Fic: Background Check (Kings Among Runaways, Jason/Tim)
Series Title: Kings Among Runaways
Story Title: Background Check
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. This installment occurs during Sitting Ducks and before The Bargain.
Peter 'Knuckles' Kelly is having a very bad day.
It had all started to go wrong at about ten o'clock that morning when his toast had burned. He should have got back in bed and put the pillow over his head, but he'd gone on to the track anyway and lost two grand before dinner-time. He'd left his favorite hat on the subway, stepped in something disgusting cutting through the alley, and knocked a glass off the drainboard into the sink when he went to make himself a drink.
He cleans up the glass and throws it away, and he has enough time to think, well, it's late, there's not much else that can go wrong today - and that's when he turns around and realizes the Batman is standing in his living room.
"Aw, fuck," he says. "What are you doing here? I ain't done nothin'!"
"Kelly," Batman says in that awful voice of his.
Knuckles throws his hands up and turns back to the sink to wash the last few slivers down the drain. "Bustin' in on a guy..." he mutters. "What if I had a bad heart, huh?"
He's not entirely surprised by the pressure on his collar, but his heart leaps a moment later when he gets lifted off his feet and slammed against the wall by the refrigerator. "You did time with Willis Todd."
Batman's glove is slick and unyielding under Knuckle's grasping fingers. He gives up on relaxing the hold and grabs Batman's wrist instead, pulling himself up a little until he can breath. "Todd's dead!" he manages to gasp.
"His son's alive," Batman growls. "I want everything you know."
"Shit!" Knuckles chokes out, "Let me down, I'll tell you. Can't breathe-" He kicks, but it's useless. There are dark stars exploding at the edges of his vision -
He hits the floor hard. As soon as he realizes he's free, he tries to roll away, but he's too busy coughing to get very far. He manages to get to his hands and knees, and then Batman's crouched in front of him, gripping his chin and dragging his face up. "Talk."
"Haven't - haven't seen the kid since his mother died. Used to bring 'em stuff - cash, food, you know. She was a good woman - too good for Todd, probably. The boy took off when she bit it and I didn't go looking. He was always a snot to me."
"Did you know any of his friends? Know where he might have gone?"
"Nah, man," Knuckles says. Shit. He never liked the kid much, but he's feeling sorry for him already, if the Bat wants him so bad. "Us'ta be friendly with all the girls, though. They lived off Park, on, uh, Moench. Lots'a girls on the corner there, they might know him."
Batman finally lets him go, and Knuckles drops his head to work his jaw for a moment. He's going to have bruises on his fucking face - little round ones from the guy's fingers. He gets his feet under him and stands up, holding the wall to keep himself steady. He hasn't had a run-in with the Bat in a couple years - not since Two Face busted up his hands so bad - and he's not as young as he used to be.
By the time he raises his head again, Knuckles is alone. The curtains around his living room window flutter a little in the night breeze.
*
Sherry's fixing her smudged lipstick in the mirror of parked car, when a shadow passes overhead. It's too smoggy to see the moon and stars, so that means something just passed between her and the streetlight. Sherry puts her lipstick back in her purse, closes her hand around her pepper spray, and turns around.
Oh. It's just Batman. "Hiya," she says, with a little wave.
Batman doesn't greet her back, or anything, but he nods his head a little, so she smiles. She's only met him twice, but he's always been a gentleman, and he'd caught the creep that killed Mandy and Louisa, so he's good in her books.
"You need something?" she says, and cocks a hip. She knows he won't bite, but it earns her a twitch of his lips.
"Just information," he says. "A boy used to live here. Jason Todd."
Sherry takes a step back before she can think about it. Jason. Is he in trouble? She hasn't seen him in weeks, doesn't know what he could have gotten himself into. "What do you want with him?"
"Just information," he repeats.
Sherry looks over her shoulder, suddenly nervous. There are a few girls on the other side of the block, and Rochelle, who isn't a girl at all and is big enough to run off a lot of the creeps that come just to hassle. Not Batman, though. She doesn't think anyone could run off Batman. "I don't know him."
All of a sudden, Batman's way too close, and Sherry's stuck with the car at her back and nowhere to go, even if you could outrun Batman. "I don't believe you, Miss Albrecht."
Shit. How does he know her name? Not the name she's using, but her real name - she hasn't even heard it in two years. "Look, he's a good kid. A really sweet boy. He wouldn't hurt nobody - well, nobody who didn't really deserve it."
"Miss Albrecht," Batman says, bending over her a little. His voice is a little softer now than it was before. "I assure you I mean the boy no harm. He's gotten himself involved in something potentially dangerous, and I need to know what I can expect from him. I need to know if anyone is looking for him."
The paint on the car is rusty, and it catches a little on her tights as she slumps against the door. "Is he okay?"
"He's well."
"Oh, god. Okay. Good. I'm glad. He's - he's really sweet, but - well, I guess he probably has a few enemies? Sometimes he - um." She looks up at Batman, but she doesn't think she's getting Jason into any worse trouble. "He'd run guys off for us sometimes. This one guy I knew, he - it doesn't matter. Jason broke his arm. He didn't come back."
Batman's face doesn't shift at all, but she can see something in his posture shift.
"He's tough," Sherry insists, because somehow she doesn't think Batman believes her. Jason's, what, fifteen? If you didn't know him, you probably wouldn't believe he could beat up a grown man.
"Was he working for anyone?"
It takes Sherry a moment to even parse the question, and then she starts laughing. "Jason?" When Batman doesn't answer, she forces herself to sober up a little and shakes her head. "Jason thinks the gangs are stupid. He's always been-" she chuckles, darkly. "My mom always called people like him "non-joiners. If he didn't like something, he wouldn't do it, and fuck anybody who tried to make him. That kind of attitude gets you killed in the kind of outfits they run around here. And he wouldn't get messed up in something he thought was wrong - nothing that hurt girls or kids, and definitely not drugs - not after how Cathy died."
"Cathy," Batman repeats, and it doesn't sound like a question at all, but-
"Yeah," she says. "His mom." She shakes her head. "Look, that's about all I can tell you. I haven't even seen him since Christmas." She's heard he's been throwing money around, but she's not going to tell Batman that.
"Where was he living?" Batman asks.
Sherry shrugged. "Somewhere in Old Gotham. South of here, I think? I didn't really talk to him."
"Where did you see him?"
Sherry wavers for a moment but...well, he's Batman. Most people don't care about people like her and Jason, but here he is, out on the streets all night, making their world a little better.
She can't trust her boyfriends, or the cops, or her family... But she's got to trust somebody, or she'll go insane.
"He was at St. Sebastian's for Christmas," she finally says. "Him and some other boys - Jason's got this thing about younger kids. He's like everybody's big brother. There's this little chico squirt he drags around, sometimes. Cute kid."
Batman takes a step back, and Sherry feels comfortable standing up again, even though she's still a little wobbly in her heels. She bends down a little to straighten her skirt, and even though she's not looking, she feels him go. Sure enough, when she stands up again, the Batman is gone.
"Oh that's real polite," she mutters. She catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and turns across the street. She lets her head fall back and waves goodbye to the shadows.
*
The evening classes are over, and Claire has just finished the clearing up. She's wiped down the desks and swept the floors and put the books away, and now she's doing one last pass through the church facilities before she locks up the back rooms and heads home for the night.
She passes through the sanctuary on her rounds to say goodbye to Father Howe, and she's just putting on her jacket when the big, wooden doors at the front of the church creak open and a dark figure slips inside. He's standing in the shadows, and all she can really tell is that he's very tall, and rather broad. "Good evening," she calls as she dusts off her sleeves.
When he speaks the man's voice is rich and smooth and she smiles in recognition even before he steps forward into the light. "Good evening, Sister."
"Mr. Wayne," she says, warmly. "You're out rather late. If you were hoping to sit in on one of the classes you've so generously funded, I'm afraid we're done for the evening."
Wayne chuckles and slips his hands into the pockets of his sport-coat. "Actually, I came to talk to you, Sister, so I'm glad I caught you before you left. I was hoping you could help me out with something." He pulls his wallet from his pocket, and from it he takes a piece of paper - a photo, she realizes when he hands it to her. "This young man-"
It's a picture of a family, or at least she assumes they're related. All three of them are dark-haired and fair-skinned, and the child has the woman's nose and the man's eyes. They're smiling for the camera, the parents looking straight at the photographer, and the boy glancing off slightly to the side, small smile on his lips and undisguised delight in his eyes. They're sitting in what she recognizes as the Wayne ballroom - she's been there a few times for Wayne's charity fund-raising efforts, and there seems to be a party going on behind them.
It takes Claire a moment, but she recognizes the lad. He's somewhat younger in the picture, his hair cut fairly short and styled with gel. His clothes are much finer, befitting the location of the shot, and, most telling, his face is rounder, his cheeks softened in a youthful curve, rather than the somewhat stark sharpness of fine cheekbones she remembers from the Christmas party. This smile, though, is the same as the one he'd turned on Jason several times that afternoon, barely there on the lips, but bright and vibrant in his eyes, full of adoration.
"Timothy Drake," Wayne tells her. "His parents were business associates of mine. He's gone missing - run away, apparently. I've been asking around for them - his mother's in Kansas and his father's in Belarus. I was hoping - well, a lot of the town's lost boys wind up here at one time or another, and I know you never forget a kid in need."
Claire stares at the picture, her lips pursed. "If his parents are there, why do you think he's here?"
"I'm really not sure," Mr. Wayne admits, rubbing the back of his neck like a schoolboy. "He's been seen around, though. This is where his family has lived nearly all of his life. He might have had some reason to come back - a girl, maybe -"
Claire snorts. "Not this one," she mutters.
Wayne cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. "Oh?"
"A boy, maybe," she says smiling a little. "He was here at Christmas. He seemed rather...smitten with one of our regulars." She sighs and hands the photo back. "How much do you know about his home situation?"
"Well," Wayne says, somewhat reluctantly. "Jack and Janet always seemed like lovely people. They supported a lot of good causes, always seemed affectionate in public... I've been chatting with a few of their friends, hoping someone would know where the boy might have gone, and no one had much bad to say about either of them, other than a general sort of flightiness. No one had much to say about the boy, though, other than he was a quiet kid, and seemed very bright."
Claire turns away to look up the aisle, to the large crucifix on the wall, and then to Mary in her alcove. She bites her lip. "The group he was with at Christmas..."
Wayne leans toward her anxiously. "Yes?"
"They're good people," she says finally. "Really good people. I'm reluctant to send him home without knowing what's waiting for him... particularly if he is... Well. All the funding you've done, I'm sure you know the statistics on teenage runaways as well as I do."
"His parents have supported...inclusive charities, in the past, if that's what you're worried about," Wayne says, but there's understanding in his voice. "Look...if you know where he is, these people he's been staying with, I could go talk to him myself. If he really doesn't want to go home, I won't make him. But... well, I might be able to help him out in other ways. Quietly."
Claire turns back to him, a sardonic twist to her lip. "You're good at that, yes." She chuckles. "I don't know where to find Jason - that's the boy he was with - but the Ayalas will. They're sort of a...surrogate family for Jason, I think, and maybe for Tim now, too. The mother's in rather poor health, and she's got a little boy and an older son. Two other boys in the house...well, you'd think they'd be a drain, but I'm sure they're pulling their own weight somehow. Jason's like that. Even if he only comes to Mass when Rosa drags him."
"Was Tim well?" Wayne asks, his concern obvious, "when you saw him, I mean?"
"Oh, he looked tired and hungry. Careworn, a little scruffy. But he seemed happy."
"Oh, good," Wayne says with obvious relief. "Thank you so much, Sister. You've really saved the day."
Claire looks heavenward and and shakes her head in amusement. "Come on back to my office, and I'll dig up the address. And Mr. Wayne?"
Wayne looks at her, expectant.
"Do pass my greetings on to young Richard, will you?"
*
He's shoving his squirming brother into one of their mother's old sweatshirts to sleep in when someone knocks on the door. This time of night, it's either Tanisha from next door or Jason on one of his little charity runs. After he didn't show last night, Manny's hoping like hell it's Jason, and his mother must be, too. She doesn't even peek through the hole Manny drilled in the door, just swings it wide, smiling. Tulio cranes his neck to try and see who it is, but it's late, so Manny pushes him down on the bed before he turns around. If it is Jason and Tim, it'll be pointless, but if 'nisha's man's been drinking again-
His mother's not smiling anymore. The guy in the doorway is big - that's the first thought Manny has, because he's already trying to decide how to get the guy out of here. The next thing that registers is the clothes, because somebody needs to teach this pendejo how to dress, or smack his woman for letting him out of the house like that. Manny sees some ugly clothes sometimes when he's rifling through the bins at Wellgoods, but this is the first time he's actually seen someone wearing a orange plaid polyester jacket. Something about the guy's clothes and his bearing make him look like a used car salesman - a dangerous used car salesman.
Manny's moving the second he sees him, but the bastard's already got his foot in the door. He takes a matchstick out of his mouth and looks at them over his mirrored sunglasses. "Ms. Ayala, I presume? Miss? Missus?"
"No hablo Inglés." His mother says quickly, trying to shut the door in his face, and Manny feels proud. " Disculpe-"
"Hey, now, mamacita," the man says, and even though Rosa's pushing against the door now with all her weight, he opens it back up again with one hand and holds it there. "Yo soy un-" he looks up at Manny. "How do you say "nice guy?"
"Get the fuck out," Manny growls. He slips past his mother and shoves the guy, who steps back, giving way with much less resistance than Manny had expected, and Manny ends up stumbling forward a step to keep his balance, into the hallway. It wasn't what he intended, but at least the guy is out of the apartment, even if Manny is too. "Mami, cierra la puerta!"
She makes a distressed sound but does what he says anyway, and the door slams shut and locks behind him. Manny is alone in the hall with a man easily twice his size, but at least his mother and brother are locked in.
"Cool it, kid, I ain't here to cause trouble," the man says. He brushes something off his ugly jacket and straightens his sunglasses. "I just want to talk. I can make it worth your while."
Manny backs up and crosses his arms. "We don't need nothin' from you."
The guy sighs and puts the matchstick back into his mouth. He rolls it around, chewing the end. "Alright, fine. You don't want my money, you don't want my money, but help a guy out, will ya? It ain't gonna cost you nothing."
Manny just scowls. Who does this asshole think he is?
"I'm just trying to do right by a friend, okay? I been upstate - they let me out, and I come home and find my old gal ain't been writing because she's been dead most of two years - hell of a shock, that was." Manny's looking at the ceiling, because what the fuck does he care, but the guy goes on. "Her man's long gone, but...she had a boy. Little thing, last time I saw him. I got some things a'hers I think he'd want, and some money I put by in case she ever left that jerk she was living with-"
Something clicks into place. He's talking about Cathy. He's talking about Jason.
"An'..." he trails off and looks away. He doesn't look quite so tough, all of a sudden. "Anyway, I'd like to see him. Make sure he's all right. Friend of hers said he might be here."
Manny takes a good look at the guy, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the bare bulb overhead. His hair's black, cut short, but it's got a little bit of a wave, like Jason's. His nose is a little crooked but he's got a strong jaw, and then there's how big he is, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the waist, thighs like tree trunks straining against his brown polyester pants. Jason's gonna be a big guy, too. The man reaches up and slides his sunglasses down his nose to meet Manny's stare. His eyes are clear blue, and sharp with intelligence. "Sorry," Manny says, letting his arms drop to his sides. "He ain't here, and I don't know where he is."
The man sighs, frustrated. "Kid, look, I promise you-"
"I get it," Manny says, cutting him off. "But he hasn't come around since Tuesday. Usually - usually we see him a couple times a week. He and his friend, they were stayin' in the old Warren Hotel, and I went by there this morning, after they didn't show for dinner last night. Didn't look like they'd been there in a while."
The guy purses his lips and looks away. "He's been livin' rough, then?"
"Since his mother died. He's been flashin' some cash around lately, though - not big stuff, you know, but he'd show up with groceries, some stuff for my brother... They probably found some place better to stay."
"You don't think he left town?"
Manny feels a flash of irritation. "Nah, man. Jason, he wouldn't skip out like that. Not without sayin' goodbye, anyway - he'd break my mother's heart, you know? An' my brother too. He's a stand-up guy - really a good guy, I mean. He's..." The corner of the man's mouth is twitching, like he's trying not to smile, and Manny feels something in his chest tighten.
He hasn't seen his dad in years, but there was a time he would have given anything for a look like that.
"You, ah..." he scratches his neck. "Look. I was in juvie all last year. Jason took good care of my family for me - looked out for 'em, you know? He's...he's a good guy."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But I don't know what's got him so flush. He and his buddy, they don't talk about it. He's not dealin' - he hates that shit. Turned his mom into a junkie, got her sick. And there's no way he's mixed up with a gang, or one of the freaks, or something. So I don't know what it is, or...or if he might be in trouble."
The man bites clear through the match in his mouth and spits the pieces to the floor. "Trouble?"
"Jason..." Manny bites his lip and shifts his feet. "He's not gonna go knock some old lady over and take her purse, or beat up some tourist in an alley. He doesn't like to hurt people - not unless they deserve it, anyway. He's been takin' risks, though, ever since he hooked up with this other kid... Tim's his name. Weird kid." He catches something change in the guy's stance, so he chuckles and corrects himself. "Not in a bad way? Just... sneaky. Real smart. Too smart, maybe. Whatever's goin' on, they're in it together, and neither of 'em will say a word about where the money's been coming from. It just feels..." he twists his head sharply, cracking his neck to relieve the tension building there. "Feels dangerous."
The man frowns. "And you don't know where I can find him?"
Manny shakes his head. "Nah, man. Sorry. You wanna leave him a note, or something? If he's walkin', he'll come back eventually. If I don't see him..." he shakes his head. "I don't think you'd find him, anyway."
The man nods solemnly and pauses to take a small box of matches out of his breast pocket. He fishes one from the box and flicks the head with his thumbnail a few times before sliding the wooden stick between his lips. He looks up at the bare bulb, overhead, down the hall at the graffiti. New paint costs money, but soap and sweat are cheap, and the hall is pretty clean, as buildings like theirs go. "Cold in here." The man says, absently.
"Landlord won't fix the heat." Manny tells him. "Incinerator's broke, too, but we've got some pride - me and some of the other chicos keep the halls clear."
"Hm." The man says. He turns suddenly and claps Manny on the shoulder with one huge hand. "You sure I can't pay you for your trouble?"
Manny shakes his head and steps back toward the door. "Just...if you find Jason...You do right by him."
The man grins, exposing perfect teeth, white and gleaming. "Will do, kid."
*
Once upon a time, the Warren Hotel had been the most beautiful hotel in the city. It hasn't been occupied in about fifteen years, though, and time and the junkies are taking their toll. The deco plasterwork that lines the walls provides handy niches for mold to grow in the ever increasing damp, and the once-plush carpet that lines the halls is stained and torn, chewed to nothing in places by tiny teeth, matted with filth in others. Batman doesn't turn his nose up, though. This is his world, in the truest interpretation of that word. If he were to look out the window at the end of the hall, he would be able to see the Park Avenue Theater.
On the fifth floor, he finds the right door. He'd have had some trouble finding it if Manuel Ayala hadn't given him specific directions, though, because the boys had rather cleverly nailed several pieces of scrap lumber across the door, giving the appearance that the room was shut up tight. That the boards didn't actually connect to the doorframe in anyway wasn't apparent without closer inspection. He finds the thin rubber tube that serves as a mouthpiece for the homemade pneumatic lock, blows sharply to disengage the mechanism, and pushes the door open to slip inside and examine the boys' handiwork.
The lock is made from an old bicycle pump secured to the inside of the door with screws and duct tape. Batman smiles to himself as he examines it. Clever boys.
At first glance, the room appears to be a mess. There's a mattress in one corner, small and bare, stained in places, with a thin, ragged blanket thrown over one end. The pile of newspapers beside it could have been insulation or kindling. He digs through the pile with his boot, but there's nothing there but paper.
There's a pair of chairs over by the window, one a cheap metal folding chair with a few layers of folded newspaper taped over its torn seat. The other chair is wood, and has been 'repaired' with judicious application of duct tape and a broom handle. A box beside the metal chair holds a selection of old paperbacks and - yes. Old Popular Machinist magazines.
Christmas lights are strung along one wall, draped with shining tinsel and wired directly to a power cell made out of nine-volt batteries. A pile of refuse in one corner turns out to be a carefully hidden stash of canned goods and bottled water. The boys weren't living here anymore, but they'd obviously been maintaining it as a sort of base, possibly in case of emergencies. Good planning. He isn't sure what to make of the cowboy hat, though. He picks it up and turns it in his hands as he looks around, still crouched in the corner of the small room.
The ceiling is dark with soot in one place. They'd been burning something, for cooking or to stay warm or both, but whatever they'd used had left no signs on the floor, and it was gone now. The carpet was cut away in a rough circle, underneath the dark patch, so they'd been aware of the fire hazard, at least.
When he'd set out tonight, Bruce had been half-expecting to quickly uncover a connection between the boys and some boss or organization. It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to use a kid to work around him, though it would be the first someone had discerned his identity before doing so. It had seemed unlikely that Drake had worked everything out on his own, and that Todd had been doing all the breaking-and-entering himself. They were, after all, just boys.
Just boys. Just boys like Dick had been just a boy when Bruce had taken him in, like Bruce had been when he had dedicated his life... Bruce shakes his head to himself and lets out a laugh that doesn't sound like Batman at all.
He'd made the decision already, and he hadn't even realized it. Alfred had probably known the moment Bruce had asked him to make up a bedroom. The boys are staying. Anything else...well, that will be up to them, but he has a feeling... A good feeling.
He nudges the thin, dirty mattress with his boot, checking underneath for anything the boys may have forgotten, and then he engages the homemade lock and slips out the window.
The boys will be waking up soon. Bruce has a full day ahead of him.
END
Story Title: Background Check
Summary: The AU where Tim ran away from home at the tender age of mumbledyteen, and Jason got let off with a warning, the night he met Batman.
Warnings: Sexual content including minors, both disturbing and hopefully not.
Note: The series is indexed here. This installment occurs during Sitting Ducks and before The Bargain.
Peter 'Knuckles' Kelly is having a very bad day.
It had all started to go wrong at about ten o'clock that morning when his toast had burned. He should have got back in bed and put the pillow over his head, but he'd gone on to the track anyway and lost two grand before dinner-time. He'd left his favorite hat on the subway, stepped in something disgusting cutting through the alley, and knocked a glass off the drainboard into the sink when he went to make himself a drink.
He cleans up the glass and throws it away, and he has enough time to think, well, it's late, there's not much else that can go wrong today - and that's when he turns around and realizes the Batman is standing in his living room.
"Aw, fuck," he says. "What are you doing here? I ain't done nothin'!"
"Kelly," Batman says in that awful voice of his.
Knuckles throws his hands up and turns back to the sink to wash the last few slivers down the drain. "Bustin' in on a guy..." he mutters. "What if I had a bad heart, huh?"
He's not entirely surprised by the pressure on his collar, but his heart leaps a moment later when he gets lifted off his feet and slammed against the wall by the refrigerator. "You did time with Willis Todd."
Batman's glove is slick and unyielding under Knuckle's grasping fingers. He gives up on relaxing the hold and grabs Batman's wrist instead, pulling himself up a little until he can breath. "Todd's dead!" he manages to gasp.
"His son's alive," Batman growls. "I want everything you know."
"Shit!" Knuckles chokes out, "Let me down, I'll tell you. Can't breathe-" He kicks, but it's useless. There are dark stars exploding at the edges of his vision -
He hits the floor hard. As soon as he realizes he's free, he tries to roll away, but he's too busy coughing to get very far. He manages to get to his hands and knees, and then Batman's crouched in front of him, gripping his chin and dragging his face up. "Talk."
"Haven't - haven't seen the kid since his mother died. Used to bring 'em stuff - cash, food, you know. She was a good woman - too good for Todd, probably. The boy took off when she bit it and I didn't go looking. He was always a snot to me."
"Did you know any of his friends? Know where he might have gone?"
"Nah, man," Knuckles says. Shit. He never liked the kid much, but he's feeling sorry for him already, if the Bat wants him so bad. "Us'ta be friendly with all the girls, though. They lived off Park, on, uh, Moench. Lots'a girls on the corner there, they might know him."
Batman finally lets him go, and Knuckles drops his head to work his jaw for a moment. He's going to have bruises on his fucking face - little round ones from the guy's fingers. He gets his feet under him and stands up, holding the wall to keep himself steady. He hasn't had a run-in with the Bat in a couple years - not since Two Face busted up his hands so bad - and he's not as young as he used to be.
By the time he raises his head again, Knuckles is alone. The curtains around his living room window flutter a little in the night breeze.
*
Sherry's fixing her smudged lipstick in the mirror of parked car, when a shadow passes overhead. It's too smoggy to see the moon and stars, so that means something just passed between her and the streetlight. Sherry puts her lipstick back in her purse, closes her hand around her pepper spray, and turns around.
Oh. It's just Batman. "Hiya," she says, with a little wave.
Batman doesn't greet her back, or anything, but he nods his head a little, so she smiles. She's only met him twice, but he's always been a gentleman, and he'd caught the creep that killed Mandy and Louisa, so he's good in her books.
"You need something?" she says, and cocks a hip. She knows he won't bite, but it earns her a twitch of his lips.
"Just information," he says. "A boy used to live here. Jason Todd."
Sherry takes a step back before she can think about it. Jason. Is he in trouble? She hasn't seen him in weeks, doesn't know what he could have gotten himself into. "What do you want with him?"
"Just information," he repeats.
Sherry looks over her shoulder, suddenly nervous. There are a few girls on the other side of the block, and Rochelle, who isn't a girl at all and is big enough to run off a lot of the creeps that come just to hassle. Not Batman, though. She doesn't think anyone could run off Batman. "I don't know him."
All of a sudden, Batman's way too close, and Sherry's stuck with the car at her back and nowhere to go, even if you could outrun Batman. "I don't believe you, Miss Albrecht."
Shit. How does he know her name? Not the name she's using, but her real name - she hasn't even heard it in two years. "Look, he's a good kid. A really sweet boy. He wouldn't hurt nobody - well, nobody who didn't really deserve it."
"Miss Albrecht," Batman says, bending over her a little. His voice is a little softer now than it was before. "I assure you I mean the boy no harm. He's gotten himself involved in something potentially dangerous, and I need to know what I can expect from him. I need to know if anyone is looking for him."
The paint on the car is rusty, and it catches a little on her tights as she slumps against the door. "Is he okay?"
"He's well."
"Oh, god. Okay. Good. I'm glad. He's - he's really sweet, but - well, I guess he probably has a few enemies? Sometimes he - um." She looks up at Batman, but she doesn't think she's getting Jason into any worse trouble. "He'd run guys off for us sometimes. This one guy I knew, he - it doesn't matter. Jason broke his arm. He didn't come back."
Batman's face doesn't shift at all, but she can see something in his posture shift.
"He's tough," Sherry insists, because somehow she doesn't think Batman believes her. Jason's, what, fifteen? If you didn't know him, you probably wouldn't believe he could beat up a grown man.
"Was he working for anyone?"
It takes Sherry a moment to even parse the question, and then she starts laughing. "Jason?" When Batman doesn't answer, she forces herself to sober up a little and shakes her head. "Jason thinks the gangs are stupid. He's always been-" she chuckles, darkly. "My mom always called people like him "non-joiners. If he didn't like something, he wouldn't do it, and fuck anybody who tried to make him. That kind of attitude gets you killed in the kind of outfits they run around here. And he wouldn't get messed up in something he thought was wrong - nothing that hurt girls or kids, and definitely not drugs - not after how Cathy died."
"Cathy," Batman repeats, and it doesn't sound like a question at all, but-
"Yeah," she says. "His mom." She shakes her head. "Look, that's about all I can tell you. I haven't even seen him since Christmas." She's heard he's been throwing money around, but she's not going to tell Batman that.
"Where was he living?" Batman asks.
Sherry shrugged. "Somewhere in Old Gotham. South of here, I think? I didn't really talk to him."
"Where did you see him?"
Sherry wavers for a moment but...well, he's Batman. Most people don't care about people like her and Jason, but here he is, out on the streets all night, making their world a little better.
She can't trust her boyfriends, or the cops, or her family... But she's got to trust somebody, or she'll go insane.
"He was at St. Sebastian's for Christmas," she finally says. "Him and some other boys - Jason's got this thing about younger kids. He's like everybody's big brother. There's this little chico squirt he drags around, sometimes. Cute kid."
Batman takes a step back, and Sherry feels comfortable standing up again, even though she's still a little wobbly in her heels. She bends down a little to straighten her skirt, and even though she's not looking, she feels him go. Sure enough, when she stands up again, the Batman is gone.
"Oh that's real polite," she mutters. She catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye and turns across the street. She lets her head fall back and waves goodbye to the shadows.
*
The evening classes are over, and Claire has just finished the clearing up. She's wiped down the desks and swept the floors and put the books away, and now she's doing one last pass through the church facilities before she locks up the back rooms and heads home for the night.
She passes through the sanctuary on her rounds to say goodbye to Father Howe, and she's just putting on her jacket when the big, wooden doors at the front of the church creak open and a dark figure slips inside. He's standing in the shadows, and all she can really tell is that he's very tall, and rather broad. "Good evening," she calls as she dusts off her sleeves.
When he speaks the man's voice is rich and smooth and she smiles in recognition even before he steps forward into the light. "Good evening, Sister."
"Mr. Wayne," she says, warmly. "You're out rather late. If you were hoping to sit in on one of the classes you've so generously funded, I'm afraid we're done for the evening."
Wayne chuckles and slips his hands into the pockets of his sport-coat. "Actually, I came to talk to you, Sister, so I'm glad I caught you before you left. I was hoping you could help me out with something." He pulls his wallet from his pocket, and from it he takes a piece of paper - a photo, she realizes when he hands it to her. "This young man-"
It's a picture of a family, or at least she assumes they're related. All three of them are dark-haired and fair-skinned, and the child has the woman's nose and the man's eyes. They're smiling for the camera, the parents looking straight at the photographer, and the boy glancing off slightly to the side, small smile on his lips and undisguised delight in his eyes. They're sitting in what she recognizes as the Wayne ballroom - she's been there a few times for Wayne's charity fund-raising efforts, and there seems to be a party going on behind them.
It takes Claire a moment, but she recognizes the lad. He's somewhat younger in the picture, his hair cut fairly short and styled with gel. His clothes are much finer, befitting the location of the shot, and, most telling, his face is rounder, his cheeks softened in a youthful curve, rather than the somewhat stark sharpness of fine cheekbones she remembers from the Christmas party. This smile, though, is the same as the one he'd turned on Jason several times that afternoon, barely there on the lips, but bright and vibrant in his eyes, full of adoration.
"Timothy Drake," Wayne tells her. "His parents were business associates of mine. He's gone missing - run away, apparently. I've been asking around for them - his mother's in Kansas and his father's in Belarus. I was hoping - well, a lot of the town's lost boys wind up here at one time or another, and I know you never forget a kid in need."
Claire stares at the picture, her lips pursed. "If his parents are there, why do you think he's here?"
"I'm really not sure," Mr. Wayne admits, rubbing the back of his neck like a schoolboy. "He's been seen around, though. This is where his family has lived nearly all of his life. He might have had some reason to come back - a girl, maybe -"
Claire snorts. "Not this one," she mutters.
Wayne cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. "Oh?"
"A boy, maybe," she says smiling a little. "He was here at Christmas. He seemed rather...smitten with one of our regulars." She sighs and hands the photo back. "How much do you know about his home situation?"
"Well," Wayne says, somewhat reluctantly. "Jack and Janet always seemed like lovely people. They supported a lot of good causes, always seemed affectionate in public... I've been chatting with a few of their friends, hoping someone would know where the boy might have gone, and no one had much bad to say about either of them, other than a general sort of flightiness. No one had much to say about the boy, though, other than he was a quiet kid, and seemed very bright."
Claire turns away to look up the aisle, to the large crucifix on the wall, and then to Mary in her alcove. She bites her lip. "The group he was with at Christmas..."
Wayne leans toward her anxiously. "Yes?"
"They're good people," she says finally. "Really good people. I'm reluctant to send him home without knowing what's waiting for him... particularly if he is... Well. All the funding you've done, I'm sure you know the statistics on teenage runaways as well as I do."
"His parents have supported...inclusive charities, in the past, if that's what you're worried about," Wayne says, but there's understanding in his voice. "Look...if you know where he is, these people he's been staying with, I could go talk to him myself. If he really doesn't want to go home, I won't make him. But... well, I might be able to help him out in other ways. Quietly."
Claire turns back to him, a sardonic twist to her lip. "You're good at that, yes." She chuckles. "I don't know where to find Jason - that's the boy he was with - but the Ayalas will. They're sort of a...surrogate family for Jason, I think, and maybe for Tim now, too. The mother's in rather poor health, and she's got a little boy and an older son. Two other boys in the house...well, you'd think they'd be a drain, but I'm sure they're pulling their own weight somehow. Jason's like that. Even if he only comes to Mass when Rosa drags him."
"Was Tim well?" Wayne asks, his concern obvious, "when you saw him, I mean?"
"Oh, he looked tired and hungry. Careworn, a little scruffy. But he seemed happy."
"Oh, good," Wayne says with obvious relief. "Thank you so much, Sister. You've really saved the day."
Claire looks heavenward and and shakes her head in amusement. "Come on back to my office, and I'll dig up the address. And Mr. Wayne?"
Wayne looks at her, expectant.
"Do pass my greetings on to young Richard, will you?"
*
He's shoving his squirming brother into one of their mother's old sweatshirts to sleep in when someone knocks on the door. This time of night, it's either Tanisha from next door or Jason on one of his little charity runs. After he didn't show last night, Manny's hoping like hell it's Jason, and his mother must be, too. She doesn't even peek through the hole Manny drilled in the door, just swings it wide, smiling. Tulio cranes his neck to try and see who it is, but it's late, so Manny pushes him down on the bed before he turns around. If it is Jason and Tim, it'll be pointless, but if 'nisha's man's been drinking again-
His mother's not smiling anymore. The guy in the doorway is big - that's the first thought Manny has, because he's already trying to decide how to get the guy out of here. The next thing that registers is the clothes, because somebody needs to teach this pendejo how to dress, or smack his woman for letting him out of the house like that. Manny sees some ugly clothes sometimes when he's rifling through the bins at Wellgoods, but this is the first time he's actually seen someone wearing a orange plaid polyester jacket. Something about the guy's clothes and his bearing make him look like a used car salesman - a dangerous used car salesman.
Manny's moving the second he sees him, but the bastard's already got his foot in the door. He takes a matchstick out of his mouth and looks at them over his mirrored sunglasses. "Ms. Ayala, I presume? Miss? Missus?"
"No hablo Inglés." His mother says quickly, trying to shut the door in his face, and Manny feels proud. " Disculpe-"
"Hey, now, mamacita," the man says, and even though Rosa's pushing against the door now with all her weight, he opens it back up again with one hand and holds it there. "Yo soy un-" he looks up at Manny. "How do you say "nice guy?"
"Get the fuck out," Manny growls. He slips past his mother and shoves the guy, who steps back, giving way with much less resistance than Manny had expected, and Manny ends up stumbling forward a step to keep his balance, into the hallway. It wasn't what he intended, but at least the guy is out of the apartment, even if Manny is too. "Mami, cierra la puerta!"
She makes a distressed sound but does what he says anyway, and the door slams shut and locks behind him. Manny is alone in the hall with a man easily twice his size, but at least his mother and brother are locked in.
"Cool it, kid, I ain't here to cause trouble," the man says. He brushes something off his ugly jacket and straightens his sunglasses. "I just want to talk. I can make it worth your while."
Manny backs up and crosses his arms. "We don't need nothin' from you."
The guy sighs and puts the matchstick back into his mouth. He rolls it around, chewing the end. "Alright, fine. You don't want my money, you don't want my money, but help a guy out, will ya? It ain't gonna cost you nothing."
Manny just scowls. Who does this asshole think he is?
"I'm just trying to do right by a friend, okay? I been upstate - they let me out, and I come home and find my old gal ain't been writing because she's been dead most of two years - hell of a shock, that was." Manny's looking at the ceiling, because what the fuck does he care, but the guy goes on. "Her man's long gone, but...she had a boy. Little thing, last time I saw him. I got some things a'hers I think he'd want, and some money I put by in case she ever left that jerk she was living with-"
Something clicks into place. He's talking about Cathy. He's talking about Jason.
"An'..." he trails off and looks away. He doesn't look quite so tough, all of a sudden. "Anyway, I'd like to see him. Make sure he's all right. Friend of hers said he might be here."
Manny takes a good look at the guy, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the bare bulb overhead. His hair's black, cut short, but it's got a little bit of a wave, like Jason's. His nose is a little crooked but he's got a strong jaw, and then there's how big he is, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the waist, thighs like tree trunks straining against his brown polyester pants. Jason's gonna be a big guy, too. The man reaches up and slides his sunglasses down his nose to meet Manny's stare. His eyes are clear blue, and sharp with intelligence. "Sorry," Manny says, letting his arms drop to his sides. "He ain't here, and I don't know where he is."
The man sighs, frustrated. "Kid, look, I promise you-"
"I get it," Manny says, cutting him off. "But he hasn't come around since Tuesday. Usually - usually we see him a couple times a week. He and his friend, they were stayin' in the old Warren Hotel, and I went by there this morning, after they didn't show for dinner last night. Didn't look like they'd been there in a while."
The guy purses his lips and looks away. "He's been livin' rough, then?"
"Since his mother died. He's been flashin' some cash around lately, though - not big stuff, you know, but he'd show up with groceries, some stuff for my brother... They probably found some place better to stay."
"You don't think he left town?"
Manny feels a flash of irritation. "Nah, man. Jason, he wouldn't skip out like that. Not without sayin' goodbye, anyway - he'd break my mother's heart, you know? An' my brother too. He's a stand-up guy - really a good guy, I mean. He's..." The corner of the man's mouth is twitching, like he's trying not to smile, and Manny feels something in his chest tighten.
He hasn't seen his dad in years, but there was a time he would have given anything for a look like that.
"You, ah..." he scratches his neck. "Look. I was in juvie all last year. Jason took good care of my family for me - looked out for 'em, you know? He's...he's a good guy."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. But I don't know what's got him so flush. He and his buddy, they don't talk about it. He's not dealin' - he hates that shit. Turned his mom into a junkie, got her sick. And there's no way he's mixed up with a gang, or one of the freaks, or something. So I don't know what it is, or...or if he might be in trouble."
The man bites clear through the match in his mouth and spits the pieces to the floor. "Trouble?"
"Jason..." Manny bites his lip and shifts his feet. "He's not gonna go knock some old lady over and take her purse, or beat up some tourist in an alley. He doesn't like to hurt people - not unless they deserve it, anyway. He's been takin' risks, though, ever since he hooked up with this other kid... Tim's his name. Weird kid." He catches something change in the guy's stance, so he chuckles and corrects himself. "Not in a bad way? Just... sneaky. Real smart. Too smart, maybe. Whatever's goin' on, they're in it together, and neither of 'em will say a word about where the money's been coming from. It just feels..." he twists his head sharply, cracking his neck to relieve the tension building there. "Feels dangerous."
The man frowns. "And you don't know where I can find him?"
Manny shakes his head. "Nah, man. Sorry. You wanna leave him a note, or something? If he's walkin', he'll come back eventually. If I don't see him..." he shakes his head. "I don't think you'd find him, anyway."
The man nods solemnly and pauses to take a small box of matches out of his breast pocket. He fishes one from the box and flicks the head with his thumbnail a few times before sliding the wooden stick between his lips. He looks up at the bare bulb, overhead, down the hall at the graffiti. New paint costs money, but soap and sweat are cheap, and the hall is pretty clean, as buildings like theirs go. "Cold in here." The man says, absently.
"Landlord won't fix the heat." Manny tells him. "Incinerator's broke, too, but we've got some pride - me and some of the other chicos keep the halls clear."
"Hm." The man says. He turns suddenly and claps Manny on the shoulder with one huge hand. "You sure I can't pay you for your trouble?"
Manny shakes his head and steps back toward the door. "Just...if you find Jason...You do right by him."
The man grins, exposing perfect teeth, white and gleaming. "Will do, kid."
*
Once upon a time, the Warren Hotel had been the most beautiful hotel in the city. It hasn't been occupied in about fifteen years, though, and time and the junkies are taking their toll. The deco plasterwork that lines the walls provides handy niches for mold to grow in the ever increasing damp, and the once-plush carpet that lines the halls is stained and torn, chewed to nothing in places by tiny teeth, matted with filth in others. Batman doesn't turn his nose up, though. This is his world, in the truest interpretation of that word. If he were to look out the window at the end of the hall, he would be able to see the Park Avenue Theater.
On the fifth floor, he finds the right door. He'd have had some trouble finding it if Manuel Ayala hadn't given him specific directions, though, because the boys had rather cleverly nailed several pieces of scrap lumber across the door, giving the appearance that the room was shut up tight. That the boards didn't actually connect to the doorframe in anyway wasn't apparent without closer inspection. He finds the thin rubber tube that serves as a mouthpiece for the homemade pneumatic lock, blows sharply to disengage the mechanism, and pushes the door open to slip inside and examine the boys' handiwork.
The lock is made from an old bicycle pump secured to the inside of the door with screws and duct tape. Batman smiles to himself as he examines it. Clever boys.
At first glance, the room appears to be a mess. There's a mattress in one corner, small and bare, stained in places, with a thin, ragged blanket thrown over one end. The pile of newspapers beside it could have been insulation or kindling. He digs through the pile with his boot, but there's nothing there but paper.
There's a pair of chairs over by the window, one a cheap metal folding chair with a few layers of folded newspaper taped over its torn seat. The other chair is wood, and has been 'repaired' with judicious application of duct tape and a broom handle. A box beside the metal chair holds a selection of old paperbacks and - yes. Old Popular Machinist magazines.
Christmas lights are strung along one wall, draped with shining tinsel and wired directly to a power cell made out of nine-volt batteries. A pile of refuse in one corner turns out to be a carefully hidden stash of canned goods and bottled water. The boys weren't living here anymore, but they'd obviously been maintaining it as a sort of base, possibly in case of emergencies. Good planning. He isn't sure what to make of the cowboy hat, though. He picks it up and turns it in his hands as he looks around, still crouched in the corner of the small room.
The ceiling is dark with soot in one place. They'd been burning something, for cooking or to stay warm or both, but whatever they'd used had left no signs on the floor, and it was gone now. The carpet was cut away in a rough circle, underneath the dark patch, so they'd been aware of the fire hazard, at least.
When he'd set out tonight, Bruce had been half-expecting to quickly uncover a connection between the boys and some boss or organization. It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to use a kid to work around him, though it would be the first someone had discerned his identity before doing so. It had seemed unlikely that Drake had worked everything out on his own, and that Todd had been doing all the breaking-and-entering himself. They were, after all, just boys.
Just boys. Just boys like Dick had been just a boy when Bruce had taken him in, like Bruce had been when he had dedicated his life... Bruce shakes his head to himself and lets out a laugh that doesn't sound like Batman at all.
He'd made the decision already, and he hadn't even realized it. Alfred had probably known the moment Bruce had asked him to make up a bedroom. The boys are staying. Anything else...well, that will be up to them, but he has a feeling... A good feeling.
He nudges the thin, dirty mattress with his boot, checking underneath for anything the boys may have forgotten, and then he engages the homemade lock and slips out the window.
The boys will be waking up soon. Bruce has a full day ahead of him.
END