Chapter Text
You were ten years old the first time I opened my eyes and didn’t find the curved sheen of glass standing between me and the world.
Now, things get a little fuzzy here. I wasn’t quite all there, you see, at that point. Not quite as young and spry and springy as my brain-sponge used to be, especially after all those long, long years I spent just dangling from my lonely lamppost, out in the desert. The meds they used to put me under for the procedure, I think they scrambled me more than anyone anticipated. Took me a precious moment to even realize I was registering things, and then I had trouble focusing on more than one thing at a time. So, many of the finer points of that moment escape me.
But some things. Some things I remember just fine.
Like the blinking. I remember blinking a lot, ‘cause the light above the operating table was so stark, so bright in my face, that it hurt my eyes.
And I think that’s how I first knew it worked.
The hurt, now — that wasn’t new. My eyes could never handle brightness very well ever since my swan dive at Ace. But the intensity of it is what did me in. That was new, and took me completely by surprise. You see, I got so used to the glass of my jar acting like a filter. Muting the colors around me just a bit, dimming them, especially when it hadn’t been cleaned for a while and the dust and grime and dirt and such blurred everything even more. And suddenly, it wasn’t there anymore, and it’s a bit like, okay, imagine that you spent twenty years in a car, and never once got out, not even for a pee, and only got to see the world through the windows, and then suddenly you stop, and you open the door, and you get out. And then the world looks all different, all stark and crisp and sharp, and you go, wow, and then you go, ow.
Not the best metaphor, I know. But I can’t describe it any better than that.
Maybe I’ll try again in a poem, someday.
Anyway, I also remember the moment I first realized that the skin on my face was cold. That’s another thing I hadn’t experienced in twenty years, and it felt brand new and so, so strange, and that was just the beginning, because then — ha!
Then I took a breath.
Now, you must understand, kiddo, I didn’t breathe before. I’m not quite clear on how the butler did it, he never bothered to explain it to me of course, but he found a way to pump filtered air directly into my brain through tubes and wires and suchlike. My jar was always, always the same temperature on the inside, rain or shine, to the point where I forgot what it felt like to breathe. Or to be cold, or hot, or wind-whipped. None of that old mundaney vulgar flesh stuff for ol’ Jokey Boy in his little jar.
Except, I was breathing now. (Then.) For the first time in years. The way I registered it, back then, is how I think some of the aliens that came down on us must have felt in their first moments — disoriented, and maybe even a little grossed out.
Not that I was. The air didn’t exactly feel, or taste, like anything.
It just… was. And that, on its own, made me cry.
Or maybe it was the brightness in my eyes. I don’t know. Could be both. Probably was. Not that it matters. Back then, in that moment, either one of them would have done the trick.
In any case, I remember blinking and my eyelids coming away wet, the odd sticky trail of the tears spilling down my cheeks that’s yet another sensation I forgot and didn’t know how to handle, and I remember gasping, and — that’s just the silliest thing — choking on the first breath I took.
In my defense, it was just so startling. So new, though, yeah, I know it shouldn’t be. After all, I’d been doing it for years before the world died! Hadn’t I? And then I just — forgot. Strange, I know, but it still happened, and that first gulp of air? Oh man, kid, it startled me so much that I had no idea what to do with it, where it’d go. And instead of making me remember my old life, it only made me flash right back to the zigzagging fracture lines on the glass of my jar when he’d stepped on it, the crash of it breaking, the glass in my skin, the blood, the pain, and him, so wrong and broken and twisted and dead in all the ways that counted, his foot coming down on me again and again and again and
(But he’s dead now. And I’m here. And that’s that.)
Anyway, that’s when he got close. Not he-he. (Ha-ha.) Your dad. The real one. He called my name, ever so softly, and that, his voice, his beautiful voice, already helped a bunch with the red panicky-flutter that was beginning to choke me up.
And then he got close, and blocked out the light with his warm shadow falling over my hurting eyes just where I was seeing the other one looming over me, about to kill.
Him, now. Your dad.
Batsy.
It won’t surprise you to learn that I remember him best of all.
“Joker,” he said. Not touching me, quite yet.
But I could tell he wanted to.
His eyes were so blue. So startling and glossy and bright without the jar’s glassy smudge in the way. Just like I remembered them from before, and it felt a bit like old me looking at old him just then, except in a good way. All the time between then and now sieving out the bad things, leaving out the hate and hurt and cruelty, keeping nothing but fondness and longing and love. Made me go all cottony-light. All floaty. And it was like that first stab of panic never happened, because, just then, in that moment, those eyes were everything that existed for me, and then I knew, with everything that I am, that everything was all right, and would always be as long as he was there to look at me.
He always did have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, with or without the cowl. Seeing them so clearly then, for the first time in years, was like looking at the sky except so much better, and it made me fall in love with him all over again in that single moment, so much so that it wasn’t just the air I was choking on, anymore.
(Not that I ever stopped loving him, not even for a second. But still.)
(You’ll understand when you’re older.)
I tried to answer. It took me a moment to get it right — I think the connections between what’s left of my real larynx and vocal chords, and the new plasticky-metallic neural networks they built for me from the ground up, needed a moment to jumpstart. Bit like a brand new engine out on a test drive.
(Again with the car analogies. It’s too much. I hear ya. I’ll try to think of something more poetic for the next one.)
Anyway, I think I managed to answer on the third try, and my voice came out as my own. No distortions, no changes, no roboticness. Just some hoarseness, but that’s only to be expected under the circumstances. I think that helped soothe him some. But your dad wouldn't be your dad if he didn't worry, so worry he did, peering down on me with those crease lines digging trenches between his brows, shooting right through the middle of his broad, stern forehead.
Those lines. The ones I’d always wanted to kiss away, and never could.
Now, though. Now, there was no more glass in the way, and no more life-or-death games holding us back, either. All those barriers that we both thought meant safety but that only meant loneliness in the end, stripped away. Looking up at him, still reeling from too much air to my brain all too soon making me woozy, I think realizing that was the moment that finally made it real for me. What happened. What we’ve done.
And what it meant for us.
He asked me to try and move. To see if the neural connections worked. Test things out. I’m not quite sure what he said, exactly, not verbatim — I mostly just remember how he sounded saying it. So level and tight, so controlled, in that way he gets when he’s trying his damn hardest to keep things clinical because if he doesn’t, he’ll fall apart.
He does that a lot. But then, you know that better than most.
It was mostly to appease him, to stop the worst of his brain critters, that I thought to myself, Let’s see if I can move my pinky. And, that’s just the funniest thing, the moment I did, I promise I could feel the thought turning into a little nugget of an electric impulse, and then blitzing down the tubes and wires and circuitry like a —
Okay. Not a car. Let’s say a teeny tiny bullet train. Those are faster, aren’t they? I’ve never actually ridden one. Would be fun, though, wouldn’t it, kid? Maybe we should build one and hop for a ride one of these days. Cross another thing off the ol’ bucket list. Sky’s the limit.
Anyway.
I moved the pinky. Then the thumb, and then each of the fingers, one by one. And it was so easy, so smooth and quick and light, especially after years of lumbering around in my beautiful clunky old-school Robin suit, it kind of startled me. I think I laughed a bit too loud. Scared Papa Bat, and maybe scared you, too.
(I’m sorry if I did.)
But, y’see, it was intoxicating, to suddenly be able to move like I used to. Thought-response. Thought-response. Quick as lightning, like a snap of my fingers. Amazing. Sure, my Robin suit did that too, but not like this, never this quick and light, not like an actual body, and before I knew it I was drunk on it, and laughing, and trying to get up.
Yeah, I know. Too much too fast. Same old story. My bad. But you can’t blame me, now, can you? Spend ten years as a head in a jar, then another ten in a heavy clunky (though admittedly awesome) robot suit, and then get a sleek new state-of-the-art miracle sci-fi android body that works almost the same as your old human body did, except so much better. And then get back to me.
Anyway.
So here I was, newly flexible, newly mobile, sitting up without any difficulty, feeling both heavy and light. Again — it was strange. All of it. The different weight distribution, the fact that I no longer had to compensate for the bulk of the armor, that I was so much smaller. That I actually fit on the operating table, and it didn’t collapse under me.
Still metal; still oil for blood. Wires still sticking out of me, and that oxygen tank at my back, adding just a little bulk and reminding me that this wasn’t my ol’ flesh-and-bone sack. But so different, especially when I looked down at my new hand — the purple glove illusion, now, that was a nice touch — and saw through the transparent custom alloy to the wires and circuitry underneath.
All-glowing. All-ticking. All-me.
And then, the tubes in my nose leading into the oxygen tank on my back, so itchy and weird, like sticking two wads of cotton into your nose holes. The hard surface of the table under me. The touch of cold air. The breathing.
It was wonderful.
But, you were there. You saw me, sitting there on the operating table gaping in wonder at my own moving fingers like they were the second coming. Must have been quite a sight, eh?
I’m glad you were there for it, kiddo. You and the others. The whole family.
(May not have seemed like it back then, I know. And I’m sorry. Like I said — I was quite overwhelmed. Not quite there. Few screws loose — ha!
You get the picture.
But I am glad.)
I think this is the point where I started to laugh again. Wasn’t it? And tried to push myself off the table.
It just figures, doesn’t it, that as soon as I realized I could potentially walk, I immediately wanted to dance.
So, on the downside, just like with my new shiny chrome vocal cords, the lower half of my body needed a moment to get the memo.
On the upside, though, your dad caught me when I stumbled and nearly toppled ass-over-tits off the table.
And this time, when he touched me? I could feel it.
I think it was at that point that Diana decided to herd everyone out of the room. Probably. I vaguely remember hearing her voice (Let’s give them a moment, was it? Or maybe something else, but whatever it was, it was tactful. Always tactful, that girl.) I remember the sound of footsteps, her and the others taking you by the hand and leading you away. And then the lab door whooshing, open and closed.
I’m sorry. I’m not sure about the particulars. I’ve a bit of a one-track-mind issue, as you well know, and back then, all I could think about — all I could register and feel and be — was Batsy’s hand on my chest.
That hand. Now. That hand.
I could feel it.
Right there. How warm it was. The texture of his skin on mine.
(What passed for mine. Whatever.)
It was there.
It was there, and I could feel that it was there, the warm shape of it pressing into me, the weight of it, his strength, broad palm and thick fingers and lines and callouses and scars, embedding pressure into me, and I. I just.
… I’m sorry. I don’t have the words. No way to illustrate to you the state of me, all of me, when I realized. I could wax poetic, carrying on and on, spinning flowery metaphors about going without water for months and taking the first sip from a mountain spring, or getting a kiss from your sweetheart after years of separation, or getting your first taste of chocolate after months on nothing but air, but, you see, kid none of this works. Nothing is adequate. It’s all far too little, far too cliched, far too profane, like trying to paint a storm with a single sharpie.
You have to understand: I hadn’t felt him touch me in twenty years. I don’t think there are words for what that feels like.
(Or, if there are, there shouldn’t be.)
So I won’t try. I’ll just let you try and imagine it, if you can. Stretch those brain muscles a bit. It’s good for you.
Moving on.
Now, Batsy’s face, it was tense. I could see in it all the questions he wanted to ask, but was afraid to. Poor thing. I don’t think I was much help to him, just then, because I did what I always do when it gets too much: I laughed, and then his hand was still there, on my chest, and then on my back, and then I couldn’t stop, I kinda just sat there and laughed in his face until I choked on it, which is frankly rude now that I think back on it.
But I couldn’t stop, and he didn’t try to get me to stop.
He’s gallant like that, your dad.
Only one of the reasons why I love him so much.
“Do you want to stand up?” he asked me. Or something to this effect. Again, I only really remember the gist, and the tone of his voice, so warm and strong and familiar right in my ear.
And I thought, Yeah. And my mouth moved. And I said, “Yeah,” out loud, right out into the open air.
Isn’t speech just a wonderful thing?
I tried moving again, taking it a bit slower this time. Batsy’s hands were still on me, on my chest and on my back, steadying me with that wonderful strength of his as I sent electric thought-impulse commands to the lower half of my body.
It listened this time. My feet moved. I twisted them in a circle, this way, that way, and laughed some more in sheer delight.
I had feet! And they moved! And they were my own!
Incredible.
So, that astonishing feat accomplished, I moved on to my next conquest. I bent my legs at the knees and brought them up, and then down. First one, then the other. Like a pro. Like I’ve been doing it all my life.
Holy shit, Batman.
At that point, I felt pretty confident I wouldn’t fall on my ass this time around, so I slung my legs back off the table and put my feet on the floor.
And, guess what! It didn’t dent under me! It didn’t groan under my weight! It just stayed there, supporting me and feeling nice and stable and solid, like any floor should.
I tell ya, kid, you flesh people just don’t appreciate how good you have it.
And that’s not all! I could feel the coldness of it on my wonderfully functioning, sleek, state of the art android feet. Not just cold air, but cold floor, too! Like dipping your toesies in the ocean during winter!
(Maybe we’ll take you to try it one day.)
So, feeling brave, I pushed off the table to see if I could stand on my own, and I felt the table’s edge dig into the metallic flesh of my palm. And that was amazing, too.
I was crying again at that point. I remember blinking tears, and the world going all blurry, bleeding sideways like smudged paint, and the laughter coming non-stop then, a hoarse, scratchy thing in my throat, which only made me cry and laugh harder because holy guacamole, I could hurt again, too...
… Except, not like I used to. That was slowly becoming clear. And to tell you the truth, I’m still not sure how I feel about that.
I mean, you know the story. We’ve told it to you often enough, whenever you wanted to know how I met your dad, or just whenever I felt like it. You know that our epic, star-crossed love story started the moment I took a swan dive into a vat full of toxic chemical goo, which baptized me into the only life I truly felt was mine, and which gave me a purpose, a mission, and the love of my life.
But the thing that I didn’t tell you about, kid, is that it gave me chronic pain, too. It was highly toxic acid I fell into. The transformation I went through wasn’t just cosmetic. It literally burned through my skin, ate it all up, and I’d been burning with the constant pain of it ever since.
It brought killer migraines with it. And various other aches and pains, always coming and going. And a tendency to feel everything about five times as intensely as any normal person would.
Now, my memory’s bad. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that. And you know about my scrambled brain, too. I don’t need to explain about that.
But I do remember what it was like to live with the acid on my skin, eating me from the inside out slowly, day by day. I remember what it felt like to hurt from the slightest drag of fabric over my body, and needing strong, proper pain to offset that, so I could focus and lose myself in that rather than get distracted by the constant itchy-burning scattering me every which way.
And, while I was standing there testing out my brand new feet, my sleek new legs, all so lovingly designed to look like what they did before, I slowly started to realize.
Not only was I getting a body back. Not only could I finally feel.
The acid burn was gone.
Now, I know what you’re gonna say: “But isn’t that a good thing? Did you want to be in constant pain?”
And the answer is…
Kind of? Yes? And no.
It’s complicated.
Because it wasn’t just the pain. It was also the intensity of sensation. Of touch. And most of all —
The intensity of your dad touching me.
Back then, in my old body, it was like. Okay. So. You know that annoying sensation of static when you take off a fluffy sweater? Or sometimes when you touch a doorknob? So take that, kiddo, and then try to imagine, if you will, that, except it’s not just static, but actual tiny fireworks going off on your skin. Fire and explosion and burning and everything. And then imagine that you’re a hypersensitive masochist with a thing for violence, and magnify the fireworks sensation by about a hundred.
That still won’t be it. But it’s gonna be the closest description I can think of.
Bottom line is, it was addicting. So, so addicting. And so good. Even with the pain.
Especially with the pain.
And now it was gone, and the moment I realized it, I kinda just — swayed, and nearly collapsed back onto the table, because it was — we never considered that in our planning. Not once, when we made the schematics, when we talked metals and alloys and tubes and nerve endings and such, when we scoured and scavenged all over the world for materials, not once when we worked night and day on the mechanics of it, did we stop to consider just how different it’d be for me to experience sensation the normal way. Your dad never asked if I wanted to keep the old pain, I never thought to mention it, and nobody else knew.
And now there I stood, in my new body, the effect of so much designing and scrounging and testing and building and failing and trying again, and just the sheer years of work the whole family put into this —
And I was teetering on the verge of a breakdown because even though I could feel for the first time in so, so many years, I couldn’t feel enough, and I didn’t know how to begin to navigate that.
So it was a really good thing your dad was in there with me. I still don’t quite know how he did it. (How he does it.)
But he made it better.
He must have seen that something was going wrong. He stepped all close, and the heat of his body distracted me a bit, and then not, because while I could feel it, it used to burn me before, in the most delicious way, and it didn’t anymore.
It felt a bit like dying, just then.
But worse.
“Joker,” Batsy said. And then said it again, and again, and again, over and over until I could look at him and see him, with his blue eyes, leaning over me, looking down on me for the first time since the Robin suit. Standing so close. Looking so, so concerned, and still achingly beautiful.
And then, kid.
Then, he touched my face.
And it burned.
It was the best thing he could have done just then, you know? And I don’t think he even realized it. But he reminded me what I forgot, and what I should’ve held onto with everything I had:
My body may be new. But the skin of my face isn’t. The butler hadn’t taken that away from me.
And so, when your dad touched my cheek, when his fingers made contact with my old, battered, acid-eaten skin, I cried again, this time with relief.
I still had that. Not all of it was gone.
I could still burn, if I wanted to, and the more I focused on it, the more the skin of my face began to hurt, the more I noticed the pain, old and familiar, so different from the rest of me.
I was still me.
“Can you…” Batsy started to ask, and I laughed again, and I sent thought-impulses to move my android hand and cover his hand with mine.
“Yeah,” I told him, looking into his eyes. “I can. It worked. I can feel you.”
He breathed out, and we both pretended that it wasn’t a sob though it very clearly was. He touched my face with his other hand, too, and I reached out to touch his, slowly running my fingers over the ridges and lines and smoothness, studying him. Re-learning him.
And he let me.
“Hi,” I said then, high on it, all of it, on the sensation of his skin on my fingers, his fingers on mine, the warmth of his breath, the smell of him over the chemical scents of the lab, the rush of breathing, of being, of feeling.
Of loving him, and being loved back openly, gladly, easily.
And he smiled. And he said “Hi,” back.
We had our first kiss right then and there, slow and hesitant like a pair of bashful teenagers doing it for the first time, which I guess in a way, we were.
It was the first kiss in my life that counted.
But definitely not the last.