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It's a mess. Bru would like to think that despite her obscene wealth, she has some idea of what it's like to be a somewhat average person, ground down by the many, many indignities and injustices one faces when generational wealth isn't there to soften the blow.
Not like she's a stranger to worse suffering, too, as the Bat, but it's shameful that 3.5 hours into a blizzard that has shut down Gotham International, she's already pulling out meditation techniques she last used when Superman had to pull a railroad spike out of a kidney (this was last Thursday).
It's just… there's so much noise, and she couldn't just sit in a lounge and dissociate because those are full up.
She also can't just pay to moodily sit in an obscenely expensive whiskey bar either, because her wallet had been badly pickpocketed by a young woman who seemed in even direr straits. The girl’s clearly new to it, and keeps glancing over at Bru who has to work harder than usual to seem oblivious, because between her thief and the random collection of Gothamites pointing her out and discreetly taking pictures of her, it’s a lot to ignore.
Bru could steal it back, of course, but that would be unkind. She could tell airport security she's been robbed and perhaps get some drink coupons, maybe even a quiet office to sit in, but then the officers might throw their ugly weight around. She can't even just call her ‘work’ trip to LA off, because the roads are snowed in and she doubts Alfred will send the BatWing out for her just because she's miserable.
(He likely would; she just can't bear to ask.)
So she sits in the little metal chair at her terminal, listening to the unending series of announcements describing how every single flight on god’s green Earth has been cancelled, just about, and regrets powerfully the decision to fly commercial instead of by jet.
She’s this close to emulating her thief, at this point, barely stopping from glancing three rows up and two seats to the right to where Marcus Legato is sat with his tidy little briefcase filled with sins and dirty checks for the Falcones, also, haha, trying to get to LA, what a surprise.
Should have just seduced him, get him on her jet, avoided this altogether. Instead here they all are, and she’s regretting coming as herself, she’s an inch away from regretting being herself, because most people likely aren’t struggling with a migraine as well as 16 stitches where a kidney used to be.
Bru rubs at her forehead, and pointedly looks away when the 4th TikTokker of the day does a dance 3 feet away and blatantly includes her in their background. She still wouldn’t feel right to ask Alfred to deploy Bat equipment just because she’s feeling run-down, but enough’s enough. Surely with enough incentive she can find a cab driver willing to drive through a snowdrift. At the very least, sitting by herself in a quiet car is going to be better than All Of This. And if all else fails, she always has one last option that she's still trying to get used to remembering.
Mind made up, she’s about to get up, grab her things and go when someone drops to a heavy seat right by her. If it’s a 14-year-old social media ‘star’, it’s a substantial step up in courage, and all Bru can hope for is that they don't pull a stunt that needs her to be nicer than she's in the mood for.
"Looking like shit, miss ma'am, you doing okay?"
Thank god for her mask masking her surprise. "Jay, what are you doing here?"
Jason reclines in the crappy metal seat, looking menacing and out of place, a too-large puma in a car seat. "Heard about the airport being grounded, and I know how fucking bad you are at loud, crowded spaces, so I swung by to enjoy the show."
Bru very gingerly shifts in her seat to face Jay, careful-careful not to jog her fresh new injury. "And?" she asks mildly. "Are you enjoying it?"
"Not particularly." A baby shrieks from 100 yards away right into their ears, and they both wince. "Few places as shitty as an airport no one can leave. Came here with my ride though," he says, twirling what is very obviously the key to the BatWing around his finger. "Could give you a lift, if you ask nice."
They are just about the only people masked up in this godforsaken terminal, but nevertheless it's easy to see Jason's shit-eating grin. It's the crinkle by the eyes, a sight that Bru has been fortunate enough to become more familiar with recently.
Jay's cocky and smug, but Bru is, in fact, the Bat. More importantly, she's also about 23 other people, some of whom are terribly good at being desirable.
She reclines in her uncomfortable, squealing metal seat, a slouch that shows off her best angles and how her crisp, starched shirt draws tauntingly tight across a chest blessed by a powerful push-up bra, and gently nudges Jay's ankle with the very very tip of her very very tall stilettos (with built-in arch support and plastic daggers).
It's as light a touch as Bru's fingertips on Jason's wrist. She blinks, slow and lazy, and squeezes the littlest bit with her fingers. "Please, Jaybird?"
Ah, the amount of purr she's poured down her throat is unseemly, but they've earned the right to this closeness. Besides, Jason's starting to flush a terrific crimson, and it's such a joy after such a horrifically long afternoon. Another outrageously fluttery blink, this time accompanied by a tilt of her head and a lock of hair falling out of its place tucked behind her ear. "Take me home?"
"I hate you so much," Jason tells her with a groan. "God fucking damn, you're a weapon of mass destruction."
He then grabs Bru's hand so's he can lift it up and bite a (thrice-broken) wristbone through his mask, a delicate nibble with murderous teeth, and Bru's good at seduction because she's trained, whereas Jay's just a nuclear bomb by nature.
Thank god Bru's talented at stifling her more human responses, or Jason's head wouldn't fit into the Red Hood anymore, good god.
"C'mon then, I'm getting you home," Jay says while Bru is busy being a little golden and glazed. He gets up, Bru's hand still in his, and already three separate people are covetously eyeing their seats.
Ah, god.
"Hang on, Jay." The girl with the (stolen) Visa Diamond is looking over at them, and Bru hasn't cracked what's got her stressed enough to rob one of Gotham's most famous citizens. Arguably more importantly, Legato still has documents she needs to get her hands on, that likely won't make the trip back from California with him. "Couple of loose ends."
Jason looks ready to argue, and under normal circumstances he probably would've just for the fun of it, but Bru's already spent hours snowed in and going crazy, and it's his greatest strength and most terrible weakness that he's always willing to keep giving Bru a chance. "What's the game plan?" he says instead, low and intent.
Bru looks at Legato and the world's saddest-faced pickpocketer, and the answer is clear. "Divide and conquer."
-
B is brief with her words as per usual, direct and forthright and straight-faced as she spouts absolute bullshit about how she'll tackle the jacking of Legato's briefcase even though Jason has substantially more experience in successful thievery.
"Admit that you straight up cannot handle the emotional complexity of asking a girl who looks like her hamster just died why she boosted your wallet and I'll do it."
B had touched Jason's wrist, thumb to pulse as she looked him in the eyes and said please real gravely, and they both knew that Jay’s going to do it (because he's a chump).
So they split up, B swanning off while she works on a needlessly complicated scheme to steal a man's briefcase, Jason trying to figure out how the hell to gently confront a red-eyed robber.
Best way out is through, is probably something Alfred would say. Jason goes straight towards the girl, pulling his mask down to smile with all his flashing teeth at Some Guy manspreading next to her. "Mind giving me that seat, bud? This isn't a request."
Some Guy looks offended, and then looks like he's about to be real offensive as he surges to his feet. "Listen here, buddy, I-"
He cuts himself off as Jason rolls back his shoulders and looks down on him. "Think real carefully 'bout your next words, buddy, or I'm gonna make you cry in the mezzanine."
Some Guy does some mental maths and gives up on this losing equation. He grumbles something incoherent and trots off with incredibly bad grace, and it's a miracle that Jason doesn't slap the back of his bald head. Instead, he sits down next to the sad little thief, who somehow manages a whole-body flinch so powerful her hair shudders with her.
“You can call the police,” the girl says, despondent, hands held up like she expects Jason to cuff her. “I’ll give the wallet back. Can you tell Ms. Wayne sorry from me?”
Well. Jason hadn’t exactly been subtle about displaying affection, and it's not like he and Bruce aren't notoriously together, so it’s no surprise the girl’s cracked the code of why he's here. “You can tell her yourself, to be honest. She mostly just asked me to check if you’re okay while she goes to battle the hordes in line for the ladies'.”
The girl looks startled, but doesn’t drop her hands. “I mean, I did still steal her wallet. You guys are engaged, right?" Her lips scrunch up and wobble like she's about to cry. "At least, you were, but maybe you aren't, I'm not gonna assume," she says, and that's a hell of a hint to what's going on Internally, geeze. She sniffs, and draws herself up. "You really shouldn’t just let her go wandering ‘round by herself, her wallet was pretty much falling out of her pocket when I finally, uhm, went for it.”
Jason doesn’t know how to tell her that that was 100% intentional, and alarmingly on brand for Bru. Growing up in the same home had involved anything from a fervently-desired GameBoy to fun-sized Mars bars ‘dropping’ out of Bru’s immaculate pant pockets, and it had been a childhood fascination to see how she was going to casually, 'accidentally' drop increasingly more awkwardly-shaped objects from her person.
Tim's got the record for best/worst present delivery, with a RC car the size of a cocker spaniel somehow falling out of a Chanel clutch the size of two cigarette boxes taped together. A wallet primed for boosting is laughable relative to all of that, but Jason doesn't laugh.
"She seems to do all right even when she's 'wandering 'round by herself'," Jason says instead, severely underselling a woman who has One-Hit KO'd metas who could end the world on a whim. "She and me, we're both working off the assumption that you needed her Visa more than she did, and better you aim for her than some poor fuck with, like, student loans 'round their neck." He reclines in his seat, and subpar construction makes it creak so badly he winces. "Jesus. Anyways. Back to my initial question. You okay, or does someone need their ass kicked?"
She gives a watery laugh. "He's not here right now." She slumps in her seat, and it creaks too, and god what crooked airport engineer took a cut to install these shitty steel contraptions? "It's kind of the cause of all of this?"
"Look, I don't know your story. Hell, I don't even know your name, but I'm gonna suggest right off the bat," god love him, "that you should just dump his sorry ass."
She grins a little, clear in his periphery, but she's wringing her hands in anxiety instead of in a I-want-to-wring-his-neck kind of way. "I'm not from around here," she whispers like it's a secret to any Gothamite, what with her heavy coat that's way too thick for any self-respecting resident when it's still too warm for the weather channel to send out the 'instant frostbite if you go out' alert. And her coat's yellow, and she's wearing wool gloves indoors. There's even a little squeezy bottle of alcohol hanging from her purse in the silicon-y embrace of Baby Yoda, which is the type of accessory absent from most of the city on account of how popular they are as target practice for aspiring thieves.
"You don't say," Jason says, knowing that he sounds a little sarcastic, but he and a cool 75% of the airport are literally wearing sweatshirts with nothing else on top. "Let me guess. Florida?"
She makes a face. "Georgia, and I can't wait to go back, thanks." She clears her throat. "Anyways. Uhm. I was here to visit my, uh, well. Ex-fiancé, I guess, at this point." She sniffles. "He bought my ticket for me, we were going around looking at wedding venues. But Andy is," she looks around furtively, "he's actually kind of an asshole. It's fine when we're long-distance, but it's been a while since we spent time together, and he's got a mean streak a mile wide that's harder to see over Zoom. We had a fight this morning, it must've been the 3rd one today, something like that, and it was kind of a big one, and I left in a rush because he made me cry in a church, and I hate this city, and I don't want to move here where it's cold and people are cold and the apartment's so small and he keeps making fun of how I'm such a rural country girl and how lucky I am to bag a banker, like I give a shit, so I just upped and left."
She's breathing hard by this point, and Jason ventures to put a steadying hand on her back, supportive but unobtrusive with the 4 inches of polyfill between them. "No offense," he says with deep seriousness, "but I literally have never met a banker worth saving. Gonna go out on a limb here and say you're better off, and that you're gonna be fine."
"Thanks for your input regarding the bourgeoisie, Mr. Billionaire Shipping Magnate sir," she says with a bit of a twist and a slip of a smile, rubbing at her eyes. "Andy got me to put my cash into some high return whatever, and as of 2 hours ago, he's blocked access to my own money. I also don't have a phone charger, my car keys are at his apartment, and once I reach Atlanta, I still got to get all the way home, and home's like 3 hours away." She pulls out B's card, so hideously exclusive that even the chip's a deep matte black, and her name isn't even on it. "I was going to buy some bus tickets. I thought about stealing her phone so that maybe I could use Uber, but..." She makes a face here. "Well. I didn't see you around, and I wasn't going to steal the phone from a woman who's travelling by herself, no matter how rich she is. She's got kids, what if there was an emergency, you know?"
Jason's a little taken. "Kind of you to be thinking 'bout something like that when your shithole of an ex made you immediately try to flee the state," he says, because it is. Needlessly so, because the things available to B are not available to this girl, evident in everything from Jason's presence to the card in the girl's hands, and still, she'd chosen to be kind. "Was sure before, but I'm even surer now. You're definitely too good for that scumbag. You need me to rough him up till he unlocks your account? Not like I'm gonna give a shit about collateral damage if I'm just going around beating up all bankers whose names start with an 'A'."
She does laugh at that, just a little. "He's just waiting for me to come crawling back. I know he likes the power trip, and it's fine when we're both up for it, but this is just real pathetic. Don't worry about it, I'll figure out what to do once I get home. Don't want to burn burn bridges.... He has some redeeming qualities, when he's not, uh, uhm..."
"When he's not making you cry in a church you were thinking about getting married in?" Jason's a little touchy about most things Bru, but he's a lot Insane when it comes to women who end up grieving marriages that were better off not happening. He imagines B going no, thank you Jason, no more, Selim has some redeeming qualities, and he wants to (literally) bite someone's throat out. "I don't know you personally, right, and I don't know your situation with this dude, and theoretically he might not be a complete asshole, but making you cry's one thing, and cutting off money when you needed to leave is red flag the size of Iowa. Girl. C'mon. Be better to yourself."
She shrugs, idly twirling the card between two fingers. "Options are a li'l thinner on the ground when you aren't crazy hot and crazy rich, I can tell you that"
"Promise you pickings are real shitting slim for decent types in general," Jason says. "Hell, it was hard for me, and as you said, I'm crazy hot and crazy rich. Can, uh, feel like it takes a lifetime and a half for things to work out, but things do tend to work out for good people, so." Good people, people trying to be good, po-tato pota-to, yeah.
That, at least, seems to perk her up. "Wait, so are you two actually in love? No offense, but I assumed it was a business merger, type of thing. She's not exactly famous for keeping partners long term, you know?"
Jason snorts. "She's a lot better and a lot worse at a lot of things than people know. 'sides, did anything on Instagram make you think she'd send me to check in on you after willingly getting robbed? And did anything about me make you think I would have listened?"
The girl considers this for a second. "The online stuff doesn't paint, like, the best picture. But in person she's a lot more serious and reliable-looking, and when you came to sit with her, it was pretty clear that you both were gross."
Jason can't help that his chest puffs out at that. "The absolute fucking grossest. Goes to show you, shit like this takes as long as it takes. And I'm gonna tell you a secret, because you could've stolen her phone but you didn't because she's got kids, and also because if I find out you leak this story, Mystery Girl, I'm gonna set the entire state of Georgia on fire, but she had an ex-fiancé too. Not gonna tell you why it is exactly he became her ex, but I can tell you that he damn near made her cry in a church too." Well. Made-up altar on a rooftop somewhere, but still. "She's forgiven him for that, but I sure as hell never will. So you do you, but I'm gonna hold a grudge against Andy on your behalf too, because someone's gotta look out for you dumbasses."
"That's so rude," she says, but she looks like she doesn't know if she wants to laugh or smack him. "And also kindof really cool of you to say. Does it mean you're going to date me too?"
"Can't," Jason says, way, way too smug for someone in a situation made precarious because 1. he can't help but show off, and; 2. he CANNOT for the life of him remember the cover name for this him who's publicly dating B. "I'm taken." He holds up his right hand, where there's a simple silver band he's yet to take off. One of these days he will break his ring finger from punching a face in because of it, but Jason knows himself well enough to know that when it happens, he's going to be real weird and moony over the X-ray with his ring-related fracture.
"All the good ones are," the girl says with a sigh, but she's smiling.
"Even some of the bad ones are." Jason waggles his hand again. "You feeling any better? Feeling tempted to run back into the arms of Banker McShithead?"
She rolls her eyes. "It was a tough sell to begin with, but now you got me thinking I deserve someone who gets really smug whenever he gets to show off his engagement ring, so if there's begging and pleading to be done, it's not going to be me doing it." She gets to her feet, hangdog expression gone. "Tell you what, I'm gonna go buy a sandwich with the $10 bill I got left, and then I'm gonna find Ms. Wayne, return her card, and then ask her if she can call a 3-hour Uber for me in Atlanta. Uhm. If you see her before I do, tell her I'm sorry but also I'm going to come and say sorry in person, okay?"
Jason salutes her. "Yes ma'am. I'll keep an eye out for her, so just get going." He shoos her off, and she is shooed off.
He's halfway through reaching into his pocket for his phone when a heavy weight thunks against his right shoulder, and the chairs groan ominously in return.
Oh, god. Jason hopes he's not about to awkwardly wake up a senior citizen sitting on the other side who's conked out in the airport's blazing heat and is now sharing a stranger's shoulder from across the way. He gingerly straightens up, but before he can turn to look his hindbrain has picked up the scent of too much shampoo (B always hates how sweaty and gross her hair gets in the cowl) and a hint of cedar (conditioner to counteract the too-much-shampoo that smells deliciously woodsy and alarmingly similar to Alfred's) and he's relaxing before he fully realises what's going on.
"Not going to be too hard to find, huh?" he says, awkwardly craning his neck to press a muffled kiss to her temple. Her eyes are closed, and she does look like she's asleep, but Bru can't sleep when there are strangers within 100 yards of her, so it's false (even while the affection is blessedly real).
"I don't believe you've ever had trouble finding me when you wanted to, Jason," Bru says real quietly.
"Do I want to know how much of that you overheard? Also, did you get the briefcase? Also also, this is hurting my neck." Another quick peck. "Stop being a weirdo and come sit next to me instead."
"This is fine. Everything's fine," Bru says mulishly, and Jason figures it's because sat as they are he has her back, and because sat as they are, it's hard for them to be face to face.
Oh, god. B must've heard plenty, must've heard enough that she's a little embarrassed. Considering this rare, blatant display of public affection, though, Jason's almost willing to bet she's also a little shyly pleased, which makes him want to scream. Instead, he reaches up and scratches lightly at her scalp, running his hand through her hair. "Got some thoughts to share about our new friend's little situation?" he murmurs, wisely not saying anything incriminating when he feels B butt up against his hand in demand for more scritching.
"Abigail Mendoza Ruiz, college admissions officer. She's doing night school to get a teaching degree, her mother lives with her in a little 2-bedroom apartment. She has been dating Andrew Lockley for a few years after they met while he was at a branch meeting down in Georgia. I didn't find evidence that he was cheating on her, did find evidence he's not been particularly kind to her. I unlocked her account, and locked him out instead. I'll handle him, so keep your hands to yourself."
She catches him by the collar of his sweatshirt, and at first he thinks she's going to shake him in gentle warning, but instead she just hooks her fingers and lets her arm hang, drawing it tight like a makeshift leash, oh my.
He gnashes his teeth to fit the part. "Only if you handle him right. Don't know if you've noticed yet, but I'm somehow even less forgiving than you, B."
Bru laughs. "It's one of your best and worst features. Leave it be. I'll ask for you if I need you."
That makes him snort. "Like you did today?"
She huffs. "I would have. I was going to. You just knew to come for me and put me out of my misery. Again."
He wonders if she's thinking about when he showed up unexpectedly to that dusty little rooftop where she'd stood in a white wedding dress, jaw tenser 'n concrete, not alone because Alfred had been with her the whole time but lonely because she'd asked (she'd asked) Selim and Selim hadn't come when called. Jason, oh, Jason had shown up without invitation and had stayed, and that's a nice way to think about it, maybe.
That Jason knows when Bru needs him, and Bru's learning when she should call for him.
Urgh. He didn't have plans to be acting all embarrassed and embarrassing in a very crowded airport when he woke up this morning, but Abigail had it right. They are kind of disgusting.
(Urgh. He wishes they could be even more disgusting.)
He musses her hair, and lightly shoves her off him. "C'mon, shut up, get up, and come around to this side so you can greet the girl like a regular human being. She wants to apologise properly, so you're gonna let her apologise properly, and then I'm going to drive you home because you're acting all loopy. If you're gonna be all weird and affectionate, do it when we're in private so's I can enjoy it properly, fuck's sake."
Bru laughs, low and warm and probably everyone sat at their bank of chairs can feel tingles crawl up their spines at the sound of it, this one-woman ASMR machine. She does, however, straighten up. "Yes, dear," she says, and maybe she's being sarcastic, but maybe she means it just a little, and Jason knows how to take slim odds and make 'em come right on through, so it feels plenty like a victory.
Before she can get up, though, Abigail reappears with sandwiches and a tray of hot drinks, so laden with material goods she misses how Jason and Bru are angled towards each other, misses Bru altogether. "Okay, so $10 doesn't get you more than a pack of gum in this horrible place, so I did have to illegally use Ms. Wayne's card, but to make up for it I got drinks for all three of us, and sandwiches too, and I'll send her a check when I get my money back. God, what a day, I just really-"
His hindbrain's so quick sometimes; it really deserves a raise. Jason hears himself go, "Abigail, no-" just as she throws herself very dramatically back onto her seat that's been creaking and groaning and struggling all day under the weight of too many masses, and there's a sharp snap of metal shearing and a dozen people, six on each side, are unceremoniously dropped on the ground.
It takes a second for him to reorient himself, less than even, and he's utterly unsurprised to find that his animal instincts had reacted in the fraction of a second they all had before hitting the ground to reach for B. They're a tangle of fallen people and toppled bags, and despite B initially being sat at his back he'd somehow lunged behind him so that his arm would cushion her head.
He finds a strong arm at his back, and realises B had done exactly the same thing, and they had instinctively reached for each other in preparation for a 2-foot-fall, and oh, man, they really are so embarrassing. Unlike him, though, whose sole focus had been her, B had twisted 'round enough, had probably ripped the stitches in her gut, to reach far enough that her other hand was cradling the back of Abigail's head.
So embarrassing, he thinks again, as Abigail stares at him in betrayal, bent prawn-shaped from her seat folding up under her, half a cup of mocha down her front, markedly not the recipient of Jason's white-hot care. "Wow," she says to him icily. "Gotham boys are pigs."
And then she's all shy, flustered smiles as she turns to look at Bru, who's carefully extricating herself from them both, wincing a little as she sits up. "Hi Ms. Wayne," she says, and Bru hasn't even spoken to her and she's already turning a little red. "I've got something to confess to you about...." And this cannot be the regular way to start an apology regarding the theft of credit cards!!
Jason urgently grabs Bru's right hand to show off her silver band. "Hey now, she's taken too."
"Jason!" B says, admonishingly.
"For now," Abigail says, not quite under her breath.