Slum 2

Author's Note: Ever bemoaned the lack of female characters in my stories? Read this and think again. Enjoy.

Gotham Central Station is a gothic monstrosity located in the heart of the city. It's also probably the only train station I've ever seen that has gargoyles in the entryways. And, as a young kid, I used to come here with my dad. We never took a train anywhere, not even just to get across the city; my old man always preferred the subway. That's why one day, when I was seven, I asked him why we came to a train station if it wasn't to catch a train. My dad crouched down in front of me, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Sometimes we don't go to places for what there is do when we get there. Sometimes we just go to places because we like them." I didn't really understand at the time. I got that my old man liked the station like I liked the park on the corner of our block, but I knew why I liked the park. I could go on the swings or the merry-go-round wheel or on the monkey bars. I liked the park because of what there was to do, not because it was a park. After my mom died, he went to the station alone a lot. Sometimes, after finishing being fired from my job, I'd walk home through the station and find him sat there. I always found him sat on the same bench on the same platform every time: the last bench on Platform Nine, practically out of the station altogether. One day when I was eleven, I asked him about that too.

"When I was a kid, you know, maybe sixteen or seventeen, I came to Gotham from Bludhaven to find some work. The train I travelled on, it pulled up on this platform and my carriage door opened right in front of this bench I'm sitting on. I stepped off the train and I saw this girl about my age sitting where I am now. She was crying about something, must've been pretty upsetting with the waterworks she was putting on. So I went up to her, kinda nervous, and asked what was wrong. She said her boyfriend had just broken up with her, broken her heart and all that touchy-feely stuff. So I sat with her and, ten years later, she was my wife and gave me you. I come here because it reminds me of that first time." It was crazy. I'd been dragged along by my old man to this place for years and he'd never once told me that story. I asked him why I'd never heard it before. He just laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Dads aren't supposed to talk about that kind of lovey-dovey stuff with their sons. Now, if you were my daughter…"

About seven months later, he was dead. When I first started living rough, I used to come to the station too and sit on that end bench on Platform Nine, just as he did. I never got a train anywhere either. During the summer, I slept underneath the bench at night because it was cooler there. It was impossible to sleep in the station during winter because of the lack of heating. That's when I started hitting the alleyways and underpasses, but they were always taken. And that's how the motel rooms started and the morning after I'd always wander back to the station and Platform Nine. I liked it there, on that bench. It made me feel closer to him, to them. That bench on that platform was my church, a place of sanctuary removed from the rest of the world and my crappy life. I'd sit on it now, but that's not possible. There isn't a Platform Nine anymore. They tore it down a couple of years back to expand the gift shop. Even so, I still come to the station every now and then.

It's Saturday evening in downtown Gotham and I'm sat on my ass on the steps inside the station, people watching. I had a rough night on patrol yesterday. Three guys ganged up on me as we were stopping a robbery and hit me pretty hard for my troubles. Long story short, I got a split lip, a swollen cheek and one hell of a shiner on my right eye. Al wanted me to stay in bed for a few days, but I got restless and took a stroll out here without either of them noticing. It's cool though; I'm not planning to stay out all night. I'll head back before eleven to stop them bitching. Once again, Jason Todd is slumming it. This evening's ensemble is a little more street kid than street-wise punk; nothing really fits. I'm dressed in some beat-up and stained Keds that used to be white, some unflatteringly baggy jeans, a grey T-shirt falling apart at the seams and the coat I had on when I first met Bruce in Crime Alley. The coat was huge on me when I was twelve; today it seems even bigger. Added to this hobo-like attire are the facial scars, slumped posture and miserable expression. I've been here forty minutes and made a buck-sixty in change from people walking past. That wasn't my intention, not by a long shot. I honestly just wanted to people watch.

The reason I'm dressed like this is because my body is seriously bruised from head to toe and wearing loose clothes eases the sting. Since all my other clothes are tailor-made to make me look ridiculously good if more than a little snobbish and pretentious, I didn't have too many options. Fuck it though. I still made it here and now I can just pretend I'm watching a really dull reality show with an ironic title: Fast Times at Gotham Station springs to mind. Everyone's too old, too young or just too damn ugly to stomach for longer than a few minutes at a time; I wish I could change the channel. Of course, then I spot the one moderately attractive teenager GIRL near the hotdog vendor. She's about my age, maybe a little less than my height with shoulder length brown hair and a nice set of…green eyes. And her rack looks great in the sweater and jeans combo she's rocking tonight. I'm guessing she's in a public school, judging from her lack of poise and grace in wolfing her hotdog down like a tramp on chips, and the confident way she chats to a vendor that looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes. Finally someone interesting to creep out with excessive staring. Then she looks at me.

First thing she does is react like everyone else: raises her eyebrows in shock at my face. Then she begins wandering over with her hand in her pocket, again like everybody else. I'm expecting some pennies, maybe a dime or two at the most; she looks the generous type. When she gets within a few feet, I scrap moderately attractive and go for cute/pretty instead. She stops practically right at my feet. She takes her hand out from her pocket and extends it out to me. When she opens it, there's nothing there. Really? How clichéd is it that the pretty girl turns out to be a bitch? Is she gonna laugh now and ride off on her broomstick? I'm about to roll my eyes when she leans forward and reaches behind my ear, giving me the most stunning view of her chest I could ever hope to see. She smells like lavender soap. Just when I think they're going to stroke my face, she pulls back again. In her hand is a dollar bill. I frown.

"Usually people do that trick with a coin." I say. She shrugs.

"This is easier."

"I'm not actually homeless y'know."

"That's a shame. You just lost yourself one dollar." She puts the bill back up her sleeve and smiles at me. I gesture at the small pile of coins between my feet. She nods. "Pretty impressive for someone who's NOT begging in a train station." I casually shrug my shoulders.

"I could do better."

"Yeah, if you didn't have the elephant man's face you could." That's a little brutal…I like it. I smile back.

"But this sells sympathy." She shakes her head.

"It sells pathetic. You fall down the stairs wasted or something?" I raise my eyebrows.

"You think I'm a wino?" She offers me a sly, knowing look before replying.

"I think you like the attention." She sits down next to me without an invitation. "But who are you really?"

"I could ask you the same thing. Are you a prostitute?"

"Are you a rent boy?"

"Why, you think I'm the type?"

"You're definitely somebody's type." She pauses in the banter to ask a serious question. "Does your face hurt?" With that opening, I try my hand.

"Would you kiss it better if I said 'yes'?"

"I don't know. It'd cost you." She says the whole angle in an impression of a sleazy temptress, really hamming it up. I shrug.

"How much?"

"About a buck-sixty." That was good; I didn't even see her count it. I press the issue.

"So you are a prostitute?"

"I'm an opportunist." I fork over the change immediately. She pretends to count it carefully before stuffing it in her pocket. Then she leans in and plants one on my cheek. She's warm. I watch her nod in approval. "That was nice. How'd you do it?" I produce her dollar bill between my thumb and index finger.

"I'm an opportunist too."

"So why haven't you asked me my name yet? You're pretty bad at flirting." That's true enough. I can't flirt like Casanova, but I can run my mouth until I charm her anyway. Plus, I'm full of corny lines, like this comeback.

"And you're just pretty." It's fairly awful stuff, but she blushes a little anyway, probably embarrassed by the poor quality. She feigns confusion.

"So what are you waiting for?" She inquires. I casually shrug.

"For you to ask me out." She scoffs.

"You want ME to ask YOU out on a date?"

"Yeah, isn't that what girls do nowadays? This isn't the 1950s after all." She rolls her eyes, but is still smiling.

"Oh, so you're an expert on equal rights too?"

"I'm an advocate, not an expert. So you gonna ask me or what?" She sighs.

"I really wouldn't know where to start with such a stunning example of humanity as yourself." Her sarcasm is brilliant. Not only that, but she's witty and genuinely amusing; it makes it so much easier to fire quips without getting hopelessly tongue-tied…or slapped. I give her the best lines I've got.

"Ask me what my name is." Her eyes widen in curiosity. She gives me the right answer.

"Why? Is it really embarrassing?" And here's my follow-up.

"Absolutely tragic."

"Okay. So, mysterious, ugly stranger, just what is your name? I'm just dying to know." And, big finish…

"Myron Ballcock." She bursts out laughing.

"YOU'RE TERRIBLE!" And I'm in deep with her. So I drop the veil and give her something to actually work with.

"Okay, my name's not Myron Ballcock. It's Jason Todd." She doesn't exactly look disappointed, more astonished by what I just said. Is she that surprised I have such a boring name or what?

"The boy who used to live in Apartment 17 on Maple Bank?" Is she a stalker? Should I be worried? I frown at her.

"I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

"I used to live in the same building. I'm Maddie Prince." I'm not at all surprised I have no clue who she is; I was somewhat distracted as a kid living in that tenement, what with my mom snuffing it and my dad being a habitual criminal. I probably wouldn't have noticed a girl if she'd danced naked outside my bedroom window every morning. Obviously, I'd notice something like that now. Obviously I pray for something like that now. I'm absolutely desperate for that now. I mean, can you imagine how it would look…Where am I? Right, Maddie Prince, okay…

"This is kind of embarrassing, but I don't remember you at all." I'm expecting her to be upset by this admission, like teenage-girl-crying-her-eyes-out upset, but she's not. Maddie just nods her head in understanding.

"It's okay. I got told by my folks that your mom was dying and you probably weren't up to playing." She pauses to consider something. "You know, I heard a rumour that you lived on the streets and that your dad was dead. Then I heard this other rumour that you'd been adopted by Bruce Wayne. I never paid much attention to either, but…is any of that stuff true?" Rumours? These facts of my recent past are just rumours to people from my old neighbourhood? So, they didn't read the full four-page spread on Two-Face icing my old man from a few years back? And they didn't read the gossip rags about my adoption by Bruce Wayne a year later? Are they all illiterate or do they just not own TVs?

"Jason?" I must've been off in my own world for a while because she's looking a little concerned. "Which bits of it are true?" It's not worth lying to her, especially since it'll all come out eventually if this meeting goes further than this station. So I tell her the truth.

"All of it's true. My dad was murdered by Two-Face, I lived on the streets and then I was adopted by Bruce Wayne. Now, I'm a billionaire's ward. Life's weird huh?"