Chapter: 6
A sigh uttered from Bruce mouth as he came into the Bat-cave with a box of new medical supplies only to see Alfred hard at work in reviving Tarry. "What's the situation with the kids?" he asked anxious to know how both kids were doing since he left to pick up much needed supplies from his friend Luscious, as he placed the new medical equipment down in the medical bay part of the Bat-cave.
"Well both are doing equally worse than before you left, Sir. After destroying the training area I sent Damien up to his room to vent and pace as much as needs to, and for the young Lady well…it will be a miracle if I can get her vitals stable."
"I thought you said the Joker didn't hit her heart."
"At this point due to her earlier injuries and her lack of nutrient even the least fatal gunshot could kill her. Her body doesn't have the strength or nutrients to help her pull through this Master Bruce," Alfred explained solemnly without taking his eyes off his work as he transfused new blood into her in order to replace the large sum of blood she had lost during the last several hours of the day.
"Alfred do whatever you need to, this child cannot die for both Damien's sake and the sake of the promise I made on Dick's wife's gravestone to find their daughter," Bruce whispered as he turned around to head out of the Bat-cave.
"Sir, prepare yourself, for the worse," Alfred warned knowing exactly where Bruce was headed. Bruce nodded in acknowledgement knowing quiet well the kind of situation he was going to get himself into by going upstairs to comfort Damien. The only things that worried him while climbing out of the cave was aggravating his wounded son and whether or not he was going to come out of Damien's room alive, because if his son was able to decimate the training room he spent millions to make who knows what was in store for him behind the doors he will soon be in front of. When Bruce arrived upstairs he knocked on the door before entering to see his son pacing around with his head hung low. As his son looked towards him, shock visibly appeared on his face as he saw the one person he never expected to be crying standing in front of him with his eyes blood shot.
"Have you been crying?" Bruce questioned in a whisper that made him regret asking by the way his son glared daggers at him for pointing out the obvious fact that he never wanted to show anyone. Great my first mistake, Bruce thought as he inwardly face-palmed for walking into that land mine. If he was going to make it through this little chat alive without causing further damage he would have to tread lightly from now on.
"What do you want father?"
"Damien, I know what you're going through when I lost my parents-"
"Why are you telling me that story father, she's not going to die," Damien stated as he paused from his pacing only to glare harder at his father. Right now he didn't want to hear his father's sob story, it had nothing to do with his case. He had done his homework on the event back then there was no hope for them, and last time he checked Tarry was still breathing, still holding on to life.
"We can't rule out the possibility, anyway I came upstairs to let you know that I understand what you're going through-"
"How can you understand what I'm going through! You've never been in the situation where you can save random strangers yet you failed to save the one person that matters!"
"That's where your wrong my son, how do you think I felt when Jason died? I had the capability to save him but I was seconds too late to save him!"
"Yeah, but in the end Jason Todd is still alive…who's going to dump her in the Lazarus Pit to fix this? Just leave!" Damien ordered as he returned to his pacing as if his father was already gone. Bruce opened his mouth to further address the matter but he closed it seconds later after realizing he couldn't save this situation with words without stepping on more land mines. As he exited his son's room he wished he could be like other parents that would have told their kid that everything was going to be okay and that the situation would end in a happily ever after, but he wasn't one of those parents. He had faced so much death to have the heart to lie to his son that everything would be okay especially with the fact that they were in Gotham where happy endings rarely grace the crime infested streets.
It wasn't long before Bruce found himself taping away at the Bat-computer to calm his nerves as he looked into Tarry's case in order to find any other clues that he neglected to see before that would shed some light about how Joker managed to kidnap the girl without leaving a trace behind after all the Joker was known for marking his handiwork whether it was a Jack in the box or a Joker playing card.
"So I'm guessing your little conversation with Master Damien didn't go so well?" Alfred questioned behind him as he dried his hands from washing blood off them after finishing transfusing blood into Tarry and stitching her up.
"Try horrible, I don't know what to do. I tried to be realistic with him, but now I feel like I should have sugar coated it for him," Bruce replied as he spun around in his chair to face his oldest friend with a look that was deep in thought.
"Master Bruce, you couldn't sugar coat anything even if you tried. What Damien needs to hear is the truth, but that doesn't mean you leave out the hope and possibility that she could make a full recovery."
"Speaking of Tarry what's her status?"
"Well I managed to make her somewhat stable with the transfusion. So now we leave her fate up to time to see whether she'll pull through or not."
"Then tell Damien the news. I don't think he'll talk to me for a while," Bruce stated as he got up from the computer with Alfred by his side to head upstairs to use what was left of the night to re-charge their batteries. Although the news didn't seem to lift Damien's worry it was enough to comfort him to at least take Alfred's advice and get some sleep that night.
From that night both Bruce and Alfred tried to bring the usual routine in the house back to normal, but they couldn't with each passing day that week Damien refused to eat and to leave Tarry's side with the only exception of Bruce hauling him of to bed where he spent most of the night pacing with worry as he pondered why she wasn't waking up despite her vitals being fairly stable.
"Damien it's time to go to sleep," Bruce stated as he finished putting on his Bat suit to spend yet another night patrolling Gotham with his third foster son Tim Drake, otherwise known as Red Robin, since Alfred thought it best for Damien to stay in the Manor until Tarry's condition had a clear status.
"What's the point? How do you expect me to sleep when she's been like this for a week?" Damien questioned as he paused from reading the journal that he had given her after hearing from Alfred that talking to her about something significant to her may help her to wake up. Although he's been reading the little she has written in her journal for days he was determined to continue even though it brought no results at the end of the day, but it was better than doing nothing. Doing something, anything that could bring her back prevented him from losing control of his temper or his emotions.
"If you're not going to sleep at least go to your room you don't want to get in Alfred's way when he comes down to do a check up on her," Bruce warned as he hopped into the Bat-mobile and was speeding away into Gotham seconds later. After glancing at the pale faced girl in front of him he soon got up to fulfill his father's wishes with the thought that it might help her someway somehow in her recovery in order justify him leaving her each night.
"Good night Master Damien," Alfred bides as he passed the young boy on his way to his patient. It wasn't long before everyone had drifted off into their beds for the night; however, in the dark cave lay Tarry stretched out on a bed in the medical bay that they hoped would remain knocked out until morning. But as the young girl's eyes began to open to reveal a pair of green eyes that assumption was cased away. As she took in her surroundings of the dark ominous bat filled cave, billions of questions flowed her mind like where was she, how did she get here, and most importantly was she free from the clutches of her father? More and more as these questions went through her mind without her being able to remember anything that would answer them she began to panic. What if this was just another one of her father's hideouts? If that was true then she had to get out of here no matter what, after all with the stunt she pulled he was probably waiting for her to wake up so she was conscious to witness her death. She soon found herself running out of the Bat-cave despite the pain that burned through her chest from the injury she obtained from her father's gun. Although she had no idea where her feet were taking her, she had to keep going in order to find somewhere safe so she can figure out a way to contact Robin, if he hadn't been killed by her father already.
Back at the mansion Damien was startled by his communicator beeping as it flashed green, the very sight shocked Damien for seconds before he grabbed it and ran out of his room towards the Bat-cave. For he created that signal to inform him if anything changed in Tarry's condition because he had programed the communicator he gave her to monitor her heart rate, so it would tell him if there is an increase in her activity or if the activity plummeted to zero. The sight that the young boy faced when he finally made his way through to the medical bay was an empty bed and blood drenched IV tube that Damien could only guess was ripped out violently in the process of Tarry's escape. Just go to bed she'll be fine, yeah right, Damien thought as he zoomed out of the cave in his Robin suit from the hanger doors that had a scalpel driven into the control set that laid on the wall next to the hanger doors. The only saving grace in this situation was that the communicator he used to monitor her heart could also be used to track her as well.
It wasn't long before Robin followed Tarry's communicator to an old abandoned alley located in the worst part of Gotham, the part that was known for where all the criminal activity went down in Gotham. Damien sighed getting off his bike with the notion that this was no place for a girl who just woke up from a near comatose state to be especially at night. As the young Boy Wonder casually walked into the alley he stopped dead in his tracks to a commanding yell telling him to stay back as he saw a scalpel flying towards him. Being trained by his parents his whole life allowed him to dodge the flying scalpel before running to the very end of the alley to grab hold of Tarry's arms before she could throw another one at him.
"Calm down it's just me," Damien said causing Tarry to instantly drop the scalpels in her hands as many emotions rushed through ranging from shock all the way to relief that Robin was able to escape the clutches of her father.
"Sorry for the whole trying to impale you with a scalpel."
"No damage done, but I wish I could say the same for those alley cats," Robin replied as a couple of dead cats with scalpels lodged into their heads caught his eye while he was running towards her. "Any way what compelled you to runaway especially to here or all places?"
"What do you expect me to do when I wake up in a strange cave filled with bats? I thought I was still in the hands of my father and that he was trying to keep me alive in order to torture me a little more before killing me."
"Tarry the Joker won't ever be able to hurt you again, we made sure he got maximum security jail time in Belle Reve, instead of Arkham. So with that being said will you come back with me to our scary bat infested hideout?" Damien questioned as he held out a hand towards her with a warm smile that left Tarry stunned for several moments until she forced herself out of it only to shrink away deeper into the dark alley.
"I can't Robin, as long as I'm with you there's no jail in the world that can stop my father from killing me and everyone I care about."
"Batman and I are trained to handle people like Joker, we won't let him touch you again and there is no way he'll be able to hurt us-"
"Really! A couple of days ago you almost got shot!" Tarry shouted as she moved away from the colorfully cladded sidekick until her back was up against the brick wall that brought an end to the alley.
"I'm not only offering protection, Tarry, I'm also offering a chance to be a part of a real family and to have a real life where you don't have to spend every second in fear of your next beating. Please come back with me, I just spent the last couple of days wondering what it would be like without you and I don't want to go through that again."
"I-I-I don't know-"
"If you come with me now all will be revealed, no more secrets. Do you trust me?" Damien asked as he moved his hand closer towards her in hopes that she would take it.
"Since you aren't giving much of a choice in this matter, I trust you," she answered while taking hold of his hand that guided her out of the alley onto the back of his Robin-cycle. That night as Tarry was introduced to both the Bat-cave where the boy she met a month ago was Robin and the manor on top of the cave where her friend was really named Damien, she couldn't help but feel that it was all a dream that she wasn't really the daughter of a psychotic clown and that she was actually sleeping on an actual bed next to the person she cherished most in the world right now and probably for the rest of her life.
"Alfred is there any reason why the hanger door to the Cave is broken?" Bruce asked with a sigh as he ripped the scalpel out of the device controlling the doors.
"I'm not entirely sure, I awoke long enough to see Master Damien guiding Lady Tarry up to his room," the butler replied as he handed his oldest ward a cup of his famous hot chocolate to warm the billionaire up after going head to head with Mr. Freeze all night.
"Is it alright for her to be discharged from your care Dr. Alfred?" Bruce asked in a joking tone as they walked upstairs towards Damien's room.
"Well Sir, I don't think I have the heart to disturb them," Alfred admitted as they looked upon a scene of both teens sleeping peaceful holding hands that Alfred could guess that they never let go off since he saw the young couple scurrying through the Manor over an hour ago.
"Alfred I've been thinking although I said I would punish Damien for breaking almost every rule I ever made, but I can't really blame him, I mean he wasn't sneaking out to defy my commands, but to make contact with someone his age."
"What are you purposing sir?"
"Maybe it's time to stop the home schooling and put him in a school," Bruce replied as he closed the door softly to his son's room before walking down the hall towards his bedroom all the while giving Alfred orders to clear a room for Tarry, prepare some clothes she could wear, and finally to enroll both of them in Gotham Academy.