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The first thing that Willis Todd does out of prison is an experience far more humiliating than all the years he’s just spent in Blackgate.
He shields his eyes from the sun, which, in some divine mockery, chose this day to be one of the three annually well-lit ones in Gotham. He used to bask in those rays when they blessed the city back then; it suited the streets, with his boy’s laugh ringing in his ear like bells, when he lifted him up and tossed in the air. Seasons after seasons of growth, a soft body sprouting in his arms. Small fingers clinging to his arm, locks of hair tickling his neck. An awkward knee digging into his ribs, no pressure on them now, not in a long time.
Now, nothing.
There is a single crocus breaking through the concrete pavement at his feet, and that he too finds offensive, same as birds chirping out a joyous melody while he is waiting for the taxi.
A small mercy is, he supposes, that it is not Bruce Wayne who actually picks up the phone.
“Wayne Manor, how can I help you?” The voice is fatigued; it belongs to a man, not elderly, but an older one.
How can you help me, really, Willis thinks.
There is just a single thing.
“The address- Where did you bury my son?” He tries to keep his voice steady. He fails. And after an awkward pause, instead of introducing himself, because that does not even cross his mind — how many other sons could they bury? — he adds: “Please.”
***
Jay lies next to Sheila.
The spot must be peculiar only for those who truly knew her. In Willis’ mind, she is an almost perfectly preserved statue. Immaculate hair, ironed summer dresses, manicured nails. Even her words were always distinct, smiles punctual. If he presses at the memory, like a bruise, he might see her flushed, undone, or recall another occasion, when her composure almost snapped.
What he remembers now — Sheila holding the infant as if it were some insect she was in a struggle with, a pile of meat too alive for her to know what to do with. She had the pragmatic grasp of a woman who worked a time as a midwife and got only technicalities out of it; stiff and precise, spending no longer than needed to check if the child was fine.
The baby was round, had her eyes — grey, and was not nearly as loud as other newborns in the ward. All sniffles instead of screams. But the faintest of the whimpers made Willis feel like weeping too. He reached for his son without thinking.
“Take it,” she said. “I will hold him later.”
He wonders if she ever did.
He fights the urge to smoke, an unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter in his pocket. After all, he quit all the way back — when Jay was born.
It is shameful how unprepared he is for this visit. There is nothing he brought to leave at the grave — neither of them.
***
The rental he got is in Bowery. Not quite home, but close enough, just two streets down. The cataclysm might have rendered much of the city unrecognisable, and the grand plan of philanthropists was for the reconstruction to be a brave new world, but it is evident where the money was cut short. Not much changed in the Crime Alley, save for some rubble still awaiting cleaning.
It used to be a close-knit community once, but people disperse more nowadays. Not without progression — Willis’ own family had started to drift away already in his childhood. There used to be stable jobs there before, but the Waynes had started buying out and shutting down the heavy industry in the area decades ago. There might have been some plan behind it, and there surely were many grand words regarding the ties of the East-side companies to foreign military complexes. In this stead, a pacifist proposal - conversion into an entertainment district. Two victims later and that idea got abandoned too. Always on some Amusement Mile shit, these people.
But some places are forever — like Mai’s little shop squeezed into a corner.
It was a bar once. All there is left of it is a counter with some stools, the rest of the crumpled interior filled with a selection of imports that makes no sense to anyone but Mai, who is able to recommend and sell just about anything to anyone nevertheless.
The seating space is reserved for those she is willing to feed, no set menu in place.
“They won’t leave us alone,” Mai says. “The Foundation. Kieu- you know, big Kieu, my Kieu! She’s got no less than five letters… Just come and talk about the opportunities with the big guys, that sort of talk. And these charity packages…” She takes his hand and looks him in the eyes, firmly: “But we wouldn’t take it. How could they even ask? I promise, cháu, I wouldn’t take it.”
Willis nods, smiling weakly.
“Don’t you go to Doc Thompkins?” Arlo – a young man, pleasant face – and the main reason the conversation is happening entirely in English, asks.
“That’s…” Mai gets red.
“The same! They all get money from Wayne.”
“Not the same!”
Willis is the one to reach out to hold her hand, this time.
“It’s okay, Auntie.”
He does not say that his flat is a rental from another programme under the Foundation – the one for ex-offenders. Of course, it is better than being out on the streets. There are some matters that need finishing, whatever they are – Willis is not so sure himself. But this is the only reason he accepted it, even as a final spit in his face. He refused everything else, job placements included.
“I’d get a job from these bastards, if not for the waiting lists,” Arlo says, mouth full with food. It earns him a half-hearted smack with a cloth from Mai.
“Shameless! Whatever is my Kieu doing with the likes of you!”
“Why, loving me, of course!”
Willis laughs, but he takes his bánh mì to finish outside.
***
There is a girl next door. He cannot help but compare her to Jay and find them drastically different. Jay, as he remembers him, has just about taught himself to throw an apprehensive glance before easing into his shy smile. Not a useful detour. An attempt at distrust rather than the real thing. Stephanie Brown (she at least introduced herself, when Willis did) does the opposite. She throws him a confident smile, all sharp– then she slams the door.
***
From Mrs Walker he gets a box of the remaining things, nothing but memorabilia — dog-eared photographs, the family recipe notebook, a heart-shaped ashtray-converted-to-earrings storage, milk teeth wrapped in paper.
“There was another box. I gave it to Jason. This one I got from the Harlowes’ later — I think that little one got into your flat, soon after… I was gonna let him know–”
With her help, he also finds Cathy’s grave. It is in a worse state than his son’s, and no sweet angel to overlook his sweet Cathy, merely a minimalist tablet. Tending to it is at least something to kill time, no morbid humour intended. He has too much of it on his hands.
He does get a job, or something like it, at a new auto shop in the area – courtesy of Arlo, who, while technically also employed, does little work, mostly taking calls and lazing around; he has more talent for breaking things than repairing them. Willis has proper skill, but they do not need anyone full time, so he comes whenever they call and gets cash, just enough to get by.
And getting by is, for the first time, easy enough. The flat is accounted for, even if small. It is one room, a fridge next to the bed kind of deal. At least there is a dining table, not that he has any prospect of hosting anyone.
He does groceries day by day, and crosses out days in the calendar in the morning. Once he settles, the path shall become clear. Or so he hopes.
***
Willis should have seen the punch. He used to be in the business, after all, of predicting what his ex-employer in a freakish costume would do next. Well, Harvey at least had some taste – questionable, a gimmick, but one that could be amusing if you ignored everything else.
The man who’s just punched him has none of that charm – yellow hair, an ugly bandana and an outfit that he must have stolen from some construction worker. Personally, Willis has more respect for actual construction workers.
“I was leaving anyway,” the man states.
Willis rubs his cheek. The bruise will be nasty.
He does not make a move to reciprocate the punch.
“You’d better,” he agrees through blood in his mouth.
The guy — “Arthur!” if his neighbour’s shout before is anything to go by, scans him as if he were looking at a worm, deciding Willis is not worth it.
“And don’t come back!” Stephanie calls from the threshold. This is how he came upon them earlier, the girl pushing her father away, trying to prevent him from coming in.
The woman, her mother maybe, was standing aside, a shopping bag in hand. She comes forward only now.
“Sorry for the trouble,” she says, though her fervent tone suggests that from her perspective it was Willis that was making the trouble.
The girl shoots him a nasty look — he supposes he now knows where she got it from, as sad of a thought as it is. She pulls her mother inside. Then shuts the door.
***
After the altercation, buying a gun is a logical move. As much as he does not like it, it is as easy as it has always been in the city. The small-time dealer he gets it from, Vince, recognises him right away — not a badge of honour, but the survival rates are not too high in his old profession, and those who remain tend to come across one another often enough to commit a name to memory. Vince asks if he is looking for a new boss, and beams when Willis shakes his head.
Willis did not have any particular feelings about guns, or rather, he disliked them as he disliked all violence, and had learned to dismiss these feelings the hard way, at least during business hours. And for business, even for someone as low on the criminal world’s ladder as Willis was, guns were mostly useful as a silent threat. Willis was not the type to run around and shoot; he merely looked over the shipments with a couple other men.
But there was one time, when Jay– Jay, about to turn eight, came out of the bedroom just as Willis entered home and was about to put the gun in a drawer. And, indivertibly, Jay’s sleepy gaze landed on the gun. His face all scrunched up in confusion. It was a complicated expression, one that would make one think the child had grown up somewhere in Bristol, and not in the Crime Alley.
“Is it real?” he asked, making no move to approach Willis.
This is when Willis understood, with a pang of guilt — what Jay could not connect was the gun with his father, not the gun with reality as a whole.
“No. No, it’s not real,” Willis replied, softly.
Now, he puts the brand new gun on the bedside table.
***
There was never a real reason for him to develop a habit to check the mailbox. Even back with his family, all it accounted for were the medical bills, as good as trash, and endless insurance denial notifications. It is not much different now. Mai had not been lying about all the mail from the Foundation. Some of it is clearly targeted, with “ALL THE CHANCES YOU NEED” printed on the envelopes — a mark of the ex-convict programme.
There is one letter that slips out as he is about to chuck them all.
His address is written in a neat, if not a bit nonchalant manner.
The sender’s name, too.
It makes him jolt.
He opens it only once he is seated at the table, using a knife to do so, carefully. The contents seem to be thick.
A dozen cards scatter out of the envelope. They are photographs, mostly printed on thin paper, colours a bit washed out, but what does it matter– What does it matter when they are all pictures of Jay, and his smile is bright enough in each to compete with the sun.
Jay in a fancy looking garden, standing up on a swing. Jay surrounded by snow, with another boy– a young adult, both smiling, skis by their sides. Jay playing a video game, this one with a mischievous smirk. Jay and the young man again, this time on what seems to be a hike. Jay with a tray of cookies extended to whoever was taking the picture, looking a bit shy.
There is no proper letter, but a simple note:
I am sorry these are all copies. I can’t quite make myself give up the originals.
True enough, there is just one picture on proper, stiff paper, white edges. Willis traces the smooth texture.
In the polaroid, Jay is spreading out on an expensive-looking sofa, in what must be a penthouse — there is a skyline peeking from the windows behind. He is in a peculiar position, half-lying down, and looks tall — not truly tall, but tall enough to be called a teenager and not a child, not the ten year old that Willis remembers. He is laughing, and one of his legs is up on the headrest.
And on his foot – a green pixie boot.
***
Crystal Brown is a woman of an age that is difficult to put a finger on, the addiction making her skin so thin it appears almost translucent. When Willis catches her, it is hot and sticky to the touch.
He is just back from work when it happens, and she is walking down the stairs.
“Oh, good–” he does not manage to finish the greeting when she trips, being just in time to catch her. She tumbles into his arms like an inert doll.
“Sorry. Sorry.” She exhales.“I just need…”
For a moment, she is so still, Willis holds in his breath too and tries to move his arm to check her pulse– But then she starts trembling and grasps at his sleeve, attempting to stand straight.
“No. No, it’s fine, let me get you upstairs– Let me call–”
She huffs, but doesn’t try to stop him when he lifts her up and runs up the stairs. His knee buckles weakly as he steps into her apartment – she’s left it unlocked.
It is a lovely apartment; very lived in, he notices, when he puts her on the sofa, and needs to move a number of cushions aside.
“A moment–” The promise might not be fully comprehended, but it feels wrong to leave her even for a second without explaining. He nearly misses the right button to call on the Nokia, as he flips things around in the kitchen and opens the drawers. A bowl– What his eyes land on instead is a strip of pills. That might be it.
The bowl is a lost cause, as he hears a hurling sound behind him. There is a pool of vomit next to the couch, and he quickly gets Crystal to sit.
If Arlo does not pick up, he will call– who will he call? He can call Benny Harlowe or one of his daughters, Dana. She would pick up. He saw her last week, in the diner, and the girl looked straight at him, pale as if she just stumbled upon a ghost. He left before she could approach him.
Arlo does pick up.
“Uncle? I’m a bit–”
“Just get here. You know where I live–? Just– I need to get someone to a hospital.”
Waiting for help always feels like forever, a familiar phenomenon. Holding a body that changes temperatures rapidly is familiar, the mumblings, the watch – all familiar. And so different at the same time, a foreign hand to hold onto, hair a shade of blonde he does not have a word for. He wipes that foreign face and wraps a blanket around the unfamiliar shoulders.
Arlo finds them swiftly — the doors were left wide open. He is wearing a tweed jacket. His hair is slicked back. Willis almost asks what kind of dress up it is, before realising he should apologise to Kieu for the trouble too, next time he sees her around.
“‘S your leg okay, Uncle? I will carry her. Wait, will she throw up on me?” he asks, scrunching his nose. What a child. And “uncle”? How old does he think Willis is?
Willis shakes his head. “No, I don’t think– There’s anything left,” he laughs awkwardly.
In the car, he sits in the backseat, with a stranger in his arms and a strip of painkillers, these easy to recognise, in his pocket.
Later, once he gets back home, cleans up his neighbour’s floor, and finally lies in his own bed, Willis wonders idly how Arlo knew about his leg. Perhaps Mai told him. Or maybe it is worse than he thought, visible to everyone, maybe everyone knows.
***
Willis wakes up to yelling on the other side of the wall.
Stephanie– he forgot about Stephanie. How could he forget about Stephanie?
The click of the lock is drowned out by her voice:
“Didn’t I tell you not to come back? Where the fuck is mom?!”
Arthur Brown is standing in front of the next door. His brow is sticky with blood that’s dripping down on his eyelashes and cheek.
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m crazy? Either tell me or get the fuck out of here!”
“I told you, I don’t know where–” Brown makes a move to get back inside the apartament, but this is when Willis steps in, grabbing his arm. The man flinches and is welcomed to the sight of 911 already typed onto the phone, right in his face.
“Fuck! Another insane bastard– Who do you think–”
Willis’ finger hovers over the phone screen.
“This is my fucking home!” the man yells, but unexpectedly, he does back out.
In his stead, Willis stands in the threshold. There is a broken glass on the floor, beer-green coloured, and a couple of steps from it, Stephanie, her makeup smudged.
“You… What do you want?”
“Your mom is at Mercy’s, condition all stable. I had to take her there earlier this evening– I’m sorry. I–”
I forgot to tell you, he does not finish. I was only thinking about Cathy. I am so sorry.
Stephanie looks at him, wide-eyed. Then, she falls to her knees and screams into her hands. It is a strangled cry, not nearly as loud as her shouting before. This one is just for herself, and Willis is intruding. For a second, he considers leaving, but in the moment of hesitation, he notices the blood on her fingers.
“This needs to be taken care of. Come on,” he ushers her, trying to get her to stand up and take a better look at her hand. The cuts do not look too deep, but he cannot be sure if they do not require stitches.
The girl gets up, languid and sobbing, face covered by fair hair.
Willis has had enough of these languid bodies. Still, there is nothing else to do, so he leads her into his own flat, where he at least knows where the band aids are.
“Do you know the clinic in the Alley?” he asks, then more urgently: “Do you know Doc Thompkins?”
Stephanie does not answer, standing in the middle of his room. She refuses to sit down. He frowns and leaves her be, to grab the first-aid kit from the bathroom.
“Hey. We need to clean your hand up, think you can show me it? But it’d really be better if you dropped by Leslie’s, she’s–”
Her eyes are red and the gaze empty, the rage from just a few moments ago faded out. There is a grimace on her face though, a very teenage expression, as if she has just seen something unsightly.
She is staring at the picture on his fridge.
“Shut up,” she whispers.
Willis does.
It is one of his favourites, though Cathy would laugh and say he says it about every single one– He would argue this one is really special, because they got Mrs Walker to take it, right after moving into the new flat, right before everything went to hell. It is all three of them, Willis kissing Cathy on the cheek, and Jay sitting in between them. He is seven, missing a tooth and showcasing it on a tissue. His little face is a bit flushed – he’s just cried, asking if the Tooth Fairy will know their new address.
“Where’s that wife and cute kid of yours?”
His throat is too constricted to let out a sound, and mind too foggy to think of an answer.
Stephanie snorts.
“A typical East End man, huh? Let me guess. You probably ruined your pretty wife’s life and then left them. When did you see this kid last? You’re older now.” She turns to inspect him, as if looking for grey hair.
Nearly eight years – and only now it occurs to him, Stephanie must be of similar age as Jay would be now.
“And you keep that picture, for what? To self-loathe? To have a pity party every night? No, sorry, how could I forget–” Her voice is hard as steel, “You have something to ease your conscience. You can bother me and my mother! Whoever asked you to!”
She is shivering now, arms wrapped around her chest.
Willis needs to say something. He nearly bites his own tongue, trying to get something out. What is there to say? “Yeah”? She is not wrong, not wrong but for one thing. There is nothing he can do to ease it–-
“They’re dead.”
It is hardly a way to comfort somebody, nor a justification. The words slip out before a chance to think, and it might be the first time he says them out loud, just barely loud enough to be heard at all.
“Fuck,” Stephanie huffs out with a sniffle.
Jay is smiling in that picture. Willis promised him that the Fairy was already updated on the move.
Stephanie sits on the chair, the invitation finally accepted. “You should… You should try out some decor. It’s so empty,” she says eventually, her voice small.
She does not agree to go to the clinic, but she does allow him to put bandaids on her fingers.
***
For the second time in his life, Willis finds the weight of a gun comforting.
In the darkness of his flat, the night outside blue, cognisant, he loads it.
Keep the thumb of the firing hand, press the magazine release— The magazine drops out. He pulls it downward, puts the left hand over the top of the slide, pulls back, releases. A snap.
The click is satisfying. So is the coldness of the steel as it touches the inside of his cheek.
Willis breathes through his nose.
There is no clock’s ticking to guide him; he does not know how much time passes, and does not indulge in a countdown. He sits like that until he does not.
He puts the gun back on the bedside table.
***
When he opens the doors two days later, he hopes for it to be Stephanie. If anything, just to apologise again. Instead, he is met with another pair of dimmed blue eyes.
The man is about to press the bell again, but the movement is aborted abruptly.
A week before, Willis sent the single polaroid back, with a note saying:
“I can’t imagine how hard it would be to part with any of them, even copies.
Come by and tell me about them?”
He was not sure if Dick Grayson would actually accept the invitation.
From the look on Dick Grayson’s face, it is clear he was not convinced himself — even now.
“Come in.”
It is a Sunday, and Willis wonders if straight from his flat he will go to Bristol for dinner. If he will sit across another man who dared to call himself a father, and if any of them will say anything of substance.
“I heard from Alfred that you called, and…”
Willis does not know who Alfred is, and he does not care. Perhaps he is some stuffy butler, or whoever the man who answered the phone that day was. Perhaps he is the one who will cook for Dick later this day. Willis is out of groceries, so he cannot offer him anything other than black coffee and fruit. He peels the apple and cuts it, tasting some. It is a little sour, so he passes him chilli salt too.
“Oh– you eat it like that?” The boy asks — should he call him a boy? He is an adult already, and Willis had a whole toddler on his hands his age, but he looks so young, his voice so fragile at the moment. And his face– Is it fate that some are destined to be brothers, no matter blood? It is astounding how different yet similar his features are at once. Maybe it is the strangely nervous grin he threw at Willis, though he has a feeling this one is out of character, even if a mirror of his son’s.
“Right, sorry– Just dip–”
“No, I know, well… I just thought… It was a Jay thing.”
“Was it?” His heart aches. Jay barely used to care for spice on the side, usually stubbornly committed to eating fruit whole. Even as a toddler, he would ask for the apple unpeeled, and then walk around with it for as long as an hour or two, mouthing at it in-between whatever activity grasped his attention.
“Yeah. He always had fruit this way. And he did that one thing with lemon, too– He would put it in his tea, and later would take it out, coat it in sugar and eat it.”
That was Cathy.
Dick then takes out a folder with pictures — originals this time, and shows him the one he’s seen before, the one with cookies, and later more, and more. He grows relaxed as he’s talking, and apologises, saying it is not much. If this is not much, then what is Willis to say, with only a handful of baby photoshoots to reciprocate with, other albums lost to time?
Willis' hands are trembling. He reaches for the still unopened pack of cigarettes, just to do something with them, but then glances at Dick and resigns himself to making another thick coffee and nursing it throughout the conversation.
Jay went to so many places. Mountains somewhere in Europe, California beaches, New York – where his older brother used to live, apparently. Willis is having a hard time estimating his age in these pictures. There is one in which he is about fourteen, in front of a cinema with some ink-haired young woman. His cheeks are stained with tears. When they get to that one, Dick quickly explains:
“Just a movie… He used to cry a lot.”
“Crying is healthy,” Willis replies automatically.
He does not add that Jay got it from him. He has not cried in a long while now, so it feels like a lie.
***
Stephanie does not knock. She ambushes him on the balcony.
He is squatting there, so as not to stand surrounded by his laundry, finally opening the cigarettes. The clothes have probably already been soaked in the smell of traffic fumes and whatever other toxic materials have been released on the East End’s streets recently anyway.
“Care to share?”
He all but jumps. She always announced her presence rather loudly, stomping in the corridor, so her ability to be sneaky comes as a surprise.
“How old are you again?” he questions, putting the pack back in his pocket.
“Hey, don’t be like that. You’re really no fun, Mr. Todd.” She smiles weakly, although he doubts she was actually expecting him to offer.
“Willis is fine.”
“Okay then, Willis.”
They stay like that for a while. Willis with nothing to do with his hands again, and Stephanie clenching the balcony’s rail with hers. Beneath, cars pass one after another. A group of kids is loudly counting them, dividing by colours. All they can hear from a distance is faint: “Black! Fifty-two!” “Red! Twelve!”
“I wanted to...”
“You don’t have to,” he reassures.
“I do. I am sorry.”
“Well, then–”
“No! You did nothing, you helped us.”
“I’m sorry too.” Two can play this game.
Stephanie sighs, but the corners of her lips turn upward again.
“Okay, then. I started out wrong. Thank you. Really. Mom’s better.”
Not well, but better. Alive. Call it low standards, but that is all he wanted to hear.
“I feel like we really started out on the wrong foot, don’t ya think?”
“If you say so, Stephie.”
Her smile gets brighter; it’s a real thing now, overwhelming, inescapable all but for closing one’s eyes.
“Great. What do you do?”
“I work at the auto shop. Not Denny’s, don’t give me that look. Part-time.”
“Ah. Because of the leg?” She asks, not unkindly.
He sighs. “Does everyone notice the leg?”
“Yeah, I mean… No.” She winces. “But maybe you should consider seeing Leslie? Or, you know, you have so much free time… Try out a hobby.”
“A hobby? Like what?”
Willis isn’t sure if he ever had a hobby. There were plenty of things he used to enjoy — he was a man easy to please, and he liked pleasing others. As a child, he would sing, because the adults liked it, and then he would sing to Jay and Cathy too, because they liked it. He used to play a guitar, and whatever other instrument he could get his hands on and learn. He was never much into books, but he did like a good story, and made voices as he read them out to Jay.
And most of all, he liked fixing things, not only cars. He once fixed an old camera, a Canon, and carried it around with him almost every single day. He would take pictures of a few birds and trees that could be found around the neighbourhood, and later they would sit down as a family and try to identify it. And years before that, he wasted– no, that was never a waste, he used up so much film, sometimes in a single afternoon, to capture every moment of his baby’s routine.
“Like knitting,” Stephanie says finally.
He can’t help but laugh.
She does not, returning in a scolding tone: “Hey! I’m serious.”
He nods. “Okay. But only if you take it up too.”
***
So Willis eats and sleeps and repairs some more cars. He does not speak to Leslie about the leg, nor anything else, for that matter.
He eats Mai’s bánh mì, and Stephanie’s lasagna, and take out with Dick. He does not open the recipe notebook.
He spends more time in the auto shop, even when there is no work. Advika makes him catch up with all the issues of the HotRod that she keeps stacked at the back of the workshop, and then makes him watch DVDs of a whole season of Chop Cut Rebuild. Santos pays both of them for these hours. Willis cannot bring himself to protest.
Arlo, when not on the phone with his girlfriend, also talks his ear off, though on an entirely other array of topics, relaying on plotlines of TV shows and the local gossip as if he was preaching the Bible.
That routine does not change much when the emergency alerts hit. They close the garage once the sirens start, and they continue their idle chat. Mad Hatter inciting a public meltdown in the area is hardly an excitement. None of them really flinch at the sound of the explosion in the distance, but Arlo does pause.
“Do we need gas masks for this guy? I never remember,” and then, without waiting for the answer, as his usually carefree disposition had already shifted: “We’re getting married.”
“We?” Willis asks, putting his lunchbox away.
“Yes! You and me, Uncle. Keep up, you will be a wonderful bride!” Arlo retorts without missing a beat, earnestly.
Willis feels himself getting old. He smiles anyway, and Arlo’s face lights up in response.
“Alright. When? The proposal…?”
“About that…”
Realisation comes down on Willis, instantly, with guilt following right after. It must be transparent.
“No, no, it’s fine! She did say yes… And I hope Mrs. Brown is fine. But…”
“You did not tell Auntie yet,” Willis guesses.
“I will. We will, tonight,” Arlo promises, as if convincing himself.
Back in his flat, Willis leans on the back of the front door. His jacket catches on the bell. It cries out in the silence of the room, a startled, strangled sound.
Willis hides his face in hands.
***
There is a low crash somewhere outside, close.
The phone screen claims the time is 2AM.
Willis opens the blinds, just slightly, to look out, but there is nothing– No, a single, knee-high boot on the neighbouring balcony. He blinks. Then, a dash of yellow fabric, as a green-gloved hand reaches back to grab at it and bring it in.
He does not move, gaze stuck in the spot where the boot lay mere seconds ago. Stuck with an image of another shoe in his mind, green, stuck with a memory of a bright smile.
“I am not lying when I say he loved it,” Dick Grayson said the other day.
Willis did not think he was lying.
He shuts the blinds, barely remembering how to breathe.
Somewhere, Willis has a number to a woman who introduced herself as “Shiva” (but whom he came to know simply as Sandra) written down. She once told him if he ever needed anyone dead, he could call. He laughed.
It is shameful how the first thought he has is to ask her to kill him. Only then he entertains the idea to order a hit on Bruce Wayne.
***
“Who?” Dick asks again, brows furrowing.
To his credit, he looks like he has not slept — Willis is about to ask him about that, before he remembers the news about Kite Man taking a nighttime trip all around New Jersey.
“Stephanie Brown,” Willis repeats patiently. “My neighbour!”
He did not sleep a wink more last night, but how could he? And how could he wait any longer, now that he knew that even when it seemed the time stopped, it was always running, and there was none to spare.
It is only fair he lets Dick know what he is about to do. And Dick could easily stop him, if he saw fit.
“Willis.”
If Willis knew no better, he would say Dick sounds distressed, but there is something else to it, something they shared ever since that first meeting. He is leaning on the table, hands folded in front of him, as if about to plead his case, or just to plead guilty.
Dick obviously did not like that Willis always looked at him with pity, yet he must have been aware he did the same — and so he never said anything, never questioned the ways he coped, never challenged Willis’ opinions on his father.
That may be about to change. Maybe he will state the obvious – that no one will believe any of this, that all it will amount to is drawing attention to himself, humiliation, that he will drive himself into nothing. As if Willis had anything at all, as it stands.
“I’ve already decided what I will do.”
“Alright. Alright, listen, but the reporter you want to speak with… Don’t go to Vicki. Can I suggest someone else? Please?”
***
They set for a restaurant in Somerset. It is a long commute for Willis, but Dick claimed Jay liked this one. A strange excuse for meeting on more of a common ground where there was no one Willis knew to overhear or insert themselves in their conversation. Adding the awkward time between lunch and dinner to the equation, it turns out pretty much empty when he comes in.
It is easy to figure out why Jay would like it here. The interior is so sparkly and neat it would not be surprising if it was regularly renovated for maintenance, but it has a classic diner feel to it that makes it unassuming enough, and the menu is nothing fancy.
Clark Kent fits right in, the unremarkable man he is. He, too, with his clumsy demeanor and good-natured smile, makes it easy.
Willis tells the story. It comes scattered, as all things in grief.
There is a moment of silence.
There are two untouched Americanos between them. Willis kept his hands around the cup the whole time, holding it merely for comfort, and the reporter was so focused on him, so solemn, he did not take a single sip either. He still seems to be taking it all in.
“Mr. Todd…” he says finally, and sounds genuinely pained, as if he truly took each word to heart. And yet, he hesitates.
“You don’t believe me,” Willis says and exhales, slumping on the chair.
That is not surprising. It is impressive in itself how attentive he has been so far anyway. Not everyone would, if they met with a man who came to them to say: I know who Batman is. He killed my child and will kill the girl next door next.
“I do believe you,” Kent assures right away. “What do you want to happen with this story, Mr. Todd? What do you want to happen with Bruce Wayne?”
Bruce Wayne is so untouchable it is hard to even imagine anything happening to him in the first place, any accountability reaching him.
“I want someone to stop him.”
“And what about Stephanie? What about your son’s name?”
The last thing Willis wishes for is any trouble for the Browns. When it comes to Jay… Jay’s image is flaunted around as it is, for everyone to see. Depictions of Robin are the hardest to swallow — there is one mural in the Alley too, a lithe figure of a boy, the curl of the hair to the right side, with cape transforming into angel wings and a prayer below, something about the Merciful Lord who feeds the birds of the sky. Willis never stopped to read the whole thing.
“You figure it out. You’re the reporter.”
A waitress comes by to ask if they would like fresh coffee.
“If it’s not a problem.” Kent nods.
Willis is not expecting an answer right away anyway.
“How do you know Dick?” he asks instead.
Kent shifts on the bench.
“I have known him since he was a kid.”
Willis pauses.
“You mean– you know him.”
Of course, it makes sense now. Why else would Dick be so insistent on this meeting?
“Mr. Todd… Did you know that Bruce carries around a picture of Jason in his wallet?”
Willis has had enough of all the photograph talk.
“No, but I do know there’s not a single picture of Jay in his house on view at all,” he says coldly. It was the first thing Dick ever said about Wayne’s way of commemorating his son.
“I know that it’s hard–”
Willis eyes wander around to Clark Kent’s phone that lies on the table. It just lightened up with a notification. The lock screen is a picture of a woman with a child, presumably his family.
“Do you?” He stares at his plate. Everything he’s said just now– all a waste of time. “Do you know how it feels to get a sympathy lasagna from the prison kitchen as condolences? God knows how long after my son was already dead, since I cannot even get the date straight.”
Does Clark Kent have any idea what it feels like to learn that your child is taken away in the first place– And this is humiliating, but Willis’ first thought when they told him it was Wayne… He thought oh, even though he did not even care to see Willis before paying fuck knows how much to cut him legally off from his child– Even though he did not even let Jay see him– Maybe he was right. Blackgate was no place for a child to venture into, even for a visitation.
Bruce Wayne might just do better than me. That was the thought.
So he stayed on his best behaviour. He hoped he could at least get a picture, one day, now — damn all these pictures. And he sure did, faster than he thought. With a morning newspaper, his child on the first page.
“And the worst thing? It was not even as shocking as it should have been, because I knew. Of course I knew. Tell me one thing: Did Bruce Wayne think me stupid, or did he not think of me at all? Did he really believe I would not recognise my own son, draped in a costume like a dart board for Gotham villains?”
Willis thinks back to that time. To the sleepless nights when he was staring at the ceiling, knowing Jay was somewhere out there, awake. That he was in constant danger. That he would not step into Blackgate, but he probably did wander the corridors of Arkham, trailing after a man in a ridiculous costume and a death wish.
Kent keeps still.
“I had the privilege to know Jason,” Kent’s tone is careful, diplomatic. To Willis’ ears, it sounds like a mockery anyway. “He saved my life, once. He was kind, and brave, and smart. There are some people in this world who will stop at nothing to help. Jason was one of them. Jason… Jason was great.”
“He did not need to be great. Just alive.”
Clark Kent chooses this moment to readjust his glasses.
Willis stares.
“Get out,” he says, knowing it is nonsensical – they are in a restaurant. It could as well be him taking his leave.
“I am…”
“You are not going to help me. So get out,” He repeats, now louder.
The waitress turns around to look at them, startled.
Kent stands up and reaches into his pocket.
“I’ll pay, just get out–”
And Kent looks truly lost. That look on his face might not be a disguise at all – he is disturbed.
“For what it’s worth–”
“It is not. It’s really not.” Willis says.
***
April comes and nearly leaves just like that.
Mai has already been ranting for a good quarter, when she finally lets herself sit down and announces she needs a cigarette.
“The youth these days… Irresponsible! A nightmare, I am telling you,” she hisses, tucking the paper. “And they dare tell me not to worry. Young love…”
She fills it with tobacco and starts rolling, barely looking down on her own work. Once done, she puts it next to his cup.
“Do you have a lighter, dear? Just turn around– There’s a shelf on your left.” There are plenty of shelves on his left. “Ai dà! A bit more right.”
Before he can reach it (or even identify it), a bell rings and two people get into the shop – Arlo, with someone in tow.
“Uncle! And what is that, a cigarette?” He gasps. “Didn’t you see the ‘no smoking’ sign on the door?”
“And who put that sign there!” Mai says.
The woman that makes her way behind Arlo, one that Willis now recognises as Big Kieu, blinks. “You call Willis uncle?”
Arlo is too occupied with bickering to acknowledge her doubt.
Willis waves his hand.
“I don’t mind. You’re glowing, Kieu.” He is not lying – Kieu was barely an adult when he saw her last, as awkward as teenagers come. She seems more confident now, a long braid he remembers her with cut into a pixie that makes her look like a model. Although, the familiar melancholic attitude remains the same.
“Always a sweet-talker, anh. You don’t look bad yourself.”
“You heard the news, Uncle?” Arlo cuts in, but he already knows – it would be impossible not to know, with all the complaints of the shop owner. “Now Big Kieu will really get big! Ah, I know what! I should take a picture everyday, for a timeline…”
Kieu blushes and shakes her head, frowning. She looks in his direction, as if to ask: Can you believe I’m marrying this ridiculous man?
It is easy to believe.
“Congratulations,” Willis says, putting a hand on her arm. She smiles, and leans for a hug instead.
“Congratulations, congratulations,” Mai repeats with snark, and then, as if remembering that he is a client: “Willis, what were you looking for again?”
“Spirit money, Auntie.”
Her expression softens.
“Ah. So the lighter too. To the left–”
***
Here is one last story about guns:
Once, in weeks when Willis was barely at home, their job went sideways.
They were working with some other gang, for the sake of twos — only for that sake, he believes, because the way they did business could not be more different from Harvey’s ideological drive. In those times, Willis had to keep reminding himself they were all scum of the same type – and that at these steps of the ladder, they all did dirty work, for the same purpose.
But this particular off-shoot of what was once the Dubelz were infamous for closing around elementary schools.
What were they even talking about, when it happened? How did they get to that point, despite Willis’ silence? One of them said, offhandedly:
“And don’t Willis have a little boy?”
Suddenly it was impossible to pretend a gun was not what it was. Suddenly it was real and Willis was happy about it. Just that once.
The sky is terribly blue above the Gotham Cemetery, no cloud in sight.
For Jay, he brought some fruit. On Sheila’s side, there is a single carnation — though the gesture is not much, in comparison; the graveside is surrounded by crocuses. Living flowers are always more charming than the ones that have been cut.
This is the day.
Willis waits a long time, and the sky remains blue.
He is there, with a girl. Her face is familiar. It takes a moment before it clicks, but it’s Sandra’s face. Willis wonders how many children exactly the man has stolen. When their eyes meet, he nods at the girl to leave.
Bruce Wayne looks worse than he does in the glossy newspapers, but it cannot be denied he is handsome. Time is kind to him. The only prominent wrinkles on his face are the smile lines. His eyes are terribly blue.
Harvey Dent, or Two-Face, used to like Willis. He knows that, even though he was, many times, just a tails away from becoming a murder victim.
Sometimes you grow fond of acts of cruelty, as if of little inside jokes you are privy to; it gives some taste to life.
Wayne approaches him slowly.
Willis puts his hand on the back of his jeans. He hopes for that same rare comfort; for an answer.
Wayne’s eyes follow. He recognises the shape. He must. He makes no move.
So Willis understands. He would want it. And that is just about the most unmerciful thing in the long list.
Willis’ hand drops.
He turns his eyes away.
Silence hangs between them like after a gunshot, or at a funeral – but what would Willis know about those. He never seems to be able to catch any invitation.
When Batman dares to speak, it is all business-like:
“If you still want to go to the press… Just wait a couple weeks. I know I have no right to ask anything of you. This is not for my sake. There are people I ought to protect.”
Willis huffs out a laugh.
“Because you sure did a great job at that so far, didn’t you?”
There is no reaction; no flinch. Wayne’s face remains even with what Willis has already recognised as acceptance. It makes him want to throw hands, or perhaps to take the gun out and instead of shooting Wayne, shot himself, for the briefest of satisfactions.
“I know you care about Dick,” Wayne says.
“And Stephanie?”
That makes Wayne hesitate.
When Willis finally braced himself to take a chance and asked Stephanie: “What can I say to make you stop this?” Stephanie said: “It’s over anyway. I’m fired.” Then she deflected, mentioning something about taking up knitting for real. Willis wanted to believe her. Willis wondered how you can fire a child and what it is even supposed to mean.
“For their safety,” Batman goes on, “it will not take long.”
If it is not to take long, what was keeping him from just handing himself over to the cops before, Willis has the urge to ask. He had nearly three years for that, and it seems the plan was nearly brought to perfection. That much is obvious – if Bruce Wayne could, he would probably organise a trial all by himself, put himself on the jury, and set up the execution in the Old Town – or at least jail himself.
“Stop talking,” Willis cuts in, hating the sound of his own voice. “Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”
Wayne falls silent.
Willis crouches down. He takes the spirit money out of his pocket.
It is not the proper kind — Mai seems to have just stocked up any fake bills she came across and folded them. There is Reagan’s portrait on the fifty, and Lincoln’s on the hundred. There is nothing proper about the way Willis does it, either. He lacks the words. The only other thing he brought is a lighter.
He brings it to a note and clicks. Fire eats at cash. He stacks up the rest of it in a worn tin, and puts it on the cobble, to let it all burn together, with no further precedent.
He looks up to Wayne. The man looks back with a flicker of emotion and hesitation, like he just learned that something was amiss.
“May I?” he asks.
And if that is not a good joke – Bruce Wayne asking to burn joss paper.
“This is all I have,” Willis says, truthfully. The cash is almost all burnt out by now, crippling to ashes.
Wayne does not accept the dismissal. He takes a wallet out of his black coat. And out of the shiny wallet — a hundred dollar note. Then, he extends his hand.
Willis is not sure if he should laugh or cry.
He gives him the lighter.
And just like that, like it’s not worth a thing – an actual hundred dollars burns away.
Jay would hate it.
“That’s not enough,” Willis says.
Wayne takes out another hundred dutifully.
It takes mere seconds to go to smoke, faster than the fake ones, still smouldering.
“You should apologise to Stephanie. That’s still not enough.”
There is something wrong with the guy, because he takes out another hundred. Does he keep any smaller money? Is fifty change for him, or not even that?
“And take those pictures out from the attic. Three hundred? That’s it?”
Apparently not.
Willis wonders how long he can keep it going. How much cash does Bruce Wayne keep on himself? Once the wallet runs dry, will he run to the nearest ATM? Does his credit card have limits?
Ash falls on Wayne’s sleeves, some of it on Willis’ jacket.
“Go on. You can burn a hundred everyday. Every minute, even.”
Wayne looks at him again, attentively, as if to ask: “And then what?”
There is no way he does not know the answer.
And then — nothing.
Nothing.
“I will come see those pictures on Thursday,” Willis informs him, out of courtesy.
The spirit money at his feet turns into dust, disperses with no glow.
There must still be some smoke in the air, because when Willis looks up at the sky, his eyes burn with tears.