A/N - Sorry, this is later than planned! The weekend was busier than expected but we're back on track. Everybody go watch MadS (French horror movie).
socio - aww, cut Isabel some slack, there were at least four mayors throughout the show's run, how's she supposed to keep track of them all? ;) She'll get there sooner or later. Also given your commentary on Victor (which I agree with!) I'm curious to see how you'll feel about his role in this story and how it sort of... ripples into a switch in the track he's on, I guess. idk. We'll see. He'll show up before too much longer!
tw for this chapter: a depiction of domestic/child abuse.
6.
We are building a religion
We are making a brand
We're the only ones to turn to when your castles turn to sand!
We're behind you, we're behind you
And let us please remind you
We can send a car to find you if you ever lose your way. – Cake | Comfort Eagle
Isabel had only been home for a couple of breathless, near-silent minutes when the pounding started on her door.
She felt panic flare up as her doorknob rattled, and then came more beating sounds as a meaty fist whacked at the other side of her door. "Isabel! Open the goddamn door right now!"
She'd thought she'd successfully snuck back in. The fire escape outside her window was scarily rickety, so she'd opted to take her chances trying to move silently through the apartment instead, and David, in his easy chair with his back turned to the entryway, had seemed to either be asleep or absorbed in the football game blaring loud through the TV speakers. He hadn't said anything to her as she'd stolen across the apartment, at any rate, and in just a few seconds she'd silently closed her bedroom door and twisted the doorknob lock.
Now he grabbed at and rattled the doorknob violently again, making her worry that the flimsy mechanism would just give way. "Go away, David!" she yelled, jumping on her bed, pulling her knees up and tucking herself into the corner of the two walls her bed was flush against. "I'm changing!"
Dead silence. She knew better than to assume he'd listened, though, and sure enough, after about a minute of silence, she heard the whir of a power tool from the outside of the door. "You're not gonna lock me out in my goddamn house," he yelled over the sound of the drill. "If you're not gonna obey, well, then you're just gonna lose the door."
Her panic crowded into her throat, choking her. It took her a second to react, but eventually, she sprang from the bed, fleeing across the room to her window—rickety or not, she'd take the fire escape over David on a tear. A fall was predictable. David never was. She wrestled with the window, but it had been closed for most of the winter, and at some point, David must have redone the sill, because as she struggled to try and lift the sash she saw it was painted shut.
A crash—the door falling away from its frame, its hinges dismantled—and then David was in her bedroom, head nearly brushing the low ceiling, the sort of big and broad man that even a tall, strong girl like Isabel had no hope of defending herself against. He spotted her fast, his eyes narrowing, and he bore down on her, grabbing her by the arm.
"What are you, sneaking out?" There was booze on his breath—of course there was.
"No," she said faintly, trying to pry his hand off her arm, and he shook her hard, his fingers biting, pinching deep at the nerves under the skin.
"Don't fucking lie to me! Been out all day and trying to sneak out again—doing whore shit, just like your whore mother," he snarled. "I should've handed you straight into foster care."
"Let go—please," she whimpered, still pulling at his hand, but he just gripped her tighter, sending painful pins and needles shooting all the way down her arm to her wrist.
"But I said I'd look after you, and this is the thanks I get? You whoring around and locking me out? Does that sound fair to you?"
He shook her, then jerked on her arm, making her trip over her own feet and fall into him, and she screamed, and the fear blinded her, made her lash out like she hated herself for never seeming capable of doing unless she was too scared to think straight, clawing at his face—
—and flesh tore and gathered under her fingernails, and she was sitting upright in bed, ripped abruptly from the dream, the mesh of memories, staring wild-eyed at Jerome as he reeled back, hand going to his freshly-scratched up jaw.
"Jesus," he said mildly after a second, lifting his fingertips to check for blood as Isabel just stared in mute, aghast horror. "All right, message received, you do not like a wakeup call."
"I'm sorry," Isabel said, voice soft from sleep as she hopped quickly off the edge of the bed. "I didn't—shit. Just wait a second." There was a doorway nearby, one she correctly guessed led to a bathroom, where she found a first aid kit under the sink. She rushed back into the room, dropping the kit on the bed and opening it, spilling its contents across the rumpled covers until she found an alcohol pad.
"Hold on," she said, ripping it open with her teeth. "This'll sting."
"No, it won't," he said as she approached and pressed the pad to the scratches on his jaw—true to his word, he didn't flinch, unblinking eyes fixed on her. "Dead nerves, remember? Can't feel a thing. You can go for it again, if you want." When she didn't answer, he ducked slightly, trying to make eye contact even as she avoided it. "Or don't," he added, reaching up and grabbing her hand where it held the pad against his skin. "Jesus, Izzy. It's not a big deal."
She pulled away, leaving the alcohol pad in his grasp, not wanting the contact to betray the way her hand was shaking. She retreated a few steps across the room, then made herself look back at him. He was staring at her with a carefully blank expression that made her want to scream.
She remembered now, where she was, how she'd gotten there. After taking over the prison transport, they'd stopped once more—at a school, Saint Ignatius, Jerome had remained in the truck with her to "keep watch" while his friends went inside (she suspected it was to keep her distracted, keep her from asking too many questions about what they were doing there), and shortly afterward, they'd come back, looking satisfied but notably free of blood spatter. From there, they'd traveled across the city to Oswald Cobblepot's house, which was actually a mansion. Their host hadn't been home, but his staff had let them in—invalidating Isabel's creeping suspicions that they weren't actually expected or invited—and showed her and Jerome to a large bedroom. Worn out at that point, she'd dropped face-first on the bed, intending just to take a second to take a break from the long night, and that was where her memory cut out.
She'd fallen asleep. She should have known better. Nightmares weren't the norm for her, but it seemed like every time she stayed up too late, every time her REM cycle needed to kick into overdrive, she got a bad one. It was always upsetting, but more than that, when she woke up around someone else, it embarrassed her. Jerome, of all people—she could have gone the rest of her life without letting him witness her coming out of one of those.
He was staring at her now, his expression careful, like she was a landmine whose edges he couldn't be sure of. "Nightmare, huh? …you wanna talk about it?"
"Definitely not."
He screwed up his face into an exaggerated wince. "Kinda feels like you should talk about it."
She hadn't expected him to push even a little bit, and had no response on-hand. Rather than say anything, she just turned and went into the bathroom.
The Cobblepot guy was still a stranger to her, so she didn't really have a bead on him, but he was rich enough to have this house and maintain staff to keep it, and, more relevant to her, to keep the roomy guest bathrooms fully stocked with amenities. She found a new toothbrush and tube of toothpaste and set about freshening up.
Jerome appeared in the mirror, leaning against the door jamb a few feet behind her. He'd ditched the coat sometime while she'd been sleeping and rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. "I don't want to, either," he admitted.
"Awesome," Isabel said around her toothbrush. "Let's leave it, then." If he didn't make out every word exactly, her tone was indicative enough of her feelings.
Jerome ignored her anyway. "But," he said doggedly, "we have a busy day in front of us, and you seem a tad on edge. I don't want you falling to pieces at any of the crucial moments, y'know?" Isabel spat, rinsed, then glared at him in the mirror. He arched his eyebrows at her, unfazed. "Better out than in, don't you think?"
She didn't think. In fact, she was of the opinion that what he was asking from her was stupid and he should know that, so she maintained her stony silence as she stripped off her coat—she'd fallen asleep in it, and although it was comfortable to wear, it wasn't so much to sleep in, and it was now all ridden up into her armpits and too warm.
"Oh, please," Jerome scoffed from the doorway. "Like you've ever had a problem talking to me about anything." His forehead furrowed abruptly. "What, was it about me?"
She sighed, searching through the drawers for deodorant to touch up, since it seemed unlikely that she'd have time for a shower just yet. "It wasn't about you."
He hummed a high little sound of skepticism. "Seems like it might have been about me."
She paused long enough to shoot an ugly look over her shoulder. "I know what you're doing."
"Yeah, I do too, and I don't appreciate it," he said frankly. "I don't wanna have to trick and tease you into telling me stuff, you should just tell me."
"That is so rich, coming from you," she muttered, locating a fresh stick of deodorant—smelled like rich people soap, which suited her fine.
"Um, I am very open about my past experiences," he defended himself.
"You're doing it right now. You know that's not what I'm talking about and you're pretending like it is so that you don't have to admit that you love to keep me in the dark."
Maybe it was a trick of the mirror, but he looked genuinely annoyed for a split second before his expression cleared into indifference. "That's verifiably untrue, but whatever, we're veering off-topic. You don't want to share, fine, I'm not gonna pull teeth to get you to talk. Actually," he said, sticking a finger up in the air, correcting himself, "pulling teeth is a lot more fun. Comes with a sense of accomplishment, instead of whatever this is."
Isabel rolled her eyes hard, but strangely enough, the petty little argument had restored some of her emotional equilibrium, and she wasn't actually feeling all that irritated with him. She figured she could compromise—especially since, as he turned away, she saw the scratches she'd given him, three livid red lines along his jaw, and felt freshly guilty—so, as firmly and evenly as she could manage, she said, "It was just a bad memory—or like, a few memories scrambled, with one main thing in the middle. Something that happened when I was sixteen that I'd rather not relive again, if it's all the same."
He'd turned back, arms braced against the door frame, eyes thoughtfully fixed on a point to one side of her as he listened. Once she'd finished, he nodded, gave it a second, then asked, "Now, was that so hard?"
"It was never hard," Isabel lied. "I just think it's unnecessary."
He shrugged—"Agree to disagree"—and straightened up, dropping his arms. "Now come on. There's a meeting we have to get to."
"What kind of meeting?" she asked as he left the doorway. "Jerome—come back here, let me bandage those scratches!" A "meeting" sounded like it involved other people, and she didn't necessarily want them to see Jerome's jaw and come to their own conclusions, which may or may not be accurate.
"Nope," he called back, from the sound of it all the way across the bedroom already. "I'm keeping em, they're a present, you gave them to me, you can't take them back now. Chop-chop, Izzy. We gotta go."
She rinsed her face with cold water, eyed her makeup (halfway worn off, but the liquid eyeliner was sticking around, as was, predictably, the white glitter dusted at the corners of her eyes), and decided to leave the coat for now—she'd heard old manors like this were supposed to be drafty, and maybe they were and Cobblepot was compensating for it, because the place was toasty, too warm to be wearing an overcoat around indoors. "All right, good enough," she muttered, leaving the bathroom and hitting the light switch on her way out.
"What'd you do while I was out?" she asked as she joined Jerome at the bedroom door—he took the lead immediately. "I guess it's too much to hope that you got a little sleep, too."
"Nahh, I feel like a million bucks," he said, not bothering to look back at her as he lifted both arms, presumably flexing his biceps (his shirt covered them, so she couldn't be sure, but it was the quintessential "gun show" pose, so he had to be, right?) for half a second before dropping them again. "Still a lot of planning that needs to be done on the fly, Izzy. This is a developing situation, and a sensitive one, at that."
"Right," she muttered as he told a maid they were passing "at ease"—Isabel wasn't even sure the older lady had even noticed they were there. "That reminds me. I still don't know what the situation actually is."
Jerome waved one airy hand. "That's what the meeting is about. Clarity of purpose, team building, et cetera etcetera. You're not officially a member of the group—any name suggestions, by the way? I tossed around Gotham's Deplorables, but it doesn't glide off the tongue."
"Not to mention I doubt you've got all of Gotham's deplorables in there," she said. "I'll think about it. Would be helpful to know who the group is."
"You're about to meet em," said Jerome, and then: "You missed a spot" to another maid dusting a large portrait frame. "Might as well sit on your questions for five minutes—that way I won't have to answer twice."
"At this point, getting an answer at all would feel like a miracle," she muttered under her breath. Jerome either didn't hear or pretended not to, and after taking her down an ornate staircase, he turned and led her directly into a dark, gothy dining room, with servants in the process of setting the table. Only one other person was currently present.
Oswald Cobblepot was a striking little white man with a limp in one leg, dark emo hair with a purple swoosh running through it, and the kind of weird in his features that should probably have landed him on a runway, if his skin had been slightly less bad or his hair slightly less greasy. Isabel realized upon laying eyes on him that there was a reason she'd recognized his name—she'd seen him on TV in passing a few times a year or two ago, and she was pretty sure she'd voted against him in one of Gotham's astonishingly frequent mayoral elections around the same time (after the shit that had come out about Theo Galavan, she was wary of strangers popping up suddenly spouting populist rhetoric, not that her vote had ultimately made any difference).
As she was updating her mental notes about his associates—how'd he meet the ex-mayor? Hadn't Cobblepot died? Maybe Isabel needed to watch more news—Jerome crowed "Oz!" and approached with hands outstretched, seizing Cobblepot by the shoulders and leaning in to give him a noisy smooch on the cheek. "Great to see ya, pal."
"I'm pleased you made it without getting arrested," said Oswald, and it was weird—Isabel couldn't tell if he meant it or not. She was usually pretty good at reading people, and he sounded sincere, but the little close-lipped smile on his face seemed… hmm. Slimy, maybe. Then again, rich people usually were, to some degree.
Still. Jerome's last bankroller turned on him. I hope he knows what he's doing this time.
Jerome flapped a hand dismissively. "Nothing an excellently-crafted plan couldn't handle. I don't think I saw a cop all night."
That's a lie, Isabel thought, and thought she saw a similar sentiment cross across Oswald's face before he narrowed his eyes into friendly, smiley territory.
"Of course," he said. "We're on-schedule here. Setting up for, ah, brunch, and I notified everyone you wished to see—they should be arriving shortly. You've surprised me, though."
Jerome reeled slightly back and daintily touched his chest, as if the accusation surprised him. "Have I?"
Oswald gestured past him, indicating Isabel with the point of an umbrella she hadn't noticed he was holding. "An unexpected guest! Though it doesn't follow that she'll be unwelcome," he said, turning the exaggerated smile on Isabel, who noted that he stopped short of telling her she was welcome outright.
Jerome whirled around, paused, and then pulled a look of dramatic confusion as he leaned backwards to confer in quiet tones with Oswald. "Um. I don't know who that is. I've never seen her before in my life."
Don't fucking smile, you're enabling him, she told herself, feeling the corners of her mouth twitch, and she tried to look annoyed and disapproving as she shook her head at him, though she didn't think she was having much luck.
Oswald clearly wasn't biting, so Jerome dropped the pretense fast. "Ah, just kidding. Oswald, Isabel—Izzy, Ozzy," he said, flicking his hand back and forth between them as he dispensed introductions. "She's my lawyer."
"Your lawyer?" Oswald repeated—this time, his eyes narrowed in suspicion instead of faux-friendliness. Isabel wasn't surprised: he seemed every bit as strange as Scarecrow and the Jervis guy, but in an I-pay-taxes-just-so-I-can-evade-them way, and he was a bit older than the rest of them, more likely to clock that she looked considerably too young to be a licensed attorney.
"My right-hand-man," Jerome amended, looking proudly at Isabel. "My silly rabbit. Or whatever."
Isabel, nose wrinkled and mouth twisted into something between disapproval and disgust, accidentally met Oswald's gaze and saw that he was making the exact same face. It discomfited them both, and they broke eye contact as Jerome, who hadn't appeared to notice, clapped his gloved hands together. "Gotta keep the ball rolling. Oz—my people?"
Oswald's expression soured. "They arrived a short time ago. And may I once again raise my concerns about your former cellmates having the run of the house." It wasn't a request.
Jerome, for his part, pulled an aghast expression. "C'mon, Oz! Have a heart. Wasn't too long ago that they were your cellmates, too."
"Which is exactly why I know I'd rather not have them in my house."
"That's cold—" Jerome began, but, clearly tired of his theatrics, Oswald interrupted him.
"Why don't we ask your lawyer? Hm? What's your opinion on a bunch of Arkham inmates running freely around this place? A bit of a liability, no? Maybe not in your client's best interest?"
Isabel deliberated. While Oswald was clearly serious about not wanting whatever inmates Jerome had drummed up roaming his house, there was also a look in his eye that she wasn't exactly in love with as he stared at her—something malevolent, something goading. She got the distinct feeling she was being tested, and she disliked being tested by men. Fortunately, just then, the Scarecrow boy passed through the hallway behind Oswald, providing a gentle prod of inspiration, and she shrugged. "From what I've seen, a bunch of Arkham inmates are already running freely around this place. What's a few more?"
Oswald narrowed his eyes slightly in an approximation of a smile that looked more like a threat display to her. Jerome, glancing between the two of them, barked out a too-loud "Hah!" and pressed the edge of his gloved hand against Oswald's chest. "She means you and me."
"I got that, Jerome. Thank you," said Oswald, an edge to his tone even as he maintained the falsely friendly expression.
"Listen," Jerome said, dropping the jocularity and instead putting on a somber face as he stepped in close, toe to toe with Oswald, leaning in close—oh, so he does that to everybody, Isabel noted, not sure if she felt better or worse knowing that—"they're all a bunch of harmless little kittens, but if it makes you feel better—I'll keep a close personal eye on them. Make sure they're not tearing the place up. It's the least I could do… you know, as a guest."
Oswald gazed stonily past him at Isabel, who looked carefully blank in response. She was still in a bit of a crossroads as far as her actual involvement in… whatever this was, but she was certain that as far as her associations went, she wanted to align with Jerome and only Jerome, at least for now. She didn't want to give Oswald reason to believe she could be worked on.
Eventually, he smiled another of his sour smiles, returning his full attention to Jerome and saying, "Wonderful."
"Great," said Jerome, clapping him hard on the shoulder and not letting on if he saw him wince. "I'll have a word with them now. Uh—where are they, exactly?"
"Come," Oswald said, leaning on his umbrella-cane. "I'll show you."
"Two seconds, Izzy," Jerome called back without bothering to look at her, and they left her there abruptly.
She didn't mind, all things considered. It was probably technically hostile territory, but she enjoyed an opportunity to snoop, and something told her Oswald deserved it. She was alone, no staff to speak of and none of Jerome's cohort, either, so she spent a minute or two poking her head into different rooms along the hallway. She found the kitchen (or a kitchen, anyway, because she didn't believe the almost homey little room with dark-panel cabinetry and green marble countertops was the main kitchen in a place like this—likely there was something downstairs that looked like a restaurant kitchen, all aluminum and white), another bathroom, a very large living room with gothy furniture and a fire burning in the fireplace and no exterior windows, a few dark, chilly rooms with ghostly furniture coverings, rooms that clearly hadn't been used in some time, and eventually she came to a cozy dining room in the front of the house, with another fire burning, a television on the wall, and a line of windows facing the city and letting in daylight.
Snow was still falling—rather listlessly, and it hadn't stuck, at most building up in loose little piles in corners and crannies out of the light, easy come, easy go whenever a frequent gust of wind hit. The day was overcast and dreary, no doubt bitter-cold, and even though she was glad to be indoors and out of it, the absence of sunlight made the weariness in her bones more apparent. The clock on the wall read 10:30; she'd probably slept for about three hours, which was plenty of time for the buzz to leave her system and not nearly enough for her to recover from the entire night spent awake and running around the city.
And if I feel like that, then he must be in worse shape, she thought, and even as she turned to check in, Jerome was approaching, stepping up beside her, sliding a hand along the back of her shoulder to turn her again towards the window with him.
"Look at that," he purred, pulling her in under his arm. "You gotta love a dirty winter morning in Gotham."
Isabel made use of his fresh proximity to peer critically at his face. It was hard to get a real bead on how he was doing, given the way his skin had reattached, the permanent, bruise-like shadows ringed under his eyes, but his eyes were bright, and from what she could tell, his energy hadn't flagged all night—he'd clearly gotten a second wind at her apartment, and he was still riding it now.
He noticed her looking, and turned his head slightly, peering at her from the corner of his eye. "Wanna take a picture?" he asked earnestly.
"Wasn't Cobblepot the mayor a couple years ago?" she asked him directly.
After a second's pause, he arranged his features into a vaguely sheepish expression, scratching idly at a spot just below his ear. "Y'know, I just get so busy… hard to keep up with politics."
She scoffed, but she couldn't really say shit, given that Gotham politics were a rat's nest and she herself had given up on keeping up with any details beyond what directly affected her work. She rerouted into what she really wanted to know. "You tired yet?"
He turned to face her fully, propping his hands on his hips. "Kidding me? This is better than Adderall. This is better than cocaine. I couldn't sleep if I tried."
"You look fine," she allowed, "but the whole city's gunning for you. I don't want you getting sloppy because you hit a wall of exhaustion out of nowhere. You've already died once."
Before he could respond to that—if he even intended to—a woman's voice rang out from behind them. "Hmm. Cozy."
They turned to see a girl Isabel's age, or a little younger, striding into the room like she owned the place, followed by a man with shockingly blue skin in some sort of… spacesuit? Hazmat suit? Isabel had seen plenty of weird shit in Gotham, but even so, she couldn't tell what was going on with him, exactly.
The woman, too, was dressed strangely, in skintight brown, with a cowl and what Isabel's passing familiarity with action films told her was a flamethrower strapped to her back. Half her face had at some point been burned badly enough to scar. It did nothing to make her less pretty.
Jerome dipped slightly backwards, pointing two gloved fingers at her as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Bridgit?"
The girl's eyes—a strange, almost burgundy color—flashed a warning. "Firefly."
"And Fries," Jerome said without bothering to acknowledge the correction, pointing now to the man.
The man—older than everyone else in the room by at least a decade—looked unimpressed. "Valeska," he said flatly. "You've got us here. What have you got to offer?"
Jerome straightened up, looking wounded. "Blunt," he muttered in an offended aside to Isabel, before pasting on a fake smile for his guests. "Please, please—a little decorum, a little ceremony. I'll explain over brunch."
Firefly and Fries exchanged an annoyed glance. "And when will that be, exactly?" she asked, sighing to make her boredom evident.
Jerome raised his eyebrows as if unsure what all the fuss was about. "I… don't have an objection to starting right now."
In short order, Isabel found herself curled into a chair beside the fire, distinctly set apart from the table where Jerome's brunch meeting was taking place (he'd offered her a seat at the table, she'd mouthed 'fuck no' and made her escape, but didn't go too far, as she was still deeply curious about what was going on). She watched and listened as he conducted his business. He'd dialed the showmanship back up to eleven, and Isabel privately enjoyed the way his theatrics clearly annoyed practically everyone else, with the exception of Scarecrow, who was at least as bad as he was.
(Not like the others could talk. Oswald, Firefly, and Fries all had their own brand of drama queen going on as well, which, she supposed, ultimately kept them from calling Jerome out on his.)
She also noticed—with some reluctant gratification—that she wasn't the only one Jerome enjoyed keeping in the dark. For all his talk that all would be revealed at brunch, he ended up being pretty vague on details. She got the overall gist: mayhem, chaos, insanity (?), which was enough to get Firefly on board and enough to make Isabel frown, but when it came to what he was actually planning, he wasn't saying shit. She had no doubt he had something specific in mind, so the tight lips meant he didn't trust at least one person at the table, and possibly didn't trust any of them. Interesting.
It wasn't until a notably absent Jervis Tetch came strolling in late, looking like the cat that ate the canary, that Jerome elaborated on even a small element of his plan.
"Xander Wilde," Tetch announced proudly, addressing Jerome even as he clearly basked in having everyone's eyes on him, "works at an engineering firm called Meyer and Hayes. They're uptown and open until five pm today, when they'll be closing for Christmas festivities."
Jerome's grin, already wide and satisfied, only deepened. "Then I guess I'm going to Meyer & Hayes." He paused, looked back at his "Legion of Horribles," and said, "Er—meeting adjourned." He banged the table with his fist then sprang out of his chair, bolting from the room.
Everyone sat in stunned silence for a second, a silence broken by Oswald's long, put-upon sigh. "I don't suppose you know what all that's about?" he said, and Isabel was surprised to find him staring at her like he actually expected an answer.
"Sure do," she lied. "But it's a secret."
Oswald gave her a poisonous little smile. She couldn't tell if he believed her or just didn't think it was worth the trouble of calling her out. "Of course it is."
"Well," Firefly said, dropping her hands to the table and pushing herself up out of her chair, "secret or not, I'm tagging along. I'd like to see what he's got in mind."
Isabel had already been trying to decide if she should follow Jerome and get involved in whatever scheme this was, but Firefly drove the final nail into the coffin—if she was going, then so was Isabel, as she had no desire to linger around this place with a bunch of spooky, strange men. She got up as well. "We better find him quick, then," she said, joining Firefly on her way out of the room. "He tends to move fast."
Firefly gave her a quick, appraising look as they left, and whatever she saw appeared to satisfy her—she just gave Isabel a curt little nod, and they went together in search of Jerome.
Which was how, about an hour later, they came to be sitting in a van parked across the street from the engineering firm Jerome was interested in, keeping watch as he went inside to do… whatever he was planning to do. Isabel had ridden up front with him while Firefly opted for the back, but none of them had spoken much. Jerome had an intense look in his eye that she wasn't sure she liked, a single-minded, unusually frowny focus that told her she'd be best off leaving him to his own thoughts, so the ride over had been eerily quiet. He hadn't bothered to clue them in to his plan once they'd reached the firm, either, just tersely told them to keep an eye out, rummaged in the back of the van out of view for a second, then headed inside. Isabel was pretty sure his coat partially concealed a gun, but he was moving fast and discreetly (for him), and she couldn't be sure.
Nothing good, she thought grimly as she sat back in the shotgun seat, her heart beginning to race. You know he's up to nothing good. It was all fun and games when it was just her and him (and his Arkham buddies, there of their own free will, like her)—it was something else entirely when he branched out to messing with civilians, and from the looks of the building, it was stacked full of them.
It was a delayed return to conscience, but better late than never. "Shit," she muttered, groping for the door handle, unsure of the plan, just knowing that she needed to go and intervene in whatever he had planned.
A warm hand firm on her shoulder stopped her. "What's up?" Firefly asked, her casual tone a threat in itself.
"I've got a bad feeling," Isabel said, hand still on the door.
"He's a big boy," Firefly said with a little shrug. "He can handle himself."
"That's what I'm afraid of," muttered Isabel, almost absent-mindedly reaching forward and opening the glovebox, half-hoping for a weapon, finding instead just the usual vehicle registration, a spare pair of white gloves, and a balaclava. "I just think he could use some backup."
"He said to keep watch," Firefly said, still perfectly casual and calm, her hand still firmly on Isabel's shoulder. "So that's what we'll do."
Isabel turned to look fully at Firefly—not quite with contempt, but certainly with a bit of a challenge. "Do you always do what you're told?"
It was a gamble, a bet that Firefly wouldn't just melt her face off at the barely-veiled taunt—and somewhat to Isabel's surprise, Firefly didn't much react, just narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly and asked, "What's going on?"
Isabel mirrored her expression and movements. "What do you mean?"
"With the two of you," Firefly clarified. "I mean, you clearly shouldn't be here. Sure, Valeska likes chaos, but I can't see him endangering whatever plan's got him this focused by letting a civilian tag along. What are you doing here? Why did he bring you?"
The question stymied Isabel temporarily. It had been easy enough not to ask it the night before, when she'd been buzzed and reckless and just happy to be reunited with him after so much time apart. Now, though, in the light of day, it all made less sense. Why had he come to collect her in the first place? It was one thing to just hang out—and make out—and quite another for him to seemingly include her in his plans to paint the town crazy, when he knew damn well she wouldn't be on board once the blood started to spill. He wasn't even using her as a hostage this time, which pointed her to a troubling, albeit obvious conclusion.
"I think he's trying to convert me," she said finally to Firefly, nose wrinkled in faint disgust, as though the words tasted bad.
"…what?" asked Firefly.
Isabel had no time to elaborate (not that she even wanted to), her heart falling into her guts as she saw a black-and-white police cruiser rounding the corner. Her fervent prayer that it was just passing by fell on deaf ears; it parked a few cars down the curb from where she and Firefly waited, and worse, she recognized the driver: Jim Gordon.
"Shit," she hissed, and her tone made Firefly look, lifting her hand from Isabel's shoulder as she saw the cop car. Isabel grabbed the balaclava from the glove box and grasped for the door handle—Gordon appeared to be talking to his passenger, a slightly heavyset bearded man in plainclothes who Isabel only vaguely recognized, not moving to go inside yet, but that could change fast. "Quick and quiet," she said, getting the door open and sliding out into the street.
"Right behind you," Firefly said, all business once again.
The girls hurried furtively across the street, taking cover behind parked and passing cars, and at the door to the building, Isabel didn't dare check to see if Gordon had clocked them yet. She just yanked the balaclava on—something told her she didn't want her face on the building's security footage—and headed in.
She'd been expecting security and bracing herself for Firefly to deal with them, but surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly, given that Jerome had preceded them), nobody was there to check their entry into the building. A quick check showed that Meyer & Hayes' offices were on the third floor, and she bypassed the elevator, the rush of adrenaline and anxiety making her glad to have the chance to use her muscles, and took the stairs instead.
She'd gone up two flights when she started encountering people fleeing downstairs past her, more the closer she got to the third floor. Her mask and Firefly's uniform kept anyone from trying to warn them away or stop them, and they emerged on the third floor into chaos, people screaming, running for the doors, stairs, elevator. It didn't take but a few seconds for Isabel to see that most people were fleeing from the office area up an open flight of stairs, and she turned to lock eyes with Firefly.
"Hang back, flank the cops if they catch up," she suggested. "I'll go get him."
"You read my mind," said Firefly, pulling her flamethrower from her back and starting to look more cheerful than Isabel had yet seen her.
Isabel raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time. She wasn't quite quick enough—as she rounded the corner leading to the office that seemed to be the source of the office workers' fear, a BOOM rang out, loud enough that it seemed to rattle the windows in their panes. She slid to a stop in the doorway, seeing but not entirely comprehending the scene in front of her: a table lined with cowering, ducking people, a man's body with a hole torn ragged through his torso supine on the floor on the other side of the room, and Jerome, his back to her, holding a shotgun he'd clearly just fired at the man in a chair in front of him, a man whose face was no longer his face, but a meaty red pulp instead—what was left of it, anyway.
Stunned by the sight, Isabel temporarily forgot why she was there. Her arrival drew attention, though, the whimpering office workers turning to look at her one by one, and Jerome noticed, too, turning curiously to see what was causing the fuss. He recognized her instantly, even if no one else would—he raised the shotgun up, resting the barrel on his shoulder and pointed safely away from her. "Hey," he said brightly. "What's the story, morning glory?"
Later she'd be troubled by how relaxed he seemed post-murder—how sated and self-satisfied he came across—but in the moment, the relative normalcy of his greeting stirred her enough that she remembered why she was there in the first place. "Gordon," she managed to get out. "Outside. He could be here any second."
Jerome's brows rushed down, and he was on the move even before she finished speaking, catching her forearm and turning briefly to address the Meyer & Hayes employees still alive. "Meeting adjourned," he said in a mock-stern voice, and without warning, fired the shotgun into the ceiling with another deafening boom that almost drowned out their screams.
He towed Isabel from the room even as she tried to recover from the stunning shock of noise. He'll be totally deaf at thirty at this rate, she thought, then: who cares? He just shot two people in there.
"What'd you do that for?" she asked as they scrambled down the stairs.
"Huh?"
"Great, you're already going deaf," she snapped. "Why'd you shoot those people?"
"They were being stingy with the information I needed," he said defensively, although there was a lightness to his henpecked tone that told her he was at least partially teasing her. "What was I supposed to do? I'd already asked nicely."
The argument sputtered to a stop before it really began as they reached the stairs to find that Jim Gordon and his partner were just stepping off the elevator. Firefly was nowhere in sight—Isabel hoped it was just because she was well-hidden. Jerome, with Isabel still firmly in his grip, dragged her down the stairs as he called out "Jimbo! Ol buddy, ol pal, it's great to see ya!" Isabel actually believed him, though she couldn't imagine anyone being actually glad to see Gordon—Jerome was perverse that way.
Gordon, of course, pulled a gun on them, just a split second before Jerome dragged her with him behind the column that backed the stairs. With them out of his eye line, Gordon defaulted to giving orders. "Drop the gun!" his tough cop voice rang out across the room.
"Oh," Jerome muttered, "you are such a stick on the mud."
Isabel took a break from scoping out potential exits (a fool's errand, anyway; there was nothing on this side of the office but walls and reinforced windows) to shoot a glare at Jerome, only for her annoyance to shift into alarm when she saw that in his eagerness to taunt Jim Gordon, he'd poked his head almost entirely out of cover. Reacting almost faster than she could think, she seized his coat lapel and jerked him back, right as another shot rang out and dust exploded from the edge of the column where his face had just been.
Jerome looked stunned, just for a second—then, in a blink, it vanished into annoyance. "I had that," he groused, reaching into his pocket for fresh shotgun shells.
"You fucking didn't," she snarled, the adrenaline from the close call making her heart race, "so say thank you."
She'd never find out if he would have obeyed—as he clicked the new shells in place, another sound eclipsed the rest: the roar of weaponized flame. Jerome and Isabel exchanged a quick look of understanding, and bolted simultaneously from cover. Firefly indeed had come through, and had pinned the cops in an alcove with her flamethrower, her face alight with glee as she sent gouts of fire relentlessly at their hiding place. Jerome took off, avoiding the flame by skirting around behind her, and Isabel stuck to him like glue, briefly touching Firefly's elbow on her way past in silent message: it's finished, time to get out.
Firefly moved behind them, backing away from the cops but keeping the flames going. Jerome kicked the stairwell door open and shoved Isabel gracelessly through before pulling the fire alarm and following. Firefly brought up the rear, and Isabel, at the front of the procession, didn't waste time looking back, but she heard Firefly's flamethrower go off a few more times in warning, a deterrent to any stubborn do-gooders (Jim Gordon) who were thinking about following.
It ended up being enough. They reached the van without being caught, Isabel throwing open the back door and practically falling in, Jerome half-jumping, half-climbing over her to get to the driver's seat and crank the ignition. Isabel sat up in time to reach out to Firefly, catching her by the arm as she flung herself into the van. Firefly's feet had barely left the pavement before the van was peeling out, tearing off down the road before the cops even got to the exit.
They were a block away when Jerome, breathless, began to whoop with laughter, drumming the steering wheel gleefully. Firefly, too, was beaming, her face shining with satisfaction, and although Isabel wasn't quite feeling the same high they clearly were, there was still an undeniable rush as she looked out the van's back window and saw no trace of police pursuit. Something of it must have shown on her face as she settled in and pulled off the mask: Firefly caught her eye, and, laughing, the other girl asked, "Sure you aren't already converted?"
Isabel felt her face drop into a scowl, which only made Firefly laugh harder. Deciding not to waste her breath, Isabel climbed up into the front seat instead. Knowing Jerome, he'd give her similar grief, but he was still the devil she knew, and he typically didn't mind if she told him to shut the fuck up and eat her ass about it, while she suspected Firefly would take those as fighting words.
But Jerome barely seemed to notice her, his laughter faded, back in that weird intense funk he'd been in before. Isabel braced her booted foot on the dashboard and chewed on a loose fragment of fingernail, trying to figure out how best to broach the inevitable argument when they got back to Cobblepot's.
Except, it appeared, they weren't going back there. Isabel figured the circuitous route they were taking down into the Narrows was a means of throwing off a potential police tail, all the way up until Jerome pulled the van to the side of the road and cut the engine. When he got out of the car, Isabel didn't hesitate to follow, even though it was the Narrows—it was daylight, and the snow and cold always trimmed down the crime rate, and, after all, Jerome was probably the scariest thing there.
When she circled the front of the van to meet him, he was craning his neck to look up and down the road, like he was checking for street signs, verifying where he was. Isabel, arriving, drew his eye, and after a quick flurry of motion (unnecessarily theatrical, using one arm as a sort of barrier as he tossed underneath it at the elbow with the other) she saw the set of keys flying at her in a high, shining arc. Reflexively, she jumped and snatched them out of the air.
Jerome whistled a short, slightly airy whistle of admiration. "Anyone ever tell you you're a bit of a jock?"
"Take that back," she said, clenching the keys tight into her hand so she could point threateningly at him with it. "What are you giving me these for?"
"So you and Bridge can go back to Oswald's," he said, reaching out to take her elbow and steer her towards the driver door as he continued to check out the street.
"Uh-huh. And you'll be…?"
"Keeping a promise I made a loooong time ago."
She narrowed her eyes. "Hey, remember an hour or two ago when I said you love keeping me in the dark and you said that was 'verifiably untrue?'"
That was finally enough to draw his eye. He pursed his lips into a deep frown, though he didn't look mad or upset so much as slightly flabbergasted—either that she was calling him out, or that he'd been so preoccupied all morning that he didn't have an idea on deck to get himself out of the situation quickly. A quick glance at the van behind her—checking for Firefly, maybe—and then he appeared to make a decision, and he ducked his head, nearly forehead-to-forehead with her.
"It's family business," he crooned quietly, tilting his head almost 90 degrees so he could peer birdlike into her eyes. "Something I have to do alone. Jeremiah is long overdue a visit—and the details of that, I'd like to play close to my chest, if you don't mind, at least till I see how this is gonna shake out."
Isabel watched him, almost not blinking, tracking his every movement like he'd vanish if she took her eyes off him. Despite the raw anger she'd been feeling towards him only five minutes ago, it was like a pit had opened up in her stomach, sucking everything else down into a chasm of dread. With her free hand, she grabbed him tight by the wrist, and, matching his quiet tone, she said, "You've already died once. If it happens again I don't think it'll end so well. Let me come with you. Please."
Something faintly malicious lit in his eyes. "You think if you tag along, you'll—what, keep me from dying again?" His voice, though still uncharacteristically quiet, was unmistakably mocking, but Isabel didn't rise to the bait by getting mad.
"Well, you probably would have taken a bullet to the face if I hadn't been there today," she pointed out.
His eyes narrowed. "Probably," he repeated in an exaggerated mimicry of her, but before she could decide if taking offense would help her cause or not, he swooped forward a couple inches and pecked her on the nose. "Don't worry," he said, leaning back again, out of her personal space (and she tried not to notice that the loss of him left her feeling faintly bereft). "He's not Jimbo. He won't kill me. He doesn't have the guts."
"Not helping," she said, starting to glare.
"Go back to Oswald's," he said. "This won't take long. I'll wrap up and be back by nightfall. Promise."
"Jerome. At least tell me where you're going."
Behind her, the van door slid open, and she turned to see an impatient-looking Firefly. "Is there a reason we're out here like sitting ducks? Because last I heard, at least two of us are still wanted by the cops. We should move."
"Just—hang on a second," Isabel said. She turned back around to find that Jerome had vanished—likely into the alleyway behind him, likely just one twist or turn out of sight, but even as the dread yawned inside her, she admitted that if he didn't want her along for the ride… well, she'd never had much luck at making him do what he didn't already want to do.
"Well?" Firefly asked from behind her.
"Yeah," Isabel said, a little waspish. "I'm coming." That seemed to satisfy Firefly enough that she closed the door again, and after one more long look into the empty alleyway, Isabel turned and got in the van to head home and await the outcome.
A/N - taking a brief break from the nonstop flirtation to lash this fic to canon events with a bunch of plot tethers, but the overall silly behavior will be back before you know it.
Next up: Isabel meets Jerome's last surviving relative. Isabel and Jerome get deep. See you then!