III - Bad Pennies
"How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery." - Mary Shelley
•••
"Bullock!" Bird called out as she sped up her pace on the side street running along the GCPD building that was lined with cars.
She watched as he came to a stop and his posture slouched after he let out a heavy sigh and turned to face her direction.
"What do you want, crazy eyes?" He questioned.
Holding up the expandable folder she was carrying, Bird explained, "I have some restraining orders again granted to women at a few of the shelters. They need to get into their houses to get some personal belongings-"
"I'm stopping you there." Bullock held up a hand and silenced her.
Before Bird had left Gotham a few months ago, she'd come to the station and talk to him about these situations and he'd dispatch some uniformed officers to go with the women so they could get things from their houses without fear of their abusive spouses.
Opening the door to the backseat of his car, he tossed in the briefcase he'd been carrying and reminded her, "I'm not acting captain anymore. Barnes is back, you know? You'll have to take it up with him."
"I don't want to." Bird's forehead lined, "I don't like Barnes."
"But you like me?" He nearly laughed, "Great…lucky me."
Bird opened her mouth to either argue with him or try and convince him to help her anyway -she wasn't entirely sure which way the conversation was going to go.
"Talk to Barnes." He repeated.
He'd been around her enough to know the expression her features took on before she was getting ready to pick a fight.
She didn't like being told no.
"Fine." Bird scoffed, spinning on her heels and starting to walk back the other way.
He watched her as she pulled her phone from her pocket and didn't even look back at him.
She'd given up a little too easily.
Bullock knew it was smarter to mind his own business.
So he reached into his pants pocket for his keys. His fingers brushing against the cool metal. Once sharp edges that were now dulled and familiar.
When he saw she didn't turn towards the building, he called out, "Wrong way."
"I'll handle this myself." She turned around with her face seemingly frozen in a stubborn expression.
Despite acting like she had no intention of any longer seeking his assistance, she walked closer to him, stepping around puddles of stale rain water as she did.
"I don't need GCPD's help." Bird shrugged.
"You- you're kidding right?" His eyebrows shot up his forehead, "What the hell you gonna do? Stroll up in there and put yourself between the angry husband and the battered wife?"
"Someone has to do something." Her jaw was tense.
"No. No way." Bullock shook his head back and forth, "Domestic violence is one situation you sure as hell don't want to get yourself involved in. They are some of the most dangerous and unpredictable situations you'll come across. I wouldn't send a seasoned detective on that run alone. We always send at least two officers-"
"Don't worry about it." She dropped her shoulders into another shrug.
Started slowly walking backwards away from him, "Do you want the list of names and addresses though? That way GCPD has somewhere to start if I don't come home one night?"
"Damn it." He grumbled under his breath.
"Just give me the folder. I'll talk to Barnes in the morning." He held out his hand expectantly.
Bird came to a stop, still intently watching him as if she was wondering how much more she could get away with.
How much farther she could push him before he'd tell her to just forget it.
"Folder." He repeated, aggravation in his tone as he shook his outstretched hand in the air and gruffly added, "I ain't gonna say it twice."
"But you just did." She flashed him a pearly white smile, but didn't push the issue any further as she walked back over to him and handed him the file of information.
Opening up the back door of his car again, Bullock tossed the folder in where it landed on the floorboard behind the driver's seat.
"Really?" Bird complained.
He opened his mouth to tell her she needed to shut it. That he was done with his shift for the day and he was far too exhausted to deal with her antics that night.
He could practically hear his apartment screaming his name.
Calling him home like a siren song.
"Detective Bullock?"
Both he and Bird turned to face a rather tall woman dressed in all black leather with a mouthpiece on over her mouth that distorted her voice as she spoke.
"Yeah…" He eyed her, "That's me."
"Fish Mooney wants to see you." Another voice called out.
Bullock spun around, reaching into his jacket as he did to pull his gun but he ended up staring down the barrel himself.
There was a much younger man, probably late teens with pasty white skin and white-blonde hair that was fluffed a good four or more inches up from the top of his head, already holding his gun.
With a look of confusion, Bullock patted where his weapon should be, but it was gone.
Whatever Strange had down to the boy in Arkham had given him lightening fast speed and reflexes.
"Alright, alright." He said int defeat, dropping his arms to his sides to show he wasn't going to protest and risk getting himself shot.
"This way." The leather clad woman said, nodding behind her to where a old prisoner transport van, now painted matte black, was idling in the street.
Seeing movement from the corner of her eye, the woman jerked her head over in Bird's direction, who'd been slowly and silently stepping back from the scene while planning on making an escape.
"You too." She said, reaching out and taking an iron tight grip on Bird's upper arm.
Causing her to grimace in pain as the movement pulled on her shoulder, the one she'd had surgery on months prior, but still didn't feel as strong as it did before the injuries she'd sustained.
As she was being led towards the van, Bird let her phone fall from her hand and onto the pavement by her feet.
Proof that she'd been there.
Bullock had already pulled his police badge from his belt and dropped it right by where he'd seen Bird's phone land.
If anyone came looking for him, they'd find his badge and her phone. Know that they were there and suddenly they weren't.
That something had happened and they were in trouble.
With any luck, he thought, their makeshift breadcrumbs would be found by someone who actually cared enough to wonder they'd gone.
They were both forced to get up into the van and sit down on the built in metal bench seating.
"My, my…well, lucky me…" Fish clicked her tongue looking between them with a smile toying at the corner of her lips, "A two for one."
Bullock looked around the inside of the transport van. The woman with the mouthpiece was standing in front of the doors, making sure no one was going to try and make a jump for it.
The teenager with the light hair was sitting by Fish, still holding a gun in his hand.
All Bird was able to do was stare at her former boss wide-eyed as she felt the color drain from her own face.
"Baby girl." Fish greeted her with a fondness in her tone that Bird wasn't expecting, "Look who's all grown up." She added as she looked Bird up and down.
The form fitting dress she was wearing was several steps up from the jeans and boots Bird had worn on a daily basis before.
Fish couldn't help but remember all the fights they'd gotten into when she'd insist Bird dress up while working at the club.
"Fish." Bird tried to greet back, but her voice was choppy and her tongue dry.
"How you doing?" Bullock tried to make conversation.
"Not so good." Fish admitted to them.
Bullock already knew why.
The recent string of late night pharmacy robberies had been tied to the Arkham escapees.
At first it hadn't made any sense.
The drug that was stolen had no real street value to it.
But then Lucius Fox had pieced it together. The escapees were stealing the medicine for Fish Mooney.
Her body was rejecting the cuttlefish DNA that Professor Strange had spliced with hers in the experiments he'd done while bringing her back to life.
She was dying.
"A lot of people are looking for you." Bullock pointed out.
"I heard." Fish nodded, "Heard my little Penguin put a million dollar bounty on my head. Can you believe it?" She smiled, "A million dollars for little old me?"
When neither Bird nor Bullock continued to try and engage her in conversation, Fish explained her reasoning behind kidnapping the detective, "I need to find that bastard Strange."
"Yeah?" Bullock's brows raised and he leaned forward, "You know I can't help you with that."
"Ooh…" She cooed, feigning disappointment.
Leaning forward from her own seat, so much so that she was no longer sitting, Fish argued, "Yes you can… and you will."
With that she pressed her mouth to his. Her hands held his face still while she kissed him.
Bird watched as she could visibly see a glow under Bullock's skin start to spread out from where Fish's hand was.
Sitting back down, Fish suddenly looked much weaker -in pain even.
"You don't look so good, Fish." Bird observed.
Her first thought had been that her former boss was trying to find Strange to kill him. Dole some revenge out in turn for being turned into a science experiment.
But for that, Fish would have just a number of her Arkham escapee followers after him.
Even with it being personal, she'd have had them bring him to her.
Something more was going on. Something deeper.
"I'll help you find Strange." Bullock finally spoke. His voice a lull like he were in a trance.
"Good boy." Fish nodded.
She leaned her head back against the cold metal interior siding of the transport van and pulled in a deep breath.
Cracking an eyelid open, Fish watched as Bird sat still and just stared back at her.
No need to deplete anymore of her energy in getting the younger woman to follow along like she had with Bullock.
The detective knew Hugo Strange's location and that was the most important thing right now.
Find the man who'd brought her back to live so that he could save her from death once more.
•••
A few hours and several dead F.B.I agents later, they were in an old mansion.
One that really must have been something back in it's prime.
But now it was abandoned and run down.
-Or at least it appeared that way from the outside and the more exterior rooms.
The very center of the once grand house had been turned into a state of the art lab, where top government scientists has been debriefing Professor Strange on all the advancements he'd made in the scientific field at Indian Hill.
Bird came to a stop as the double doors to the room containing Professor Strange had been opened.
In the very center of the room was a glass structure holding Strange captive inside of it.
It was filled with lab equipment and the clear glass walls were covered in various mathematical equations and note written in white gel marker.
Really fitting for a mad scientist, she thought to herself.
She didn't step further into the room containing the glass box until she felt the barrel of the gun push into spine.
Bird finally walked further into the room and stood next to where Bullock was leaned against a wall, finally starting to come out of the effects of Fish's abilities.
He felt drained. Tired like he hadn't sleep for a month and his head was aching so bad he could hardly see straight.
Strange had heard the doors of the room open, but he didn't pay much attention at first.
He had long grown use to the agents and scientists coming in to question him -or even just to watch him.
As if he, himself, were the subject of an experiment now.
But when no one said anything, he looked over his shoulder. His line of sight first stopped on Bird and Bullock just before he caught sight of Fish.
It was a struggle to get to his feet, his legs felt clumsy from the state of shock he was now in.
Slowly, he walked closer to where Fish was standing just outside of the glass enclosure.
"Professor Strange." Fish greeted, "You and I have some unfinished business"
"Look at you…" He marveled, no longer concerned with anyone else in the room other than Fish, "Amazing."
Fish had been his first successful reanimation with her memories in tact.
His single greatest achievement.
"You are my greatest creation." He admitted, stepping closer to the glass separating them and getting a better look at her.
"Your greatest creation who's dying." Fish explained. Her hands landing on her hips as she slowly started to walk the front length of the glass paneling.
"What?" The tone of Strange's voice chanced.
His hands clasped at his front.
Genuine heartbreak showing on his face as he peered at her from behind the tinted lenses of his glasses.
"You're going to fix me, daddy." Fish smiled at her plan coming together, "And when that's done. You're going to make me an army -so I can have this city kneeling at my feet."
Bird shook her head, glanced at the teenager still holding them at gun point and then let her gaze fall to the floor.
Once again, Fish had managed to get out of Gotham alive -only to return with plans of taking the city over.
Even after all this time, even after her own death; she was still set on ruling the crowded, crime ridden city.
"I can't fix you." Strange answered, his once mournfully clasped hands falling limply to his sides.
"Fish." The leather clad woman, named Nancy interrupted as she walked into the room, "Cops. Lots of them."
Bullock looked around the room.
It worked; Bird leaving her phone and his dropping his badge had worked.
Someone had found their lost items and had the brains to realize something was amiss.
"I'll give you a few minutes to rethink your answer." Fish's tongue carved every word with the promise of a threat behind each and every syllable, "And I suggest you do."
With that she shooed everyone out of the room.
Leaving Strange alone to think of the pain that would befall him if he chose not to help her.
•••
The car hadn't even come to a complete stop when Jim opened the door and started to get out.
It was well over an hour prior that he'd found Bullock's police badge on the ground outside of the police station, next to a cellphone that he'd quickly figured out was Bird's.
He'd ran straight back into the station, right up to Barnes' office, demanding to know where they were keeping Strange.
There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Fish Mooney was behind the abductions.
It was just earlier that day that the body of Ethel Peabody had been found -only she'd been aged up to look as though she was a hundred years old.
Courtesy of the abilities one of Strange's creations possessed.
The more he learned about these creatures, the more he understood why Professor Strange was willing to set off a bomb over letting his creations have free reign.
With his gun at the ready, Jim took the stairs towards the door of the old masion two at a time, with Barnes managing to stay right on his heels -even with the cane and disability his injuries had left him with.
"It's Bullock!" Barnes yelled as he looked down to see who was calling him.
Jim came to a stop so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet.
"Harvey! Harvey? You alright?" Barnes questioned as he answered the call, with the phone on speaker so Jim could hear what was happening as well.
Jim jogged back down the steps, staring down at the open flip phone in the captain's hand.
"Oh, he's fine." Fish answered the question, "But this ain't Harvey."
Jim and Barnes exchanged expressions before the GCPD captain insisted, "I want to speak with Bullock."
"Sure." Fish spun on her heels and held the phone out for Bullock to speak into.
"You don't control me anymore." Bullock nearly snarled at Fish, leaning away from the phone.
"Sid?" Fish nodded to her minion and the teenager put the gun right against Bullock's temple.
With a sigh of defeat, he closed his eyes and said into the phone, "Hey, cap. How are you? Sorry-"
He let out another sigh as Fish quickly took the phone back.
"One chance Mooney." Barnes bellowed, "You let them go. Let them both go and you might just make it out of this."
"Chump!" Fish insulted, "Don't you know you're speaking to a dying woman? Which severely limits your negotiating position. So here's how it's going to go down. One cop comes within twenty feet of this place and Harvey, although I love him, will eat a bullet."
Bird couldn't help but smile.
A pang struck somewhere deep in her chest.
Guilt or sadness, maybe.
Nostalgia.
Once dead and now resurrected and Fish was still exactly the same as she remembered.
It wasn't so long ago that Bird had wanted to be her.
"What about Bird?" Barnes questioned, knowing the more hostages Fish had, the more power she held, "Is she okay?"
"She's fine." Fish insisted, glancing over at her once favorite employee.
"Yeah?" Barnes asked, eyeing Jim for a second before demanding, "Prove it. Put her on the phone."
"Captain Barnes wants to speak with you." Fish said, turning just in time to catch the smile and look of admiration on Bird's face.
"Yeah?" Bird scoffed, "Tell him I'm not interested."
Barnes glanced at Jim and caught a ghost of the smile that had been on his lips.
Not only was Bird alive, but apparently fine enough that even being held hostage, she was continuing to hold onto her disdain for Barnes.
"You want us to keep our distance?" Barnes repeated back, "Then I need a sign of good faith on your end. Release one of the hostages-"
Fish flipped the phone closed with a smile of defiance on her lips.
What part of severely limited negotiation range did he not understand?
"Just had to come back to Gotham, didn't you?" Bullock questioned as Fish started to walk past him back towards the room where Strange was held.
"Like a bad penny." She gave him a smile over her shoulder as she went.
"Fish, you gotta give it up!" Bullock yelled after her, "You got nowhere to go!"
Sid pressed the gun against the side of his head again and all he could do was stand and watch as Fish disappeared into the room with Strange and order Bird to follow her.
He side-eyed the teenager with the gun.
Puny little freak, he thought to himself.
If it wasn't for the super speed the kid possessed, he could take him.
He was sure of it.
"Listen up!" Barnes yelled at all the officers who were on the scene with them, "I want you to create a full perimeter. Snipers on every corner. Mooney does not make it out of this. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
A few scattered voices answered while others jumped straight into action,
"Captain!" Jim put his arm out to stop Barnes from walking away from the building, "You cannot just leave them in there."
"You think that's what I'm doing?" He questioned, "I'm just not charging through the front door. That's gonna get them both killed."
Jim opened his mouth to protest, but Barnes stuck a finger in his face, "Now I'll remind you that you're no longer a police officer. You get in my way and I'll have you arrested…"
His voice trailed off as the sounds of skidding tires and screeching breaks cut through the night. Several media vans had appeared on the scene.
Barnes muttered under his breath about the damn press and pushed past Jim to shoo all the cameras and reporters away.
Jim eyed the building, trying to figure out a way inside without alerting both Barnes and Fish.
Several minutes had passed without his being able to come up with much of a plan, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of cheering in the distance.
He looked over to see an angry mob spilling onto the scene. Touting weapons of all different sorts. Thrusting flaming torches in the air towards the sky as they shouted.
And at the very front of the group, leading the angry mob closer to the mansion was Oswald.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Barnes angrily yelled at Oswald, before ordering his officers, "Cordon off this area. No one gets through."
A line of uniformed officers lined up, shoulder to shoulder, as they faced down the approaching group of angry citizens.
"Cobblepot!" Barnes yelled out as Oswald reached the front of the line and the officers blocking the way physically held him back, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What you have proven to be incapable of; time and time again!" Oswald shouted back. Exerting so much energy to yell over the noise on scene that his entire body was trembling.
"This is a GCPD operation." Barnes said, he'd like to say that nothing in Gotham surprised him anymore. But storming an active hostage negotiation scene was far more brazen than he'd expected out of Cobblepot, "I am ordering you and this mob to disperse -immediately!"
"Fat chance!" Oswald yelled, "I will not let those monsters escape again. Fish Mooney dies tonight!"
Th crowd that had followed him there all started cheering. Guns,stakes and even shovels were jousted up into the air. Blood thirsty cries on their lips and the shadows from the open flames made it look like their facial features were tinted in war paint.
"Damn it, Cobblepot." Barnes' voice softened some as he tried to level with him, "One of my detectives is in there. This is the last time I'm going to ask-"
"Bird is in there as well, isn't she?" Oswald demanded to know as he stared down the captain of the police force, "And yet you stand here doing nothing to save her life!"
"We are trying-"
"Bird and Fish have history!" Oswald yelled over him, his eyes moving from where Barnes was standing back to where Jim was still lingering at the bottom of the entrance steps. Oswald made sure he had Jim's attention when he added, "Fish will kill her."
Oswald kept his eyes locked on Jim, giving him a single nod before cocking his head to one side. Waiting to see what the former detective's next move would be.
Barnes glanced over his shoulder to make sure Jim was still standing there, before he looked back at Oswald and ordered, "Back up!"
"You had your chance, Barnes. Now it's my turn." Oswald argued, before thrusting a fist up in the air and screaming, "Who's with me?"
The crowd erupted out in sea of movement and thunder of voices. Even some of the reporters on the scene found themselves cheering for him.
Jim took the opportunity to sneak away, around the side of the mansion where he found an unguarded door and slipped inside of the house.
•••
"Keep guard." Fish ordered to Nancy.
The woman's breathing was audible through the mask on her face. Distorted and uneven as she looked to her leader with a confused expression and then glanced over to where Bird was standing.
"Fish-" She started to protest.
"Fools." Fish complained, "Every last person in the GCPD. All fools. They will try to get in here."
With a obedient nod. Nancy turned and left the room, pulling the doors shut behind her and leaving Fish and Bird alone outside of the glass prison containing Professor Strange.
"Look at you." Fish said turning to Bird and commenting again, "All grown up."
"I was grown the last time you saw me." Bird stated. Her posture stiff.
"Yes." Fish's eyebrows raised. The blue eye she'd gotten from The Dollmaker looked brighter than Bird remembered, "But things are different now, aren't they? You had to grow up more. Find your own way."
Strange slowly stepped closer to the glass as he watched the pair with curious eyes.
He'd known Bird had once worked for Fish, but he'd never expected such a dynamic between them.
Reminiscent of mother and daughter, he thought.
All the more interesting considering Bird had killed her biological mother.
"Keys." Fish pointed to where the keys to the glass encased lab were hanging on the wall.
Bird retrieved the keys. Holding the metal loop they were attached to tightly in her hand.
"He's the one who put the hit out on my parents." Bird admitted to her.
She didn't even have to say what else she was thinking out loud.
Fish knew Bird had probably vowed to herself that if she ever saw Strange again that she'd kill him.
For a while Fish had said the very same thing. Even dreamed up a few interesting ways in which that could be accomplished.
But things were different now.
She was dying.
Growing weaker by the day and now the man who'd brought her back from the dead was her one and only shot at staying among the living.
"He is my only hope." Fish made an admission of her own.
A rare moment of vulnerability.
Her eyes fell to where Bird was still clutching the key ring.
An expression on her face practically screaming they'd have to pry them out of her cold, dead fingers.
"You'd really have me die?" Fish questioned, taking a step closer, "All over again?"
"I don't want you to die." Bird admitted, her jaw appearing more square than usual with the expression on her face stretching her features, "I never wanted you to die."
"Could've fooled me." Fish's head cocked to the side.
She clearly remembered the night she'd been killed. Bird was there and didn't do anything to stop what happened.
Her loyalty to Oswald had been entirely unwavering, despite the love and admiration she'd held for Fish.
"Oswald might have pushed you off that roof, but you were your own downfall." Bird asserted, "You lost. You were beaten. I saved your life once."
"Do you remember that?" Bird stepped closer to her, "I got you out of Gotham with enough money to start somewhere new, but you just couldn't do it. You couldn't stay away and now here we are all over again."
Hugo Strange was unable to stop the hum that left his lips as he watched them.
Very interesting indeed.
"I will run this city." Fish stated, "I will see all of Gotham kneel before me."
Bird let out a small laugh as she shook her head.
"I still love you." Bird spoke with a rawness in her tone.
Fish stepped forward.
Drawn in by openness in which Bird still spoke to her with after all this time.
She always had a way of doing that.
Admitting something out loud that made the other person feel like they were sharing in secret and getting that close to her was some grand privilege.
"And I have missed you every single day since the night you died." She continued, "But you know my loyalty will always be with Oswald and if I have to kill you myself to keep him safe, then so be it."
Emotion glistened in Fish's eyes as she looked at Bird.
"There she is." Fish smiled, "Under the makeover and cooperate job… my little Bird is still in there. Savage as ever."
Stepping even closer, Fish leaned in and pressed a kiss to Bird's forehead, before reaching out and taking her chin in her hand, forcing the younger woman to look her in the eyes as she did.
"Still just a baby rattlesnake, never knowing how much venom to use." Fish repeated something she'd told her on several occasions before, "If I'd wanted Oswald dead, I'd have finished him off the night we crossed paths."
"Then why didn't-"
"Shh…" Fish shushed.
Leaning in and nearly closing the distance between them, still holding Bird's chin in her hand, Fish was so close that her lips just barely brushed against Bird's mouth as she reminded her, "I'm on a tight schedule here. Am I really going to have make you help me?"
"No." Bird softly said back, staying in place for another moment before pulling away and walking over to the door of the glass room.
Strange backed away from the door as it opened and Fish stepped in with Bird just steps behind her.
"If… if…" Strange stammered, trying to put more distance between them. Ever the coward.
"If I could help you, I would. I think of you as one of my own children, but I can't."
"So what am I supposed to do?" Fish threw her arm out to the sides, "Give up?"
"Do you not understand what you are?" What you represent?" Strange asked with a cautious step forward, "You're the first of your kind. A new generation. A new Eve."
"He always knows more than what he's saying." Bird lowly said, her hate filled gaze heavy on Strange as she spoke.
"You know I owned a club once." Fish began, "Ran protection on the side. Every first of the month, people would pay me. Every once in a while, someone would come up short."
Glancing over her shoulder to where Bird was standing, Fish asked, "Remember that, Bird?"
"I do." She nodded stepping up beside former boss, "One excuse after another."
For the time being they were on the same side once again.
"Mooney, I don't have the money." Fish remembered those excuses too, "Mooney, I need more time." She slowly walked forward, one foot in front of the other. "And they'd cry and cry."
When Strange ran out of space to back away from her, he had no choice but to stand still and fearfully watch as she reached out towards his neck.
"And then I discovered when I squeezed them and squeezed them and squeezed them… they always had more." Her hand trembled just inches away from his neck, until she finally dropped it and tears filled her eyes.
"You are going to fix me." Her voice shook with emotion, but the expression on her face was nothing but determination, "Or I swear to god, I will make you pray for your death-"
"Fish." Nancy said as she entered the room once again with an urgent tone in her voice.
"What are the cops doing now?"
"It's not the cops. Cobblepot is outside and Marv spotted James Gordon looking for a way inside." Nancy said, giving an abrupt nod before turning and exiting the room to go back to her job of keeping guard.
•••
Jim quietly made his way through the downstairs of the mansion. He'd passed the body of one of the guards a few hallways back.
He'd expected to hear talking. To follow the sounds of life to whichever rooms Fish and her minions would be hiding away in.
But there was nothing.
Just silence.
So much so that he's began to wonder if they hadn't already found a way to flee the scene.
That was until he heard movement behind him and heard a gun cock just behind his ear.
"You killed a lot of our friends, Gordon." Sid said, adjusting his grip on the gun.
"Well, your friends had it coming." He gruffly answered.
"So do you." Nancy threatened behind the mouthpiece distorting her voice.
"That's enough!" Fish called out as she opened the double door to the room she was in, "Bring him in."
Jim didn't put up a fight as the pair led him into the room where was Fish was.
"Jim!" Bullock called out as he saw his friend and former partner, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Saving you. I thought that was obvious." He answered as he scanned the room before his eyes landed on Bird who was standing next to Hugo Strange and Fish, the trio stood just outside of the glass lab now.
"Oh, yeah." Bullock scoffed, "Totally. Thank you."
Jim glanced over at Bullock, seeing his hands were bound with rope in front of him and then over to Bird who didn't have any restraints on her at all.
For a second, time went in reverse and there he was years ago, unable to fully determine which side she was truly on.
"Why are you here, Gordon?" Fish demanded to know, annoyance in her voice, "Did your little cop friends send you to get me to turn myself in? Cause that's not going to happen."
"I'm here on my own." Jim insisted.
"Really?" Fish didn't seem to buy his story, "You'd risk your life for this broken down old thing?" She waved her hand in Bullock's direction.
"Thanks." Bullock grumbled under his breath.
"He'd do the same for me." Jim reasoned.
"Well, you've helped me because now I have three hostages." Fish held up three fingers as she spoke.
Jim argued with her that Barnes' wouldn't see it that way; admitting that he'd been nothing but a pain in the captains ass and he'd probably send Fish a thank you card if she did away with him.
"Then you better give me one good reason why I shouldn't have my friends kill you." Fish said, as she stepped up to Jim.
Bird side-stepped closer to where Strange was standing; just in case.
If need be she would threaten the professor's life to bargain for Jim's.
"Because I can get you out of here." Jim wagered. He hadn't only came armed with the gun they'd taken off of him, he'd also had a plan in mind.
"And exactly how do you plan to do that, considering this whole place is surrounded?" Fish asked.
"If I get you out of here, you give me them and we walk away. That's the deal." Jim said.
"I get this one." Fish bargained, pointing to Hugo Strange.
"Wait…" He breathed looking around the room, "Wait a second-"
The end of his sentence was cut short when Bird roughly elbowed him in the ribs and told him to shut up.
"Deal." Jim agreed.
"All this for that old drunk?" Fish seemed amused as she eyed Bullock.
"I said them." Jim repeated. "I'm not leaving without Bird."
"Come again?" Fish took a few steps back.
Her eyes darting between Jim and Bird.
"I'm not leaving without her." Jim said louder this time.
His voice showing there was no way in hell he was backing down.
"Oh…" Fish breathed with a realization, "That's right. I heard about you two. Thought that was in the past now?"
Spinning around, she wagged a finger in front of Bird's face and reminded her, "Didn't I warn you against ever falling in love. Nothing but heartache and misery." Shaking her head, Fish added, "Though you never did listen to me."
Bird stared back at her, but didn't say anything.
Bullock awkwardly cleared his throat and glanced around the room,while Jim's eyes had focused in on a stain on the floor.
"Oh?" Fish let out a laugh of surprise and clapped her hands together once, feeling the tension building in the room and knowing how uncomfortable they both were. "If he didn't break your heart then that means…" Turning back to face Jim, Fish continued, "She broke yours."
"Do we have a deal or what?" Jim pushed. He didn't have the time or patience to deal with this right now.
"Oh, don't be that way." Fish teased with her lips in a pout, "She broke mine too, you know."
Bird didn't say anything and instead of looking towards Jim, she stared straight ahead to the light switch on the far wall as Fish ran her fingers through Bird's hair, petting down her hair.
"My favorite." She cooed, thinking Bird's hair was a lighter shade than she remembered it being, "And my greatest disappointment."
Letting her hand fall down Bird's back, Fish paused as she glanced around the room before stepping closer to Jim once again and holding up to fingers as she agreed, "You've got two minutes."
Reaching into his pocket for his cellphone, Jim stole a glance at Bird as he brushed by her on his way to step out of the room, but she didn't return the glance.
Instead she seemed to be putting an effort into not making eye contact with him.
Feeling his phone buzzing in his pocket, Oswald stepped away from the crowd still shouting at the police and paused when he saw it was Jim who was calling him.
"Jim." Oswald greeted, "You just keep surprising me."
"Shut up." Jim breathed into the phone.
He completely believed Fish when she told him he only had two minutes to follow through with his end of the bargain
"How's Bird?" Oswald's jaw tensed.
Would it really kill Jim to be polite every once in a while.
"Alive." Jim answered, not wasting anymore time before cutting to the chase, "How'd you like to have Fish all to yourself."
"Don't tease."
"She'll be in the woods behind the mansion in five minutes. All you have to do is one thing."
Oswald's gloved hand gripped the phone tighter. Excitement coursing through his system. "Name it."
Jim told him how he'd need to create a diversion. Possibly even insight a riot, so Barnes would be forced to call all the officers on the scene to the front to deal with the mob of people.
In turn, opening up the back exit of the mansion for Fish to make her escape.
"People are trying to break in through the front!" Marv announced, barely a minute after Jim had returned from making his phone call, "But the back is clear now. We can make it through the woods."
He reached out a gloved hand in Fish's direction to usher her to safety.
Jim caught sight of the white gloves on his hands and wondered if he was the one with the abilities who'd aged Ethel Peabody up to her death.
Someone like that definitely needed to be locked back up inside of Arkham -or dead.
Either way he needed to be off the streets and if it wasn't for the delicate situation they were all standing in with lives on the line of people important to him, then Jim would have made a move.
"Time to go." Fish nodded to Marv to take Hugo Strange before nodding to Sid and Nancy and ordering, "You two hold them off as long as you can."
Bird looked over to where the two were standing at the doors, weapons at the ready.
They were going to die.
Bird was sure of it.
They'd probably take several members of the angry mob out before, but no abilities that Strange had given them would be enough for them to win against a group that big.
Her eyes squinted some at them.
Did they know they were literally minutes away from death?
Or did they think they really stood a chance and would make it out alive to meet up with Fish later.
Bird looked over to where Fish was standing.
There was a time when she'd have done the very same thing.
Agreed to hold off someone long enough for Fish to make it to safety.
She'd have done so without question or second thoughts.
"Harvey, no hard feelings?" Fish seemed almost gleeful in being so close to escaping.
"Fish…" Harvey shook his head and looked down as Jim was helping unbind his hands of the rope, "Screw you!" He loudly called out to her.
"Fair enough." She winked and jutted a shoulder in his direction just before she reached down and grabbed onto Bird's arm.
"Hey, hey. Wait!" Jim angrily yelled stepping forward, "The deal was I leave with both of them-"
"Was that what we agreed on?" Fish played innocent.
"You heard your guy-" Jim motioned towards Marv, "He said the back was clear. You'll be able to slip right out. What do you need Bird for?"
"Insurance." Fish smiled widely, "Forgive me if I'm not so quick to trust. I've been hurt in the past, you see, and I'm questioning your true motives, Gordon."
"Don't worry." Fish continued, "I'll let go once we're in the clear. She's a big girl, she can find her way back."
"No-" Jim started to protest again.
"If we're going, let's go." Bird said looking over to Fish and still not making eye contact with Jim, "Before they bust the doors down."
Maybe there was still a small part of her willing to put her life on the line for her old boss.
"Bird?" Jim stared at her, but all he got in return was quick glance back over her shoulder as she was being ushered from the room.
Fish let go of Bird when they were outside. She needed both hands and arms free to better keep her balance as they stumbled through the uneven ground of the woods in the dark.
They traveled at a speed too fast to be called walking and not quite fast enough to be labeled a run for a few minutes until they were all brought to a stop by the sound of a gun cocking.
They looked up to see Oswald with a gun.
No angry mob.
No henchman.
Not even Butch was with him.
He was by himself. This was something far too personal to include anyone else.
"Bird." Oswald greeted, "Hello, old friend."
His lips were in a tight smile, stretched over his teeth as he fought for his breath in the unusually humid night air.
"Oswald." She managed a small smile over her own, "Still angry with me?" She questioned. Her gaze going briefly to the gun.
"No." He answered with a one shoulder shrug, he tossed his head to the side and admitted, "I got over it."
Oswald's eyes moved over Fish's face and then to Hugo Strange, before he stopped on Marv and ordered, "Go!"
The older man stumbled in place some. Wanting to run for safety and feeling torn about abandoning Fish at gunpoint.
Fish gave him a small nod, letting him know it was okay to leave.
She didn't have to tell him twice either.
He turned and scurried away into the night like a rat seeking shelter in the sewers.
"That's better." Oswald smiled, unable to contain his excitement or hold still. He appeared to be rocking from side to side as he lined the sight of gun on Fish, "Just us old friends now."
"Oswald…" Fish began.
The sound of her voice, the way her tongue traced the letters brought back everything all at once.
For a split second it felt like nothing had changed.
Like he was still a lowly umbrella boy who was the laughing stock of the dive bar.
"Don't call me that!" He hissed, "My name is Penguin!"
Adjusting his grip on the gun, he asked, "Do you know how long I've been looking for you? How long I've waited for this very moment-"
"Mr. Cobblepot-" Strange started an attempt to plead for his own life to be spared.
"Quiet!" Oswald yelled at him.
"Oswald-" Bird let out a small sigh.
The kind she did when she was disappointed in him or the way she'd start a conversation she knew he wouldn't like.
"Shut up." He ordered.
"You shut up." Bird snapped back taking a step forward, her face twisting in the moonlight, "Don't talk to me that way."
Closing his eyes and pulling in a deep breath, he finally looked back at her and said, "Of course. My apologies, Bird. But this really isn't a good time."
"So this is it?" Fish held her hands out to the sides.
Oswald's eyes fell to where her hand was close to Bird's arm. One wrong move, he thought, if she tried to grab Bird and use her abilities on her then he'd shoot her on the spot.
"I spare your life and you shoot me dead in the woods like an animal?" Fish continued.
"Pretty much, yes!" He laughed.
The corners of his smile turning up into sharp points.
But he couldn't deny how much it had haunted him, the night she'd let him live.
It never made any sense to him. If the roles had been reversed he'd had killed her without so much as a second thought.
The questions had kept him up at night and at times knotted his stomach so bad he could barely keep tea down.
"Why?" Oswald couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why didn't you kill me?"
He stepped closer, his limp even more noticeable on the uneven and tree root raised patches of ground.
The limp she'd give him.
He could remembering the searing pain when she'd hit him so hard she'd broken the chair she was using to beat him.
The crack of the bones.
His leg hadn't healed right. Something didn't set right with his bones afterwards.
How could it have? He was on the run for his life. Not like he could check himself into a hospital.
Now he was left with a limp.
He hobbled around now.
Every single day he still felt the pain of what she'd done to him.
"I've gone over that night. Under the bridge a thousand times and it just doesn't make any sense." He continued.
He was now in front of her, the gun close enough that he did briefly wonder if Bird would try to knock it out of his hand. But she didn't move.
"Why didn't you kill me?" He repeated. This time his voice was more frantic.
It was something he wanted to know; no, something he had to know before she died for the second time, "I would have killed you in a second. Answer me!"
"Because you're mine." Fish looked him over, her gaze stopping as it locked with his reddened eyes.
"You were my umbrella boy, remember?" Fish's posture slouched ever so slightly, "You rubbed my feet when they were tired. And now look at you; the terror of of Gotham. Out of everything I've done in my life. Possibly the best thing was turning Oswald Cobblepot into The Penguin."
"I couldn't destroy that." She continued, nodding towards Strange, "Ask him. He understands what it is to bring something into being. It is a part of you… forever."
Strange nodded in agreement and the woods fell into near silence. Just the sounds of leaves rustling and crickets chirping echoed around them.
Not a single one of them had fully dry eyes now.
All of them feeling something in their own way.
"Goodbye, Fish." Oswald's eyes glistened and his vision blurred, "Don't come back."
With that he lowered his head and closed his eyes. Listening to the sounds of footsteps speed past him and disappear out into the darkness behind him.
"And they say people can't change." Bird softly said, giving her best friend a small, yet sad smile when he opened his eyes to look at her.
"For a moment…" Oswald cleared his throat, stepped closer to where Bird was standing, "I thought you might try to stop me."
"You should've known better." Bird shook her head and reminded him, "I stand by you. Always."
Oswald nodded, still biting back emotion on his end. His eyes kept going to the ground.
Stepping closer, Bird wrapped her arms around him.
There was not even a second of hesitation on his end when he held back onto her.
He felt more at peace now.
Knew why Fish had let him live, though it was an answer he'd never anticipated.
But it had been a very long night; an endless one that had taxed him far more than he'd expected.
"What's going on?" Jim asked them, slowing to a stop from the jog he'd done through the woods in search of Bird.
His face contorted with utter confusion as he'd found Bird and Oswald hugging each other in the middle of the woods.
"Where…" He pulled in a breath, "Where's Fish."
"Gone." Oswald answered as he stepped back from Bird and gave her a smile before turning and walking away back towards the front of the mansion.
"What happened?" Jim questioned as he walked up to Bird but looked in the direction Oswald had disappeared in.
"It doesn't matter." Bird dismissed, not answering a single one the questions he'd asked. "Looks like you're not getting that million dollar bounty though. Sorry."
Jim's eyebrows lowered as he turned back to face her.
He didn't have the first clue as to what happened in the woods with Fish and he was getting the feeling that he never would.
"Where are you going?" He questioned when Bird turned and started to walk away from him.
She was standing right there with him, but she felt distant.
"I don't know." She answered without making an effort to stop.
Her insides were churning. She felt hot and sick.
Unstable in every sense of the word.
She felt like she'd been doing good since she made it back to Gotham. All things considered, she'd thought she slid back into her life fairly easily.
But now it felt like she was standing on a carpet that was slowly being pulled out from under her.
Her footing was slipping and there weren't any guard rails to keep her from going over.
There was a numbness starting to crawl up from her fingertips and toes; sure to engulf her whole body in matter of minutes.
A black hole opened and was sucking her inside of it; she had no real idea what had triggered it.
Maybe it was seeing Fish again.
Or knowing she let Strange walk away when she should have killed him.
A few days ago she'd met Butch for lunch under the pretext of catching up, but really it had been to quiz him about what Oswald had been up to since she'd left Gotham.
Apparently in her absence he'd been spending a large amount of time visiting Edward Nygma in Arkham and now considered him to be a close friend.
That must be it, she thought, it must be everything.
How much things had changed.
Even knowing she was in a better place in her own life now, didn't stop stop her from feeling nostalgic for the way it used to be.
She still dreamed about it.
Actually had dreams of working in Fish's club, reliving all the conversations she'd had with Oswald there.
Dreams of her first apartment; of her tiny crowded kitchen and the fireplace she'd burnt up so much crime scene evidence in.
She even dreamed from time to time about that damn cat who'd get into her apartment when she'd leave the windows open from the fire escape and she hated that thing. She'd named him Shark, because of his bloodthirst.
Always leaving dead birds and trails of blood on the floor inside of the windows. Bird had taken it as a direct threat and finally stopped opening her windows to keep the cat out.
Now she found herself wondering every now and then if Shark had survived the bomb that blew her building up or if he was really a stray cat or belonged to someone else in the building.
She hated dreaming about how her life used to be, because the dreams were never exciting or out of the ordinary.
Which really only made it feel more real and left her to wake up in her room at her townhouse in a state of confusion and unsure where she was for a short time.
Jim walked behind Bird as she walked further into the woods; deeper into the darkness.
When she passed through a small clearing that let in a surprising amount of moonlight to illuminate the area he looked down and saw she'd resumed the nervous tic she'd developed before fleeing town.
Rubbing her finger and thumb together. The wounds she'd created had since scarred over, but it looked like she was on the way to reopening them.
"Hey…" He sped up to reach her, catching the toe of his shoe on an exposed tree root and nearly falling, but he regained his balance in time to keep from kissing the ground, "Bird!"
She didn't hear him; hadn't even been aware she was being followed.
That's always the problem with being too deep inside of your head; you tend to pull out of the rest of the world.
It wasn't until she felt some resistance on her arm, which brought her to a stop that she realized Jim was still there with her. And had grabbed onto her hand to bring her to a stop.
"What is it?" He questioned, his eyes traveling over her face as she turned back to look at him, "What's going on?" He pushed.
There was a confused expression on her face.
As if she either didn't understand why he'd been following her or didn't even know what she was doing out there in the first place.
When she saw him looking at her hand, she pulled it from his grip to see what he was looking at.
That's when she saw the red marks starting to form over the smooth scar tissue.
She hadn't even felt it. Wasn't even aware she'd started to hurt herself again.
Looking back at his concerned face, Bird realized he was really waiting for an answer.
What could she even say?
Tell him that she think she missed working at Fish's club and being the only person Oswald had to turn to?
That she was feeling nostalgic for her old life?
Yeah, that would go over real well.
She nearly laughed.
"Bird?" Jim stepped closer.
The concern on his face was now present in his voice as he watched her eyes seem to glaze over.
He wasn't sure where she was, but it sure didn't feel like she was standing there in the woods with him.
"It's just a lot." She gave a weak laugh and pinned a smile on her face for his sake, "It's just been a really long day."
"Yeah." Jim agreed, even though her answer wasn't really an answer to his questions at all, "It really has."
They stood in silence.
Him watching her and her trying to think of something else to say.
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out her cellphone and offered it up to her.
A silent explanation of why his own day had felt very long; he'd spent a good chunk of it worried about her and knowing she'd been abducted.
She opened her mouth to thank him.
If not for returning her phone than for being the one who found it and caring enough to come looking for her. Not many people would have.
"We should go." He nodded back behind him in the direction they'd walked from, "Get out of here."
He didn't like the idea of her being alone, not with the way she was acting.
Plus, there was a part of him worried she might take off again.
And what if this time she didn't come back?
"Go where?" Bird looked up from where she'd looked back down to her cellphone. Her head cocked to the side as she waited on an answer.
Her body language immediately causing Jim feel like no matter what he said next was going to be the wrong answer.
She'd gone from looking hopeless and lost to angry and feral in a split second.
"Back to your place or my place… for a drink?" She questioned, "A bar?"
"No-"
"Really?" She argued without hearing his side, "Isn't that where you're spending all your of time now?"
"I… I can't do that." Bird continued, "Because one drink will turn into two and then three and then four… and then I won't stop. Not when I feel the way I do right now. And then I can't sleep so I'll take something to help, but then I'll need something to wake me up so I'm not walking around in a drowsy fog."
He'd had it all wrong.
In the message he'd left her, that no matter how bad things had gotten with them, that she didn't have to leave.
But she did.
She had to leave to save herself, because she still remembered how it felt to wake up every single day suicidal enough to wish she'd just die already, but not suicidal enough to off herself.
"I didn't need you to tell me that everything falling apart between us wasn't only my fault, Jim." She tossed her arms out to the sides, nearly dropping her newly returned cellphone as she did, "I already knew it wasn't all on me."
Jim didn't say anything.
In some ways he'd been waiting on this.
Waiting on her to stop the politeness, like showing up at his shack of a house and trying to say it was nice.
She'd clearly been mad at him for quite some time, but had been walking on eggshells around it, not wanting to make him feel worse than he already did.
Maybe a part of him even wanted or needed her to lay the blame on him.
"I came back for you that night, did you know that?" Bird finally admitted out loud, "After the fight we got into. I came back to tell you that I had to get out of Gotham and that I wanted you to come with me. But you weren't home. And I sat down and waited for close to an hour and you didn't come back. Where were you?" She pushed, "A bar?"
"Yeah." He admitted. His voice hoarse.
"Yeah." She repeated back with a dry laugh, "And that's when I knew I could either stay and drown with you or I could swim to shore. And so I left. I grabbed my go bag from the back of the closet, I'd packed one for each of us months before that, just in case."
Running her tongue over her lips, she finished, "And I didn't look back, because I couldn't, Jim."
With that, she brushed past him, back towards the mansion. Back they way they came.
But he stayed still. Standing in the exact same spot she'd left him.
He didn't know she'd come back to the house that night.
Maybe if he hadn't been so quick to rush off for a drink, then he would have.
When he was packing up this belongings to move out of her townhouse, he'd found the go bag she'd packed for him. The one she'd just mentioned.
At the time he didn't realize that was what it was.
He'd chalked it up to her starting to pack his things up because she'd probably had enough and was going to tell him to leave
He'd heard a saying once, that life can really be understood in reverse; there was no denying the truth in that.
Looking back to the months before Bird had left Gotham, everything was painted in a different light now.
The times he'd thought she done something because she felt bad for him -like when she got him the gig working security for some Wayne Enterprises events.
He saw now that wasn't out of pity.
Jim had spent so long being angry at Bird for leaving, but he wasn't anymore.
He couldn't be.
They were both sinking.
Stuck on a boat taking in more water by the second and he hadn't even realized it.
But she did.
And she saved herself.
How could he stay mad at her for that?
Especially when it was also now crystal clear that she'd spent weeks trying to save him before he was even aware of the free fall his life had turned into.
•••
A/N - Thank you for reading! I really hope everyone enjoyed the chapter.
I'm really trying to keep the updates coming even though I feel like I spend all my time at work anymore. Lol
I want to give a shout-out and special thanks to: xenocanaan, ThatMysteriousSlime, AGBreads, SmellYourScentForMiles, Love. Fiction. 2018, Miss Victoria 20, Shadow knight1121, amelia, Havana, DancingDorisDay, xxXWolfsLullabyXxx and to the Guests who were kind enough to leave a review on chapter 2.
I'd really appreciate it if you'd take the time to leave a review and let me know what you thought. :)