Chapter Text
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When he decided to willingly and purposefully go into the evil coffin that eats people, Jonathan Sims had expected one of a few possible outcomes.
One: He gets eaten by the evil coffin that eats people, fails to find Daisy, and is never seen again.
Two: he successfully makes his way into the Buried and finds Daisy, but fails to make his way back out, and is never seen again.
Three: maybe, just maybe, all his work to tip the scales in his favour are enough; he goes into the Buried, finds Daisy, and returns with the both of them more-or-less in one piece, if you ignore Jon’s missing ribs.
What he had not expected, not even considered, was that the two of them might emerge from the Buried somewhere else.
They were so close.
“Daisy!” The lid of the coffin, heavy and solid above him as he pushed and heaved but it was raining, it was— fingers sliding and scrabbling, the earth squeezing— “just… hold on, don’t let go— Daisy!”
They were so close. Their freedom was right there above them, taunting them, but Jon Knew that to open the coffin, he needed both hands; and he knew, without needing any input from the Eye, that if he let go of Daisy, he would lose her. Even then, he could feel the earth pulling her down and away, his grasp on her hand slipping; wet mud sliding down to fill the space above his head, pushing him away from the open air that waited just out of reach.
Past the mud filling her mouth, Daisy choked out a single “Jon!”
He made a choice.
Jon pushed away from the coffin lid, reached down, and held tight to the person he’d come here for.
“I’ve got you, I’ve— nhg-!”
The earth fell in on top of them, and yet again, Jon was choking on it . He held on to Daisy, but did not know whether he was pulling her up or pulling himself down. I can’t breathe. I can’t, I can’t—
He couldn’t See. He couldn’t feel the connection to that part of himself left behind, that compass showing him the way. But still, miraculously, he knew which way was up, and when he reached and dug and pulled through the wet earth— making sure to keep his grip on Daisy strong— his fingers again met solid wood.
He pushed, and it did not budge. There was some air here, though, the earth around them more solid than it was before, and so with Daisy’s help he tried again; they managed to shift it up, heave towards freedom—
More dirt poured in through the coffin lid the moment it had been pushed open the slightest crack, and they let it fall shut again with a heavy, dull, thunk.
“No,” Daisy moaned. “No.”
Jon coughed and pushed again— same thing. Wet dirt spilled into their air pocket, but after a moment it settled, with the lid propped partially open to reveal…
More dirt.
No. No no no no no …
Jon shifted to look at Daisy. “We have to… to dig,” he said, breathless. The air smelled of rain and mud and old, neglected fabric.
“How far?” She asked.
“Uhm, ah…” Jon looked up. Up, up through the dirt, pictured it…
“Six feet.” Barely a whisper, but Daisy heard it. Of course she heard it. And, really, that wasn’t all that bad, after how long they’d spent packed away into the earth.
“You sure there’s air up there?”
Jon swallowed. “Yes.” Yes, there was air. That was about all he could tell— he couldn’t begin to guess at where it was. Or why.
There was nothing for it. They dug.
It became clear rather early into their journey upward that the earth here was… different. More real, perhaps, in that they couldn’t hear the singing anymore, didn’t feel the weight of the earth equally on all sides— there was direction, there was up, and the soil fell predictably downward and predictably attempted to suffocate them. It was a challenge to keep their heads inside their meagre air pocket; But, bloodied and scraped as they were, they made it.
They made it.
When they broke the surface, Jon could have cried. Okay, fine, maybe he did cry, but the only person who saw was Daisy, and could you really blame him? It would be stranger had they not cried, given the circumstances. They pulled themselves up out of the damp earth, and for a very long moment the two of them lay there, heaving for breath and letting the light midnight rain land on their skin in tiny, icy pinpricks that felt like relief and felt like life.
They gave themselves that moment to revel in being alive, and then they realized that they were in a cemetery.
“…Jon?” Daisy had sat up, with significant effort, and was staring around them with wide eyes. “What the hell?”
Jon, for his part, was quickly starting to develop a godawful headache, but still he pushed himself to sitting and followed her gaze.
An angel of stone stared down at them, wings flared wide, hands clasped as though in prayer, and on the pedestal below it, an inscription:
“Here lies Jason Todd.”
The loose soil beneath his fingers, combined with the dates inscribed in the stone, made Jon nauseous. They had— they had dug their way out of somebody else’s grave. Out of a child’s grave.
“Oh, god.” His mouth had gone dry. He swallowed; it tasted like dirt. He thought, maybe, that it always would, now. “Okay. This is…”
“Not ideal,” Daisy finished for him.
“No, not ideal.” A thought occurred to him; how long had they been there? How long until somebody found them, sitting covered in dirt beside a child’s dug-up grave? “Daisy, we should go.”
The urgency in his voice came through loud and clear; the Hunter only nodded once before standing, using the grave marker for leverage. She held a bloody mud-caked hand out to help pull Jon to his feet, and after a brief pause to get their bearings, the pair stumbled out of Gotham Cemetery.
—
The rain only worsened as they walked toward the faint glow of the city in the distance. The cold of it sank through their torn clothes and into weary bones, and they started walking closer and closer together as the wind picked up, shivering and desperately hoping for… something. A phone booth, maybe? Some sort of emergency services?
Daisy had only shook her head when Jon suggested the latter. “No. I don’t think the police can help us, and… in our state, go to a hospital and they’ll get called anyway.”
She had a point. Honestly, it was lucky nobody had seen them walking through these fancy suburbs and called the cops already; they looked like… well, they looked like they’d just been digging through grave-dirt in the dead of night, and there were very few legal explanations for that particular activity.
“Least the rain’s washing off the, uh… well, some of the dirt.” Jon scrubbed a hand over his face, but all he really accomplished was to put more dirt back.
“Not enough,” Daisy said, scratching behind her ear.
“No,” Jon sighed. “Not enough. We both need a shower.” A pause. “And clean clothes. And a bed.”
Daisy smiled, then, faint as it was. “I think a bed might be asking too much. A couch sounds great right now.”
Jon smiled back. “Honestly I’d take a patch of floor, so long as it was somewhere warm and dry.”
There was a long stretch of silence, the only sounds being the howling of distant wind and the cascade of rain against the streets of the city they had found themselves in. Finally, Daisy pointed ahead— “there.”
It was a phone booth. Positioned just to the left of an impressive bridge, beyond which apparently lay the city proper. Jon sped up towards it, stumbling as the wind coming off the water nearly pushed him over, and finally, finally felt some semblance of control over this situation.
He would call the Institute. They would… send somebody, or something. Tell him where he was and where to go. He would call them and everything would be alright— or, as alright as it was before he’d gone into the coffin, anyway.
Instead, when he tried to shove coins into the slot…
Nothing happened.
He held the receiver to his ear, waited, waited…
Just as Daisy made it to the booth, a mechanized voice intoned:
“Invalid currency.”
And, as the machine sent his coins back to him, Jon realized another thing: the mechanized phone voice was American.
“God— fucking damnit!”
Daisy winced. “Bad news?”
Jon screwed his eyes shut, but that only made his headache worse, and— “we’re in America,” he grit out. “It won’t— it won’t take my money!”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh,’”
“Well… we know we’re in America now, at least.”
“Right, yes, I suppose there’s that.” Jon looked out toward the bridge, felt wind whipping through whatever part of him it could reach. Would it be more dangerous to sit still in the relative shelter of the phone booth, or to walk out over that dark water, exposing themselves to the full biting force of the wind?
“Come on, then,” Daisy said, and started toward the bridge.
“What—? I mean, are you sure? We could rest here for a minute, if you need—“
“Jon, honestly,” the Hunter considered her words a moment, grabbing hold of a railing for support. “If I stop to rest, I won’t be getting back up.”
Jon felt his stomach do a funny little lurch at her words. “Ah. Right, alright, let’s go then.”
They walked.
It took them a long time to cross that bridge, stopping to grip onto whatever railing they could when the wind threatened to sweep them away. By the time they had made it to the other side, they were barely upright, leaning heavily on each other for support as they made their way into the dark city. One step at a time, he thought; just keep walking.
As they walked, the buildings around them seemed to press in closer and closer; they felt worn-down and foreboding, casting ever-deepening shadows on narrowing streets, and Jon found himself casting nervous glances into every alleyway they passed and gripping Daisy’s arm tighter than was strictly necessary for balance purposes. His headache was ever-present, and he found that he still couldn’t See properly, and he jumped at every sound and every motion in the dark and the rain.
Jon thought Daisy seemed to be faring better, staring straight ahead, jaw set and steps even. That is, he thought so until she tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and nearly brought them both to the ground; he only just managed to steer them to lean against a dirty, crumbling brick wall and catch their breath.
“Where… where are we going?” Daisy whispered, staring up at the clouded sky.
Jon tipped his head back against the bricks, felt the rainwater running down his back. “Somewhere we can use a phone? I don't know.”
Daisy slid down the wall, sitting on the wet concrete and putting her forehead on her knees. “Can’t you use your… creepy Archivist powers to figure it out?”
He huffed. “I… have been trying. It’s hard to See here. It makes me nervous,” he admitted, and as if on cue he jumped at some small sound from the alleyway to his left. “This place, it isn’t… it isn’t safe.”
“Gotham,” Daisy said, apparently apropos of nothing.
“What?”
“Here,” she pointed at the soggy newspaper she’d found on the ground. “The Gotham Globe. I’m guessing that’s the, uh, the city we’re in?”
Jon pushed off the wall and crouched down to look at it. Riddler Back In Arkham, read the front page; Batman and Robin Come to the Rescue.
The content of the articles were unreadable, the ink washed out by the rain. Likewise, the accompanying picture had been reduced to a pair of vague humanoid shapes on the page— one perhaps being held up the other, which seemed to be a dark shadow with… pointy ears?
Who are they? Jon wondered, and tried to will himself to Know.
“Batman fights crime,” Jon told Daisy, “He’s, ah… a vigilante. And Robin is his sidekick.” Thank you.
“What, like… comic book heroes?”
Jon shrugged. “I think so.”
“Is that… normal, here?”
Maybe he was distracted searching for answers, or maybe it was the rapidly worsening headache, but Daisy noticed the threat before he did; Jon’s only warning was her widened eyes and startled “behind you—!” Before he felt a presence at his back; the hair on his neck stood on end, and he spun around and found himself staring down the barrel of a large, solid black pistol.
He froze. He stopped breathing.
Holding that gun was a rather muscular man, made much larger by the fact that he was standing, while Jon was still crouched on the ground.
He was smiling.
“Now, what’s a couple lost lovebirds doing out here at this time of night?”
Jon forced himself to look up at the man, and not at the gun aimed at his head. “We, um… well, we were just… passing through, I suppose, if you could… we’ll, ah,” he stuttered, chest tight, fighting not to move. Fighting not to remember— he wasn't in those woods, he wasn’t, and Daisy was behind him, someone else held the gun this time and he wasn’t there—
Please don’t shoot me.
It might be hard to kill him, but he was pretty sure a bullet to the head would still do the job, and a terribly familiar helpless fear pulsed through him. He hated it.
The man laughed. “Are you British?”
“Ah… yes?” Jon winced, trying to stay out of his head. I can’t die here, he thought, I can’t.
“That’s hilarious! What the hell’re you doing in fuckin’ crime alley?”
Oh, good! Great! They had apparently stumbled into a place the locals called crime alley, sure, why not! Just his luck, really. He should have expected it.
Something must have shown on his face, because the man’s smile widened and he jerked the gun to the side and back, making Jon flinch. “Alright, then, give it here.”
“I… what?”
“Your wallet, Brit.”
Jon didn’t move.
“You’re being mugged, idiot. Cmon.”
Jon did not have a wallet. All he had were the coins he’d shoved back into his pocket after the phone booth rejected them, but he fished those out and held them out in an open palm, praying that the man would accept this excuse and leave them alone.
He did not.
“Seriously? This isn’t even American. What are you playing at?!”
“I, ah, I’m sorry! I can, um, I can…” he could what? Jon took a half step back, reaching behind him as if to shield Daisy from their assailant’s newfound anger, only to realize that she wasn’t behind him.
The mugger seemed to realize this at the same moment he did. This was, however, a moment too late, because before he could turn to search for her, a form melted from the shadows behind him and a thin arm snaked up and around him— a wicked-sharp looking knife found its way to his throat, and the man’s eyes went wide.
“Drop the gun,” the Hunter commanded. Jon could have sworn her eyes glowed.
The firearm hit the ground with a clatter and a shallow splash, and Jon dived for it, picking it up and shuffling quickly back to the wall to push himself to his feet.
“Now, let’s all be reasonable, here,” the man started, but Daisy only tightened her grip and growled, and he wisely shut up.
The knife dug in, a small trickle of red running down under their would-be mugger’s jacket collar. Jon’s neck itched, but he resisted the urge to rub at his scar, focusing instead on the woman in front of him. “Daisy…”
She bared her teeth “what?”
Jon swallowed. “The, ah… can you feel it?”
She furrowed her brow. “… what?”
“The blood,” he clarified, and her hold on the man abruptly went slack.
She kept the knife, but stepped back and slipped around him to stand in front of him, just out of reach, the blade held out threateningly.
“Get the hell out of here,” she snarled. Jon could picture it— the way her eyes flashed, just this side of unnatural. There was a presence about her, and Jon’s own eyes were locked on the man’s face as he paled and took first one, then several steps back. He didn’t speak, just nodded, then turned tail and ran.
Daisy took an unconscious half-step after him, then seemed to carefully reign herself in. After a long moment, she turned back to face Jon, her eyes thankfully normal, if utterly exhausted.
“Where’d you get a knife?” He whispered, suddenly very aware of the gun in his hands and very unsure what to do with it.
She grinned tiredly. “Was in the guy’s pocket. You had his attention pretty well, so…”
Jon was about to answer, when someone else beat him to it.
“Well colour me impressed!”
They both spun towards the alley, Daisy brandishing her pilfered knife, Jon not-quite pointing the gun at the figure who emerged.
A bright red full-face helmet, pierced by glowing white eyes; a red symbol reminiscent of a bat emblazoned across a broad chest, partially covered by a dark leather jacket.
And weapons. So, so many weapons; two guns visible in holsters on either hip, what looked like a terribly sharp knife, and a utility belt with…
Explosives, his brain helpfully supplied.
He swallowed. “Who are you?”
“The Red Hood, at your service.” He sauntered over to them— literally sauntered. “You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”
“No,” Daisy intoned.
“No,” Jon agreed, “we are not.”
The masked man tilted his head, and Jon was so sure he was raising an eyebrow. “No offence, but you really don’t look so hot.” He looked them up and down, leaning against the wall at the mouth of the alley. “How did you end up in my lovely little neck of the woods?”
Jon’s head was really starting to hurt again. It was hard to think; how to answer? How much of the truth was safe to reveal?
In the end, Daisy spoke before he could make up his mind. “Dug ourselves out of your cemetery,” she said, deadpan. Well, that’s one approach.
The Red Hood stiffened. “…What?”
Jon nodded, took a breath. “We, ah. We don’t know how we got here, exactly. Or where here is, really. We’ve been trying to find a way to call home, but the public phone wouldn’t take our money.”
That red-covered head shook slowly “I’m sorry, are you telling me you— you dug yourselves— you were buried?”
Jon winced. “Well, the mud isn’t, uh,” a hysterical little half-laugh, “the mud isn’t a fashion statement!”
The Red Hood seemed to look at them, really look at them, his gaze piercing and inscrutable, a sort of anxious energy about him.
Then: “Follow me.”
He turned and strode confidently down the street, back the way the two of them had come. After sharing a confused, reluctant glance, Daisy shrugged, and they followed the Red Hood deeper into Crime Alley.
—