*PLEASE READ THIS STORY ON AO3
The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 28 - "Either You or Me" (part 2)
[rough draft 2]
Bruce dragged himself out of bed around 10:00 a.m. to drive into town and hide near the brownstone. He couldn't allow John to see him, but he wanted to be close enough for J'onn to include him in mind-to-mind communication. The Martian had assured Bruce that he would act as an intermediary and allow Bruce to mentally observe without letting him make direct contact with John.
They weren't connected yet, though Bruce did get the impression from J'onn's unguarded, automatic projections that Cassandra was very strained and Simon seemed like he hadn't realized what he'd gotten himself into when he'd agreed to take a birdsitting shift. John's stubborn, exhausted rage was no surprise.
o.o.o
J'onn J'onzz arrived at the house in his human guise and Earth vehicle. Although he couldn't hear anything with his ears, the wild emotions of the occupants blasted at J'onn's mind like loud music at a party. He was not at all surprised to see the harried look on Simon Baz's face when he opened the door. "Oh man, glad you're here. Get in!" Simon shut the door hurriedly once J'onn had stepped inside.
J'onn looked around. It was a very well-made house, though currently not very homey, with most objects shut away and padding covering the walls and furniture. He could sense the distress from Simon and weary frustration from the young woman who must be Cassandra Wayne, not to mention Bruce's anxiety outside and brief impressions from various passersby, but they were all overpowered by the rage, fear, grief, frustration, boredom, and despair blasting from the little boy on the floor.
He was clad strangely by human standards, with a helmet, mouth guard, mittens taped over his hands, and sheets of plastic fastened over his clothes. He snarled raggedly as he shifted, trying to get up even though he didn't have the strength.
"He tries to hurt himself if he can't hurt us," Simon whispered. "We had to scrounge up a helmet because he was beating his head against the walls."
J'onn knelt. "Hello, little one," he murmured with both his voice and his mind.
The boy turned his face to him and immediately shot a spear of pure vitriol that sent J'onn reeling. He took a moment to recover. "Bruce," he called silently, "have you given them any training in mental communication?"
"None, why?" Bruce asked worriedly.
"He catches on very quickly, then. He sensed my method of communication and reciprocated...quite forcefully."
"Hnn. (sad/resigned)"
J'onn took a breath to steady himself and brought up some mental guards before he tried again. "John," he asked, again with a mental echo, "I would like to speak with you mind-to-mind, where we can communicate more clearly. Do I have permission to enter your mind?"
John slowly dragged himself upright. He stared hard at the Martian, projecting, "(anger distrust fear contempt) Batman sent you." His silent voice was a mix of vague human-ish sounds from multiple languages and simultaneous birdsong.
"Bruce sent me," J'onn replied, this time without bothering to speak, emphasizing the image of the compassionate, courageous Bruce Wayne he knew rather than the sadistic, laughing demon in John's thoughts. He paused a moment to sift through the boy's almost wordless response. " 'Daddy' sent me, not the Batman Who Laughs."
"DADDY IS FAKE FAKE RIP BLEED TRICK FAKE!" John snarled immediately, making J'onn wince despite his wards.
"In the realm of the mind, there is little room for deception. Be still and quiet a moment, and consider. Your 'Daddy,' my 'Bruce,' look at them, at him." He presented the image and impression of the best of Bruce Wayne. "Is he false?"
"(REJECTION) I kill Batman kill Batman die me kill or die, NOTHING ELSE, NOTHING, NOTHING."
J'onn struggled to continue keeping his breathing even. It did not seem like the boy would permit him inside, and to enter someone's mind without permission was akin to rape. "Will you please come into my own mind? I will submit, you may explore any unlocked door you wish."
John hesitated. In the end, it was sheer boredom that sent him drifting across the mental link, following J'onn's guidance into the Martian's mind. For all the boy's iron determination, he didn't enjoy beating himself against walls or screaming his throat raw, and having nothing else he was willing to fill his time with as he waited for Batman to come fight him was extremely tedious.
John's mental self was a bird, almost. Human arms extended beneath the wings, tipped with hard, curved fingers like talons. The beak was flat and strange, there was no tail, but otherwise the rather ugly-looking creature was far more bird than boy.
It was also a gory sight, pieces half-ripped or half-cut off and dangling from remaining strips of flesh, blood seeping from countless wounds, the body as a whole looking like it was missing chunks entirely. It looked like a monster made of puzzle pieces, not all of them present, dragging itself along and leaving a trail of blood in its wake.
John hovered on the surface of the Martian's mind, as J'onn carefully kept Bruce's presence behind one of the locked doors. After a moment, John made a move toward an open door containing J'onn's innocent, happy memories, but then he dropped to the 'ground' and stubbornly stayed still.
"Would you like me to show you around?"
"You want want want what I DO NOT WANT to give," John sulked.
J'onn considered. He eased behind the most carefully-locked door and reached for Bruce's love for his son. Bruce's mind-self uncomfortably clung to it, but J'onn tugged gently. "It is for John. There is no shame here, Bruce."
"(sulky/embarrassed)," Bruce grumbled, but soon let go.
J'onn held the bundle of love very, very carefully as he came back out and re-locked the door behind him. He approached the bird monster. "John. This is for you."
John looked at it. He stared. Then he burst into tears. He wept as he accepted the love and held it, resting his face against it. "Papà and Mamma love me like this..." He frowned and slowly pulled away, inspecting the love more closely, and found guilt and pain hidden inside it. He flung it away. "THAT'S NOT FROM PAPÀ AND MAMMA!"
"John- John, he isn't them, but he loves you as much as-"
It was as if an invisible cleaver struck John. He jerked and then went limp in midair, his head lolling to the side and his eyes lifeless. The gash began and ended well beyond either side of his neck, as if it had been a blow meant to split the world and had simply caught John in the middle. His corpse hung from the wound across his half-severed neck. Blood streamed out of that horrible wide slash mark, blood had sprayed all over J'onn, who felt physically ill; John's blood had even sprayed across the doors, through them, all the way to Bruce, who painfully jerked himself free of J'onn's mind and lay gasping in his car, nauseous and shaking all over.
In the brownstone, J'onn stared, disoriented, finding himself in the tangible world again. It was almost strange to see John as a relatively ordinary creature, whole and small and bloodless and impassive. He did not at all look like he'd just been in an alien's mind, nothing in his expression even reflected the trauma he'd just induced on both himself and two other mind-selves.
"I can't help him," J'onn gasped, staggering to his feet. "I can't- help him, he's too broken, he doesn't want me to- Such pain, how can they stand it...?!"
o.o.o
Tamara Fox walked into the office with her mouth open in preparation to speak, but then she slowly closed it and frowned.
Tim was spinning lazily in his chair as he held a document. "...and these are super-boring," he was saying aloud, "but I have to read them, because I'm the boss, so guess what, you have to listen to them, too~!" He started reading the document aloud, but then saw Tam and paused with a smile. "Oh, hey, look, it's my friend, Tam. Tim and Tam. The newspapers had a lot of stupid fun with our names when everyone thought we were engaged."
"Timothy," Tam said very warily, "who are you talking to?" He was wearing an earpiece, but she couldn't think of a single person he would speak to like that while at work.
"My brother."
"Don't all your brothers already know who I am?"
"Not the new babies."
Tam gasped in realization. "Ohh! The Arkham Robins? You're talking to one right now?"
"Yup." Tim pressed a button on his phone. "Jackie, say hi to Tam."
There was silence. Tam started to second-guess her assumption that Tim was sane and/or telling the truth.
"You're not gonna say hi to my friend?" After a moment, Tim, grinning a little, met Tam's eyes and held his finger over his lips. Tam waited silently, growing more and more apprehensive as she started expecting some horrible Bat-related thing to jump out of nowhere and kidnap her or try to kill her, or Tim, or something.
The thing that finally happened was a little voice wailing from the phone, "Ttimmy?!"
"Oh, there you are!" Tim crooned. "You wouldn't answer, so I thought you hung up on me." He explained to Tam, "I made the mistake of reactivating his phone because I felt guilty about abandoning him, and now he's punishing me with separation anxiety."
"That'll teach you," Tam said.
"Yeah, that'll teach me to upgrade my little brothers' tech."
"I meant that'll teach you to abandon him, you jerk!"
"Jackie," Tim coaxed, "can you say hi to Tam now?"
"..."
"He's a rude little brat," Tim told Tam matter-of-factly. "Also an alternate universe version of me, so."
"Makes sense," Tam agreed. "Um, but you can't exactly keep an external line open during the top-secret meeting I came to get you ready for."
Tim frowned. "Oh yeah." He looked at the phone. "Jack, I have to hang up now."
"Nnoooooooooo!"
"Jack, you have, like, ten other numbers in your phone. Call Dick or something, I have to go."
"Ttimmy, ccome bback!"
"Later, not now. Bye, Jack, I love you!" Tim hung up firmly, because he knew there was no way Jack was going to willingly let him go.
"You really are a jerk!" Tam exclaimed. "At least don't tell him 'I love you' right before you abandon him, that's so mean!"
Tim shrugged. "My parents did it to me all the time, and I turned out fine."
"Debatable," Tam said dryly.
"Don't we have a meeting to get to?"
"I'm glad we never got married. You would have traumatized our kids, Timothy Drake."
"Yeah, I think I'd be good at that," Tim remarked as he rejected a new call from Jack and sent a few heart emoji instead.
"Don't brag about it, geez!"
o.o.o
Bruce and J'onn sat silently in the car for a long time. The Martian finally murmured, "He quite literally thinks he is a bird. His mind-self is barely human, Bruce. Even his mind-voice is partially that of a bird."
Bruce folded his hands on top of the steering wheel and rested his forehead against them.
"I could heal him if he was willing, but he doesn't want to be healed, Bruce. He has narrowed down his entire life to seeking either your death or his own. The only people I have seen who are similarly beyond help are all villains."
"...What have I done?" Bruce whispered.
J'onn hesitated, then laid a hand on his shoulder. "It was not you who damaged him, Bruce. Your love for him is beautiful, and he did respond to it at first. It may be that that child is lost forever, but, Bruce...I do know that if anyone can help him, it is you. It must be you, because you are the only person who exists for him now."
"I can't let him die, that's out of the question, and I can't let him-" Bruce raised his head. He stared off into the distance with such a dark look that a shudder went down J'onn's spine. Then Bruce flicked out his communicator and messaged his family and the League: I need to convincingly stage my own death, with John witnessing. I might need your help.
o.o.o
[warble] stared at his phone in a growing panic. Timmy was dead now, so he touch touch touched until he found the pictures. He touched [big chirp-chirp]'s picture. [big chirp-chirp] was dead, but he wanted [big chirp-chirp]'s voice, and brrring and brrring and-
"Dick Grayson, who's this?"
"[big chirp-chirp]?!"
"Awww, which baby bird is this?"
"Ddi'ckie, Ddi'ckie, Ttimmy ddead!"
"Timmy's dead?!"
Jack burst into tears.
"Hold on a sec, baby bird!"
"DDI'CKIIIIEE!"
"All right, all right, all right, don't hang on a sec..."
o.o.o
[*GIANT CHUNK OF TEXT CENSORED OUT BECAUSE FFN IS STUPID*]
o.o.o
There was a long pause, finally broken by another tim text from Jack.
"Oh for the love of..." Tim muttered. Dick, get off the line so I can call him again. Tim needed to get back to his meeting. Bruce was the one who'd last updated WE's security protocols, he could deal with confidential information about in-development tech being overheard by a six-year-old.
TBC