Chapter Text
They had finally caught Neal Caffrey. Sometimes when she looked at him for long enough she felt a niggling of recognition but she couldn't place it. She decided it didn't matter, and he was in a supermax now, so there was nothing she could do.
Neal had escaped. Then he was caught again and bargained his way into being a criminal informant. Today was his first day and he should be arriving soon.
The elevator dinged and Peter walked over with Neal trailing behind him. He was tall and broad but his face, it was achingly familiar, if they were alive then she imagined- no, now wasn't the time. She closed her eyes and turned back to her work to give herself a minute to compose herself.
“Neal, these are agents Clinton Jones and Diana Berrigan.” Peter introduced.
Neal’s face blanches at her name and she hears a whispered, “Annie?”
Her face pales and it feels like her breath has been punched out of her, “Jay?” He nods and they don't know who moved first but suddenly her arms are wrapped around him with her face pressed to his neck and his arms are squeezing around her and his chin rests on the top of her head. “You were dead, you died and you were gone!” Diana sobs.
They've both got tears running down their cheeks as he murmurs, “I know Annie, I know, and I'm so so sorry, but I'm here now and I'm not leaving you again. It's complicated, but I promise I'll explain everything to you, Annie.”
Diana clutches him tighter and cries, “I missed you so much, Jay, I couldn't even stay, couldn't face seeing everywhere we went together.”
She can feel him rubbing soothing circles on her back and wonders when he started doing that. “I missed you too, so so much.”
“I, I kept hoping it wasn't real, that you'd come back. I'd see something and I'd think 'Jay would love this' or someone would say something wildly offensive and my first thought was 'I can't wait to bitch about this with Jay'.”
”How about we let everyone process what happened while you show me the roof?“ He says and Diana nods leading him over to the elevator, his hand held tightly in hers.
They sit on the edge of the roof, legs hanging off the side, just like all those years ago.
”So, this is a long story, a lots happened, a lot of things that are hard to talk about, so if you could ask any questions when I'm done, that would be great.
You know I was Robin, I found out that Catherine wasn't my biological mum and went to find her. However instead of finding a mum, I found that peice of shit egg donor Sheila Haywood. She sold my out to the joker, and he killed me. I woke up about six months later and wandered around Gotham catatonic for a while, then Talia Al ghul found me.“ she gasps, Diana remembers after Jason told her he was Robin he would rant about the people he had to fight, and one day he told her all about the LOA.
”She took me back to the LOA and I trained there for a while. But Ra's didn't like that my brain wasn't making any progress healing and he wanted to kill me. Talia dumped me in the Lazarus pit,“ Diana pales sharply, he told her about the pits years ago, said they were pools of bubbling green that healed injuies, reverse aging and could bring the dead back to life, but at the cost of insanity and intense bloodlust.
”It healed my mind but since it had to do so much healing in my brain the pit madness as we call it was a lot worse than usual. If I got really angry my eyes would glow green and I would kill everyone around me. Talia and Damian, my little brother that Bruce didn't know about at the time, were the only ones I wouldn't harm. Talia basically brainwashed me, told me Bruce had replaced me, showed me pictures of my memorial in the cave that said 'a good soldier', told me Dick didn't care about me since he wasn't at my funeral, that nobody cared enough to avenge me. They taught me to kill, twisted my mind and sent me back to Gotham to get my revenge on Bruce and the joker. I took over the drug trade in Crime Ally.“ Her eyes widen, there's only one person who did that in the time frame. Red Hood. ”I killed to protect everyone, the kids, the prostitutes, the people just trying to survive.“
”I understand if you want to stay away from me. I work with the bats now, but I did really messed up stuff, and I don't regret most of it. I wouldn't do it now but I don't feel horrible for a large amount of it. I killed eight people and stuffed their heads in a duffle bag. I killed so many people, so many people, my hands are soaked in blood, and I'm glad I killed them, they wouldn't have stopped, just kept on hurting people, over and over and over again. I've killed people who I regret killing too, but not nearly as many. I nearly killed Tim for fucks sake!“
He looks guilty and angry at himself, but mostly he looks scared. Scared of rejection, scared of her hating him. His shoulders are curled in, trying to make himself look smaller, and he's braced for punishment.
She watches him for a minute, processing everything he told her. Diana thinks it through and all she feels is rage. Rage at the world for making him go through this. Rage at whoever told him he's a monster. Rage at his dad for teaching him how to sit to make his punishment hurt less. Rage for how much he's lost.
She feels furious, but she shoves the anger down. He'll think I'm angry at him, I'm not letting that happen, she thinks.
”Your telling me that you were betrayed by your father, betrayed by your mother, tortured, killed, trained to kill, dunked in a pit of murderous insanity, and brainwashed. And you expect me to think your a monster for doing your best to protect the people from your home? That you aren't a victim?
No, you were my friend and I'll be your friend until I physically can't. I have missed you so much, you are not leaving me, and you don't get to decide if I should think you're a monster.“
”Go away, don't you have someone to steal from? Or do you work on the corners? Think you can just wash all that away by being adopted? You'll always be a filthy street rat.“
I've got my lunch and am trying to find somewhere to eat that isn't with the rich bastards. I'm about to give up and eat somewhere else when a girl sitting alone waves me over. She looks a few years older than me. ”Hi, I'm Diana, don't listen to them, there homophobic assholes anyway.“
”Jason. How'd you end up with 'ese bastards?“
She laughs, ”My parents are socialites, wanted to send me to 'a respectable school for a young lady', like I don't do everything possible to avoid dresses and skirts and most of my friends aren't from the narrows.“
I grin the smile I learned on the streets, the one that people say is a little too wide with a few too many teeth. She grins back fealty. ”I think we're gonna be friends, Diana.“
There were two outcasts, a boy from the streets and a gay girl. They became best friends.
One day the boy tells the girl how he spends his nights flying across the city, the girl only loves the boy more because of it.
A few months later, when the girl is on a trip, the boy runs to Ethiopia and he will not return. When the girl finds this out she will be distraught, thinking that the boy would have know he was not alone had she been there.
She would decide to protect people in his place, would do what he no longer could. She saw the boy all over the city and couldn't stay in a place so steaped in grief, so, she went to join the FBI. She enjoyed he work in the white collar division, putting away people who she and the boy would have complained about together.
She would always make the trip back to Gotham to sit on their favorite roof, and talk about all the things rich assholes had said and what was going on in her life on the anniversary of his death. She would sit there all day, sobbing and laughing,talking to a ghost until the sun set. Then she would give blankets, food and clothes to street kids, always flashing that too wide too many teeth grin to show them she could be trusted.