Chapter Text
I wake up to someone’s hand over my mouth, the scent of chloroform. Fear flies through me, and I make a grab for the gun under my pillow. He’s quick to take my hands, hold them near my head. “Tsk, tsk, Quinnie. You’ve, ha, been a very bad girl.” It’s him, it’s the Joker, it’s him and he’s holding me down and the world’s going dark as he chuckles in my ear.
I wake up in the dark with my hands tied behind my back. I’m lying on the ground, grit in my mouth. I smell smoke and greasepaint, a smell that, after two years, still gives me nightmares. The smell of the Joker. I whine low in my throat and struggle, but I’ve never been strong. Someone laughs in the darkness, low and familiar. It’s him. Joker looks the same, makeup garish as he grins at me with smeared red lips, the scars around his mouth matching my own. He gave me so many more when I was with him. “Hey, Quinnie.”
I’m so, so scared. I’m not insane anymore. I can’t be like that, be his fucking pet. I don’t want to be like that again. “Please…I’m sorry.”
The begging doesn’t work. It never does. “Shut, haha, shut up. You, ah, ran away. I didn’t like that,” he says, getting up to sit crosslegged in front of me. He’s holding a crowbar.
The room is totally silent, no cars, none of the nature sounds I’ve gotten used to. My stomach churns. I swallow back vomit. “Where are we?” My voice is even more gravelly than usual.
“Near Gotham High. You remember Gotham High, Quinnie. We met there.”
“You kidnapped me,” I hiss, finding some of the backbone I’ve managed to regain since I left him. He grins and stands, shrugging, then slams me across the face with the crowbar. The world flickers as my jaw explodes with pain. I think my teeth are loose. I should see a dentist, I think blearily, brain trying to distance me. I’ve always been good at that.
He hits me across the face again, on my back, my arms, my stomach. I feel ribs crack, curl up. “Please…I’m sorry….please…” It feels so familiar, his eyes gleaming madly down at me.
“You’re not goddamn sorry yet, Quinn. But you will be.” He gets another good hit to my head, and I’m out.
I wake up shivering, sprawled on the floor. My hands have come loose. My breathing is shallow, and I think at least one of my ribs is broken. I’m in Gotham, thousands of miles away from the place I now consider home. I’m bloody and bruised and alone. Joker may still be around here somewhere. “Hello?” I call, speaking making my ribs ache.
I manage to stand, the room spinning. My left eye is swollen shut. Joker’s given me worse. I curl my fingers, some of them still crooked from breaking them two years ago, when the Joker let Scarecrow pump me full of his fear toxin. I grit my teeth. I’ve gone two years without dwelling on that. On any of the shit Joker put me through. I’m strong now. I am.
I take a few careful steps, grateful that Joker didn’t really get my legs. I’m in a warehouse. Typical. Joker loves warehouses. There are dozens of them in Gotham, empty and unobtrusive. The door’s open, though. He must’ve assumed I would be out longer. It’s October, so I’m cold, used to the heat in Haiti. It’s dark out, but I’m not sure about the time difference between home and Gotham. I could’ve been out for hours, or days. I can hear honking, far off, and the gentle lap of water. I must be near the docks.
I’ve been walking for about an hour, totally lost, when I hear something behind me. I spin, but see nothing. “Hello?” I can’t see anything, just crate after crate, all carrying materials for Wayne, Inc. “Hello?” I try again. There’s no answer. “Fuck.”
“Someone’s got a dirty mouth.” I gasp and turn around, the movement making my body scream. I wince and go still. The owner of the voice steps from the shadows. I recognize the helmet, the leather jacket, the guns. Red Hood, one of the few people in Gotham with as much of a reason to hate the Joker as me. He came back from the dead while I was in the asylum. I only know he was once a Robin because Joker had told me. Because Joker had killed him.
I eye him warily. He’s dangerous and angry. A vigilante, but he doesn’t have rules like Batman. He kills criminals, and I’m a criminal. Sort of. “Heard you were back in town. Joker’s pretty goddamn proud of himself.” His voice is deep, muffled by the mask. He slouches, hands in his pockets, but I can tell his body is humming with energy, ready to jump. I nod dumbly. “Figured I would come across you eventually. Meet someone who hates the clown as much as I do.”
I nod again. There’s blood dripping from my mouth. I can feel it. “You don’t talk much, huh?” I shrug, not looking forwards to the mocking I often face when I speak. “Mom got in a lotta debt when you were sixteen. Attack by Falconi’s men killed your dad. Left you with the scars and that gravel voice. You ended up with the Joker eventually.”
I was once part of Gotham’s Rogues Gallery. It’s not surprising he knows all about me. I cough up blood and totter. He watches impassively. “I want…to kill him,” I grind out, unable to breathe properly.
“Get in line.” His head tilts. The world is going dark at the edges.
“I can’t….breathe,” I wheeze, and suddenly the ground is rushing towards my face.
I wake up in the dark, again. My body still screams, but I can breathe. I’m lying on something soft, no longer on the chilly streets of Gotham. Blankets are heaped over me. I think I’m actually on a bed. It strikes me that I haven’t slept on a real bed in years. Joker always had couches or the floor, and I had a cot in Haiti. Creature comforts. “Hey.”
I turn towards the voice. There’s a guy sitting in an armchair beside the bed. He’s around my age, blue eyes, dark hair with a white streak. Handsome. He looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him. It takes me a moment to see how scarred he is, how scarred the hands turning a helmet round and round are. “Wait…Red Hood?” He nods, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But…now I know what you look like. I could tell people,” I blabber. I wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know that.
“No, you won’t. Or I’ll give you back to Joker tied up in a pretty red bow.”
I shudder. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Get up. I gotta check your ribs.” I follow him obediently down a hall, to a dingy bathroom with a single, lonely toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.
There’s a smudge of red on the mirror, and for a second I’m back with the Joker, his facepaint smeared on the sink, on my lips, the smell of him surrounding me. I don’t realize I’ve cried out til Red Hood puts a steadying hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, I, memories,” I try to explain, and he nods.
“I get it. Take your shirt off.”
I’m still wearing the clothes from Haiti, sleep shorts and a white tee. They’re splattered with blood. “Shouldn’t you ask for my number first?” I joke, nervous, and he smiles.
“You already slept in my bed. You’re clearly a woman without virtue.” I laugh, then hiss from pain. His eyes narrow. “Alright. Shirt off.” I tug it carefully over my head. He’s already bandaged my ribs up, but he moves his hands over them anyway, surprisingly gentle. “Your ribs were just cracked. A bit of rest and you’ll be fine. The rest is just bruises.”
“Oh, wow, I feel so lucky. The Joker beats me with a crowbar and I only have broken ribs,” I snark, going still when his eyes darken. I should’ve thought before I spoke.
“Yes, you are lucky,” he says quietly, dabbing antiseptic over the cuts on my arms.
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t really know what happened, but…I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” He finishes up, stands with a smile that almost looks real. “You can stay here.”
I’m surprised. “I thought you’d turn me over to Batman.” His eyes ice over. “Um…”
He shakes his head, shrugs. “You’re gonna help me kill the Joker, Quinn. He keeps coming back to you. There’s something there that he can’t keep away from. When he comes for you again, I’ll kill him.”
“My smile,” I murmur, not wanting to hear any more about killing or using me as bait.
“What?”
I touch the scars around my mouth. “He keeps coming back for my smile. It’s like his. He…that’s why he took me the first time. He liked Harley best, but, but he said my smile was better. He…He thinks it makes us alike. That we’re kindred spirits.” I bite my lip. I’ve said more to the Hood in an hour than I’ve said to anyone else, except for Joker. “We’re not. We’re not the same. We can’t be.”
“You’re a doctor or whatever. You heal. I guess you’re okay,” the Hood mutters, handing my shirt back.
“I…thank you.”
“Get some sleep. I’ll be on the couch if your start to die,” he says, giving me a two finger salute. I nod and head back to the bed. I’m dirty and hungry, and I kinda need to pee, but as soon as my head hits the pillow I’m dropping. It smells of gunpowder and aloe and I’m asleep quickly.
I dream of the Joker standing over me, grinning as always. Blood drips from his mouth, down his chin. “I’m inside you, Quinnie, and you can’t get me out,” he says, laying his fingers over the tattoo on the back of my neck, the one that bears his name. “I’ll never go away.” I wake up gasping for air, my ribs aching.
How could I have forgotten? How could I have been so stupid? That goddamn tracking device he put in my neck all those years ago. With all that’s happened since then, I’d forgotten about it. It must’ve not worked long distance, or he would’ve found me in Haiti earlier. But now I’m back in Gotham, and he’s close by, hunting me.
I swallow a sob and run to the Hood. He looks innocent when he sleeps, like everyone. His mouth is clenched tight even in sleep. I touch his shoulder and he wakes immediately, pinning me to the ground in seconds. I yelp as my ribs are compressed. “Not…gonna hurt you,” I force out, keeping still.
He rolls off me and sits up, pushing messy hair away from his face. “What do you want then?” he grumbles.
“I need you to cut my neck open. Hurry, do it quick.” I’m tugging at his wrist, panicked, needing it out of me now.
“Wait, the fuck? Why?”
“Joker put a tracking device in me.” He’s up quickly, taking me to the bathroom, where the bright lights make me feel safe. “It’s inside the tattoo. You should be able to feel the bump.”
His fingers are tracing my neck, searching, then there’s the familiar feel of a knife against my skin. I wince when he cuts me, but I’ve had worse. The device is a tiny silver chip the Hood crushes easily between his fingers. “There. Gone.”
I take a calming breath. The Hood watches me, tired. “Thanks. I’m sorry, I just…forgot. It’s been awhile.” Nine years years. Nine years with the Joker looming over me, laughing. Poking his fingers into my scars and ripping them apart.
“This place is protected. The signal wouldn’t have reached him,” he explains, calm. “It’s good you got it out, though.”
“Yeah, I…yeah.” I’m too jittery to sleep now, hands shaking. Red Hood notices, of course. I’m sure he misses nothing.
“I have bourbon,” he says shortly, already heading out of the bathroom. I follow.
It’s been awhile since I’ve had alcohol. I didn’t party after I got my scars, and Joker was never into drinking. The bourbon goes down hard and makes me cough. Gets me loose though. Red Hood’s smirking slightly, sprawled out on the only chair in the kitchen. I sit on the table, legs swinging. I’m tapping my tattooed fingers against the wood, waiting for him to speak.
“The tattoo on your ribs doesn’t have a tracking device, right?”
“No. He just got it for fun.”
Hood tilts his head. “You make it sound like it wasn’t your choice.”
“It wasn’t. He used to drug me and take me some place. I dunno where.”
“The Riddler, probably.”
I smirk, thinking he’s joking. “I’m serious. Riddler’s a weirdly accomplished tattooist. It’s this strange skill he picked up somewhere. He does them for big bads all the time. Bane. Catwoman. Anarky. They all go to him.”
“Why would Joker hide that?” I ask, suspicious.
The Hood grins. “It’s Joker. Who the fuck knows?” I full on grin at him, but his eyes don’t ever dart to my scars. Of course, he has plenty of his own. I rub at the back of my neck out of habit, pausing halfway when I remember the new cut. “Why didn’t you get the tattoos removed?”
I glance up, but the Hood’s face is innocent. He wouldn’t know that when Batman visited me, made an offer to get them taken off, I said no. It had been a few months since I’d left Joker, and I had this lingering, pathetic desire to go back to him. By the time I changed my mind, it was too late and Batman was gone. I shrug. “Not enough time or technology.”
“Yeah, I get that.” We go quiet for a while. There are cars nearby, people arguing. It’s overly warm in here, almost stifling. Even hotter than Haiti, which is odd. Maybe the Hood gets cold easily. He yawns widely, and I feel guilty. “I think I could sleep now.”
He nods gratefully. “If you need me again, you know where I am,” he mumbles, falling back on the couch.
“Yeah.” The bed smells like my sweat, after the nightmare. I stare at the ceiling the whole night.
Red Hood wakes up around five. I can hear him, moving around, the sound of coffee being made. I turn over and pretend to be asleep when I hear him walking towards my room. He’s not fooled. “Get up, Quinn. I wanna check your ribs.”
I sit up, nodding. We’re both too tired to make jokes this time. He’s close enough that I can smell the coffee on his breath. He taps my ribs with a finger. “All set. You’ll stay in bed today. Try to actually sleep this time.”
I smile. “You noticed?”
He grins. “Of course.”
There’s an empty beer can on the table when I walk out. I sneak him a glance but don’t say anything. Not my place.
“There’s cereal and milk in the fridge,” he tells me, back turned. He’s getting changed for the day. His skin is a mass of scars that rival mine. I look away, towards my breakfast. It’s organic cereal and fat-free milk.
I guess as a vigilante, he has to eat healthy. Joker mostly eats pizza. Red Hood’s shrugging on his jacket when I turn back. “There’s a TV in my room. Books. Don’t touch my computer.”
“Okay.” I crawl back into bed, watch TV for a while. I avoid the news. No need to see Joker’s face everywhere. I doze on and off the whole day, waking up whenever I move wrong.
The Hood comes back at seven, helmet banged up. “Still alive, Quinn?” I take a careful breath and nod. “I could make you dinner or something.”
“Oh, uh, I could do that myself,” I protest.
“Nah, it’s cool. I’m hungry, too.”
“Okay.”
I sit at the table to watch him while he moves around the kitchen. “It’ll be pork and rice. That alright?”
“Uh, yeah, of course.” He’s so friendly I don’t know how to respond. I can’t work with the angry Red Hood I see on the news and the young man politely offering me dinner. We eat in silence, with the news on. There are police scanners in here, too, actually.
Guy needs to stay in touch. Hood stares stonily at the TV screen, methodically shoving food in his mouth. “Um, anything new on the Joker?”
He shakes his head. “No. And I don’t need you yet, if that’s what you’re asking next. I’m letting you heal.”
“Oh.” The food is alright. I’m missing the food in Haiti already. The food in Haiti was the same food my dad used to make. I wonder how they’re doing without me. Hopefully Talia Al Ghul will give them a new medic in training if I can’t make it back. “Can I take a shower?”
He nods. “I’m going out again in a few hours. I usually sleep during the day.”
“Yeah, Joker was like that.”
He looks up, glaring. I can see the anger in him now. “Don’t compare me to him.”
“I…sorry.” I wash my dishes without speaking and head for the shower. My body is covered in bruises and little cuts. I jump when Red Hood knocks on the door.
“I’ll leave a towel and new clothes outside for you.”
“Thanks.” I shower slowly, carefully, and slip on new clothes that still have the tags on them. I’m toweling off my hair when the phone rings. I can’t hear much from the bathroom, just the deep murmur of Red Hood’s voice.
When he hangs up he calls out, “Quinn!” He’s perched on the kitchen counter, long legs folded in a position I wouldn’t attempt. Then again, he was once a Robin. “That was Orac…a friend. She says the Joker is pissed. He’s killing everyone in sight.”
I know I should feel guilty about that, but I don’t. I’ve taken care of myself for too long. I can’t give myself up. I just want to be safe. “Okay.”
“It’s mostly henchmen, though.”
Joker always did see his henchmen as expendable. “Okay.”
“I’m not gonna do anything about it tonight. Br…Batman will handle it.”
“Okay.”
He sighs. “I’m not gonna make fun of your voice. You can talk more.”
“Don’t have much to say.” I’ve never talked much, even before the accident.
“Alright.” I feel like I owe him more than a few sentences. He healed me and took me in, even if it was to use me as bait.
“Um, thanks for the clothes.”
“You needed new ones.”
“Yeah.” He fidgets a bit, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket, cracking his knuckles. It’s something my mom used to do. I think about her sometimes, wonder how she’s doing in jail. I don’t really care.
Even after the insanity faded I didn’t regret killing her creepy boyfriend or sending her away. I owe her nothing. “I’ll stay awake when you leave, try to reset my sleep schedule.” He nods. I’m sort of wondering how he affords the gadgets, the apartment, the clothes, if he doesn’t work during the day. Being a vigilante doesn’t pay. I don’t dare ask. We’re not friends.
I have a panic attack while the Hood is gone. Understandable, considering how the past few days have gone. I started having them when I left Joker. I was getting a hold on them until he kidnapped me. I sit on Hood’s bed, wincing every time my gasps for air hurt my ribs.
I can’t breathe, can’t think, can only focus on the Joker coming for me. I dig my nails into my thighs, remind myself that someone like Red Hood would have protection everywhere in his home. Doesn’t help much.
I tense when the door opens, look around for a weapon. It’s just the Hood. He take his helmet off, shakes out his hair, and frowns at me. I’m shaking. “Uh…”
“Sorry, so…I, panic attack.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Give me a knife?” I always feel safer with a knife in my hands. I kept the one Joker gave me, but it’s back in Haiti. I couldn’t find any in here. Hood pulls one out of his jacket and tosses it to me. It’s just a switchblade, but I feel better already. “Thanks.”
I open it, turn it around and around in my hands. The hopeless, scared feeling is fading. Hood sits crosslegged in front of me, takes of his jacket and puts it on the floor beside him. There are dark shadows under his eyes.
“I’m gonna get a beer. Be right back.” I nod. When he comes back I realize his arm is bleeding. I motion at it, asking, “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah. It won’t need stitches.”
“Kay.”
“It was Poison Ivy. Damn plants.”
“Yeah, well, that’s…that’s Poison Ivy, with the plants.”
He gives me a weird look and smirks. “Yeah, that’s Poison Ivy.”
I’m feeling better, with a knife in my hands and someone to talk to. “She hates the Joker, too.”
“Most people do.”
I shrug. “She could actually do something about it.”
“She won’t, though, because if he survived, he’s come straight for her, burn her and every plant in Gotham to ash.”
“Yeah.” I don’t know much about Poison Ivy. I only met her a few times. She was friendly, but cold. Distant. “Can I keep the knife?”
He frowns. “No.”
“Alright.” I wasn’t expecting him to agree. I spent years with the Joker, did time in Arkham. He has no reason to trust me. “You need any help with that cut?”
“Nah. I’ve had worse.”
“Right.”
I yawn, making him yawn, too. We’ll sleep soon enough. “Want something to eat?” I shake my head. “Okay. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Uh, wait. Do you have any aloe?” I know he does. The entire apartment smells of it.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Can I have some?” I motion vaguely at my scars. “They’re itchy.”
I started taking care of my scars when I ran to Haiti. Aloe makes the itching of the deepest ones go away. “Sure. I have the same problem,” he tells me, heading to the bathroom.
He comes back with the biggest tub of aloe I’ve ever seen. I smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem. “ He leaves to the kitchen, where I can hear the sound of food being made. I cover the worst scars-my face, the one up my spine, the word that Joker carved into my hip-and lay back, feeling greasy but comfortable. Sleep comes easily.
My dreams are filled with the faces of people I know in Haiti, mouths slashed open like mine. I wake up screaming, the Hood bent over me.
“Quinn, I need you to relax. You’re going to hurt your ribs,” he says calmly. I realize I’ve wrapped my fingers in the front of his shirt. It takes effort to uncoil them.
“I...sorry,” I rasp, laying back.
“Nightmares?”
“Always.”
“You gonna cry?”
“Probably.”
He takes a step back, smoothing out his shirt. “I’ll be in the other room, then.”
“Okay.” He leaves, and I curl up to cry pathetically into my hands. I fall asleep after that, and don’t dream.
When the Hood comes back the next morning, I’m brave enough to ask the question that’s been bothering me. He comes in the door and tugs his helmet off, tosses it aside with a clunk, then perches on the table. I slide a beer across to him. I’ve learned his habits quickly. I’m good at keeping people happy. I’ve had to be.
“Thanks,” he says, finishing it in seconds. “Now, what do you want?” I’m quiet for a bit. “You can ask. I probably won’t get mad.”
“Where’s…where’s Scarecrow?” I mumble. My worst fear, the man who poisoned the Narrows, the man Joker handed me over to for experiments once.
“Crane? He’s long gone.”
I look up, hopeful. “Dead?”
“Nah. Disappeared. He left with that red headed chick, the bodyguard. Mary? Marie? No…Miriam. It was a few months after you left, I think.”
I can remember a Miriam. I saw her once, when Joker took me along to bother Poison Ivy. I remember a red headed woman, tall and strong, fearless. Her face was thin and angular. She had looked at me with disgust. “He’s not coming back?”
The Hood shrugs. “I don’t think so. He seemed pretty done with the whole evil doctor thing after Catwoman nearly cut his throat.” I relax into my chair, relieved. At least Scarecrow isn’t around.
“There’s a movie on,” the Hood says eventually, sprawling out on the couch. He’s got a beer in one hand, a bowl of some sort of organic popcorn in the other.
“Oh.”
“I don’t get a lot of channels here. Reception’s shitty.” I nod. “It’s the Godfather. You could watch, if you like.”
I wonder if he gets lonely. I know I do. “I’ve never seen the Godfather,” I admit. My family was never big into movies, and neither was Joker.
He gasps overdramatically, making me smile. “How could you’ve not watched the Godfather? I used to watch it all the time. Bru…” He goes still. “I…uh, I used to watch it all the time.”
I get it. Memories. So I smile real wide and sit next to him on the couch, careful not to touch. Neither of us are cuddly people. “Is it any good?”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s the fucking Godfather, Quinn.”
“Oh. Uh, yeah. Of course.” It starts out with a wedding, and I’m bored already. I’ve never been much for movies anyone would consider good. I like romantic comedies, the kind they show on Lifetime. I don’t care about Italian mobsters. I’ve met Italian mobsters.
They’re not this interesting. Red Hood is silent beside me, except for the occasional knuckle cracking. I’m drowsy almost immediately, eyes slipping shut. I need a lot of sleep when I’m healing.
“Quinn, are you even watching this?” he asks impatiently, just as I’m about to drift away.
I jerk awake and blink at him. “Um. Sorry.”
He half smiles and turns back to the screen. “It’s alright.” I curl up, feet near his thighs. I fall asleep to the sound of gunfire.
Vague nightmares cause me to wake up, look blearily around myself. The Hood is asleep sitting up, his head thrown back. I’ve got my feet in his lap now, one of his hands curled possessively around my ankle. Figures he’d be touchy in his sleep. I can’t move without waking him, so I don’t. I can feel myself slipping back to sleep anyway, and his skin is warm. The TV got turned off at some point, and it blurs before me as my eyes slip closed.
When I wake up again it’s dark, and Red Hood is gone. He’s put a blanket over me, a gesture I wasn’t expecting from someone like him. He’s even left a note. Food in the fridge. Painkillers on table. I’ll be back before light-Hood
That seems a little more like him-brisk and to the point. I’m tempted to fall back asleep, but my ribs are really beginning to hurt, and without painkillers it’ll just get worse. So I grab a bottle of orange juice and drink the pills down. One of the phones starts ringing and I jump, swallowing wrong and coughing as I grab for the phone. “Hello?”
“Jay, I…” It’s a woman, her voice turning suspicious. “Where’s Jay? Who are you?” she barks, and I wince.
“I’m, uh, Quinn. Who’s Jay?”
She sighs heavily. “Look, uh, I get the feeling that you’re another one of Jay’s nameless one night stands, clearly not important if he hasn’t even told you his name, so would you please get out of his apartment?” She sounds tired, like she’s done this before.
“Uh, when you say Jay, do you mean Red Hood?”
There’s a long pause. “Who are you?” “I’m Quinn Coleman.”
There’s another long pause. “Hm. I heard you were back from Haiti, but I didn’t know you were…living…with Red Hood.”
“We’re going to catch the Joker,” I say quietly.
“He’s using you as bait, then?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Catching the Joker is more important?”
“Yes.” I don’t tell her that we’re planning on killing, not catching, the Joker.
“Tell Red Hood to call Oracle when he gets back, okay?”
“Yeah, um. Of course.” She hands up without a goodbye, and I drink more orange juice, thoughtful. So, Red Hood’s name is Jay. Alright.
Red Hood comes home dripping and angry. He tears his helmet off, shaking out his sopping hair to frown at me. I slide two beers towards him this time. “Long day?”
He shrugs, stripping his jacket and shirt off. He’s goosebumped. He leaves and comes back wrapped in a blanket. I smile to myself as he settles on the couch, legs drawn up close. “I don’t want a beer,” he growls.
“Hot chocolate?”
“Yes, thank you.” When I come back with two mugs, he sort of smiles at me. I take a sip and smile back. His hair is still wet, dripping onto his face.
“Uh, do you want another towel? For your hair?” I’m already heading to get one, but Hood grabs my wrist and I flinch, still expecting to be hit after all these years. The Hood lets go immediately.
“Look, Quinn, you’re not my servant,” he says softly.
“I just want to make you happy.”
He frowns, angry again. “I’m not gonna hit you or anything.”
I shrug and head for the bedroom, turning back at the last moment. “By the way, someone named Oracle called. She wants you to call her back.” He nods, facing away from me. I watch the droplets of water trace their way down his neck for a moment before I walk out.
When I come back, Hood wordlessly takes the towel from me and rubs it over his hair, making the problem worse. He huffs like a child and sits there, ridiculous, the towel perched on his head. I sigh and sit next to him, start to properly dry his hair. He goes very still and I pause, reminded of that fact that neither of us like unexpected touches. “Is this okay?” He nods slightly and I continue until his hair is mostly dry. “There we go. Better?”
“Yeah. Where’d you learn to dry other people’s hair?” he asks, like it’s unusual to know how to take care of someone. I’m sad for him.
“My dad used to do that when I was little. And the kids in Haiti liked it. Thought it was funny when I sang.” I’m wistful, missing their smiles, their easy laughter.
“Well. Thanks.” He curls a little further into himself, and I move away. At least it’s overly warm in here. There’s no way he could stay cold.
“You going to call Oracle?”
“Eventually.”
“Okay.” His hands emerge from under the blankets, rest in his lap. They’re scarred and calloused. No crooked J in the webbing, unlike mine. He must be thinking the same thing, because he asks, “Why did Joker take you?
“I dunno. Maybe because he’s a mass murdering psychopath. Probably because he thought it was funny.”
The Hood raises an eyebrow. “He also loved to mark me up, but....” I clear my throat. “With the scars, it’s assumed. He already knew I had no way out.”
The Hood is quiet for a while. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. I know.” We watch TV in companionable silence until we’re both yawning.
Eventually we’re visited by Robin, the new one. I wake up to find him standing at the edge of the bed, watching me. The scream I give out makes my ribs twinge. I reach out for a knife before remembering that the Hood still won’t let me have one.
“What the…what the hell? Get out of here!” I hiss, eyes darting from side to side as I search for the Hood.
“Hood’s not here right now,” he tells me, crossing his hands behind his back.
“He’s going to kill you for being here, then. He doesn’t like people in his space.” A few weeks, and I already know that.
“He lets you in. You guys seem to be close.”
“I’m an asset. Not a friend.” I tilt my head and grin at him, knowing most people find my scars unnerving. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch. “I’m more friendly with the Joker,” I lie, “so you should get out.”
“You hate the Joker, and he’s going to come looking for you.” Robin’s words are clipped and precise.
“I know. Please go away.”
He turns with a swish of cape, looking back at me over his shoulder. “Hood can’t keep you safe from everything.”
“I don’t expect him to.”
I can’t sleep after that, so I get up, check around the apartment to see how Robin got in. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. I hope Red Hood doesn’t kill Robin. He seems very young, too young to be involved with this. I think of Joker, and what he’s already done to one Robin, and wince.
When Red Hood comes home I’m curled up on the couch, watching children’s cartoons. I’m laughing, which feels good, if a little weird. He tosses his helmet aside and settles next to me, smelling strongly of gasoline.
“How’re your ribs?” he asks without preamble.
“Better.”
I’m wondering whether I should tell him about Robin’s visit when he sits up very straight, eyes darting to a corner of the room. “Who was here?” he asks sharply.
“Robin.” He nods slowly as I tense, hoping he won’t explode into temper.
He glances over at me. “Relax. I’m not gonna kill him. I’m on better terms with the Bats now.” He sneers anyway.
“He wanted to know why I was with you, what we’re doing about Joker. I told him nothing.”
He grins. “Nice job.”
He heats up pizza for dinner, the first unhealthy food I’ve had since I got here. I savor it. We end up on the couch again, curled on opposite sides. His face is thoughtful and sad, so I stay quiet, drift off as Jerry hits Tom across the face with a hammer.
My dreams are filled with flashes of the Joker, but they never evolve into full on nightmares. I realize the reason why when I wake up. Hood has his hand around my ankle again. He’s awake this time, watching an infomercial that involves eggs. He takes his hand away when I speak up. “Hey. Uh…thanks.”
“You were moving around.”
I get up, carefully. “Are you just sitting here watching infomercials?”
He blinks at me, surprised, before shrugging. “Yeah. Guess I was thinking about something else.”
I don’t ask what. “Alright. Let’s change the channel to something more interesting, hm?” He nods, so we watch Princess Bride instead.
“Look, Quinn, Joker’s been seen downtown, around Ridley Towers. I think he’s casing them out.”
“So he’s not looking for me,” I ask quietly, focusing on his skin under my fingertips. I’m stitching up his shoulders, the flesh ripped apart and bloody.
“Not at the moment. Weird. It’s like one second he’s obsessed with you, the next everything in the world matters more than you do. You become nothing to him.”
I frown and tug harder, getting a mean enjoyment out of his wince. “Thanks.” He doesn’t apologize. I don’t expect him to. Done with stitching, I pat his shoulders and step back. “All set.”