"I have to go," Jo pushed back from the table in a hurry without so much as a look in her Mother's direction before she exited the room, heading for the stairs.
Damian stared resolutely at an obscure spot on the table, refusing to meet anyone's eyes, rhythmically tapping his ring finger against the stained wood, the metal of his wedding band clacking against the hard surface.
"She wanted to make it clear this wasn't about you," Pamela was saying. "It was a personal decision, and her mind…it was made up."
"But you were there," he said, slowing the speed of his tapping. "You, a metahuman of nearly immeasurable power. You, a former ward of Arkham Asylum who has been married to a psychiatrist for the last 45 years and should therefore be intimately familiar with the fact that suicidal thoughts or actions are indicative of mental illness, and not something to even be humored, let alone honored. You were sitting right there next to her," he raised his eyes to meet hers. "And you let her jump."
"Damian…" Pam started, her eyes glossy. "She was a grown woman. An old woman. I couldn't—who was I to stop her?"
"Her friend," he answered immediately. "Her best friend. That should have been enough." He rose from the table as Carrie sniffed, quietly wiping her eyes with a tissue that she bunched up in her fist. "Please leave."
Pam swallowed, she'd expected this, although she assumed he would seem more…hysterical. "Damian, I just…she was happy. She wasn't out of control, she was resolute, she was—,"
"Get out of my house!" he roared, cutting her off. "Now. Leave. You staying here to mourn her with us would be a vain, masturbatory exercise on your part. Perhaps Harleen will be more sympathetic. Regardless, I hope you're reminded every day of your eternity on this planet that you alone allowed this to happen."
Pam nodded slowly, getting to her feet. "And perhaps, one day, you'll realize I had to."
/
The last time Harley had seen Pam look so downtrodden was the day she found her in the hallway after her TV interview, the one where she outed herself as a rape victim. The difference here, though, was that Pam wasn't crying.
Harley was—definitely. She'd been crying all morning. But Pam seemed to be in a world of her own.
She lay in bed with her arm wrapped around Harley now, holding her close to her chest, forfeiting her t-shirt for the purposes of a snot, slobber, and tear receptacle.
"It just…now what am I supposed to do?" Harley sniffed. "She was my only f—f—friend."
"That's simply not true," Pam murmured, carding her fingers gently through Harley's hair. "You still have Barbara, and Dick, and…well, Selina must have introduced us to that Kate woman last night because she knew we'd have to fill a hole."
"I can't just fill a hole, Pamela!" Harley struggled prop herself up. "I've known Selina for almost 50 years! Saw her just about every day! She knew all my secrets, our kids married each other for Christ's sake. She can't be—she can't be replaced."
Pam didn't respond right away. In fact, she barely even acknowledged Harley's words, just continued absently playing with her hair, twisting the blonde locks around her finger. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Harley wiped her nose on Pam's shirt. "Why are you asking me that?"
Pam pursed her lips, letting her fingers migrate from Harley's hair to her face where they trailed slowly down her cheek. "Plants feed off of the rotting carcasses of their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers…use the raw material of what once was to become something new. That's…all I know about death, really. It's the only death I can ever hope to understand. But even still, plant or human, I'll never be able to see the other side. Never see what lies beyond, where everything leaves to…will Selina's soul be recycled just like her body? Will it be of any use to a new organism? Where are her memories? Are they floating somewhere in the cosmos? Buried underground, deep in the earth, never to be uncovered…or are they gone forever. Useless, wasted on only one life. A simple life, in the grand scheme of things. For someone who loomed so large in my life for so long. For someone I loved…it all seems rather insignificant. Her death, her departure. I just…want to know if whatever is behind that locked door that I'll never have the key for—I want to know if it's worth it. If she'll matter there."
"Do you—," Harley wiped her eyes. "Do you want her to?"
"Yes," Pam answered, tears finally gathering in her eyes. "Yes, I want her to feel…complete, and…fulfilled. I want Bruce to be there with her, by her side somehow…I don't know how, and I will never know—I can't, but I…I wonder."
Harley sniffed. "Well, I guess we finally found something you didn't have the answers for."
"Other, more fantastic phenomena," Pam mumbled. "That exceeds even the wildest imagination."
Tears fell down Harley's cheeks as she blinked. "What?"
Pam just shook her head, pressing a kiss to the place just below Harley's eye, the woman's tears salty on her lips.
/
Jo cleared her throat, her index finger hovering nervously over the intercom button. But after another glance at her watch, it was sort of unavoidable. "Damian?"
He continued on with his simulation as if he hadn't heard her—maybe he actually didn't or maybe he was just ignoring her, either way…
She slowly powered down the environment, and as the last dummy disappeared, enveloped back into the floor with the others, he spun around angrily towards the glass.
"I wasn't done!"
"It's 10:30," she told him, her finger holding the microphone in the on position so they could speak while she remained in the control room. "We have to go."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"10:30pm, Damian." Jo specified. "Gotham needs us…or whatever."
He heatedly tossed his VR headset aside and grabbed his water bottle before wrenching the door open, his eyes falling on Jo where she stood by the control panel in her suit. "Where's Duke?"
"With Cass," she told him. "Figured we could patrol together tonight, just in case you wanted to—umm—talk or something, I don't know."
Taking a drink of his water was really the only response Damian gave, and obviously that's really not much of a response at all. After that, he exited the room, slamming the door behind him even though Jo had yet to come out.
"Fantastic," she muttered, opening the door to follow after him.
The Batmobile was running with Jo in the driver's seat by the time Damian was ready, his mask already down over his face.
"I'm driving," he said, his words threatening when filtered through the modulator.
"Uh…OK…" Jo climbed over to the passenger seat, electing to choose her battles. "Carrie?" she called over to where the woman was sitting at the desk, her shoulders slumped, bloodshot green eyes magnified by her glasses. "I think we'll go radio silence for tonight. Just…send us the coordinates if you spot anything, alright?"
Carrie nodded mutely, far from her typically bubbly self.
Jo might have offered her a hug if Damian hadn't climbed into the car then and shut the roof. "Seatbelt?" she suggested as he put the car in gear.
"Life doesn't give you seatbelts," he gritted in response, speeding off of the platform and down the tunnel.
"Cool. I feel super safe right now," Jo said under her breath as she closed her mask, bracing herself on the door when he roughly nicked the cement siding.
An alert came in once they crossed into Central Gotham. "Umm…looks like a jewelry store robbery. Two guys and a getaway driver…three blocks over, that's easy money," Jo said, her eyes on the monitor.
"No."
Jo turned to him. "Damian, it'll take us like two seconds, really. Just take a right here."
"No," he repeated, taking a left in direct opposition to her instructions. "I'm not taking in any thieves tonight."
She narrowed her eyes beneath her mask, watching his movements closely. "Seems like you have something in mind."
Damian didn't respond, just took another turn, heading towards the waterfront.
"This isn't like a Snapped thing, is it? Because I'm all for dealing with your grief in your own way, but I'll fight you if I have to."
But he stopped short of the waterfront, taking a left on a parallel street rather than continuing down, and…OK, his plan for that evening was beginning to come into focus. "For once in your life, Jolene, do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up."
"Copy that," she sat back in her seat, resigning herself to second fiddle for the night. She'd loved Selina. The woman had been a second Mother to her, and a friend, always…but her loss would never feel as visceral to Jo as it would to Damian, and she was planning to allow him to cope with his loss however he needed. The same curtesy he'd paid her after Jason.
But, to her surprise, he didn't stop next to the car who was clearly cruising the local talent…nor the next one, or the one after that. Instead, he pulled right up to the street corner and retracted the roof, stepping out onto the curb.
None of the women standing there seemed to know what to do with what was happening. Jo included. What the fuck was happening?
Eventually, the woman closest to them on the street corner—mid-40s, by the looks of her, seemed like she'd been doing this a while—took a brave step forward. "H—hey, Baby," there was a nervous stutter in what Jo guessed was her typical approach. "You lookin' for a good time?"
"No, thank you," Damian answered plainly. "My wife's in the car."
The women all leaned to peer around him, and Jo gave an awkward wave from the passenger seat. "It's date night," she told them.
"She's a—uh—real looker," the woman offered.
"Better without the mask," Damian informed them. "Of that I can assure you."
"Yeah, I beg to differ!" Jo shouted.
He turned around to give her what she guessed was a warning look, but of course his true expression was obscured. "What did I say?"
"Sorry, shutting up," she apologized.
"Y'all have little bat-babies too?" the woman asked, drawing some nervous laughter from the women behind her.
"Yes," Damian deadpanned. "Three, actually. Parenthood is far more difficult than I thought it would be. What about you? Do any of you have children?"
It took a moment, as they clearly weren't yet sure if his intentions…but eventually a woman near the back did timidly raise her hand, and then another, and two more. In the rear-view mirror, Jo could see the cars behind them speeding off. Perhaps just seeing the Batmobile was menacing enough.
"Yeah, I got one," the woman in the front said. "Little girl. What's it to ya?"
"I have two of those," Damian revealed, reaching for one of the compartments on his suit that quickly spat out…his wallet? "They can be a real handful. Now," he opened the wallet and reached into one of the pockets. "Are any of you familiar with SmartCards?"
That question drew a lot of confused head shakes.
"Well, they're essentially cash cards, but ones that can only be used for specific purchases, like lodging, food, basic household necessities, and clothing." Damian told them. "Those of you who told me you had children will be receiving a card with $60,000 on it, just above the median yearly income in the United States. And for the rest of you, your cards will contain $52,000, which is more or less the exact median. Now, I don't mean to sound patronizing," he pulled the cards out one by one, the ones containing the higher value black rather than charcoal gray. "But please don't attempt to purchase narcotics with these cards, and please don't give them away to your pimps—if you have one. As soon as I hand them to you, they'll record and save your fingerprints and require it to make a purchase."
It took a while for him to pass them all out to the appropriate parties, but as he returned to the Batmobile, with tears in her eyes the first woman said: "Thank you, Batman and Batman's creepy-ass wife!"
"'Jason's girl' to 'Batman's creepy-ass wife'," Jo mused as Damian closed the roof over them. "I sure have come a long way."
Damian didn't respond, just sped off back the way they'd come—noticeably still without a seatbelt.
"So…" Jo began once they'd traveled a few blocks, continuing down to the port now, their wheels skating easily over the wood of the docks. "You want to talk a little about that, maybe? You just gave away like $240,000."
"Our family owns nearly the entire waterfront," he answered, and though it didn't seem to be in direct response to her question, Jo was happy he was at least talking about something…even if it was information she'd already had regurgitated at her a million times.
"Really?" she prompted him further.
"Yes, my paternal Grandfather…"
Bought the docks so any company shipping through the port would have to pay him a usage fee.
"Bought the docks so any company shipping through the port would have to pay him a usage fee."
Oh, ya don't say…
"All of this…" Damian gestured out the window at the passing warehouses. "We own it. Our family's name is on it. Essentially the entirety of Gotham City…it pays rent to us. To you and I."
Huh… Jo honestly hadn't really thought that much about what Selina's death truly meant. It was more than the end of an era; it was nearly the end of a generation. They were on their own with all this stuff now. "That's…pretty stressful," she admitted.
Damian nodded in agreement. "Yes. And I am…afraid." He said it like the word was foreign to him. "My Father expanded our family's wealth, just like his Father before him. I just…cut ribbons and smile pretty for the camera. That office they gave me is just for show—Luke does all the real work."
So that's what the whole Luke thing was about. Jesus, what's with all this fragile masculinity? Jo opened her mask so that he could hear this in her actual voice. Somehow she didn't think it would land as well delivered through the modulator. "I think men are too quick to want to put their name on things. To claim something, or whatever." She began. "What I've learned—especially after having kids and having to constantly ask for help because I literally could not do it on my own—was that life is sorta like a giant group project. Sure, you can try to go at it alone, and for a second it might seem easier to go that route—but in the long run, it's always better to collaborate. And the great thing about the position you're in now, the one you were born into, is that your name's already on the building, Babe," she reached over to squeeze his shoulder. "Everything this company does, whether it's good or bad, whether you were in the office when it happened or just signed the check…it's all you. You're the only one with the last name, out of all your siblings. You are Mr. Wayne. That's all you need to be remembered. Well…that and that tweet someone sent after our wedding that just said 'I'd totally watch their sex tape.' That shall live on forever…screenshotted…on every phone I've owned and will own for the rest of my life."
"Yeah, and we're still not doing that, by the way." Damian informed her.
"Well, you're no fun," Jo pouted, crossing her arms over her chest, watching out the windshield as he pulled the Batmobile into an abandoned car lot. Well…more like a junkyard, by the looks of it. There were a lot of those still around, dumping sites for old gas-guzzling cars, the kind that were outlawed now thanks to the 'clean automobiles' initiative Poison Ivy somehow managed to get unanimously passed through both houses of congress (*cough* pheromones *cough*).
Jo was about to ask what they were doing there when Damian opened the roof and shut the car off, jumping out and offering his hand so that she could do the same.
"Follow me," he instructed, kicking the lock on the gate open with a single swing of his leg.
"My goodness!" Jo gasped. "So strong. So rugged. Sweep me off my feet, my lumberjack."
"I'm letting that slide because Mom would have laughed," Damian told her, shutting the gate behind them and leading her through a maze of broken down cars, their metal rusting, headlight's hanging half out of their sockets…it was all a bit eerie with the moon shining above them, the creaks and groans of the aging, outdated corpses that surrounded them…
But 'Mom'…that made Jo smile. It'd taken Damian a long time to arrive there, and to see that his anger wasn't aimed at Selina the way it was at Bruce was refreshing. She wondered if he ever got that 'I love you'…
"Here," Damian stopped in front of a stack of four cars piled on top of each other. "Climb."
Jo looked at him questioningly, wishing he'd retract his mask so she could get some inkling as to what was going on with him. But he just gave her a nod, and with a sigh, she obliged, grabbing the door handle on the second car and pulling herself up.
Damian followed behind her, and soon they'd both scaled the pile.
"Oh, wow…" Jo said, letting her feet dangle over the other side. "You can see the whole bay from here."
"Yes," Damian acknowledged, his mask finally pulling back from his face. "And thanks to your Mother…" he took a deep breath as the breeze blew gently at them. "It no longer smells like rotting sewage."
"Don't give her all the credit. Mera helped," Jo reminded him, looking out over the water that—in her lifetime—had changed from a murky brown to a far healthier blue. "I'm sorry about your parents. I know that's not enough, but…I really am sorry."
"And I'm sorry Daisy slapped you in the face this morning when you told her," Damian said, interlacing their gloved fingers. "That's a poor coping mechanism that we should probably try to train her out of."
"Well, hopefully she won't have to say goodbye to any more grandparents any time soon, so that reaction won't be necessary," Jo exhaled. "But, for the record, that kid's a villain waiting to happen."
Damian just shook his head, though not in disagreement. "The last thing she said to me…before 'goodnight', was 'It's going to be alright'." He murmured. "And now it seems her mind was already made up about killing herself, so really, that meant without her. She said you'd be there when the sun came up...and—,"
"You make it sound so noble."
Damian and Jo both stiffened immediately, both feeling exceedingly stupid for letting their guard down so completely.
Fuck, she's sneaky.
"Her cowardice finally caught up to her," Talia continued behind them. "Wouldn't exactly call hers a life worth celebrating, either."
Jo felt Damian's hand tighten around her own, and she made sure to close her mask before turning around. "Who are you, again?"
Talia smirked. "That's cute, but I'm here to talk to my son."
"Oh, you lost a son?" even with the modulator Jo's tone was condescending. "That's so sad. Damian and I were just sitting here mourning his Mother and discussing how we're not absent parents. You should join us!"
"Damian," Talia tried a more direct approach, ignoring Jo altogether. "I think it's time we reconcile. Now that those toxic influences are out of your life—,"
"—I'm really not in the mood for this, Talia," Damian muttered.
"—and the Wayne fortune and the Batman mantle have officially been passed down to you and your…house plant," she continued, either not hearing Damian or not caring.
"Umm…OUCH?" Jo stood up, turning to face Talia fully despite Damian's silent insistence that she stay put. "Demoting me to something sub-human is a bit of a low blow, don't you think?"
"Yes, that was my intention," Talia doubled down. "Like I said, I came to talk to my son. As far as I'm concerned, you don't have a seat at the table…aside from the one Damian provides you. So I'd thank you to quiet down and let the adults talk."
"Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying," Damian growled. "I'm mourning. My Father is dead. My Mother is dead."
"No, your Mother is standing right here," Talia corrected. "It wasn't Selina's place to claim you. I never would have given you up if I'd known that tramp was there to stay."
Damian shot up to his feet, reaching around for his swords in one fluid motion. "Say that again!" he roared, his anger visible through his open mask—jaw tight, eyes blazing. "Attempt to demean her again in my presence."
Slowly, Talia reached for her own swords, which were strapped to her back and crafted in a very similar style as Damian's.
"Yeah, I was just gonna say: who brings a sword to a family discussion?" Jo pointed out. "This all seems sort of premeditated."
"You have a son of you own now, Damian," Talia, again, failed to acknowledge Jo's presence, confidently spinning one of her swords around in her hand. "Let me teach him, as my Father taught my sister and I. As I taught you."
"I was three years old when you gave me up. What could you possibly have taught me other than what it feels like to be unwanted?" Damian questioned, taking a step closer.
"Cool, so is this gonna be like a duel amongst gentleman type thing?" Jo wondered. "Or can I join in? or…what are the ground rules here, I don't want to step on any toes."
Jo got her answer when Talia suddenly thrust her weapon forward, aiming for Jo's stomach, and she had to suddenly jerk herself backwards to avoid it, toppling off of the pile of cars and landing with a painful crunch in a heap of metal scraps on the ground below.
Damian swung angrily at Talia in response…and just from that first strike Jo knew he was going to lose. Not because he was an inferior swordsman or lacked the necessary combat skills—but because he was emotional and out of control.
Why would Talia even bring her weapons if she came to appeal to him? Was this some sort of assassin's code thing? Did Damian understand what was going on or did this feel as out of the blue to him as it did to Jo? Either way, Talia seemed to have his number. Blocking every strike, her own slices and stabs coming dangerously close with each move.
With a groan of discomfort, Jo crawled off of the metal, glad her suit had armored itself on the way down, but not fond of the wind being knocked out of her. By the time she'd climbed back up the pile of cars, Talia and Damian had moved their battle to the next one, this stack two cars higher and occupying the last available space next to the fence before the water.
And just as Jo thought Talia was pushing Damian treacherously close to the edge, she stabbed forward and he lost his footing in a similar manner as Jo had only moments earlier, though he had quicker reflexes and dropped the sword from his right hand to grab onto the uppermost door's handle. His sword fell into the harbor below them, swallowed up by the dark water, while the other dangled from his left hand.
"Hey! Alright, you won!" Jo shouted, leaping from car to car until she'd joined them on the highest stack. "Now what the fuck do you want?"
"For my son to acknowledge that I am his Mother," Talia answered, looking over the precipice to where Damian dangled—the top car at such an angle that the overhang was too great for him to get a solid foothold. "And for his children to do the same."
"A mother," Damian yelled up at her, "is the woman who feeds you, bathes you, and clothes you. The woman who is there for you when you wake up and tucks you in before bed. Selina Kyle was my Mother, Talia. You were just the egg donor."
Without even a moment's hesitation, Talia swung her sword downward, and though from her vantage point, Jo had no idea what she hit, the cry of pain Damian emitted was like nothing Jo had ever heard before. Not from Damian, at least.
Next she heard a splash as he fell into the water, and in an immediate reaction she whipped a batarang at Talia, the weapon sticking deep in the woman's thigh. "Did you cut his fucking hand off?" Jo screamed. "Who does that?! This isn't Star Wars! You're not Darth Vader!"
Talia yanked the batarang out of her leg, tossing it into the water, blood dripping from her wound. "Would you like to go next?" she asked, spinning one of her swords again, the other one Jo noticed was absent.
"Uh, I'm actually more of a blunt-force-trauma-type-gal," Jo admitted, backing up and dropping to her knees to reach down through the sunroof of the car they were standing on and rummage around. Her hand eventually wrapped around something metal and cylindrical and… "Oh, lucky me," she laughed, pulling the crowbar up. "This is actually my weapon of choice."
"What's so funny?" Talia asked, her tone biting.
"Nah," Jo waved her off, getting back to her feet. "It's one of those 'you had to be there' type things." She swung the crowbar quickly, grabbing Talia's sword in the crook of her weapon and wrenching it around out of her hand.
With Talia's hands free, Jo lowered her head to tackle her, assuming that Talia was a more strategic boxer than she, but that she'd be able to control the ground game if they got down on the mat as she was willing to bet she was the stronger of the two. But as Jo went to wrap her arms around Talia's waist, the older woman kneed her in the forehead. And although she was wearing her mask, that blow dazed her for long enough for Talia to land two quick jabs: one to her trachea and one to her stomach.
Jo gasped for air, her suit filling her helmet with extra oxygen, but Talia had already swiped her legs out from under her, and now the crowbar was in her possession.
With all her might, Talia brought the crowbar down directly on Jo's mask—aiming right for her green smile—and broke through the solar panels. The splintered shards of the glass-like panel were ground into Jo's gums and teeth, leaving her bleeding.
Talia grabbed the two sides of the hole she'd created, "Now that I wiped that stupid smile off your face…" and ripped the mask in two, revealing Jo's actual face.
Though, to her disappointment, Jo's actual mouth was turned up into a smile as well. "You're good with a sword, Talia, I'll give you that." She spat the splintered panel shards out of her mouth. "Obviously not good enough with Bruce's sword for him to want to keep you around, but—,"
Talia punched her in the face, causing her nose to spout like a faucet, and wrapped a hand around her neck for good measure, pressing her into the car's rusted metal roof.
"S—sore subject?" Jo sputtered, attempting to pry her hands away. "He get fed up with your Daddy kink? You just wanna be a good girl, right Talia? Maybe you should have fucked your real Daddy instead of putting that shit on Bruce."
"You're psychotic," Talia snarled, sounding disgusted.
Jo tried to laugh. "What, did you think I only inherited the cheekbones?" she tried a hook, aiming for the side of Talia's face, but the blow she landed was a bit awkward and obviously not painful enough to get her off.
Leaving one hand on Jo's neck, Talia used the other to reach for the crowbar, lifting it over her head.
Jo struggled beneath her, but Talia's thighs were strong, and at some point it seemed as if a piece of her armor had bent backwards because something very sharp was actively cutting into Jo's stomach.
…and that's when she saw Damian. In the corner of her field of vision he appeared, holding one of Talia's swords in much the same threatening position Talia was holding the crowbar.
"No! Damian, don't!" Jo shouted.
Talia turned, but it was too late. And if Jo thought being punched in the face by her Mother-in-law sucked, being head-butted by the decapitated version was a whole lot worse.