Chapter Text
It’s not that Gothamites are easy to steal from, but Gothamites are easy to steal from.
It’s late October. Gotham, true to form, is in the midst of a downpour. The cold mixed with the unrelenting rain almost has Mozzie regretting his decision to come here. Still, a score like this is worth the miserable weather.
The thing about Gotham is that they have a guardian. Not the police force. No, the police force is among the most corrupt in the country. More often than not, the cops in this city are the ones committing the crimes, not stopping them.
Gotham’s guardian is someone much more elusive. The Batman. Occasionally accompanied by a child in a bright costume, Batman is the city’s self-appointed protector. From what Mozzie has seen in his short visit, Gotham needs it. The police can’t keep up with the nut jobs here.
Those very same nut jobs are the reason Mozzie has chosen Gotham. The police are useless, and Batman will have his hands full with the bigger fish that he likely won’t bother with Mozzie. That’s the hope, anyway.
He’s already decided on his score, too: a wealthy family on the outskirts of Gotham. He’ll get close to the patriarch of the family, spend a few weeks gaining their trust, and clean them out when they aren’t looking. Should be simple enough.
Usually, he wouldn’t do this himself. He doesn’t like to get his bands dirty when he can avoid it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much choice. Trustworthy partners are hard to come by these days, and he can’t afford to place his fragile trust in the hands of someone he barely knows.
He’s perfectly capable of doing this alone, even if he doesn’t enjoy it.
Mozzie guides his rental car down the winding roads just a few miles outside of Gotham. He can see the city clearly—towering pillars dotted with yellow and white. Gotham is a glittering gem in the nighttime. Maybe if he looks hard enough, he’ll spot the swish of a black cape, gliding over the buildings.
Really, though, he should focus on driving. These roads are a death trap. The unpredictable bends along with the slick road could result in disaster if he’s not careful.
Gotham. The city tries to kill you long before you enter its boundaries.
The hum of the tires on the road and the pounding of rain against the window become lulling after a while, and his eyelids grow heavier. Mozzie straightens in his seat. He’s not far from his hotel now. Just a little longer.
Mozzie can see the bridge. All he has to do is cross it. His hotel is four blocks away from the bridge.
Before he can react, a dark shape lumbers into the road. His headlights are dim, but his heart lurches when he realizes just what the shape is.
“Woah!” he exclaims as he slams on the brakes.
The boy turns toward him, sightless eyes staring through the windshield. Although the boy’s eyes are directed toward him, Mozzie doesn’t think he is actually seeing anything.
The rain isn’t getting any lighter, and this kid looks to be on death’s doorstep. Mozzie doubts the kid is a threat, but this is Gotham. Stranger things have happened.
Mozzie glances in either direction. He doesn’t see where the boy could have come from. Both directions are barren, wide, open fields with no signs of life.
The kid is dressed in a suit, which just makes the whole situation that much stranger.
Slowly, Mozzie opens the door. Immediately, the sound of rain assaulting the earth is all he can hear. The boy’s mouth is moving, but he can’t make out the words over the rain and distance.
He moves closer. The boy doesn’t acknowledge him, simply staring through the windshield with those unfocused, dead eyes. It’s eerie, and it makes Mozzie wonder if this kid is part of some sick game.
“Hey,” Mozzie says, hoping to get the boy’s attention. When the kid doesn’t react, Mozzie takes a step closer. “Hey! Are you okay?”
Still, the boy doesn’t move. His hair is plastered to his head. Blood trails down from his head, down his face and neck and stains his dirt covered collar. The right side of his face is bruised, his right eye red and swollen. Mozzie can’t imagine wherever he’s running from is a safe place.
The thought that someone would do this to a child is nauseating. Mozzie remembers what it’s like not knowing who to trust, not knowing where home is. If this boy is anything like he was, then he needs help.
The boy’s mouth moves again. Mozzie inches closer, trying to catch it. “What?”
The boy sways on his feet. It looks like consciousness is fleeting, so Mozzie needs to get whatever information he can.
Mozzie darts forward and wraps his arms around the kid as his legs finally give out. His eyes roll back, but his mouth moves one last time, and Mozzie is finally able to understand.
“Bruce.”
Then, the boy goes limp.
Mozzie manages to get the boy into the car, but the seats are probably ruined. The kid is soaked to the bone, which likely isn’t helping his condition.
Gotham has criminals of every variety, so back alley doctors aren’t hard to find. The trouble is finding the right one. One with a medical license is preferred, but unlikely to be found. This is Crime Alley. Mozzie isn’t from Gotham, but he’s heard stories. The last thing he wants is someone who picked up medicine as a hobby. Even an EMT will suffice at this point.
There’s a free clinic down the road, but the owner is affiliated with the Bat in some way. Everyone’s seen him enter through the clinic’s back window multiple times, and assume Thompkins regularly treats him.
Mozzie is trying to avoid vigilantes and moralistic doctors. The kid is running from something , so Mozzie needs someone who won’t just toss him back to the wolves.
Luckily, Mozzie knows just the doctor.
Jason Todd. That’s his name.
The doctor isn’t Mozzie’s first choice. His accent is thick, but Mozzie has no clue where it might have come from. If he had to guess, he’d say the doctor is from somewhere in the Balkans.
As for Jason, there’s no telling where he’d come from. Fingerprints can only tell so much, and no living relatives had come up when Mozzie had searched. He’d had a father who’d gone to prison, but the man never made it out. No trace of a mother, no one named Bruce, and no missing person reports in Jason’s name. If the reason he had been found beaten and barely conscious in the middle of the road is because of family, they aren’t easy people to find.
That leaves Mozzie at a crossroads. The boy is a ghost. Does Mozzie leave him to fend for himself? The thought of leaving a kid to his own devices in Gotham, of all places is unthinkable. Leaving Jason to Gotham’s excuse for a foster system? Not even feasible. Mozzie thinks Jason would have a better chance of holding his own on the streets.
Even if Mozzie would let that happen, Jason isn’t likely to wake up anytime soon. His injuries are severe and extensive. Whoever inflicted these wounds was trying to kill him, and had Mozzie not come across him when he did, they might have succeeded.
The doctor doesn’t think it’s likely that Jason will wake up perfectly healed. Most of the damage is to his head and face, and as a result, it is probable that Jason will be permanently altered.
Brain-damaged. That’s the less gentle term.
Still, it could be so much worse. The injuries he sustained would have killed him had Mozzie not come across him when he did. Jason likely would’ve died alone in the cold downpour. Another kid slipped through the cracks.
But he didn’t die, and he isn’t going to. He’s lying in a bed in the basement of a pizza parlor in Crime Alley, hooked up to a multitude of wires and tubes. The heart monitor beside the bed beeps steadily. The kid will be alright.
Everything will be alright.
Mozzie still has hope, but it's fragile. It’s been two weeks and Jason hasn’t moved. Not even a reflexive muscle twitch. Nothing.
The doctor frowns. He stands there in his white coat, clipboard in hand like a caricature. Their surroundings are far from the sterile white of a hospital. “This is… unusual.”
“What is?” Mozzie asks.
The doctor takes his penlight and pulls Jason’s eye open. The right one is still healing, albeit slowly. The bruises on his face are yellowing and growing smaller. Still, Jason’s injuries are not insignificant.
The doctor sweeps the light back and forth. Mozzie assumes he is searching for a reaction, but when he pulls away from Jason wearing the same frown, Mozzie guesses he didn’t receive one.
“He is… damaged. Irreparably.”
That would be the death blow to Mozzie’s wavering optimism, but Mozzie doesn’t think that it’s quite so black and white. The boy is a survivor. Willful. Unwilling to die, even when Death is tapping at his watch.
It isn’t Jason’s time to die, and nothing is irreparable.
Mozzie has heard rumors of a restorative chemical. Not even that, really. It’s more like the barest of whispers, there and then gone in the wind. Still, it’s an option.
Supposedly, the chemical only exists in naturally occurring pools, deep below the Earth’s surface. It’s supposed to cure any ailment, barring death. It isn’t able to restore life, but everything else. Disease, injury, the curse of aging; this supposed pit can cure it all.
It sounds like a miracle. Mozzie isn’t normally one to subscribe to such things, but he feels a sense of responsibility for the boy. Jason has no one, and he doesn’t have the ability to express that.
When Jason wakes up, Mozzie will search for this fabled pit and hope it is what it’s rumored to be. For now, though, Mozzie will keep vigil and hope for the best.
The doctor checks up on Jason once a day, and always at night after the pizza parlor above closes.
He ventures down the stone stairs into the basement where his makeshift hospital resides. Although he receives many customers—almost all belonging to one of the main crime families, but there are a few law-abiding citizens who can’t afford hospital bills—he only has two beds.
One of them has been occupied for the past month by a boy who likely wouldn’t make it if it weren’t for a ventilator. Because of this, he has had to turn away five potential customers in the past three weeks. He only has room for one patient, and only for an hour at most. This part of the city turns into a war zone at night, so he more beds he has open, the more money will come pouring in. This was never supposed to be a recovery ward, but it has become just that.
That is bad for business.
The thing is, if he kicks the boy out, he doesn’t receive his payment. Not to mention, his reputation will take a hit. For doctors like him that operate just outside the boundaries of the law, reputation matters.
A death, though, is inevitable. Especially for a boy so close to the grave anyway. No one will think him incompetent because he wasn’t able to save this kid. He isn’t a miracle worker.
The boy is alone, save for the man who spends most of his time at his bedside. The boy has no family, no one to look for him if he were to disappear. The short man can be dispatched just as easily as the boy.
It wouldn’t be hard. All he would have to do is detach the ventilator, and the boy would die in minutes. Problem solved.
As for the man… maybe murder isn’t necessary here. If he can convince the man that the boy can’t be saved, maybe he won’t bother looking into it when the kid takes his last breath.
It isn’t personal. If he had room to house the boy indefinitely, he would. He doesn’t want the boy to die. It’s just business. Someone has to take a loss, and it sure as hell won’t be him.