stomach is a response to the grave in front of him, and that's all. "Now."
Alfred uses-really uses-the No Argument tone very rarely. That's probably why it's so effective.
That said, Harley's likely gone to ground for the time being. Big to-dos aren't her style, not anymore. Besides, he can put feelers out from home. And maybe Tim will find something.
Jason's asleep when Bruce nudges his door open, face buried in the pillow. Looking at him now, Bruce can almost convince himself that none of the last few years has happened, that he's just...home from college for the weekend. But then he rolls over, bringing the brand into the low light, and the illusion's shattered.
"Has he woken up at all?"
"Once," Alfred says, apparently happier now that Bruce is here. "He wasn't terribly happy with the room being so dark, hence the pineapple lamp." Bruce can only imagine. "He wondered where you were, but then decided to go back to sleep."
"I'll watch him, Alfred."
He's sure he's imagining the it's about bloody time aura Alfred is radiating. It's been a long night, that's all.
"Very good, sir. Call me if you need me."
Jason doesn't stir when Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed. Good. It's...it's better that he get some sleep.
(Bruce doesn't want a fight tonight.)
How did this happen, Jay? What am I missing?
He'll find out. He'll find Harley, he'll make this...well, there's no making this right, but...he'll find her.
God, he's tired of clowns trying to take his son.
THE END
