CHAPTER THREE
2 WEEKS LATER
Alfred furrows his brows as he steps out of the house, fog from the lake drifting out over the yard a little bit.
He gets to Jason, who's face down in the grass, and exhales, nudging him with his foot, realizing he's not waking up.
He reeks of booze.
"Surely he's got to be a Wayne somewhere down the line." He mumbles to himself, going inside to grab something.
Once he gets it, he goes back outside and holds the airhorn maybe a foot above his face before blaring it.
Jason's groaning awake, Alfred still blowing the horn, even when he's sitting up, glaring up at the butler.
He ends up taking the airhorn from him to get him to stop.
"Rise and shine, master Jason." Alfred says, turning to walk back inside.
"You're just mean sometimes," Bruce tells Alfred, pouring his coffee as he comes in.
"If I wanted a garden gnome for the yard, I'd buy one." Alfred replies as they hear the door open, Jason trudging into the kitchen.
"Late night?" Bruce asks, taking a sip of coffee.
"Not at all." He replies gruffly, taking the whole pot of coffee once Alfred gets a cup of it. "I'm getting a shower and then getting the fuck outta here."
"Lovely language for seven a.m. on a Tuesday morning." Bruce sarcastically states.
"Yeah, tell my ass that while you kiss it." Jason shoots back as he walks out.
Once he's finished in the shower, he's finishing his coffee - all of it - and getting his keys.
Not bothering with saying goodbye before walking to his car down the road, he's soon heading back to his apartment, expecting Gia to be gone like she has been the last two weeks since she works days and he's gone at night.
Instead, he comes inside and Rambo doesn't greet him like usual.
"Bud, what's up?" He asks, stepping to their bedroom where Rambo's bed is, stopping in his tracks when he sees Gia in bed, surrounded by tissues and allergy medication, the dog resting his chin over her stomach, blinking up sadly at him.
Jason carefully steps to her, patting the dog's head, quickly checking Gia's pulse on her neck.
She takes a deep breath and Jason silently feels a weight come off of him, feeling her pulse as well.
She's just got a cold.
"Don't scare me like that again." Jason mouths to Rambo. "Nearly gave me a heart attack." He adds.
Which he guesses he has a reason to look so sad. He knows the dog can tell she's dying. He's been with her for nine years, now, before Jason had even come back into the picture, and he's already to the point where he won't have much more time with them. If she dies, Jason has a feeling the heartbreak might just do badass Rambo in.
He doesn't want to think about it so he just takes his jacket off and heads to the living room, leaving her to sleep.
When Gia wakes up, she hears the TV on in the living room and pulls herself out of bed to go to the kitchen for some water.
She sees Jason sitting on the couch and passes by as fast as possible.
They haven't spoken since she told him she wished he'd stayed dead.
Of course she didn't mean that, she just wanted to hurt him as much as he'd hurt her, and they both knew that, but they were both avoiding each other because it was still too far.
His mere presence is enough to motivate her to tough it out as best she can to get dressed and get the hell out of the apartment.
"Jim, you got a visitor," Montoya says as Jim steps through the precinct, and he rubs his forehead, dropping a fulfilled bond release form on the desk of one of their bondsmen.
"I usually hear that and end up ducking from open fire." He retaliates.
"They frisked me on the way in," Gia says sarcastically and James' mouth pulls into a small smile, stepping to her.
"You're supposed to be resting," he states as she hugs him, his hand giving her a stern pat on the back as he squeezes her to him for a second before pulling away.
"I can rest here." She shrugs, wrinkling her nose as an incoming offender makes kissing noises at her as he's pushed by in cuffs.
"You can also go home. To your bed. And your boyfriend. And your dog." He replies, guiding her to his office.
"Not really a boyfriend anymore. More like a roommate being that we no longer communicate -- or even want to communicate at that." She explains.
"Been together for fourteen years, Gia, don't let a petty disagreement--"
"—He told me it's my fault my cancer isn't better and I told him I wish he would've stayed dead." She explains and Jim looks at her.
"Jesus." He says.
"Yeah, we really know how to feel the love." She nods.
"Could be worse. He could be throwing you outta windows, moving cars, into vats of chemicals…" he mumbles.
"Wish he would. At least then I could finally die and not have the fact that I am actually dying looming over me." She admits.
"Gia, my point was it could be worse. I don't agree with him, I don't agree with you, but I think you should talk about it. You're not necessarily ample on time and you two need all the happy you can have between now and when your time comes."
"Things haven't been the same since I was diagnosed, Jim, you know that."
"Well, it's not just you that's having to process the thought of a world without you in it, baby sister." He points out. "Considering how many times some people have tried to make that happen, it's kinda a low blow that cancer is the thing that's seemingly taking you out." He adds and she rubs her lips together.
"I'm not out yet." She assures him.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." She nods.
"You better not be." He raises his brows.
"I've almost got it, you know?"
"Got what?"
"My cure." She informs him.
"Oh, using the, uh—" he snaps his fingers, trying to remember what she'd told him.
"—Snake venom."
"Yeah, that." He points, nodding.
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for Wayne Chemicals to get their heads out of their asses. Earlier this week I sent back my last sample. If they can't get it altered right, I'm looking elsewhere."
"Elsewhere for a cure, or elsewhere for someone to try to get it right?" He asks.
"I know this is the answer. I just need the right person to solve the problem." She says it matter-of-fact.
Before he can further question her, his phone's ringing.
"Hello?" He answers, and Gia hears someone talking quickly over the phone. "Barbara, there should be some chicken left over in the—" he goes quiet for a moment. "Alright, I'll run by on my lunch break and grab some more from the store." He says next. "Okay, see you then, love you." He hangs up and looks at his sister. "I gotta go." he states, looking at the clock. "Go home." He tells her. "You sound terrible." He adds, not even wanting to mention how she looks.
"Aye aye, captain." She gives a salute. "Later." She says, going to the door of his office.
"This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none, and this little piggy—"
The colorful mosaic that is Harley Quinn is spewing smart assed comments as she's being booked, stopping abruptly when she sees Gia, the two making eye contact as she passes by, the exchange happening so fast yet so slow.
The last time Gia saw her this up close and personal was when Wayne Manor was going up in flames, and Gia was supposed to go with it.
ONE WEEK AGO
Gia curses under her breath upon watching healthy cells be disintegrated by yet another strain of venom she could have sworn was altered nearly perfectly.
Apparently not.
"What's it doing now?" The chemical engineer that brought back the sample of venom she sent out to Wayne Chemicals to purify, asks.
"Killing the cells as if it hasn't been messed with at all." She replies flatly, sighing out, pulling away from the microscope.
"We told you we thought we had struck gold." He says, so sure of himself.
"If this is you guys' version of 'gold,' I hate to see what your pure gutter trash is." She doesn't hold back, frustrated, and he lets out a breath.
"Well, in all honesty you didn't give us much wiggle room by sending in a sample that's deadly enough that one drop can kill 100 grown men - literally."
"The more aggressive the disease, the more aggressive the treatment needs to be. You know that." She switches the microscope off and he crosses his arms.
"So, what, you're just gonna go down the line and see what works?" He asks next, nodding to the glass aquariums each containing a different snake.
"I already have." She replies.
"Well, I guess this is your dead end, then." He says next and she looks at him pointedly, shaking her head a little.
"No, it's not," she steps to the container holding her last resort that she's holding on to with a steel grip, taking the lid off and gently, slowly, picking the snake up, making her counterpart take a step back and feel his nerves wind up as she casually talks to the damn thing, running her finger along her head.
She grabs a specimen cup for venom, grabbing her by her head, the snake hooking her teeth over the cup, venom dripping down the inside of the cup, once she's got enough, she's pulling her away from it and putting her back in her glass enclosure.
"I highly suggest you bring this back the right way," she tells him, putting a lid on the cup and labeling it, handing it out to him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He gets defensive.
"It means you get me a sample from her that I can use or I'll find someone else to cure this with." She says to him and he breathes out sharply.
PRESENT
Gia wants to bang her head against a wall as she watches yet another cellular massacre, squeezing her eyes closed, frustrated and tired—exhausted—of seeing the same result over and over again.
In her overtired, cancer and sinus infection sick, and defeated state, she finds herself needing a release and looks no further than screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing the microscope across the room, the electrical outlet sparking with the ferocity of the metal prongs of the microscope's electrical cord suddenly being snatched from the wall.
It hits the wall with a loud bang, glass from the lenses and slate shattering.
She's glad she's been left alone, probably because Wayne Chemicals knew damn well they didn't pull it off like they swore they'd be able to do.
Lifting her head after a few moments of trying to stop her tears and taking deep breaths, her attention is caught by the eery glow of that sign off in the distance labeled "ACE CHEMICALS."
Her mind's slipping back several years, remembering something she now realizes she might not have needed to write off with disregard.
"Like flies to honey," Renee mumbles to Gia, Harley hissing at her as she's shoved into the back of a patrol car. "You might wanna look into relocation." She adds, and Gia furrows her brows.
"Why would I do that?"
"This is the third time an attempt has been made on your life by Mister and Misses Chuckles in the last year." She explains. "That means you got six lives left."
"Gia, c'mon, I'll take you home." Jim says with raised brows, finishing up a conversation with a witness.
"Think about it, Gia." Montoya says next as she steps to Jim's car. "I gotta feeling you don't have much time left with the way they're coming after you."
"I'll take my chances." Gia boldly states, glaring at Harley as the clown cuts her vivid blue eyes at her before she's getting and shutting the door, her brother joining her as he sighs out, tiredly.
"I've told you not to walk around at night down here." He mumbles and she rolls her eyes.
"I was looking for something." She states.
"More pills?" He asks next.
"I'm not on drugs, James." Gia nearly barks it and he's quiet for several minutes, not speaking another word until they near her apartment building.
"I don't want you out here, anywhere, at night, Gia." He honestly confesses. "I don't want…" he nearly tears up thinking about what happened the last time they were called to a scene she'd been hurt at. Badly hurt. "...I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something like that were to happen to you, again—or worse."
"There's nothing worse that could happen than that. Not even Jason getting murdered in front of me." She mumbles.
"Just don't be out here after dark." He pleads.
"Why the chemical plant?" She asks him suddenly and he's thrown off by it, slightly. "Why were they there?"
"Why were you there?"
"I was walking by, across the street, and they were leaving." She says next.
"We've never been able to get a straight answer from either of them, but we figure their looks are attributed to being exposed to one of the chemical vats in ACE." He explains. "Rumor is he worked there before he became…you know…but it's just a rumor, we don't know anything for sure. Quite frankly I've never cared where he came from, just where he's going."
"I suppose," she says quietly, furrowing her brows as they stop in front of her building.
"Want me to walk you up?"
"No, no I got it." She assures him.
"Take it easy." He tells her next. "Get some sleep." He adds.
"Same goes for you." She replies, opening the door and getting out.
Gia pulls herself from the memory, her eyes focusing back on the chemical plant after blurring momentarily.
"Gia, don't think about it." She tells herself, like an order…but that doesn't stop her from thinking about it.
Jason's got his entire artillery piled on the bed as he makes sure his weapons are locked and loaded, hearing the door of the apartment open and close quietly, Gia's footsteps coming closer to their room.
The door opens and she walks in, not saying a word to him, just looking at the guns and knives and grenades on the bed.
"Big night tonight?" She asks him, the first words she's said to him since their fight.
"Kinda." He mumbles back.
She rubs her lips together and takes her jacket off as he finishes up and peels his shirt off to change his into his gear.
"I have a random question," she says next, clearing her throat, and he looks at her.
"Did you and Bruce ever do any digging into why The Joker has a niche for ACE Chemicals?"
Jason furrows his brows.
"I've heard he used to work there or something before he became who he is, now, but I never knew for sure."
"He might have, I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if he did being he knows his way around chemicals." He adds.
Of course. Gia had nearly forgotten about his use of alternated nitrous oxide.
She assumes he's the one who finangles it.
"Why do you ask?" He asks her.
"I saw Harley at the G.C.P.D. today and just thought about it, is all."
Jason knows her better than that, but he can't think of why she'd lie to him about it, so he doesn't press her for any more answers.
He pulls his suit on, Gia staring at the blood red batman symbol across his chest.
"I do wish you would've stayed dead," she breaks the silence, and he raises a brow at her. "So we wouldn't be apart when I go." She explains further, and he exhales, not wanting to think about it.
But he knows he has to start thinking about it to prepare him for living in a world without her in it.
"I know you didn't mean it." He assures her. "I'm more pissed that it's taken you two weeks to admit you fucked up."
"When have you ever known me to admit I've fucked up?" She asks him, honestly.
This is true. Gia's as prideful as they come. Even more so than him, which says a lot.
"I'll admit it now, though." She says calmly. "I shouldn't have said that to you. And I'm sorry."
Jason believes her because he knows she's being serious and not just trying to bail herself out of the dog house.
"I'm sorry about what I said, too." He replies. "I'm sorry for avoiding you the past couple weeks, too." He adds.
"I am, too." She nods.
She wants to further apologize for what she's conspiring, but knows she can't tell him about it.
He'd lose his mind.
But so is she, knowing she's wasting away and her time is coming quickly.
She's in fight or flight mode, and for once in her life, of all the times she's faced danger, she's sticking with "fight."