Chapter Text
Eudora waits for Diego until she can't anymore. Backup, my ass, she thinks. She shouldn't even give him the time of day—every problem that he has somehow turns into an "I'm going to be mean to my ex-girlfriend who's just trying to be supportive" fest—but she loves him. Even after all this time. Even though she doesn't want to be in a relationship with him. Even though he's rash and rude and won't go to therapy; even though their lifestyles are incompatible and she refuses to be the Gordon to his Batman. Yeah, she still loves him.
It's why she's here, looking for his brother. Diego never talked about his family much, but she knows one died years ago, and another disappeared years before that. She's not sure which brother is missing now, but she's not going to let him lose anyone else. Especially not since his mother was murdered so recently. Diego has to manage enough grief.
Not to mention, somebody going missing is cop business. So maybe there's no missing person's report, big deal. She knows there's a Hargreeves missing. She'd never forgive herself if she didn't at least try to look for him.
Eudora cases the place, heading up the outside stairs and walking around the motel. She edges past each door slowly, listening for anything out of the ordinary. This is stupid, she tells herself. There're at least a hundred rooms here. How the hell is she going to figure out which one it is? Just because they've kidnapped a guy doesn't mean they're going to be loud about it.
A loud thumping sound from one of the rooms makes her pause. Not music. It's like something thwacking against wood, and there's no real rhythm to it, just slamming over and over again, getting quicker, almost frantic. Eudora notices the cleaning lady near her in the hall and gestures for the key card, which the woman hands over quickly. Eudora slides the key card in, takes a moment to hope this is the right room, and opens the door.
The first thing she notices is that the lights are off. The second is that there's a naked man whimpering in a chair in front of her, his mouth duct-taped. His hands, too, but not his feet. She does a rapid scan—no bullet wounds, a ring of bruising on his neck but no cuts, nothing lethal unless it's internal bleeding, which could be a possibility. Also, not fully naked. He's got a bath towel on. She gets her gun out and scans the room next—no one else there.
"Are you Diego's brother?" she says.
He nods rapidly, eyes wide, straining against the duct tape.
Eudora supposes that he might say yes to any question she asked him, given that her appearance in the motel room means she's probably here as a rescuer, but even if this isn't Diego's brother, he needs to be rescued. She decides to go on the working theory that he's telling the truth, even though she'd rescue him either way.
It's too dark to get a good look at him, but Eudora can see the blood smeared across his bare chest and dripping from various cuts all over his body. Blood leaks from Hargreeves's temple down to his cheekbone. His arms look pretty bad, too, and his bath towel is stained red in more than a few places. He jerks around in the chair, trying to talk through the duct tape across his mouth.
"I'm Detective Patch," she says, but he gestures with his head towards the back of the room before she has time to say anything else. Not the back of the room—the bathroom. She can see the closed door.
Hargreeves is still whimpering. If his kidnappers are back there, like he's trying to say that they are, then he's going to give her away. Eudora quickly puts a finger to her lips to shush him. Internally swearing at herself, she holsters her gun, and then she whips her pocket knife out to cut his hands free. He moans a little when she frees his left hand, shaking it to get the blood flowing, and he paws at her arm lightly, his hand on her jacket feeling like he's just breezing by her. Like he wants to grasp at a life preserver but his fingers slip off instead. The weakness in his limbs is more obvious when he tries and fails to pull the duct tape off his mouth. At the second grab, by the time she's freed his other arm, he gets it off. His fingers are probably swollen. Eudora pulls out her gun and resolves to check when they get out of here.
"There's two," he says, and it's more of a gasp than a whisper, but it's quiet enough; it'll do.
This gives her pause. She'd intended on arresting whoever kidnapped Hargreeves and shot up Diego's house, but she'd hoped that only one would be in the room when she arrived. Facing two well-armed people without backup? Two well-armed people who managed to kill Diego's mom while he was in the house? Mr. "I'm more lethal than a hippo" Diego? Yeah, no. Not a good plan. She concentrates on listening, and she realizes she can hear faint sounds of arguing from the closed bathroom. Definitely two people. Definitely a bad idea to stay.
Hargreeves stands up and almost tips over, but he steadies himself, slowly trying to straighten up. He busies his shaky hands with the task of keeping his bath towel around his waist. When he turns, Eudora can see large patches of bruises, scrapes, and cuts on his back. Eudora grabs at his unharmed elbow, tugging him towards the door. He doesn't need to be pulled twice. Eudora doesn't bother shutting the door, afraid of the noise.
Hargreeves almost trips down the stairs multiple times. Maybe falls down the stairs would be better phrasing. He's quiet aside from his ragged breathing—hurt ribs or just exhausted? He's been kidnapped for what, a day? Two days? Eudora can't remember if Diego had said his brother had gone missing before or after his house was shot up. Either way, he looks like he's been tortured for a while, so his exhaustion is forgivable. She catches him every time he stumbles, her palm coming away sticky when she steadies him by his shoulder—he's cold and clammy, painted with sweat and blood. Eudora resists the urge to wipe her hand on her pants and instead points at her car and takes his elbow again, half-dragging him there. Hargreeves pulls open the door to the back seat instead of the passenger side, which is weird, but not a priority.
Eudora has barely finished buckling her seat belt when a gunshot rings out, and the car tilts down.
"Fuck!" she says. It's gotta be the tire. Eudora turns the car on and slams on the gas pedal.
Hargreeves himself slams into the back of her seat.
"Seat belt!" she yells. She hears three more gunshots but only one pings her car, and then they're away, out of the parking lot. A soft click behind her makes her freeze—gun, gun, gun—but it's just Hargreeves's seat belt.
The guy is half-laughing, half-sobbing in the backseat. "They're so pissed!"
"No shit." Eudora's eyes flick up to the rear-view mirror, and she can see the tears tracking through the blood on his face. His eyeliner is smudged. He looks nothing like Diego—but Diego had been adopted, that's right. He and his siblings were adopted.
"Probably my fault," Hargreeves says. "You'd think they would know better than to be so vulnerable! Got to present a united front against the person you're torturing or he'll start getting ballsy, prying at cracks in the relationship foundation." He half-giggles as he talks. "I'm the water freezing in the rock. What the hell is that called?" His head lolls toward the seat beside him. Eudora thinks for a second that he might pass out, but he's just looking out the window. "Yes, erosion, thank you. I eroded them. Got them all argue-y."
"Good job," Eudora says, and she means it. She'd have had a tougher time getting him out if they hadn't been arguing in the bathroom.
"Oh, God," he says. "Oh, wow. I'm out. I'm out. Oh my god."
"It's going to be okay," she says, wondering if that's true. "How bad are you hurt?"
"I'm dizzy," he says, "but that's probably because I kept slamming my head on that table." He keeps laughing. "Oh, man. Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you."
"Do you know why they took you?"
"I don't know," he groans, the laughter dying in his throat. "They were looking for Five."
"Five of what?"
"Who are you?" he says. Then, realizing that was kind of direct, he says, "I'm not trying to be ungrateful, I swear. Just, like, who are you?"
"I'm Detective Patch," she reminds him.
"Oh, right, right. You said. No, I mean, what? How'd you find me? I didn't think anyone was going to come."
He looks too vulnerable for his tone to be that calm. She softens her voice, like she used to whenever Diego used to forget that hugs were something that normal people were allowed to have. "Diego was worried about you," she says.
Hargreeves looks baffled. "Me?"
"You're his brother," Eudora says, "of course he was worried. He told me about you being missing."
"I didn't think anyone would notice."
She doesn't know what to say to that.
He sags against the cushioned seat. "How do you know Diego?"
"We were in the police academy together. I see him around pretty often. He always messes with my cases."
"Yeah, he's doing the whole vigilante thing. Couldn't quite let his hero complex go." Hargreeves smiles. "Your cases, huh? Pulling your pigtails?" He looks to the empty seat beside him again. "Hey, I think it's a fair question. She's Diego's type."
"I’m his type?"
"You seem a little dangerous. The gun and all,” he says. “If you're not dangerous, you're not interesting.
"You Hargreeves guys are messed up,” she says.
"Just now realizing that?” Hargreeves says. “The fact that Diego’s too busy swanning around in a leather catsuit to say hello didn’t tip you off?”
"He's the one who told me you were missing,” Eudora says. She can't help but defend him. "Even if he's not here right now, he cares. He's probably looking around elsewhere. I called him to come back me up, but he wasn't at the boxing ring."
"The what? Nevermind." Hargreeves scrubs his face with his hands. "We've been driving for so long. Where are we going?"
It hasn't been that long, actually, but she doesn't bother correcting him. "The police station."
"Aw, no. I hate that place." Hargreeves frowns almost comically. He looks at the left seat again. "Shut up. Rude, much?"
Talking to himself is not a good sign. "Maybe we'll go to the hospital first, actually."
"Let's just go home," he says.
Eudora spares another glance at him in the rear-view mirror. He's not looking to the left anymore, but he also doesn't seem like he's focused on anything, his eyes darting around wildly. He's started to shiver.
She feels herself frown against her will and forces her face to smooth out. "You're bleeding all over, and you look like you've got a concussion."
"A little bit of torture never hurt anybody," he says, and then he starts laughing again. It sputters into a sob and then he takes a deep breath. "It's fine. We have an infirmary at the Academy. Mom will patch me right up. Hah, Patch. Get it?"
Eudora's heart sinks. Hargreeves doesn't know yet that his mom is dead. She can't bring herself to tell him, not when he looks so bad. She's saved from having to say something by her cellphone, which buzzes aggressively in her pocket.
"It's me," Diego says when she picks up. "I'm at the motel. I'm using the front desk phone. Where are you?"
"Get out of there, Diego," Eudora says, her voice urgent. "I've got your brother. Those freaks in the masks are probably still there. It's not safe."
"Cha-Cha and Hazel," Hargreeves says.
Eudora glances in the rear-view mirror to see if he's talking nonsense to the empty air again, but he's looking right at her. She ignores him.
"What do you mean you've got my brother?"
Eudora swerves to miss a pothole. She hates driving with a tire busted, but she doesn't want to pull over to change it. "Call the anonymous tip hotline and tell them that the two masked people are staying at this hotel. They might be gone by the time the cops get there, but we can at least get evidence, pick up the trail."
"Okay, I will," he says, in a tone that sounds like he definitely won't.
"Look, just meet me at my place. Get the hell away from that motel, Diego, I mean it."
"Alright, alright; I'll see you in a few."
Diego hangs up. Eudora puts her phone back in her pocket and turns down another street.
"The freaks in the masks," Hargreeves says. "Their names are Cha-Cha and Hazel. Cha-Cha's the pretty one. Hazel's got a beard. Or maybe he is a beard."
"Code names?"
Hargreeves shrugs. His head lolls again, but he stares out his own window this time.
"Well, whoever they are, they haven't followed us," Eudora says, "so you're coming back to my house and we're going to clean your wounds. No police station, no hospital, just you and me and Diego. It's gonna be okay."
"Fuck," Hargreeves mutters. "Fuck!"
Eudora almost hits the breaks at his shout. "What? What is it?"
"I left my coat at the motel! Those assholes still have my good coat! Not that my good stuff is in it anymore." He sighs, and when she looks in the rear-view mirror, he's pressing his palms into his forehead. "Fuck. Shut up, Ben."
He's talking to himself again. Eudora drives a little bit faster.