Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jonathan paused in shutting the door to their hideout, hearing the faint murmurs of a conversation coming from the kitchen.

Jervis could be talking to himself; that was not unusual.

One of the tolerable people they called friends such as Edward and Harley could have dropped by, as he walked on in and distinguished two separate voices.

Or it could be someone else, someone with an accent Jonathan’s skin crawled at the memory of.

He stepped into the kitchen to find Jervis sat at the table across from a very scrawny, blond teenage girl. Both had half-full teacups in front of them and looked up at Jonathan’s entrance, falling quiet. “...I thought you’d stopped kidnapping Alices,” Jonathan began, taking in the scene.

“One time, Jonathan! One time!” Jervis huffed sharply, quickly composing himself again. “And this isn’t an Alice; this is a Claire.” He gestured across to her as if he was very pleased with himself.

“Heya’,” Claire said in that detestable accent.

“And she is here, having tea with you in our base of operations that must be kept secret or else we lose everything of value we’ve managed to hold onto in this life, why precisely?” Jonathan prompted.

“’”It is a long tail, certainly,”’” Jervis said cheerfully. “She’s your half-sister, you know. She’s come all the way up from Georgia-”

“Get out,” Jonathan instructed icily, throwing the burlap satchel he was carrying at the chair beside Claire and only narrowly missing her.

“Oh, do be careful, Jonathan-! I suppose you couldn’t get the chemicals if you’re throwing your bag around like that.” Jervis fussed to come tidy up while Jonathan stormed out of the room, heading to the bedroom.

He could hear them chatting, being friendly, right behind him as he threw off the outer layers of his costume in there. Jervis had the nerve to be reassuring her, making promises to her, knowing full well the story Jonathan had never willingly told any human beings save two- Well, any that were still alive at least.

Re-entering the kitchen moments later, “I told you to get out,” Jonathan grabbed that untameable mess of dirty-blond hair so similar to his own hair in every way except colour and dragged Claire towards the door that led to their front door.

The girl dared to give him a sharp kick in the shins and pulled herself loose, a few days of grease letting her hair slip from his fingers with a tug. “Jeez! Leas’ hear me out first!”

“No,” Jonathan told her. “There is nothing at all you could have to tell me that I care to hear.”

“You ought to listen to her, Jonathan,” Jervis spoke up, pouring out a third cup of tea and setting it in front of an empty chair as if Jonathan’s sitting there was forgone; “it’s about Thorne.”

Irritating. The two of them had hijacked a back alley business transaction of Thorne’s a couple of weeks back, making off with the money while Batman was attacking the actual parties involved. It had been complete happenstance they even stumbled upon the transaction, let alone having the chance to take it for themselves, but there had seemed no point in letting the opportunity go to waste.

Looking at the incredibly gangly, already considerably taller than Jervis he noted, girl beside him now Jonathan regretted everything about that night.

Taking the seat beside Jervis and the tea that came with it, “Speak,” Jonathan instructed, closing his eyes to at least block out the sight.

He heard Claire sigh as she sat back down opposite. “Well, t’keep it short,” she began in that strong southern accent, “few days ago now Ma was stabbed. Lucky I was comin’ home at the time an’ got the drop on him. Stabbed him good an’ dead.” Jonathan opened his eyes now to raise an eyebrow. “Ain’t the first time I had t’kill someone. ‘though, that time weren’t so messy...” she said, trailing off uncomfortably while staring at her tea from afar.

“The man was sent by Thorne?” Jonathan guessed. “Because of me?”

“Yeah, so he said. I set the scene up like Ma did it in self-defence, pretended she was choppin’ tomatoes at the time, an’ she went along with it. Anyways,” Claire continued, “once we was alone in the hospital she told me ‘bout you. She’s always been lookin’ over her shoulder all our lives, an’ I guess that’s why.” She remained uncomfortable in front of him but not angry in any evident way. “I snuck up here while she’s still in hospital. She’s gonna flip when she gets home but I ain’t waitin’ around f’ someone else t’come stab us.”

“And so you came to find me.”

“However you may feel about your family,” Jervis said to him, “we have to do something about Thorne in light of this, Jonathan. He must be serious if he went to the trouble of finding out your family.”

“We could let him kill them,” Jonathan suggested. “I’ll cry, pretend I cared. That might satisfy him.”

Jervis fixed him with a ‘That’s not an option’ frown.

“You want to help them, after the things I told you happened to me because of that woman?” Jonathan bit back.

“You can do one ‘a your fear toxin ‘xperiments on me!” Claire cut in, fingers gripping the table edge tightly as she leant forward over it. Jonathan looked at those fingers, at how they were shaking despite her efforts. “Automatonophobia – Fear ’a puppets, statues, any kind ‘a fake human! An’ also kinda sea anemones and stuff, which is a shame ‘cause I like their colours but I got stung by one in an aquarium once – Safe to touch, my ass; couldn’t feel my little finger for a week-”

“‘Fake humans’?” Jonathan brought it back to with pleasure. “Would that include scarecrows?”

Claire’s fingers turned white at the knuckles as her nails dug into the unpolished, soft wood of their tabletop. She swallowed hard, an easy tell to see with her thin neck. “Once I got ill bad when I was little, was stuck in bed f’ like a week. There’s this field outside my window. The farmer put a scarecrow in it jus’ b’fore that but then it started movin’ around while I was ill; I’d wake up each mornin’ and it’d be a bit closer or like it was tryin’ sneak up on me from one side. I thought it was comin’ for me ‘cause I was ill and wouldn’ be able to fight back; I was eight an’ half-delirious at the time.” She shrugged defensively. “Turns out he was jus’ movin’ it around so the birds didn’ get used to it. But he has this shed full ‘a puppets he makes as a sideline that I ended up walkin’ into on a windy day b’fore I found that out. I know they’re not real or alive or anything but, y’know,” she narrowed her eyes suspiciously in a manner befitting a conspiracy theory, “they always look like they could be. ‘m sure some ‘a them are...”

Jonathan took this moment to just lean on one elbow and truly smirk. “My sister’s afraid of scarecrows,” he gloated.

“Heard you’re ‘fraid ‘a crows. Leas’ what I’m afraid of’s meant to be scary,” she volleyed back.

Now Jonathan returned to scowling, moment ruined – Jervis picked up smirking in his stead though – “We will deal with Thorne,” he continued. “Your safety will only be an accidental by-product, if it happens at all. Personally I hope it doesn’t.”

“Jonathan!” Jervis scolded.

“What if I help wi’h Thorne?” Claire insisted resolutely. “I did a real clean job on that other guy I killed; police didn’ suspect a thing.”

Since it had been pressing on his mind, “Whom else exactly did you kill?” Jervis asked.

“The first time? Ma always ends up wi’h pieces ‘a shit for boyfriends. ‘pparently my father was real bad-”

“He was,” Jonathan agreed.

“You met him?”

“I killed him.”

“Aw, thanks!” She actually smiled about it. “Anyways, Ma had this real piece ‘a work a couple years back. So I went to the library an’ looked up automotive maint’nance, wore his brake cables down like they would naturally; we was so busy ‘grieving’ no one even asked a thing. Didn’ get much from it but got rid ‘a him at least.”

Jervis took a moment to turn and look at Jonathan, a long enough one that Jonathan eventually asked, “What?”

“Oh nothing, dear. I’m simply being dazzled over here by the resemblance,” Jervis said a little wryly.

“We are nothing alike!” Jonathan practically spat.

Jervis took another slow look between the two gangly beanpoles with hair like bird nests. Even the same pale blue eyes, presumably from their mother then, although the lack of coldness in Claire’s eyes was something only he had seen in the most intimate, quiet moments with Jonathan. It was personality he really meant though, but even that, “Does it really harm us to help them, Jonathan?” Jervis appealed on Claire’s behalf.

“It harms me to help that woman,” Jonathan spat bitterly, turning sideways in his chair as he pushed his tea away untouched. “Or any child of hers she actually deigns to care about...”

Despite the uncomfortable silence, “I don’ get it. It didn’ sound like Ma did much ‘a anythin’ to you,” Claire spoke up after a moment.

She had all the naiveté of a child knowing its breaching a sensitive subject without knowing why. Jonathan snorted derisively. “What did she tell you about me? About what she did?”

“Ma didn’ have much to say really,” Claire answered. “She told me ‘bout your father, ‘bout how her mother an’ grandmother took you away soon as you was born and supposedly buried you f’ dead. Ma didn’ even know you were alive ‘til you came back when I was a kid.”

“And you believed that?” Jonathan asked.

Claire’s naiveté remained but transformed into innocent confusion now. “You’re sayin’ she was lying?”

“My mother abandoned me the minute I was born,” he told her. “You’re telling me she wouldn’t have known what her own mother and grandmother were doing, that they’d kept the baby alive and were raising it?” Her eyes already downcast, Claire reached for her tea as a distraction. It turned out to be empty. “She knew. She just didn’t care.”

The empty tea mug rocked weakly in Claire’s hands side-to-side, a more vulnerable indication of nerves than Jonathan had seen yet. “...Then why’d she care about me?”

“I don’t know. You tell me,” he leant forward, “since you were deemed worthy of the right to have a good life.”

“...Ain’t that good,” she muttered but without any real strength in it.

Jonathan stood up as if his work was done at that point, downing most of his tea and turning away from the table to indicate he was leaving after saying this; “There. I’ve heard you out. I will not be helping you or your mother – If anything, assisting you in any way will simply bring more pain on you from the perception I care. And I have no intention of getting into a lasting feud with Thorne when I can simply let him do away with you instead – So leave.” His piece said, Jonathan took the lead in leaving the room by heading for the bedroom himself.

“I can’t stay here even tonight?” Claire asked on his way out.

“No. Go home and never grace my presence again.”

Claire made a show of dramatically sighing. “Al’right. Guess I’ll have t’go to the police then f’ help. If I tell ‘em where Scarecrow’s set up,” Jonathan froze, “they’d ought to at least put me up in a good hotel for a night in return.”

With the sourest scowl, Jonathan turned to look over his shoulder pointedly at Jervis.

Jervis raised an innocent eyebrow, then let it settle into one of his shit-eating grins that understood Jonathan blamed him for bringing her here but knew exactly what he’d been doing all along.

Jonathan showed one of his canines in an ugly sneer, almost letting out a growl, as he looked down at Claire.

“I think that means you can stay, my dear,” Jervis told the Claire who was watching the two with slight uncertainty. “I’m afraid we only have one bedroom here but you can use the sofa, so long as you don’t mind.”

“Nah, I’ve slept on worse,” Claire said, then considered, “Only one? You got, like, bunk beds or somethin’?”

“Ah, no,” Jervis said, as amusing as the image was to imagine. “Your brother and I are... romantically involved,” he decided to call it for decorum, then had to amend, “Boyfriends,” at the sight of her confused frown.

“Oh! That’s wicked!” Claire deemed, grinning.

“‘Wicked’?” Jonathan scorned. “It’s lovely to see those disgustingly hypocritical, sanctimonious ‘morals’ haven’t changed while I’ve been away-”

“It’s slang, Jonathan,” Jervis couldn’t believe he was the one stepping in to say, “It means ‘cool’, I believe.”

He never liked to look so openly puzzled and confused by something but Jonathan took in Claire nodding and agreeing, Jervis sighing in weary amusement and then thought about a number of things he’d seen on TV shows and such that suddenly made a lot more sense now. “...Oh.”

“He don’ get out much, do he?” Claire joked to Jervis.

“Not without a potato sack on his head at least,” Jervis quipped back with pleasure.

Pulling a snarky expression at Jervis, Jonathan turned and left without another look at Claire – Currently enthusing if that made Jervis her brother-in-law then – thus signalling she was entirely Jervis’ problem now.

Jervis sighed again, getting up to clear the tea things away with help from a quick-witted assistant soon enough. He simply rinsed them out now, it already being far too late after it had hardly been early to start with when Claire arrived. “I think we have a spare blanket somewhere for you,” he said considering Claire’s sleeping arrangements. “Do you need anything else?”

“Bathroom?” Claire said.

“Oh. There’s one attached to Jonathan’s laboratory, of a sort,” Jervis indicated. “Just don’t touch any of the chemicals.” If that needed saying.

“Thanks.” She grabbed her small rucksack of stuff to head in while Jervis set off in search of that blanket.

With the sound of a shower coming from their bedroom at least Jonathan probably couldn’t hear Claire using the facilities in his lab to come out and complain about that – The girl had sense, a lot more than most at least; maybe even as much as an Alice – He found the blanket in the end tucked at the bottom of a drawer full of his own research notes. What with it being autumn and all he supposed it being somewhere out of the way made some sort of sense, or to his former Spring-self at least, “’”but I think I must have been changed several times since then,”’” he said to himself, taking it through to the laboratory to find Claire.

She was rinsing her mouth out from brushing her teeth, apparently unfazed by the bottles of various alkali chemicals sat around the sink edge by the taps. “’And she had never forgotten that, if you drink from a bottle marked ‘poison’, it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later,’” he commented upon seeing her.

“What? Poison?” Claire said, startling a little.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Jervis waved it off, showing her the blanket. “I don’t realise I’m quoting half the time; autistic habit. Find everything you need?”

“Yeah, an’ plenty I’m not sure why anyone needs,” She nodded to the contents of much of the laboratory. “He’s real smart, ain’t he?” she said with a tone of admiration.

“Oh, most definitely! Unparalleled in some areas,” Jervis was happy to preen on Jonathan’s behalf.

Claire though, “...That stuff he said about Ma... Is that true? She abandoned him?”

Jervis hummed sadly, pensively. “I don’t know, even less than you do about the whole thing. I only know what Jonathan has told me. I have the feeling what he said might be what he tells himself to make things easier on himself; if he doesn’t blame her than he might feel the fault lies with him for instance, that he was undesirable in some way.” He shrugged. “Jonathan has a number of... well, the technical term is ‘delusions’ but the common interpretation of that word might misled you. Ideas he holds onto in order to protect himself; that might simply be one of those. And one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist,” Jervis added; “it might simply be a matter of different interpretation of the same facts.”

Claire looked rather confused, and more than too tired to think her way through all that.

With her strong sense of composure and sharp wits it was easy to forget she was just 14, Jervis smiled to himself; he supposed it was a lot for anyone to think about, particularly when she’d only met her half-brother for the first time ever – Well, that she remembered – today. “Don’t worry about it, my dear. We can sort it out tomorrow,” he assured her.

“’kay,” she agreed tiredly, rubbing at her head and letting out a yawn; the adrenaline Jonathan’s presence nearly always engendered in people must be wearing off.

Claire settled down to sleep on the sofa in the ‘living room’ of their house, technically just the more comfortable half of Jervis’ laboratory really, with the well-flattened sofa cushions for pillows and some pyjamas from her bag she’d change into once alone. Jervis bade her goodnight, pausing before leaving to answer, “Jervis, why’re you helpin’ me like this?”

He lingered for a long moment, trying to find his own words for it instead of a quote. “...I suppose you remind me of what I’d like to think Jonathan was like when he was younger,” he finally said. “There’s so much pain in his past I can’t do anything about that still haunts him.”

Claire frowned as he left it at that, leaving her for the closed door of the bedroom. It was getting too late for these things, but somewhere beyond the tiredness she thought she understood.

Chapter Text

“Edward’s on TV.”

Claire indeed awoke suddenly to the sight and sound of the Riddler on the TV directly across the room from her ‘bed’. He wasn’t live, just a recording of his taunting message to the police that was playing on the morning news.

“I thought he wasn’t going to steal from that museum exhibit until next week,” Jonathan continued.

“Oswald leaked his plans to the police in return for yet another blind eye to affairs at the Iceberg Lounge; considering his tone the last time we spoke I believe the two of them had a little spat recently.” She looked over to see Jervis standing nearby while Jonathan was sat on the sofa, specifically on her feet, both in casual day clothes. “Harley found out who told Selina who told Edward in return for a cut of the raid.”

“Harvey still hasn’t gotten back at Oswald for refusing to go 50-50 on that business deal either, has he?” Jonathan checked.

“No. Pamela told me he’s gotten in contact with Edward so they can get revenge as a two- Or three?” Jervis pondered.

“I thought Pamela and Harvey weren’t on speaking terms since that time they tried dating again two years ago. I have no idea why they even bothered to try again considering their history.”

“So far as I heard from Victor – And don’t even ask me how he knew this – Harvey had finally let his ex-fiancée, Grace, go from his life for her sake at the same time Pamela was lamenting Harley returning to the Joker again and still being oblivious to her feelings for her; it was simple mutual desolation. As for them being on speaking terms, you remember when Harley saved him from that plot of the Joker’s a couple of months back? Her compensation was insisting the two make up so things wouldn’t be awkward now she’s dating Pamela. Oh, also, your new ayahuasca vines are ready; Pamela wants you to fear gas the company behind that new housing development being built on the edge of the Richmond Nature Reserve in return.”

“Fine,” Jonathan accepted. “I’ll need the vines upfront to make the fear gas though.”

“I’ll pick them up for you; Harley wants help trying to train her hyenas with my technology again so I said I’d head over later this week...”

“Y'all got one hell of a social life.” Claire finally sat up, physically yanking her feet out from under Jonathan with no assistance from him.

“Sadly,” Jonathan responded, verging on something that probably would have been a joke if it hadn’t been in answer to her.

He left the TV on as he got up, walking straight out into the kitchen. Jervis nodded that she ought to come too, and by the time she joined them he was already pouring out three mugs of tea. Jonathan was pouring out cereal into a bowl meanwhile, chocolate cereal.

Claire watched the little chocolate Os cascading out from as close as she dared. “...Can I have some too?”

“No,” Jonathan said, shutting the box immediately and putting it back on the highest shelf of the cupboard it had come from.

“Jonathan wasn’t allowed sugar or chocolate growing up,” said the only person who would actually be impinged by Jonathan’s shelving choice; “he’s like a mother pigeon with her eggs about it.” Jonathan scowled as he stormed away, taking the milk Jervis obviously needed in a minute with him. “I can make you something if you like.”

Claire continued considering the cereal box she could reach without much real hassle, but decided, “What’re you makin’?”

“Beans on toast?” Jervis offered.

“You really eat that over there? Like, no kiddin’?”

Jervis turned his hands up, truly despairing. “What is so strange about beans on toast to you Americans?!”

“Jus’ sounds strange is all, like you spilt a bunch ‘a kidney beans all over some poor slice of toast and called it a meal.”

“Not that kind of beans; baked beans!”

“Oh, like those Mexican refried kind?” Claire guessed cheerfully.

Jervis lost all will to live. “’”She means well, but she can’t help saying foolish things, as a general rule.”’” He waved his hand before she could argue further. “Go take a seat; I’ll bring you some toast and jam...”

Claire took her seat from yesterday again, gaze meeting Jonathan’s once before being scared off in other directions while she waited. In time Jervis brought her tea and then a toasted jam and banana sandwich drizzled with honey. “This really f’ me?” she asked as he sat down beside her.

“Did you want something else? I’m afraid we don’t have much-”

“No, jus’ looked too fancy f’ somethin’ I get t’eat, is all. Thanks.”

Jervis took a moment to preen before beginning, “So? What are we to do about this Thorne situation then?”

“The two of us can’t take down Thorne completely,” Jonathan said before any true discussion could happen. “Any attack will therefore only bring retribution on us. I say we let him harm something expendable,” He pointedly looked at Claire, “and let that satisfy him.”

“’”Call the next witness,”’” Jervis said dismissively, obviously throwing that idea out.

“No!” Jonathan countered, slamming his spoon down in his bowl. “No other plans, Jervis! It’s them, or them and us he hurts. You will not make me suffer because of my unfortunate biological relationship to those people ever again!”

“Jonathan-”

“I don’t care about family, how ‘innocent’ you claim she is,” He gestured at Claire along with his embittered tone; “I am not suffering anything for their sakes ever again!” After a moment to let it sink in, Jonathan returned to his cereal with a cold fierceness even little chocolate Os couldn’t sweeten.

Claire turned to Jervis beside her. He seemed torn, uncomfortable about what he had done perhaps; most importantly he didn’t speak up for her again and so Claire shrank back into her seat, finishing her breakfast in silence.

In time, Jonathan was done first and sat considering things with a scowl for a while. She still hadn’t finished when he announced, “I will give you two options: Return to Georgia now, without mentioning me or my whereabouts to anyone ever, and pray Thorne leaves you alive when he comes for you and satisfies his vengeance without coming after me. Or I will march you to Thorne personally using one of Jervis’ cards, pretend I care about you and let them kill you to get us off the hook.”

“Jonathan! I didn’t teach you how to use my cards so that-!”

“Shut up,” he snapped icily at Jervis. “You know how I feel about my family; I’ve tolerated enough of you meddling in my affairs with them.”

Though Claire could see Jervis was fuming beside her to be talked to like that, he didn’t bite back. Since it was up to her then, “Those ain’t really options,” Claire finally responded, a little cutting for Jervis’ sake after all he’d done; “you’re offerin’ me ‘probably die’ or ‘definitely die’.”

Jonathan shrugged. “You might prefer not to have the pendulum hanging over you, wondering when it’s going to fall and either Thorne or I will come after you. Fear can be quite a motivator like that,” he relished briefly with a grin.

Claire sucked her lip petulantly but, “Fine. I’ll go.” Time for plan B then, B for ‘Batman’ – Jonathan hadn’t been her only plan coming up here. And so long as she didn’t mention meeting her half-brother or where he was hiding she kept the ‘deal’ he was making her. “Can I least use the bathroom again b’fore I go?”

Jonathan held up a ‘be my guest’ hand as he stood to take his bowl to the sink. Upon noticing which bathroom she was going to use though, “Not my laboratory.” A tight and bony grip closed on her shoulder.

“Used it last night,” she felt like saying, if they were being ornery to each other now.

Jonathan glowered at Jervis briefly, then used his grip to steer her round and march her where he wanted her like some errant puppy. Claire frowned at the hand on her shoulder, then like anyone couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she noticed- “They’re scars,” Jonathan said of the covering of tiny white and pink star-shapes on the back of his hand, before she got the chance to say anything about them.

“Scars?” Claire’s utter puzzlement slowed him for a second. “Ma said it was hereditary.”

Jonathan completely stopped now, frowning in a new way. “What do you mean ‘hereditary’?”

“Ma has marks jus’ like those on her hands,” Claire pointed, getting a proper look as Jonathan removed the hand from her shoulder to look at. “She always covers ‘em up with make-up or gloves though. She said they were a family thing and hopefully I wasn’t going to get ‘em.” She showed her own hands, the backs unblemished still.

“‘Family thing’; that was the specific term she used, not ‘hereditary’?” Jonathan asked, sounding almost... haunted?

“Think so. She don’ seem t’like to talk about ‘em so I haven’t asked much.” Claire eyed him up just staring at his hands like that. “They special in some way?”

Jonathan never answered, simply continued to stare with that haunted look until a cold fury worse than anything she’d yet seen rose through him. He stormed away from her, punching a wall with feral rage before slamming the bedroom door hard behind him.

Claire was left staring at the wall; Jonathan had punched it hard enough to leave a mark she could see from here.

“Oh dear...” The sighed words drew her attention to Jervis, also come to look at the new dent. “You’d best stay out here,” he told her. “Jonathan’s a little too volatile to be around anything that reminds him of his family right now.”

“Did I say somethin’ wrong?” she asked. “What’s the deal ‘bout those marks on their hands?”

Jervis rubbed one side of his face tiredly, that thing adults always seemed to do when they thought something was too complicated to explain to you. “They’re from the abuse Jonathan’s great-grandmother, your mother’s grandmother, put him through as a child. If your mother also has them then she must have been put through the same thing.”

“...Oh.” Claire felt herself shrinking, uncertain what to do with herself after she’d just... “So when Ma said ‘family thing’ she meant...”

Jervis dragged the hand over his face now, before saying, “I’ll talk to him. It might take a while, but wait out here.”

She nodded. “Should I try an’ help the wall?” she said, gesturing to the mark Jonathan’s fist had left.

It amused Jervis slightly. “If you can; it wasn’t the poor thing’s fault.”

He left her be, slipping as narrowly and quietly as possible through the bedroom door he closed again behind him. Jonathan was pacing around their room, as they’d practically been able to hear outside, running his hands through his hair madly and exhaling frequent bouts of tension.

Jervis approached as close as he knew Jonathan would be comfortable with, to softly announce his presence. “Jonathan-”

“She knew! She went through the same thing, and she knew!” he garbled out in a terrified mess. “She knew and she left me there with her!” The fury returned in an explosive snarl.

“Jonathan-”

“She knew what Great-Grandmother would do and she left me with her!” Jonathan rounded on Jervis, the closest available target.

Jervis stood his ground kindly, unfazed by it. “Entertaining what Claire said as true, your mother didn’t know you were alive, Jonathan. If she went through the same thing, is it any wonder she ran?”

“Why did she leave me?! Why didn’t she take me with her?!”

“If she didn’t know-”

“Why didn’t she run away sooner?! Why didn’t she insist on keeping me?!” His grip on Jervis’ shirtfront fell slack, letting Jonathan drop to his knees clinging on weakly. “Why did she leave me with her...?!”

“I can’t answer that, Jonathan,” Jervis had to say, hoping Jonathan was finally able to hear something rational now. “If she went through the same thing, think of how terrified you were; would you have been able to say no?”

His face buried in Jervis’ chest at their heights, all Jonathan could do was draw in a harsh, shaking breath as his fingers vainly tensed into fists.

Jervis heard the soft rattle of Jonathan’s glasses dropping to the floor, pushed loose in all the frenzy. He let out a heavy sigh, gently testing if he could rest his hand on Jonathan’s head to soothe him.”...Do you remember what I said about my father abandoning me when I was 12, that I still loved him?” He turned aside as Jonathan looked up, an unmistakable curiosity there. “I know you’ve never asked out of kindness, so as to not let my past define me either, but I believe it’s pertinent for you to know now.” He gestured with a small, lifting motion. “Come on now; you’ll do your knees in staying down there. You know you’re getting old.”

Jonathan played along, able to be mockingly indignant of the man actually a good few months older than him. He let Jervis coax him up and onto the edge of the bed, hugging his knees where it was just the two of them in here as he listened.

Jervis began it all with a sigh. “I’ve never really mentioned my mother much, have I? I don’t like to, to think about her and the things that passed back when I was...” His hands were fidgeting, thumbs twirling for both something to do and something to watch while he said all this. “She was a smart woman, confident and independent; you might like to think of her as a little like what you’ve told me of your grandmother Marion. My father was like me: Weak, sensitive, forever child-like and not quite in-tune with the real world. She never loved him, simply knew a man she could control and manipulate; he truly loved her though.” Jervis gave a single laugh. “I suppose it was rather like my own infatuation with Alice Pleasance. Although his story had quite a different ending.

“My mother was abusive to him, not physically but psychologically; gas-lighting, undermining his confidence, always belittling him. He mostly took it in good graces, also being what I suppose they call a ‘fool for love’ and likely autistic; I think he genuinely believed the things she said. My mother was... good at that.” His thumbs stopped twirling now, locking together instead. “You asked me about the scars on the back of my neck once, Jonathan. They... My father didn’t always take it gracefully. One particular time he tried to fight back, my mother... She attempted to kill me as a threat to get him to stop, which I suppose says everything you need to know about who cared for whom in my family; I could have jumped simply to that,” he finished flippantly.

“Those scars are from...?”

“’”Off with his head!”’” Jervis quoted lightly without his usual enthusiasm. “The second time she did that was what prompted him to leave; it was in order to save me, Jonathan. Well,” he supposed, “it didn’t stop her from doing it once more when I tried to disobey her following that but still.” He pulled an ugly face. “I suppose that answers the question of where I get my madness and penchant for trying to behead people with my poleaxe from.”

“You’re not like her, Jervis,” Jonathan tried to say.

Jervis gave a bitter chuckle in thanks. “I hated my father when he first left, for the longest time actually. She made me hate him, made me... I think my mother wanted a child for the appeal of someone you utterly control, that you can direct and raise as you pleased. Or so she believed would be the case. I took after my father in almost every single way though, from appearance to temperament to personality; I ruined her plans and disgusted her, made her blame him most likely.

“After he was gone she tried to suppress every part of him in me; obvious autistic stims, anything Anglo-Romani he and his mother had taught me – She even had me cover up as much as possible to keep my skin as pale as possible.” Jervis stopped to grin at Jonathan, light brown skin now as proudly tanned as you could get in this sort of lifestyle and city. “Anyway, to end the tale – ‘”It is a long tail, certainly,’” – she used the same techniques on me after he left to make me hate him, make me crave her approval. She poisoned my mind with lies about him, twisted my understanding of the world and successfully imposed her desires for my life in the place of my own. I... I only broke free when I went to university, when I finally had enough space from her to realise what was going on. When I realised, when I...” Jervis bit his lip hard, holding back any more quivers. “It was so hard admitting she had manipulated me,” he said quietly, almost without any breath in it. “Not just my mind, Jonathan, but my feelings as well. Your feelings are meant to be you, the part that’s untouchable by reason and inalienable from your very self! But she had control over all of it, all of me!” Jonathan gave him the time to simply breathe, prepare himself to finish what he had to say. “It’s why I’m so obsessed with control, Jonathan, because she took it away from me and I saw what she could do with it – Not that I’ve ever told the doctors at Arkham that, mind; they’d be cure me overnight if they knew that, even that pack of cards.” They shared a smile of the many puzzle pieces like that the rogues were holding back to keep the job forever slightly impossible.

Jonathan sat back, still hugging his knees, to process all that for a moment.

“I know our situations are obviously different,” Jervis said. “Your mother may well have done things you have every right to be angry at her for. But someone can be both in the wrong and a victim; all of the things they say on TV about the power of a parent’s love for a child... They’re just as weak and human in the end as any of us.”

To that, Jonathan eventually responded with humming. Jervis recognised the nursery rhyme, one of the ones that came from his childhood that he actually found comfort in. He didn’t tend to hum it much. “...A lot of what I know about my mother is from my great-grandmother,” he finally said, a lighter tone than Jervis had expected. “I know she tried to psychologically manipulate me as well at times, although of course she had her own techniques she preferred,” he said more darkly.

“Do you really want to believe her words after what she did to you?”

Jonathan remained somewhat sulking for a moment, burying his face in his knees childishly. He eventually pulled back with a similar expression before seeming to notice Jervis beside him properly and dropping it. “I shouted at you earlier, Jervis; I’m sorry. I know that you hate that. I suppose it’s because of your parents,” he realised now.

“Yes, I hate to see couples fight at all because of... It’s all right, Jonathan,” he apologised too. “I shouldn’t have done all this knowing how you felt about your family.”

“I know you always have good intentions, Jervis.”

“Still, I should apologise for bringing Claire here without consulting you at the very least,” Jervis said. “I know I certainly hate unexpected visitors in places I consider a sanctuary so I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“Fair,” Jonathan accepted but forgave anyway. “I suppose I’m glad about the whole thing now, having learnt all this.”

Jervis raised an eyebrow at precisely what, but let Jonathan have his space still for now; these things did take time, and nothing could substitute for time.

“...How did you even find her in the first place?” Jonathan asked, finally thinking to.

“She found me,” Jervis explained. “Apparently she searched online for where we’ve been spotted around town. We need to find a new grocery store for a while, by the way.”

Jonathan let out a truly weary sigh. “Couldn’t we just rob this one blind and burn it down?”

“There’s nowhere else that does that pumpkin-cinnamon cobbler you like.”

Now Jonathan just descended into incomprehensible grumbling. Jervis reached over and patted him on the head until he was done.

Eventually Jonathan uncurled, returning to his usual lankiness as he sat on the edge of the bed and leant forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked displeased. “I have to go back out there and apologise to her, don’t I?”

“You ought to at least apologise to the wall,” Jervis said.

Jonathan sulked again, extra-petulantly this time, before declaring, “Fine. We’ll help them, if only so I can hear it from my mother’s mouth herself.”

Jervis smiled, getting up to fetch Jonathan’s glasses for him from the floor so they could walk back out into the living room area of Jervis’ laboratory.

Claire looked up from whatever she’d found of interest to read in 101 Uses for Brains – A Zombie Cookbook, setting it down beside her on the sofa to ask, “So?”

“So what?” Jonathan responded.

Claire waited a moment before figuring she had nothing to lose admitting, “Y’know I could hear most ‘a everythin’ you shouted in there.”

He bristled strong enough to give a porcupine second thoughts, scowling irritably at her.

“It kinda makes you scarier actually, bein’ more human,” she said to his obvious surprise. “Like, the scariest horror movie villains are humans, and stuff like vampires an’ wendigoes are based on the extremes of our psyches. It’s scarier to think a human’s behind all the weird stuff Scarecrow does-”

“Are you trying to comfort me?” Jonathan interrupted, genuinely asking he was so confused.

“Y’mean after you were so mean to me?” Claire said blatantly. “Yeah. I mean, you’re still my brother. An’ big brothers are meant to be mean, like Bart- You have seen The Simpsons, right?”

“Yes, Jervis likes it,” he said, hoping he wasn’t in for another Sideshow Bob comparison. “I will... see if there is a way to ensure your safety within the plan,” Jonathan moved on. “I want to speak with my mother once more after all this, and we both need to be alive in order for that to happen.”

“Alright!” Claire cheered, even punctuating it with a jumping fist-pump. She saw Jonathan rolling his eyes and stuck out her tongue. “So what d’we do now?”

“You stay in here while I get some peace for a while,” Jonathan told her, heading in the direction of the kitchen and his laboratory beyond. “Later, and only later after that, we will formulate this plan.”

He left the two of them alone, Claire looking to Jervis who gave her a grinning thumbs up.

Chapter Text

Jonathan was in his laboratory for the rest of the morning into the early afternoon in the end, only emerging properly a couple of hours after Jervis had taken lunch in for him. It gave Claire a chance to get temporarily settled into the hideout and learn her way around. Jervis had enough books and there was a TV to keep her entertained until then while the Hatter himself was busy finishing off some current research project ready to focus on this.

Obviously well-trained, Jonathan re-emerged just in time for afternoon tea. They took their seats with freshly brewed tea and scones – Jervis always had some around somewhere, and allowed Claire to have some after firmly admonishing her for calling them ‘biscuits’ – and the discussion once again returned to Thorne.

“Despite my change in intentions,” Jonathan began, “my two premises from this morning still stand: We are not strong enough to disable Thorne completely, thus any attack will result in retaliation down the line. How do we get around that?”

Jervis frowned, taking up the challenge with, “’”You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose. “I should advise you to walk the other way.”’”

“I agree,” Jonathan said; “we need something more than the obvious retort of the criminal equivalent to ringing his doorbell and running away. Something more intelligent, more unorthodox.”

Claire got lost as Jervis continued to reply with quotes and Jonathan somehow kept up with exactly what they meant – Or maybe he didn’t; they could have been having two completely separate conversations for all she knew – But all right, they needed something clever, maybe more indirect, that played to their strength in intelligence rather than Thorne’s in numbers and influence. “You’re the ‘Master ‘a Fear’, right?” she chimed up after a minute, garnering more of Jonathan’s attention than was frankly comfortable. “Couldn’ you scare him into not attackin’ back?”

“Thorne would not be where he is today if a little fear toxin would permanently scare him off our backs,” Jonathan retorted to that idea. “Any fear I could impose needs to come from an actual basis of threat, to which I point you back to our inability to cause any serious damage to his operations.”

“You can’ turn him in to the police somehow?” she turned to Jervis this time.

“The police aren’t strong enough to stop a presence like Thorne; he’ll send men after us even if put away, and then find some way to buy his way back out,” Jervis said, seeming sad to have to tell her that her plan wouldn’t work.

Claire frowned now, trying one last time with, “Can you kill him?”

“Kill Rupert Thorne?” Oh well, at least she’d succeeded in amusing Jonathan. “Your plans have an almost charming simplicity.” Well, that sounded like a compliment. “If such a thing could be done, someone else would have done it by now.”

“Yeah but those other someones ain’t as smart as you two,” Claire said. “Bet you could do it.”

The other two fell quiet, looking at her and then each other.

“Even if we could,” Jervis finally said, “doubtless the repercussions would render it just as bad; a man like that must have at least some employees with more than fiscal loyalty that would come after us in his stead.”

Claire sighed out the last of her enthusiasm, returning to eating scones since at least she was good at that. Jervis spared her a sympathetic look.

The other two talked on with plans for a while, always finding one reason or another to dismiss the other’s. Eventually they seemed to give up, or just grow tired with the futility of it, and returned to talking about vines and how exactly one was meant to train two pet hyenas when the species wasn’t exactly domesticatable in the first  place. It was interesting enough conversation, certainly more fascinating and colourful than anything she ever got to listen to back home-

It was Monday today, wasn’t it? There didn’t seem to be a calendar anywhere in here but Claire was pretty sure it was Monday now. She couldn’t help a grin to think of the school she was skipping-

School...

“Thorne’s like the popular kid at school, right?” she spoke up suddenly when she got the chance, surprising the other two from their own little world of conversation. “Like, even if the teachers tell him off it don’t do nothin’ to stop him being popular and us unpopular kids can’t do shit to make a popular kid unpopular.”

“A somewhat reductive analogy, but yes,” Jonathan agreed with amusement. “A bully who leverages his popularity and riches to make himself untouchable through his circle of sheep-like followers is fitting.”

“Well, we could jus’ deal wi’h him like a bully then,” she reasoned.

Jonathan gave her a very deprecating smirk, and Jervis wasn’t far behind. “You actually have a strategy that works to stop people bullying you? Revolutionary; you could sell it to teenagers everywhere and become a millionaire.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Claire admitted. “Mostly I jus’ ignore ‘em. I kicked any guy who dissed me in the nuts durin’ my first year; now they think I’m cool an’ respect me. The girls still hate me but that’s jus’ ‘cause I’m comfortable in my body while they’re stickin’ their fingers down their throats after each meal. Anyway, I’m guessin’ the nut-kickin’ option is out-”

“Sadly,” Jonathan said, somewhat amused again.

What else could you actually do about bullies? Like, actually do instead of just reporting it to adults who never did anything? “They pick on us ‘cause we’re weak an’ alone. Y'all got friends though,” Claire said, remembering first thing this morning.

The air changed subtly; the two rogues did have friends, ones that for the right reason or with the right encouragement...

“Jonathan...” Jervis started, looking more devious than Claire had ever thought it was possible for a human to be, “Oswald and Thorne despise each other, being competitors in certain less-than-savoury areas of business. What if, oh say, Oswald had been hiring us rogues to sabotage Thorne, such as our little interception the other night?”

“We pin it on Oswald?” Jonathan got, pleased with the idea but, “Then we simply switch Thorne for Oswald; he’s not above coming after us, you know.”

“No,” Jervis admitted, devious grin not done yet, “but we have a couple of other friends who have a score needing settling with Oswald.”

“We throw Edward and Harvey under the bus in our place?” Despite his words Jonathan smiled as if he knew that couldn’t be it.

Indeed, Jervis was barely started: “Edward and Harvey attack Thorne with our assistance, claiming to be on behalf of Oswald. Thorne goes after Oswald, who in turn goes after Edward and Harvey when he finds out. However during the attack on Thorne Harvey happens to come by some financial assets and Edward some of Thorne’s personal information which they share with Oswald – For extortionate rates of course, but ones that Oswald can’t say no to if he doesn’t want them causing more trouble for Thorne like this – Oswald gets one up on Thorne and pays his debts to our friends, perhaps even owes Harvey and Edward for it. Harvey gets some finances and he’s always looking for any way to get back at Thorne what with their history. Edward gets information on Thorne’s operations he can use as he pleases in future and teaches Oswald a valuable lesson to keep Edward an ally rather than rat out his plans. And all our blame gets passed to Oswald. The only one who loses really is Thorne.” He held up a hand, gesturing for assessment.

Jonathan simply leaned over and kissed Jervis full-on, lingering there to savour it. “This is why I love you.”

Jervis looked exceedingly pleased with himself. “I’ll get onto Dormouse and the Tweedles then.” He pulled out a phone, flicking his way through the apps on it.

“You sure this’ll get Thorne off mine and Ma’s back too?” Claire checked.

“Thorne may still hold some personal grudge against Jervis and I after this, especially if we’re assisting on the night,” Jonathan admitted. “However, he will have much bigger problems to worry about after all this, and the scale of so many people bothering him at once will likely spread any personal vendettas too thin to bother with us; he has a much stronger history with Harvey and Oswald that he’ll likely prefer to renew instead of going after the likes of us.”

“The organised crime families of Gotham like to have as little to do with us rogues as possible, on the whole,” Jervis added, typing now with both thumbs at reasonable speed. “They see us as too mad, or beneath them.”

“It’s not hard for people to see you beneath them at your height,” Jonathan mocked with cat-like smugness.

Jervis paused to glance over with such sarcastic joy at yet another height-joke before returning to typing. Jonathan soon leaned down, jutting his chin out to place on Jervis’ shoulder as he read whatever was on the screen while wrapping his arms around Jervis from behind.

Given the uncomfortable cuteness, Claire was going to guess Jonathan had forgotten she was here and played along with that, just watching as Jonathan pointed out a spelling mistake only to be admonished it was a texting abbreviation and meant to look like that.

She stayed quiet as they typed and planned on, arrangements beginning to take shape.

~#~

Jervis was sat up reading, with no prizes for guessing what, when Jonathan returned from using the bathroom second that night. Even in the low light of the bedside lamp he noted the particular copy Jervis was using though; Jervis had a two types of Carroll copies, general mass-produced ones he used for the purpose of reading over and over without care for damaging, and special copies, not in terms of first-editions or the like often but emotionally special ones he kept and only read from carefully for comfort.

He was reading from one of the latter kind tonight.

“The White Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts,” Jonathan said as he climbed into his side of the bed, removing his glasses. With the door closed and the assorted noises of Gotham outside it was unlikely Claire could hear them this time. “The Queen orders the White Rabbit about during the trial.”

“Yes. And there’s the period Alice doesn’t take too kindly to him between the start and that.” Jervis glanced sideways for a second, asking Jonathan’s point.

Jonathan settled back against his pillow, cast deeper into shadows with Jervis between him and the lamp. “You’re Alice really, in your world of the story. Not Alice Pleasance, nor me, nor girls like Claire who act like her- I know you’re not just fond of Claire because she’s related to me, Jervis.”

“Everyone’s the main character of their own story, Jonathan.” Jervis wasn’t really reading but just staring at the pages of his book, taking his comfort in confirming the exact layout of every page he knew off-by-heart.

“Alice is also a child rebelling against rules, against adults and creatures trying to control her not just within Wonderland but by the very act of going to Wonderland in the first place. Full of curiosity, a bit of mischief, too much logic for her own good...” He looked at Jervis softly, his whole face cast in a sharp contrast of light and dark with Jonathan on one side and the lamp on the other.

“And one day she had to grow up and leave Wonderland,” Jervis said, an entirely different kind of quiet as thin as a razor edge, “no matter how much she wanted to stay forever...”

Jonathan turned his head to an analysing angle as Jervis turned another page, simply staring again instead of reading. It was as if he wanted to lose himself in the book itself, not just the lines of words on its pages. “Was...” Jonathan started very gently. “...Was reading Carroll how you attempted to escape the fact your father was gone, Jervis? Back to the world where you were closest, that just the two of you had shared?”

“It wasn’t just for that,” Jervis said in a tired tone, one that admitted it was the case though.

“You once described a phobia as when a perfectly sensible aversion to unpleasant stimuli becomes obsessive.” He got Jervis to look over, very apparently unaware he had ever said that. “It was the very first time I helped you escape Arkham, in the shed. I remembered it because it was very well put and showed me you had the capacity to truly understand my research and interest in fear.” Jervis raised one eyebrow in question. “It was perfectly natural for you to want to avoid the reality of your life by escaping into a fictional world; it would be natural for any child or adult. You never found your way back though, or a more socially acceptable coping mechanism; I doubt that is your fault considering what you told me about your mother. Her persistent, unpleasant control over your life in reality forced you to keep relying on your coping mechanism for years, never giving you a respite to work through things, long enough throughout the emotionally volatile time of adolescence for it to become engrained permanently – Your response when you feared Alice Pleasance would reject the reality of you? You fell back on your coping mechanism by attempting to bring her into that world where you felt safe instead of joining her in reality, making her into the Alice of the story and yourself the Mad Hatter, the only other fully human character in the stories.”

“Your point?”

“No point, simply a diagnosis.” Seeing that hardly made things better, “I always thought that I understand you fully, Jervis. I thought I understood your fear of reality fully too. But I don’t. I still have a lot to learn, not only about you but fear; if I can’t even fully understand your fear despite our psychological and emotional intimacy I obviously still have far to go.”

“I had been withholding quite a few of the pieces you needed,” Jervis pointed out in a better temper, nearly guilty about it.

Jonathan was smiling softly that he didn’t mind. “I should have known that though; if I truly understand fear I should know the exact circumstances and pieces necessary to form one.”

“’“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess, “and that’s a fact.”’”

“Not yet,” Jonathan admitted. “I imagine that extends to other areas too. ...Family for instance.”

“’”You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like.”’” Jonathan looked over for an explanation, and Jervis supposed it was getting late. “You don’t get any choice in the family you’re given, Jonathan; it’s perfectly reasonable not to like them if you don’t want to.”

That simply sank Jonathan into a contemplative silence. Jervis returned to his book, simply scanning the pages at his leisure without needing to read. It was a quiet, long while as they sat together in bed side-by-side in their own little worlds.

Eventually Jonathan made a gesture in Jervis’ periphery for him to put the book down, only once he’d watched Jervis reach the end of the chapter, and the book was set aside under the bedside lamp. Jervis turned that off as well, settling down in dark along Jonathan’s right side where a thin, long arm wrapped around him closely.

An over-eager, deeply-infatuated Jervis not long into their relationship had purchased a far too large tin of glow-in-the-dark paint in an effort to be helpful, thinking what could be scarier than a living ghost running through the streets if he dyed one of Jonathan’s old costumes with it? In the end, after seeing the comical misfire that had been, Jervis had actually found a very impressive solution by mixing the paint with water to create a mixture that actually gave a very ethereal, truly ghost-like appearance to clothing instead of the chunky, cartoonish look of the first attempt. Jonathan found that outfit truly had its uses on foggy nights and in particularly dark places where he needed Jervis to keep track of him whilst seeming a terrifying, inhuman entity to others. The small amount of spare paint still left after that had ended up on their ceiling in the same watered down fashion, not as the usual stars but as cats, birds, scurrying mice, screaming pumpkin faces and whatever else Jervis had felt like.

It shone very softly now, not providing light but nonetheless orientation in the darkness of their world.

“Jervis,” Jonathan began very quietly, staring up at the shapes on his back, “do you still miss your father?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

“He was quite young when I was born; he ought to be barring accident and the like.”

“Do you want to see if we can find him, after this?”

Jervis, having opted to have his head curled on the clothed dip of Jonathan’s shoulder and thus looking at him, curled up slightly, bumping his shorter legs against Jonathan’s thighs. “I-I... I don’t know I’ll like what I find...”

“If I do this, help Claire and my mother,” Jonathan offered, “let’s go to England and try to find him- Or I suppose Edward can probably track him down from here with his computer but still.”

Tracing rather bunny-like shapes on the bony, T-shirt-covered surface of Jonathan’s chest, “...okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

Jonathan pulled Jervis in closer, also turning onto his side so he could wrap himself around the other man, holding on needily as the warmth between them soothed them both.

Chapter Text

Planning began as soon as breakfast the next morning, Jervis having his phone out texting with Edward while they ate with occasional comments to and from Jonathan.

Claire watched quietly, as she had been for much of the past half a day. Yesterday afternoon and evening she’d entertained herself again with the TV and many books around the hideout but today, “Can I help?”

The two started slightly as if they’d forgotten she was there, or as if having a random 14-year-old girl skipping school to hang out in their criminal den was a standard affair. “Oh, if you wouldn’t mind,” Jervis said. “If you want to collect the dishes so we can wash up-”

“No, wi’h the plan!” Claire indicated his phone so she couldn’t be mistaken this time.

Jervis hummed in that way adults did when they wanted to say yes but couldn’t. Jonathan made no pretence of that sort, instead crunching his way through more heavily chocolate cereal. “I suppose there are things you could do to help prepare, yes,” Jervis said finally. “I need to make a few more cards just in case, if you don’t mind a little cutting and gluing.”

“Sure! Anythin’ I can do!”

“Eager for trouble, isn’t she?” Jonathan commented wryly.

“Runs in the family,” Claire volleyed back without missing a beat. “But I’ll do the dishes too; do ‘em at home a lot as well.” She started collecting them, all being done aside from Jonathan and his bowl of chocolate-milk soup. “You drinkin’ the milk?”

He finished the cereal part and handed the bowl to her. “Lactose intolerant.” Since, looking at the cow’s milk in his bowl, that obviously required an explanation, “I can have small, diluted amounts of low-fat milk. It’s a common autistic symptom. You ought to get yourself tested; as someone with a Psychology doctorate I’m certified to tell you that you’re a very weird human being, even for a teenage girl.”

Claire narrowed her eyes, assessing, “Yeah, that’s your teasin’ face, isn’t it? An’ I heard you got kicked out of uni so you ain’t certified to psychoanalyse horse shit anymore.”

“I wasn’t certified to psychoanalyse that in the first place,” Jonathan retorted, “unless you count Freud’s psychological theories.”

“I read a book on him a few months ago,” Claire chatted as she took the dishes to the sink; “seemed alright, if a bit obsessed wi’h sex.”

“Sweet Mercy,” Jonathan despaired. “I’m going to teach you some proper Psychology before I let you go back to that place reputable academics and present participles with a ‘g’ on the end go to die.”

Claire turned back briefly to grin, satisfied as if she’d won something.

“Check and mate,” Jervis could be heard murmuring to himself as he collected the mugs to go and help her.

~#~

The big event was set for two nights after plans had first begun last night, in order to get Two-Face onboard by the use of ‘two’ mainly. That meant rather a rush for everyone else, texts and calls coming in throughout the day to Jervis’ phone while Claire sat on the sofa near his work station cutting out and gluing together the thin, white cardboard that sandwiched the circuitry of his famous cards.

After nearly a dozen, Claire found herself staring at the one she had just finished. Obviously she knew what they did if she were to touch it to her head, but what it felt like... They didn’t hurt you. And with Jervis here to take it off her...

Claire raised it to her forehead uncertainly, getting out half a gasp when it suddenly jumped about an inch and stuck itself to her as if by magic.

She didn’t really register anything else with more than a dream-like awareness until Jervis was in front of her, holding the card in one hand and tutting. “What were you doing?” He didn’t sound that angry at least, just a little interrupted.

“Felt like I was asleep or somethin’,” Claire remarked on the whole thing, rubbing at the spot it had occupied just seconds ago. “How long was it on me?”

“Only about twenty seconds or so. Here,” He leant back over to his desk, pulling out a drawer and holding up a card reading 11/6. “The 10/6 ones daze the target in a dream-like stupor, as you discovered. These leave you with a normal level of awareness whilst providing me the same degree of control.”

“Cool!” Claire reached for it, sticking that to her head too without a moment’s pause. Again it leapt once near but this time she remained aware of being totally frozen, arms still raised near her head and facial expression the same pleased smile, only being able to stare directly ahead in a passive, immobile state.

She heard Jervis sigh, “It’s a good thing you weren’t helping Jonathan with this curiosity of yours,” and wanted to turn to look at him but frustratingly he remained right in her periphery, the inability to focus on him absolutely maddening; even control of her eyes enough to focus at a different distance was gone.

Then suddenly she found her arms moving down to her lap where they crossed at the wrist politely, before one decided it wanted to rise and head off to the side for no reason but to flap around a bit.

It truly was bizarre, to feel these things and her body moving like this with no idea what was coming next. Again it reminded her of a dream but only in the lack of control – Even less than the subconscious will that could sometimes be exerted in them near waking – Everything was so vivid, so real, yet almost TV-like when rendered just a passive viewer.

“This’s so- Oh man, can’t even talk, huh? Can still think though. I don’t, like, hear Jervis’ voice or anythin’ makin’ me do this stuff. Feels more like he’s pullin’ strings.

“Wait, if I can’t move then I can’t get the card off my head. I need him t’do it. Uh... Jervis? Hey, ‘m ready to stop now!”

But she just continued to watch her own fingers flex, head having tilted down and focused on them as Jervis demonstrated his finessed control over even the smallest parts of her body.

Then her head lifted back up, smoothly turning to look in Jervis’ direction finally. He was leant on one elbow watching her with quite the devious smirk, fully and utterly aware of the fact she had realised that she was totally at his mercy. His top hat was on for the first time since they’d met and was now an aptly terrifying reminder who he actually was, what he actually was instead of the charming and friendly man who’d been looking after her the past few days.

Then Jervis finally laughed, reaching over to pluck the card from her and let Claire bolt up from her seat, shaking out every part of her body to check it really was back under her control.

“Just like Jonathan...” he could be heard to mutter before they returned to work.

They worked on into the evening, only a short respite for a meal. There weren’t that many cards to make or other things she could be trusted to do so Claire found herself stuck with the washing up again while they got to do all of the fun stuff.

She paid vague attention to Jervis passing behind her one way, heading into Jonathan’s lab. Then to the sounds of conversation inside, one Jonathan didn’t sound entirely pleased about. Finally both of them emerged, actually stopping at the kitchen table. “You,” Jonathan started.

She’d take that for now; she’d been called far worse. “What?”

“Thorne’s main headquarters have a more troublesome security system than we first thought; Edward finally got into it just now,” he started, sounding tired to explain this but, “Unless Jervis and I want to split up once inside, which isn’t advisable, we will need a third party on our team to control the security system on the night.”

Claire nearly dropped a plate in the sink, creating a soapy clatter at least as she fumbled it. “Y’mean-?!”

“The control panel is near the place we’ll be entering by,” Jervis explained. “It can override the system to open and close any door in the building. Two-Face’s team will be drawing the majority of the attention and we should be receiving the rest so you shouldn’t come to harm. Edward would like the reassurance of having someone physically present in case his remote access is revoked at any point-”

“I’ll do it! I wanna help!” She flung a few bubbles around as she jumped up and down with the sheer excitement. “Do I get a costume?! Whatta ‘bout a special sidekick name?!”

Jonathan looked at Jervis with sheer sarcastic joy, who simply shrugged in reply. “It’s cheaper than hiring help.”

~#~

With nothing Claire could do inside the next morning, Jervis sent her out with a large wad of cash to go buy groceries and some other things ready for tonight.

One of which was, Jonathan discovered as he walked into the living room that afternoon, “What in heaven are you wearing?”

The other two spooked happily, Claire taking the chance to give him the full twirl of her black, knee-length boots, black jeans and black leather jacket. Jervis popped a black, large-billed cap down on her head that covered most of it in black, holding up a black glove he’d been sewing large, black feathers onto each of the fingers of. “Scarecrow,” he announced, “meet Clairecrow!” She giggled happily.

Jonathan took in the outfit again, from the vaguely beak-shaped large brim of the cap to the black metal toes and heels of the leather boots that gave the impression of talons. “...Dear God,” he finally proclaimed.

“Well, it’s not finished yet,” Jervis waved off fussily, flapping the glove he was working on around. “You’re not getting the full effect.”

“I’m not sure I want the full effect.”

“Aw, ain’t it cool? An’ fittin’,” Claire appealed; “you’re dressed like what I’m scared of, an’ I’m dressed like what you’re scared of.”

“I am not scared of-” Jonathan gave up fighting it. “At least she’s dressed in black,” he ultimately conceded.

“Is it goin’ t’be dark in there?” Claire thought to ask as Jervis returned to sewing the glove.

“I think you’ll also have control over the lights from the control panel, which could come in useful,” he said.

“How am I gonna know what to do? Like, when t’open each door and stuff?”

“Edward will be on earpiece with us as our guide,” Jonathan explained. “He’ll tell you everything you need to do; just follow his instructions.”

“Right.” Claire nodded seriously. “Do I gotta answer any riddles t’get the instructions or...?”

“He’ll probably ask you a few at first,” Jervis said. “The Dormouse tends to get on with it after that, although sometimes he needs a good pinch to keep going with the story.” She stared at him blankly, hoping if that was more than nonsense someone would put it in plain English at some point. “Are you any good at riddles?”

“Uh...”

“Oh dear,” Jervis chuckled. “Well, we’ll get you through one way or another.” Satisfied with the glove, he gave it a final inspection then held it out for her to put on.

Claire flexed the fingers, watching the long feathers stay stiff and wing-like even as her fingers moved easily and unimpeded. They were soft enough to bend if pressed into anything like a button though and tucked downwards if she made a fist.

Splaying them beneath the fading afternoon sun to admire, a small jolt of thrill went through her at the thought of what was coming tonight.

Chapter Text

Claire made another check of her jacket pockets: In one was a grenade of fear gas and spray can of the same. Jonathan hadn’t trusted her with anything involving needles, which was fine by her, but the black kerchief around her neck was made of some material that would supposedly do something to filter the gas while she ran away if she had to use them.

In the other was a handful of 1/0 cards that Jervis had taught her how to aim earlier, the ache in her wrist from flicking it so much stabbing lightly again as she tried it again in nerves. The cards would only disable people, not afford her any control, but they were a stealthier and safer option. She had one more card, a deactivated 10/6 one, tucked into her cap in case she got caught with the licence to pin everything on Jervis.

The nighttime streets of Gotham slid by on either side of the car’s back windows, not noticing or at least not caring who was in the front of this particular car, wearing costume but no headgear. Jonathan was driving, Jervis looking over a map of the building they were going to be entering tonight on his phone. Claire leant forward, looking over the back of the passenger seat at it, but quickly became a little carsick and sat back again.

She watched the endless streetlights passing by quietly, bathed in their steadily undulating, sour glow. Earlier she had been so proud to think of the idea to buy the leather parts of her costume second-hand so they wouldn’t squeak like new leather but the silence was getting to her now. The thrill was gone; only nerves were left now.

“Y-You think Batman’ll turn up tonight?” she asked, just to ask something.

“Oh no doubt,” Jervis answered from the seat in front of her without looking back- Or perhaps she ought to think of him as the Mad Hatter now. “However the Tweedles’ team will be causing all the noticeable fuss so I should imagine he won’t pay our particular little group much mind.”

“Right. ...Is it much further?” she asked next, the car having been in motion for about ten minutes now.

“Another ten minutes,” Jonathan answered, driving with a casual laziness that reminded Claire of the drivers back home in small-town Georgia. It was kind of soothing, in a way.

“...So...” Claire started but-

“Well, good evening everyone!” She startled as a voice suddenly spoke in the earpiece they’d all put on before leaving. Jervis and Jonathan had twitched in response but she felt a bit ashamed of jumping so much. “Two-Face’s team have now reached their designated parking and should wait ten minutes before beginning to walk to our final destination tonight. Our other team is still en route, ETA fifteen minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” Jonathan responded, the words reaching Claire’s ears twice in perfect sync thanks to the earpiece.

“No, there’s a small traffic jam near the Bueller-Ferris intersection. You’ll be arriving in fifteen minutes, Jonathan.” The voice was dignified, vibrant as the colour emerald green and definitely more than a little arrogant sounding. Claire recognised it from TV but, as with many things, the real life experience of the Riddler’s voice was a whole other world.

“Make it quick, Crane,” a new, very rough voice said. “My boys are going to get twitchy if this takes more than ten.”

“I have every intention of getting there and getting this over with as soon as possible, I assure you,” Jonathan returned with total, unfazed confidence.

“Good!” the Riddler cut in again. “From here on I’ll be separating the two teams into different communication channels and handle any interfacing between you.” Claire heard a soft click maybe, one that made her touch the earpiece under her cap subconsciously. “So,” the voice began anew, “who is this mystery third party the two of you roped in if not hired help then?”

Claire looked at them, but they looked back at her to introduce herself. “Heya’,” she said, not hearing her own voice played-back in her ear like Jonathan’s though.

“Hmm?” The Riddler sounded interested. “Is that an accent I hear? Southern?” he guessed.

“Yeah, Georgia,” Claire supposed she should answer.

“Georgia!” Now the voice in her ear sounded truly fascinated. “From your approximate age – Why! – you wouldn’t be Jonathan’s half-sister Claire Keeny, would you?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” She looked between the other two but was getting no help here.

“Well, well-!”

“Edward,” Jonathan interrupted, “I will tell you the story afterwards. Focus on the mission for now.”

“Of course,” the Riddler scoffed. “And as if I need you to tell me; I can probably guess by the end of all this tonight anyway.” Jonathan tutted, and she supposed she shouldn’t tell him then. “So, shall we see if intelligence runs in the family then or if Jonathan was simply a freak of mutation?” While Jonathan was busy scowling at the windshield, Claire started fretting because, oh no that sounded like it meant, “Riddle me this: What falls but does not break, and what breaks but does not fall?”

Claire pulled a slightly panicked face, looking to the two in the front for help again. Jervis did glance back and see her mild distress but offered no help.

“Tick tock,” the Riddler’s voice came in her ear again.

“That really doesn’- Oh!” Claire got it. “Wind! You say wind ‘falls’ when it dies but it don’t break, and when it means farts they break but don’t fall!”

Jonathan snorted up front and Jervis even put his lower face in one hand, chuckling.

“No?”

“Well, I will give you points for originality at least,” the Riddler judged, actually sounding amused at her answer. “The actual answer was night and day.”

“You didn’ say I was lookin’ for two somethings,” Claire argued.

“Ah, but I didn’t say you weren’t looking for two somethings!” he argued back. “Let’s try another, shall we? Riddle me this: What lives in a box but can easily be lost, breaks before it drops, and can be thrown but never backwards can it be tossed?”

She hummed this time, more quickly realising, “A chicken!” Once again though, “No?”

“It’s a voice, my little fool,” the Riddler said, despairing but laughing a little nonetheless.

“Hey, a chicken works too!” Claire defended.

“It does not!” he squawked. “Not a bit of it!”

“They live in a coop, get lost if you let ‘em out, gotta break free from you b’fore you can drop ‘em and you ever tried to throw a chicken, city boy?” she challenged. “You can throw ‘em once but they get smart the second time; you ain’t throwing a chicken back without losin’ a fingernail or two.”

She’d actually made the Riddler groan. “What do they put in the water down there, Jonathan? Are you sure Georgia remembered to outlaw lead pipes when the rest of the world did?”

“There is nothing wrong with people from Georgia,” Jonathan defended. “Someone simply needs to learn that the answers to riddles tend to be intangible concepts instead of the tangible everyday.”

“Hey,” Claire objected half-heartedly.

Jervis half-turned around in his seat, figuring in light of this interesting discovery, “How is a raven like a writing desk?”

She wasn’t sure quite why the Riddler moaned so histrionically as if he was dying in her ear – A very common riddle? She hadn’t heard it before – What could the answer be though? Although, from the way Jervis was sort of smiling expectantly, maybe he just wanted to see what her natural answer would be? “’Cause they always come alone!” Claire finally guessed. “Ravens live alone, ‘less they’re mating, compared to crows which flock. An’ you only need one writing desk in a room to write on. Unless you’re some posh git wi’h more money than sense at least.”

Well, she got him chuckling at least. “A new one, that,” Jervis said as if he was showing off to Jonathan.

“It’s at least a little grounded in science and sense,” Jonathan returned.

“What’s the answer?”

“Doesn’t have one,” Jervis told her. “Lewis Carroll made it up without one.”

“Oh.” Well, she hadn’t got the answer wrong then.

“Anyway, time to all move down one and take a clean cup, I’m afraid,” Jervis announced. “We’re getting close now, aren’t we?”

“Closing in,” the voice in their ear confirmed. “Hang on while I start Harvey’s team.” Again there was a soft click that left just the three of them cruising too quietly along unnervingly desolate streets and only five minutes to go.

Claire really wanted to say something, to ask something smart or necessary to pass the time and hopefully put her growing nerves at ease. They drove in silence the rest of the way though, the Riddler returning to guide them to the best parking place as Jervis placed on his top hat, readying himself. Jonathan pulled on his mask and then hat as they parked, climbing straight out without taking the key or locking the car.

Claire took her cue to get out as well from Jervis, following him at the brisk pace they set through the dark streets of this rather affluent yet deserted area of Gotham, deliberately avoiding the street lights now as they instead walked up a hedge-lined alleyway, brickwork of the building on the other side tight to their right side.

They stopped at the Riddler’s command at an nondescript point, Jonathan then beckoning to her. Claire took a moment to break the paralysis of nerves that had taken hold, more scared by what might happen if she didn’t comply; they were here to commit crimes, ones they could easily be caught and punished for. The police might come and arrest them, or Batman might come, Thorne’s men might be even worse to them than that.

Jonathan held out his gloved hands in the universal giving-someone-a-step-up position. “See if there’s anyone on the other side.”

She nodded, lifting a boot and putting a hand on his shoulder. He did all of the lifting, pushing her suddenly up without help or warning to the top of the hedge-

Claire bit her lip to prevent an ‘Ow’; this thing had thorns, whatever plant it was. Fitting for Rupert Thorne’s compound, she supposed.

Bracing her leather-covered arms on the top offered enough protection to sweep her gaze left and right, seeing nothing but a wide expanse of dark lawn and unlit mansion. “Clear,” she said softly, offering down a thumbs up in case they didn’t hear.

Jonathan pushed her up again without warning, propelling her onto the top of the hedge so her whole body got to enjoy the thorns now. She was pretty sure she put a foot right through Jonathan’s hat in her flailing but didn’t want to risk falling off if she looked back; she supposed they were going over.

It was a relief to fall off the thorns onto the grass on the other side, landing on her feet.

There was rustling behind her, an, “Ow! This beastly hedge has thorns, Jonathan!” followed by a gruff, “She didn’t complain about it,” and a tut before Jervis came tumbling over as well, not landing on his feet. Claire helped him up while Jonathan climbed over, having been pulled up by Jervis which was what had probably resulted in Jervis falling off instead of jumping.

Jonathan took the most time pulling himself free from the hedge – Apparently burlap or whatever his Scarecrow costume was made of caught worse than leather or moleskin – but Jervis was already dragging her ahead, making their way swiftly to the nearest side of the mansion. Even without in-ear instructions, he found his way to a door hidden by a set of large, potted evergreen bushes – All that map-studying in the car, she supposed – and was inputting the code instantly thanks to the Riddler in their ear. Claire looked around, glad to see Jonathan catching up to them at least; his Scarecrow costume didn’t scare her somehow, something still a little too reassuringly human about the way he moved and acted to trigger her phobia. Not like those angel statues down the garden but she was going to ignore them; her brother was here and he’d protect her, or bully her. It could go either way with Jonathan really.

Jervis let them in, navigating without help again into a large, nearby lounge with a couple of sofas, copious art on the walls and curtained French windows on one side, ones they’d also been able to see from the outside.

“Where is this override box, Edward?” Jervis asked, looking around and not seeing it straight away.

“By the French windows my schematics indicate.”

They looked around there, even drawing one curtain back slightly but finding nothing on the walls inside the little alcove between them and the windows. “It’s not here!” Jervis hissed a little urgently.

Claire looked around again, then thought to look past the curtains once more and up this time. “Found it,” she announced, cutting over the hissed argument going on in their intercom.

All three present looked up at a box affixed to the ceiling of the alcove, one that very definitely looked security-related.

“Well, thank the Duchess for that!” Jervis finally relaxed, sounding as if he was running at the pace of a terrified mouse’s heartbeat right now. “Can you reach it?”

Claire looked around, noticing a cardboard box of something at the opposite end of the alcove she could move into position with a bit of effort considering its moderate weight, then was able to reach the panel’s from on that with arms fully raised. “Good thin’ I’m not your sister, Jervis.” After giving the outside a check-over for any wires or locks, she flipped the cover open and took in the array of shadowed, labelled switches.

“We’ll be as quick as possible,” Jervis told her. “Run back out the way we entered if anyone with weapons comes this way.” Just before he let the curtain drop back into position Claire glimpsed Jonathan giving a nod she thought was intended for her. Then there was only the sound of footsteps making haste away from her and-

“There ought to be a number pad somewhere on the panel: 3487.”

Claire punched that in easily, the panel then lighting up with some sort of back-lighting for each of the switches that let her read their labels clearly now.

“Central entrance doors. Prepare to flip central entrance hall lights and central entrance corridor lights when I say. Back lounge west corridor doors in ten seconds.”

Claire put anything but the tiny labels from her mind, flicking the first switch as soon as she’d worked out what the ‘D’ and ‘L’ endings meant and letting her fingers rest on the others, flicking them as the Riddler in her ear commanded. Just before the first lights went on she thought she heard distant gunshots but they weren’t near her and that was all Claire focused on caring about.

The instructions of switches continued to come, slowly moving around two different areas of the panel’s switchboard. One, the central entrance and area, must be Two-Face’s team who needed lights and occasionally doors; sometimes she was told to switch lights off as well as on, to confuse and lead Thorne’s men into traps she supposed. The other set were all for this back atrium, moving west into the centre of the building and upstairs. Those switches were all doors, moving at a much faster rate than Two-Face’s doors; Jonathan and Jervis were stealing their way through the corridors in darkness at speed, only one objective to-

The whole panel suddenly went dark, Claire pausing just before flicking a switch half a second ahead of the Riddler saying, “Don’t touch anything! They’ve had the system reset itself. Wait until I give you the new master code.”

Claire waited, the gunshots sounding louder now- Or closer? Were they closer? Her heart was pounding clearly now her mind came back from just focusing on the switchboard, a very obvious nervous fear almost causing her to shake where she stood on this small cardboard box in an isolated, dark alcove, surrounded by nothing but darkness and no one around to help her.

The aching of her arms also became obvious to her now, so long reaching over her head exacting its toll. She wanted to keep one up there though, willingly away the ache with repeated mantras under her breath as she heard Jervis come on the intercom, asking why the door they had reached was locked.

“Ah!” the Riddler finally exclaimed, Claire’s hand shooting back to the number pad on instinct from his tone. “53102!” She punched it in, returning straight to the instructions from before as he crowed, “They change the code length each time! Almost ingenious, although not as ingenious as me of course-”

“Next switch!” Claire barked at him, earning what sounded like half a rather strange laugh from her brother over the automatic intercom.

“Yes, yes. 1F royal corridor door. Left central hall lights off. Mid-central corridor lights on. Mid-central corridor doors on my command.”

Reality slipped away back into the tiny labels and back-lit switches again, a comfortable semi-distraction from the fear Claire was feeling right now. It didn’t completely save her from it this time though, not after the shock of that disruption managed to linger in her system and the switches she was flicking for Jonathan and Jervis reached Thorne’s information office, their destination and the deepest point in the mansion from her and safety.

There was a long time with no switches to flip for them then, or what felt like a long time in this adrenaline-dilated world, only the standard instructions she’d come to expect for Two-Face’s side.

At least until- “I said Batman’s here!” Two-Face shouted over the intercom as if he was repeating himself. “Everybody out! Take what you can and get out!”

Suddenly the instructions for Two-Face’s side were coming a lot quicker and more urgently, even the Riddler sounding as if he was barely keeping up as Claire flicked lights and doors off, presumably aiding their escape by covering their backs.

And then the switches for Jonathan and Jervis started again, in a reverse of what she had done before at least.

Her arms were killing her now, adrenaline no longer holding the sheer ache at bay as her trembling limbs and fingers moved across the switches in a mostly backwards direction.

The panel’s lights went dead again, Claire dropping her arms instantly for a moment of relief as she waited for the new code. The Riddler hadn’t even instructed her to stop this time, nor polished his own ego upon delivering the new master code, instead going straight back to the instructions.

She kept on flicking switches, black feathers on her gloves catching occasionally the speed she was moving at now.

Then- “Shit! Batman’s onto you two! Run! Get out of there now!”

Claire hit every remaining switch on the path between Thorne’s information office and this back lounge without even waiting, “Every door’s open f’ you! Which ones should I shut, Riddler?”

“He’s gone over the roof to the skylight in the back atrium, attached to the first corridor you went down. You two need to get past that point in thirty seconds, I’m not kidding! Get ready to shut the switch for those doors when I say; the two doors should give you enough time if he goes that way. The atrium windows are bulletproof and should buy you about the same if he goes out that way.”

Thirty seconds. These ones were mental as well as physical agony now waiting for the call, definitely hearing the crashing of glass very close to here and-

“Don’t bother with the back corridor doors! Back lounge doors! Back lounge doors!”

Claire panicked, hearing the sound of multiple running footsteps now but three this time instead of two.

She lost her place, scrambling with a carelessness that caused her to take two full seconds to flip the final switch. The three were right out in the lounge now, right on the other side of the curtain.

She pulled it back to take in a short, skittering figure disappearing ahead in the direction of the doors and a tall figure flying through the air onto the opulent rug of the lounge’s centre, away from the largest, darkest living being she had ever seen.

The lounge was still unlit, only the ambient light of the city that crept throughout the mansion lighting the scene, but she could make out Batman leaping over one of the sofa, aiming for Jonathan sprawled out on the floor.

Claire truly grabbed the cardboard box she’d been standing on by instinct, hefting it with an unknown strength after all she’d done tonight and running at the two with an unnatural speed. Batman had pinned Jonathan down on the ground with his leap, seconds from following that up with a heavy punch to the face when Claire leapt up and leapt again clumsily off the arm of one of the sofas, bringing the cardboard box and its entire contents down on Batman’s head with all her weight and momentum.

She hit and tumbled over Batman’s back as he gasped out in pain, crunching half a dozen Christmas baubles under her as she landed on the thick rug and completely lost orientation. Instinct told her to get back to her feet and run, direction not even important. She hit the floor again in seconds, taking another couple to work out she couldn’t get up again because her legs were bound.

She took in Batman wrapped in a cracked mess of fairy lights, down on his hands and knees but still able to throw the bolo that had brought her down. Lifting that arm to throw had left him unbalanced however, and in less than a second Jonathan had flipped Batman off him, “Birds of a feather flock together,” sticking a syringe into one of Batman’s thighs that caused him to gasp again. “And so will pigs and swine,” she heard Jonathan- No wait, that wasn’t Jonathan. “Rats and mice will have their choice,” Scarecrow extracted himself from Batman’s weakened attempt at pinning him again with a swift and violent elbow to the face, scrambling across the floor more like a massive spider to slice Claire’s bindings with a knife, “And so will I have mine,” and then haul her to her feet with him, pulling her towards the back doors with a grip on her wrist that wasn’t letting go for anything.

They ran down the midnight black lawn on nothing but more adrenaline, Scarecrow practically throwing her up onto the hedge once they reached it. Claire stopped to offer him a hand up, remembering Jervis earlier, and pretty much ended up doing the same tumbling over the other side, landing on her feet but instantly falling off-balance onto her butt. That fiercely tight hand grabbed hers again though, pulling her along back in the direction of the car – Her body didn’t have much more adrenaline to give; thinking about anything like directions was completely beyond her now – which was waiting doors open and engine running with Jervis in the passenger seat. He gave them a tip of his hat as they bundled in, Claire figuring closing the door was more important than her seatbelt right now as the car pulled away practically instantly, definitely not at a legal speed.

Things stayed at an illegal speed for a few streets, ones small enough to not have any other traffic at this time of night, before they pulled out onto a larger road like they were any other motorist, the Scarecrow hat and mask coming off along with Jervis’ top hat. There were distant police sirens, coming from the direction they were leaving, but they didn’t seem something to be bothered about apparently.

They were still going at a good speed on this road, and Claire noted Jervis had his seatbelt on so did the same – He had his hand on the clasp though, and she thought it best to copy that as well – She watched the roads ahead, particularly interested as a stoplight ahead turned green just as they approached it. “That was lucky!” she said breathlessly.

“Edward tries not to use that trick too much,” Jervis leant back to say, only sounding slightly breathless himself.

As if on cue, “I flipped it back to red,” the Riddler said in their ear. “The police won’t be able to pursue you now.”

Their driver took that as a cue to finally put his seatbelt on, settling back into driving completely normally as if they were simply coming home from a late-night opera show or something.

Claire went to say something, then like a ton of bricks, “Ugh. Feel sick...”

“It’s the nerves, my dear, and the exertion unless you do a lot of this sort of thing,” Jervis told her, turning around in his seat. “Sit back and rest; so long as you don’t do anything else strenuous it should pass without incident.”

Claire happily did as told, not sure if she could have moved for $1,000 as she collapsed back into the back seat. It was then she noticed the bag beside her, only a small one but one that had been tucked under Jervis’ peacoat as he ran from the building to escape. Presumably it had what they had come for inside it, but summoning the energy even to ask that was beyond her now.

The drive back was quieter, twenty minutes of easy, late-night cruising through moderate roads. Almost soothing, if not for the waves of nausea that came and went and the lactic acid build-up that left her limbs all but numb.

Five minutes before they parked, “I’ll be at your place soon,” the Riddler said on earpiece again. “Don’t take long now, dears.”

Jervis gave a simple conformation of message received, but Claire finally had enough oxygen back in her brain to process what that message meant. Her overall response to the idea was it being nice to put a face to the voice she’d worked with all evening, then realising she knew what Edward Nygma looked like anyway, and finally figuring it’d be cool to meet him in person at least.

She leant forward then, the back of Jervis’ seat taking her weight so she could speak. “Thanks f’ savin’ me back there,” she said to Jonathan, hoping it wouldn’t distract him too much from driving.

“You did the same. You have nothing to thank me for, child.”

That wasn’t Jonathan, not that raspy and generally more lilting voice. Then he was still, “Scarecrow?” All he did was glance sideways slightly, which was fair enough driving. “...I never would’ve thought you could drive f’ some reason; you got your own licence separate to Jonathan?” Perhaps, by all rights, she ought to have reacted with something else. But that was really what came first to mind meeting him.

“The muscle-memory is built into our brain; it’s hardly difficult to operate,” he replied.

“Huh.” She tried to think back on the reports and things she’d read on her brother’s Scarecrow personality. Most was playground gossip really, the stuff that got all over the country, particularly her areas that were oh-so-not-proud of their prodigal, straw-covered son, and most of what was a contradicting mess. Faced with that, “You say ‘our’ but he don’t. You don’ mind that?” Once again she’d point you to her brain having no capacity to think past the first thing that came to mind currently.

Scarecrow looked back at her long enough to blink, before returning to the road. He said nothing but Claire focused on that face she’d seen briefly, the over-canted head that was so child-like and silly in one way, yet inhuman and uncanny in another. It felt more like the former in this close space right now, his confused blink somehow cat-like as if he was taking her in for the first time- Well, it was the first time they had met maybe, depending on how the two of them worked.

In either case, Scarecrow actually seemed no danger; he’d been nicer than her first encounter with Jonathan thinking on it. Looking at Jervis in the passenger seat, he met her with quite an enigmatic expression as if deliberately leaving her to come to her own conclusions on the matter.

Well, all right then. They’d be home very soon at least, tonight’s adventures thankfully and safely over.

Chapter Text

They had to leave the car some ways from their hideout for security. That meant a need to somehow get from the car’s location to the hideout’s location.

Claire managed to step out of her car door but that was about as far as she could go in her current state, scratched from the hedge, completely aching from all the running and nauseous from the after-effects of so much adrenaline.

Seeing her predicament, “I understand if you don’t want to take this option,” Jervis began, leaning down so she didn’t have to raise her head from its weakened lolling, “but if you want to avoid experiencing the pain of walking home I could put one of these on you.” He flicked out a 10/6 card from inside his wrist like magician in front of her, the magic rather lost on her presently. “It won’t improve your state but you wouldn’t be aware of your discomfort at least; it would be just like earlier when you tried it on. It all depends if you trust me, and I’d understand if not.”

Claire stared at the card for a long moment, then at Jervis. She had the vague sense they ought to be quick about getting out of here and thus deciding, and she was in a state where she could barely concentrate on two different options long enough to compare them right now. Given that, “Yeah, go on.” She tried to reach out for the card to put it on herself.

Jervis, perhaps in some strange form of gentlemanly gesture, did it for her, sliding the fake and inactive card out of her cap to replace with the new one.

Claire really wasn’t aware of anything then until they were back in the entrance hall of the hideout somehow, feeling as if only seconds but also nearly half an hour had passed. She refocused on Jervis removing the card from her cap, checking how she was and reorienting her with gently words of her present location and time. It genuinely felt as if she’d fallen asleep and dreamt the whole thing, a blurred procession of streets in vague, smudgy snapshots. The stronger ache in her legs now was real though, as was the fact they were back here. “Feels like some kinda teleportin’ magic,” she slurred out, chuckling at the whole thing.

Jervis gave her a cheerful but kind smile, encouraging her towards the kitchen. “You’ll feel better once you sleep. You’re so exhausted I doubt you’ll have any difficulty tonight.”

“Mm...” Claire agreed, taking his suggestion to trudge in and find a seat. It was only once in one, the one Jonathan tended to use she realised, that she also realised there was someone in the one directly across the table from her, someone new.

“My, as ever I was right~,” Edward Nygma practically sing-sung. “You would look better if you were a girl, Jonathan,” he gloated to Jonathan sat to his right. He earned a dark glare back.

Claire took in the man across from her, the carrot-orange, combed-back hair, grass green eyes and light speckling of freckles from this year’s summer sun.

Edward took in the girl opposite him, so similar right down to the facial features, although a face more used to smiling or failing that being angry than frowning and scowling. “Why, she’s been stunned into silence just looking at me!” he preened.

“Your hair naturally that colour?” Claire blurted out tiredly, earning a bit of a snorted laugh from Jonathan and indignation from Edward.

“Well! I see you’re just as uncouth and disrespectful as your half-brother; must be all the farm-dirt mixed in with your genes.”

“Children, children,” Jervis tutted, already fixing a pot of tea for whomever might want some. “No fighting before bed, please; we oughtn’t to be doing anything but celebrating tonight!”

“We got everythin’ then?” Claire asked, having mostly forgotten the point of the exercise once her goal became simply surviving it.

“Jervis and I obtained everything we had wanted to,” Jonathan confirmed. “I don’t know about Harvey however.” He looked to Edward.

“He lost a few mindless lackeys who weren’t quick enough to escape in time once the Bat and the police arrived – No great loss to him really if that was the case – but most of his team made it out with a reasonable score of precious artwork and valuables; he considered it a success at least.”

“And the blame was placed falsely on Oswald somehow?” Jervis checked.

“I left a ‘message from him’ in their security system when I hacked in,” Edward was pleased to show off. “Harvey left a calling card to much the same effect in his area of operations.”

“Frabjous,” Jervis declared, checking on the stewing tea. “The poor Caterpillar will be surprised tomorrow, almost as surprised as he’ll be when he turns into a butterfly.”

Caterpillars? Butterflies? Claire was past a stage where she could try to work out what Jervis was actually saying and simply yawned instead. The kitchen table seemed a totally viable place to sleep right now, even crossing her arms on it to rest her head on like heaven.

“’”The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, as he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.’”

Claire shot back up, fearing a tea-related nose scalding. Jervis had remained at the kitchen side though, smiling at the unintended effect of his quote.

“Oh, how quickly I am forgotten once there’s someone younger around!” Edward complained histrionically. “She’s not even prettier than I am.”

“I thought you didn’t like being the Dormouse,” Jonathan asked him- Wait, when had Scarecrow disappeared actually?

“It’s the principle of the thing, Jonathan; do try to keep up.”

Claire supposed she had been out all the walk back for Scarecrow to have disappeared then, as Jonathan and Edward continued to bicker across the table – It became a kind of background static quite easily, something about the whole conversation seeming more for the motions of the thing than any real purpose – It was a shame though; Scarecrow had seemed nice, and had saved her from Batman. It would have been nice to say goodbye at least.

Jervis brought the tea over before long, serving it to the others as they chattered for a while about tonight’s heist and what was to be done now, planning for how to use what they’d acquired and exactly what to say to Oswald, so forth. Claire was certain she fell half-asleep again on the table for most of it – Or Jervis had slipped another card onto her – because she barely remembered any of it despite retaining an awareness of it happening.

She wasn’t sure quite what snapped her back to full-waking, or how much time had passed, but Edward looked amused at her across the table, Jonathan an unreadable sort of neutral while Jervis was sat beside her smiling in that way that made her think he found her cute and funny in some way, like a pet of some kind. Had she said something funny in her sleep or something?

“Well,” Jervis said, “I think we can discuss anything else in the morning. For now,” He got up to gather the teapot and cups to take to the side, “’”The race is over! Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”’”

“In that case,” Edward said, getting up and taking his and Jonathan’s cups over before grabbing Jervis around the waist to lift up, “I’ll take my prize and retire now then.”

Jervis was squeaking and objecting a right storm at being carried like an errant child by the taller man, even wriggling a bit as he ordered the Dormouse to put him down and made threats to put jam on his nose, yet it seemed in play again given he didn’t seem to actually be making it any harder for Edward to carry him off in the direction of the bedroom.

Claire watched them go, left frowning at the last part of the doorframe they had disappeared round until Jonathan said, “Edward is our sometimes third wheel, as it were, when the mood suits us all. It may be unorthodox but the three of us are comfortable with it.”

“Right...” Claire said, thinking she got it. Or it didn’t matter if not; so long as they got it and this was all a good thing for them she didn’t mind.

“Has your condition improved yet?”

“Mm... Still feelin’ pretty sick an’ achin’. Think I can sleep the worst off though.”

Jonathan nodded, standing up, “Hold on a moment,” and then walking around the kitchen table to the doorway into his laboratory. Time seemed to blur so it seemed no time at all till he came back with a medicine bottle and a small spoon, tipping out a small amount of the former onto the latter. It was some sort of white powder. “It’s just crushed paracetamol, the over-the-counter kind; I use it in my fear toxin antidote. It’ll take the edge off your symptoms to help you sleep, if you want,” he thought to check right at the end.

She stared at it for a moment before trusting him like Jervis and the cards; this was all too much right now. “Don’ think I could get used to this kinda life,” she mentioned as he tossed the spoon in the sink and put the bottle down to return tomorrow.

“I would recommend another choice if one presents itself; while not without its advantages and exhilaration, it is easier on the whole to live a more standard life.”

“Still think it’s cool you manage it though,” she thought to say, while his back was still turned to the sink filling a glass of water.

It turned out to be for her, when he set it down on the table by her. “’Cool’,” he repeated. “It’s strange indeed to hear you call me that.”

“Why? I know siblings’re meant t’fight an’ all but I kinda thought it was the older sibling’s job to seem cool an’ inspiring, like some sorta evolutionary competitiveness thin’.”

Jonathan stared down at her, genuinely looking... well, something that was hard to work out now. There was some surprise in there, some things he got and some things he didn’t.

“Ah, don’ ask me t’explain it when I feel like this,” Claire pre-empted. “You’re funny, super, super smart an’ really nice when you actually like someone, but you seem like you got real high standards so I always feel like I gotta work hard t’impress you...” She slumped forward on the table again, back to trying to sleep there.

Jonathan continued to stare down at her, saying nothing until finally, “...You should move to the sofa to sleep if you want to maximise your physical recuperation.”

Claire groaned, flopping onto one side before pushing herself up sloppily to stare through the open kitchen doorway at the couch in the lounge. It did look good... but it was so far... “Guess it’s too early t’ask you for a brother-piggyback over there?” she joked tiredly, trying to work out how to summon the energy to get herself over there. “What happen’d to Scarecrow earlier anyways? I didn’ get t’say goodbye to him.” He’d seemed to like her better; maybe he’d give her a piggyback over there.

“There was no longer any need for him once we were back here,” Jonathan answered, still sounding a little uneasily off-balance answering her.

“Oh. Okay,” she supposed, trying her first attempt at pushing herself up to get over there but failing quickly. “Don’t really get what the two ‘a you are but-”

“You noticed me instantly as well earlier, child.” Looking up, Claire could see this was Scarecrow again simply in how he held his expression, a more blunt and expressive frown. “What do you want?”

“Didn’ really want nothin’,” she said, not nervous but a little uncertain. “But you got me outta there earlier, an’ like... Well, I don’ really know what you are but if you’re, like, a part ‘a Jonathan, or livin’ in him or whatever, we’re kinda related too, aren’t we-?”

“I have no family. Jonathan’s family is not mine.” He did snap it but not harshly, more like the way he flicked his gaze away as if it all meant nothing to him.

“Well, you look after Jonathan an’ whatever so...” She trailed off under having his intent gaze on her again, head slightly canted. The way he had cocked it like a fast twitch, so unnaturally for a human; despite Jonathan’s full scarecrow costume earlier her fear of fake humans hadn’t been triggered, but now even without his mask Claire felt like she was in the presence of something otherly for all it had a human face. “S-So I wouldn’ mind gettin’ to know you too, even if we’re not related.”

Scarecrow did nothing but continue to stare and blink again, just as in the car earlier. It was a little reminiscent of Jonathan’s blankness when he didn’t seem to understand something yet reduced to an almost animal-like simplicity. Of everything he could have done, sitting down in the chair beside her to have an earnest conversation surprised Claire most. “Why do you care about Jonathan? The two of you have only just met, he’s been little but mean to you and will only bring your life more hardship than to disown him from it.”

Did they really have to have this conversation right now at this time of night? But if this was the only chance they were going to get, “I guess... I just wanna have a brother. I know what he’s been through so I don’ hold that stuff ‘gainst him.”

“But why him? Anyone else would be better. Why not someone kinder to you such as Jervis?”

Claire could only shrug. “’cause he’s my brother, whatever he’s like.”

Scarecrow blinked slowly at her a few times. Her slightly triggered phobia kept Claire from yawning or slumping onto the table but she did wish he’d hurry up already. “...Jonathan doesn’t understand why the fact of biological relation makes people care about each other,” he finally said.

Even in a better state Claire wasn’t sure she could have explained it. But thinking about what he knew of family before this, “Well, the only people biologically related to him that he knew b’fore treated him bad. ‘Course he wouldn’ know what it feels like to be cared about ‘cause of that.”

Blinking again, Scarecrow cocked his head far the other way as he considered her. His blank face betrayed little more though, only a sense he was analysing her intensely. “...He would like to know what it feels like,” he finally announced.

“He talkin’ to you in there or somethin’?” Claire really wanted to ask.

“No. We are simply aware of each other’s thoughts and feelings.” That he answered more simply in a slightly bored tone. He wanted to get back to, “Jonathan always wanted to have a kind family like other people; he would watch them through their windows sometimes when he was a child or from his own as they walked down the streets together. It drew him back then, when he still believed that he had a chance at such a thing one day as naive children do. Now you’re holding before him again what he had to force himself to give up on.”

She didn’t wilt under his scowl. No, Scarecrow was just... He was... Oh. “He’s scared ‘a trustin’ me,” she guessed pretty confidently. “Thinks I’ll quit on him once the goin’ gets tough or whatever so it’s better not to let me in at all.”

“What promise does he have that you won’t do that?” Scarecrow interrogated.

“What’d actually work?” Claire had to ask. “I dunno. I’d just like t’have my brother in my life now I know he’s out there t’worry ‘bout otherwise. But if he don’ that’s okay; I managed t’keep my ma at least thanks to all this.”

After stifling a yawn, she startled slightly to find he had leant in soundlessly, twisted gaze so close Claire could almost make out her own eyes reflected in his- They really did have the exact same eyes, right down to the almost white-blue irises other kids would avoid her gaze because of. “...You are strangely loyal to people who have done little to deserve it,” he declared, his mild surprise almost making him sound impressed.

She shrugged. “Gotta be loyal to someone, don’ you?” Even if you had to make them up, maybe... Once Scarecrow had drawn back up to a more impersonal distance, “Thanks f’ findin’ a way to tell me all that stuff.”

Scarecrow let his head simply drop to the side to cant it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Claire smiled along. “Yeah, me neither by this point.” She stared with deliberate longing at her ‘bed’ so far away on that sofa, sighing to summon enough energy for another effort at getting over there.

Hesitant hands gripped her before she could drop back down this time, pulling her into a very strange sort of lift that carried her off the floor half by one shoulder, half by a hip. “I don’t know how to perform a piggyback you spoke of,” Scarecrow said, proving as much by how he practically dragged her to the sofa. He also practically dropped her once there, taking a sort of scientific fascination in watching her clumsily struggle herself into position on it. “...Jonathan says ‘thank you’, little crow.”

“’s okay. Mean, we’re family.”

“He apologises that he still fails to understand the significance of that yet.”

“Well, like...” She tugged pathetically at part of the blanket, completely unaware she was sitting on the part that wouldn’t move, “We were both in the same womb once, even if it was all those years apart. We’re the only one who’ve ever been in there in the whole world. Even if I know you don’ like Ma, don’ that seem kinda special?”

Claire kept pulling futilely, growing irritable yet too tired to work out the problem, as he stood silently above, observing her slowly start to give up. He reached down finally, freeing the trapped part with an experienced ease and then letting her sort out the rest.

Once settled, the blanket pulled up to her chin, Claire looked up to see he was still standing over her, watching. She smiled up at him; he simply remained blank, and yet somehow almost longingly curious as he regarded her back.

That look went on for a while, then he simply walked away into the bedroom, switching off the lights for her along the way.

Claire watched the closed door for a moment, but sleep took her too quickly to think anymore about what was going on behind it.

Chapter Text

Claire knew it was late the moment she woke up. Perhaps not midday-late, but definitely after the normal time she’d gotten used to falling out of bed for school at least.

Groaning and pulling herself up on one arm of the chair, everything ached and blurred in front of her eyes for a few moments. The blurriness passed as she rubbed at them but the exhaustion persisted, for all she felt too excited to fall back to sleep. Never one to waste much time in bed anyway, “Somehow bet he’s the same...” Claire dragged herself out from under the blanket, standing and just swaying for a moment before walking into the kitchen.

She collapsed again once she successfully reached a chair, sprawling across the wooden tabletop and calling for, “Jerviiiis...! Teeeea...!”

After hearing a chuckle, and, “’”Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here?”’” a freshly-filled mug was slid across the table from the teapot to her elbow.

Didn’t mean she had the energy to sit up and drink it just yet, but, “Thanks...”

Claire sprawled there a few minutes longer, groaning at the thought of having to move at some point, until she heard the vibration of a mobile phone receiving a text. Like any true, modern teenager she snapped straight to attention, eyes instantly focusing on the sleek, very desirably current phone right beside her. She sat up as it was picked up, leaning over to Edward’s shoulder to read the series of messages in some rather sleek, multi-coloured IM app:

BigBirb
Dear Edward. Why do I have a very angry Rupert
Thorne telling me I’ve been hiring the likes of you,
Harvey, Jonathan and Jervis to interfere with him
and conduct a raid on his HQ last night?

SphinxyAndIKnowIt
Hmm... Riddle me this: Why ever would I do such
a mean thing, Ozzie? I thought we were friends!

BigBirb
Did you want the Lounge to go under? You didn’t
have to steal from that museum.

SphinxyAndIKnowIt
It’s the principle and you know it!

BigBirb
Of our friendship or your ridiculous, risible Riddler
shtick?

Oh, never mind. I’m sorry, if you insist on making
me say it. What time do you want to meet to
force my hand with the rest of your desired
apology?

And the new message Edward had just sent back:

SphinxyAndIKnowIt
I’m afraid I’m going to be busy for much of
today. I’ll see you at the Lounge tonight
though – Drinks are on you!

“That the Penguin you’re textin’?” Claire asked, wrapping both hands around the sides of the mug to ground herself in its almost painful warmth before taking a drink.

“Indeed! Dear, old Ozzie!” She looked closer, noting the very spherical, very cute penguin icon beside each instance of Oswald’s screen name. “Oh! I suppose I ought to ask, not that he asked me first before ruining my perfectly constructed plan...” He typed with speed, sending one more message:

SphinxyAndIKnowIt
Jonathan and Jervis are borrowing the plane
today btw.

“Plane?” Claire asked.

“Edward and Oswald maintain a number of things such as storage and that underground messaging network for us rogues,” Jonathan explained from across the table, reading some Psychology book propped up against the teapot as he ate spoonfuls of chocolate cereal. “One of them is a small, private plane.”

“A whole plane?!” Realising that was rather a redundantly stupid thing to ask, “Where you flyin’ in it?”

He glanced at her for a moment, flashing a bit of a smile. “I have no intention of wasting however many days you did taking a train between here and Georgia. It should only take a couple of hours according to my calculations last night.”

“Georgia?” She looked up plaintively at Jervis setting down a plate of food in front of her. “I have t’go back already?”

“Alice has to wake up and leave Wonderland eventually, I’m afraid,” he said. “Besides, do you want to keep your poor mother wondering any longer than necessary?”

“Guess not...” she accepted, looking down at the plate of, “...This beans on toast?” She picked up some of the beans on her fork, watching the sauce drip through the prongs. “Slimy li’l things, ain’t they?”

“’”It isn’t etiquette to cut anyone you’ve been introduced to”’,” Jervis tutted, tapping her very lightly on the head with a scolding finger. “Eat it.”

Claire complied, giving it the chance of a few mouthfuls before proclaiming, “Tastes pretty good f’ somethin’ that looks like mouse kidneys an’ blood on toast.”

Edward regarded her with the same amused nonchalance as last night, leant on an elbow to watch her increasingly devour the rest. “Delightful little pumpkin bumpkin, isn’t she? You must be so proud, Jonathan.”

“I will simply remind you of all the blackmail material we already have on one another, Edward, and ask you to delete details of her and my mother from anywhere you can online, lest we all have to go through this rigmarole again,” her brother said.

“My! Anyone would think you were attached, Jonathan. I thought she did rather well last night, better than 99% of the henchfolk I’ve ever hired actually-”

“Edward...”

Claire paused with her fork hanging from her mouth, held between her teeth while her left hand raised her tea mug, looking between the two.

Edward held out under Jonathan’s warning glare thoughtfully, as if he had a plan brewing, for a moment longer before lapsing into brief laughter. “In that case,” He stood from his seat, “I will leave you be to attend to my business today.” The Riddler clapped his hands together in light, quick glee. “Claire, I do hope you come to town to cause your brother to be embarrassingly fraternal-”

“Edward!”

“-again soon!” He headed to the door with a graceful wave. “Oh, and I’ll be hacking your phone soon to make sure I’ve got blackmail material on you too for when the time comes. Byeee!”

The three left behind watched the kitchen doorway until the noise of the front door closing settled back into silence. “...Joke’s on him,” Claire spoke first, taking a nonchalant sip of tea; “I’m too poor t’have a phone.”

“Probably for the best with the Dormouse around,” Jervis admitted, sighing slightly and taking what bowls and mugs were done with to the sink. “Finish up and pack your things as quickly as you can now; that laundry I did for you yesterday ought to be dry now. Jonathan would like to set out as early as possible this morning.”

She looked to Jonathan finishing up the last of the tea, about to leave the table too. “You said you were gonna teach me ‘bout that Freud guy though, an’ Jervis said he’d read me some Alice.”

“We have work to do, none of which falls under the heading of babysitting,” Jonathan said, getting up to assist Jervis at the sink. Claire poked the last of her toast crusts around the plate, trying to make there seem more food than there was left. “...Once the plane is in the air there will be some spare time to fill; I suppose I can’t in good conscience let anyone go around believing that man is the pinnacle of what Psychology has to offer.”

Claire grinned, “Sweet,” supposing in that case she’d comply.

~#~

“Whoaaaa...” Claire ran around the interior of the plane as soon as she had scrabbled up the small staircase, poking her head around the main cabin, into the bathroom and then the cockpit in the time it had taken Jonathan and Jervis just to get onboard. “Where’s the pilot?”

“In the overhead compartment,” Jonathan answered, walking past her into the cockpit proper. “Human bodies are surprisingly compact and lightweight once they start decomposing.”

There were some storage locker-style compartments along either side at the back of the cockpit. “Which one?” Claire asked, pulling one open and finding it was empty. “Wait,” She noticed where her brother had dropped into one of the pilot’s seats, wearily turning to the controls and flicking a few things on, “you’re flyin’ us?”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend asking Jervis to fly us; he’d probably insist we fly there by tea-tray or something,” Jonathan muttered, having touched something that had brought a hum to life beneath the cockpit’s metal floor.

“Please,” Jervis insisted as he came to join them, cabin outer door shut and securely fastened, “we’d take flamingos if I were in charge.”

He joined Jonathan in what was presumably the co-pilot’s seat. Claire came up to lean an elbow on the back of each, watching Jonathan’s long fingers navigate the buttons and switches across the breadth of the control panel with the nearly the same skill he displayed in his lab. “So, how come you can fly?”

“Among the flotsam cramming the noticeboards of Gotham Uni just before one summer, I took notice of one offering free flying lesson tickets an aviophobe had received and wanted to dispose of,” he explained as the engines came to life proper. “Having never had cause to fly or be up at such heights up until that point, it seemed a prudent experience to conquer.”

“Wow,” Claire looked around, wondering if she ought to go sit somewhere with a seatbelt maybe. “You go bungee-jumpin’ an’ croc-wrestlin’ with that attitude?”

“Bungee-jumping, no; hardly a useful or, these days, novel challenge,” Jonathan said as the plane suddenly launched forward but mainly up, leaving the open-fronted hangar on the outskirts of Gotham and throwing Claire backwards onto the floor as a fitting goodbye from the city. “I suppose having engaged in food fights at Arkham with Waylon Jones could count for the second however.”

Claire simply groaned rather than give a reply, struggling back up to sitting with a hold on Jonathan’s chair.

Jervis turned to face her, offering an apologetic smile. “If you’d given me the chance, I would have warned you this is a repurposed military plane with near-vertical take-off. But that’s simply the way of it; a young girl’s curiosity will always end up getting her into trouble sooner or later.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Claire clamped her grip on tighter this time, leaning forward to watch the things Jonathan was doing as the plane lifted higher still, a smooth and gentle swoop that was leaving her a little light-feeling in her stomach. “...Guess this’s one ’a those times I need t’shut up so you can concentrate, right?”

“Unless you enjoy crashing,” Jonathan replied, voice wry and distracted.

“How about I take Claire into the main cabin to keep her curious hands and mouth out of trouble for a while?” Jervis offered.

“Hey, I can be good,” she objected lightly.

“If you would,” Jonathan said. His sister stuck her tongue out at the back of his head but moved on ahead as she saw Jervis rising from his seat. “I’ll yell if we’re about to die.”

“Thank you, dear,” Jervis said as if he was acknowledging a spouse agreeing to do the dishes tonight.

With a steadying hand on the wall or furnishings in case, they made their way back to the living room-like main cabin. Claire threw herself down into the armchair-esque seats that looked most comfortable of the lot, Jervis taking the adjacent seat with more dignity. “Did you bring a copy of Alice? I wanna hear the chapter you’re in, the Mad Hatter one!”

“Haven’t you ever read the books, or had them read to you before bed?” Jervis genuinely had to ask.

“Ma didn’ have much time for readin’ to me, nor many books t’do it from. And it’s kinda an old-fashioned book now.” Jervis chose to ignore that little comment. “I ain’t even seen a movie of it – There’s a Disney one, right?”

“Good Lord; what do you know about it?”

Claire hummed thoughtfully. “Alice – White rabbit who’s late f’ stuff – Rabbit hole – Pink and purple Cheshire Cat – Angry Queen ‘a Hearts – And thanks to you existin’ I know there’s a Mad Hatter in there somewhere, but I wouldn’ve without you,” she answered brightly.

Jervis forgot about everything for a moment; this was just too fascinating. “What exactly do you think happens to Alice while she’s in Wonderland?”

She just sort of shrugged. “Wanders around for a bit, bumps into the other characters, climbs back outta the hole.”

“Well, you’re not exactly wrong,” he had to admit. Then Jervis sighed, sitting back and adopting a more dignified posture; he was sans peacoat but otherwise in full Mad Hatter regalia: top hat, stylish waistcoat, spats and all that. He took out his pocket watch briefly before setting it back and beginning, “’There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it-‘”

“Wait, y’know the whole thin’ off the top ‘a your head?!” Claire leant in excitably.

“But of course! After the number of times I’ve read it and the way those jubjubs in Arkham think it’ll cure me to be parted from the books while in their care.” He tutted at the inanity of it. “Now really, you’re as bad as Alice refusing to pay attention unless the book has pictures and conversations; you’ll just have to imagine the pictures for yourself, I’m afraid, but as for the conversations, ‘”however, I can manage the whole lot of them!”’ Now do be quiet; ‘”If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.”’” Jervis cleared his throat, while Claire leant both elbows on the armrest nearest to him in rapt anticipation, and he began.

They’d reached the end of three chapters after that by the time Jonathan called for Jervis to come take over.

“Aw, I wanted t’hear ‘bout the trial!” Claire objected, seeing Jervis was intent on getting up and heeding the call however. “You can fly too?”

“Oh heavens, no. But Jonathan did teach me how to oversee the autopilot in the centre of flights so that he can rest.” He lingered a few steps past her chair though, not heading back into the cockpit just yet. After a moment’s curious waiting, “Although it is ultimately Jonathan’s decision,” Jervis said softly, looking back at her, “I do hope to see you again at some point, Claire. I’ve greatly enjoyed our time together, both in terms of you and I together but also watching the interactions between Jonathan and you. I don’t know what good, if any, correcting the failures of his upbringing in you could do for him given your similarities, but I do hope he could get the opportunity to experience a positive familial relationship with you to counter the entirely negative ones he’s had thus far; despite his demeanour towards you I believe he has accepted you are blameless for his problems and therefore bears no true ill will towards you. He just has a funny way of showing these things.” Jervis smiled about it.

“I figured,” Claire agreed. “You’re a real cool brother-in-law, Jervis; I hope I get t’see you ‘gain sometime too.”

“I’m not technically your brother-in-law, you know,” he pointed out, laughing lightly.

“Not yet,” she simply replied.

Jervis merely rubbed a hand against one cheek, his face an expression she really couldn’t place. But Claire grinned in hope nonetheless.

Having left his call unheeded too long, Jervis merely tipped his top hat to her in goodbye, heading forwards into the cockpit again.

Claire sat back, fingers roving over the soft fabric of the chairs while she still had the chance to experience such luxury for a little while longer. The plane’s engines were quiet in here, pleasantly even too; no worse than an air conditioner really. If this was the kind of thing their friends had access to whenever they wanted...

Jonathan strode in almost silently, taking the same seat as Jervis by either coincidence or design.

“When you marry Jervis I wanna be your best man,” she started before he could.

“Surely you’d be a bridesmaid, or at the very least a best woman,” he countered.

“Best man, best woman – Whatever. But I ain’t wearin’ no frilly, stinkin’ dress; I don’ do dresses.” Jonathan took in today’s ensemble of a baggy T-shirt hanging off one shoulder under overalls ripped off at the thigh and badly-worn trainers; the girl would be a cruel fate to inflict on any dress. She always looked more like a bundle of sticks that some laundry had happened to get tangled around than any form of a properly attired creature. “That a yes?”

“It’s not a matter of ‘when’ anyway; it’s a matter of a currently unlikely ‘if’.”

“Aw, you ain’t gonna make an honourable man outta Jervis?” He could clearly see her legs kicking in teasing glee as she leant over to talk to him.

“Jervis is a childish, criminal, certifiable lunatic who can’t keep his mind out of the gutter half the time; there’s nothing about him to be salvaged as ‘honourable’ in the first place,” Jonathan replied, but with a fond scorn it should be noted.

“But you still might marry him someday?”

Jonathan sighed; hope sprung always eternal in certain minds, he’d learnt. It wasn’t as if Harley had never asked the same.

He turned to Claire still waiting on him, legs kicking in expectation now as she leant on both elbows attentively. “So, Freud? What did you have the misfortune to read about him so far?”

“Oh, sure! Will you gimme some other recommendations f’ what to read once we’re done too? I just grabbed a bunch ‘a Psychology books that had the most interestin’ covers when I was tryin’ to pick which ones at the library; that’s how I ended up with the Freud one.”

“You’re interested in Psychology?” Jonathan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, or somethin’ in that area. Psychology’s more ‘bout stuff within one person mostly, like the fear stuff you do; Social Psychology or Sociology’s more ‘bout stuff between people or groups, which is what I really want. I wanna do somethin’ to help poor people an’ other disadvantaged people like women, make their lives better, ‘cause I know what bein’ on the bottom’s like. But I wanna do somethin’ that’ll actually change things for real, so that’s why I wanna be a scientist ‘stead of a politician,” she enthused, so innocent but painfully determined. “If your fear research works out maybe I could help implement it, like make policies usin’ it an’ stuff! You can handle the individual level an’ when I’m older I’ll handle the group level f’ you-”

There it was; Jonathan finally pinned down that feeling that had been growing for the past couple of days increasingly: “You idolise me.”

“Well, yeah,” Claire answered almost in surprise he’d asked. “I don’ know much ‘bout your research yet, only what’s on the internet an’ stuff, but you climbed your way from down in a backwards, nowhere-boonies town in Georgia all the way up to a place like Gotham – Even if you an’ your friends’ve ruined its reputation now – an’ earned a PhD an’ all; I idolise that part. I don’ wanna be stuck farmin’ or waitressin’ sleazy bars like Ma an’ the rest ‘a our family when I’m older; I wanna make it like you,” she said, then ruined the moment somewhat by adding, “Well, without the endin’ up in an insane asylum part.”

Jonathan boggled a little as he stared at her, then turned away, folding his body in that direction as well defensively.

Claire leant forward from her chair curiously, wondering if he was acting so defensive because, “Are you blushin’?”

“Of course not,” Jonathan dismissed, resting his closer cheek to her in one hand as he faced her again. “You’re hardly the first admiring ‘fan’ I’ve had since becoming infamous,” he scorned. “...But thank you,” he added more quietly, picking at the hem of his faded jeans.

Claire grinned, settling back into her seat. “The library in Latham’s got a pretty bad selection an’ the school library’s even worse, so try an’ pick some easier t’find books for me, ‘kay?”

Still leaning his cheek into that palm, Jonathan sighed fondly.

Chapter Text

“Ma! I’m back!” Claire called out as she held the front door open for the two men behind her, Jervis regarding the screen door part with foreign curiosity.

“Claire?!” There was the sound of things being dropped, something soft and something that clattered, then quickly shuffling footsteps. Claire was halfway across the living room anyway by the time her mother entered from the other side, moving as fast as she could with one hand on her stomach, medical bandages peeking out from beneath the edge of her top. “Oh sweet mercy Christmas! You’re lucky I don’t snatch you bald; you went to Gotham, didn’ you?!”

“Came back alive, didn’ I?” Claire sassed back playfully.

Her mother slapped her across the face, not hard but fast nonetheless. “What were you thinkin’?! You’re fourteen, goodness gracious! What if you’d-?!” She gasped, choking on her own terror as she looked past Claire for the first time at the people who’d come in with her. “Oh God! Oh God, no...!”

Jonathan had stalked up to Claire’s side in but a moment, grabbing Karen’s hand she had yet to fully retract by the wrist. Held up before her, it was both a means of restraint and damning evidence as he spat, “Ah, corporal punishment just like Great-Granny and no doubt your own mother used to use. Can you truly do no better than to end up just like them? Slapping a child in the face like they’re simply a dog that needs punishing?”

“I-I’m sorry! I-I didn’ mean to-!”

“Didn’t mean to what? Let your whole arm slip and strike her across the face like that? It was just an accident?”

“It didn’ hurt bad or anythin’,” Claire insisted, hesitant to actually intervene though. “It’s not a big deal-”

“It is a big deal!” Jonathan yanked his mother’s hand down, using his other to rub roughly through the layer of make-up hidden on the back. Just as many small, pink and white star-shaped scars emerged as on his own right next to it, still holding onto her wrist. His grip tightened as he saw at them, forcing a pained gasp out of Karen as she turned away in shame. Jonathan stared her face down nonetheless, daring her to look at him finally. “You left me there! You knew what Great-Granny was like an’ you left me there with her!”

“I didn’t! I didn’ know you were alive, that she kept you!” Karen pleaded. “I thought she buried you dead like Ma said to! I swear it!”

“You knew what they’d do to a bastard-child like me! You wanted ‘em to kill me!”

“No! I tried t’run away, believe me I did! That’s why I fell in love wi’h your father; he said he was gonna take me far away from ‘em, from Arlen!”

“But instead Prince Charming just knocked you up an’ left you behind,” Jonathan sneered, watching his mother use her free hand to cover her face and a shaky sob. “Too afraid to run away on your own, too weak t’insist on keepin’ me-”

“I couldn’-! I-I was scared!”

“I was scared too!” Jonathan wrenched her other arm forward as well, forcing her to face him finally. “But I suffered ‘cause you were too scared t’put an end to it, like I had to f’ us! Bein’ scared ain’t an excuse when you got an entire person’s future restin’ in your hands!”

“I’m sorry!” Jonathan’s mother cried to him. “I’m sorry!”

She was terrified of him. Seeing people scared of him was normally a joy but right now only an anger welled up in Jonathan. All the psychology he had read about parents came back in sharp contrast to the snivelling, pathetic woman in front of him, how they were meant to feel your superior, the ones you fear and seek to emulate. He knew the veneer of them being perfect beings was stripped away for everyone eventually but the complete absence here and now only left him so very lonely; parents were meant to seem all-powerful to provide emotional comfort to their vulnerable and scared children, the same way so many human cultures turned to the idea of gods. Maybe it was more than ironic he had become a self-proclaimed god himself then.

“‘Sorry’ ain’t enough for the scars in my skin, for the flashbacks I have ev’ry time I hear one ‘a those songs Great-Granny used t’sing to drown out my screams,” he spat at her, his own grip on her shaking now.

“I’m sorry!” she just repeated those words again; that was all she could say. “What can I do t’make it better though? I don’ even know how t’be a good parent...” She tried to gesture weakly at Claire but her hands were still trapped by Jonathan.

“Jus’ do the opposite ‘a what they did! It’s not hard!” Jonathan stopped, wondering when his voice had started to take on a slightly pleading quality. “You’re right; you can’ do a thin’ about me,” he muttered more bitterly. “But you could’a learnt; you could’a been better for next time. You had twen’y-three years t’do some ‘a the work this family needs t’change.” He lowered his hands somewhat, then let hers drop from them. Karen used them instantly to brush away the tears that had welled at the outer corners of her eyes. “Remember what I said last time, mother? How a bad seed just grows on an’ on?”

She wiped her face with a fierce sniffle now. “So what? You thought killin’ Claire would be a mercy?! You thought that was a kinder fate than lettin’ her live?!”

“Considerin’ the way you treated me-”

“They put me on a one-way train with so little money I couldn’ even afford a ticket back the day after you were born ‘cause ‘a the disgrace I was to ‘em! I didn’ know what they did t’you! I was so terrified all I wanted to do was get away from ‘em! I was only 16, Jonathan!” his mother defended.

“I was only 15 when I had t’kill Great-Granny because you never stood up to her or did a thin’ about her!” He threw out an arm demonstrably towards Claire. “An’ now Claire’s only 14 an’ she’s already had t’kill two people an’ go up against the goodness to gracious mafia!”

Karen’s anger collapsed again instantly, arms wrapping around her injured stomach as she turned to Claire. “Two people?”

Claire scratched awkwardly at her cheek with one finger. “Uh, yeah. You remember Jackson? Well, he weren’t such an accident after all.”

“Claire...” her mother... well, she didn’t appear to know what to feel.

“You could’a stopped all this,” Jonathan returned to her. “I managed to say ‘no’ an’ put a stop to Great-Granny even though, sweet Heavens, was I terrified too. Claire managed t’deal with your frankly terrible choice in men for you; Christ Almighty, it’s obvious she’s mostly had t’raise herself if she was able t’get all the way to Gotham an’ help us out as she did.” Karen wrapped her arms tighter around herself, looking away again in shame. “You shouldn’ve ever been allowed t’have kids an’ you know it.”

She stood before him motionless, only able to utter once again, “I’m sorry...”

“Hey! Ma’s done her best!” Claire stepped in, pushing herself in-between Jonathan and their mother. “I know her best ain’t much of a best but sometimes she literally went hungry when we ran outta money or ‘cause I ate our food without realisin’ we didn’t have the money f’ more. She put up with those abusive guys sometimes jus’ so we could have the money we needed to eat; she never once let ‘em hurt me though, no matter what they did to her. I know she screwed up, but she tried t’fix things too.” Her voice had trailed down to practically a mutter by the end, not sure what good her interjection would do. “I can fix the rest f’ her; I won’ have kids, an’ if you don’t too then this can all stop wi’h us.”

“Claire...”

She looked back at her mother, shrugging lightly. “Didn’ want ‘em anyway; they’d ruin my perfect ironin’ board-like figure.” She patted at her unreasonably straight and flat chest and hips with a grin.

“I thought you wanted t’do better than her, t’make somethin’ of yourself like me,” Jonathan frowned down at her standing between them.

“I do, but that don’ mean I can’t be grateful to her, ‘specially when she wants the same f’ me not to end up like her,” Claire argued back.

“Familial loyalty doesn’t have to hold back ambition, Crane; in some cases it can inspire it,” a low, dark voice startled the room from over by the front door.

Jervis looked up at the caped figure suddenly looming beside him with a distasteful frown. “I’d heard rats can get through a hole the size of a quarter; I didn’t know it also applied to bats.” Batman turned and gave him one of those flat looks that managed to be both neutral and a glare at once.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Jonathan asked disdainfully.

“I worked out who your little assistant was after connecting the dots with Rupert Thorne,” Batman explained. “I wanted to ensure she was safe in your company, Crane, given your intentions towards her the last time you met.” Jonathan gave the lightest of uncaring shrugs. “Oh, and nice accent.”

“Acc-?” Jonathan stopped himself instantly, souring quick enough to put a good number of lemons to shame. “Oh wonderful,” he said in his usual, more proper one. “The idiocy in the air here is obviously infectious.”

“Y’mean you didn’ mean to switch back?” Claire asked, earning herself a warning glare for her cheek.

Batman continued, “I also wanted to tell your assistant that if I ever catch her involved in any of your schemes again, I don’t go easy on criminals just because they’re children who have been led astray by family ties.”

“Well, that explains the attitude behind your less-than-legal habit of getting your Robins involved in fighting crime while they’re still just children,” Jervis scoffed, and received one of Batman’s true and patented cowl-scowls for it.

“Got it,” Claire said though; “don’ get caught the next time I get involved.” She was given the spares from Jervis’ cowl-scowl for that.

“Anything else?” Jonathan enquired.

Batman took a moment to pointedly look around them all before saying, “As you’ve done nothing to harm anyone and don’t appear to have any intention to, no.”

“Well, thank you for stopping by then,” Jonathan joked scathingly. “I suppose breaking my ribs must not be paying the bills anymore if you’re taking on consultancy work for Child Protection Services like this.”

“Afraid not. Wouldn’t want to get in your way, what with your recent change of heart.” Batman nodded to Claire, taunting him.

Jonathan only allowed himself to rise to it slightly, biting back, “You’d best be careful I don’t come after your Robins thanks to this ‘change of heart’ in that case.”

The comment seemed to brush straight off Batman’s caped back as he turned to go; Jonathan would admit it hadn’t been his best. “Oh, and Crane?” he said as he pulled the front door open. “Your mother kissed me after I saved her from you last time; just thought you might like to know.” With a flap of his cape, Batman was gone before Jonathan could gapingly exclaim-

“You did what?!”

“Yeah, seriously, Ma,” Claire agreed. “Villains are the sexy ones; I mean, have you seen Selina Kyle?”

Karen simply covered her face with both hands, letting out a small, “Oh God...” in vain.

Jervis, meanwhile, stared after Batman and the door that had closed almost silently behind him. It hardly seemed the most crusader-of-justice thing to do hopping the Keenys’ low, poorly maintained wood fence and presumably crawling away in the shadow of it back to wherever he had parked the Batwing, but since when had Jabberwockies given much thought to grace? “Ah well,” he spoke. “At least it will have kept him out of the city long enough for Edward to get in and out of that museum unhindered.”

“Wait,” Claire took a guess; “did you want him t’follow us?”

“He knows about our little plane and tracks its flights; so long as we’re up to nothing criminal in it he tends to let us be, more important faces to punch and all that. We did hope he might be aware of you and give chase this time however,” Jervis explained with a sly, broad grin.

“Plane?” Claire’s mother questioned. “You ain’t even got a passport; how’d they let you on a plane?”

“Private plane,” Claire boasted pleasurably. “Jonathan even knows how t’fly planes! I know he don’t like you but he’s real cool an’ he was nice enough to me in the end. I want him to be my brother proper, though I still don’ know if he’s cool with that.”

He rolled his gaze away uncomfortably before they could look at him with whatever uncomfortably positive emotions they held for him. “...You’re... more tolerable than I first expected. I will admit I am somewhat jealous of your more fortunate upbringing but I shouldn’t have treated you poorly because of that; my behaviour was too similar to the bullies who took their problems out upon me, and I hate that sort of person. You’re blameless in our family’s problems, yet you’ve still put in effort to help prevent them festering any further and even want to attempt to make some good from them for others; I can respect that goal, and you, Claire.” He kept turned away, ignoring what sounded like someone rather skinny and exuberant jumping up and down with joy.

He did turn to his mother after the noise had ceased to speak to her though. “I don’t forgive you. I can accept why you did what you did now, however, knowing you were placed in the same position of fear. You could have done differently so you are still at fault for your action, even if I now acknowledge you are also a victim of the same abuse I suffered. You can’t do anything to change what happened regarding my birth or make those things better now.” Karen dropped her gaze to her fidgeting hands, each trying to smooth over and hide the back of the other but ultimately unable to alone. “All you can do now is to stop it happening again; raise Claire properly, as I should have been raised.”

She stood slightly slack-jawed for a moment, watching him turn away once again but nonetheless remain there silently, as if waiting for an answer. “...O-Of course. I’ve been doin’ my best, b-but...”

Jonathan hummed disdainfully in agreement with that, looking around the present living room. There was little trash but boxes of debatably useful items like coat hangers and empty jam jars occupied the corner, a desperate ‘just in case’ hoarding nothing like the minimalism he could more easily afford. The painted plaster walls were long-faded and scuffed, the hanging stains of damp blotting a couple of upper corners. He particularly looked at a pile of school textbooks on the floor in one corner; their dog-eared state he could attribute to having been passed through many generations of careless teenagers but their arranged state next to a pad of paper and couple of pens suggested the rest played desk for whichever was currently in use instead of any proper form of furnishings. Jonathan sighed. “You never did find the deed to the family estate, did you?”

“N-No,” Karen admitted.

“No, of course you didn’t,” he agreed. “I spent my whole childhood looking for it as well, as I think I told you last time. It wasn’t until a few years after that encounter that I realised where it was, thanks to one of Edward Nygma’s riddles of all things.” He tutted at the shame of needing such help. “It was the most valuable thing Great-Granny owned, the only truly valuable thing. She might have been quite mad but she still wouldn’t have let anyone else ever get their hands on it, and she did so by always keeping it in her own.” He turned to look at his mother as he told her, “She always kept it with her on her person; it’ll still be with her corpse, if it’s survived the weather damage, in the chapel.” He saw the fear grip her instantly too. “If you go fetch it then it’s all yours – But it has to be you that collects it,” Jonathan firmly pointed his thin forefinger into his mother’s chest, leaving the slightest mark on her exposed skin below her neck for a second before the blood returned. “Not Claire; I want you to walk back into that chapel and pry it from her dead hands, and I doubt the crows will have left their hereditary nest anymore than she will have.”

“How you gonna know who does it?” Claire asked, just to be a challenging teenager.

“Oh, I’ll know,” Jonathan assured her. “I’m well practised in reading human psychology, particularly any emotion associated with fear and, thanks to this line of work, deception. I’ll be able to tell if I see you again.”

Claire pouted, obviously torn. She looked to her mother for a decision.

Karen continued to rub at the backs of her hands, trying to hide them from herself all the while she stared straight down at them. “...You... You really think it’ll still be there?” she asked, trying to hedge her way out.

“You won’t know unless you go. You’ll stay stuck here; nothing will change, for you or for Claire.” Jonathan waited a moment but she still couldn’t look up at him stood before her. “...There may be one thing you can do to make amends now: You can show me that people can change,” he told her. “I need to see that.”

Finally his mother dared to look up just slightly at him, peering up with a ducked head through both her eyelashes and unkempt, dyed-black hair. Jonathan needed to turn his eyes slightly away from potential contact but his face was still waiting for her, gaze slipping back to the corners of his eyes to see what her answer would be. “...I’ll try,” Karen said. “I can’t promise anythin’, but I’ll try...”

“I’ll be watching,” Jonathan said.

“You sure you’re okay with us havin’ the deed?” she checked, nerves getting the better of her. “I mean, you’re the one who...”

“If I were to attempt to sell it in my current circumstances I’d require the use of someone like Oswald Cobblepot to act as intermediary, and given my behaviour lately I dread to think what abominably unfair figure he’d set his cut at.”

“...O-Okay then,” Karen agreed.

Jonathan still didn’t seem quite done, or at least he hesitated a moment longer with a deeply uncomfortable tension in his frame. Eventually he exhaled, saying, “The price for such a large area of land ought to be substantial, even despite the poor area. Gotham’s reputation and crime rates has resulted in phenomenally low house prices across the city despite many of the suburb and residential areas being practically unaffected by the criminal goings-on of the downtown and business areas. Considering those two factors you ought to be able to purchase a very good property and some proper furnishings for it,” He kicked at the corner of a chair next to him, watching how the uneven legs wobbled, “even if you get practically next-to-nothing for this place.”

Claire gasped, instantly turning to her mother. “Can we?! I wanna go live in Gotham; it seemed so awesome when I was there! An’ stuff was real cheap in the shops; we’d always be able t’get food!”

While Claire was looking to her, Karen looked to Jonathan. “Are you...? You really wouldn’ mind us comin’ to live there?”

He shrugged, being somewhat deliberately difficult about the whole thing. “If you intend to move to Gotham I’ll leave you my...” He looked around what he could see of the house as he took up a pen and an old newspaper from the floor. “When you said you didn’t have a phone, did you mean you have absolutely no phone here?”

“We can use a phone box, or the people at the library’ll let me use the phone there sometimes,” Claire answered.

Jonathan sighed and wrote out his phone number, tearing it off to hand to Claire. “If you do intend to move Gotham call me. I’ll help you find a safe area of the city with a good high school in which to live.”

Claire stared at it preciously, folding it up very carefully and putting it in a pocket of her dungarees with a few pats to check it was safe in there. “How long’ll it take us to get to Arlen?” she asked her mother. “Can we go today?”

“No we can’t; you got school, girl,” she scolded. “I already had t’come up with excuses for these last four days. You’re goin’ back tomorrow, and you’re gonna pretend you caught a bad stomach bug while you were in the hospital visitin’ me.”

“’kay!” Claire agreed easily, like she had far too much practice at this sort of thing. Adrenaline appeared to have restored her from last night’s exertion for the moment but once the fatigue set in again no doubt it’d only help sell the story more. “You two stayin’ for lunch?” she asked hopefully. “Surely you don’t wanna get back in that plane an’ fly again already when you said it’s so borin’, particularly not on an empty stomach?”

Jervis looked to Jonathan, acknowledging he had ultimate say. “A manipulatively sound argument, isn’t it?”

Jonathan found himself just sighing again, rubbing at the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

“Aw, come on! I wanna show you my room!” Claire enthused, coming over to bounce in front of her big brother. “I collect animal skulls and bones from roadkill an’ I got a real good collection now! I even got a cow skull!”

“From roadkill?”

“’s a big road.”

Jonathan looked plaintively to Jervis, who responded simply by marvelling, “Those half of your genes the two of you share must be entirely dominant ones.”

“Her father did seem like a human being composed entirely of recessive genes...” Jonathan replied dryly. He surrendered to the offer though, supposing they might as well stay for lunch now it was 11:30am. “Ensnared by ‘Southern Hospitality’...”

“Shall I help your mother in the kitchen while you play with Claire?” Jervis asked, taking a little too much delight in it for Jonathan’s liking.

“Fine...” It was simpler just to agree by this point. “This is my boyfriend, Jervis,” he explained to his mother. “You don’t need to pay him any particular mind; he only decided to tag along for all this because he has a poor sense of humour and obviously nothing better to do with his time.”

Jervis huffed at the insults, but he couldn’t resist softening at how casually Jonathan had introduced him as his boyfriend. Karen looked understandably surprised and regarded him with some of the same nervous uncertainty as her son, but he could see a sly smile on Claire’s face as she looked at him, one that looked like a metaphorical thumbs-up at how well this was going, almost like a real family finally.

Of course it wasn’t long until her attention was back entirely on her older brother. Excitably lamenting the rest of the cow she’d wanted to keep too but been unable to drag home as a 9-year-old, “This’s been the best week of my life!” Claire exclaimed as Jonathan let himself be grabbed by the wrist and dragged towards her room.

“If this has been the best week of your life you were right in your initial assessment that it ‘ain’t that good’,” he responded to that.

“Mm, but that’s gonna change now thanks to you! We can move somewhere good an’ I’ll be able t’study all the stuff I want! And I finally got a big brother! I’m gonna come over an’ hang out at yours all the time; I gotta make up for these fourteen years I didn’ get to spend botherin’ you day an’ night, Jonathan!” she told him, practically a warning.

“Oh joy...” he said, literally digging his heels into the threadbare carpet just to be difficult.

“I don’ hear you sayin’ no,” Claire mentioned cunningly. Jonathan pulled the most petulant, childish face just like a teenager too. “You’re gonna be one ‘a those mean, protective big brothers who’s like, “No one hurts or teases my little sibling ‘cept me,” I just know it.”

Jonathan turned to Jervis on his way out, disdainfully appealing, “Why did you have to bring her home...?”

Jervis chuckled, watching as Jonathan disappeared beyond the doorframe of Claire’s bedroom, their mother looking on at the two of them with an uncertainty that had the first buds of fondness in it. “’First she dreamt of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright, eager eyes were looking up into hers. Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood,’” he murmured to himself, content just to watch on from the sides. “She simply reminded me too much of a certain someone, Jonathan.”

Chapter Text

Four years ago, shortly after first meeting...

“I’ll wash up,” Jonathan said, trying to collect both sets of cups to take to the sink.

Jervis’ hands batted him away though, “Oh please. You did half the cooking tonight; I’ll help.”

Well, Jonathan wasn’t exactly going to argue with getting back to his research quicker.

He might, however, argue with Jervis using the chance to commandeer the stereo – Not Jonathan’s stereo, just the one that had been left in the house when he ‘moved in’. The previous inhabitants had fine taste, and apparently far too much money for luxuries – and plug in his phone. Yet to properly learn Jervis’ taste in music, Jonathan didn’t know the song but it was above tolerable at least.

Jervis took up the gloves and position at the sink, rolling up his sleeves and setting the tap running.

As Jonathan stood by with the tea towel watching, “I’m going to get you one of those little box steps to stand on,” he said once again, smiling in amusement at the rather large gloves on Jervis’ small hands.

“You do and I’ll bite your kneecaps,” Jervis bit back sharply, earning a chuckle at the little display of fluffed feathers. “Honestly, I’m not a child. I don’t need a box step to reach the sink.”

In fairness, Jervis could reach into the sink easily – The kitchen counter only came up to his stomach in height – but still. “I can’t even remember being as short as you are.” Jervis shot him another narrow-eyed look. “I must have been... 8? 9? When I was 4’11”.”

After another of those glances to ‘watch it, mate,’ Jervis simply got on with the washing up.

Jonathan, delighted in his own mischief, appreciated Jervis’ music as he waited for the first wet items to be passed along to dry.

After the first crockery was done, when they had moved onto the cutlery still in conversational silence under the music, in bored moments looking across to check the next thing Jervis was washing Jonathan noticed it once again, Jervis’ lips moving without noise. No doubt the doctors at Arkham would think it some dangerous sign, or else pity poor Jervis talking and repeating things to himself. But watching closer had revealed Jervis was simply mouthing along to his music. Still, for all that was fine, it did beg one question of, “Not a good singer?”

Jervis startled, mouth stopping and making a sheepish ‘ahh’ sound as he dabbed his tongue at his lips. “No, quite good actually,” he said. “I can’t sing though.”

“Can’t?”

“Romani tradition,” Jervis explained a little despondently. “When someone we love dies we give up something they loved to symbolise the loss concretely. You’ll have noticed I always give the pieces of pear in my fruit salad at Arkham to you or Edward; I gave them up when my grandmother died.” He paused a moment, gathering the best way to put, “Singing was what I gave up when my father... left us. He used to love listening to me sing and teaching me songs.”

“Oh.” Jonathan focused on the knives and forks in his hands, the simplicity of wiping them clean and putting them then away. “I understand. I don’t know what to say but...”

“Nothing needs to be said. Thank you,” Jervis reassured him, focusing on the washing up as well. He did sigh though, “I do wish I could sing again,” casting a fond look at the stereo. Jonathan also did, although less charitably, leading Jervis to say, “Do you have some sort of problem with my choice in music?”

“It’s very...” Jonathan’s brain picked through to the safety of, “you.”

Jervis pursed his face again, “’But the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker.’” Tutting, “I like music by female artists or people of colour; it resonates more with me.” While Jonathan still had his mouth closed in a smirk of amusement, “Go on back to your indie rock, emo white boy music. Honestly. If we’re going to get into musical tastes...” Well, he left it there, his tone saying enough.

Now Jonathan was the one to narrow his eyes, but with the washing up nearly done he merely left the scuffle be for another evening.

~#~

Present...

Jervis cast a glance away from his book as Jonathan climbed into bed beside him, returning once he had established there was no problem to attend to.

Jonathan shuffled over, peering into the pages – The Hunting of the Snark – before sitting back against the pillows. Jervis’ gaze briefly moved in his direction a few times as they continued to simply sit quietly like that, until eventually Jonathan felt sufficient preparation time had been given for, “Did you want to go and look for your father then?”

Staring at the poem a moment longer, Jervis gave up the facade he was reading it anymore and shut the book on his lap. “If you must suffer the infliction of your family once again, so must I?” he said dryly, noting the tug of amusement at Jonathan’s lips. “I expected you to say that or its like about the matter.”

Jonathan acknowledged that with an incline of his head, but he notably didn’t say that. “If it’s too uncomfortable we can leave it; I am sure we will have plenty of family for whatever purposes we might find necessary once my mother and sister move up here.”

Jervis sighed almost miserably, setting aside the book on his bedside table. Trying to decide the matter, “’”Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”’” he ultimately deferred in a plea.

“Why don’t you want to meet with him again?” Jonathan simply asked, falling back into his psychologist habits if that was what was necessary.

“...What if it’s poor news?” Jervis said, fretting his hands together.

“If he’s dead or such?”

“If I... Were I to... I’d be able to sing again,” Jervis anxiously said. “But what if I find out I’m no good anymore? If, after all this time and... such that’s passed... I might not be any...”

“You were a good singer back then, yes? That could just as well have continued to this day,” Jonathan said, entertaining the defensive tangent if it was necessary for Jervis. Seeing no response, even physically, to what he had said though, “What would hurt more: To go the rest of your life without the joy reuniting could bring, or to find out your father no longer loves you?”

Rattled Jonathan had so openly called his bluff, “I... Perhaps I’ll sleep on it,” Jervis demurred, casting his gaze aside and turning the remaining bedside light off before he could be stopped.

Jonathan settled down in that case without further comment, simply waiting.

After five minutes in the dark, “...It doesn’t really solve these things, does it? Sleeping on them,” Jervis said, squirming a bit beneath the covers to face his partner. Since Jonathan only met him with that psychologist’s patient silence once again, driven after a further minute to self-frustration, “...What’s a little more pain in my life, I suppose?” Jervis said with a sigh.

“You want to go?”

“If you’re going to silently guilt me into it like that, very well,” Jervis sulked across the pillows.

“Me?” Jonathan answered innocently. “I did nothing. You must have guilted yourself into anything you’ve decided.”

“Bloody, little...”

As amusing as Jervis trailing off into some very British swearing was, “There is no need to do this if it’s truly not what you want to, Jervis,” Jonathan said, moving a little closer and gently sliding an arm around Jervis’ waist. “I could have very happily gone without making contact with my family ever again in my life, despite being now glad it has happened. You will not be unhappy if you don’t, unless the curiosity is that necessary to sate. I don’t believe it is my place to encourage you in either direction.”

Jervis shook his head against the crook of Jonathan’s shoulder. “You simply gave me space to force me to express and have reflected back my actual feelings; the jabbering Arkham doctors really could learn a thing or two from you.” Though he enjoyed the feeling of Jonathan preening beneath him, “I could, yes... But I want to hope too badly,” he said slowly. “’”And a child’s more important than a joke, I hope.”’”

“I would anticipate it should be a good reunion, Jervis,” Jonathan offered, “given you are very much still the child he once knew all that time ago.”

Jervis at least laughed at what could have been a tragically truthful evaluation.

No more was said, leaving Jonathan to simply wonder and suppose Jervis was sleeping on it after all.

~#~

The next morning came without answer or even discussion of the topic. 

As did bed again the next night.

Right about when Jonathan had begun to believe Jervis had deliberately forgotten about the matter, “I suppose our first port of call would be Edward, to find my father’s address?” Jervis said as he climbed into bed, settling thoughtfully against the pillows.

Only glancing aside from the riveting description of two ghost-hunters who’d managed to mutually scare each other to literal death presuming the other the ghost they were hunting, “We’re going?” Jonathan asked.

“I think so. Yes. Most likely.” Sighing lightly, “’”So young a child ought to know which way she’s going, even if she doesn’t know her own name!”’”

“We’ll see what Edward can find,” Jonathan said, chuckling away at the frightful stupidity of some humans as he returned to his book.

~#~

The following afternoon, dropping by so soon at Edward’s main hideout, “I can’t always be available when you two need some spice for your love life,” Edward teased dryly, leading them into his study nonetheless.

“Like you weren’t the one begging last week,” Jonathan dismissed, preferring to simply get onto the matter of, “Jervis needs you to find records for someone.”

“What sort of records are we looking for?” Edward asked functionally, waking his computer with a swipe over the touchpad mouse.

“An address hopefully,” Jervis said. “Or perhaps a death certificate.”

“Well, let’s hope they’re dead; death certificates are far easier to find,” Edward mentioned distractedly as he pulled up some bookmarks. “So what do we have to go on?”

“He’s my father.”

Edward paused with hands lifted off the keyboard, turning and pointing to Jonathan, “If you’d led with that I wouldn’t have said something insensitive.”

“Oh yes, everything in the world is someone else’s fault, Edward,” Jonathan agreed in withering placation. “You might want to look in England’s voting registry for this,” he said, noting the current website open.

“I haven’t had to look for anyone in the UK before- Well, only some fleeing contacts of Oswald’s but no one actually settled there- Full name? Last known address? Date of birth?” Edward turned to Jervis to start.

“Leander Boromatchka Tetch.” Knowing he’d have to spell that middle name, and the subsequent address he delivered given Americans and their complete inability to understand a house number lower than 100, it took a while before they could stand back and watch Edward get to work.

“What does his middle name mean?” Jonathan asked to pass the time.

Jervis began motioning something large-ish with his hands, finding the words, “A large or great cat; my grandmother meant a lion but there’s not a specific word for that. Our middle names may not be the most elegant but...” He shrugged. “The preservation of culture against the onslaught of the white man and all that.” Jonathan pointed at himself. “Yes, you count, you pasty Christian.”

While Jonathan smirked at the insult, “What sort of databases should I be looking for in England?” Edward interrupted. “You don’t have Social Security, do you?”

“We call it National Insurance, but I really don’t think it’ll be all that helpful; I barely remember one instance of using mine.” After a moment of thought, “The electoral roll perhaps? Oh! Or the NHS; our health service is horrendously backwards when it comes to technology, probably the easiest to hack. I recall our old GP practice, and it’ll have records of wherever he moved to when he registered with a new GP.”

“So much for your glorious national health care system,” Jonathan said as they waited and watched once more as Edward took the details from Jervis and got to work.

“What was that, dear? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of not having to pay to call an ambulance to save your life and all the diabetics not dying or going bankrupt thanks to free insulin, among many other things,” Jervis parried back.

Jonathan inclined his head, unable to really disagree with that.

“You were right about their computer systems,” Edward spoke up, flicking through pages of poorly formatted information and low-resolution scans. “This isn’t even hard at all... Hmm... He’s still registered at the same place.”

“What?” Jervis leant in, reading where Edward pointed. “Oh. I suppose he never did like doctors. Perhaps he didn’t register at a new one... or he might have...”

Seeing how small and concerned Jervis had suddenly become, “Died?” Jonathan offered if someone else needed to say it.

“It was... She was the one who said he ran away,” Jervis fretted, almost crumpling with the horror of that thought that, “She did try to kill me. She might well have-”

“For God’s sake, they make the ‘last visit’ too hard to find,” Edward cut in with a tut. “There were go,” He pointed demonstrably by circling it with his mouse; “as of two years ago at least he was alive, and had an ear infection.” Scrolling up and down over the jumbled information, “It even has his address in here, where just anyone can hack in,” he said as he leant aside to let the Englishman make sense of it.

“That’s right near where I went to school,” Jervis recognised. “He stayed so close...?”

“Touching, or creepy?” Edward put to Jonathan, who didn’t rise to the joke. “Let’s see what Google Maps says...”

Jervis stepped back as a number more tabs were opened, “He was that close all that time...” letting his hands curl up around each other before his chest. “Why did he never...?”

“Do you want to go ask him?” Jonathan suggested.

Jervis nodded slowly, for a long and pensive moment.

There were the technicalities to work out after that, how to get there and such, but despite the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean England suddenly seemed so close once again.

~#~

“Recognise anything yet?” Jonathan asked once again.

“It’s not like I ever saw the place from above in all those years,” Jervis tutted, peering out the windscreen of their small airplane at the irregularly shaped fields cut by small country roads below. “Where’s the Arrow? Do you see a river?”

“Is that it?”

“That’s a dual-carriageway, dear; it’s a road.” Checking his phone again, “Oh, hang on now. That’s the A435; we’ve gone too far.” Jonathan made a noise of contempt at his navigator. “Swing round to the left. That wood over there’s where we’re landing.”

“That?” Jonathan could see the mass of high trees on their left but, “It looked a lot clearer on the map.”

“Well, that’s the wood. Do you want to land there, or somewhere everyone and their dog will notice us?”

“Like they won’t notice the massive plane crash we’re about to have,” Jonathan said as he brought the plane round in a wide arc over the farmed fields below, staying high as he spotted that empty clearing and the dirt track within that would serve as sufficient runway in the wood’s centre. “Stay quiet.”

Jervis sat himself down and buckled up, although all it would likely do was prevent him from escaping the burning wreckage of their crash as quickly.

The treetops peeked into their field of vision as they descended further, just barely clearing them in the pursuit of getting down as quickly as possible once clear. It was almost like going off a cliff edge as Jonathan suddenly plunged the plane down into the empty space, getting the wheels down on the ground fast and taking a little delight in Jervis’ fearful exclamations about the whole thing. The enjoyment was cut short though by, “Shit!” having to verve sharply to one side. “There’s a tree in the middle of the track!”

“A tree? In the middle of a wood? Never!” Jervis mocked dryly as he picked himself back up from where he’d been tossed sideways in his seat.

“I don’t think we hit it,” Jonathan commented as they taxied to a stop, his attention casting over the plane’s instruments. “I’d best get out and check, see if we need to exchange insurance.” He cast a gaze over at Jervis as he got up, glad to see an appreciative smile in the brief moment before he headed out of the plane and jumped down to the rough, dirt of the clearing below.

They had missed the tree, although just barely by the looks of it. Jonathan couldn’t fault Jervis for remaining in a plane a while longer to gather himself, emerging a few minutes later with a rather dusty bump as he dropped to the floor.

“I’m surprised we didn’t lose both our luggage and our lunches with that landing,” Jervis joked, but he stood with arms tightly folded and hands nervously fretting, staring off in the direction they were now to head.

“Still better than flying Spirit Airlines,” Jonathan said as he joined him, casting another glance over Jervis. The body language was worrying, but he was still making jokes at least even this far into the journey. Reaching out tentatively, Jonathan decided again and retracted his hand, simply walking forward in the right direction to leave the wood. “Come on then.”

“Oh... Yes,” Jervis agreed, focusing on following Jonathan so he wouldn’t be left behind all alone.

Heading east, there was only one small cottage to skirt around to stay concealed, then a long south-east trek along the edges of arable fields to a road crossing. Aside from Jonathan’s brief pause on the bridge above the dual-carriageway to facetiously marvel at so many people driving on the left side of a road, it was a quick crossing onto the final pedestrian path that led down onto Allimore Lane.

“A ‘lane’,” Jonathan remarked down the thin, field-lined stretch of poorly-maintained road; “I haven’t enjoyed this level of quaintness since leaving Georgia.”

“Just a little further now,” Jervis said in nervous focus, counting off the gates they were passing against Google Maps.

“This place has a pet horse.” Jonathan took a moment to walk up to the fence edge, trying to coo to the chestnut horse in the rough patch beside an allotment. It regarded him warily, as it was probably right to do, remaining at a distance. “A pony by the looks of it, or an easy keeper at least.”

“This is the place.”

Jonathan looked round in equal surprise. “This is your father’s pony?” He looked again at the smallish, rather cute- Yes, it could be a good animal substitute for Jervis.

“He always did like horses,” Jervis murmured in thought, looking up at the small cottage that was so close now.

Well, Jonathan could walk up to the front door and let Jervis simply follow him once again but at that point came the time to step aside. He could keep watch that no one was around at least, this area being extremely quiet at this time even in the mid-afternoon. But Jervis was the one stood before the front door, trying to lift his clenched, little fist to knock. He looked to Jonathan for courage, yet it was perhaps shame with which he finally managed to knock lightly just twice on the door.

A good minute of waiting though, “We came when he’s not home?” Jonathan baulked, having not actually considered that perfectly logical possibility.

Jervis simply hummed though, steeling himself up with a firmer expression this time as he tried something different and gave the door three rapid kicks in a different form of knocking. “That was always what I did when I got home from school. I wonder if he’d even still...” He bit his lip, tight with anxiety.

“Great-Granny would have skinned me alive for kicking on our-”

Jonathan fell instantly silent at the creak, the door opening a small crack for a second, then fully. A sight verging on peculiarly incredible, there stood a man every bit Jervis’ double aged a couple decades, though without the notable overbite or unusually short height.

Watching Jervis with more concern, the anxiety went nowhere, instead setting him trembling even as hopeful shock graced his face. Stammering dryly as his fretting fingers slipped and caught on one another, “Sa-Sarishan, Da-”

Ridiculously fast, Jervis had been swept clean off his feet and up into the other man’s arms, being held almost like a baby with feet dangling a good foot of the ground when his father finally pulled back to say, “Mandi’s atrash tute’s a bengi but if it dells mandi minno kamli chavo jivaben...” (“I’m afraid you’re a devil but if it gives me my dear son again...”)

“I-It’s me...” Jervis said, not quite daring to let his hands relax or lift his gaze and make contact yet. “Mandi’s acai...” (“I’m here...”)

“Tute’s kushti?” (“Are you well?”)

Jervis stilled, eyes still downcast. Clenching his hands together around each other, “Is that all you ask, after all this time?”

Leander took in Jervis’ strained, near-emotional tone, but, “Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to ask,” he simply said. Bucking up the almost dejected-looking Jervis in his arms, “There’s time for everything we need to worry about later,” he said.

Daring to lift his gaze from under the flopping pieces of his blond hair, Jervis opened his mouth slightly before simply letting himself relent finally to such plain wisdom.

“Come on, come in,” Leander continued, deciding the matter anyway by carrying Jervis in with him as he returned to the house.

Jonathan followed as a silent observer, watching as Jervis was only finally allowed back on his feet inside the kitchen of the small cottage where he was urged into a seat for the apparently hereditary insistence on a cup of tea while they discussed things. Seating himself beside Jervis, Jonathan inclined his head in an attempt at inquiry into the fretful and uncomfortable expression that seemed so out-of-place in this reunion. Jervis barely even seemed to notice him though, gaze instead taking in the whole new kitchen and its furnishings with an almost ghost-like quality.

The silence was uncomfortable, not the easy kind at their home in Gotham or that a family should have. The brewing tea had Leander standing uncomfortably by the counter, watching the son that seemed to be making a point of not looking directly at him.

Jonathan hated the fact he couldn’t avoid clearing his throat lightly, drawing the uneasy attention in the room to him.

“A-Ah,” Jervis realised, gesturing, “this is Jonathan-”

“Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow,” Leander knew, waving Jervis need not bother.

Jervis drew up into himself again, small and horrified. “Y-You... You know about...?”

“I learnt how to use those computers down the library,” Leander said, scratching at his silver hair. “You’ve certainly made it easy to keep up with you, chavo.”

Jervis wilted into his seat, tucking his hands in his lap to fidget futilely. “I... I...” he trailed off, at a loss.

“It’s not your fault, Jervis; you inherited it from her.” Still as tense, Jervis rubbed at the old scars on his neck. “You’re still a good person.”

That Jervis had to snort scornfully at. “I’m not. ‘”No, not in all the History of England.”’”

“You have times when you regret and care about those you’ve hurt, don’t you?” Jervis did eventually allow himself to nod to that. “A good person has bad moments. But a bad person doesn’t have good moments,” Leander said sagely, or affecting a tone as such at least. “She never had good moments where she cared about what she’d done.”

Unconvinced, Jervis merely lowered his head to stare no higher than his lap again.

Glancing at the tea, Leander hesitated but ultimately left the room. The other two remained, Jonathan leaning over in an attempt to see what was coming while Jervis meekly lifted his head only slightly in acknowledgement.

Eventually, and with effort, Leander returned with a wooden chest in his arms he set down on the floor beside Jervis, the thing coming up to nearly the height of the chair’s seat. Jervis looked, but made no move to open it. Leander pushed it forward towards him, eventually opening it himself when Jervis wouldn’t dare.

The vibrant inside was full of packages, wrapped presents, easily over two dozen.

Looking once at his father, Jervis dared to reach in and pick one out, finding it was labelled for his 32^nd birthday. Another was for his 16^th birthday, another for successfully graduating university- “You...? Why did you...?”

“Well, I couldn’t give them to you,” Leander said.

“No, why did you...?” His fingernail ran along the edge of the current present in his hands, curiously eager but still too afraid. “...I didn’t get you presents,” he settled for admitting miserably.

Jonathan reached across, trying to take the present from Jervis to open himself only to have his hand slapped away for ruining the moment.

“You’re the child; you don’t need to,” Leander reassured him with a chuckle, moving to deal with the tea. He cast an eye over his shoulder though, seeing Jervis sifting through and examining the labels as if searching. Bringing Jervis’ and Jonathan’s tea over first, he was there when-

“‘Congratulations on your first breakout from Arkham!’?” Jervis exclaimed of one small present he’d found.

“I definitely deserve that one; I broke you out,” Jonathan said, reaching over only to again be slapped away.

“Sturaben’s bongo for a Rom.” (“Prison’s wrong for a Romani.”)

A smile played on Jervis’ face again. “It is...” Falling quiet, he eventually set the present back in the chest with the others, sat sideways on his chair facing it with hands folded meekly in his lap. “’”He’s in prison now, being punished, and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday, and of course the crime comes last of all.”’”

“Hmm? Ah... you might need the help but you don’t deserve the punishment, Jervis,” his father translated with an ease comparable to even Jonathan’s. “Even you still deserve to be happy. Isn’t that why you came to find me again- Or...” he suddenly supposed hesitantly, “why did you finally come?”

Jervis opened his mouth- “You’re going to do that Mouse quote about it being a ‘long tail’,” Jonathan cut in first, “and knowing him he’ll probably reply with that ‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end part’,” he said of Leander. “Just get to it.”

With a put-out pout, Jervis nonetheless explained, “We annoyed one of the mafia bosses in Gotham. They targeted Jonathan’s estranged family, and his half-sister came all the way to us for aid. The situation with Jonathan’s mother somewhat mirrors yours and mine, so...” He gestured vaguely. “It was Jonathan’s encouragement. I... I wanted to for the longest time, but I was simply too scared.” Jervis shrunk up again, in shame and guilt this time.

Leander chuckled. “I was too scared to ever go to you either.”

“Well, I can hardly blame you with the city I live in,” Jervis said, shooting a glance back at Jonathan who was simply taking an amused delight in observing all this while sipping his tea. “Sor avocat beshs...” (“All these years...”)

“Sa kenna?” (“What now?”)

“Sa tute kom kair kenna?” (“What do you want to do now?”)

“Mandi rakker... tikno Rommanis,” (“I speak... a little Anglo-Romani,”) Jonathan interrupted haltingly.

The amused one now, “Sorry, I shared a little with Jonathan and Edward,” Jervis said, finally taking up his own tea to drink. “There’s really no need to excuse him anyway; we have no secrets.”

“Then where are you hiding my hot chocolate powder?” Jonathan had to ask.

“You’re not having it back! You’d drink nothing else!”

“In that case I ought to hide your teabags.”

Fondly smiling at the bickering couple, “You still speak it, our tongue,” Leander said to Jervis.

Halting the play-argument there, “She tried to stop me, and I forgot quite a number of words... I-I tried to...”

“Avo, mandi’s nashered lavs, kek yomming waver rakkermengro.” (“Yes, I’ve forgotten words, not having another speaker.”)

“They try to discourage me from it at Arkham, you know. They say a culture that applauds cunning shouldn’t be celebrated.” He made a sharp tut only a true Brit could. “They’ll take our stories and our words but they don’t want the rest, that’s what I always tell them!”

“Ah, I hate to think of you in such places. Stay here,” Leander entreated, moving his gaze to Jonathan as well to signal he was also welcome. “I can hide you away. And no one would recognise you around-”

“I... I would like to stay here,” Jervis said, looking around not just the home of his father’s but also England in general. “But all of our friends and research are in Gotham. And Jonathan’s sister and mother are moving up to live there. I can’t...” Seeing how willingly his father relented to let his son do as he wanted, “You could move to Gotham! I know it’s hardly the safest location- Oh, and we’d have to deal with immigration for you...”

“A city?”

“It is a hard change after life out here,” Jervis admitted, tone beginning to droop as he grew realistic. “I’m sorry. I know that it would be too much. It’s just that- Oh, why must we still be so far apart after getting back together?” he huffed.

But Leander took a moment to judge the matter more slowly. “...A man can get away with almost anything in Gotham, can’t he?” he finally said instead, earning a mild snort from Jonathan and comment about how related two people could get. “I may hate the urban aspect but it sounds to have its benefits as well.”

Jervis pulled a scandalised face before sighing. “Memories do tend to idolise, I suppose...”

“Tikno bengi,” (“Little devil...”) Leander tutted. “Think I could get a grai there?”

Jervis turned to Jonathan. “There’s no horse-riding criminal who’s had them outlawed or the like, correct?”

“There was some farming-based one a few years back, a father and daughter,” he answered, Jervis murmuring he remembered, “but they were a single flash in the pan. I shouldn’t think there’s any especial laws concerning horses in Gotham.”

“Good. They never can work out how to ticket her, no matter where I park. No fines, road tax or insurance for years thanks to her,” Leander boasted gladly.

“You ride her around town?” Jonathan asked.

Jervis more importantly addressed, “I’m not sure that’s how horses work legally.”

But his father only shrugged. “No licence plate, no crime. And I’d like to see them try and attach one to Kushni.”

“I can’t bring you to Gotham,” Jervis groaned; “you’re going to get yourself arrested and end up in Arkham with me...”

“If I have to suffer my eccentric family then so do you,” Jonathan said, sharing only a smirk and no sympathy.

“Are you going to open your presents?” Leander switched to eagerly encourage, probably more excited about seeing them opened than Jervis. “And you have to let me cook again for you! You’ll be staying the night as well, both of you- Oh, if you teach me how to use your cards I can come and break you out of Arkham whenever you get caught!”

Sighing as his father began bustling around in glee, “’”How queer it seems,” Alice said to herself, “to be going messages for a rabbit!”’” Jervis said fondly, easily falling back into the rhythm of his child-like father’s entreaties and mischief.

~#~

“Do you want this under their real names or an alias?”

“The different surname should be enough that no one will make an immediate connection,” Jonathan said, though immediately bit down on his lip as he struggled through the process of calculating the possible reactions of all those normal, irrational civilians out there. What if their connection was discovered? Was there a point hiding it anyway when he and his sister looked so alike? If it was found out the legal issues be easier without an alias, wouldn’t they?

“You’re not the only ‘Crane’ in this city,” Edward commented over the sound of rapid typing.

“Somehow I don’t doubt you’re the only ‘Nygma’.”

Edward tutted arrogantly. “A few fans of mine appear to have changed their names in worship.”

“Are you-? No, as an expert in human psychology I can imagine,” Jonathan sighed lightly. “But did you really just say ‘worship’?”

“Did I just say ‘worship’?!” Edward exclaimed in a very high-arching voice. “This from ‘sing hosannas of fear and terror as you cower before the almighty God of Fear’?!”

Well, that wasn’t unfair.

“Tsar of Terror.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes up briefly.

“Pharaoh of Phobias.”

“Enough.”

“No, no – This is fun! Highness of Horror.”

“Edward-”

“Prince of Panic.”

“Edward.”

“All right, all right,” Edward surrendered. “...Caliphate of Concern. I’ve submitted the transaction that will put the house in your mother’s name,” he hurried on. “It’ll take a little time to clear, but should be done by the time they arrive.”

“Thank you.”

“Was Claire’s school transfer request accepted?”

“Yes, hardly surprisingly with the low student numbers around here.”

“Gotham’s just not a family city like it used to be anymore,” Edward said with a faux-nostalgia. “Although who knows? With the Bat training his little batlings to take over from him and now your sister already making waves in the world of crime...”

Jonathan made a very small, laugh-like noise. “I did intend to discourage Claire from our lifestyle but it seems that...” His office chair made the smallest noise as he turned around in it, trailing off.

“Hm? Jonathan?”

Snapping back to attention after a moment, “Lunch appears to be ready. I have to go.”

“Just so you know, I’m adding Claire to the rogues’ group chat so she can embarrass you~!” Edward happily informed him in that case.

“What? We never agreed to-!”

“Byeeee~!”

Frowning down at the phone in his hand as ‘Call Ended’ came up, Jonathan shook his head and tossed it down on his study’s desk anyway.

Jervis hadn’t called lunch, must have only just started from the sound vegetables being chopped. It sounded strange though, the music Jonathan could hear playing; he recognised the song but...

Making his way quietly down the stairs just in case he might otherwise disturb this, Jonathan came to the doorway of the kitchen with slow and careful curiosity.

Jervis was stood at the counter, chopping away, and singing along with his music.

Jervis was singing.

It was hardly a full performance, more distracted self-amusement at a medium volume in a gentle and ever-so-slightly unsteady voice still. Almost nervous, Jervis didn’t seem to be quite daring to open his voice back up to a fully vulnerable and exposed state yet but...

Done with the carrots, Jervis turned to carry them to the steamer ready and caught Jonathan with one eye.

Jonathan could understand him falling silent again now he knew he was observed but, “You’re a good singer.”

His whole being lifted with a new smile. “Thank you,” Jervis accepted despite his uncertainties. “It... I’m glad I can still sing well, even after all this time.”

“As am I,” Jonathan agreed, merely observing fondly.