CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I'll be right back." Gia sighs out once they park beside the G.C.P.D. building, unbuckling, hearing Jason's phone ring.
"Okay." Jason replies, waiting for her to get out of the car before answering.
"Dude, where the hell are you?! You were supposed to be here yesterday!" Roy snaps.
"Gia had a couple things to do at work, alright? We're coming."
"Woah, woah, woah!" Roy stops his pacing in his motel room. "You didn't say anything about bringing the broad!"
"The 'broad' is my wife, now, Roy, I can't just marry her and then ditch her for two fucking weeks." Jason tells him, raising his brows.
"So you turned our mission into your honeymoon?!" He asks
"She won't even know what's happening. I've got it all planned out. We go out late at night, so I'll just exhaust her throughout the day and she'll be knocked out cold by the time we head out."
"Okay, firstly, T.M.I.. Secondly, what if she's not exhausted. What if she's up when we need to leave? Then what?"
"I don't know, I'll figure it out, though." Jason assures him and Roy squeezes his eyes closed, rubbing his forehead. "But don't worry, I got it."
"You better because I'm not missing out on this just because you decided it's 'bring your wife to work' week."
Jason rolls his eyes, letting out a breath, but keeps to his word.
"Roy, I promise, her being there won't interfere with our job."
Lights from the street roll into the apartment as Joker stares at the paper work before him, Gia's work I.D. photo clipped to the manilla folder, and he cuts his eyes at the "under suspension, awaiting evaluation" at the status of her security clearance.
"I thought you said she was back to work." He says, turning to Natalie and Garrett.
"She is. She's just not cleared for Biotech, yet." Garrett explains.
"She's more like an errand girl." Natalie adds, shakily, and he scoffs, looking down at the file once more, "until she can pass her evaluation," he thinks.
He laughs amongst himself, the mere thought of Gia-as powerful as she is now-being Wayne's little bitch on a leash...little does she know she's in shackles and chains until her debt to Joker is paid off.
"When does she get back from her little trip?" Joker asks next.
"Two weeks from today." Garrett replies.
"Get me a copy of this." Joker tells him. "If there's even so much as a letter cut off a page, you'll both be a delight to see strung up around a power line by your colon." He promises him, shoving the file into his chest before pushing past him, Garrett swallowing the lump in his throat nervously, nodding.
A henchman steps to the two of them to escort them out, but Garrett speaks up.
"Are you going to kill her?" He asks, the quiet apartment echoing his words back to him as Joker stops and turns.
"What business is that of yours?" He asks, and Natalie glares at Garrett, rolling her jaw.
Garrett's fumbling to give an answer tells him all he needs to know.
"You? And little Gordon?" He questions, amused, and Garrett shakes his head.
"No."
"Whether or not you jerk off to news paper clippings of her is something I could care less about..." Joker's hand comes out to grasp Garrett on the shoulder, tightly. "...If you do anything to compromise my task..." He doesn't deem it necessary to even finish, nodding just a little.
"Got it." Garrett assures him.
"Good!" Joker pats his face once. "Sleep tight, kids." He sarcastically adds, knowing, hoping, that Natalie and Garrett don't sleep a single wink.
Night life of Miami is much like that of Gotham, to Gia's surprise...just keep to the safer parts and all will more than likely go well.
It's a neon scattered city with clubs and bars, restaurants, lounges...and...
"Oh, my God, fancy that." Jason hears Roy say behind him while he and Gia are walking to the restaurant they wanted to try, and Gia furrows her brows, turning around, and Jason slowly does the same, irritated. "Jason Todd. Long time no see."
"Roy." Jason says with a sharp edge, but keeps a smile before Roy points his attention to Gia, and has to control himself from salivating just a little. "Gia, this is Roy Harper. Roy, Gia."
"Hi, it's nice to meet you," Gia extends her hand to shake his and he takes it and instead kisses her knuckles.
"Pleasure's all mine." He says smoothly and Jason cuts his eyes before saying, "Hey, baby, can you go see if there's a table available?" Nodding to the restaurant they're merely a few feet away from on the sidewalk.
"Yeah." She doesn't think much of it, Jason kissing her cheek before she walks away, and he turns and immediately punches Roy as hard as he can in the shoulder.
"What the fuck, man?!" Roy barks.
"Don't 'what the fuck' me, I'm 'what the fuck'ing you!" Jason argues. "What the hell are you doing? Do you want her to catch on?"
"I just saw you guys and wanted to say 'hey,' asshole. I haven't seen you in over six months." Roy snaps and Jason feels a very, very, very small tinge of guilt.
"I'm sorry, I just don't want her to find out because she will flip her shit on me and she's not as easy to deal with now when she gets pissed." He rubs his forehead.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, do I have a cluster fuck to tell you about later." Jason scoffs out, turning to see if Gia's coming back, yet.
"Why didn't you tell me she was that hot?" He asks next and Jason looks at him.
"I told you she was hot."
"Yeah. 'Hot.' Not 'She could tell me she has the clap and I'd beg her to give it to me' hot." Roy states as Gia starts coming to them.
"Two hours." Gia tells Jason, sighing.
"You wanna wait?" He asks her.
"...Not really." She says.
"That's like the fourth place that's been packed out, Gia, we gotta find somewhere and just wait it out." Jason replies.
Roy looks between them, and picks his time to shine.
"I've got some connections at a place here in town, you know." He suggests, shrugging, and Jason looks at him pointedly.
"Really?" Gia asks.
"Really?" Jason asks as well, knowing the answer and what club he was referring to.
"Yeah. I know a guy who knows the owner." Roy explains, holding back his smirk.
"Okay." Gia says.
"What the hell are you still doing here?" Renee demands, barking at Jim, her arms crossed.
"What do you think?" He asks, not bothering to look at her as he stares at the cluster of newspaper clippings, blurry surveillance camera shots, and the date report that was automatically faxed from Akrham Asylum to the G.C.P.D. when Joker broke out.
"Oh, c'mon, Gordon, we can catch this creep in our sleep. Bait and wait. Works everytime." She reminds him.
"Only when he wants to get caught." He mumbles, knowing better, and he knows Renee knows better, too. She's just hoping it will be easier than a few past times they've had to hunt him into oblivion.
And several times he was only caught because he went after Gia, and that set off a particular rage within him, especially after he'd paralyzed Barbara.
Jim would be damned before he let him do something like that to anyone so close to him.
"He was in Arkham for over a year before he broke out. I don't think he wants to go back so soon." He comments.
"...Okay, point made." She steps beside him, glancing at him. "So, what are those old, rusty gears in your head working toward?"
"He was locked up for a year." He tells her.
"Just said that."
"When was the last time he let himself stay in for that long consistently?"
Essen furrows her brows, and then it sinks in.
"When he was seducing his doctor." She states, looking at him, feeling closer to piecing this together.
"I want every single employee on that payroll of Arkham Asylum, volunteers-hell, even visitors-to be brought in for questioning." He tells her. "We need to call in our folks here."
"It's eleven o'clock at night, Jim." She tells him.
"You think that bastard's resting right now? He's plotting. So, we're plotting." He argues, walking to grab the phone on his desk. "Go to the roof and switch the signal on while you're at it."
The bass from the RB music blaring throughout the club makes everyone's bones feel as though they're rattling, a particularly uncomfortable-slightly painful-feeling for Gia, one that shouldn't make her feel as though she's going to explode, but there she is wincing with every beat.
"You okay?!" Jason says over the music, leaning down to her ear, and she nods.
"Yeah, just loud!" She tells him. "I'm okay, though!"
"Are you not hungry?!" He asks next.
"We can eat some shitty fast food when we leave!" She assures him, wanting to have some fun since it's been so long that they've actually just relaxed and had fun.
He glares at Roy through the flashing lights and crowded room of dancing bodies that they're lacing through to get to the bar.
The bartender looks at Roy, doing a double take for a moment before glancing to Jason and Gia, who doesn't even realize he's looking at them, speaking amongst themselves as Roy approaches, leaning against the bar.
"Drinks are free." Roy tells him, and he cuts his eyes at the red head.
"Says who?" He questions.
"Your boss." Roy scoffs.
He just looks unamused, and Roy realizes the man doesn't know exactly who his boss is.
"You know what I think would really make this place have booming business?" He asks. "I know a promoter that could really liven it up." He adds. "Promotes people to pay up in a timely manner."
Gia furrows her brows, hearing Roy while Jason continues to talk to her, not realizing that she can hear the two men at the bar a few feet away...Jason doesn't even realize that they're talking, his back turned, his full attention on Gia.
The bartender's face falls just a little bit.
"Runs around town in a red helmet, which is kinda gimmicky, but the getup has to be efficient because it gets the job done damn well, doesn't it?" Roy continues, and Gia maintains her expression that she's looking at Jason with.
The two at the bar have a silent dick measuring contest, staring one another down, before the bartender is letting go of the gun strapped to the bottom of the bar.
"What can I get for you?" He asks him, and Roy grins, turning to get Jason and Gia's attention.
"What you guys drinking?!" Roy calls over the music, gently shoving at Jason's back.
"Vodka!" Gia tells him and Jason looks at her.
She hasn't drank in months, not even socially, but he's not going to say a word about it.
"I got you, man!" Roy assures Jason, knowing his drink of choice after working with him long enough to have had several rounds with him, and in this instance, they're all eleven shots in before Gia's tugging at Jason's hand.
He quickly downs his, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, happily following after her.
Once they're submerged in strangers, Gia turns, grasping at the top of Jason's pants, yanking him to her, her lips catching his slowly turning her back to him, grinning when she pulls away from him, his hand pulling her against him, kissing up her neck and she grinds against him.
The last time they went out like this was to celebrate her graduating and passing her exam to be a certified biotechnician.
Roy maintains by the bar, continuing to throw back drink after drink.
He can sober up some on the way to the job later in the night.
"Thought I told you not to get involved." Batman says to Nightwing as the two walk down the long hallway of Arkham's first floor that's completely sound proof from the floors of inmates above it, so the only sound is that of their boots on the floor.
"You did. But I'm involved." Nightwing states.
"Get uninvolved." His former mentor orders. "It's too personal."
"You gonna tell Jim to get uninvolved, too, then?" Nightwing asks. "Pretty damn personal to him, too."
"You know what I meant."
"And you shouldn't have even said it. It's not like that. At all."
Batman looks over the copy of the list of the Joker's visitors since his last runtime in Arkham, despising the name typed up in black and white, wishing it was another name-any name-that wasn't her.
Jim's going to have a lot of questions, questions that will inevitably close the walls in on Gia, and he doesn't even know it.
"You there?" Batman presses at his earpiece, pulling Oracle's attention.
"Yeah." She says.
"I need you to get ahold of Jason, let him know that the G.C.P.D. might be expediting Gia back from questioning."
Oracle furrows her brows in confusion.
"What?" She asks and he looks at Nightwing who just gives a shake of his head, indicating that she also has no idea of Gia's connection go the Joker or her miraculous recovery.
"You'll be briefed at a better time, just contact him." He says to her.
"On it." She says as the two men head out into the parking lot.
"Any names?" Jim asks, walking to them, and he's handed the copy of the dates and times Joker's been visited in the last year, and James plucks it from his hand and looks at it, an array of confusion, hurt, and utter unsettled bewilderment drapes across his face, his heart sinking to his stomach.
He's crumpling the paper in his hand, glad he's alone while his department is out rounding up Arkham's employees for questioning.
James is pushing past Batman, walking into the building, heading straight for the security desk.
Small shards of glass click onto the cracked tile floor in the poorly lit restroom as Jason's back collides with the mirror, forcing a breath out of his lungs, and Gia barely gives him time to catch it before she's on him, fingers in his hair, legs around him, lips on his.
His hand grabs at her jaw, blood from his hand-that got cut up by the broken mirror-smearing across her skin where he grasps, pulling away from her kiss for just a moment, slightly put off by her aggression.
They haven't fully explored the full spectrum of her newly found abilities. Bruce had wanted to so he could find her strengths and weaknesses to be able to counteract an attack if she decided to turn on them, but Jason refused to subject her to such observations because he knew she wouldn't turn on them.
He's sure Bruce still has some things he's noticed about her jotted down, but a fully acquired study of her strength, speed, agility, and stamina hasn't been done...of course one wasn't done on Jason after he returned from the dead and Bruce still managed to pick up enough in a handful of run-ins with the Red Hood to hold a reasonable fight with him.
One thing Jason had done, though...
Gia takes Jason's cut finger, sucking it into her mouth and he feels as if he's going to fall down, his knees nearly buckling, but he catches himself on the wall, Gia grinning around the digit before his other arm is pulling her tighter against him before his lips trail down her neck, taking in the heat between her thighs as he hoists her up onto the sink, his eyes rolling back when she slips her hand into his pants.
His hands bare into her thighs, his mouth going back to hers briefly, before she asks, "are you loansharking?"
"What?" He asks her, confused, the question not fully registering due to the position-quite literally-that they're in.
"Are you loansharking?" She repeats.
He stares at her, the doped up feeling of being so intimate with her is beginning to wear off from the question.
Not that it hurts her feelings. She knew it'd irritate him. Which is why she waited until he had a small taste before completely ruining his appetite.
"Are you?" She asks him, knowing the answer.
He knows she knows, or else she wouldn't be asking about it, but he doesn't answer, and he can see just by the look on her face that he's screwed.
"I can explain, Gia." He says and she shoves him away from her as she harshly hisses out, "you told me you weren't doing that anymore!"
"I'm not!" He argues. "In Gotham!" He adds and she groans. "I was gonna tell you about it, alright, but I knew you'd get really upset with me and-"
"-How long have you been doing it down here, exactly?"
She waits for his answer, and he hesitates to tell her the truth, but rips the bandaid, prepared to set her off.
His blue eyes stare into her brown eyes, taking a mental picture of how angelic she looks despite how pissed she is, just as something to remember her before she turns into a pile of gnashing teeth, curse words, and thrown punches as a result of his answer.
"When you got sick and we needed to pay for treatment." He states.
It doesn't anger her, it confuses her.
"We had the money that Bruce had released to you from your inheritance, Jason, that's how we paid for all that stuff." She explains.
"I never accepted it." He shakes his head. "I was still so angry and hurt, Gia, I didn't want a fucking thing from him."
"It wasn't just yours to accept, Jason!" She bites out. "You weren't the one who was sick!"
"And I found a way to cover the bills for your visits and medications, anyway! I made sure you never went without, does that not count for something?!"
"By extortion!" She shouts.
"How else was I gonna come up with that much money so quick, Gia, it's not my fault the American health care system deep throats people with bullshit expenses for getting sick unexpectedly!"
"How else?! Gee, let me think, um, your rich father who released your inheritance to you early?!"
"I was beat to death and dead for all he knew, and he replaced me in six months, Gia!" He barks. "He didn't give me that money out of the goodness of his heart so we'd have enough to live off of comfortably. He gave it to me to try to make up for the fact that he failed me, then came back and let the person who did it to me in the first place, walk. And let him walk when he tried to kill you repeatedly. And let him walk when he paralyzed Barbara. It was guilt money. And I didn't fucking want any of it, and I'll be damned if I ever provide anything for you that's bought with money intended to just get one of us to try shut up."
"But you'll provide for me with money that was obtained by holding a gun to someone's head?" She asks, angrily, and he rolls his jaw. "What kind of logic is that, Jason?"
"I haven't held a gun to anybody's head to down here, Gia. They borrow the money knowing the risk they're taking if they can't pay it back, and they've all paid back for the most part. Which is why I've been able to afford to get you what you've needed."
"Oh, how kind of you!" She sarcastically says, not being able to help the chuckle that wraps around the words, rubbing her forehead.
"Don't start with that judgemental bullshi-"
"-I'm judging you! And I have every reason to! You had more money than you'd know what to do with from Bruce, and you refused to take it, only to snoop around here and seek out people in need of money so you can extort and prey on!" She throws her hands up. "And lets not even get started on the fucking drug rings you're balls-deep in-which is perfectly acceptable because, hey, you're keeping it away from kids!" Another sarcastic jab at him.
"He beat me, and tortured me, and deprecated me...and you confided in him and trusted him enough to help you fix yourself."
"That does not trump this. I did that because I was beat down and desperate and wanted to live."
"It completely trumps my indiscretions."
"I was trying to survive, Jason, and I needed help. Much like a lot of the people you loan money out to."
She refrains from completely comparing him to the Joker, although she knows if she does that he'll see why she feels so strongly about it.
It's an awful, dreadful, hopeless feeling when you owe someone a debt and can't pay it back-not the way they see fit...and she hates that Jason has probably participated in something like that.
Their heated exchange is interrupted by Jason's phone ringing, pulling him out of his focus on her.
He sees Barbara's contact name and glares at Gia before he's answering it.
"Hello?" He says, and Gia mumbles about, "giving them privacy," before she pulls the bathroom door back up and slams it shut.
Like a bullet striking through glass, but even that is hard to perceive, because the glass that'd been penetrated was bulletproof.
Again and again, James and Batman watch the video, Jim speechless as he sees his sister completely hound through the glass partition separating her from the clown prince in a matter of milliseconds, according to the time stamp on the bottom of the screen showing the security camera footage.
He looks at the caped crusader, unable to speak, forcing himself to get, "what's your call?" out of his mouth.
It's too personal for him to take into his own hands, already feeling a protective bias for his sister.
She's the only visitor he's had, and they've seen that, going back to each visitation that was logged, matching it with the security footage in Arkham's system.
They've seen her speak to him from outside his cell door multiple times, seen her speak to him—and attack him—in the visitor's center...
"Bring her in for questioning." Batman tells him, regrettably, but it's something that has to be done.
James knows this is inevitable, he just didn't want to be the one to say it.
"Alright." The commissioner says shakily, holding back a few stray tears, sniffling once, nodding, before turning away from the monitors and trying to throw liquid cement over the fact that she's his sister.
She's a suspect for accessory, right now.