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Bao let out a petulant little huff and pulled his shirt back on.
“I can’t believe you actually just did that to me.”
Duke tilted his head to the side as he watched Bao scoot off of his bed.
“...What?”
“It’s the meme!”
“Which meme?”
“The meme where it’s like ‘something something sexy, actually keep your clothes on, I’ve tricked you’ or something, that meme.”
“‘I lied, put your clothes back on?’”
Bao pointed at him with both hands. “Yeah! That one!”
Duke rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well, I mean, I didn’t tell you to put your clothes back on--”
“‘Hey Bao, when’s the last time you renewed your ID’ is not a question I want to answer naked!”
“...Wh...is it expired? Cause that’s an easy fix, why are you--”
“I lost my old one.”
Duke squinted. “...Sure, that’s still an easy enough fix--”
“And I don’t have my social security number.”
“...Still a pretty easy--”
Bao raised a finger. “Or my birth certificate.”
“...Do you have mail with your name on it...?”
“I use one of Jason’s alias bank accounts.”
Duke stared at him. “You don’t...you’re telling me you don’t have access to any legal records that can prove your identity.”
Bao growled and flopped onto his back.
“This is why I put my shirt back on!”
“Okay, obviously we gotta fix that--”
“Why, cause I need to be an upstanding member of society so you can take me to meet your mom?”
Duke blinked a few times, then snorted. “First you wanna keep it casual, now you wanna meet my mom?”
Bao shot upright so fast that he hurt his lower back just a little. “H-hey, no, no I was just making a joke, I don’t need to--”
“Actually, that might be the move.”
“What.”
Duke rubbed his chin. “Apparently once, there was this kid who turned eighteen and found out they didn’t have a birth certificate or a social security number. Parents were in some hippie cult, never reported them to the state. Gave her migraines. Compared to that, you’re easy.”
Bao bit the insides of his cheek in an irrational, and ineffective attempt to kill the blush that’d bloomed when Duke suggested meeting his mom.
“Well...I don’t want to bother her.”
“It’s...it’s literally her job?”
“Yeah, but she’s probably busy with people that need help--”
Duke held a hand up to stop him. “You are people, and you need help. Plus she’s not working like she used to, does more consulting work. The, uh...the...” Duke gestured vaguely, “The ‘dark period’ took a lot out of both of my folks. Mom less than Dad, which is weird actually--maybe the meta thing? Anyway, she’s got some free time, it’s fine.”
Bao did not believe it was ‘fine,’ actually. But he didn’t have a coherent argument, and knew that there was no way he was going to take his shirt off again if Duke was silently judging him for not having his life together.
“...Yeah, okay. I guess we can schedule something for in a week or two or...three--”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Of course.”
Duke smirked. “Cool. You gonna take your shirt back off, now?”
Bao hesitated. “...You think your mom's gonna hate me? Cause like, I’m not the most--”
“Bao, lay down.”
“Okay.”
Elaine rested her forearms on her desk, so the mahogany could share some of the pressure in her shoulders. It was partly from physical weariness, partly from the emotional weight of the phone call she was wrapping up. Gotham was full of tragic stories, people in pain. She’d lived one of those stories, so had Doug.
So had Duke.
It wasn’t foreign. If anything, she was too familiar with what the city did to people.
But she knew Sue Bishop. It had been a long time since they worked together, but she was hard to forget. Young, driven, funny, devoted--in love with her life. She’d only met Sue’s little boy once, maybe about a decade back. Sweet kid. Had his dad’s smile, and the little torches that burned behind his mom’s eyes. Clever, too. He’d been a little younger than Duke, but the plan had been to introduce them at some point. Good for nerdy little Black boys to have each other to look to. Then the earthquake hit and so many relationships got derailed in the chaos. She’d always hoped they’d turned out alright, but hadn’t thought to check in until recently. When she saw that awful headline.
In her moments of lucidity, Elaine had been terrified of losing her son. And she could hear that same fear in every syllable out of Sue’s mouth.
“...I just worry that we’re runnin’ low on time. I can see it in his eyes. He’s tired, Elaine. Not just sad, sad is easy. But he looks like he don’ want anythin’ ta do with anythin’ anymore. Like he’s just...done. Like he wants ta be. I haven’t seen him so fragile since the day he was born. Maybe worse. And while I do appreciate that Wayne boy, relyin' on him...I dunno. But, but yes I’ll call the numbers you gave me. I appreciate it, really I do. Callin’ was very thoughtful. And after so long. When this all shakes out, we should get some tea, yeah?”
With every breath Elaine could hear her fighting back tears, and was still trying her best to hold onto every shred of dignity she had left. Elaine got it, of course she got it.
Dignity was difficult to reclaim once it was lost.
Or stolen.
“Conrad’s going to be okay, alright? Kids are stronger than we give them credit for, especially when they shouldn’t have to be. I’m going to send some information about the The Wayne Foundation crisis support program to his school counselor. You know how it is, sometimes it’s easier to get them to hear you when there’s a little distance. But we got this, we have a lot of levers to pull. You call me if anything comes up okay? Any time of the day. Call me before you call the cops, I can get you help faster, alright? We got you.”
It wasn’t enough, obviously, but it was the best she had to offer.
She sat with it for a few minutes after the call ended. Tried to collect herself and not let it eat at her.
So she was relieved to see Duke’s name in her caller I.D.
“Are you bleeding out somewhere? Good. So what’s up, Big Bird?”
Bao tugged at the collar of his one decent button down as he walked with Duke down a hallway that felt both infinite and too small. “You think I’m underdressed?”
Duke shot him an incredulous squint. “For the Department of Human Services?”
“No, asshole--for meeting your mom.”
“I was joking when I said--”
“Still, I don’t want her to think I’m more of a loser than she already will.”
He flinched a little when Duke grabbed his shoulder and stopped them in the middle of the hall. “Dude, like I said, she’s--”
“What does she think we are?”
Duke hesitated. “Well...uh, I call you a friend? I mean that’s...that is what we are...”
“W-well, yeah but--”
“And you were pretty clear about that--”
“I know, but--”
“And it’s worked pretty well, I think. So you’re just a friend of mine that needs a little support, that’s all. She doesn’t need to know anything else.”
Bao bit his lip. “...Ah, yeah. That--yeah, you’re right, I’m being weird.”
“So weird.”
“Ugh. Fine, my bad.”
Duke looked at him for a moment. “...Did you want to...like...talk about--”
Bao shook his head. “Let’s...one thing at a time, okay? We’ll...yeah.”
“Uh. Yeah, alright.”
Elaine stood from her desk and shook Bao’s hand after Duke nudged him into her striking range. “So you’re the boy Duke’s been talking about, the one who keeps burning rice!”
Bao glared at Duke, eyes hot with betrayal. “IT WAS ONCE!”
“Three times.”
“Dude!”
“Four, actually. I lied about the basmati not being overdone--”
“DUDE!”
Elaine cleared her throat. “Well, uh, it’s nice meeting you either way, Bao.”
Bao swallowed. “Um. You too, Mrs. Thomas.”
Elaine looked from Bao’s nervous eyes into Duke’s differently nervous eyes, then back to Bao. She nodded slowly.
“Duke, sweetie, can you give us a minute? Privacy concerns.”
Her son squinted a smidge before surrendering. “...Yeah, alright, I’ll be in the hall.”
Elaine didn’t miss the way Bao looked at Duke like a scared puppy being at the vet for the first time, and she didn’t miss the way Duke gave his shoulder a little squeeze on the way out. The way the touch lingered.
Then it was just her and a young man who looked like he was waiting for her to beat him to death with a shovel. From what she’d figured out, it probably wouldn’t be the first time.
She decided to deal with that first.
“Clownhunter isn’t the worst alias I’ve ever heard, I certainly understand the sentiment.”
It took Bao a moment to get the choking under control, before finally managing words.
“Duke...told you?”
“No, he kept it vague. But I know what he gets up to, and I went through all of the records I could find on you. The timing of everything, the cause of your trauma, the physical description the GCPD have of you--it all lined up. A lot of my job is using whatever I can to get an idea on the narrative so I can figure out how to be helpful.”
“Oh.” He looked at his nails like he was going to clean them as an excuse to look away, but they were too bitten for that to make sense. He looked back into Elaine’s eyes instead. “You...you’re pretty calm about the...the uh--”
“The bloody trail of carnage, yes. Baby, this is Gotham City and I work in social services. You learn to meet people where they are.”
That didn’t earn the smile she’d expected it to. But he did relax a little bit.
“Uh, alright. So--”
“That doesn’t mean I condone it. I...” She paused to consider her wording. “I’m very proud of my son. I’m very proud of the man he’s becoming, and the people he helps--I’m one of those people, you know? Doesn’t mean I want this for him. Doesn’t mean I want this for you. But Duke’s life isn’t my life, neither is yours. I’m gonna help you today, I’ll help you again if you need it, that’s no big deal. If I'm going to actually be helpful, you gotta tell me something first.”
Bao swallowed and leaned forward, forearms pressed into the desk.
“...Uh. Y-yeah?”
“What are you trying to do, Bao?”
Bao stared at her for a while. At least ten seconds. Maybe it was an attempt to figure out what she wanted him to say, maybe it was an attempt to find an answer for himself. However he reached it, he didn't seem confident in his answer.
“Eh...sometimes I want to be something else. Less fucked--sorry. I'm not trying to be rude.”
“You're fine, go on.”
He nodded. “Sometimes I want to be better. Get my life together. Most times...I dunno. Duke is nice to have around, ‘cause I don't have to figure out what the right thing to do is. He's better at being a good person than I am.”
Elaine took a sip from her tumbler of ice water, swished it around a little, then swallowed once her thought was all baked up.
“Duke is pretty good, yeah. You don't strike me as the kind of person who wants to follow orders, no matter how attractive they may be.”
Bao blushed and looked down at where his hands were fidgeting on the desk.
“...Duke doesn't give orders. He just--okay, I feel like you're getting at something. If you think I'm bad company, you can just say that. I get it.”
He was so busy looking at his hands that he missed how Elaine’s face pinched.
“I very well could ‘just say that' if I wanted to. Like I said, Duke's life is his own, he doesn't need me vetting his friends for him--or whatever you two seem to want to be. You're a young man trying to figure things out. I think that's a worthy endeavor.”
“...You mean that.”
Elaine smiled. “Yep. And I'm going to keep meaning it for the foreseeable future. So, you need your papers, that's a good start, I can do that. That's easy. The rest, well...you tell me.”
Bao bit his lip.
“Well. I...I have sorta been considering...”
Duke swallowed a bite of mango sticky rice. “...You're sure?”
Bao groaned and leaned back in his seat. “Yes, your mom was very not-weird. We're chill, I'm chill.”
Duke squinted, but didn’t press harder.
They ate in relative silence for a beat, before Bao cleared his throat.
“Did you...like...college?”
“Wh--oh. Oooohhh. I mean, lowkey I sometimes wish I’d focused on it more, but I...it was a pretty busy time, you feel me?”
Bao snorted and wiped his mouth. “Yeah. The uh...” Bao gestured vaguely. “The Scarecrow thing and the Bane thing and the Joker thing and the Gotham Girl and Gotham thing, and then--”
“Yeah, yeah. Busy. But I like learning, I like working towards goals, so it was good for that. Plus having something normal to focus on...I think it gives you perspective. Keeps you human.”
Bao chuckled. “Well considering the cheat-bullshit you pull, I’m not sure it worked.”
Duke rolled his eyes. “Boy...maybe so. So what, you thinking about enrolling?”
“Maybe. Your mom said it might be a good idea. I was never a crazy good student, but I could hang.”
“I believe it. Got a major in mind?”
Bao bit his lip. “...You’re going to roast me.”
“What?” Duke scoffed. “I would never roast a man for pursuing--”
“Game dev.”
Duke paused. “...Oh, interesting.”
“Duke!”
“I’m not judging you--I just didn’t think--but it does make sense, you are a catastrophic nerd.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Nah, I’m really good at avoiding those possible futures.”
“W--what? Wait, are there futures where I--”
Duke reached forward and grabbed Bao’s hand. It startled them both, but neither pulled away.
“I’m kidding. I don’t think you’re that crazy. You’re gonna do great. If you end up at Gotham U and have doctor Iverson for English, you can’t kill him.”
Bao gasped with dramatic offense. “Bro, I’m not--I wouldn’t--”
“I wanted to. So bad. I passed him on my bike one day and there may have been a villainous intrusive thought--”
“Ooooh, you were so close to being cool. RIP.”
“Fuck you, I’m the shit.”
Bao giggled. “Sure, Duke. Oh uh, actually, I wanted to ask if like...you could help me get set up? I’ve been out of school for a bit...and never did college apps...and have no idea how financial aid works...and so on.”
“Uh-huh. ‘So on.’ But sure. We can start tonight if you want. You’re still coming over, right?”
Bao blinked. “...Wait, was I supposed to...?”
Duke sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Bao, please let me be smooth.”
“Oh! OH! Uh, sure—yeah, that works for me. Yep. Hot. I’ll even take my shirt off again. Just for you.”
Duke couldn’t help but smile.
“Lucky me.