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Andrew hadn't planned to work for Joker. No one does, or at least, no one sane ever plans to go down that particular route.
Most of the time it's an amalgamation of circumstances, bad connections with good pay, a debt owed to a friend who's got a girl and a kid on the way that can't risk running a job that will end in almost certain death. Andrew won't pretend it makes him a saint, or a pitiful victim of Gotham's bureaucracy — but at the very least, it lets him sleep at night. These excuses.
After all, there are people like Gabriel who he could have turned out to be. Though, in all fairness, Gabriel isn't the worst. Andrew has seen these types before, little boys who grow up fighting, who become men who know nothing but fighting. He's not evil — though, he could be better.
Granted, there are those who take pleasure in the small evils they're allowed to get away with when working under a lunatic. Gabriel's the kind of crazy bastard who doesn't even pretend he's having a hard time stomaching half the stuff they do, looking excited when he comes into work, since it gives him an excuse to throw away some anger.
Like right now;
Gabriel smirks around his cigarette, leaning forward with a lighter to help Andrew light his own, "The boss is really going at it, ain't he?"
Andrew doesn't bother answering, they can hear it perfectly fine, but he offers an absent hum when he breathes in on his own cigarette in hopes it ends the conversation. Gabriel chuckles at his response, like Andrew's obvious dismay is for comedic purposes.
They're standing outside the abandoned warehouse, guarding the door and making sure no wandering locals walk in or little birds fly out. There's a couple other guys here, ones Andrew's seen around on the job but never bothered to get to know given the nature of said jobs. Andrew can easily point out the ones that had been inside the warehouse with Joker until he kicked them out.
As for Andrew, and Gabriel, Joker had told them not to move from the doorway, no matter what, and that he'd only be gone a second.
He's been gone for about forty seconds, and Andrew can hear it all.
The Joker's voice is slightly muffled by the thick metal door between them, but there's nothing around them for miles. Aside from Gabriel's occasional mumbling and murmuring about what they're going to do for the rest of the day, or how hot it is in the desert, there's nothing to mask the sounds coming from the inside.
"Speak up, buttercup! You might have a collapsed lung!"
"You've got blood all over my new shoes!"
"What hurts more, pumpkin?"
A shiver runs down his spine and he pulls the cigarette out of his mouth with a startle.
Gabriel turns to him with a frown, "What's the matter with you?"
"Forehand? Or backhand? Oh I know — both!"
"Fuck off," Andrew grumbles, throwing the cigarette to the ground, digging into it harshly with his heel.
Gabriel snorts, knocking their shoulders together, "You're too soft Andy. Boss is just roughening the kid up a bit. Teach the old Bat a lesson. The boy's fine. "
Andrew knows better. He's been working for Joker longer than Gabriel.
That being said, he doesn't usually do the beatings, more often than not he's hired for heavy lifting. Joker prefers to do the rest all on his own, only ever needing the extra muscle to string up bodies or drag the unresponsive ones away. But even then, simply standing out here, listening, is the same as doing it himself, isn't it?
Andrew doesn't hit kids. But he knows what they're like. Especially children from Gotham. They can take a heavy hit and bite back just as hard, if they know what's good for them. If they feel even half the urge to survive. They're stubborn little things. They can handle it. (Andrew did.)
But this feels…
The door suddenly swings open, smacking Gabriel on the back of the head as the two scramble to recollect themselves. Gabriel's cigarette snags on Andrew's hand as he rushes to throw it to the ground, and he hisses.
Joker offers them both an uncanny grin, mouth being pulled unnaturally as it tugs on a smudge of blood on his chin that makes him look absolutely terrifying. He's holding a crowbar, that's covered in what Andrew can assume is the same blood, dripping a long line onto the ground.
Even Gabriel looks stunned to see such a weapon, but they fix their expressions by the time Joker has thrown the crowbar back into the warehouse with a clatter, grabbing the door handle and slamming it closed. There's a moment where he just stands there, shoulders shaking in silent laughter, hand pressed against the door.
There's blood under his fingernails.
Joker turns to them abruptly, smiling wickedly, "We're done here," he announces gleefully, and Andrew's blood runs cold, "Lock the door."
Joker starts to skip away, and Gabriel offers Andrew a slightly reserved expression, not looking as amused as he was earlier, "Told ya. Kid's fine, Andy."
He goes running behind the boss. Andrew is left standing next to the door, breathing heavily once he knows they're far away enough to not see him on the verge of an absolute panic.
Robin must still be alive if he's being told to lock the door. Andrew pretends he isn't glad. When he turns to slide the heavy locks of the door, there's just an inkling of hope running through him. He presses close to the cool metal, hands moving carefully to ensure the door can't be forced open. Locking away the last of this nightmare.
Then he hears, broken and desperate; "Batman… Batman please. B…"
Andrew swallows thickly. He moves away from the door, nodding to himself. That's today's work done. He can sleep peacefully tonight.
"Dad… help me."
Oh.
Robin has always been a great mystery, perhaps an even bigger one than Batman himself. Andrew is old enough to remember when the Bat was seen as an urban myth, a name you shouldn't utter after sunset unless you wanted him to pay you a visit. Andrew is old enough to remember when Robin was just a rumour, his existence entirely unknown and unseen for the most part.
They're much more human now than they were a decade ago, but there's no telling for certain that they're not harbouring some sort of darkness with them. It's better not to think about how, or why they exist when you should be thinking about how to get away from them if you're ever caught.
But Andrew is hit with sudden clarity that it makes him stagger away from the door.
It makes sense that two shadows cut from Gotham's skyline would be personal to one another. Although, it's discomforting to think Batman has a being that isn't… Batman all the time.
That Robin is, quite literally, a child. Someone's child.
Batman's child.
Andrew shivers again.
"Oi Andy, hurry it up! We don't wanna be here when the Bat shows up!" Gabriel shouts from their truck, the second one carrying the Joker long gone in the distance, leaving a trail of dirt and sand behind it.
Yeah, Andrew thinks, we don't.
The months that follow Ethiopia are dangerous. Joker was beaten an inch within his life, if reports and rumours ring true. Andrew is surprised he wasn't gutted and thrown off the pier. Gabriel had laughed when he found out.
Gotham's underground is bustling with opportunity, everyone eager to fill in the gaps with no fear of stepping on the crazy villains toes. But more importantly, it's filled with talk. Goons with broken bones and dark bruises scoff and complain, Andrew hasn't seen half of the usual lot at work in weeks. People are scared.
People are curious.
"What the Bat's problem," Gabriel grumbles angrily, leaning his weight against Andrew so he doesn't tumble to the ground. His right leg is probably broken, given the odd angle it's facing in comparison to the other, and from the memory of how hard Batman slammed his gauntlets into it.
If anything, Gabriel got away lucky. Andrew can't help but tighten the hold he has around the man, earning himself a string of curses and a wince, but a squeeze back.
"He's acting fucking crazy," Gabriel continues breathily, wincing when Andrew has to jostle him to open the door to their getaway car. There's a moment when a shadow briefly flies above their heads, and for a second, the two of them hold their breaths.
"Can you blame him?" Andrew whispers after a long while, "We killed his damn kid."
Robin hadn't been seen in months.
People are always curious.
Mary isn't an idiot.
She was born and raised in Gotham, just like her father, and his father before him, probably. Her mother was too, probably, but she'd never met the woman to confirm and her dad definitely wasn't eager to talk about her. Her old man wasn't a complete moron for it, rest his soul, since he raised her with enough common sense to know when it was best to shut your mouth and run away.
Like now, for instance.
She's never out this late. Mary isn't as young as she used to be, so her work hours have vastly decreased over the years. That means the pay isn't as plentiful as it was years ago, neither is the company, but it does mean she gets a couple extra hours of sleep.
The only reason she's even out this late to begin with is because she's run out of smokes. That's another thing she can blame on her daddy. She hasn't been able to sleep without a smoke since she was twelve, and she sure as hell wasn't going to start now. If it kills her, well, it wouldn't be the worst ending for a girl like her.
All things considered, she could just ask her neighbour, who's always on his front porch at this time of night with his own pack, staring up into the sky like he's waiting for something to come down and talk to him. Aside from his creepy stargazing (you can't even see stars this far deep into Gotham city), he's a nice guy. Andy, or something.
He never complains about anything, even when her friend's kid threw a baseball into his kitchen at a barbecue last summer. He had said the window was already broken, not that she believed him, and accepted a plate of mutton chops and garlic bread as compensation. Andy never asked her to pay for the window, so it's not her business anymore.
Andy doesn't say anything about her profession either, smart enough to know she won't let him get away with anything when he lives right next door. He's not even upset when someone knocks on his door instead of hers on the nights she's working, so hey, compared to the other assholes she's lived next to, he's a saint.
Which is exactly why she's not going to piss him off by asking for a cigarette. People can be touchy about that sort of thing, especially around these parts of Gotham. So she's wrapped herself in an old coat someone left at her place and locked her front door, giving Andy a casual nod before trudging down the street towards the 24/7 convenience store.
It's a familiar path, even if the streets are eerily empty compared to the usual bustling of the day. There's chalk drawings on the ground from the kids this morning, trash and used cigarette buds decorating the streets around it in an oddly artistic way. She snorts at the thought, turning the corner while her eyes absently gaze over a passing alley — ever cautious when walking alone at night.
She stops.
"No fucking way," she whispers, and because she's not an idiot, quickly presses herself against a wall to hide herself, peering down into the alley.
Huddled between two overflowing dumpsters is Batman.
And —
"Breathe," Batman rumbles, and Mary feels a chill run up her arms. She's never heard him speak before, or even seen him clear enough to start making out bodily features, "Breathe Robin."
A second later, a tiny thing spills forward, almost falling against Batman if not for the way the vigilante holds them up and away at arm's length. She's never seen Robin before either, even as a passing shadow, but she'd never imagine he was so tiny.
The kid is breathing heavily, small fingers digging into Batman's covered arms, "I wasn't — I —"
Batman is kneeling on the ground, and he leans forward until the two are making eye contact, "Robin. You're okay now. We're safe."
Mary has no idea what they had been running from, but whatever it was, she sincerely hopes it is nowhere near the vicinity of her favourite convenience store or her home. Given the way the little Robin is trembling like a leaf, she can assume this is some sort of after shock panic, a crash of adrenaline after just escaping the mouth of a monster. She's seen plenty of those before.
"I'm sorry," Robin mumbles, still shaking like a little hummingbird in Batman's insanely huge grasp, but less frazzled than before.
"Hm," Batman hums, "That was… scary, wasn't it?"
Mary blinks in surprise. For a moment, she can convince herself that she's delusional enough to see Batman as a completely normal sight, and that he was nothing but a man comforting his panicked child about monsters in the dark. His voice is still stone against gravel, itching away at something in his chest, but for a second — it's just a little softer.
It reminds Mary of her dad, waking her up from a nightmare.
Oh.
The kid looks equally as surprised as Mary feels, hands tightening their hold on the Bat's arms, like he's debating whether or not to answer. Mary feels a similar wave of apprehension. What kind of father is Batman? How are you supposed to answer honestly without fearing consequences from the literal Dark Knight.
"Yeah," Robin confesses after a long while, swallowing nervously, "A little."
Batman nods and pulls the boy up to his feet, "Let's go home."
Robin shakes his head slowly, almost like he doesn't believe what he's hearing, his arms falling back to his side. Batman looks at the entrance of the alley, feeling the pin prickling sensation of being watched climb its way up his spine. Instinctively, he moves to stand in front of Robin, the boy tensing in surprise.
"What is it?" Robin whispers, his previous panic replaced with the muscle memory of a hurried escape.
Only, there's no one there. The night is quiet.
Batman grunts, "Nothing."
Mary rushes back to her house with shaky knees and an erratic heart, the drumming in her ears almost unbearable if not for the way the world is suddenly very cold.
She has definitely just witnessed something she was definitely not supposed to. An intimate moment about… something with two of the most terrifying people she could have possibly eavesdropped on. Surely no one hears personal conversations between Batman and Robin and somehow does not go missing the next day.
Her smokes are the least of her worries when she turns the corner back to her place, moving quickly and pointedly not looking back. Mary can't be sure she wasn't seen, but she knows when she's cutting it close, so running off was probably the best thing to do then.
Andy is, as always, still out on his front porch, slowly turning away from the sky to peer at her as she hobbles down the street. Whatever expression Mary must have on gives her away immediately, since he looks concerned the closer she approaches.
Silently, he waves his pack of cigarettes at her, raising a brow. It's probably a stupid thing to do, staying out in the scrutiny of Gotham's night for any longer than she already has, but her feet move robotically up the creaking wooden stairs and up to the deck, where he beckons for her to take a seat on the chair next to him. It's a mystery why he has two chairs when Andy has, to her knowledge, only ever lived alone.
She wordlessly takes a cigarette from his outstretched pack and pulls out her own lighter from her coat pocket, hands trembling.
He doesn't poke at her anxiousness. In fact, he seems perfectly inclined to let her sit there in all her unnervingness as he goes back to stargazing, an ashtray filled with four cigarette buds already. She looks at the tray sceptically, and then up at Andy's face, before finally, following his gaze up to the sky.
As she expected, there's nothing to be seen. There's a blurry outline of the moon, smudged like a speck of white paint against black, but the rest of the sky is an almost green-ish grey of pollution and fog. There are no stars at all, or anything that might offer some comfort, but for some reason — Mary finds she can't look away.
She scoffs, blowing out a long exhale of smoke. Her life is far too dramatic.
"I saw Batman and Robin just now," she tells Andy quietly. She's not sure why she's suddenly brave enough to gossip, especially with a mildly-creepy but nice guy like Andy, but she feels a little better after she tells him. She's sharing the burden.
To her surprise, Andy flinches, looking away from the sky and back at her, "Right. I — I heard there was a new one."
It takes a moment for her to remember the rumours he's referring to. How the current Robin isn't The Robin. People say there have been multiple over the years, all slightly different from the others. There have been some pretty interesting theories on the matter; from secret clone labs to Batman kidnapping naughty children.
She didn't take Andy for a conspiracy theorist, but she also didn't take Batman for a father, so perhaps everyone is full of unexpected surprises.
A silence befalls the two, the distant sounds of a horn honking somewhere further into the city, the muffled sound of chatter and music coming from a house further along the street. That's as good as silent gets in Gotham, perhaps.
It's in this silence Mary finds herself thinking back to the little slip of a boy calling himself Robin, who looked impossibly small when faced with Batman. The hesitance in their small hands, but also, the apprehension is Batman's own as he floundered to comfort the kid he very obviously cared about. There's something there, a problem and conflict, something stopping them from truly being honest.
"That's what family is, I guess," Mary whispers absently, not really caring if Andy is listening to her anymore, "Complicated."
Gabriel hates Batman.
He knows exactly what kind of man the vigilante is, seen it time and time again, only without the coward hiding behind fancy gadgets and stupid masks. Gabriel feels his blood practically boiling under his skin at the thought of the Bat, parading around the darkest parts of Gotham like he's the God they all wanted and needed.
You get men like Batman all the time in places like Crime Alley. Big guys with even bigger egos, thinking just because they can throw a couple punches that they're somehow exempt from getting a beating. Picking out the weak ones in the crowd of people and testing just how tight they can hold your neck until you pass out.
Some people are under the impression that he's somehow better than the cops, and to that, Gabriel says fuck that. At least you know when a cop's dirty from the way they push you into the back of their cruiser, from the smell of smoke on their collar and how hard they hit you. There's bad cops, and then stupid ones who think they're making a difference by not being bad.
Batman is just bad.
He has to be. Since there's no one else to blame.
Gabriel's sick of blaming his deadbeat dad or his hysterical mother, sick of wondering how things would have gone if he wasn't such a pushover and finished highschool. Sick of blaming himself for all that he's lost when assholes like Batman exist for no other reason than to hate or fear.
And Gabriel's pretty sick of fearing men who can throw punches. So, he hates Batman.
Though, he's not sure how to feel about Robin.
"You got something up your ass?" The blonde girl asks when she stops to scrutinise his frown, grimacing at him between the bars of his cell, "Actually — don't answer that. I don't wanna know."
Blackgate isn't usually this exciting, but for the last hour or so, guards have been running up and down the cell block, switching between posts when someone is needed urgently somewhere else. Gabriel's been locked up for nine months now, with six still left to go before he's out on probation, and even then, the most frenzy they've had all these months is a minor riot — which was quickly stomped out.
But whenever the Bat's involved, there's bound to be unnecessary drama. Gabriel scoffs.
Robin, who's a little blonde girl today, apparently, mirrors his apparent distaste, "What's so funny?"
"What do you want?" He grumbles, trying to look around her to see if the Bat is hunkering around in the shadows.
"Nothin'," she huffs, and Gabriel is surprised to find something familiar in her accent, sounding a little like his sister when she was smaller and alive, "I was told to do some snooping. And you're looking pretty suspicious — got anything to say about Two-Face?"
Gabriel rolls his eyes. No wonder Bat and his… new girl sidekick are here at Blackgate and not their usual hell-hole of Arkham Asylum. Most of the guys Two-Face employs are blockhead repeaters from Blackgate, so if that guy's causing problems, you'll definitely find some petty henchman ready to rat him out in here.
"He's not the kinda guy I work for," Gabriel shrugs, hoping that's the end of this impromptu interrogation.
It's not, because Robin leans back on her heels, studying him carefully, "Who do you normally work for then?"
Gabriel wonders what answer she's hoping to hear. Too bad for her, he's not going to give her anything valuable, "Does it matter anymore? I'm done with that shit."
Like he said, he's sick of fearing men who think they're above a fair fight.
"Well, nice to hear you're reforming, I guess," Robin says, a mixture of genuine interest and a tone that suggests she doesn't believe him at all, "You got someone outside of here you're fixing yourself for?"
Gabriel startles at the question, wondering if Robin realises that snooping doesn't mean asking invasive questions about criminals' personal lives outside of their criminal tendencies. He wonders if the kid realises where she is, or even who she's talking to, for her to act so nonchalant and carefree.
He wonders if she cares at all.
"Were the other Robin's as chatty as you?" He grumbles tiredly, mostly to himself.
Robin hears him anyway, giggling just short of cruelly, "So there is someone. Go get 'em tiger!"
Gabriel thinks about the half finished letters to Andrew stuffed under his mattress. Andy, as far as he knows, managed to pull his head out of his ass way earlier than Gabriel, and is probably kicking it back as a normal functioning person of society. They're — they're friends, at the very least. The closest each of them have got to one, at least. Yet, he hasn't been able to send a signal letter in response to the three Andrew's sent him over his nine months here.
"Fuck off," Gabriel snaps, feeling like he's being backed into a corner.
Robin laughs, "Don't let Bat's hear that. He doesn't condone bad language."
Gabriel would've appreciated it if she'd stuck her arm through the cell bars and smacked him across the head with an iron rod than say that sequence of words to him. What's he supposed to do with that piece of information? That Batman is apparently a puritan and he's raising the most obnoxious teenage girl alive.
"Can you blame him? We killed his damn kid."
Gabriel blinks at the sudden memory. It's been a while since Gabriel's thought about that Robin. The one Andrew was adamant they'd left to die in Ethiopia, even if all they'd done is lock one damn door, the one who drove Andy to leave and pursue a life of… taxes and shit.
He wonders if Andy knows Batman's apparently got a Robin-related problem, because this blonde haired girl is definitely not the same Robin that haunts both their dreams. She's also not the one who took over after the last one kicked the bucket.
"Okay, you've done your snooping," Gabriel grunts, waving her off as he sags back onto the cool stone of his prison cell, "Go back to the Bat before he comes in here and beats the shit out of me for talking to you."
Robin seems delighted by this, "Hey, I only decided to question you because of your name on the registry. Gabriel, like the angel, right? You should feel blessed that I chose you!"
Gabriel rolls his eyes, "Yeah, feeling real blessed, kid. Are you done?"
"Damn, tough crowd," she laughs, sounding more and more like she's a kid from inner Gotham the longer she talks to him, "You know, you really remind me of a —"
"Robin."
Gabriel tenses the same time as Robin, the both of them stuck like deers in headlights at the third voice that's joined them. There's a good couple feet between Gabriel's cell door and Robin, which means an even wider gap between his cell and the beast in the shadows — but at that moment it's not enough space. Gabriel's screwed if Batman's having a bad day and wants to take it out on him.
Only, Robin recovers much faster than him, turning around innocently, "Batman! I was just questioning this guy about our case."
She hadn't, not really — not that he was about to rat her out to Batman.
Batman, who neither of them had even noticed was near them at all, grumbles from the shadows. If Gabriel squints, he can make out a large cloaked frame, with two white slips for eyes glaring at him.
Gabriel glares back.
"Did you find out anything important?" Batman asks sternly.
Gabriel feels himself grow a little apprehensive at that, and he looks at Robin carefully. She's not shaking, or crying, or giving away any indication that she's afraid about the monster talking to her. It makes him wonder if Andrew was onto something, with children of the Bat running around behind him in colourful traffic colours.
"Nope," she shrugs, "Ready to go?"
Although, something about that familial theory feels different here. Gabriel can't really put his finger on it.
The unsettling feeling grows when Batman regards her for a minute, cool white eyes less narrowed as they look for something behind her own domino mask.
Eventually, the Bat sighs, tilting his head to the exit, "Let's go."
And that's that. Robin doesn't look back to him to announce her departure like Gabriel had half expected, or say anything else to refuse the order. Instead, she skips her way over to the shadows Batman is using, mumbling quietly under her breath when he leans over to say something else to her as the two make their way out of the cell block.
Gabriel watches them go, stunned. They look familiar. Not to him, but to each other. Familial.
Whatever. Dad. Mentor. Demon who accepts payments in the form of asshole children. Who cares? Certainly not Gabriel.
(After all, Robin had not seemed scared of Batman at all. That's what's important.)
A while after they've left, Gabriel thinks back to something Robin had said earlier, her carefully chosen words of suspicion when she'd heard him say he was done with his old life. He remembers her snarky jab, playing around with something he'd done a good job of ignoring for the last year.
I hate Batman, he thinks.
With an annoyed sigh, Gabriel reaches over to forcefully grab the papers he stuffed under his mattress. The corners are ripped, and one of the papers is half full of messy scribbled down words, though it's folded in half awkwardly from when he hid it away.
But Robin ain't so bad.
He smooths the paper out and fishes out a blunt pencil from his stash of miscellaneous items, and continues writing his letter.
Dear Andy, you won't believe who the fuck I just spoke to.