Fic: Jabberwock
I promised mrsfrankenstien that I'd re-post one of my Gotham stories from years ago, Jabberwock, back up if she let me see the paper she did about the story for her Gender and Popular Culture class. And since she's been super-fabulous and posted the paper, here is the story. Woop woop. :D
Jabberwock
A Gotham AU
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A way it might have gone.
Now:
She knows it can't be, but the first thing she thinks when she sees that bright gold hair is Stephanie.
The cuts on Alice's stomach and thigh are deep enough to make her vision swim and her head hurt almost more than the wounds themselves do. Coupled with a sprained ankle, the situation is one of the less optimistic she's faced this week.
But now Killer Croc is distracted, by the bright blur ducking and weaving around his punches. The girl's hair is loose and shining and Alice winces, because even Stephanie was never reckless enough to wear it like that. Still, the girl moves too quickly for Croc to grab it, or her, and now the girl is stabbing out with a small object in one hand. A spark, a crack, Croc stumbles. A taser.
Alice's head lolls forward. There's blood all over her gloves. Her own blood. She can't concentrate, everything's fuzzy. There was something important...
She looks up blearily. The girl is still shocking Croc, over and over. He's curled on the ground. She shows no sign of stopping.
"Robin..." Alice mumbles, trying to push herself back up to standing against the wall. Her ankle screams at the movement. "Robin, don't forget... the rule..."
The girl looks up, perfect candy-apple-red lipstick smeared across her cheek and her even white teeth bared in a snarl. As soon as she sees Alice, the expression changes and softens. Croc forgotten, the girl runs to Alice's side.
"Tell me what to do." Her voice is higher than Stephanie's ever sounded in-costume, and her hands more hesitant as she tries to staunch the blood on Alice's abdomen.
Alice knows she should say something, but her head aches. It seems so much easier to just close her eyes.
-
Then:
When Alice sees the bunny rabbit she has to chase it, because it has a funny little tail and it's going hop hop hop just like in the Beatrix Potter books her mother reads her by the fire in the evenings sometimes.
Then the ground's gone, and she screams, and she's falling. She feels like she falls for a long time, but when she lands it doesn't hurt that much. She thinks maybe she's fallen into the underworld, and looks around for the ferryman. Bruce reads her stories about that stuff sometimes, when their mother's too busy for Peter Rabbit. Bruce isn't supposed to read Alice those books; everybody says she's too little for scary stories yet.
Alice doesn't think the stories are scary, and she doesn't think what's happening to her now is scary either. The cave is very big, but that might be because she's so little. There's not much light, only a patch of sun in the spot where Alice fell in.
"Lissy!" Bruce calls from somewhere up there. The light's obscured as he looks down into the cave. "Alice, are you all right? Are you hurt? Alice!"
"I'm just here," she shouts back. "I'm just fine. I'd like to come back up."
"I'll get Father. Stay where you are!" Bruce calls, and runs away again. Alice decides that staying where she is wouldn't be as fun as exploring, and so she starts to look around. She can hear rustling noises. There are animals down here. Maybe dragons.
"Hello? Mister Dragon?" Alice calls. "Please don't breathe fire on me."
There's a screeching noise and Alice covers her hands with her ears because the noise is hurting them. Lots of little creatures with wings flap around her. Bats.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!" Alice sings happily, keeping her palms cupped at the side of her head to block their noises out. "How I wonder what you're at!"
"Alice?" Father calls. Alice takes a final look at where most of the bats are still sleeping and then runs back to where she fell in. Father and Bruce have made the hole wider and lowered one of Mother's rock-climbing cables down.
"Here I am!" she says. Father grabs her in a hug.
"Are you all right, sweetheart?"
"Yes. Can I have a pet bat? The bunny ran away."
Bruce shudders. "I don't like bats."
"Scaredy."
"Shut up!"
"Children!" Father says sharply.
"Sorry," Alice mutters. Bruce echoes her.
"Let's get out of here. Bruce, you go up first, then help your sister. I'll have to see about getting this place sealed off properly."
"Don't do that!" Alice is horrified. "What about the bats? I'll be more careful, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die."
Father frowns. "You know I don't like that expression."
"I promise. Pleeease?" She presses her palms together in front of her, like a peasant begging for a favour from a king. Or, not a peasant, a knight. Alice is a knight, trying to protect a friendly family of dragons who live in a cave. She'll have to make up a proper story about it, and tell Bruce. He can write it down for her.
"We'll see," is all Father says.
When she gets back up onto the grass, Alice feels a bit sad. It was fun to have an adventure.
--
Now:
Alice wakes up and fumbles, eyes closed, for a pillow. Grasping one in her flailing hand, she presses it against her face and over her ears.
"FwgIgtthsrmsdprfed," she complains.
"I'm afraid I don't speak that particular dialect, Miss Alice," Alfred answers, fussing with a tray of breakfast foods over at the table underneath the window.
Alice sighs and throws the pillow aside, sitting up gingerly. She feels mummified, bandages coating her from ribcage to hip. There's another bandage on her ankle.
"I said, I thought I got this room soundproofed. But now I see the problem." She nods towards the open window, squinting against the light. "Ten a.m?"
"Half past. And one cave is more than enough, even for you. Fresh air will do you good."
"That racket won't," Alice retorts, easing herself out of bed and walking to the sill. The outside world smells like fresh grass clippings, and the pulsing bass beat of the small-but-expensive stereo system resting in the shade of one of the ash trees overwhelms any birdcalls or soft natural sounds the morning might have to offer.
The girl they've decided to call Sandra is moving through a complicated series of flips and tumbles in time with the music. Tim and Conner - Alice raises her eyebrows, wondering if Bruce knows that the pair are continuing to see one another despite his constant and unsubtle suggestions against it - are watching appreciatively. The blonde girl, now dressed in clothes which look like they were borrowed from Sandra's wardrobe, claps her hands.
"Miss Ariana Dzerchenko," Alfred supplies. "She brought you back last night. Another twelve stitches to add to your always-growing collection."
Alice rests a hand against the bandage over her belly. "She was wearing the suit -"
"A suit. Home-made, I assume. Not a bad job, as these things go. I convinced her to exchange it for some of Miss Sandra's clothing by explaining that we expected Master Bruce home sometime this morning, and that he would not be amused to find a young lady in such a getup wandering the halls."
"Dzerchenko. That rings a bell."
"Miss Ariana was Master Tim's rival in several of the subject prizes at their school this year. He bested her in Mathematics, Biology, and English, but she triumphed in Chemistry and Gym. It seems that they have a kind of competitive respect which approaches friendship."
Alice shakes her head, moving away from the window and sitting down at the table. "I met Tim's classmates at the party he held. None of them looked like her."
"Master Tim assures me that the last time he saw her before this morning, the day before yesterday, her hair was still its natural dark brown."
"Hmm." Alice reaches for the marmalade. "That's interesting."
"She seems anxious to be of help. Though I'm sure that fact is no revelation to you."
"No. Alfred... when I was injured, I... I called her Robin."
Alfred gives a tiny sigh. "Then I suppose it is all but written in stone, ma'am."
--
Then:
One of the few things Alice and Bruce can ever agree on is what sort of film they want to see. This time, it's The Mark of Zorro and it's so cool. They're pretending to have a swordfight like the one in the movie, now, using rolled-up playbills. Mother and Father are walking a little way behind them. Alice stops playing with Bruce for a moment to look at them, because they're so beautiful and handsome and wonderful.
When Alice turns fifteen she is going to be allowed a necklace just like Mother's, a line of perfect creamy pearls.
"Lissy, it's no fun if you don't fight me back," Bruce complains. Alice turns back to him and grins devilishly.
"Have at you!" she cries, and lunges.
"Wait for us, little ones!" Mother calls, laughing, as Bruce flees from Alice's attack. Alice gives chase, crashing against Bruce's back as she rounds a corner.
There's a man with a gun. He looks just like something from a gangster movie. Alice doesn't like gangster movies.
Bruce is shaking. Alice grabs his hand.
"Alice, Bruce, what -" Mother says. Then she says "Oh, God," and Father says "Just do whatever he says, children."
Then something happens. Something goes wrong. There are two bangs, two flashes of light. The damp dank smells of the street are shattered by something bright and sharp in the air. Mother's necklace is just beads, bouncing on the pavement.
Alice is screaming at the man. "You killed them! You killed them!" Her voice sounds high and strange to her ears, like the shrieks bats make. The man runs. Alice wants to chase him, but knows she has to stay. She has to stay with Bruce.
Bruce is on his knees. The street light above him paints a yellow circle around him, and Mother, and Father on the ground. Bruce is crying. Alice can't tear her eyes away. It's like seeing a nightmare come to life.
She never knew that the scary stories were really true, before.
"Bruce," she says, and they cling to each other until the police arrive.
--
Now:
Alice eats her eggs and toast and drinks her coffee and then, after shrinking back from Alfred's glare, drinks her orange juice and swallows a handful of vitamins as well. She dresses, glad that her clothing tends towards the elegant and easy-to-wear. Complicated fastenings are beyond her groggy fingers today.
The music outside finishes, eventually, and she breathes a sigh of relief. "Don't they have schools to be at?"
"Saturday," Alfred explains. Alice rubs her forehead.
"Right, right. I knew that. And Bruce is getting back today, you said?"
"I will be leaving to pick the family up from the airport shortly."
"Great. The dance party ends just in time for the day care centre. Can you ask Ariana to wait for me in my office? I'll be down soon."
Alfred nods. "Of course."
When he's gone, Alice sits on the edge of her bed and sighs as deeply as she can without pulling at the stitches.
Ariana. Quick, darting grace. Hair like sun on sand, dyed just for this. A suit she'd made herself.
Robin, Alice thinks, and her heart aches with a kind of hopeful joy.
Then she remembers Stephanie's easy, sharp-edged grin, and her smile fades as quickly as it appeared.
--
Then:
She has been to the best schools in Europe. She's been yet another rich girl seeking enlightenment in Tibet. She's climbed mountains, like her mother before her, and seen opera performed on the great stages of the world, as her father would have done.
And now Alice Wayne has come home. Gotham is not as she remembers it; Bruce's philanthropic work has kept the steady growth of police corruption and organized crime from translating into abject, visible poverty, but only just. Employment rates are terrible and the number of drug-related deaths is matched only by the number of murdered sex workers and missing runaways.
There are parties thrown to welcome her, and she wears beautiful silk dresses and priceless diamond necklaces and smiles widely and laughs at all the jokes. Bruce has a reputation as a recluse, a serious man with no time for frivolity. Not so his little sister.
The Manor is as Alice remembers it. She'd expected it to seem smaller, dimmer, duller after her boarding schools, but it isn't diminished in the least. Alfred is a little greyer. Bruce has grown into the man he was always going to be, and watching him makes Alice wonder if she was as shaped by that night of horror as she has always assumed. Maybe she was destined to be who she is, regardless.
Bruce has a ward, a vivacious and cheerful boy from one of the foster programs the Wayne Foundation sponsors. There's something familiar in Dick's eyes, a sadness which Alice recognises, and she's not surprised when Alfred tells her the story of how he was orphaned.
"Trying to save yourself, Bruce?" Alice asks her brother that night, sitting in one of the leather armchairs in his office. She remembers climbing on this chair when she was a child. It smelled like her father, then.
"No," Bruce answers, and smiles a little. Alice can tell that he's puzzled by her. She does not bother playing at being the socialite when she is at home.
"Are you planning to have children of your own?"
He shrugs. "Perhaps. One day. For now, I'm helping the children of this city who haven't any parents of their own."
"Gotham needs more help than you can possibly give it."
Bruce looks affronted. Alice doesn't care. He was always too soft. "I do everything I can," he protests.
"Yes, and it's not enough."
"You think flirting with brainless upwardly-mobile men is a better way to help the world, I suppose."
Alice wants to snap a reply, but after a moment's tension breaks into a short laugh. "Father would tell us to stop fighting, if he heard."
"Lis, let it go. Live your own life."
"You want me to just forget them? What happened?"
"Of course not. But you have to move on."
She wants to throw something at him. Wipe that oh-so-superior look off his face. "You think I should go out and find some little blonde girl and buy her some toys? Take her to the zoo? Find a proxy for my inner child?"
"Never speak so sarcastically of my choice to bring Dick into this house again." Bruce actually sounds angry. Not just a bit angry, either. Seriously pissed. Alice didn't know he even had it in him. "I needed family. You ran off to lose yourself or find yourself or whatever it was you did. What was I supposed to do? Sit here in the dark and mourn Mother and Father for years on end, by myself?"
"You think I didn't mourn them?" She's shouting and she doesn't care.
"I never said anything of the sort. I said -"
"I heard you. You think I don't want family, Bruce? You think I don't envy you and your son?"
"He's not my son. Dick knows I would never try to replace his father."
"Why the hell not? You seem perfectly fine with telling me to forget mine!"
"Alice." Bruce's voice is like ice. "You are an adult. You have the best education money can buy. You have a home here, if you want it, or a range of other properties all over the city at your disposal. There is a bright future ahead of you. You know they wouldn't have wanted you to spend your life dwelling on their deaths. Let it go."
"Go to hell." She stalks out of the study and slams the door behind her.
--
Now:
A framed photograph of Bruce's family hangs on the wall between her walk-in closet and the door onto the landing. It was taken shortly after the birth of his second child.
Helena, already a protective and deeply loving woman prior to parenthood, looks as dangerous and graceful as a mother swan in the photo. Standing at the front is their firstborn, a daughter as dark as her mother and sharing her father's gentle mouth, five and a half years old and burdened with the weighty name Helena Martha Bertinelli-Wayne. The second child, a boy, was a babe in arms in the picture but has since grown into a tow-headed toddler; the Nordic strain in Helena's Sicilian background coupled with the the occasional tendency to fairness in the Wayne line - as evidenced by Alice's own hair - providing little Bruce Jr with a mop of strawberry blonde waves.
Helena and Bruce begat Helena and Bruce. It's almost funny.
Alice gets up and leaves the room, walking towards her study on the lower floor.
--
Then:
She dyes her hair a violent cherry red and puts on a pair of cheap, worn jeans she picked up from a second-hand clothes store and a t-shirt with the hem pulled out of shape. She paints her lips the same shade as her hair. Perfect. She looks utterly unlike herself.
Alice goes to one of the worst areas of the city and sets out on foot. Before she's walked even a single block, a little girl with her neckline pushed down over one skinny shoulder and a skirt hiked up above her reddened knees approaches her.
"You looking for fun, lady?"
"Holly!" A man, obviously the girl's pimp, comes over and smacks her across the head. "I told you, you've got to learn to pick them. Broads won't go for what you're hawking."
Alice punches him in the face before she even thinks about doing it. The girl - Holly - runs away, genuine fear in her eyes. Alice hopes it was for the pig currently nursing a broken nose. She doesn't want the innocent to be afraid of her. Only the guilty.
"Bitch," the man spits, and punches her. Alice has done countless hours of tae kwon do and karate, but she's never fought outside of the edges of a practice mat before. She lands on her tailbone, hard. She jumps back to her feet. That's when the man hollers for his friends to come help him.
Fifteen minutes later, Alice manages to hobble back to her car, climb in, and turn the key in the ignition. She thinks she's probably going to die. And then Bruce will shake his head and think about how Alice had a death wish, because she never recovered from what happened, and how sad that is.
She grits her teeth. She'll be damned if she'll give him the self-righteous satisfaction.
It feels like at least one of her ribs has punctured something. Alice is hopelessly, pathetically grateful that the thugs merely beat her up and left her for dead. She knows how much worse it could have been. How stupid she was to think that she was ready.
Somehow, Alice makes it home without crashing into anything. She stumbles into the study and sinks into the chair which used to smell like her father.
She tried. She wanted to help... to clean up this city that her parents loved so much... that took them away from her... but all she did was get herself killed... she should find Bruce, or Alfred.... they'll save her... but maybe she doesn't deserve to be saved...
It hurts to breathe. Alice turns her face towards the window. There's something flying towards the glass. Its wings are huge and dark against the still-high moon. They make Alice think of dragon's wings.
A bat crashes through the window, sending glass splintering out in all directions.
Alice gasps.
Then, every movement like agony, she goes to look for help.
--
Now:
"Thank you for getting me back here last night," Alice says when she reaches the doorway of the study. The alternative to moving slowly is to hobble, and she'll need to be far more injured than she is before she'll do that.
Ariana turns in her seat, face lighting up. "You're all right!" she says, almost shouting before giving an embarrassed grin and composing herself. "I mean, I was worried. There was a lot of blood."
"This isn't the first time Alfred's had to give me a transfusion, and I'm sure it won't be the last." Alice sinks into her own chair, behind the heavy oak desk. "You're playing a dangerous game."
Ariana's mouth tightens. "It's not a game, Ms Wayne. I don't need you to teach me that."
Alice nods curtly and wishes she could blame the pain in her gut on her stitches. "Good."
"I also know that I can help you. I'm good. I've taken judo and karate and self-defence, plus a little gymnastics. I'm dedicated. I take orders. And I know what can happen to the vulnerable and innocent of this city if they're not defended against the violent and the cruel."
"Gonna give me your CV? Provide references?" Alice asks, only teasing a little. Ariana's expression doesn't become any less intense.
"You need me. You're getting hurt more, since -"
Alice holds a hand up quickly to silence her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need you. But why do you need me? If you're so determined, why not strike out on your own?"
Ariana looks down at the blotter atop the desk. "I -"
"Hmm?"
"The first Robin. I... she wouldn't remember. It was just after I moved to America. A man wanted me to help him look for a puppy. I tried to run away, but he caught me. He was going to -" Ariana stops and swallows. "She came. She punched him and tied him up and then she bought me a soda while we waited for the police." She smiles at the memory, her face suddenly young and soft. "I'd never had a fizzy lemonade before."
--
Then:
"Barbara Gordon?"
The young woman in the mask laughs. "Damn. You're the first one to guess. My hair gave it away, right?"
Alice shakes her head. "No, not at all. You dropped this." She hands over the small red purse, a driver's license poking out of it.
"Oh, thanks. I didn't even realise it had fallen off my shoulder. I should've made this outfit with a pocket somewhere."
"That is quite a striking costume. What are you supposed to be, if you don't mind me asking?"
Barbara's eyes, rimmed by a mask, light up with mirth. "I'm supposed to be having a little joke on my dad, but I haven't run into him yet. You've heard of the Bat, I assume?"
Alice laughs. "Who hasn't?"
"Well, I started thinking, what's as far from a Bat as I can get? What could be a counterpoint to someone like that? So here I am, a robin. To give my father a little variety in his costumed freaks."
Barbara strikes a pose. Against the red of her blouse and the yellow of her cape, her bright hair looks even more flame-like than usual. Alice laughs, and makes a show of giving applause. "Wonderful!"
Alice's own costume is a silly, frilly ballgown, an arch of face paint and a line of pasted-on rhinestones paying lip service to the idea of a mask.
"It must be a lonely life," Barbara says, craning her neck as she looks around for her father.
"Hmm? What's that?" Alice asks idly, playing with the swizzle stick in her cocktail.
"The Bat. Or does someone help, I wonder? I wish we knew more about her."
"Truth, no matter how strange, is never as fascinating as mystery," Alice replies quietly. Barbara smiles at her, puzzled.
"Maybe. I still wish we knew."
Suddenly there is the loud bang of a warning gunshot, and the milling crowds freeze in surprise and fear.
"Nobody move and nobody gets hurt!"
Alice turns to look at Barbara, but Barbara is gone.
A figure dressed in vivid colour swings towards the gunmen, grasping a high curtain from the windows along the wall, and kicks one of the guns out of its owner's hand.
"Who's that? Is it the Bat?" someone asks in a near-hysterical cry.
"No!" the reply comes after a moment's puzzled quiet. "This is someone new."
--
Now:
Alice's tone is serious. "Do you know what happened to the first Robin, Ariana?"
The childish sweetness leaves the girl's face once more, replaced by the grim determination of earlier. "Of course. You can't scare me by listing the risks. Barbara was shot in the shoulder by the terrorist Jade Nguyen - also known as Cheshire - while protecting her step-daughter Lian. She decided to leave behind vigilantism in order to create a more stable home environment. She's a librarian for the D.E.O now."
"You know a lot about the Bat."
Ariana nods. "Yes. I've been watching for a long time. You think it's coincidence I go to the school where your brother sends his wards?"
Oh, shit. Alice wants to bash her head against the table. How could she be so stupid? She didn't even think about the fact that Jason didn't go with Bruce and the family to visit Dick. Of all those who'll need to be told, he's the one Alice would have liked the chance to break the news to gently, and he almost certainly knows already.
Out loud, all she says is "Tim isn't Bruce's ward."
Ariana waves a hand dismissively. "Foundation volunteer, ward, whatever. Another lost lamb brought under the wing of your brother."
Alice smiles a little. "You're mixing your metaphors there a little, Robin."
Ariana's expression is one of pure delight.
--
Then:
"See, this movie's totally us. I'm the kickass blonde superhero chick with a great rack, and you're a scruffy punk who's good with cars and stuff."
"I'm Luke Perry?" Jason asks, outraged, and tackles Stephanie down onto the carpet in front of the television. She laughs, and wriggles against him as he pins her. Tim clears his throat.
"I'm getting more popcorn," he says, standing up and skirting around the scuffling couple.
Stephanie grins. "Timmy's totally hot for you." She flips them, pinning Jason's legs in place with her thighs. The movie plays on, ignored.
"He's, like, practically my foster brother, Steph."
"So?" She smirks, and rocks against him. "And have you seen the way he gets when Dick comes back for weekends? That kid is all about the almost-incest, Jay."
Jason rests his hands on her hips. "He's just as hot for you as he is for me. Did you see the way his eyes nearly fell out of his head when you wore those cutoffs last week? And if I'm his brother, that makes you his cousin. Which makes us cousins. Oh, gross." He makes as if to push her off. "We're banjo-plucking freaks."
Stephanie laughs, leaning in for a kiss. "Kristy Swanson acted in Flowers in the Attic as well as Buffy, you know," she says against his mouth.
Alice, standing in the doorway, clears her throat. Jason groans, banging his head back against the carpet.
"Justice has shitty timing," he complains as Stephanie climbs off him.
"Sorry, babe. Keep the home fires burning, huh?"
"Yeah, yeah."
She pecks another kiss against his mouth and bounds over to Alice. "What's up?"
They begin walking down to the Cave.
"Jarvis Tetch broke out of Arkham this afternoon."
"The Mad Hatter?" Stephanie looks mock-cross. "You interrupted us for the Mad Hatter? I should complain to the union."
"What union would that be?" Alice asks, smiling as they change clothes. Stephanie always brings out her most playful side. Even the worst nights don't seem so bad with Robin near.
"The union I'm gonna set up to complain to you about," Stephanie retorts. "Now I've left Jason all antsy, with Tim right there, and they're gonna have sex and I'm not gonna get to watch because I'll be out fighting against some weird little gnome-man who makes evil hats. I mean, really, is that justice?"
Alice rolls her eyes, and wonders what insanity possessed her brother when he decided to fill the Manor with teenagers. She very pointedly ignores the natural follow-up to that thought, which asks what insanity possessed her when she decided to take in a tough, clever, decidedly teenaged ward of the state as the second Robin.
She aims a fond glance in Stephanie's direction, eyes narrowing at what she sees there. "I told you not to wear that when you're in uniform."
Stephanie looks down at the dogtag on its chain around her neck. Jason has its match. "Nobody'll see it."
"That's not the point. It might hinder you in a moment where you can't afford to be distracted. This isn't a joke."
"Okay, okay." Stephanie unclips the necklace. "You're way too serious, Alice."
--
Now:
Alice stands as gracefully as she can manage. "I need to go speak to somebody now. I don't know how long it'll take. You can wait here, and I'll give you the tour afterwards."
Ariana's eyes widen and she nods without saying a word.
Jason is just where Alice expected to find him, sitting cross-legged on the low couch which runs along one wall of the office he shares with Bruce. A pile of books about Dysarthria, Dysphasia, and Dysphonia are littered around him.
"Still looking for an answer to the Sandra enigma?" Alice asks, sitting beside him. Jason pointedly continues reading for another twenty seconds before putting a marker between the pages and looking up.
"Glad to see you're up and about," he says in an even voice. "And we think she doesn't like 'Sandra' as a name. We're trying 'Cass', now."
"Jason, I -"
His eyes narrow. "Don't patronise me, Alice. I'd like to think we're both above that. You've never felt it necessary to answer to me before, and I don't see why this is any different."
--
Then:
Her teeth chatter against themselves as the car speeds along the bumpy dirt road, jolting her up and down in her seat.
"Just this once, let her have listened to me," Alice mutters like a prayer, eyes fixed on the column of smoke over the next range of low hills.
--
Now:
"I didn't want you to find out like this," Alice says finally. Jason laughs. Alice winces at the sound.
"What?" he asks, every bleak and hungry day of his childhood like an extra serration on his tone. "You thought I'd raise my glass in a toast and wish you the best of luck if you told me in a different context? Fuck you, Alice. We both know that there's no way in the world you can convince me that taking on another Robin is anything but a bad idea."
--
Then:
The gravel crunches under her boots and sweat runs down the back of her neck underneath the cowl.
"Robin?" she cries. "Robin!"
Then she hears the sobbing.
--
Now:
"She knows what she's getting into, Jason. This is the right thing to do right now. I need her help."
Jason stands up and walks away from the couch, sprawling in Bruce's chair and spinning it to face the broad window behind the desk.
"See? You don't need my blessing, or whatever it is you came here for. You've made up your mind anyway."
"Try to understand -"
"Oh, I understand, all right."
"Let me break the news, at least?" asks Alice. Jason doesn't answer.
--
Then:
Jason's face is streaked with dirt and ash. "I... I should have gone in," he stammers to Alice, his arms still clutched around Stephanie. "Sheila... my mother... she was working with him... if I had gone in, she wouldn't have told him... I should have gone in... should have been me... she wouldn't have told him, if it had been her son... we just wanted to help her..."
He's babbling, and Alice knows she should try to get him lucid again. She'll need his help. But Alice can't move, can't even think. All she can do is stare at the still form in Jason's arms. The blood on Stephanie's face, the bruises, the doll-splay wrongness of the angles of her legs.
Later, what she will remember most is the glint of silver at Stephanie's throat, a necklace the girl was not supposed to wear with her suit.
--
Now:
"All right," Jason says finally. Alice huffs out a breath of relief.
"Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you," he snaps. "You owe her this much, at least."
With a curt nod, Alice stands and walks back towards the door.
When she turns at the threshold, Jason is still staring out of the window. His jaw is set in a hard line.
Not for the first time, Alice can see echoes of her brother in Jason's expressions. When Bruce is determined not to cry, he looks just like that.
--
Then:
"Alice..." Bruce's voice is soft, even though they're well away from the part of the house where Helena has just managed to settle the baby down for the night. "Stay in. Just for tonight. For me?"
"And when the paper arrives with breakfast and some child or parent or friend has lost their life, shall I write a card to their family explaining that I let it happen as a favour to you?" Alice asks, double-checking the police reports spread across her desk.
At this time of year, dusk takes forever to settle into night. Alice hates the twilight. In the evenings, it's harder for her to find distractions from her thoughts.
"Alice, since S... Ethiopia, you've lost control. You're getting hurt. This needs to stop."
"Have I lost all my allies, then?" Her voice sounds weak, and that's another thing she hates, but she can't stop the tremble in her breath.
"I was never your ally in this. And I'm only telling you what you already know."
"All I know is Gotham still needs me. Even... even without Robin."
She covers her face with her hands. "Oh, God," she mutters.
"Alice..."
"Just go, Bruce."
--
Now:
Though she has only called it twice over the past eighteen months, the number is on the speed dial of Alice's office phone. She sinks into her chair and wonders how angry Alfred is at her for walking around so much with her ankle as it is. Ariana is no longer here, but Alice expected that. She will deal with it later.
The tone rings in Alice's ear and her hands shake a little. She swallows and takes a deep breath to steady herself. It doesn't work.
"Oracle."
Even though the voice scrambler, Alice can hear that Stephanie's tone is cool.
"Your caller id can decode secure lines, I see."
"Of course." There's a trace of pride behind the words. Stephanie has taught herself an enormous amount of information in a short span of time.
"How are you?"
"Let me check... yeah, still crippled."
Alice sighs. "Can we just pretend, for ten seconds, to have a conversation?"
"Well, you're the one who likes to make the rules. Why don't you tell me?"
"I didn't call to have this argument. I never wanted to fight with you like this."
"Oh, I see, kicking me out of the house, that was just an attempt at avoiding confrontation. And here I was taking it personally." The scrambler makes the words flat and static-laden, but the bitterness is not hard to detect.
"You weren't happy here. I wanted to -"
"It was still my home!" The line squawks with feedback as Stephanie shouts.
"Calm down," Alice snaps. "I told you, I didn't call to go over this again."
"Fine." Stephanie is quiet for a long beat. "How's Jason? Is he still seeing the army brat?"
"Rena? No... they broke up a while ago. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you."
"He still calls sometimes. I let the machine pick up." A buzz of static which might have begun life as a sigh. "What do you want?"
"I wanted you to hear this from me. There's a girl, and -"
"Ah." The laugh sounds alien and mechanical. "This is like when Bruce gave little Helena the new baby talk, huh? Only in my case, Mommy really doesn't love the old kid anymore."
"Never say that. You know it isn't true." Alice swallows back the tightness in her throat and blinks hard.
"Forgive me if I'm not comforted by knowing that you care." Stephanie pauses, waiting for a retort, but Alice can't speak. Stephanie sighs. "Okay, so there's a new one. Good luck to her. Let's hope she's better at ignoring women in danger just because the boss told her to stay put."
"Stephanie -"
"Give her my number. I'll... try to listen. It might be too weird, I don't know. But I know I'll do a better job of it than you."
"I'll do that."
"See that you do. Bye."
"Goodbye. Take care."
The line clicks dead.
--
Then:
After Mother and Father's funeral, Bruce lets Leslie read to him. It's one of his books of myths. There's a river down in the underworld and when you drink it, you forget everything. Alice wonders what it tastes like. Probably salty.
She sits down in her parents' walk-in closet and breathes in the smells she knows will soon be gone forever. Her father's shoe polish and a hint of pipe tobacco and her mother's perfume and powder and the faint scent of evening air caught in the folds of her coats.
There's a diamond necklace and some earrings. No pearls. Those are gone. Alice puts on one of her father's jackets, the sleeves pooling at her wrists.
She lies down and looks up at where she knows the ceiling is. It isn't visible in the dark. When she shuts the door, there's no light at all, but Alice isn't afraid. She'll never be scared of monsters again, now that she knows they're real.
Real things, she can fight.
--
Now:
Ariana is just where Alice expected to find her, standing near the foot of the stairs down into the Cave. The girl is gazing up at one of the trophies, the oversized playing card with the Joker's ghoulish grin painted on it.
"I thought I told you to wait," Alice says, smiling as she rests her palm on Ariana's shoulder.
"I didn't think you'd mind."
"I don't."
Ariana's gaze darts from object to object. "You know, there's some stuff here even I don't know the story behind."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," Alice promises.
"Tell me later. First, show me. Show me everything. All the things you can do. That you can teach me."
Ariana's expression is eager and excited and confident. Alice's aches and pains melt away, no longer important in the least.
"Let's begin, then," Alice says.
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Jabberwock
A Gotham AU
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A way it might have gone.
Now:
She knows it can't be, but the first thing she thinks when she sees that bright gold hair is Stephanie.
The cuts on Alice's stomach and thigh are deep enough to make her vision swim and her head hurt almost more than the wounds themselves do. Coupled with a sprained ankle, the situation is one of the less optimistic she's faced this week.
But now Killer Croc is distracted, by the bright blur ducking and weaving around his punches. The girl's hair is loose and shining and Alice winces, because even Stephanie was never reckless enough to wear it like that. Still, the girl moves too quickly for Croc to grab it, or her, and now the girl is stabbing out with a small object in one hand. A spark, a crack, Croc stumbles. A taser.
Alice's head lolls forward. There's blood all over her gloves. Her own blood. She can't concentrate, everything's fuzzy. There was something important...
She looks up blearily. The girl is still shocking Croc, over and over. He's curled on the ground. She shows no sign of stopping.
"Robin..." Alice mumbles, trying to push herself back up to standing against the wall. Her ankle screams at the movement. "Robin, don't forget... the rule..."
The girl looks up, perfect candy-apple-red lipstick smeared across her cheek and her even white teeth bared in a snarl. As soon as she sees Alice, the expression changes and softens. Croc forgotten, the girl runs to Alice's side.
"Tell me what to do." Her voice is higher than Stephanie's ever sounded in-costume, and her hands more hesitant as she tries to staunch the blood on Alice's abdomen.
Alice knows she should say something, but her head aches. It seems so much easier to just close her eyes.
-
Then:
When Alice sees the bunny rabbit she has to chase it, because it has a funny little tail and it's going hop hop hop just like in the Beatrix Potter books her mother reads her by the fire in the evenings sometimes.
Then the ground's gone, and she screams, and she's falling. She feels like she falls for a long time, but when she lands it doesn't hurt that much. She thinks maybe she's fallen into the underworld, and looks around for the ferryman. Bruce reads her stories about that stuff sometimes, when their mother's too busy for Peter Rabbit. Bruce isn't supposed to read Alice those books; everybody says she's too little for scary stories yet.
Alice doesn't think the stories are scary, and she doesn't think what's happening to her now is scary either. The cave is very big, but that might be because she's so little. There's not much light, only a patch of sun in the spot where Alice fell in.
"Lissy!" Bruce calls from somewhere up there. The light's obscured as he looks down into the cave. "Alice, are you all right? Are you hurt? Alice!"
"I'm just here," she shouts back. "I'm just fine. I'd like to come back up."
"I'll get Father. Stay where you are!" Bruce calls, and runs away again. Alice decides that staying where she is wouldn't be as fun as exploring, and so she starts to look around. She can hear rustling noises. There are animals down here. Maybe dragons.
"Hello? Mister Dragon?" Alice calls. "Please don't breathe fire on me."
There's a screeching noise and Alice covers her hands with her ears because the noise is hurting them. Lots of little creatures with wings flap around her. Bats.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!" Alice sings happily, keeping her palms cupped at the side of her head to block their noises out. "How I wonder what you're at!"
"Alice?" Father calls. Alice takes a final look at where most of the bats are still sleeping and then runs back to where she fell in. Father and Bruce have made the hole wider and lowered one of Mother's rock-climbing cables down.
"Here I am!" she says. Father grabs her in a hug.
"Are you all right, sweetheart?"
"Yes. Can I have a pet bat? The bunny ran away."
Bruce shudders. "I don't like bats."
"Scaredy."
"Shut up!"
"Children!" Father says sharply.
"Sorry," Alice mutters. Bruce echoes her.
"Let's get out of here. Bruce, you go up first, then help your sister. I'll have to see about getting this place sealed off properly."
"Don't do that!" Alice is horrified. "What about the bats? I'll be more careful, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die."
Father frowns. "You know I don't like that expression."
"I promise. Pleeease?" She presses her palms together in front of her, like a peasant begging for a favour from a king. Or, not a peasant, a knight. Alice is a knight, trying to protect a friendly family of dragons who live in a cave. She'll have to make up a proper story about it, and tell Bruce. He can write it down for her.
"We'll see," is all Father says.
When she gets back up onto the grass, Alice feels a bit sad. It was fun to have an adventure.
--
Now:
Alice wakes up and fumbles, eyes closed, for a pillow. Grasping one in her flailing hand, she presses it against her face and over her ears.
"FwgIgtthsrmsdprfed," she complains.
"I'm afraid I don't speak that particular dialect, Miss Alice," Alfred answers, fussing with a tray of breakfast foods over at the table underneath the window.
Alice sighs and throws the pillow aside, sitting up gingerly. She feels mummified, bandages coating her from ribcage to hip. There's another bandage on her ankle.
"I said, I thought I got this room soundproofed. But now I see the problem." She nods towards the open window, squinting against the light. "Ten a.m?"
"Half past. And one cave is more than enough, even for you. Fresh air will do you good."
"That racket won't," Alice retorts, easing herself out of bed and walking to the sill. The outside world smells like fresh grass clippings, and the pulsing bass beat of the small-but-expensive stereo system resting in the shade of one of the ash trees overwhelms any birdcalls or soft natural sounds the morning might have to offer.
The girl they've decided to call Sandra is moving through a complicated series of flips and tumbles in time with the music. Tim and Conner - Alice raises her eyebrows, wondering if Bruce knows that the pair are continuing to see one another despite his constant and unsubtle suggestions against it - are watching appreciatively. The blonde girl, now dressed in clothes which look like they were borrowed from Sandra's wardrobe, claps her hands.
"Miss Ariana Dzerchenko," Alfred supplies. "She brought you back last night. Another twelve stitches to add to your always-growing collection."
Alice rests a hand against the bandage over her belly. "She was wearing the suit -"
"A suit. Home-made, I assume. Not a bad job, as these things go. I convinced her to exchange it for some of Miss Sandra's clothing by explaining that we expected Master Bruce home sometime this morning, and that he would not be amused to find a young lady in such a getup wandering the halls."
"Dzerchenko. That rings a bell."
"Miss Ariana was Master Tim's rival in several of the subject prizes at their school this year. He bested her in Mathematics, Biology, and English, but she triumphed in Chemistry and Gym. It seems that they have a kind of competitive respect which approaches friendship."
Alice shakes her head, moving away from the window and sitting down at the table. "I met Tim's classmates at the party he held. None of them looked like her."
"Master Tim assures me that the last time he saw her before this morning, the day before yesterday, her hair was still its natural dark brown."
"Hmm." Alice reaches for the marmalade. "That's interesting."
"She seems anxious to be of help. Though I'm sure that fact is no revelation to you."
"No. Alfred... when I was injured, I... I called her Robin."
Alfred gives a tiny sigh. "Then I suppose it is all but written in stone, ma'am."
--
Then:
One of the few things Alice and Bruce can ever agree on is what sort of film they want to see. This time, it's The Mark of Zorro and it's so cool. They're pretending to have a swordfight like the one in the movie, now, using rolled-up playbills. Mother and Father are walking a little way behind them. Alice stops playing with Bruce for a moment to look at them, because they're so beautiful and handsome and wonderful.
When Alice turns fifteen she is going to be allowed a necklace just like Mother's, a line of perfect creamy pearls.
"Lissy, it's no fun if you don't fight me back," Bruce complains. Alice turns back to him and grins devilishly.
"Have at you!" she cries, and lunges.
"Wait for us, little ones!" Mother calls, laughing, as Bruce flees from Alice's attack. Alice gives chase, crashing against Bruce's back as she rounds a corner.
There's a man with a gun. He looks just like something from a gangster movie. Alice doesn't like gangster movies.
Bruce is shaking. Alice grabs his hand.
"Alice, Bruce, what -" Mother says. Then she says "Oh, God," and Father says "Just do whatever he says, children."
Then something happens. Something goes wrong. There are two bangs, two flashes of light. The damp dank smells of the street are shattered by something bright and sharp in the air. Mother's necklace is just beads, bouncing on the pavement.
Alice is screaming at the man. "You killed them! You killed them!" Her voice sounds high and strange to her ears, like the shrieks bats make. The man runs. Alice wants to chase him, but knows she has to stay. She has to stay with Bruce.
Bruce is on his knees. The street light above him paints a yellow circle around him, and Mother, and Father on the ground. Bruce is crying. Alice can't tear her eyes away. It's like seeing a nightmare come to life.
She never knew that the scary stories were really true, before.
"Bruce," she says, and they cling to each other until the police arrive.
--
Now:
Alice eats her eggs and toast and drinks her coffee and then, after shrinking back from Alfred's glare, drinks her orange juice and swallows a handful of vitamins as well. She dresses, glad that her clothing tends towards the elegant and easy-to-wear. Complicated fastenings are beyond her groggy fingers today.
The music outside finishes, eventually, and she breathes a sigh of relief. "Don't they have schools to be at?"
"Saturday," Alfred explains. Alice rubs her forehead.
"Right, right. I knew that. And Bruce is getting back today, you said?"
"I will be leaving to pick the family up from the airport shortly."
"Great. The dance party ends just in time for the day care centre. Can you ask Ariana to wait for me in my office? I'll be down soon."
Alfred nods. "Of course."
When he's gone, Alice sits on the edge of her bed and sighs as deeply as she can without pulling at the stitches.
Ariana. Quick, darting grace. Hair like sun on sand, dyed just for this. A suit she'd made herself.
Robin, Alice thinks, and her heart aches with a kind of hopeful joy.
Then she remembers Stephanie's easy, sharp-edged grin, and her smile fades as quickly as it appeared.
--
Then:
She has been to the best schools in Europe. She's been yet another rich girl seeking enlightenment in Tibet. She's climbed mountains, like her mother before her, and seen opera performed on the great stages of the world, as her father would have done.
And now Alice Wayne has come home. Gotham is not as she remembers it; Bruce's philanthropic work has kept the steady growth of police corruption and organized crime from translating into abject, visible poverty, but only just. Employment rates are terrible and the number of drug-related deaths is matched only by the number of murdered sex workers and missing runaways.
There are parties thrown to welcome her, and she wears beautiful silk dresses and priceless diamond necklaces and smiles widely and laughs at all the jokes. Bruce has a reputation as a recluse, a serious man with no time for frivolity. Not so his little sister.
The Manor is as Alice remembers it. She'd expected it to seem smaller, dimmer, duller after her boarding schools, but it isn't diminished in the least. Alfred is a little greyer. Bruce has grown into the man he was always going to be, and watching him makes Alice wonder if she was as shaped by that night of horror as she has always assumed. Maybe she was destined to be who she is, regardless.
Bruce has a ward, a vivacious and cheerful boy from one of the foster programs the Wayne Foundation sponsors. There's something familiar in Dick's eyes, a sadness which Alice recognises, and she's not surprised when Alfred tells her the story of how he was orphaned.
"Trying to save yourself, Bruce?" Alice asks her brother that night, sitting in one of the leather armchairs in his office. She remembers climbing on this chair when she was a child. It smelled like her father, then.
"No," Bruce answers, and smiles a little. Alice can tell that he's puzzled by her. She does not bother playing at being the socialite when she is at home.
"Are you planning to have children of your own?"
He shrugs. "Perhaps. One day. For now, I'm helping the children of this city who haven't any parents of their own."
"Gotham needs more help than you can possibly give it."
Bruce looks affronted. Alice doesn't care. He was always too soft. "I do everything I can," he protests.
"Yes, and it's not enough."
"You think flirting with brainless upwardly-mobile men is a better way to help the world, I suppose."
Alice wants to snap a reply, but after a moment's tension breaks into a short laugh. "Father would tell us to stop fighting, if he heard."
"Lis, let it go. Live your own life."
"You want me to just forget them? What happened?"
"Of course not. But you have to move on."
She wants to throw something at him. Wipe that oh-so-superior look off his face. "You think I should go out and find some little blonde girl and buy her some toys? Take her to the zoo? Find a proxy for my inner child?"
"Never speak so sarcastically of my choice to bring Dick into this house again." Bruce actually sounds angry. Not just a bit angry, either. Seriously pissed. Alice didn't know he even had it in him. "I needed family. You ran off to lose yourself or find yourself or whatever it was you did. What was I supposed to do? Sit here in the dark and mourn Mother and Father for years on end, by myself?"
"You think I didn't mourn them?" She's shouting and she doesn't care.
"I never said anything of the sort. I said -"
"I heard you. You think I don't want family, Bruce? You think I don't envy you and your son?"
"He's not my son. Dick knows I would never try to replace his father."
"Why the hell not? You seem perfectly fine with telling me to forget mine!"
"Alice." Bruce's voice is like ice. "You are an adult. You have the best education money can buy. You have a home here, if you want it, or a range of other properties all over the city at your disposal. There is a bright future ahead of you. You know they wouldn't have wanted you to spend your life dwelling on their deaths. Let it go."
"Go to hell." She stalks out of the study and slams the door behind her.
--
Now:
A framed photograph of Bruce's family hangs on the wall between her walk-in closet and the door onto the landing. It was taken shortly after the birth of his second child.
Helena, already a protective and deeply loving woman prior to parenthood, looks as dangerous and graceful as a mother swan in the photo. Standing at the front is their firstborn, a daughter as dark as her mother and sharing her father's gentle mouth, five and a half years old and burdened with the weighty name Helena Martha Bertinelli-Wayne. The second child, a boy, was a babe in arms in the picture but has since grown into a tow-headed toddler; the Nordic strain in Helena's Sicilian background coupled with the the occasional tendency to fairness in the Wayne line - as evidenced by Alice's own hair - providing little Bruce Jr with a mop of strawberry blonde waves.
Helena and Bruce begat Helena and Bruce. It's almost funny.
Alice gets up and leaves the room, walking towards her study on the lower floor.
--
Then:
She dyes her hair a violent cherry red and puts on a pair of cheap, worn jeans she picked up from a second-hand clothes store and a t-shirt with the hem pulled out of shape. She paints her lips the same shade as her hair. Perfect. She looks utterly unlike herself.
Alice goes to one of the worst areas of the city and sets out on foot. Before she's walked even a single block, a little girl with her neckline pushed down over one skinny shoulder and a skirt hiked up above her reddened knees approaches her.
"You looking for fun, lady?"
"Holly!" A man, obviously the girl's pimp, comes over and smacks her across the head. "I told you, you've got to learn to pick them. Broads won't go for what you're hawking."
Alice punches him in the face before she even thinks about doing it. The girl - Holly - runs away, genuine fear in her eyes. Alice hopes it was for the pig currently nursing a broken nose. She doesn't want the innocent to be afraid of her. Only the guilty.
"Bitch," the man spits, and punches her. Alice has done countless hours of tae kwon do and karate, but she's never fought outside of the edges of a practice mat before. She lands on her tailbone, hard. She jumps back to her feet. That's when the man hollers for his friends to come help him.
Fifteen minutes later, Alice manages to hobble back to her car, climb in, and turn the key in the ignition. She thinks she's probably going to die. And then Bruce will shake his head and think about how Alice had a death wish, because she never recovered from what happened, and how sad that is.
She grits her teeth. She'll be damned if she'll give him the self-righteous satisfaction.
It feels like at least one of her ribs has punctured something. Alice is hopelessly, pathetically grateful that the thugs merely beat her up and left her for dead. She knows how much worse it could have been. How stupid she was to think that she was ready.
Somehow, Alice makes it home without crashing into anything. She stumbles into the study and sinks into the chair which used to smell like her father.
She tried. She wanted to help... to clean up this city that her parents loved so much... that took them away from her... but all she did was get herself killed... she should find Bruce, or Alfred.... they'll save her... but maybe she doesn't deserve to be saved...
It hurts to breathe. Alice turns her face towards the window. There's something flying towards the glass. Its wings are huge and dark against the still-high moon. They make Alice think of dragon's wings.
A bat crashes through the window, sending glass splintering out in all directions.
Alice gasps.
Then, every movement like agony, she goes to look for help.
--
Now:
"Thank you for getting me back here last night," Alice says when she reaches the doorway of the study. The alternative to moving slowly is to hobble, and she'll need to be far more injured than she is before she'll do that.
Ariana turns in her seat, face lighting up. "You're all right!" she says, almost shouting before giving an embarrassed grin and composing herself. "I mean, I was worried. There was a lot of blood."
"This isn't the first time Alfred's had to give me a transfusion, and I'm sure it won't be the last." Alice sinks into her own chair, behind the heavy oak desk. "You're playing a dangerous game."
Ariana's mouth tightens. "It's not a game, Ms Wayne. I don't need you to teach me that."
Alice nods curtly and wishes she could blame the pain in her gut on her stitches. "Good."
"I also know that I can help you. I'm good. I've taken judo and karate and self-defence, plus a little gymnastics. I'm dedicated. I take orders. And I know what can happen to the vulnerable and innocent of this city if they're not defended against the violent and the cruel."
"Gonna give me your CV? Provide references?" Alice asks, only teasing a little. Ariana's expression doesn't become any less intense.
"You need me. You're getting hurt more, since -"
Alice holds a hand up quickly to silence her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need you. But why do you need me? If you're so determined, why not strike out on your own?"
Ariana looks down at the blotter atop the desk. "I -"
"Hmm?"
"The first Robin. I... she wouldn't remember. It was just after I moved to America. A man wanted me to help him look for a puppy. I tried to run away, but he caught me. He was going to -" Ariana stops and swallows. "She came. She punched him and tied him up and then she bought me a soda while we waited for the police." She smiles at the memory, her face suddenly young and soft. "I'd never had a fizzy lemonade before."
--
Then:
"Barbara Gordon?"
The young woman in the mask laughs. "Damn. You're the first one to guess. My hair gave it away, right?"
Alice shakes her head. "No, not at all. You dropped this." She hands over the small red purse, a driver's license poking out of it.
"Oh, thanks. I didn't even realise it had fallen off my shoulder. I should've made this outfit with a pocket somewhere."
"That is quite a striking costume. What are you supposed to be, if you don't mind me asking?"
Barbara's eyes, rimmed by a mask, light up with mirth. "I'm supposed to be having a little joke on my dad, but I haven't run into him yet. You've heard of the Bat, I assume?"
Alice laughs. "Who hasn't?"
"Well, I started thinking, what's as far from a Bat as I can get? What could be a counterpoint to someone like that? So here I am, a robin. To give my father a little variety in his costumed freaks."
Barbara strikes a pose. Against the red of her blouse and the yellow of her cape, her bright hair looks even more flame-like than usual. Alice laughs, and makes a show of giving applause. "Wonderful!"
Alice's own costume is a silly, frilly ballgown, an arch of face paint and a line of pasted-on rhinestones paying lip service to the idea of a mask.
"It must be a lonely life," Barbara says, craning her neck as she looks around for her father.
"Hmm? What's that?" Alice asks idly, playing with the swizzle stick in her cocktail.
"The Bat. Or does someone help, I wonder? I wish we knew more about her."
"Truth, no matter how strange, is never as fascinating as mystery," Alice replies quietly. Barbara smiles at her, puzzled.
"Maybe. I still wish we knew."
Suddenly there is the loud bang of a warning gunshot, and the milling crowds freeze in surprise and fear.
"Nobody move and nobody gets hurt!"
Alice turns to look at Barbara, but Barbara is gone.
A figure dressed in vivid colour swings towards the gunmen, grasping a high curtain from the windows along the wall, and kicks one of the guns out of its owner's hand.
"Who's that? Is it the Bat?" someone asks in a near-hysterical cry.
"No!" the reply comes after a moment's puzzled quiet. "This is someone new."
--
Now:
Alice's tone is serious. "Do you know what happened to the first Robin, Ariana?"
The childish sweetness leaves the girl's face once more, replaced by the grim determination of earlier. "Of course. You can't scare me by listing the risks. Barbara was shot in the shoulder by the terrorist Jade Nguyen - also known as Cheshire - while protecting her step-daughter Lian. She decided to leave behind vigilantism in order to create a more stable home environment. She's a librarian for the D.E.O now."
"You know a lot about the Bat."
Ariana nods. "Yes. I've been watching for a long time. You think it's coincidence I go to the school where your brother sends his wards?"
Oh, shit. Alice wants to bash her head against the table. How could she be so stupid? She didn't even think about the fact that Jason didn't go with Bruce and the family to visit Dick. Of all those who'll need to be told, he's the one Alice would have liked the chance to break the news to gently, and he almost certainly knows already.
Out loud, all she says is "Tim isn't Bruce's ward."
Ariana waves a hand dismissively. "Foundation volunteer, ward, whatever. Another lost lamb brought under the wing of your brother."
Alice smiles a little. "You're mixing your metaphors there a little, Robin."
Ariana's expression is one of pure delight.
--
Then:
"See, this movie's totally us. I'm the kickass blonde superhero chick with a great rack, and you're a scruffy punk who's good with cars and stuff."
"I'm Luke Perry?" Jason asks, outraged, and tackles Stephanie down onto the carpet in front of the television. She laughs, and wriggles against him as he pins her. Tim clears his throat.
"I'm getting more popcorn," he says, standing up and skirting around the scuffling couple.
Stephanie grins. "Timmy's totally hot for you." She flips them, pinning Jason's legs in place with her thighs. The movie plays on, ignored.
"He's, like, practically my foster brother, Steph."
"So?" She smirks, and rocks against him. "And have you seen the way he gets when Dick comes back for weekends? That kid is all about the almost-incest, Jay."
Jason rests his hands on her hips. "He's just as hot for you as he is for me. Did you see the way his eyes nearly fell out of his head when you wore those cutoffs last week? And if I'm his brother, that makes you his cousin. Which makes us cousins. Oh, gross." He makes as if to push her off. "We're banjo-plucking freaks."
Stephanie laughs, leaning in for a kiss. "Kristy Swanson acted in Flowers in the Attic as well as Buffy, you know," she says against his mouth.
Alice, standing in the doorway, clears her throat. Jason groans, banging his head back against the carpet.
"Justice has shitty timing," he complains as Stephanie climbs off him.
"Sorry, babe. Keep the home fires burning, huh?"
"Yeah, yeah."
She pecks another kiss against his mouth and bounds over to Alice. "What's up?"
They begin walking down to the Cave.
"Jarvis Tetch broke out of Arkham this afternoon."
"The Mad Hatter?" Stephanie looks mock-cross. "You interrupted us for the Mad Hatter? I should complain to the union."
"What union would that be?" Alice asks, smiling as they change clothes. Stephanie always brings out her most playful side. Even the worst nights don't seem so bad with Robin near.
"The union I'm gonna set up to complain to you about," Stephanie retorts. "Now I've left Jason all antsy, with Tim right there, and they're gonna have sex and I'm not gonna get to watch because I'll be out fighting against some weird little gnome-man who makes evil hats. I mean, really, is that justice?"
Alice rolls her eyes, and wonders what insanity possessed her brother when he decided to fill the Manor with teenagers. She very pointedly ignores the natural follow-up to that thought, which asks what insanity possessed her when she decided to take in a tough, clever, decidedly teenaged ward of the state as the second Robin.
She aims a fond glance in Stephanie's direction, eyes narrowing at what she sees there. "I told you not to wear that when you're in uniform."
Stephanie looks down at the dogtag on its chain around her neck. Jason has its match. "Nobody'll see it."
"That's not the point. It might hinder you in a moment where you can't afford to be distracted. This isn't a joke."
"Okay, okay." Stephanie unclips the necklace. "You're way too serious, Alice."
--
Now:
Alice stands as gracefully as she can manage. "I need to go speak to somebody now. I don't know how long it'll take. You can wait here, and I'll give you the tour afterwards."
Ariana's eyes widen and she nods without saying a word.
Jason is just where Alice expected to find him, sitting cross-legged on the low couch which runs along one wall of the office he shares with Bruce. A pile of books about Dysarthria, Dysphasia, and Dysphonia are littered around him.
"Still looking for an answer to the Sandra enigma?" Alice asks, sitting beside him. Jason pointedly continues reading for another twenty seconds before putting a marker between the pages and looking up.
"Glad to see you're up and about," he says in an even voice. "And we think she doesn't like 'Sandra' as a name. We're trying 'Cass', now."
"Jason, I -"
His eyes narrow. "Don't patronise me, Alice. I'd like to think we're both above that. You've never felt it necessary to answer to me before, and I don't see why this is any different."
--
Then:
Her teeth chatter against themselves as the car speeds along the bumpy dirt road, jolting her up and down in her seat.
"Just this once, let her have listened to me," Alice mutters like a prayer, eyes fixed on the column of smoke over the next range of low hills.
--
Now:
"I didn't want you to find out like this," Alice says finally. Jason laughs. Alice winces at the sound.
"What?" he asks, every bleak and hungry day of his childhood like an extra serration on his tone. "You thought I'd raise my glass in a toast and wish you the best of luck if you told me in a different context? Fuck you, Alice. We both know that there's no way in the world you can convince me that taking on another Robin is anything but a bad idea."
--
Then:
The gravel crunches under her boots and sweat runs down the back of her neck underneath the cowl.
"Robin?" she cries. "Robin!"
Then she hears the sobbing.
--
Now:
"She knows what she's getting into, Jason. This is the right thing to do right now. I need her help."
Jason stands up and walks away from the couch, sprawling in Bruce's chair and spinning it to face the broad window behind the desk.
"See? You don't need my blessing, or whatever it is you came here for. You've made up your mind anyway."
"Try to understand -"
"Oh, I understand, all right."
"Let me break the news, at least?" asks Alice. Jason doesn't answer.
--
Then:
Jason's face is streaked with dirt and ash. "I... I should have gone in," he stammers to Alice, his arms still clutched around Stephanie. "Sheila... my mother... she was working with him... if I had gone in, she wouldn't have told him... I should have gone in... should have been me... she wouldn't have told him, if it had been her son... we just wanted to help her..."
He's babbling, and Alice knows she should try to get him lucid again. She'll need his help. But Alice can't move, can't even think. All she can do is stare at the still form in Jason's arms. The blood on Stephanie's face, the bruises, the doll-splay wrongness of the angles of her legs.
Later, what she will remember most is the glint of silver at Stephanie's throat, a necklace the girl was not supposed to wear with her suit.
--
Now:
"All right," Jason says finally. Alice huffs out a breath of relief.
"Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you," he snaps. "You owe her this much, at least."
With a curt nod, Alice stands and walks back towards the door.
When she turns at the threshold, Jason is still staring out of the window. His jaw is set in a hard line.
Not for the first time, Alice can see echoes of her brother in Jason's expressions. When Bruce is determined not to cry, he looks just like that.
--
Then:
"Alice..." Bruce's voice is soft, even though they're well away from the part of the house where Helena has just managed to settle the baby down for the night. "Stay in. Just for tonight. For me?"
"And when the paper arrives with breakfast and some child or parent or friend has lost their life, shall I write a card to their family explaining that I let it happen as a favour to you?" Alice asks, double-checking the police reports spread across her desk.
At this time of year, dusk takes forever to settle into night. Alice hates the twilight. In the evenings, it's harder for her to find distractions from her thoughts.
"Alice, since S... Ethiopia, you've lost control. You're getting hurt. This needs to stop."
"Have I lost all my allies, then?" Her voice sounds weak, and that's another thing she hates, but she can't stop the tremble in her breath.
"I was never your ally in this. And I'm only telling you what you already know."
"All I know is Gotham still needs me. Even... even without Robin."
She covers her face with her hands. "Oh, God," she mutters.
"Alice..."
"Just go, Bruce."
--
Now:
Though she has only called it twice over the past eighteen months, the number is on the speed dial of Alice's office phone. She sinks into her chair and wonders how angry Alfred is at her for walking around so much with her ankle as it is. Ariana is no longer here, but Alice expected that. She will deal with it later.
The tone rings in Alice's ear and her hands shake a little. She swallows and takes a deep breath to steady herself. It doesn't work.
"Oracle."
Even though the voice scrambler, Alice can hear that Stephanie's tone is cool.
"Your caller id can decode secure lines, I see."
"Of course." There's a trace of pride behind the words. Stephanie has taught herself an enormous amount of information in a short span of time.
"How are you?"
"Let me check... yeah, still crippled."
Alice sighs. "Can we just pretend, for ten seconds, to have a conversation?"
"Well, you're the one who likes to make the rules. Why don't you tell me?"
"I didn't call to have this argument. I never wanted to fight with you like this."
"Oh, I see, kicking me out of the house, that was just an attempt at avoiding confrontation. And here I was taking it personally." The scrambler makes the words flat and static-laden, but the bitterness is not hard to detect.
"You weren't happy here. I wanted to -"
"It was still my home!" The line squawks with feedback as Stephanie shouts.
"Calm down," Alice snaps. "I told you, I didn't call to go over this again."
"Fine." Stephanie is quiet for a long beat. "How's Jason? Is he still seeing the army brat?"
"Rena? No... they broke up a while ago. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you."
"He still calls sometimes. I let the machine pick up." A buzz of static which might have begun life as a sigh. "What do you want?"
"I wanted you to hear this from me. There's a girl, and -"
"Ah." The laugh sounds alien and mechanical. "This is like when Bruce gave little Helena the new baby talk, huh? Only in my case, Mommy really doesn't love the old kid anymore."
"Never say that. You know it isn't true." Alice swallows back the tightness in her throat and blinks hard.
"Forgive me if I'm not comforted by knowing that you care." Stephanie pauses, waiting for a retort, but Alice can't speak. Stephanie sighs. "Okay, so there's a new one. Good luck to her. Let's hope she's better at ignoring women in danger just because the boss told her to stay put."
"Stephanie -"
"Give her my number. I'll... try to listen. It might be too weird, I don't know. But I know I'll do a better job of it than you."
"I'll do that."
"See that you do. Bye."
"Goodbye. Take care."
The line clicks dead.
--
Then:
After Mother and Father's funeral, Bruce lets Leslie read to him. It's one of his books of myths. There's a river down in the underworld and when you drink it, you forget everything. Alice wonders what it tastes like. Probably salty.
She sits down in her parents' walk-in closet and breathes in the smells she knows will soon be gone forever. Her father's shoe polish and a hint of pipe tobacco and her mother's perfume and powder and the faint scent of evening air caught in the folds of her coats.
There's a diamond necklace and some earrings. No pearls. Those are gone. Alice puts on one of her father's jackets, the sleeves pooling at her wrists.
She lies down and looks up at where she knows the ceiling is. It isn't visible in the dark. When she shuts the door, there's no light at all, but Alice isn't afraid. She'll never be scared of monsters again, now that she knows they're real.
Real things, she can fight.
--
Now:
Ariana is just where Alice expected to find her, standing near the foot of the stairs down into the Cave. The girl is gazing up at one of the trophies, the oversized playing card with the Joker's ghoulish grin painted on it.
"I thought I told you to wait," Alice says, smiling as she rests her palm on Ariana's shoulder.
"I didn't think you'd mind."
"I don't."
Ariana's gaze darts from object to object. "You know, there's some stuff here even I don't know the story behind."
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," Alice promises.
"Tell me later. First, show me. Show me everything. All the things you can do. That you can teach me."
Ariana's expression is eager and excited and confident. Alice's aches and pains melt away, no longer important in the least.
"Let's begin, then," Alice says.
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