Chapter Text
The Bus is an experience, for lack of a better term.
Matt had long gotten used to Gotham Public Transport. But he was used to twenty first century public transport, not late seventies Gotham Public Service and its underfunded, not Wayne Enterprises supported staff and stations. The bus wasn’t just dated for him – it was dated for now. It looked like something that crawled its way out of a Nuclear Test Zone – its rust stains had rust stains, and its dents warped so much that they almost seemed structurally integral to the vehicle itself.
And its seats.
He’d forgotten how bad old vintage seats could be. He was used to the ones in cars from those road shows, where the single piece foam and woollen back piece was a simple, flat, but still comfortable enough to sleep in, shape and form. These ones were…
Well, he’s fairly sure the lumps digging into his back used to be functioning springs, and that the pattern on the seats were once a light threaded blue and red tartan before they got ripped to bits. It kind of… messes with him, how much Wayne Enterprises had actually changed about this city before he was ever born. Or maybe it was just time? Maybe back in these days, all systems and cities had the same problems? He wouldn’t know.
Matt does know that Jerome makes him take the window seat midway up the bus, and that the teenager has been sending a very stone-faced glare at the two other men on the route. The elderly lady sitting right behind the bus driver barely gets more than the occasionally suspicious squint. But the two other male passengers? Oh boy. And in a way…
Matt gets it.
He remembers the stories of Old Gotham. Even if, in his time, it hadn’t changed much, it was once a hell of a lot worse than anything he’d personally known. People had a reason to be scared. People had a reason to watch their back.
He thinks, from memory, that Arkham had been closed just after the Second World War, and that instead of sending the patients elsewhere to be treated, he thinks he remembers that they were just… released. Out into the city. There was a reason Gotham had its reputation, and that reputation long preceded the arrival of Killer Clowns and mad men with gimmicks.
The hard part about this whole affair, is that he’d probably feel a great deal more safe it he had all his stuff, but the only things that are with him is what was on him and… that. Wasn’t all that much. He was lucky that he’d been wearing the shoulder pack he usually takes to school, but it didn’t have anything worthwhile in it. No phone – which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway – no clothes, and no wallet. He only had a few empty notebooks he’d absentmindedly packed in the day before everything went to hell for a club he’d just signed up for, and forgot to take them out. He has a lunch bag – with some dried snacks in it, he’ll have to ask Jerome if the driver would argue about eating food on the bus – and the world’s most pathetic first aid kit. A grand total of a band aid, some wet wipes, painkillers, and a small compression bandage that Terry had once stuffed in there back when Matt used to worry about things like bullies and falling off his skateboard.
Staring at his bag now – a cheerful yellow and black, which oddly makes him think of Max and her favoured clothing styles – he gets another sudden rush of homesickness that he’s been steadfastly trying to ignore.
Considering the way Ace has rest his head on Matt’s shoes from where the hound was draped along the flaw, he isn’t doing as great a job as he’d have liked. The only positive is that Jerome seems the kind of guy to straight up ignore that kind of sentiment.
Wondrously, he does exactly that.
“So,” the Bus driver drawls in a voice so monotone, Matt wonders how many hours this man had been driving to not even make an attempt at feigning interest. “Where to from here, boys?”
Matt sends a quick panicked look at Jerome, who has already raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smirk – turd – and does his best to mouth; ‘Bowery?’ In a clear enough manner that he can actually get his point across. Jerome tilts his head, seems to consider this for a second, and calls back to the Bus Driver.
“Amusement Mile to Park Entrance, to catch the tube.” The Bus Driver nods, whilst Matt frowns.
“That’s four stops,” Is it? He’s sure it’s more than that… “I’ll tell you when.”
“Amusement Mile?” He whispers to Jerome as the Bus starts back up, and the man closest to the back groans in detest – he must have been hoping the bus was on route to the mainland, which means he must have boarded the wrong one by mistake, loser – and Jerome purses his lips, eyes narrowing with what Matt has begun to realise is quite possibly a very poorly hidden shit-eating grin.
“Yep.”
“No,” Matt states softly, suddenly more unsure than he’s ever felt about anything, and yet still most certainly right about this. “Its Carnival Mile. That’s… That’s the name of this strip of land.”
“Hmmm,” Jerome makes a show of leaning further back, and his long, spooky snake companion sticks its head out and stares at him. “No. Its really Amusement Mile. That is the name of the Park.”
Matt frowns, and he knows he’s right. Is he messing with me? He has to be. Unless the names changed at some point? But why? Businesses don’t need to change them like that, not even in corporate worlds.
“Amusement Mile. An… Amusement Park… called Amusement. Mile.”
Matt raises his own eyebrow, doing his best to mirror the expression, crosses his arms. “Really.”
Jerome nods, slowly, and Matt bares his teeth because he recognises the faux pandering expression growing on the teen’s face as one Terry had perfected for when he does things like write gullible on the ceiling, and proceed to pester him about it for a month, before Matt caves in and checks and realises that there was gullible written on the ceiling, he’d just refused to look, which still made him gullible.
(Terry really would either love or hate Jerome, and Matt is becoming more excited by that prospect by the second. Someone to help him bully Terry? Yes, please!)
Matt scoffs when Jerome tuts at him. “Aw, did someone tell us that it was called something else? Do you City Folks call it the Carnival Strip, now? Clown Central? Circus City, perhaps?” Jerome makes a point of patting Matt’s head slowly, each tap light, and barely enough to move his hair, but full of purposeful condescension. “Naw, you’ll figure it out! Trust a Roadie, kid. When you book the venue, the print declares itself, ‘Amusement Mile!’ In the brightest of colours, so by legal definition, that’s what it has to be.”
Grumbling, he rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
Jerome cackles – and there’s this edge to it, this slight maniacal lilt, that prickles on Matt’s awareness like the way your hair raises when lightning is going to strike – before simply sighing, and stretching his feet out under the seats in front of them.
Matt regards him sourly for a moment, before something flashes into thought. A niggle, a possibility, and guarantee that Jerome won’t end up back where he started.
“Hey,” Matt whispers with somewhat nervous fingers wrapped tightly on his lap and in his bag. “If you’re not going to have to go home anymore, then maybe…”
Jerome squints – and he knows that someone like Jerome would be able to smell a rat from a mile away, but Matt still has to try – and crosses his own arms, his snake’s head bobbing back under his jacket.
“Maybe what, huh?” Something sharp has entered Jerome’s eyes. “Got something else in mind that you realise you needed me for?”
(There are… implications to that, that Matt doesn’t understand. But its fine. One day, he’ll tell his big brother everything, and Terry can put on the Mask, and the people who made Jerome so sharp and angry and heavy with pain he practically smells of it will go far, far away, and be placed exactly where they belong. For now, Matt just has to remember the details. Because there is a lot wrong with what is in front of him right now.)
“Do you…” God, how does he word this in a way that’s not offence. “Do you think we could go to a second-hand store, and get you some new stuff?”
And for a long moment, Jerome just stares.
Before he throws his head back, and laughs. (Which deeply upsets the man behind them in the back seat, but Matt pays him no mind after the guy backs down with just a sharp look from Jerome. Oooh, I’m a big strong adult scared silly by a teenager who’s probably no bigger than your average librarian, oooh!)
“Yeah!” Jerome decides between snickers. “Hells bells- why not, huh?”
Matt grins – it probably wont help him much, but it’ll at least help Jerome, and give Matt a reason to hang around a busy part of the city. The more time he spends with people, the more likely he and Terry are to find each other.
Ace lets out a deep sigh from below Matt’s seat, and both Matt and Jerome grin at the sulking dog. Matt laughs quietly as Jerome mimics Ace’s huff right back in the dog’s face to the canine’s complete bafflement, and has to choke down an even louder giggle when Jerome splutters after Ace licks him right on the mouth.
Jerome glares at Ace, whilst the dog simply looks up at him, effortlessly attentive. Before wiping his mouth, and grimacing when it comes away wet.
“Oh, ew!” Matt giggles when Jerome shoots him a look, and its Jerome’s own fault for putting his face in kissing range – Ace is irrepressible. He got Terry mid change after a patrol, it was the funniest thing he’d thought he’d ever see, and Matt thinks this might get close mostly because Jerome seems even more disgusted than Terry was that he got a full smooch, with tongue, without warning, from an animal that knows no better.
“Ugh,” Jerome’s voice has gained a showy drawl. “And I bet you’re a ball licker, aren’t you mutt?”
Matt mock-gasps, and covers Ace’s ears. “Don’t listen to him, Ace! You’re a purebred mongrel, you hear me?”
Jerome sticks his tongue at him. Like a completely mature person, Matt sticks his tongue out right back, before remembering that he’s supposed to be acting as an adult right now, and forces his expression to return to seriousness. Which was doomed. From the start. Because Jerome doesn’t let that slide.
He reaches out a flinger, and flicks Matt on the forehead. “Dingus.”
Matt grumbles, patting Ace – who is probably missing his Master as much as Matt misses his family, his brother – and trying to keep himself stern.
A large scaly head leans back out of Jerome’s jacket, and Matt can’t help but ask.
“…Uh.” He fidgets with Ace’s ears out of slight embarrassment – it’s a snake, he’s seen dozens of them, and this one isn’t even under freakish mind control or magic or something, so what’s he so nervous about?
“You’re snake… it’s a python, right?”
“She,” Jerome answers, giving the serpent’s scaly chin a little rub. “And yes. She’s an African Rock Python. They’re one of the world’s largest snakes, so she’s at around half her full size.”
“…Half…” Matt stares at the dark, glossy eyes of one of the largest naturally occurring snakes he’s ever seen, and tries not to visible gulp in trepidation. “…Uh, how old is she?”
“From memory? She’s… somewhere around six or seven…”
Matt is so fascinated by the staring contest he has going on with the python that he almost misses Jerome’s strangely empty expression. He suddenly gets the notion that he needs to keep the other boy invested in the present conversation and not… whatever could be consuming his attention, which considering what Matt’d had to go through just to get him onboard, would not be a pleasant thought.
“…What’s her name?” Matt may have a… slight fear of snakes, but something about the almost affectionate grasp the python has on Jerome is beyond his experience with the strange creatures. Even after Kobra and all his rampages on Gotham in Matt’s time, he finds himself appreciating that this snake is beautiful, and elegant in her own right.
“…Bathsheba.” Matt blinks, watching Jerome pop his jacket collar to let the snake shift herself around once more. “She’s a gentle giant. Everyone was worried back when I was a kid, because her breed has been known to kill unprepared handlers.” Jerome sends a glance Matt’s way, and he’s surprised to see the strangely comforting smile emerging on his face.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to hold her.” Jerome sighs. “She’s probably needed to leave just as much as I do. No little glass box the size of a fridge was ever going to be big enough for her. Something was bound to happen eventually, I just… hope I can actually give her better than what she was getting, and not just another variety of sterile containment.”
Matt slumps back against his seat. The bus rumbles warningly – they’re approaching the first stop along the way, and no other bus stops have had patrons waiting, so its probably going to be a shorter trip to the train than he’d hoped. He’d never thought about what a snake needs to be happy, but now that he looks back on it, that tiny little cabinet at the Circus was bordering on cruelty. It looked more like a transport box than a home, and he’s sure that the snake needs to be transportable for a group of performers, but had Bathsheba ever been given a real terrarium? A free environment to explore? He somehow doubts that…
In a way, Jerome and his snake are more similar than Matt had first noticed. Maybe it’s a new chance for both of them. It all depends.
“…Sorry, kid.” A hand ruffles his hair, and Matt huffs, quickly batting Jerome’s arm away as he grumbles. “That’s a bit gloomy. And way too philosophical for someone like me. I’ll figure things out, and we’ll be fine.”
“…Hey…” Matt squints suspiciously. “What makes you think I’m worried or nothing? I barely know you!”
Jerome scoffs, startles, and then gives out a strangely soft – and yet somehow just as unsettling as earlier – laugh.
“Because, tyke, if this was what you think your game face is, you’d never win a hand at cards.”
And Matt can only groan in frustration.