Thanks again for the review FuchsiaGrasshopper, you're awesome :)
Oswald had never had any friends. He was more aware of this as a small child when instead of companions, he returned home with cuts and bruises. As he grew older, his broken mind and spirit were tricked into believing that the people he manipulated into helping him were his friends. Jim Gordon. Maroni at a stretch. Then there was Grady.
Grady had come to him willingly because she recognized his skill. She was undoubtedly useful, brilliant, calculating. At worst, wild and impulsive with a cold, quick temper. But at best she was a bright spot he had been lacking in his life for so long. Like the day Fionn had gotten loose and she chased him down the alley. When she finally caught up with him, the dog knocked her down and covered her with mud. She had laughed like a child. Oswald liked her. He really did.
But he had not yet recognized that she was the closest thing to a real friend that he had. Although he did find it strange that he regretted exploiting the weakness he had discovered, something that had never happened before. It was clear from the way that Grady either smiled or blustered around when he did something to help her that she wanted someone to be kind to her as her grandfather once was. Someone that understood her or at the very least didn't flinch away from her quirks. This was a weakness in her. It was ironic that Oswald didn't realize their friendship considering she was not so different from him. But people have a funny way of spotting flaws in others that they can't see in themselves.
With one more gesture of his fondness for her, he would have her. She wouldn't refuse what he asked, he was certain. It would pain her to give it but there was no one else that could supply what he needed. The line he walked between Falcone and Maroni was growing thin as a knife's edge. He needed a scapegoat and fast. He could ask Grady for what he needed now and if she refused, negotiate. But he preferred to win her over and not sour things between them. They had passed the last week or so in a string of robberies and petty crimes. The two of them were growing restless and with tension rising with both Maroni and Falcone, Oswald knew he had to act soon.
They wandered the edge of the Burrow along the river on a rare sunny day. Lately Grady had asked him to meet her often on the pretext of business but they seemed to end up wandering outside. He let her show him the Burrow, tell him stories. And while she talked, he learned, and then he got an idea.
Grady was chewing on a sandwich from a corner store and leaning over the railing to watch the river. Oswald's eyes scanned the streets as he schemed, half listening.
"Can't believe I jumped into the great nasty thing," Grady said and chucked the rest of the sandwich into the brown churning waters. "You know I still don't think I've been properly warm since it happened."
"Hmm," Oswald said deep in thought.
"I heard a strange thing. A couple of strange things more like. Everyone's concerned with it of course. I'm surprised you haven't brought it up in fact. Are you listening? Oswald?"
He was watching a highly suspect van outside the corner store, lost in thought.
"Hey...Penguin," she tried.
That got his attention. He rounded on her, face transformed by fury like he had put on a ferocious mask. "Don't call me that!" he shouted.
Grady looked as if he'd punched her in the gut. "Well cripes, everyone else does."
"Not you," he growled. He held the rail along the river in a death grip, glowering over the water and the skyline on the other side. "If we're really partners, you won't call me that."
"Sorry," she mumbled, still looking stricken. "It's not like I said it to take the piss out of you."
He sighed. "I apologize. I know you didn't. I was given that name to put me in my place, low as can be, a mockery of everything from the way I look, to the way I walk, to my station. I hear it from my enemies. I was not prepared to hear it from you."
"I didn't mean it that way. I thought you didn't mind. I've heard you use it." She was truly sorry, no longer offended but ashamed.
"I don't want to let them use it to have power over me so I'm trying to take ownership of the name. But it can be difficult... you didn't know, that was unfair of me." He was almost calm now. Hearing the name was an attack and while Grady may have been sarcastic, she had never been cruel. It had caught him off guard.
But to see her frown at him with concern was soothing. He had never seen Grady look concerned over anyone. Machines yes, but never people. "I won't say it again," she told him and gave him a nudge with her shoulder. "Don't hate me?"
He lay a hand on the shoulder she used. "I don't hate you," he said and she seemed pleased. It was almost too easy. Feed her small kindnesses, plead for her help, and she would give whatever he needed. Oswald was so wrapped in his world of schemes, manipulations, and means to an end that he had no idea that many relationships worked in just this way.
"Now, what were you trying to tell me?" They walked back in the direction of the clock shop.
"I know this girl Selina. I sometimes buy from her. Just a kid, but a lot of potential. And I normally hate kids, they're rude and smell bad."
"That's babies Grady, children don't usually smell," he pointed out.
"Well one's as unpleasant as the other in my books...anyway, she was nearly killed. High profile assassins after her because she was witness to the Wayne murders."
And for the rest of the walk to the shop, Grady tried to convince him that the identity of the murderer was important while Oswald tried to explain that the murder had created chaos in Gotham which was very good luck and good luck should not be questioned which she thought was ridiculous. For an Irish woman, Grady did not seem to have a very good understanding of luck.
As anticipated, it and been easy to deliver him to the alley behind Grady's clock shop. Oswald's driver left him bound and gagged. The man would not be missed. And if Falcone did happen to ask? Oswald had covered up much more serious matters than this. But the man was nobody. Except to Grady.
He grabbed George Rice by the hair, turning his head back and forth to look up and down the alley.
"Do you know where you are?" Rice couldn't answer of course, gagged as he was, his bulging eyes rolling in fear.
"I would be nervous too, George," Oswald gave him a pat on the head. "My friend has been waiting to meet you for quite some time. But I believe you know her. People call her Grady."
First his face was confused, dumb and piggy and then his eyes went wide again when he remembered. Rice grunted around the gag and Oswald chuckled.
"You didn't remember her. Oh George. I'm afraid she won't be happy. She hasn't forgotten you. How could she? I'll go get her now. She'll be so thrilled to see you."
The grunting grew louder and more frantic, Rice shook his head.
"Don't fret George," Oswald smiled. "This is a reunion, a happy day."
When that didn't quiet the man, Oswald struck him with his umbrella.
He let himself in the front door. It was late and Grady should have been asleep but she sometimes kept odd hours. Yes, there was still a light behind the curtain. Fionn rushed to greet him and Oswald gave him a scratch between the ears. Grady was asleep on the couch, several blueprints spread across her like blankets.
Asleep she was smooth faced and untroubled, the girl who laughed and chased Fionn around. When she woke, she would transform into a fury. Did he want to see it so badly? Was it better to leave her asleep? No, Grady would want to be woken, he was sure of it. Maybe his fascination with her was in her duality anyway. He gave her a gentle shake.
Grady sat quickly, knocking her blueprints around but relaxed when she saw who it was.
"What's wrong?" she mumbled thickly.
"I'm sorry for the late hour. But this is how things played out. I told you shortly after we met that there was something I could do for you."
Grady shook a mass of hair out of her eyes. "What?" she frowned.
He took Grady's thin fingered hand which gave life to many a machine and would soon take the life of the man outside.
"George Rice is in the alley behind your shop. He's yours." Oswald placed his switchblade in her hand and closed her fingers around it. "Time to even up the score. Right?"
She stared at the knife as if she didn't understand what she was looking at. "How. How did you-"
"I told you it wouldn't be difficult and it wasn't," Oswald said. "I know that to you this is everything, for me it was nothing. Think of it as the least I could do."
Grady shook her head, eyes flashing with a range of emotion, a storm was brewing inside of her. "Falcone already mistrusts you. Now you'll be responsible for one of his missing men..."
"It's a trifle Grady," He gripped the hand holding the knife again. "Go take what's yours."
She gripped the knife so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her face was dark, the whites of her eyes wild. "I knew he would come to me," she said. "You're sure?"
"Of course," Oswald led her to the back door. She paused at the handle.
"I'm sorry. I know it's ungrateful to ask," she said. "But this is something I should do alone."
Oswald was disappointed to be sure. He had dearly wanted to see Grady lose control and make the man suffer. But there had been a purpose to this and the purpose was to keep her happy. He nodded once.
"Thank you," she said. As she turned to open the door and stalked outside, Oswald would have described her as an angel of death all cold, swift, justice, hell itself to the man in the alley who could almost be pitied.
And George Rice did tremble when Grady approached.
"Good evening George," she said. With a shove, she toppled him face first to the pavement then kneeled on his back. She grabbed a handful of his greasy curls and swiveled his head around to see her. "My name is Ailis O'Grady," she told him. "You killed my father, Tim O'Grady. I will not kill a bound man so I'm going to release you, but rest assured you will die drowning in your own blood like my father did. You should not have killed a Burrow boy. We live by a code here, it's nothing personal. Your gag stays. I have no interest in your last words."
She sawed through the binds on his hands and when he was free, he immediately pushed away, tried to struggle. Grady brought the knife down into his back, her grip tight, the entry angled so the blade wouldn't stick.
"I could make this quick," Grady grunted, but Rice disagreed. She had time to think that they always had to choose the hard way before there was chaos. But oh, how alive she was.
She stuck the knife where she could, did not feel any of the pain inflicted on her. Grady smelled blood. She'd waited years for the smell of his blood, hoping it could wash over the memory of her father's. If the years leading up to this has had been a twisting rapid river she had reached the waterfall and now she was plummeting down. Finally she was able to seize his hair again, the knife at his throat.
"Easy friend," Grady panted. "Have some respect for death now. It's here for you and it will come for me too."
Three o'clock. There was an eruption of chimes and rings and bells from her shop, a flood of sound. "Tick tock," Grady whispered. "Tick tock." The knife opened his throat and then there was a storm, a flood of a different kind. Warm and red all over Grady, her own blood pounding in her ears in time with the clocks. Tick tock.
When Oswald opened the door for her, Grady's sweater had turned from grey to red.
"Done," she said and handed him back the knife.
He followed her to the bathroom where she dropped the sweater with an ugly wet splat on the floor. Her tank top was cleaner but still dotted with incriminating red spots. She scrubbed at her arms in the sink, the water flowing pink. Then he saw another spot just above her waist where her shirt stuck to her, the blood dark.
"Grady, what's this?"
She glanced down but continued scrubbing at her hands. "Dunno," she mumbled. "Hadn't noticed."
He pushed up the hem of her shirt and found blood bright against her pale belly. "How did this happen?" he asked, truly puzzled.
"I couldn't kill a bound man," Grady said quietly.
"Ridiculous," Oswald snapped as he retrieved bandages. "This code you all live by. If this was any deeper, it would be dangerous. An unnecessary risk."
"I know, I know," she growled. "That's just how it is."
"Take care of your wound Grady," Oswald thrust the bandages at her.
Her hands shook as she turned off the tap and dropped the bandages.
Oswald picked them up again. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong, I just killed a guy," she blustered.
"And surely it wasn't your first," Oswald ripped open the bandage packaging.
"No, of course not," she mumbled and stuck the patch over the wound then stomped out of the bathroom, Oswald hobbling to keep up. She grabbed another sweater and pulled it haphazardly over her head. "It's just - it's just," she smoothed at her wild hair, hands raking at it frantically. "Funny isn't it. How he's dead. And my Da...he's still gone too. Not like I expected anything different but..."
"I thought I was helping you," Oswald said, baffled now.
"You were, believe me you did. I had to do this. And I've waited and now that's it's over," she shrugged.
"You enjoyed it though?" he ginned, hoping for a glimpse of the bloodshed he'd missed.
He was not disappointed. "Oh aye," she said, her smile wicked. "I enjoyed it."
His hand seemed to move without his mind's permission to reach out and touch the spot where her cheek dimpled. "Well worth it then."
"Thank you," she said, cheeks flushing deeper red. "It seems I owe you twice over now. Once for the river, once for this. If there's anything I can do, just ask."
Perfect. Oswald couldn't have asked for any better. Grady, dear Grady. He had her right where he needed her now.
