Chapter 5
The night before
"Oh, shit," Crystal Brown said over the low hum of her soaps she'd recorded earlier that afternoon while she'd been on a twelve-hour nursing shift at the hospital.
"Don't tell me Arthur broke out again," she said with only half a glance for Batman, who had silently slipped into her living room from the kitchen where he had picked the back door lock.
Crystal popped another handful of popcorn in her mouth and let her eyes slide back to the screen.
"Sonny never should have got with Alexis, I tell you," she said to Batman with more irritation than she'd shown over her inmate husband's potential escape. "They were so much better as friends," Crystal sighed, shaking her head as the Bat stood by stiffly without comment.
"No romantic chemistry between those two at all," Crystal continued to complain. "Which just goes to show, you're better off stickin' with your soulmate," she said, "cuz Lord knows Sonny is hot as hell but he belonged with Carly all the way."
"The original one," she stressed, sounding even more disgruntled now. "Not these cheap-ass knockoffs they replaced her with. Lord, I miss the original Sonny and Carly days," she sighed dreamily before taking another handful of her microwave popcorn. "Reminds me of me and Arthur back in the good times," she smiled wistfully.
"Crystal," Batman said in his low rasp, which sounded significantly raspier than normal.
"He ain't here," Crystal said, not taking her eyes from the tv. "You can go check upstairs if you don't believe me. Or hell, sit down and wait for him if you think he's on his way," she laughed vacantly, patting the couch beside her.
Batman slowly approached her and sat down, gripping his knees with his gloved hands.
"You want some wine?" Crystal offered, holding the box out.
Batman took it from her and gently set it down on the floor.
"I need to tell you something," Batman said.
"Awright," Crystal said, still watching the tv.
Batman glanced around for the remote before standing and walking over to click the tv off.
"Hey!" Crystal said in annoyance. "I was watchin' that. What, you too good for my stories, Bats?" she snarked at him.
"Crystal," Batman began again, coming back to sit next to her and actually lifting a hand up to rub his head through his cowl before proceeding.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Crystal laughed indifferently. "You look all kinds of fucked up tonight, if ya don't mind me sayin' so."
"Stephanie's dead," Batman said, reaching out to gently hold her shoulder.
Crystal blinked at him.
"She ain't dead - why the hell would she be dead?" Crystal gaped at him. "She's not upstairs? Sometimes she stays out late with her friends," she said, getting up to her feet with a slight wobble.
Batman stood, too, and steadied her at her elbow.
"She's not upstairs, Crystal," Batman said sadly but firmly. "She died a few minutes ago at Dr. Thompkin's clinic," he said in a much hoarser voice.
That seemed to get Crystal's attention, because she stumbled and would have fallen if Batman hadn't caught her and carefully helped her sit back down on the couch.
"I'm so, so sorry," Batman said, his voice breaking as his tears started to flow again.
Crystal stared at him, her eyes getting bigger by the second and her breathing starting to increase.
"Stephie is dead?" she whispered back at him.
Batman nodded, covering his eyes for a minute with his hand.
"How - one of Arthur's enemies?" Crystal asked, her voice getting a little higher as disbelief warred with panic.
"No," Batman said. "No. One of mine," he said. "Black Mask."
"What the fuck," Crystal breathed out, before suddenly starting to hyperventilate. "She don't know Black Mask, Arthur didn't even know him, what the fuck would he be doing with my Steph, she -"
"She was Spoiler," Batman interrupted her, reaching out and grasping both of Crystal's hands in his. "The vigilante?"
"The one - oh God -" Crystal said as the pieces slowly fell together in her drug-addled mind, "the one who always went after Arthur?" she said, her voice pitching to a wail at the end of her question.
Batman nodded.
"Stephie - what the hell - baby what did you do?" Crystal whimpered, panicked tears starting to fill her eyes.
"It's my fault," Batman said heavily. "I let her become Robin, but then I fired her a few days ago and she - she went back to being Spoiler, without my knowledge," he said, suddenly editing his speech, "and gang wars broke out and I was trying to deal with them and she got captured and I didn't know - I didn't know -" he ended in a hollow whisper, catching himself as a sob burst out of his throat.
"My baby girl was Robin?" Crystal said in awe, staring at Batman like he'd just told her Steph was an astronaut.
"Oh, my God," Crystal whispered, not seeming to notice the tears rolling down her cheeks. "She must have been so proud," Crystal said softly.
"She was," Batman gulped before breaking down in a torrent of tears as his shoulders shook and he bent over nearly double, his palms on his eyes, sobbing in front of the woman who he didn't feel like he had any damn right to be crying in front of, because it was his fault - his fault - that her daughter was dead, Stephanie Brown was dead, barely Jason's age, oh God, she was dead and her mom - Bruce knew what it was like to lose a child - and he numbly realized that Crystal was crying and gasping now, too, although with far less hysteria than she undoubtedly would have had by this point had she not been so knocked out on oxy.
"I'm sorry," Batman cried, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Crystal's shoulders as she cried harder and he cried, too, with her, because he couldn't stop himself.
"What the fuck happened?" Crystal sobbed out. "What did he do to my baby?" she wanted to know.
Batman's heart constricted. Oh, God…
"He tortured her," Batman was barely able to get out.
"NO!" Crystal wailed, loud and sharp and sudden and horrified. "God, no - oh my God, Steph - baby girl - baby -"
"I'm so, so sorry," Batman said again, uselessly, torn between warring desires to comfort Crystal and to get the hell out of her house, because she had to hate him, and if there was anyone else he could have asked to be here with her - but Tim was in Metropolis - oh, fuck.
Tim.
Bruce was going to have to tell Tim that Steph was dead.
Crystal was sobbing hysterically now as Batman kept one arm wrapped around her shoulders and rubbed her head with his other hand, still crying right along with her.
"Where is she?" Crystal suddenly burst out. "Where is she? I need to see her. Oh, baby, God, my baby girl -"
"I'll drive you," Bruce said, helping her up.
He glanced around and saw a pair of flip-flops by the door, although he didn't want to think about if they might be Steph's.
"Here," he said, bending down and slipping them onto Crystal's feet before picking up the purse hanging from the coat rack.
He rooted through it looking for her keys and fished them out so he could lock the door behind them.
"Back door," he said, pulling Crystal along to the kitchen as she continued to sob helplessly.
Batman locked the door behind them and tucked the keys securely inside the purse before looping it crossways over Crystal. He led her hand in hand through the narrow alley, which the Batmobile was parked at the end of.
Crystal continued to cry as Batman buckled her in and started to drive, but he was barely pulled out of the alley before an unpleasant thought hit him and he groaned.
"Call Red Hood," Batman barked to the Batmobile's bluetooth phone.
The contact connected and rang a few times before an angry snarl answered.
"What the fuck do you want now, murderer?"
"Can you meet me back at Leslie's clinic?" Batman said with no preamble. "I'm dropping Steph's mom off there and I don't want her going in alone. Leslie doesn't want to see me again."
"No fucking surprise there," Jason growled at him.
There was only a beat of silence before he added, "I'll be there," and hung up.
Crystal was crying more softly now and looked over at Batman curiously as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
"Why did he call you a murderer?" she asked him.
"Because I lost track of Steph," Batman sighed. "And fired her. If I hadn't fired her, she wouldn't have felt like she had to prove herself to me, and I wouldn't have lost her, and -"
He cut off and swallowed hard.
"Why did you fire her?" Crystal asked him.
"She disobeyed a direct order," Batman growled. "I told her to stay put and she tried to come rescue me from a bad situation and got herself captured and almost killed. I was worried about continuing to train her. I didn't want her to get hurt."
"Like your other Robin," Crystal surprised him by saying.
"Yes," Batman said in shock. "Sort of. Well. Yes," he admitted, more to himself than to Crystal. "I was scared of losing her."
"Then you did the right thing," Crystal said, wiping her nose now.
"No," Batman started to argue, but Steph's mom shook her head.
"Stephie always did what she wanted to do. She had a baby, did you know that?" Crystal half chuckled.
"Oh, my God, the shame that brought on our family," she said. "As if Arthur with his Cluemaster nonsense wasn't bad enough," her mom grumbled. "I gotta have a teenage daughter not only havin' unsoulbonded sex, but havin' a baby out of it."
"Look, I appreciate you tryin' to protect her," Crystal said. "When you fired her. You wanted to do right by her."
"But I did wrong," Batman insisted, guilt forcing his words out. "Steph thought she could win her way back to being Robin by starting a gang war and proving herself in it, and instead I lost track of her and what happened to her…"
Crystal sighed.
"We do the best we can as parents," she muttered. "After that, all you can do is pray, and sometimes prayers ain't enough, big B," she said with the easy philosophy of someone who was more than a little stoned.
Batman couldn't answer.
"Why'd you call the Hood?" Crystal asked him curiously after a minute of silence.
"He found her," Batman said gently. "Brought her to Leslie's clinic and tried to save her, but -"
"Such a good boy, that Red Hood," Crystal said with sudden teary affection. "He's one of ours, you know," she said to Batman.
The Bat tipped his head at her in a question mark.
"Narrows kid," Crystal said. "Always lookin' out for us. Was he with her, when…?"
"Yes," Batman said. "Me, too, at the end. And Leslie."
"Good," Crystal said quietly. "That's good," she sniffed.
Red Hood was leaning against his bike when they pulled up to the clinic, wearing his domino with his helmet resting on his bike seat. The clinic lights were still on inside and Bruce mentally groaned to himself. Fuck it, Leslie had kicked him out and then she had to deal with Steph's body all by herself, alone, without support, and that was his fault, too, and -
Crystal was already getting out of the car. Batman got out, too, but stayed by the driver's side of the Batmobile.
"He said you found my baby," Crystal was saying to Red Hood, surprising the hell out of Jason by coming right up to him, guns and all, and wrapping him up in a tight, tight hug.
"I did," Jason said back to her, gripping her just as tight. "But not soon enough. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"
"You made it so Stephie didn't have to die alone," Mrs. Brown said, stepping back and reaching a shaking hand up to pat his cheek. "That's a lot."
"She said to tell you she was sorry," Jason burst out, his tears starting to fall again, too.
"She did?" Crystal's voice trembled and she looked frail, so frail, Bruce thought to himself, standing there alone at the edge of an abyss that no parent should ever have to navigate and one that he knew himself oh, so well.
"First thing," Jason said, omitting the very first thing, which was Robin's message for B that her mentor's identity was safe, but fuck if he was gonna tell her mom that part.
"Bats said Black Mask did it," Crystal said suddenly, gripping Red Hood's forearm. "Is he…?"
"Dead," Jason spat out. "And everyone there."
Crystal sighed in relief even as Batman's shoulders tensed. Jason met his eyes from across the hood of the Batmobile in an angry stare, daring him to say anything.
"Such a good boy," Crystal was repeating to Red Hood, as she'd said to Bats. "One of ours," she said again with an even deeper satisfaction. "I told him so," she added, tossing her head backwards to indicate Batman and prompting a sudden grin out of Bruce's youngest son.
"Narrows born-n-raised don't take shit from nobody," Crystal said, nodding to herself more than anyone.
"Nope," Red Hood agreed, catching Batman's eye again defiantly.
Batman sighed.
"I'll leave you with Red Hood, then, Crystal," Batman said, wanting to get the fuck out of there so he could go home and break the news to Alfred and cry for the next century over his second dead Robin.
"Hey - Batman," Crystal said, turning around to face him before he got back into the Batmobile. "Don't be too hard on yourself. I know you was doing your best for her."
"Fuck that," Red Hood suddenly snarled, making Crystal jerk back towards him in surprise. "He got her killed. He fired her and then lost her. He -"
"He did his damn best," Crystal cut him off, smacking his arm hard and causing Jason to shut up in his surprise.
He hadn't been smacked like that since he was a kid and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even as he stood blinking at the angry mom in front of him that wasn't his, no, but she was a Narrows mom and, well, that was pretty damn similar.
"You ain't a parent, I take it?" Crystal was saying to Red Hood.
"No…" he said slowly.
"One day you'll learn," she said. "This shit ain't easy, buster, no matter what it looks like from the outside."
If Bruce hadn't felt so wretchedly devastated, he would have laughed at the look on Jason's face.
"Just pray you never have to learn the hard way like me and Batsy over there had to," Crystal continued to lecture him. "Sometimes you can't save your kids and it ain't your fault, because Fate can be a real bitch."
Batman and Red Hood froze.
Crystal didn't seem to notice.
The clinic door opened and Leslie came out, a look of suspicion on her face before she saw the middle-aged woman in front of Red Hood.
"Oh," Leslie said softly. "Mrs. Brown?"
"That's me," Crystal sighed.
"I'm Dr. Thompkins," Leslie said. "I did everything I could for Steph, but her wounds were too severe. I'm so sorry," she said with the practiced sympathy of someone who has said the same words too many times, to too many families.
"Can I see her?" Crystal sniffed and Leslie said, "Of course," but paused.
"Her wounds are quite widespread and it will be distressing, I'm afraid," she said. "She was extensively tortured."
Crystal sniffed but bravely nodded.
"I can handle it," she said. "She's my baby."
"I'll come in with you," Red Hood said, picking up his helmet and wrapping a supportive arm around Crystal's waist, noticing, as Bruce had, her faltering gait.
"Batman, you ain't comin?" Crystal said, already having forgotten the overheard phone conversation on the way there.
"Batman is no longer welcome here," Leslie said frostily in a tone meant for the Bat and not for Crystal.
"Oh, well, that ain't nice," Crystal mumbled resentfully.
Leslie stopped in her tracks and stared at her.
"What isn't nice is allowing children to risk their lives by becoming vigilantes!" Leslie said in shocked disbelief.
"You ever met my Steph before?" Crystal said.
"Just tonight," Leslie said tightly.
"Yeah, well, you try tellin' my kid what she could and couldn't do," Crystal managed to snort with a touch of humor. "Or any kid, for that matter," she said. "Especially in this damn town."
Leslie pressed her lips together tightly and made eye contact with Batman, who stared back at her under the streetlights with haunted, grief-stricken eyes.
Leslie was not prone to cursing, but Jason swore he could see the profanities ripping through her mind as she gritted her teeth and said, slowly, "If it would comfort you to have Batman come in with us, Mrs. Brown, he can come in. For now," Leslie warned him with a foreboding glare.
"Will you, Batsy?" Crystal pleaded, looking back over her shoulder.
He nodded, not trusting his voice, and stepped around the car to walk beside her.
The quartet of adults was silent as they walked through the hallway to the exam room where Steph still lay on the table. Jason felt his stomach start to knot with nausea as they approached the doorway, and Bruce didn't look much better, if Jason cared to admit it. Leslie looked bitterly, quietly, resigned.
"Stephanie!" Crystal wailed as soon as she saw her daughter, rushing to her side and collapsing over her in grief and tears and incoherent screams as she stroked Steph's hair and hugged her and rocked her back and forth.
Bruce had to turn away, his eyes blinking rapidly, because it wasn't Steph who he suddenly saw before him.
It was a younger, smaller Jason.
And maybe the older, bigger Jason hated him right now, but he was alive to hate him, and Bruce tried to concentrate on that and wipe the other images from his mind, of a warehouse and rubble and a burned uniform and a beaten and broken and bloody body.
Leslie, for her part, had come over to wrap her arms around Jason's waist in a side hug of support as the two of them let Crystal experience her grief. Jason glanced at Bruce uncomfortably before looking back down to Leslie, who met his eyes knowingly and sighed.
What had Crystal said?
Sometimes Fate was a bitch, Jason thought. But sometimes she was a malicious motherfucker, too, tormenting a child with death and a parent with a devastating loss, only to inexplicably raise back up the once dead kid, except not quite all the way, because his mind had been mush until Talia had eventually dunked him in the Lazarus Pit, and -
Wait.
Fate could go fuck herself, Jason decided. He had a plan.
A/N - So we got a little timey-wimey here... the story will twist and weave around a bit with the timeline. Cass is showing up very soon! Maybe even next chapter.
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