Injustice Interlude

Interlude: One

She hadn't come to the service, only to the internment. Everyone else had met at the church and followed the procession to the cemetery… She stood out in her casual clothes, only donning a hoodie and jeans to protect against the dreary weather. The canvas of her red sneakers were soaked through completely with mud and rain. He watched her watching them, eyes darting around, resting everywhere but the grave itself. She was leery and unsure, but made no move to slink away.

Bruce watched the girl kneel by the freshly filled grave. He watched her collapse into body-wracking sobs, arms held tightly around her as if trying to keep herself from falling to pieces. He watched her cry herself out, falling into a still trance of utter despair, doing nothing more than sitting in the rain and staring at the headstone.

Watching her was torture, but he wouldn't allow himself to look away.

She was shattered. She was broken.

And Bruce felt the same.

He knew exactly what she felt. He knew what it was like to lose the only bit of family you had in the world. He knew the helplessness, the loss of hope, and the ever-present pain. He felt everything.

He knew her name. Madeline Ann Sanders, born in Gotham General to Aina Sanders and an unknown father. She lived at 152 North 42nd Street in the Daybreak apartment building, the very same one Jason and his mother had been living in. Her education was spotty. She had been taken out of school several times by her mother with no discernible reason. She was expelled during the seventh grade for starting a fight in the cafeteria, and was later placed in a public education program for troubled kids.

Jason seldom spoke of her. At least not to Bruce.

Barbra had passing knowledge of the girl's existence, describing her as "Jason's little girlfriend." She would tease him as any good big sister was supposed to, and rolled her eyes at Jason's vehement declaration that they were just friends. But she saw the blush on his face when he talked about her. She picked up on how he would awkwardly tell her how cool and funny Maddy could be, only to stutter through vague details of their time together in the way most teenagers talk about their significant others.

Dick had never met Maddy, but loved her nonetheless. His heart swelled at the idea of an escape companion for Jason. Someone who knew, someone to confide in with confidence, someone to trust implicitly and unconditionally. That's not to say he didn't indulge in the same level of teasing as Barbra. If anything, he was worse. But there was sentiment there.

It scared him, too. Oh, god did it scare him. He thought for sure something was going to go wrong somewhere down the line. How could Jason rely on a citizen? One more than one occasion, Dick approached Bruce with concerns about the trouble Maddy could cause. There was a reason they separated from normal civilians. They couldn't protect themselves, and they certainly couldn't protect their secrets…

Then again, maybe no one could protect them.

Bruce wasn't quite sure why he had allowed Jason to keep Maddy in his life. Perhaps it was a vicarious desire, knowing that all he had wanted at that age was a friend. Or perhaps he knew deep down that no matter what he did or said or commanded, Jason wouldn't have listened anyway.

Looking at her now, he still wasn't sure. Maybe it was wrong to let them stay close… Or maybe that would've only made things worse when it ended. He just wasn't sure.

Bruce's knowledge of the girl was only what he could find through his own investigation and second-hand anecdotes from the team. Maddy was a troubled girl born to a low-class single mother, who lived a very challenging life.

By all means, their lives were very different. But in that moment, there was no one else Bruce could relate to more than her.

Because she loved Jason, and so did he. Because she was the only one in the world who was feeling what he felt. And it killed them both.

He finally turned away, allowing the girl to mourn alone. He began to head towards his own private memorial, finally ready to begin grieving in solitude.

She looked scared, like she had been caught doing something wrong.

He had been able to hear some of her quiet conversation with the headstone. It made him sad… Her words were still so full of grief and mourning. She looked so small there, kneeling atop the grave, curled into herself to shield the world from this private moment.

If anything, he thought, he and Bruce were the ones intruding.

"Miss Sanders?" Bruce greeted her with hazy recognition.

He glanced between Bruce and the strange girl, that feeling of intrusion growing. He shouldn't be here. He had never known Jason Todd… But something in the back of his mind had compelled him to agree to Bruce's invite. He needed to pay his respects to the former Robin. He wanted to look that grim fate in the face, to accept the reality of his situation. To him, Jason Todd wasn't really a person… He was a warning. A symbol, an omen, a possible outcome.

Dick had told him not to go. Alfred had even voiced a quiet objection to Bruce. But Tim had been tired of staring at the tattered uniform displayed in the cave. He had heard enough of the skirted conversations, the whispered memories, the metaphorical ghost that haunted Batman. He wanted something else to remember this stranger who's legacy he walked in. He needed to get to know Jason Todd, not Robin. He wanted to face him head-on.

This was not the face he had been expecting.

He hadn't been expecting green eyes and freckles. He hadn't expected sickly pallid skin and boney elbows. He hadn't expected torn jeans and beat-up sneakers.

Bruce's hand landed on his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Miss Sanders, this is my new ward, Tim."

Embarrassment and fear settled into his stomach, and he could feel the flush on his cheeks. Discomfort crawled over his skin as he tried to duck into the collar of his shirt. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't be here.

Then she smiled.

The smile brought new life to her face. She was smiling at him with a brightness that immediately displaced the sadness he had heard in her sorrowful words of mourning. She suddenly seemed so out of place in the dreary cemetery. She saw him in a way not many did. She looked at him with a higher level of understanding and acceptance. She could see beyond him. It was… terrifying. It was penetrating and strange.

At the same time, it was really nice.

With a little wave she said, "Hi. You can call me Maddy."

The apartment was empty.

He had been relieved to find the door locked with a deadbolt and a chain. A good defense against your average home invasion… but he was no average invader.

The lock was easy enough to pick, and the chain slipped with a quick twist. It was dim, afternoon light filtering through the blinds of a single window. The faint but familiar smell of mildew and old carpet hit him with a wave of nostalgia. Stale cigarette smoke clung to the air, a clear sign of a habitual smoker trying to quit. It was a smell that would never completely go away.

He noticed the pack on the windowsill, next to an empty coffee mug. The mug was bone dry and the pack had a thin layer of dust coating it. Only two cigarettes were missing from the pack.

'Good on ya, Madds,' he thought with pride, shoving the pack in his pocket.

Dishes were piled in the kitchen, rinsed but not washed. The stove looked untouched. Mail and miscellaneous documents covered the small kitchen table, getting most of its use as a desk rather than a place for meals.

The inside of her fridge was considerably bare, enticing a twist of concern in his stomach.

The bathroom was surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the place, save for the murky state of the grout. A tube of mascara and a foundation compact were precariously balanced on the edge of the sink. The towel hanging to dry on the back of the door smelt of pears and a cheap perfume he couldn't quite place, but liked very much.

Her bedroom… the bedroom was a mess. The bed was unmade, clothes were scattered everywhere, and the alarm clock was off by six minutes. He kicked a crumpled hoodie, accidentally knocking over an empty beer bottle that then rolled under the bed.

He shook his head with a laugh, happy to see something never change no matter what. It mystified him how much her current apartment looked like the one he'd grown up in. It was the same building and the units were practically identical. But there was something else… Something about how lived-in it was. It was a home, and a well-used one at that.

He laugh left a small smile on his face he couldn't shake away. This place felt like home, he couldn't help it.

Atop her dresser was a mirror on a stand, a half-burnt candle, and about half a dozen photographs. It took him a minute to realize some of the photographs were of him… He barely recognized himself. He was a kid in those pictures, none of him older than fourteen.

He picked one up, a blurry five-by-seven in a dollar store plastic frame. She had a toothy grin, he had bedhead. They were sitting on the firescape, camera held in her outstretched hand. He was bundled up in a tweed coat that had once been Dick's. She wore a fraying sweater and a cable knit scarf. They were cheesing hard for the camera for some reason or another, but try as he might, he couldn't remember why. A snow day, maybe? Christmas? Valentine's Day? All he could tell was that they were cold and happy. Her cheeks were bright pink and her nose was turning red. A lock of hair fell along the right side of her face. He had dark circles under his eyes and a shallow cut on his forehead. He touched the area where it was now, unable to feel even a slight mark where it would have been.

He hadn't thought of himself as young at fourteen… But he looked it. He was a skinny, punk kid. It scared him how young he looked… A kid like that shouldn't of gone through-

He took a deep breath to refocus. He came here for a reason. He came to get something back.

He'd seen her store it away the other night from his voyeuristic perch across the street. He had watched silently as she pulled it out and held it in her hands. He watched her sit in silence for what seemed like hours, fiddling with that stupid scrap of cloth. He watched her, watching her look sad and speak quiet words, almost as if she was saying a prayer. He watched her open a beer and shake out her hair, getting a few last words in before slipping the mask back where she kept it, hidden away in secret.

He didn't know why he wanted it back so badly, but he did.

This... This wasn't the way he had wanted to come back to her. He wanted to stay there. He wanted to wait there for her to come home, to be there with her.

There was something he needed to do first.

He inhaled the scent of his memories one last time. He left through the bedroom window, stopping for just one last second on the fire escape.