Archive of Our Own ^beta

Your name is Catherine Todd. It’s not the name you went to sleep with last night, but that’s the name printed on the ID card tucked away in your bra. It took a while to find because you were a bit distracted by the fact you have a completely different face.

Upon waking in a completely unfamiliar bedroom, you bolted out and through a tiny living room to a door with windows—the front door of wherever you’ve been kidnapped, you assumed—but a glance at a mirror hanging on the wall stopped you in your tracks. That wasn’t your face looking back.

It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that the person in the mirror was you. You were never so skinny or so small. Never so delicate. And that hair screamed 1950’s.

You continue staring at the mirror, fingers splayed and hand moving in a parody of a wave until you come to the amazing conclusion that something is truly, terribly wrong. That’s when you began patting yourself down for any sort of clue, and well.

Your name is apparently Catherine Todd. The face in the mirror matches the one on the ID card, so it must be so.

…but who the hell is that?

Catherine Todd has a husband. You find your marriage certificate before you meet him, so it doesn’t come as a shock when a man opens the front door with enough force to slam it against the wall, causing all the cheap little bobbles hanging to tremor ominously.

You have no idea what to do in this situation, what to say, but the man with the key to the house, who you assume to be Willis—the name on the certificate, no middle name—takes no notice of you except to grab you around the waist, press a kiss to your temple, and tell you he’s going to bed.

Then he’s gone, and you’re left standing in the living room, wondering when you’re going to wake up from this nightmare. Obviously, you have to wake up sometime. Whoever heard of accidentally bodysnatching someone else?

For the sake of your sanity, you push all your worries aside and decide to see what’s in the refrigerator.

It’s. Well.

Turns out Catherine Todd is dirt poor. You figured from how worn and cheap the furniture and decorations looked, but that doesn’t stop your stomach from sinking at the empty fridge and cupboards. What little food there is, is mass produced and deeply unhealthy. In other words, cheap but filling.

There is one pot, one frying pan, and one oven dish. The pair of oven mitts are so thin that they stand no chance of protecting your hands from being burned. None of your tableware matches. The lone measuring cup has all its markings worn away; black marker shows the fill lines. The oven has a 50/50 chance of coming on, and only one burner on the stove works.

You’re pretty sure a cook would cry actual tears at the state of your kitchen.

You end up making a peanut butter sandwich with bread that feels like sandpaper going down. Hopefully you aren’t allergic to peanuts, but then again, so what if you are? Your day can’t possibly get worse.

By the time Willis gets up, you haven’t done more than sit on the couch, staring off into space. You were hoping to wake up at some point, but that didn’t happen.

“Cathy, you finally settling down?” Willis asks, shirtless and a pair of jogging pants riding low on his hips. The sheer amount of muscles on the man terrifies you.

“I’m trying,” you say softly. You have no idea how Catherine is supposed to act, so you’re just keeping quiet the best you can. It seems to work because Willis smiles at you.

“I know this move was unexpected, and you’re waiting for me to crash and burn, but I’m telling you. We’re moving up in the world, and we’ll be rich soon,” Willis tells you before reaching around the old CRT television for a pack of cigarettes to smoke.

You want to say, “how are you going to be rich if you’re smoking cigarettes?” You want to say, “don’t smoke in my house,” but beyond that, you want to ask, “this is moving up in the world?” Because honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if all the furniture around you was taken from the dumpster, thrown away for being used to the point of being considered unusable.

Your lips remain sealed, and you watch movies through an ancient VCR machine with Willis for the rest of the evening before he leaves for work. He dresses up in a crisp new pinstriped suit which weirds you out slightly—what kind of work requires such formal clothing at 7 in the evening?—and kisses you goodbye.

You’re left all alone for the night. You remain staring at the now blank tv in shock. You go to bed, hoping that when you wake, it will be in your own bedroom and in your own body.

You are, of course, not that lucky.

By the morning, you’ve finished freaking out, and it’s time to make a plan. First thing first, where are you?

You wrap a blanket around your old-timey night dress and move to the tv to look for the local news station, but no matter how many times you click through the sole five channels there are, you can’t find it.

Putting aside how weird it is not to have a news channel, a newspaper should tell you everything you need to know, you think. Which means going outside.

More than a little anxious, you comb your hair which somehow falls back into its 50’s housewife look and put on a faded blue jean dress. You can’t figure out the stockings, so you just shove your feet into a pair of black shoes. You scrounge up two-dollar bills and some change from the nightstand.

It’s with a deep breath that you open the front door, and it’s—well, it’s a city. Right there. There are steps leading down to the street below, and the house is literally squashed between similar houses—apartment buildings? You don’t actually know—but you can’t see the sky because it’s filled with buildings and smog.

You memorize the number on your door, stick the key in your bra when you think no one is looking, and pick a direction to walk. You know enough about cities to keep your head down and to walk like you have somewhere to be, so you miss most things going on around you until you find a cart selling newspapers on a corner.

It’s 25 cents per paper, and that is absurdly cheap. Too cheap, in fact. Maybe it’s old newspaper they can’t sell? Regardless, you don’t hesitate to hand over the coins in your pocket. You don’t even wait to take the paper home, so anxious you are to figure out where you are.

The newspaper claims the city you live in is Gotham. An appropriate choice considering you looked up once to see gargoyles. Maybe the gargoyles are there because the city is named Gotham; a city needs those tourist dollars, after all.

You’re so absorbed in the newspaper you don’t see the mugging going on behind you. It’s for the best; since you don’t notice how unsafe the area is, you dare to walk around to explore. You would be cowering in your house otherwise, making a hellish experience even worse.

Exploring is how you find your favorite food stand. Chili dogs for 75 cents? Holy hell, who does that?

Except, you find out in short order that 75 cents is a lot more than you think it is once Willis gives you 20 dollars to survive on for a week. Thankfully, he doesn’t expect you to cook for him aside from making the occasional sandwich.

20 dollars goes far in the time you’re in—wasn’t that a nice surprise to find out you time traveled on top of everything else—but it’s still difficult to turn into a week’s worth of food and supplies. You’re purchasing whatever is on clearance whether you like it or not.

You have 50 cents left at the end of the week to save. You put it in a jar and hide it behind a loose wall panel while trying to convince yourself to eat less so you can save more. It doesn’t work.

You have no idea where the rest of Willis’ money is going, but you suspect it’s being sunk back into his job to cover costs like his expensive suit.

You’d like to find yourself a job, but the moment you bring it up, Willis loses it, screaming that he is doing his best and not to even think about working. You have no idea what that’s all about, but you agree immediately. You are completely aware that Willis is twice your size and nothing but solid muscle.

Unfortunately, you have no relevant skills for a side hustle which means the weekly allowance is all you have. You keep house the best you can. You were never a homebody, but sitting on the couch and staring at the wall all day waiting for your husband like a dog waiting for its master is—no, you need something to do.

Maybe you can find a library and look for some job listings to convince Willis with. It takes a few days to find the building—you’re too scared to ask for directions, what if the locals think you’re a tourist?—but the library is a literal breath of fresh air to the gloomy city it resides in.

They have three computers that look like they’ve crawled out of the stone age, but you wait your turn patiently. It takes a while considering the browser is painfully slow, videos and even photos require buffering, and everything loads at a snail’s pace. It takes forty minutes to figure out there are no jobs available to those without education or prior experience.

Literally none. There are news articles of people being murdered so others can have a chance at their job position.

It dawns on you why Willis was so mad when you brought up getting a job, and why there are so many women walking around at night in skimpy clothing. With nothing else to do, you sign up for a library card and check out a stack of books.

To avoid using the computers at the library again to stay informed, you decide to buy a newspaper every three days. You make sure the newspaper doesn’t go to waste, having costed some of your savings. It’s mainly used to clean the windows and cover cracks in your house, but it’s a useful and versatile product. You like to use it to dry the inside of your shoes sometimes.

That’s how you spend your days: eating as little as possible, cleaning the house, and reading. When Willis is home, you two watch movies and discuss what’s in the paper. Sometimes things happen, and you’re too scared of being kicked out to say no. Luckily, the condoms don’t come out of your allowance. Luckily, Willis uses condoms.

One day, maybe you can bring yourself to pretend you love your husband and your life. One day, maybe you won’t find yourself being both sad and relieved at being home alone.

Then one day your husband brings home a baby.

A baby.

You don’t know what to make of that anymore than you know what to do when he hands the squirmy pile of blankets to you.

“His name’s Jason,” Willis says before slamming a piece of paper down on the counter. “He’s yours now.”

“Did you steal a baby?” you ask, looking down at the wiggly pile of blankets with wide eyes.

“He’s mine,” Willis grunts, not daring to look at you. “His mother don’t want him.” He pulls out some crumpled bills and lays them on the counter. “I’m picking up extra work to pay for him. The job starts now and is going to last three weeks.”

“Wait a minute—” You start to say as Willis turns around and heads for the door, having literally just dropped off a baby.

“Please, Cathy.” Willis stops, hand on the doorknob. “I won’t ask for anything else.”

You don’t say “okay,” but you don’t say “no” either. Willis takes your silence for what it is and leaves before you can bother screaming at him.

With no other choice, you move the baby into an unsteady position so you can hold him in one arm to look at the paper Willis left. It’s a birth certificate. The words ‘Jason Peter Todd’ scream up at you. You think it looks familiar but you’re too busy hyperventilating about your very sudden motherhood to realize why.

You start pacing, rocking the bundle of blankets absentmindedly.

Diapers are expensive. That is your first thought. Your second thought is how are you going to afford both diapers and baby food? Your third thought is oh god, does your baby need formula or baby food?

You don’t have the luxury of the internet at your fingertips. You don’t even have the luxury of friends or family you can call. You have no one but your husband, and he has made it clear that he won’t be back for a long time.

Is it even safe to take a baby out into the city to pick up supplies? Would it be safer to leave him here all alone despite the risk?

You just don’t know.

You spend 10 minutes disassociating. Jason is still the entire the entire time in your arms, and it’s his squirming that brings you out of your head. You want to break down and cry, to throw the baby out the window and pretend it never happened, but—

But little Jason is depending on you. He’s all alone, unwanted and unloved by his birth mother and maybe his father too with how fast he ran away. You’re all he’s got.

Get it together. Make a plan then act on it.

Can you take Jason to the library, ask for information? No, he’d probably be snatched out of your arms the moment you looked away. Assuming the library doesn’t call someone to take him first. You weren’t pregnant when you went there yesterday.

You stop pacing as a thought hits you. You remember seeing the neighbor that lives to the right of you. She’s a heavyset woman, older than you. She can be loud sometimes. You think you remember hearing her talk about her kids through the walls.

With single minded precision, you go out the door—locking it even though it’s literally right there—and knock on your neighbor’s door, doing your best not to drop Jason, who has decided he wants to be a worm.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” you say the moment the woman opens the door, “but I don’t know what to do.”

The woman with her rough face eyes you up and down before settling on the baby in your arms. She opens the door wider and beckons you in. You break down and let the entire story spill out the moment you sit down at a kitchen table.

You haven’t even told her your name yet, but the woman whisks the baby out of your hands and coos over him while making a pot of coffee effortlessly.

“He’s about 6 months old, I’d reckon,” the woman tells you. “He’ll eat formula or mashed food depending on his mood. He’s underweight. His previous mama probably didn’t feed him right, but it’s easy enough to take care of. I might have something he can eat.”

You thank her profusely for even this little bit of aid, and she slides you a cup of coffee that looks like black ink. You drink it anyway. You exchange names, and she gives you back your baby when you start getting twitchy.

It’s not like you think she’ll steal Jason; you’re just feeling bad that you’re burdening a stranger with your problems. That’s what you tell yourself anyway.

Your neighbor, Margaret Walker, turns out to be a godsend. She has five grown kids, and she knows exactly what Jason needs with only a glance. She’s been holding onto her old baby stuff should her kids need them, but so far none have ever asked for any of it.

Margaret shows you how to turn a cardboard box and some blankets into a baby bed, and the two of you dig through the attic together.

The crib looks like it’s been glued and nailed at some points—definitely a hazard—but you take it anyway because you can’t afford a new one. The bottles are worn, and they smell; but a little bit of vinegar will take care of that. The chew toys are no good—not that you’ll tell Margaret that to her face—but the toy keys and blocks are wonderful.

It’s the trash bag full of baby clothes that nearly undoes you. A few are stained, but they look good for the most part. They’re all different sizes to accompany growth. Your baby has clothes now.

“I don’t know how to repay you,” you say with a trembling lip, back at the kitchen table and surrounded by kindness.

“No need for that,” Margaret tells you. “We mothers have to look out for each other. You’re trying your best, and I respect that.” Margaret makes a dark face. “Most women around these parts get handed a baby not theirs, decide to use them to make money.”

The thought of Jason—cute little Jason just giggling away all by himself in the box—being handed over to someone else to be tortured and harmed makes your heart clench and a sudden rage overwhelms you.

“This is my baby,” you state, certain that the streets will run red before such things can happen to this small creature relying on you to keep him safe.

Margaret just smiles at you and offers another cup of coffee.

Luckily for you, Jason is a happy baby. All smiles and coos and movement of his itty-bitty hands and toes. He makes your days brighter, your world happier. Sometimes, when you look at him, you even forget about the awful situation you’ve found yourself in.

You think you never stood a chance against loving this small creature. It’s definitely love you feel for Jason because the spit ups and the dirty diapers would have made the old you run for the hills. You even go hungry a few times so you can buy him kid-friendly VHS tapes.

Willis comes and goes, never showing anything more than a polite interest in the baby. He wants to be involved in his son’s life, you think, but he’s just too busy and too tired when he comes home to want anything more than a beer and a movie.

You usually get up and go read to Jason in your room because the movies your husband watches are never child appropriate. It irritates him that you won’t sit and watch with him, but he has no room to say anything; you’re not the one who couldn’t keep it in their pants.

The days pass on. Margaret only works on the weekends, so visiting her with Jason becomes a daily routine. Willis becomes grumpier and more withdrawn which you attribute to the added stress on the finances. The library becomes your sanctuary once you stop being paranoid about going there with your baby. The baby area is amazing, and there’s no shortage of people wanting to give you advice. Which is useful as much as it is annoying.

You think, maybe, you have this mother thing down. Sure, you dropped Jason a few times and cried about it, and sure, maybe he nearly choked to death the single moment you turned your back, and sure, you forgot to change his diaper until he became red as a lobster down there—

On Mother’s Day, you try to send a card to your mother through black magic rituals you read about in the library. You have no idea if it worked, but you now deeply appreciate what she went through.

Unlike Jason, you’re pretty sure you were a little shit.

Your sunshine child is probably an alien though, and you’re not sure what it says about you that you’re struggling to keep up with what has to be the easiest baby ever. At least you’re trying unlike Willis, who’s starting to prefer the company of his beer over their little family.

The warning signs about your husband go straight over your head as you become invested in making sure your little alien is taught how to be human with all the necessary skills.

Reading time means your voice starts getting sillier and sillier. You make him laugh by making puppets out of newspaper and putting on a simple show. You put him in a box and zoom him gently across the carpet which delights both of you.

You never expected to be a mother, but—

You clap and cheer when your baby manages to sit up by himself. You record all of Jason's firsts in an expensive baby journal you fished out the trash. Unfortunately, his first word is not mama. Even though you talk nonstop around him, speaking in third person slips your mind.

“Shit,” Jason says after you drop the lid of his baby food.

You laugh because otherwise you'd spiral into madness, wondering if this makes you a bad mother. But also, it’s pretty funny to see the word “Shit” surrounded by cheery duckies next to a stylized “Baby’s First Word.”

You can’t wait to see his face when you show him the journal once he’s an adult.

You don’t even bother showing the journal to Willis other than to reassure him you didn’t buy it to shut down the inevitable complaining before it even begins.

It’s not fair to Jason to have such an uninvolved father, but you actually prefer it this way. It took a while to piece together, but your husband hangs with a bad crowd. And you don’t mean simply bad friends.

Willis is in a gang; one that controls the area you live in.

It took a fair amount of snooping and waiting until Willis was good and drunk to pry some secrets out, but you’ve managed to figure out he works for a big time crook named Dent. You’re pretty sure he’s the man they call Two-Face in the newspapers.

The nickname is familiar, but you can’t remember why.

Either way, the more Willis stays away from Jason, the better in your opinion. You don’t need your son dragged into Gotham’s underbelly because his father wants to play family with him. You won’t allow it.

Your life keeps on chugging along, barely making ends meet with a husband to coddle when he starts getting agitated and a baby to protect from the harshness of the world.

To distract Willis from your baby who only gets louder and wordier the older he gets, you take your clothes off and stare at the ceiling while your husband has fun. It doesn’t bother you now as much as did at the beginning because you know exactly what Willis does to provide for this family.

You know he’s drinking so heavily now because of the blood on his hands and the horrors he’s forced to deal with.

Lately, something hurts more than usual though. You brush it off as nothing. It goes away soon after sex, so it’s probably just bruising. You put a stop to the activities until it heals.

Of course, your husband gets upset at you denying him your time together. You’ve never denied him anything, and the two of you rarely get to see each other nowadays. It’s out of character enough that he starts suspecting you of seeing someone behind his back, which is rich coming from him.

You say as much.

And Willis, he—

He hits you.

Willis never laid a hand to you before this moment. You don’t know what to do. Should you leave? You should leave. But where? You have no one and not a penny to your name. A shelter maybe if they exist. But what about Jason? Of course, you should take him, but he’s not registered with your name. All Willis has to do is point at you and cry kidnapping and you’re both screwed.

Never mind the fact Willis is apparently part of a crime syndicate. It probably wouldn’t take much effort to make you disappear no matter where you ran.

You’re stuck.

It’s not a onetime thing like you hope either. When the anger takes him over, Willis will reach out and smack you if you’re close enough. If he’s really angry, he’ll lock you in the bedroom and—well, you can’t seem to stop angering him no matter what you do.

You think, maybe if Jason doesn’t see you getting hurt, you’ll be okay. If you work harder to keep them away from each other, maybe it won’t be a trauma for your son later in his life.

Then one day Jason is louder than normal, on the verge of a tantrum because the VCR ate his favorite movie. You can’t calm him down at all even with the promise of buying a replacement. He shouldn’t be home yet, but Willis comes in drunk and stinking of blood, and so, so angry about the racket—

He hits Jason.

That monster hits your baby.

You push Willis over, grab Jason, and run.

With a curse, Willis throws something in his pocket at you as you make for the door. It clatters to the ground with a heavy thud. Your baby is sobbing in your arms, and you can’t think; your mind is frozen in sheer terror.

Without any thought running through your head, you head for the library. You stop once it’s in sight. Jason is crying into your neck, muffling his sobs and hiding his face. The moment you go through those doors, they’ll want to know what’s wrong and why his cheek is red.

If only your name was on the birth certificate.

You head past the library and to a motel that doesn’t ask or answer questions. You keep an emergency credit card in your bra, and if this isn’t an emergency, you don’t know what is.

You get your baby settled into a room and begin the process of making sure it’s safe. You check to make sure there isn’t someone waiting in the closet or the ceiling, check for cameras, check for hidden needles, and check that the locks work.

When you’re absolutely certain there’s nothing else to do, you show Jason how to lock and bolt the door behind you. You tell him that if someone manages to get the door open, not to bother hiding because they’ll find him anyway and to wait until the person is away from the door to run for it. If they come through the window, to head straight for the door and start running.

There’s no such thing as calling the cops in Gotham City, you’ve learned over time.

It’s with a heavy and trembling heart that you leave your baby behind to go get your things because there’s no way you’re going back. You can handle the abuse in return for financial security, but you draw the line at your baby having to go through it.

When you get home, Willis is asleep on the couch, deep in drunken slumber. You go to pack a bag, but your eye lands on the thing Willis threw at you earlier. It’s a gun. A shiny, chrome pistol that stinks of money your family doesn’t have.

That man threw a gun at you and your baby as you ran.

The terror and apprehension give way to something else. To a deeper, ominous feeling. To the promise of what you’d do to someone who harmed your baby the moment you got him.

You grab a napkin and use it to pick up the gun. You wrap it up and stash it away in the bag of clothes you pack, making sure to put Jason’s clothes and books in a different bag. You don’t want him touching the vile thing even accidentally.

Willis never remembers anything shortly before he passes out. He won’t remember hitting Jason. He won’t even remember what he did with the gun.

You know exactly what to do.

You go back to the motel, do your secret knock on the door to let Jason know it’s you, and even though everything in you burns from the lies passing your lips, you tell him his dad didn’t mean to hurt him. That he was just really sick and lashed out like Jason that one time he hit another kid for stealing his book.

You’ve punished Willis, and your dad is sorry, okay sweetie?

To his credit, Jason doesn’t look like he buys your bullshit, and you wouldn’t even be bothering if it wasn’t essential to The Plan. You need to be the loving wife who bends over to make it easier for your husband to kick your ass.

By that, you mean completely blameless.

When you’re sure Willis is gone to work, you take Jason home. He’s completely terrified. Considering the darkening bruise on his cheek, it’s completely reasonable.

You tell him—

You tell him to tell anyone who asks that he hurt himself by tripping over a toy and into the counter.

Jason gives a quiet, “Okay.” It’s so far removed from your usual sunshine boy that you want to cry. It’s hard to accept, but he has every right to hate you for what you ask of him. He has every right to look up at you and see the same kind of monster his dad is.

“I’m going to hang out with Margaret for a little while, baby,” you tell him, kissing him on the forehead and trying not to cry, “and when I get back, we’ll go to the store to get your movie.”

Jason lets out another quiet, “Okay,” as you grab your rarely used purse—you only use it to carry baking ingredients over to Margaret’s, whose oven always works—and head next door. You knock on the door and wait.

Margaret takes one look at your face and ushers you in without any pleasantries.

“I’m here, baking a pie,” you say with a steely voice. It’s different from your sheepish, “I’m here to bake a pie,” and Margaret understands immediately.

“I’ve got everything for apple,” she tells you. “Use the backdoor.”

You nod and walk out, purse slung over your arm and purpose in your steps. You know where Willis works because it’s one of the things you’ve asked in his drunken states.

You know where to wait. You know where there are no cameras and no witnesses. Where Willis makes his rounds dumping bodies and illicit goods for the cops to find. He’s told you as much even though that’s something you’ve never asked.

“Catherine?” Willis is confused when he sees you. You’re not supposed to be here.

“Will,” you say with a shaky breath, “a man came by and told me to come find you. He’s in our house with Jason.”

The sheer terror that morphs Willis’ face almost makes you regret this plan, but those feelings are easy to squash once he clenches his jaw and hisses out, “Bet it’s one of Cobblepot’s boys. Gonna teach them a lesson.”

Willis squares his shoulders and marches away before stopping as if hit by a sudden thought. He pats down his suit, sighs, and takes out a pack of cigarettes.

“Gotta borrow a piece from Zackery first though. No idea where mine went. Boss is going to kill me,” he mutters to himself, placing a cigarette in his mouth.

You have no idea if Willis is more worried about the man in his house or the fact that he doesn’t know where his pistol went. Maybe a part of him loves Jason, but that part is smothered by Willis the Gangster, who’s in too deep to get out.

If he’d only destroy himself, maybe things could have gone differently.

You open your purse and take out Willis’ gun. The handle is still wrapped in napkins. You remember the stinging on your face, on your arms, in your vagina. You remember the dark bruise on your baby’s face. You remember that you had to look your son in the eye and tell him to say he hurt himself.

Woe be the well-read woman who knows how to use a gun.

You do what you have to, to protect yourself and your baby. It’s both easier and harder than you’d thought it be. Easier because Willis never sees it coming from his timid wife and harder because even if you wipe the gun down thoroughly, change out your clothes for the ones in the purse before burning the whole thing, do all the right things—your hands never stop shaking.

You did what you had to.

You did what you had to.

You did what you—

Margaret doesn’t bat an eye at the fact you’ve changed from the puke green dress that makes you look sick to a tight, dark green one. She doesn’t say anything as you walk in, in only a pair of thick, dirty socks layered over stockings.

She just hands you an apple pie and tells you it’s been a pleasure talking about the crazy things celebrities get up to like play bumper cars with their yachts.

You nod and go home.

Jason doesn’t comment on the change in dress, but he’s probably too busy stuffing his face with warm apple pie to even notice. You put your socks in the trash can, fully intending to burn them later, and put on a new pair of shoes you were saving for when your current ones wore out.

Your baby is so happy at getting pie and his movie back, that he doesn’t even realize Willis never comes home.

A strung-out cop is the one to deliver the news. Your heart beats a mile a minute as he goes down a list of questions for you. He doesn’t bat an eye at your nervousness or the bruise on Jason’s face when he comes to see what’s happening.

There’s nothing more to it. The cop tells you to wait and see if your husband’s death is on the news before walking down to the drug dealer a couple doors down to get his fix.

Since you don’t get the news, you have to wait until the newspaper the next day. Jason shoots you unsettling looks while you make dinner without a word. There’s no way he can know, but you feel deeply paranoid about it.

In the newspaper is a small article about Willis’ death. They don’t name him, but it’s definitely talking about Willis. His death is being attributed to a rival gang attack. Apparently, the shiny chrome gun is a statement—there’s an etching of a coin on it which represents the gang—and using them against their owners is a whole thing.

You’ve been cleared of all suspicion except you were never a suspect to begin with.

Dent’s men swing by to offer their condolences, and you can barely fight back the tears to thank them. Your quivering lips and heaving chest cause the men in the pin-striped suits to be more genuine and gentler in their words, but it’s not an act. You are genuinely grieving.

You’re not mourning your husband though. You’re mourning the blood staining your hands and the uncertain future without a steady income.

Dent will extend his protection for the next three years as an act of pity for you, the poor widow, but you’re on your own after that. You’ll either have to move or scrape up the protection fees that were waived for your husband.

You have no idea what to do, but it’ll be better than letting your baby grow up abused and hurting. Jason seems to be relieved that his father is dead. If that isn’t telling, you don’t know what is.

Now how to pay the bills.

It’s tempting to sell your body for a quick buck. You’re a very attractive person, objectively speaking. You could probably charge high.

But.

You’ve seen the working women, seen how disease and abuse has disfigured them. You don’t want your baby seeing you like that. Assuming you don’t wind up dead in a ditch from someone looking for an easy victim.

So reluctantly, you cross that idea out and budget the rent and food on whatever cash Willis had hidden away. It’s not much—you’ll be lucky to last three months on it—but maybe that will be enough time to find a job that you don’t have to lie to your son about.

In the end, it’s Margaret who solves your problems.

“The grocer’s on Parkinson is looking for a stockboy. My cousin can tell them to hire you,” she says when you come over to share a cup of coffee.

“I’ll take it,” you say immediately, too desperate to even ask what the pay is.

You expect grueling work. You expect to be treated like garbage from crawling out of Crime Alley. To your surprise, your manager couldn’t care less. As long as you’re doing your job, you’re left alone. Stocking is tedious, and you’re sore from ill-fitting shoes and hauling around boxes; but it’s worth it.

The pay is lousy of course; it doesn’t allow for much outside of paying the bills, but the advantage of working in a grocery store is leftover products and employee discounts. You also have an endless supply of cardboard boxes to make forts out of for Jason, but that’s more of a bonus than an advantage.

Willis’ leftover money goes straight into Jason’s college fund, and you feel no remorse over it. It’s exciting to be able to send your baby off to college before the absurd tuition hikes make that impossible.

Everything falls in place, and for the first time since you can remember, you can breathe again, so when there’s sudden, sharp pain in your pelvis, it feels like a betrayal from on high.

You try to will your body to stop it, to suddenly be better through sheer willpower, but that’s not how bodies work. When the pain continues with no sign of stopping, it’s with great reluctance that you take a day off from work to visit a clinic you can afford.

What awaits you upon being inflicted with tests and prodding is enough to send you spiraling as hard as the first day you became Catherine.

It’s—

It’s cancer.

Cervical cancer.

A hysterectomy might cure it, but they're not certain. They won't allow it without being 100% certain. After all, you haven’t had children, and what is a woman who hasn't done her duty?

Never mind that you already have a son, or that you’re not even sure you can provide for him let alone another child. Never mind that you have no intention of getting pregnant in this body that's not yours, or that you wouldn't choose it even in your own.

A woman's worth is in her womb apparently, and to these doctors, you’re better off dying than to give up the chance to give birth.

It’s still an easy fix the doctor assures you, for the low, low price of money you simply do not have. Oh well, that changes things then, they tell you. Surely you can get the funds from somewhere?

No, you cannot.

Guess you should start making a will then.

You blew a portion of Jason’s college fund for this. For a doctor to tell you, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it past 5 years.

You go home and cry your heart out since Jason is still at school.

If Willis were still alive, you may have had a chance. You’ve never felt more regret in your life. Then you remember Jason’s swollen cheek, and that regret disappears.

No. The time for crying has passed. You need to make sure your son has a future waiting for him outside this filthy alley. You want him to do more than barely claw his way to the next day. You want him to have the choice to follow his dreams.

It’s hard, of course, continuing on like nothing has happened. Hard not to tell yourself this is heaven’s punishment for being a murderer.

You try to make it through the pain, but your thighs swell up and every move of your waist feels like knives has been inserted in you.

The dealer down the street has a magic fix to make the pain go away for three dollars. You almost take it. You take out your money ready to buy as much as you can, but a single glance to the woman a step away with glazed over eyes and a wallet that screams stolen stops you in your tracks.

You hate the pain, but you hate the thought of your baby seeing you like that even more.

“Just give me a week’s worth of blunts,” you say instead.

You will make this much stretch for a couple of months by gritting your teeth through the pain. It will be worth it in the end. It has to.

You reconsider taking the stronger stuff several times as the years go by and the pain worsens, but you keep to cannabis instead. You’re glad of it when you hear about the last shipment being contaminated and killing the users who couldn’t bring themselves to throw it away.

“Mom, can we go to the zoo?” Jason pleads upon seeing an advertisement for a new exhibit in the newspaper. His eyes are round and shiny. “I’ll do the dishes all by myself! And scrub the toilet! And wash the windows!” He continues to beg.

“We can go this weekend,” you tell him, laughing as he jumps up and down with an excited scream.

You try not to show any sign of displeasure. The price of the tickets will make things a little tough, but it’s the thought of walking all day around a zoo that makes you want to scream. You don’t know how you’re going to survive through the pain.

But you want Jason to experience what other kids get to do, want him to learn and grow, so the zoo it is. Even as you sit on a bench under the pretense of saving a spot while handing your son the money for a treat, you continue to act like nothing is wrong.

You feel like the Little Mermaid who dances with a smile even as the feeling of knives pierces your flesh. Your love is just that great.

The only thing love can’t do is provide for Jason after your passing. That’s something you need to figure out before you deteriorate past the point of being able to hide it. You don’t want your baby to worry about surviving even for a second.

You don’t want him to ever feel like you did.

The answer comes to you one day while you’re reading the newspaper. The front page shows Bruce Wayne. Gotham’s richest bachelor always felt a little familiar, but you chalked that up to the fact that the media loves to plaster his face everywhere.

It’s the article that comes after which happens to include a shadowy silhouette of Batman that does it.

Memories come flooding in. You remember Batman. You remember the toys your parents would get you. You remember Robin. You remember Jason Todd—

You go to your room and tear up the birth certificate hidden in the closet before you even realize what you’re doing. Then you take those pieces and continue tearing until it becomes impossible to. Your room looks like snow once you’re finished.

You know what to do to make sure your baby gets plenty to eat.

The plan is set in motion once Jason is gone for school. You put on your nicest looking clothes, do your hair in the fanciest ponytail you know, and put on the little bit of jewelry that you own. In the mirror, you look at yourself and nod.

You look more than presentable. You look ready for war.

A cab takes you to straight to the gates surrounding Wayne Manor. You tip the cabbie well—technically he’s not supposed to bring anyone this way—and march up to the entrance. You place yourself in front of the camera looking down from above the speaker box.

“I know who you are,” you say coldly, holding the newspaper clipping of Batman to the camera.

The gates open without a sound.

It’s a long walk to the manor properly; there’s even another set of gates. You were prepared for it, prepared for the knives digging into your nerves with every step. This is the most important thing you will ever do in this life, and damned if you’ll let the pain get the best of you.

It is Bruce Wayne, who greets you at the door, who welcomes you into his parlor. Who laughs at you as if you’re playing the world’s greatest joke.

“So which paper is trying to start a new juicy bit this time,” Bruce wiggles his eyebrows at you. He’s good; you’ll give him credit. You would never have thought such a vapid, rich pretty boy was the terror of the night.

“There’s no use pretending, Batman,” you tell him with utter seriousness.

Just like that, the playful and teasing demeanor drops. This isn’t Bruce Wayne as seen in the papers; this is Batman, dangerous and dark. The frigid expression and posture remind you uncomfortably of Willis, but you stay strong.

“Who have you told?” Batman demands to know.

“No one. I’m the only one who knows,” you say before tacking on truthfully, “that I know of.”

“What do you want?” Batman is looking you up and down, categorizing information and sizing you up.

The thought of being able to take on Batman nearly breaks your facade; you’re so tiny, you couldn’t take on a kid with a steady diet. You power through the laughable idea of ninja battling Batman.

“I’ll be frank. I don’t have long to live thanks to our wonderful medical field still living in the dark ages,” you tell him, keeping your composure somehow. “I need—"

“If this is blackmail for a cure—” Batman growls.

“Let me finish,” you say icily. “I don’t have long to live which means my little boy will be all alone. He won’t tolerate foster care, he’s too independent. Which means he’ll be on the streets doing who-knows-what to get by.”

“His name is Jason,” you say, handing over a picture of Jason to Batman. “He loves reading and school. He’s got a bit of a temper, but that’s because he can’t handle his emotions yet when faced with cruelty. He’s come home bruised up more than once because he was trying to protect someone.”

Batman studies the picture, looking lost. It’s a good one. You took it when Jason was attempting to read Moby Dick and failing. His hair is tousled, his lip halfway in his teeth out of aggravation. When you started laughing at him, he looked up at you and beamed. It’s one of your most treasured photos.

“He has no one else. No one to encourage him to keep reading. No one to make sure he’s eating okay.” No one to make sure he is happy, you don’t say. Happiness isn’t what you’re negotiating. Not yet.

“You want me to take him in,” Batman says with certainty. “What makes you think he’ll be willing to stay here if you expect him to run away from foster care?”

“Because I’ll ask him to. He’s a bit of a mama’s boy,” you say ruefully.

You know you have him when he goes back to studying the photo with a gentle expression. Be it destiny or orphan boys with black hair and blue eyes, Bruce Wayne crumbles as you tell him more about Jason.

Now for the finishing move to secure your son’s happiness.

When he gets home, you tell Jason you’ve reconnected with an old friend. It’s not really a lie; Bruce does feel like an old friend even if you’ve just met him and are blackmailing him with his best kept secret. Besides, his number says My Friend in your new phone’s contact list, so there.

You set up a meeting at a fast-food joint. The atmosphere is stiff until you prod Jason into talking about literature that somehow turns into a discussion on social justice. You see the moment Bruce Wayne in all his mustache-disguised glory falls in love with this small, bright creature, who will be all alone once you’re gone.

You take vicious delight in the fact you’re not to only one who’s wrapped around Jason’s finger.

It’s a great feeling to no longer need to worry about your baby.

Not too long after a third meetup between Jason and Bruce, your condition takes a turn for the worse. You’ve run your body harder than you should’ve, and now it’s demanding payment.

When you can’t get out of bed to make breakfast and get ready for work, Jason calls the only other number in his contact list using his cheap flip phone that’s meant for much younger children. He’s crying, and you feel bad about it; but you pass out from the pain before you can even blink.

When you open your eyes, you’re in the hospital.

A nurse tells you, you’ve been set up with a private room from an anonymous donator. Of course, the donator is Bruce Wayne, you both know it, but the nurse can only beat around the bush thanks to management’s orders.

There’s no way to stop the cancer, the nurse tells you sadly. All they can do is make you comfortable. Then she presses the button and puts you on the good stuff. The amount of painkillers pumping through you are enough to hail her as the next coming savior.

Without the pain weighing you down, you’re in better spirits than you have been in years. It’s hard not to be happy even as Jason runs into your arms crying.

Really, that boy. He got his emotional side from you.

“Mom, are you going to die?” Jason hiccups in your neck, and all you can do is pat his back while he sobs his soul out.

“Yes, baby,” you say with all the grace of someone high on morphine. “I’ve been sick a long time.”

It takes all day to calm him down, to get him to stop throwing around nonessential things in the room out of misplaced anger. While he always put the items back in place afterwards, the throwing things doesn’t seem to help. When your baby works himself up to a panic attack, you call Bruce to talk him through breathing exercises over the phone.

“It’s not fair,” Jason sniffs while snuggling up to you.

“It’s not,” you agree, “but life rarely is.”

You don’t allow Jason to spend the night in the hospital despite his protests. It’s no place for a kid, and if he’s anything like you, he’ll be too busy watching you for signs of your immediate death to sleep. It’s what you used to do whenever you dared to place him in that disaster of a crib.

That’s how you wrangle up a room for Jason at Wayne Manor. One last little manipulation before you go. Can’t be hard-pressed to take in a kid if there’s already a room there.

You also make sure Bruce goes with Jason personally to collect what he wants out of the house. The boy takes after you; he’ll probably need someone to comfort him. The rest of the items remaining go to Margaret, the greatest person you know.

You don’t allow Jason to skip school no matter how many times he asks to though. You have no idea when you’re going to leave, and school is important. Perhaps your insistence is why Jason is so reluctant to show you his report card of failing grades.

“I just want to make you proud,” Jason says lowly, eyes downcast. The words hurt in a way even as they make your heart overflow with love.

“Baby, you will make me proud no matter what happens,” you tell him before placing a kiss on his forehead.

“Be kind to yourself. You’re going through something rough,” you say even as you mash down on the nurse button. Something doesn’t feel right. You feel a little too disconnected.

“I’m not the one dying!” Jason shouts.

“But you’re watching someone you love die which is worse.” You reach for his trembling hand and marvel at its warmth.

“Baby, my baby,” you say with everything you have. “If you really want to do something for me,” you’re so tired, “do what you can to survive, but also do what you can to be happy. That’s all I’ll ever ask of you.” You smile and close your eyes.

Just when did the nightmare become a pleasant dream, you wonder?

“Mom?”