Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was horrible, really.

Matt can easily consider it the worst day of his life. He doesn’t think anything could get worse than today, and not just because he highly doubts that there’ll be a tomorrow he’ll live to see, but simply because. They lost.

Everyone. Lost.

Superman’s dead. He hadn’t even known it possible.

Atlantis got boiled alive. Of which, ouch.

The few that remained after the initial attacks from the… Lords, he thinks they called themselves (some guy named Owlman had this spooky detonator, and threw Terry through a building! And Terry wasn’t even fully suited up!) had done what they could to slow down the effects of said spooky bomb, but…

What was left of Mount Justice has gone silent. Max said CADMUS Labs just disappeared off the radar, and everything outside the cave is going dark.

Matt would never admit it, not to anyone, but he had hidden underneath the Bat Computer with Ace’s head on his lap, and he’d looked at the pile of bags Terry had made him frantically pack just four days ago when the Interdimensional Supervillains showed up. He’d felt sick. Because they’d left behind so much. Max had lost her sister early on – in a bombing on the hospitals of Gotham – and a few of the Rogues had, unbelievably enough, tried to buy people time to escape as the carnage had just… kept on going.

But now – and Terry would never say it, but Matt sees the set of his brother’s shoulders and he knows – they are probably the only ones left.

(Owlman had gotten a hit on Old Man Bruce just before the Lords had left their planet to its destruction. They’d done what they could, but there is only so much you can do for severed arteries without a hospital, and there is no one they can call on now.)

The walls had been rumbling for the last few hours, but something about the most recent quakes had made Max and Terry pause, and look to the ceiling.

Matt watched his brother curse – and its so stupid, but he sees Mom in Terry’s frown, and he misses her so, so much – and quickly pull the Bat Suit over his bandages, ready to make a desperate attempt to hold the ceiling up by his bare hands if he had to.

Max had dragged all their bags under the Bat Computer, and given Matt a small smile. She’d ruffled his hair.

“Its over,” Matt whispered to the strangely compact feeling cavern. “Isn’t it?”

Terry had crouched down in front of them both – obviously hoping that the tech in the suit would at least make him a decent shield, if nothing else – and all Matt could see for the next few seconds were the scared whites of Max’s eyes, the pink tongue of Ace quickly sliding over his fingers, and the slight hint of light around his brother’s back.

“Yes,” Max decided, agreeing with him in the face of the end of everything. “I suppose it is.”

He’d curled himself over Ace, and refused to let himself cry – at least, not where Terry could hear him. Terry beats himself up enough for stupid stuff already, and Matt can’t do that to him.

Matt doesn’t see the moment the burning, acidic rage of the detonation melts the final layer of the blast doors. He doesn’t see the wall of flame racing towards them.

He most certainly doesn’t see an almost completely dead Bruce Wayne grab onto one of the many glass displays with desperate, shaky, ashen hands – heart having already lost the fight, but refusing to quite just yet. Not yet. Not now.

And throw whatever was in the case straight before the computer.

Bruce Wayne dies like the rest of the Justice League – swallowed by flame, either in space on the Watch Tower like so many so long ago, or like those who remained, bodies being dissolved into the insidious nature of a particle destroyer as fire burns the world at its end.

Bruce Wayne is taken by the bomb.

Terry, Matt, Max, and Ace the Dog, are taken by something else.

Chapter Text

And naturally, waking up is-

It is not good, either.

Matt twitches, cheek pressed hard against concrete and blue stone, eyes sore, and body in strife.

He lets out a soft gasp when trying to look out at the world leaves nothing but white spots and rivers of multicoloured lights raining across his vision, and he squeezes them sheet, hands over his face, keening in pain a terror.

What happened? Are they dead? Where’s Max? Where’s Ace? Where’s Terry? The suit… it couldn’t have held... Matt’s brain complains at the idea of being asked to work anything out when he feels like he’s been microwaved with a spoon in his hand. Sharp stabbing cripples his attempt to shift his position, and rolling over makes the back of his neck feel like the pain in his skull is becoming a liquid toxin, greedily pouring itself down his spine. Matt starts to shake, bile rising in his throat.

Ow. Ow!

A harsh sob leaves him – and yes, it makes his ribs hurt, but something about the way water is gathering in his eyes, and the way his mouth is getting wet with the force of it is almost a relief – and once he starts, he just keeps going. Harsh jerks of his lungs bringing blood screaming around his body, letting him know about every painful bruise.

But in the end, when Matt’s choked gasps tip towards normal, ordinary tears and not hysterical panic attack territory, when he opens his eyes, it no longer hurts.

And he looks up, into a sky that is filled with more than he’d thought he would get to see again.

There is that one star on the edge of the horizon – the one that even light pollution couldn’t hide on its worst nights, only clouds could cover it completely – and the moon hangs by a slight grin, turned in a way that makes it seem as if it’s laughing at him. Or maybe that’s just him, and the direction he’s facing.

It’s almost cloudless, which is strange for Gotham, and made stranger by the fact that the cement he’s lying in is cold. But Matt doesn’t care. He knows the smell of this smog, and he knows the slight glow on the horizon from the islands nearby, and the distant sound of the traffic that never seems to stop.

It must be close to midnight. With the moon directly above him.

Matt doesn’t look around to check where he is. Not just yet. Right now, all he looks at is that big old moon, hanging in the sky.

It takes the sound of stones brushing over gravel to pull Matt’s eyes from that glowing silver crescent, and he is making sure no one finds out ever how much he’d cried when he sees Ace’s big old face peering down at him from the side.

Matt gives sitting up another go, and is largely unsuccessful – which is instead because Ace has decided to give him some healthy kisses to the face, evidently just as relieved to see him as he is Ace. He ends up underneath a very excitable Great Dane Doberman Cross whose main desire in life is cuddles, finding warm naps, and planning how best to be a good boy to get more cuddles.

He takes a few moments to enjoy Ace’s exuberant attention, before gradually getting himself to calm down. Like the good boy he is, Ace follows suit, laying down beside him patiently as Matt drags himself into somewhat of a kneeling sit.

There are lights around them – they’re on the edge of some kind of parkland, the one that leads to the old foreshore, Matt thinks, where Carnival Mile ends – and whilst the direct area is devoid of people, he can see shadows through the canvas walls across the other end of the car park.

Giving Ace a hearty pat, Matt regards the colourful display warily.

Not only is this most obviously not the Bat Cave, or home, or anywhere else Matt thinks would be a sensible enough place to wake up when you’ve either died, almost thought you died, or were rescued from certain death, but… if he’s right, the great big top tent, and the colourful festoon lights, and the posters… It’s a Circus. A whole Circus.

He turns his head, looking back down the other direction, all the way of the road and the empty parklands towards where the distant lights of what he thinks is Gotham City glow on the horizon. Matt stares for a few seconds, squinting suspiciously, before looking back at the Circus tents. Using Ace as a supporting brace, and leaning upon his own knees, Matt gets up to get a better idea.

He takes one shaky step, and then a few extra, braver shuffles forward when all that happens is the general complaint of his knee joints, no more severe than the usual pains he’d get from stacking off his board. He takes a few more, decidedly riskier movements, before simply walking over to the edge of the Circus grounds.

Which, when he gets a good look at the canvas walls, is one; most definitely a circus, and two; a Circus called ‘Pop Haly’s’, which he thinks should ring some bells somehow, but he can’t for the life of him remember where or when he’d heard of it. Ace leans against the back of his legs whilst Matt traces the lettering of the poster – hand printed with triple tone ink, like those old-style stencil posters and shirts they make for the art festivals, which is weird. He can smell salt and sugar and no small amount of gunpowder through the canvas wall – not even a mesh fence, this wouldn’t keep anyone out… Matt hopes this Circus isn’t going to get robbed tonight, or anything, he doesn’t know where Terry is, meaning they’d be left to face it alone.

Matt sighs, and rubs Ace’s face when the good boy gives his fingers a lick.

Terry. And Max.

He wonders if they’re okay. He wonders if he’s in Limbo, or having a strange dream. He wonders if the end of the world was a dream, but then the blisters he got on his hands and feet from escaping their apartment block as some crazy Kryptonian lady sent a yacht through it register, and he knows that what he’d seen was quite real.

With a conscious effort, he looks back up at the Circus poster.

Which shouldn’t exist, because Circuses don’t come to Gotham anymore. They perform on the hills on the edge of the Gotham City County, where farmland meets the waystation to the Mainland States and Cities, right next to the airport. They certainly don’t set up anywhere near Carnival Mile. Not after all the Jokerz Goons took it over. It just… wasn’t safe.

Still suspicious, Matt reaches up, and yanks one of the posters down – it has a roughly drawn map (hand drawn, wow, this place is really committed to that vintage aesthetic) of all the tents and performers and trucks inside the Circus Fair itself, and he has a feeling that he might need to figure out what is happening directly around him, before going on to look for Terry. Folding it and shoving it into the inside pocket of his jacket, Matt takes a moment to read the other signs. Apparently, Haly’s has a world-famous family of acrobats known as the ‘Flying Graysons’ – which sounds about right, somehow, because wasn’t there a guy named Grayson teaching acrobatics in Old Gotham or something? He was a friend of Terry’s, he thinks. Matt hasn’t met him very often, something about bad blood between him and Old Man Bruce.

(And the both of them are likely dead. Unless this is Limbo, like Matt is afraid of, meaning that Matt is also dead. But that’s a problem for when he finds Terry – which he still should be able to, if they are both dead, or both alive, or whatever is going on.)

There are a couple of named clowns – such as Polka Dot Pam and her twin brother, Banjo Ben, who are portrayed dancing on a giant ball together (hilariously enough, something he can actually believe to be possible, after watching so many of the grainy videos put together on the net with the Jokerz Gang and Batman going at it like cats and dogs. Matt will never live down the knowledge that he’d called Terry cool to his face after that time Batman had made a giant penny block sudden flood waters. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t realise Terry was telling the truth about actually being Batman at the time… anyway.) and are dressed up in a way much too alike some of the Jokerz. Matt always wonders why clown and carnival makeup is so popular in Gotham Street Fashion, but then he remembers that there are actually people who idolise that group of crazy clowns, so he supposes that it's no wonder at all.

They have a decent number of animal related performances… which Matt guesses is pretty cool. But weren’t there rules about that now? Whatever. A family of elephants, a sea lion, a few tigers, and no small number of littler but still exotic animals is no small showing. Matt is especially curious about these hand trained birds who are supposed to be able to do tricks, and the people who somehow dance with their animals. There are even a few Sword Swallowers, a Fire Dancer, and a supposed Snake Charmer, which makes Matt think of that guy who keeps- …kept… sending Max all those strange snake-themed ‘engagement gifts.’ He thinks it's funny, to this day, that the weirdo hadn’t managed to take the hint that Max was not interested in batting for his team.

Matt studies the posters as he walks along the perimeter of the Circus Fair Grounds, making occasional glances at the canvas walls, hoping to find a way to slip inside.

And then, after reading a small poster about a blind fortune teller, Matt looks over and spots the literal, open entrance to the Circus Grounds - complete with empty ticket booth, a full fairy light covered archway, and no gates.

Matt gives a laugh that sounded a little too much like a pigeon and a cat having a fight.

“It can’t be that easy.” He looks down at Ace, who in turn looks back up at him, happy for the attention. “Can it?”

Low and behold, it really is that easy.

Chapter Text

Matt’s first experience inside a real Circus and not a Circus themed Jungle Gym is a strangely quiet one.

There are no other attendees, or audience members, or patrons or whatever – its evidently past their performance schedule, so naturally, no one would come to see an empty Circus with no attractions to ogle at. All the stalls and games and fair ground vendors are still here, with their lights on mostly on – but the stoves are off, the water systems have been unplugged, and all the arcade and carnival games have been closed and locked up. Its strangely spooky, like that time Matt and Terry waited for Mom to pick them up from the mall near closing time, and all the shops had their rollers down.

He can see the park benches and picnic tables that would have been covered in the general public probably a few mere hours earlier, and he can see that clean up has already been done – every bin has a new liner, and all the chairs have been stacked under cover. All the food stalls have been cleaned and tidied, and he can’t even hear the distant buzz of fridges and cooler boxes like you can at a Street Fair. It’s practically dead.

The only place that seems to have any sign of life, is where yet another canvas wall keeps the general Fair Ground separated from the Circus Performers’ Trailers. There is still sound of people moving about over there, although not very many, and Matt needs to give Ace’s collar a firm grip when he spots the great shipping containers that must be home to much of the Circus’s more exotic attractions. He creeps passed an attraction titled rather simply as the ‘Hall of Mirrors,’ and uses the cheerfully painted sides of the Fair Ground to keep him and Ace out of sight as he approaches the Performers’ Area.

Security is just as lack here as it was getting into the Grounds, although there is a little problem with a few ponies staring directly at him and Ace when they crawl through the flap in the wall. The chestnut pony seems to give them a significant side eye – hard to see in this part of the Circus Ground, as they’d left most of the lights on in the Public Area, but not here, meaning that the animals are all in the dark. Keeping his grip on Ace tight, Matt pulls them both towards the huddled rows of trailers and shacks. He relaxes when he realises Ace seems to be more preoccupied with sniffing at Matt’s shoes and the wheels of the trailers than paying the other animals in their cages any attention – although he does make a panicked squeak when Ace growls at a snake in its cabinet, which is embarrassing enough, but the way he’d paled when the python lifted its head and upper body into view of them both and simply stared is even more shameful.

Every now and then, there is the hush of voices on the wind, and the subtle crunch of feet on grass and gravel. But other than the half-emptied cups of water, and a man sitting asleep at a camp table with his feet up, its devoid of all signs of life.

Matt would think himself in some kind of strange ghost town, if it wasn’t for the occasional snore he could hear from the odd trailer he passed.

He crouches low, thoughtful, and absentmindedly gives Ace’s floppy ears a scritch when the hound lies beside him without a hint of instruction. “What do you think, boy?” Matt whispers to the Dane Cross.

“Getting any closer?”

Ace simply plants a sloppy kiss to his cheek, and Matt sighs, refusing to let his still red and swollen eyes betray him with more tears. He still smiles wetly when Ace shifts to lick him directly over his temple.

He’s not sure how he’s going to find Terry. His best shot would be to head over into Gotham proper, or at least one of the islands, but Carnival Mile is all the way on the other side of the river. Sure, the split between the row of theme parks and carnival equipment to the Main Island was less than a forty-foot-wide body of water – but Matt isn’t interested in walking all the way to the nearest bridge, which is a good couple of miles away. He needs to get back into the city, and to do that, he needs money, supervision of a somewhat lacking nature, and a clue.

He has a feeling all isn’t as it should be. Afterall, he hasn’t seen any of the usual tech he’s used to for Gotham related peoples – the man having a snooze is wearing an actual slouch hat, but that could just be Circus people and there general wackiness, but that feels wrong in a way Matt can’t put into words – and there are no security cameras, no phones in sight, and all of the trailers are… round.

Matt doesn’t know what the rules for falling into Limbo, or something even weirder like a Fae World are, but he has a feeling that there should be some tells.

He spies a folded newspaper held down neatly by the sleeping man’s boot, and wonders. Can you read in Limbo? Would it be in English, or Latin? Would Limbo and… maybe even Hell, bother to keep up the façade to have words on a piece of paper, or would it be the clue he needs to figure out what to do from here? There are really only so many ways he can go about this.

Matt tugs on his jacket, zips and then buttons it up to his neck, and tells Ace to stay.

Carefully, and as quietly as possible – quieter than he ever used to be, and certainly quieter after Terry began trying to make sure Matt could at the very least outmanoeuvre an opponent if he couldn’t get away – he approaches the man and the table. The man is short compared to Terry, and certainly more rotund and brutish, but the way the man’s body mass is arranged says that this guy is used to winning fights, and not losing them. Matt holds his breath for a minute, stopping, and watches the man breath deeply through his snores, mouth wide and ungainly. He matches his breathing as closely as he can, head spinning with nerves – he’s not like Terry, he can’t take a hit from a guy this big and keep getting back up, so he has to be sneaky – and disguises his very presence by synchronising it with the sleeping man’s every unconscious movement.

He takes a few more light steps towards the table, finally able to see the paper – except its covered by a dishcloth, too, so Matt can’t even read it while standing here, he has to remove the cloth first – and takes a moment to glance back at Ace. Like the best of all dogs, Ace is still lying where he left him, but Matt makes no mistake about it. The rescue dog is staring at him with absolute focus. Even if he did wake this man up, Ace wouldn’t give him the chance to lay a hand on Matt. Probably to Ace’s own detriment, but the thought of his canine backup gives Matt a sterner courage than he thinks he should have needed for something so simple.

Looking back to the man, he takes another step. Less than a foot away from the end of the table. Another step. He’s at the table’s lip, and he can see that this man is wearing dress shoes, an odd choice for someone who lives life on the road with Circus animals. He takes another short, careful step, and he’s almost directly at the man’s feet.

The table comes up to Matt’s stomach. It’s a simple tin framed camp table, just like the folding metal chair the man is sleeping it. It has a yellow tartan pattern on its surface, has gouges from years of use, and he’s panicking.

Get a grip.

Matt takes another deep breath, and – desperate to refill his courage enough to actually do what he needs to do – looks back behind him, towards Ace.

Ace looks back.

And so does someone else.

Matt takes a sharp breath, before freezing.

The man only mutters in his sleep, making slight noises, obviously dreaming. Matt hates him. Even trembling, even facing the other way, even without knowing his name. Matt hates this man.

The teenager - staring at him from across the small opening in the trailer cluster - is perfectly still. Matt hardly dares to breathe. He stares at them, and they stare at him, and Ace doesn’t move, like the absolute best dog there is. And Matt thinks he might pass out.

The teenager tilts his head – Matt misses Mom so much more than he wants to believe, because that red, red hair makes him think of the world’s worst pasta bake, and the world’s best hugs – and shifts his gaze behind him, to the man.

Please don’t say anything, Matt tries to beg with his eyes, but since when has that ever worked?

The teenager opens his mouth.

Matt’s lip trembles, and he is so much more scared than he should be- because he’s suddenly looking at Terry’s back, and Ace’s head is on his lap, and Max’s hand is on his shoulder, and-

The teenager closes his mouth, lips pressing into a thin line, looking back over at the man, before lifting a hand from his side.

And Matt watches as the teenager mimes that; my lips are sealed.

He does not breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn’t breathe at all. Matt simply nods, just the once, just a little bit, and carefully turns back to the sleeping man.

He’s just where he left him – and so is the newspaper. Underneath the man’s shoe. Carefully, oh so carefully, Matt leans over the table, and grips the folded edge of the newspaper in one hand, and hovers over the man’s shoe with the other. The smooth sole of the shoe will make things tricky, he might end up needing to shove the newspaper away with his elbow and hold the foot up with both hands to make sure he doesn’t startle the man awake. Terry and his douchebag old friends were good for one thing – Terry had felt he’d needed to make sure Matt wouldn’t ever get caught out by someone for being light fingered, but not light fingered enough. Matt knew enough about the world to understand that Terry had learned that distinction personally, and really, he always knew the jerks he used to run with were no good for Terry, but at least they gave him this.

With as much care as he can muster, he pinches the tip of the dress shoe’s protruding sole, and tries to lift it no more than a centimetre off the table.

Naturally, his little fingers do absolutely nothing, and the man keeps snoring, the world keeps turning, and the shoe doesn’t move.

Matt frowns. And then squints, calculating. At least, the shoe didn’t appear to move. Maybe-

He lifts the shoe as much as he can once again, using his other hand to pull on the newspaper.

Horrifically, something underneath the dishcloth tears, and Matt goes absolutely still. Not letting go, but not moving either.

He watches the man for a second, tense for every moment a snore doesn’t ring out into the night, before finally breathing once more when the man lets out a loud snuffle.

He tries not to cry, because he isn’t a crier, he swears, and its only his refusal to get caught that stops him from jumping when a shadow falls over the table.

The teenager is standing directly on the other side of the table, further away from the man, and is regarding them both thoughtfully. Matt doesn’t dare move his eyes away, knowing beyond a doubt that this teenager could make or break this next moment. Whatever they decide to do would make Matt’s life undoubtedly more complicated. If he wakes him-

The teenager reaches out a hand.

Matt wants to be sick.

They hover it over the shoe.

Matt’s lungs hurt from his tense posture, and his knees have locked solid.

And grip it, with devastating ease, between his thumb, and middle finger.

Matt chances a quick look at the sleeping man – and the poor fool doesn’t even twitch.

He flicks his gaze back.

The teenager stares him down. And makes a show of taking a long, slow, silent breath.

Matt forces himself to match it.

(Its strange how quickly it calms his racing heart, and scattered thoughts.))

Green eyes make a significant look at the newspaper, and shift to the side pointedly.

Matt firms himself, and nods once more, not secure enough in the moment to feel grateful.

He leans down, shifts his grip to both sides of the paper, one hand sitting over to make sure the dish cloth stays under the shoe. He forces his mind to clear, makes sure his fingers are set onto the paper properly, and lets out the breath he’d been holding.

Millimetre by millimetre, the shoe starts to rise.

The moment that Matt spots light underneath the heel, he carefully and with surprisingly steady hands slides the newspaper down the table, and out of range.

The shoe slowly moves back down, and careful fingers hold in place for one breath. Two. And the moment the hand lets go, Matt looks to the side and takes one cautious step back. Another. And with the greatest if care, the two of them walk silently away from the table.

Matt ducks down when he reaches the trailer with Ace laying beneath it, and he calms the moment the shadow of the wheel falls over him.

On the other side of the small clearing, the teenager has tucked himself into a tight little nook shadowed by a row of fabric banners. And just in time, too. Matt grips on to Ace, who is a steady as a rock, as loud footsteps on gravel crunch into range. A pair of legs – covered in sparkly spandex and segmented colours – stride into view, and Matt swallows his heart when the feet stop right by his chosen hiding spot.

The trailer above him is unlocked, and the legs disappear. The closing of the door feels as if it’s slammed with great prejudice, but Matt knows it’s just his nerves.

He looks back at the teenager as the trailer rocks slightly from the circus performer’s movements, and meets a wide eyed stare. They hold each other’s gaze for a minute, maybe more, before whoever it is inside starts to snore.

Like a freight train. Like a hippo.

Matt can’t resist the growing smile developing on his face – and neither, it seems, can the red headed teenager, silently laughing from the shadows.

Mischief made. Now if only Terry would join him in silly little heists like this?

Chapter Text

He’d tried his best to get a look at the paper from under the cover of the trailer, but even after ten minutes, Matt’s eyes just couldn’t adjust to the darkness of the undercarriage when the festoon lights across the trailers were so bright.

Grumbling, he pulls himself out from under the trailer, listening carefully for anyone else passing by. He’s somewhat disappointed, and yet somehow relieved to see that the teenager has disappeared during his attempts to find the perfect direction and angle to lean out of the shadows just enough to see. Shaking some loose stones off his trousers, Matt starts to track back towards the entrance of the Performers Residence. Every now and then, he has to duck away with Ace down beside a table, or small canvas tent as people walk past. Distantly, Matt wonders what time it is, before deciding that it doesn’t matter, because the answer is late, and that these people should all be in bed.

Especially the two late teens sucking face in the space between a large RV and a four-man tent. Those people should take that somewhere far, far away from him.

He’d watched in fascinated horror, until he saw the taller one – a boy, he thinks – shove a hand up the girl’s skirt, and promptly turned tail and walked with speed down another row of trailers.

With growing familiarity, he spots the trailer closest to the animals, and its with a slight bounce in his step, and an affectionate pat to Ace, that he passes by the snake enclosure.

Which is empty.

Matt stills.

And he’s not scared, okay? Don’t be stupid. It was only a python! …He thinks… It was only that. It’s a really big snake. One of the biggest pythons he’d ever seen. Probably as large as some of the ones that Kobra guy had specifically spliced to be larger and meaner, and smarter than any snake should be. And he knows that Kobra isn’t here.

At least. He shouldn’t be. Maybe. Would Kobra go to Limbo, or straight to Hell?

Unless this is a universal glitch in space time that all things go to when they die, and Kobra has been here since Max was able to drop kick his ass…

No way. That’s ridiculous.

Matt gives a short check, looking down at the ground nearby, gripping onto Ace probably a bit too tight for the dog to be comfortable. (But Ace doesn’t shift. Doesn’t jump. Doesn’t complain. He really is the best dog. Should get him registered for a competition or something.)

There is no sign of thing. No tracks. No disturb gravel. No nothing.

He’s sure his heart is about to burst from the strain of the last week – he wants his mom, he wants Terry, and maybe, yeah, he wants his dad, just a little bit – when something shifts on the gravel behind him. Matt twitches, suddenly grateful that he’d shoved the newspaper in with the poster, and turns his head to look back where he’d come.

And-

“You’re wearing it.”

The red headed teenager blinks, before covering his confusion with an overly amused smirk.

“…I’m wearing… what?” The teenager has his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a particularly baby-faced gangster, and Matt doesn’t even have the wherewithal to roll his eyes the way he usually would.

“Do you know that you’re wearing it?”

A slight cackle – and it puts him on edge slightly, because Matt prides himself on his ability to read people, and this guy is so off-kilter – leaves the red headed teen, and Matt fights off his juvenile pout with the knowledge that it really would be immature to poke his tongue at him. So, he huffs instead.

“Do I know- kid. What. Am I aware, of what?” He’s quiet about it, but the older boy is definitely losing his composure – enough to be genuinely breathless from withheld laughter. Matt is both offended, and deeply concerned, because-

“The snake!” He hisses, pointing at the scaled head peaking out over the other boy’s long navy coat.

The other boy lets out a soft giggle, and nods in affirmation.

“Yep.” Matt wants to kick him in the shin. Smug bastard is literally leaning back slightly to peer down his nose at him more effectively – and that’s just so! So! Terry, of him. Ugh!

“I am aware.”

Matt just stares, for a solid moment, before shaking his head and throwing up his hands.

“Your just. Weird.”

The teenager is still laughing at him. But he’s doing it with his eyes! Matt decides that if the other boy hadn’t been so helpful so far, he’d probably hate him, too.

“Oh,” the taller boy places a hand on his chest mockingly, leaning his wait back onto one leg. “I’m weird? Well! Pot meet kettle, midget.”

Matt puffs his cheeks, and flips him off.

The older boy rather predictably returns it with ease, grinning just as wide as he had at the start.

They both go to say something – either scathing, or mutually insulting – when the trailer attached to the snake enclosure rattles slightly.

Matt jumps, and when turning to send a panicked glance at the teen, he finds that the other looks equally… scared.

Actually terrified. Which is something older kids never let you see. Ever.

The teen allows himself a wince, and as whoever it is inside the trailer starts to move around and get up, the red headed boy points quickly to the table supporting the snake enclosure.

Get down, the older boy mouths.

Matt simply nods, quickly pulling a suddenly-on-guard and far-more-resistant-than-he-should-be Ace behind him, watching as the older boy arranges the tablecloth to sit almost to the ground. The older boy tugs the cloth up enough to let Matt and Ace under, and with surprising grace, carefully pushes them both out of sight with a booted foot.

Ace is still tense, and Matt has to pat him again and again, whispering gentle platitudes to stop the dog from growling – who could have set him off this badly? Ace doesn’t often treat strangers with this much immediate dislike. Something about what’s going on is really getting to him.

(Privately, it’s getting to Matt, too. Big kids just don’t go all shaky like that. It’s not right. It’s not normal.)

All Matt can see is the booted feet standing perfectly still in front of the table. And he has the sudden epiphany that these shoes are the most like he’d expected from a circus – there’s holes in them, and cracks in the leather. One of the boots has been repaired with a slice off another pair of shoes, a red-brown patch sitting in black. The laces are uneven, and they don’t match, and one of the boots has a huge chunk taken out of the sole right at the heel.

They’re old, and worn, and beaten. And they’ve been repaired, over and over again.

Matt strokes a hand down Ace’s back, staring at those boots – something near Terry’s size, maybe slightly bigger – ignoring the way his neck prickles with something beyond apprehension, something foreboding.

The door to the trailer opens, and a woman’s voice sounds from just to Matt’s left. He doesn’t turn to look at her, or her feet. He just stares at those boots.

“You little slut!”

Matt can see the flinch in the way the other’s right foot slides back ever so slightly.

“You were supposed to get me more of my tablets! And what do you know, I’m out!”

“I did get you more! I brought back a whole set-” Matt closes his eyes, squeezes his lips together, and chokes down a frightened whimper. Ace doesn’t move an inch – and every stroke across the dog’s back tells Matt exactly how much every muscle in Ace’s body is ready to go, to rip and bite and tear. Who was this woman?

“Yes?” The woman’s voice becomes purposely, deceptively sweet, before immediately returning to that horrible bilic tone. “Well, now there’s none. And you’ve either been taking some for yourself whilst I wasn’t looking-”

“I didn’t,” the other boy says softly, and Matt hears the truth in it. He finds he hates that too, just a little. “I swear.”

“-Or, you’ve been lying to me about how much you’ve been getting. So, wherever your little stash of cash is, I’d better see it back in my purse by morning, you-”

The woman stops herself. “No. You know what lying will mean, don’t you?”

The woman’s shoes make a sharp clack on the step she’s still poised upon, and Ace’s ear twitches.

Matt places both hands on Ace’s collar, suddenly so very worried that Ace will in fact just bolt.

“…Yes, mother.”

She hums, and Matt buries his face in Ace’s neck, finally unable to watch the way booted feet subtly tremble.

There is the crunch of something on gravel. Something slides against the tablecloth.

“…If you ever,” The woman whispers right in front of them both. “Ever, steal from me again, the next fifty I make is on you, do you understand?”

Matt can’t hold back his own shaking when the boy fails to respond.

“Do you understand. Jerome.”

She says it like its an insult. Like its poison.

(Matt wants his mom. He wants her to make everything just go away. He wants Terry to come on over, and solve things like he always does, and make Mom’s terrible baking suddenly tolerable in the way only a fellow McGinnis can manage. He wants to go home.)

“I understand.”

And then there is this sound. Like when Matt would drop his school bags on the kitchen floor every afternoon - like a swallowed, muffled thud.

Matt raises his head enough to see the way the other teen takes a faltering step back. Soundless.

There are a pair of short kitty heels – the kind a dancer wears – that lead into stockings. The heels are old, past their prime, but they don’t show anywhere near the wear and tear of the teenager’s boots. Jerome’s boots.

Her son’s boots.

Matt thinks that if she says anything else he might actually be sick, because this rollercoaster has to stop sometime, it can’t just keep going.

“Don’t be long this time. I’ll be watching the clock. And you don’t have enough pockets to keep things from me.”

Her feet shift, and turn, and she strides away – oddly disco-ordinated, and suddenly that extra tone in her voice makes sense, because she’s drunk off her head – and Matt feels his throat jerk, rubbing it to soothe the threat of oncoming bile. The teenager’s shoes stay solidly where they are for a few long moments, before they slide across the gravel. Matt watches the shoes disappear, along with the other boy’s shadow, and almost yelps when the woman slams the trailer door. He bites his lip, eyes burning, refusing to cry yet again tonight, because he just can’t.

He just can’t.

He stares at his hands, wound into Ace’s thick collar, and thinks.

With a sniffle, he wipes his eyes, frowning angrily to himself. Because he’s not a baby. He can do this. He can prioritise.

He’s Terry McGinnis’s little brother – the Batman’s little brother – and he isn’t going to disappoint his big brother by being a pathetic little wuss. He’s going to man up, take a moment, and read that newspaper.

He shuffles towards the edge of the tablecloth, before stopping. Checking his watch.

Which he can see.

(It’s got a crack in it, and it’s misted from that time he and Terry had to swim through the undergrounds, but the numbers are visible.)

The tablecloth – as threadbare and discoloured as it is – is sheer enough to let in enough of the light to see.

And the lights, unlike the other trailer, are directly above him, which is perfect.

Matt drags out the paper, starts reading.

And doesn’t get much further than the front page because-

Chapter Text

Jerome would like everyone to know, that Gotham? Sucks.

Personally, fuck this town. Fuck this city. Fuck ‘em all.

He hisses angrily at himself as he rummages through the communal cool room, desperate to prove to himself that he did buy those tablets, thank you very much! Either dear old Mum is more of an addict than he’d first thought, or someone else is sneaking in some Valium and Insulin from his stock - which is both believable, and fucking incredible, because really. The little thieves would eventually have to deal with her, too, if she goes unmedicated, and at this stage, Lila Valeska is so dependent on those meds she goes dam near psychotic when she’s off them.

She’s bad enough already, he doesn’t want to deal with her bouts of paranoia, and the fact that when left alone long enough, she starts trying to drag him into hell, too.

(He has a… suspicion… about what has happened to the double script he’d been able to collect from that chemist in the Bowery. He’d been feeling oddly floaty and calm for the last few days, or the last few weeks, even. He wouldn’t be surprised if- No…

No. It wouldn’t be a surprise. In fact, Jerome could almost count on it, and on her attempt to pace the blame on him like she always does, just to cover up her actions as something else. Just like-)

The worst part of it, he guesses, is that it is no surprise at all.

From start to finish, this day has gone about how he expected. The only alterations in the usual fair was that Bathsheba had continued to be unusually sluggish – he hoped it was just the weather, but just in case, yesterday he’d headed in to the City to quiz a Vet for advice – and out of concern, he’d upped the power on her lamps, continued to fill her enclosure with heat packs, and frequently kept her wrapped around him in an attempt to keep her as warm, and comfortable as possible. It had the unintentional side effect of keeping some of the usual suspects off his back – because most people tend to leave a guy wrapped in snake the hell alone. Then, naturally, after finally curbing the last unfortunate… thing… that he’d picked up from his most gracious mother and her bed mates, he'd almost instantaneously noticed that he’d picked up some kind of chest infection. Wonderful.

In a change in routine, not too long ago, Mary Lloyd of all people asked him to cover for her so she could go on an ill-advised date with John Grayson – and that was never going to end well…

Its perhaps his own constantly humming instability that said – ‘Sure! Why not?’ And helped cover her and John’s most recent foolish escapade. Strangely enough, Mary and John had been so touched he’d kept his word, that Mary had in turn covered for him yesterday with a wink, and the subtle deposit of pain killers for the hole he currently has in his foot.

(Thanks for that, Owen. Truly. Its going to take so much effort to hide that limp. It literally ground some of his bones into dust. A driving post through the foot… what a laugh that was, huh?)

And to top off the litany of unusual events, the only thief he’d seen this week – of which they usually had far more when performing in Jersey – was only interested in absconding with Owen’s beloved Daily Report. Which had been so immediately bizarre, and just straight up funny, that he’d wordlessly moved to help. Anything that would inconvenience the big old grump was an absolute chuckle of a time.

(It helped, he supposes, that when the boy turned and looked at him with those eyes, all he saw was Miah, that first time one of Mum’s flames made sounds about touching one of them up. Those watery, scared eyes. Jerome had stepped up, and taken the blows then, and he’d instinctually done it again now, no matter how much he hated that Miah could still make him feel this way. After all that the little cold-hearted bastard had done to him.

Jerome could probably stand over Miah with an axe, when he finally, one day, cracks, and all Miah will have to do is look at him with those scared, solemn little eyes with just a little bit of tears. And Jerome would just… crumble. Not that Miah ever understood how easily he could have manipulated Jerome. The freaky little twerp couldn’t get the hint if the room was being read to him by a Broadway stage performer. Jerome always was the more socially adept of them both – it just sucked that Miah was smarter in every other way possible.)

It all leads to him being here, now, fighting off a freakout as no matter what boxes he shoves around and opens, he isn’t seeing anything more than the insulin he’d carefully labelled and organised. He’d bought the two medications together. He knows he did. She’s doing this on God dam purpose, and he should have known not to eat anything she made after the last few times he’d woken up and-

Jerome thumps his head against the cooler shelf, fighting off rising, hysterical giggles, twitching and cursing himself all the while. Miah would never have ended up as their mother’s favourite bitch – oh no, Miah was the favourite everything else, and doesn’t he know it.

He supposes that, at the very least, Miah wouldn’t have bothered helping the kid – strait-laced, goody two-shoes that he pretended to be, a theft so benign was neither interesting enough to take on, or beneficial enough to put in the effort, so at least Jerome has that over his little brother.

Speaking of that little boy, he should probably do something about him. Can’t have the kid in listening distance for when Mother gets it up to her usual tomfoolery – she’d finished with that acrobat she likes to roll around in the hay with, and she’ll probably have a ‘paying customer’ come visit her. Something like that would be very quickly brought up to the little terror’s currently absent parents, and Jerome can see the coming beating from that fall out, and that’s not quite worth the delight of seeing Mother’s distraught face.

He has his arms wrapped tight around his long coat to keep Bathsheba safe from the frigid air of the cooler, and he stumbles out of the room with far less grace than he should have. Hysteria’s a killer. But Jerome always wins in the end.

Striding back towards his mother’s trailer, he wordlessly walks back up to the table, picking up one of Bathsheba’s sunning stones, and pulling his wallet out from it’s scraped out hollow, before dropping into a crouch.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Psst!”

A soft sniffle comes from behind Mum’s ugly tablecloth. “Hey,” the little boy croaks back.

Jerome frowns, tilting his head. He… doesn’t know how to describe how that makes him feel. So few emotions are easy for him to manage and process, always so much easier to read others than himself. He couldn’t describe why that sad little voice makes him think of grazes, and summer grass, and Haly’s last venture into Europe. Only that it makes him frustrated at what that means and what he’s supposed to do.

He sticks a hand under the table, and gestures sharply. “Scooch.”

Jerome climbs into the safe little cocoon of America’s laziest pillow fort, and watches the boy shuffle himself and his dog to one corner whilst Jerome settles into the other.

The dog huffs, and flops down onto its side with a groan. Jerome finds himself chuckling softly.

“Nice.” He whispers.

The little boy smiles, eyes red rimmed and sore.

(He’d… never actually considered how other kids would react to his Mum. He knows she’s not normal. He knows that. Everyone does. But its one thing to know that she’s a terrible parent, and another thing entirely to understand that its obvious to another child, who’d never even met her, and is already scared out of his mind. Its kind of… gratifying. He knows he’d never imagined what she’d done, but he’d long since grown used to it. Its always a good thing to remember that what she does isn’t right. Isn’t good.)

Jerome sighs, knowing immediately that he’s going to have to address it.

But he doesn’t want to.

One day, maybe, all the things he’d seen and the trials he’d borne witness to will tear themselves from him so violently that he won’t be able to stop. Maybe he’ll crack, finally jump off that knife edge he’s been on since- …since Miah went and betrayed him, and he’ll just open his ribcage and scream at the world to ‘Look! See! See what you’ve ignored! See what you pretended you didn’t know! See what you buried me under! See what you made me into!’

Right now, however, he just wants to giggle over stealing a newspaper with a freaking eight-year-old and his dog from one of the biggest, truest bullies he’s ever known.

He grins at the boy, and it probably comes off differently from what he wanted, because the little boy frowns.

Jerome shifts, tugging Bathsheba to curl further across his shoulders than his back, and leans against the tin wall of his mother’s trailer.

“So.” Jerome begins. He flicks his eyes back over to the boy as if he’s about to deliver the world’s funniest punch line.

“How’s the weather?”

The puffed cheeks are just as funny as they were the first time, and Jerome is pretty sure there is some kind of condition for this urge to squeeze this little shrimp till he pops, but he refrains.

The little kid holds up the front page, and taps the date.

“Is this… today’s paper?” The kid sounds like he very much wants it not to be.

“…Technically,” and he can’t resist such an easy stir. “It’s yesterday’s paper.”

The boy sighs, before scowling, and looking back over the paper.

“Well, that sucks.”

Jerome nods sagely, like he understands why that is such a terrible truth.

“You said it.”

The kid scoffs, sending him a short look – and Jerome would very much like to learn how to make an expression that dead faced, it’s so poignant.

“Do you always talk out of your butt?” the kid whispers.

Jerome mock gasps, splaying a hand across his chest in hurt. “Who, me? The insult. Who taught you to speak this way? Surely not your dear old Ma and Pa!”

The kid chortles – tensing, immediately, glancing at the trailer as if he’d wake Lila after the bender she’d been on since last night with such a soft noise – before shaking his head.

“No,” The boy tugs his knees to his chest, and regards the offending paper thoughtfully. “My brother did.”

The boy makes a show of looking both ways, before leaning forward (finally, someone who understands comedic effect! Where had this kid been when Miah proved to be incapable of getting a good joke?) and whispering conspiringly;

“He so good at it, he made a Cop cry.” It’s said with such quiet admiration, that Jerome stops seeing Miah, and for one terrible second, sees himself when he’d heard that there was a real magician down in New Orleans, that can do tricks even Miah couldn’t figure out.

Jerome sucks in a breath, and recovers it by smirking as wide as possible.

“Bit of a hellion, your brother?”

The kid finally makes a full smile, and the dog lets out anther deep sigh, as if affronted.

“Oh, he is so the absolute worst.”

Chapter Text

Matt thinks that Jerome is actually a pretty alright guy, when he’s wrapped in snake and hiding from the world. That strange edge to his eyes – like a blade that had been chipped – had turned into something more scheming, but still calm. He thinks Terry would probably get along with him, if this Jerome didn’t prank him first. Terry doesn’t like being the fool.

But he has a feeling, just a small feeling, that Jerome wouldn’t try it.

(That lady had been so scary, and Terry once taught him that bullies are made, and the only way to stop a bully, is to find who bullied them first. Matt knows he’s had it pretty easy compared to some of his old classmates – who are all gone, lost, not even born yet – but he knows enough that Terry would take one look at the large black bruise across Jerome’s face, and he’d know. Matt thinks that would be all it would take, for Terry to decide that the lady inside wasn’t worth the time to talk down, and just launch in and not stop and until she can’t get back up. Its horrible to think, but Matt has been forced to learn the realities of the world, and of Gotham now that he knows what Terry does when he goes out at night. There’s no burying your head in the sand after that.

And sometimes, he and his brother would talk about the people they’d met, and what they should have done. Old Man Bruce would have hated how often they’d decided that holding back wasn’t worth the suffering. The effort. He supposes that’s why Terry is always under so much watch when he’s in the suit… but he guesses that’s all meaningless now.)

He looks back at the newspaper.

Technically yesterday, means that its past midnight, which he’d suspected already, and it means that it is, indeed, 1976. Matt doesn’t know what to do here. Would any of his ideas be correct if the time is literally different? How does he check? Is he really back in time? In his time? Or is it like those old comics, where he’s ended up further than he should be?

It’s still Gotham, according to the financial review, and the city seems to be in the same place – because the real-estate pages at the back showed all the same neighbourhoods, and all the same rivers and islands that he’s always known, so maybe…

He looks back up at Jerome. The older boy had tilted his head back – that shiner probably came with a killer of a headache, and explains what that weird noise was – and closed his eyes, but Matt doesn’t think he’s asleep. But just to make sure-

“Well,” Jerome hums in response, cracking an eye open to look at Matt properly, obviously curious. Matt runs a hand over Ace’s belly.

“…That lady’s a bitch.”

The startled laugh he receives is almost silent, and he would’ve missed it if he didn’t see the head of the snake bobbing slightly as it slides across his chest. Jerome hums, before shaking his head.

“Oh. She sure is.” Jerome seems to almost breath out a sigh of relief, and his smile is strange, and Matt thinks its because its actually real.

“…If…” Matt frowns, before trying again. “If she’s just, always like that,” Jerome tilts his head, running partially gloved fingers across his snake’s scaly head.

“Why don’t you just. Leave?”

Matt had always wondered why people stay in situations like this. Terry had tried to explain it, once, when Matt had overheard him and Max talking about one of their classmates and their abusive boyfriend. He doesn’t understand how people like Jerome’s mom and that girl’s boyfriend are able to convince them that they aren’t ever able to leave, that its impossible. Matt thinks it should be easy. Someone hits you? Grab your bags, pull up your pants, and just walk out of there.

It should be so simple. People who love you don’t treat you like that.

But Jerome’s deep breath makes Matt pause.

“…I’m afraid it’s not that simple…”

“Well,” Matt picks at his shoelaces, absently tightening them and straightening the flat fabric. “Why not? Aren’t you old enough to get away?”

Jerome shakes his head, and Matt grimaces. “Sixteen may be old enough to get a job, but its not old enough to get a bank account, or a loan, without ‘parental support.’ Trust me, I checked.”

The red headed teen sends a look towards the trailer. And Matt stares at it too, with its rusting bolts and rivets, and discoloured sheen. It’s a dump. But maybe, its what Jerome knows, and he’s scared to leave it in favour of something he doesn’t. Matt can understand that – staying once every two weeks at Dad’s had been unnerving, because everything wasn’t the way he’d remembered Mom’s house being, because the dishes were different, and he made the beds differently, and the toilet roll was on the other side.

“Sometimes,” and Jerome takes another moment, like he needs a run up to get the words out.

“Sometimes, you think you can run, and they stop you every time. Because you think to yourself – what will they do next time, when they catch me?”

Jerome’s grin is sharp, and a little cruel. “Its never an ‘if,’ so I’ve never gotten far enough to try.”

Matt kicks out his feet, patting Ace in apology when he accidentally knocks a foot against the Great Dane Cross’s long legs.

“…I don’t think so.” And when Jerome scoffs, and rolls his eyes, Matt thinks that – yeah, maybe people stopped you before, but how far did you get?

“I think. If. If you really committed, made sure people like… I dunno… Like… Cops! Knew you weren’t running away, just like, getting out for your own sake, you’d probably be able to make it. It’d be… hard-”

“Yeah, no kidding,” and Matt has to be so careful, because he’s losing Jerome’s good will and quickly, which he can’t afford, because Jerome is perfect for what he needs – someone who won’t stick around, but will see him get into the city, and maybe he can make Terry proud and pull Jerome out of this hole he’s in as he goes. That nice blonde lady friend of Terry’s was so much like him, so maybe…

“Yeah, I know.” Matt breathes. And takes a moment to narrow his eyes at his hands, before staring Jerome done. “But I think you could do it. Who says they’re going to catch you? Can they afford to catch you, if catching you means something worse than you just running off in the first place?”

Jerome frowns, confused.

Matt pushes forward.

“Do you… really think that she could talk her way out of abuse charges?”

 Jerome throws up a hand. “Oh, yes, go to the police. With my Record-”

Matt blinks innocently. “What Record?”

Jerome opens his mouth to say something, and then freezes. Staring him down.

“…You.” A finger is pointed in his face, and waved around with growing incredulity. “Are one perceptive little brat.”

Matt grins.

“…Good god, how even old are you? What, eight?”

“No,” Matt rolls his eyes. “I’m almost eleven.”

“Riiiight,” and he glares at Jerome’s consoling tone, scowling as the red headed boy nods sagely.

“You tell yourself that.” Green eyes stare him down, before Jerome shifts to lean his elbows on his knees, hands cupping his cheeks. “What did you want from me so much that you’d give me a Junior League Pep Talk, anyhow?”

Matt wriggles, caught out, flicking his gaze to the gravel floor.

“…I need to get into Gotham City… And… I’m too small for the bus driver to take me seriously alone…”

Jerome lets out a sharp barking laugh, before slapping a hand over his mouth. Both of them freeze.

Ace has rolled up onto his feet, and is staring down Jerome. What makes the moment even more intense, is how Ace slowly looks from the boy on the opposite end of their little hidey hole, to the metal casing of the trailer, and up…

As if he’s looking through the shiny covers of the ramshackle van, and seeing into the trailer itself, looking down a mountain lion that’s ready to pounce.

Neither he nor Jerome make a sound, or move at all, until Ace’s ears finally flick back, and the big black hound licks his chops with a dismissive sniff.

Matt sends a wary look to Jerome, who’s staring at Ace like he’s some kind of spooky creature of the night – Matt thinks he doesn’t have to, Ace only has a problem with people who try to attack him or Terry, and evidently the lady inside is more of a threat than Jerome is. It takes a good wile for both of them to calm down.

Matt gives Ace a smoothing brush with his fingers, smiling as the hound licks his cheek, and they both watch as Jerome rubs his eyes with a bone crushing sigh.

“…Jesus Christ… Okay.” Jerome sniffs hard through his nose, and after pursing his lips, sends Matt a strange kind of look.

“I’ll… take you into Gotham. I need to get those meds anyway – God fucking knows how many she’s-” He takes another sharp breath. “I’ll take you onto the bus. And when we get to the Main Island, we’ll take the train the rest of the way to the Bowery, okay? That’s as far as I’m going. I can’t- It sounds stupid, but I can’t just leave her like that.”

“It sounds stupid, because it is stupid!” And Matt’s angry – so, so angry – because this guy is so dumb! “You just picking up after her isn’t going to make things any better. She needs to fall, and know what its like for no one to be nearby to catch her. How many times have you done that for her? She’s the parent, and it’s not your job!”

And maybe he’s projecting.

Okay, so he’s definitely projecting, but there are some things he wants to have the nerve to scream at Terry, and he’s never had the courage when he meets those big, tired eyes, and the way his brother just… carries the world, all the time. Maybe Jerome isn’t Terry. Maybe they’re not even that alike. But Matt just can’t let it stand.

“One day,” and his voice is softer, and harder, all at once. “She’ll go past some line you never thought you had, and you- …something will happen, and as much as you tell everyone else otherwise, you’ll never forgive yourself for how things went, and how they ended.”

Jerome is staring at him like he’s gone crazy, and Matt thinks that’s probably alright, he feels a little crazy. Matt swallows a growing cry, and he refuses, point blank, to let tears fall in front of this guy, no matter how much his bright, blood red hair makes him think of Mom, and how the stupid ass look on his face reminds him of every time Terry responds to something new entering Matt’s curriculum that he just doesn’t get.

“Whatever,” Matt chokes out, grateful for Ace and his endless dependability. “Its not like it matters.”

But looking back at Jerome now, something has changed.

Something is raw. Bleeding.

A sad smile twitches across his freckled face, and Jerome jerks his head back in a slight incline.

“That spiel for me?” He tilts his head, gesturing to empty space. “Or your brother.”

Its mortifying, that in the end, that’s all it takes. Big old tears start to roll down Matt’s face.

“Yeah,” he keens softly. And he barely notices Ace curling around him in comfort. “It was for Terry.”

Jerome sticks out a leg, and nudges Matt’s shoe.

“He sounds like a good brother – better than. Better than anyone in my family ever was.”

Matt smiles to himself softly, looking out over Ace’s furry back.

“He’s pretty good, when he’s not irritating the crap out of me.”

Jerome grins. Before it falls. Gloved hands once again run over the snake’s scales. And both of them are hanging over some drop. Some terrible choice.

“…Fine…”

Matt blinks at the sound of some real give in Jerome’s voice, and he thinks after it all, he’s finally done it.

“Can’t believe you want some guy you’ve known for less than an hour for a goddam babysitter, but whatever.”

Jerome dusts off his knees, and rubs his snake’s head once more. “Give me a bit, and I’ll grab everything. It shouldn’t take too long.”

He crawls towards the edge of the table, before stopping, and pointing back at him.

“…Hang on a god dam- where are your parents?”

Matt puts on his best crocodile tear expression – which is probably a bit more real than he wants it to be, from Jerome’s breathy ‘Yeesh…’ – and evades the question with a successful fist bump after Jerome just shakes his head, and curses lightly under his breath as he leaves.

It may have taken more emotional vulnerability than he’s actually comfortable with, but Matt has successfully secured himself a supervisor.

Gotham, here he comes!

(He’s pretty sure Terry would complain that he could have just taken Jerome’s first offer and left it at that, but what Terry doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Its all for the better, anyway! This guy should know all the usual places for crimes to occur – no one who walks Gotham at night is completely ignorant of that, and he has a suspicion that Jerome could put up a far better fight against a stranger than his own Mom. So, there’s a plus. And Matt knows his brother. If he’s here to be found in Gotham, he’ll be right where all the screaming is.

Literally.)

Chapter Text

Jerome finds he doesn’t much enjoy surety. It's so… precise. So… encompassing. The absoluteness of the knowledge that he’s leaving. He’s walking away from this trailer and not coming back is just. It feels the same as every other day. And yet his feet feel heavy upon the ground as he strides towards the Haly Family’s van. Like a heavy hide drum is being hammered in his bones upon every step on earth that somehow doesn’t crumble even as everything else in him does.

He’s built everything he was around the character’s he played to cope with the hand he’s been dealt. Whose face is he supposed to wear now? His own? He doesn’t even know what that looks like anymore.

(And he’s not Jeremiah – who could mimic a behaviour perfectly after only ever seeing it once in context, who could somehow sense when the tides were turning against him in an argument. Oh, Jerome knows how to be charming. He’s a performer, for all he’s never had a real stage. He can lie and cheat and play the part with the best of them. But Miah was always better at making it seem more real. At playing up the part of acting as the Tortured Soul, the Unfortunate Son. Jerome’s part was always an accompanying act. A set piece. A staged obstacle to be overcome. That was his part to play, and he’d always felt he’d done it admirably – until he hadn’t, and the hits he’d taken on Miah’s part, the hurts he’d held, came screaming back out at the one person he’d never meant to touch, and after everything, he can only bring himself to be so sorry when Miah when and left him with the consequences of both of their actions, but-

It doesn’t matter. He’s not Miah. Miah’s not here. Miah ran away without him – he’d promised, he’d promised that he had a plan, and that they’d run together, but he lied – and now, six years later, Jerome’s going to do the same. But he has one boon. His escape will be better. His escape will be greater.

His escape will be what finally makes dear Mother crack – or so he hopes.)

The Haly’s van was always parked the closest to the big top. Something about wanting to get to and from a performance as quickly as possible, according to the Elder Haly.

He hopes – he’s guessing – that just like how Mum had been able to borrow copies of their passports when they’d last travelled Europe, Old Man Pop Haly still keeps copies of their records, and is willing to part with Jerome’s. Just. Maybe.

He ignores the way his hands shake slightly as they rap on the metal frame along the Haly van. Forces himself to focus on Bathsheba – Sheba, who presses her nose against his collarbone, and the weight of her across him, which is inhuman enough to be a true comfort, and not the echoing falsehood that keeps him up on bad nights – and on how much money exactly he can afford to spend, before he has to do things like… plan for food, for shelter, somehow endear himself to an adult enough to get a job that isn’t something a man whose name starts with ‘Suck’ and ends with ‘Rumble’ can find him in. He thinks about a little boy who was trying too hard to be brave, and sticks his nose in places others would find uncomfortable, and tells himself that he can be brave, too.

His courage didn’t die the day Jeremiah disappeared. He can’t let that be how it ends. He needs to be stronger than he ever let himself feel, and actually walk himself out of here before he becomes exactly would Miah claimed he was.

The sound of his knuckled on the tin is enough to make him uncomfortable with how quiet the night has been. And it makes hearing one of the Haly’s get up and out of bed all the easier, and all the worse for his conviction.

When Haly Junior opens the door, Jerome refuses to let himself feel small. He isn’t a child anymore, and at the very least, Haly Junior has never let people get away with being complete assholes to him.

(He was just. Never nice, either. But no one ever is. Except for crazy little boys and their big scary dogs, but Jerome is beginning to think that a little crazy could go a long way in this world. When its… the right kind of crazy. He guesses.

Its not like his crazy ever helped anyone. All it ever did was make him easy prey.)

“Oh!” Jerome fights off the wince he feels at Haly Junior’s unexpected volume by sucking in his cheeks, and biting his lips hard enough to bruise. “…Hey, Jerome. Is. Something wrong?”

Junior – for some stupid ass reason – sounds actually, sincerely concerned that something is wrong, even when considering that it’s a few hairs passed two AM. He’s always been like that, so Jerome doesn’t look to hard at how much Junior’s genial attitude smooths feathers he hadn’t noticed were ruffled.

“Uh,” Oh great start, Jerome. Always knew you had the makings of an orator in you. “Ya’ know how… your Old Man keeps a copy of everyone’s papers and all that? Could I…”

Jerome huffs, puffing out his cheeks to smooth the bite marks he’d given himself, tucking his hands into his pockets in an effort to hide his twitching fingers. Such a giveaway, Miah says, glasses sitting off kilter like always because they were always a size too big. How are you supposed to win a hand if you’re telling me exactly what you’ve got?

Man, fuck you, Miah.

“Could I have mine. Please?”

Jerome makes the critical mistake of looking away, before checking himself – don’t be a coward – and forces his eyes to meet Haly Junior’s. The best chance he has of getting any cooperation, in his experience, is to perpetually pretend you completely have everything under control, know what you’re doing, and that anyone’s inhibition of your activities is barely even a setback, so you may as well step aside.

Except Junior’s got this weird ass look on his face – and its so much like that Butler with that rich couple, a few years back when they were last in Gotham, who’d looked at his mother when she’d cussed him out like she could drop dead, and the grass would sing God dam Christmas carols – and it makes Jerome nervous. Way more nervous than he should be, because if he can’t get these papers, he’ll just steal them from Mum, but if he roots around in her side of the trailer for too long, she’ll wake up, and he can’t risk that, not right now. Not when his resolve is glued together by a snake, a child he doesn’t even know, and misplaced spite towards someone he hurt more than he ever should have.

“Ah.” And Junior does something even weirder. His always gentle, soft face, crinkles into this sad, but somehow relieved, smile. And his eyes are that stupid deep brown doe-look that always makes Jerome think of a particularly excitable Bassett hound. Jerome wants tonight to start making sense, good lord. “So, it’s today, then? Or more accurately tonight, I suppose…”

Junior looks over his shoulder for a second, into the warm surrounds of his family’s van, before he gives Jerome a sharp nod.

“I won’t be a moment. Wait here.”

“…Uh,” Jerome shrugs a shoulder helplessly, more confused than he thinks should be allowed. “Yeah, sure?”

Junior rather quickly disappears back into the van, and Jerome can’t help but fidget at the soft sounds of doors opening and closing, and the gentle hush of what he thinks is conversation. His skin suddenly runs hot, and then just as quickly, startingly cold.

Old Man Pop Haly is awake.

Jerome had thought at first Pop would be easier to wrangle his documents from, but now, all he can think of is that Pop will have questions. Junior would give them to him just because he asked – and maybe he’d gossip about it later, but Jerome doesn’t have the kind of reputation where that shit matters – however, Pop… Pop would want to know why.

(Jerome has known with surety, since he was just a little boy, that Pop sees more of what goes on than anyone thinks. He’d aways known this, because Pop didn’t mind the twins hiding nearby, and didn’t rat them out during pranks. But he never protected them, either. They weren’t his kids, and Jerome has come to know that in this world, that’s all it takes for someone to turn a blind eye to pretty much anything. Pop wasn’t a torment, but he wasn’t really much of anything.

Just the sickly Ringmaster of a Circus that had known better days.)

He holds himself steady as footsteps – two sets – head back towards him from the confines of the van, and if he’d been without his serpentine scarf, he’d probably be pacing.

Junior hops out onto the gravel earth of the show grounds, and sends another confusing smile at Jerome whilst Pop Holy wheezes his way out – lung infections are a doozy, and you can’t call a show if you’ve practically lost your voice, so Junior had stepped up to cover – and its all he can do to meet their eyes as Pop regards him evenly.

Pop was a severe man – shorter than his son by a head and a half – and had always seemed immovable as stone, until he’d gotten ill. Even now, it doesn’t bow his head, or lesser his powerful presence. Pop Haly was the Ringmaster of one of the most famous international performing groups in the world. He was not a man who could be intimidated, or easily fooled.

(This whole adventure could end very quickly with whatever Pop decided to say. His word was law in this circus. When he said Lila was to be out of bed by eleven, she was setting her alarms to ten. If he said the acrobats hadn’t been as consistent as they should in a multiple act show, the Grayson’s threw themselves into drills until he gave the word of his pleasure.

If he said – “Give me back my pocketknife, young man.” No matter how scared Jerome was of his Uncle Zach, and how safe a knife made him feel, he gives back Pop Haly’s pocketknife.)

When, after a few short seconds, the silence begins to press on Jerome like a weight far more familiar, and far more horrific, its all he can do not to stumble into desperate pleads and begging. For all his faults, Jerome’s greatest might be his pride. And that, he’d always known he shares with his brother.

“…Its.” Pop raises a thick eyebrow at Jerome’s hesitance. All seeing, this man. “I just.”

Fuck it, Jerome doesn’t even know where to begin. Everyone knows what goes on in the Valeska family – they aren’t exactly quiet about it. What’s he supposed to say, the obvious? Pop knows. Pop probably knows about shit Lila did when Jerome was conscious enough to remember it.

Jerome sucks in a hissing breath passed clenched teeth. “…You know what I want it for. What do you want me to say? Goodbye and good riddance?”

Junior flinches – and shit. Jerome couldn’t help himself. But that’s him! Fantastic and digging himself into more shit and deeper graves. He’s going to have to somehow get him and the twerp out of the circus without an entire show ground noticing them. Jerome’s not that stealthy, and not that lucky. He’s going to get caught.

Pop Haly – in a manner only he can have – seems to truly see all, and knows better than anyone about anything in any situation.

“No.” Is all he has to say.

It hurts, the same way it always does. Jerome wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered. He should have just stolen it-

But that wouldn’t have helped either. Pop Haly would still know. And then Jerome would really be in trouble. Its one thing to get caught in the act when pranking another performer when your just some snot nosed brat, but stealing from Pop? Never goes well. Jerome would know.

(Jerome doesn’t see the way Pop’s face just… wanes into something tired and sad and old at the frenetic panic that steals Jerome’s mind from the present. Jerome doesn’t see Pop look every bit as old as he has become. But Pop looks at this boy he’s been failing for years, and decides; not this time. This time we choose correctly.)

“If you are under the impression that I have any interest in keeping your own life from your control, then we aren’t going to get anywhere, Jerome.” Pop’s voice is soft, but firm.

He swallows a shaking, hysterical wheeze as he turns to stare the old ringmaster down.

“Oh?” His laughing. Should he be laughing? Its like something crawled into his lungs and is shaking a tambourine covered in ice shards to a tempo that has no rhyme or reason.

Pop looks back, eyes just as firm as ever – the same shade of brown as his son, and somehow, completely lacking the vulnerability of the younger man’s gaze.

“Do you know exactly how long I’ve had these prepared?”

And it's like someone grabbed a pin and popped the balloon that had been choking him from the inside like some sick joke without so much as a warning.

“I have waited,” Pop Haly takes a deep breath, and Junior extends a steadying hand, and wow, Jerome has never seen the old man lose composure before… what is going on? “For so long. Deciding. Considering. And I did nothing.”

Pop Haly pulls a thick manila file from inside his dressing gown, carefully labelled with Jerome’s full, legal name on the tab. (The full legal name, as it was in the country Jerome was actually born in, in the language Jerome can reader even less of than English.)

It’s held out in front of him, like a performer holds out their hat for a busker’s affection, and it could be a highly venous spider for how much it makes Jerome’s teeth sit like chalk in his mouth.

“Doing nothing got us here. And doing nothing will not get you out. So,” Pop makes a pointed gesture with the hand that holds Jerome’s entire life, and he can only falteringly grasp onto its edges as Pop Haly keeps his stare fierce.

“In light of such things. These aren’t just copies. And they aren’t just yours.”

Jerome frowns, shifting on his feet, feeling like someone just ripped the band aid off a hurt he’d long forgotten he’d had, and all he can feel is the way something is almost missing, or unsettled.

Curious – in a morbid, somewhat disturbed way – Jerome opens the folder, and blinks at the first thing that greets him.

It really isn’t just his information. Its Lila’s. Its his brothers. Its his father’s. (Paul Cicero, oh Jerome should have known. The man was always apathetic enough to their plight to fit right in with the rest of the Valeska-Trumble clusterfuck. It was so obvious… dam, how’d he never pick it?)

Its an entire set of fax letters and receipts for things he can’t hope to guess. There are handwritten lists – what’s the point of those? He’ll have to try and go through them letter, or get someone else to read it if the writing style defeats his limited literacy.

Jerome distantly wonders if his stunned, open mouth face is as much like a fish as he thinks it might be, and finds the concept amusing in a far off, separated from reality kind of way.

He looks back at the Haly’s, and he just can’t believe them. Their faces. He lets out a slight laugh.

“…Are you kidding me?” His voice is high. Junior’s face becomes unfortunately constipated, and Jerome finds that just so funny. “You’re joking, right? C- ... come on, you don’t really expect me to…”

Whatever game might have been possible becomes quickly undone at the sight of a thin envelope that was tucked inside the file, which is far weightier than it should be for mere paper.

Because its not paper, he quickly deduces from the size of the contents. Its money.

His voice breaks when he next speaks – which he is devastated at, because he bets Miah’s voice dropped straight into something smooth without anyone bearing witness to this embarrassing shit, because Miah’s a bitch like that.

“…I don’t understand.” Junior makes the stupid decision to step forward, and stops the moment Jerome takes a panicked step back. “… You. I don’t understand…”

“No. No you don’t.” Pop declares, and as always, his word is law. “But God willing, far from your family, maybe one day you will.”

The Ringmaster stares him down, and nods firmly at him.

“Good luck, Jerome.” Pop rearranges his gown, suddenly appearing rather irritated at this whole affair. “Don’t get into more trouble than you already have. The world is not a nice place, outside of the Big Top.”

Junior sends his father a rather quick glance that Jerome will spend hours thinking over later, before giving Jerome another quick smile. “Good night, Jerome. First bus of the day leaves the bridge at four.”

Jerome kind of… hates the strange woozy feeling curling in his gut, like a goldfish swimming around reeds, and hates the way he can’t turn away until they’ve disappeared back into their van, because the warmth is accompanied by a lancing pain he knows all too well.

Betrayal.

...

Fuck.

He walks back to his mother’s tailer in a blur – numbly indicates to the boy sticking his head out of the table to get back undercover with a lazy wave. He opens the door soundlessly – a skill perfected over years – and rather simply slides open one, single draw, pulls out the contents, dumps it inside a pillowcase, and shuffles aside the thin mattress of his bedding to get into his small stash of food and equipment.

The entire affair takes less than ten minutes, and really only that long because his mother rolls noisily in her sleep, and he closes the door with a gentle click when he has everything he came for. And, in the end.

It's now that he hesitates.

He stares as Bathsheba’s enclosure, something painful searing hot and heavy in his throat, and the kid shoulders his way out from under the table. He stares at Jerome, and Jerome stares at the cage.

“…Would the bus driver let you take you snake on board?”

Jerome shrugs, dead silent.

“…Would they let me take my dog?”

Jerome shrugs again.

Most places would straight up refuse to allow a child and a pet onboard without a reasonable explanation. A dog could be explained away – but Bathsheba? What was he going to do with her?

…She was the star of his mother’s act. Could he even take her away from the only home the snake’s ever known? The python had been a part of his life for… for far longer than he cares to remember… so giving her back feels like quitting.

But taking her with him, feels like weakness. Feels like watching children who throw a tantrum when they drop a toy out of their parent’s stroller. He’d always hated those kids. If you liked it so bad, you wouldn’t have thrown it away.

(If he’d truly loved Miah, would he have been able to hurt him? Maybe Jerome can’t love at all. Or maybe, the secret to hurting someone beyond the point of forgiveness, is to have truly loved them in the first place… Does that make it worse? Jerome thinks it might.)

“Could…” and how cute. The kid actually looks like he’s trying to scheme a way out of this problem, too. “Could you fit it in your bag?”

Jerome glances at the bag he’d shoved the two pillowcases worth of belongings into, and winced. No. No chance. He’d rather not scare her. At least, if she’s here, she’ll be looked after.

But.

Would she? His mother doesn’t even collect her own medication, let alone feed her snakes all that often, and they’d been using multiple pythons in shows for a while now. Would she remember to feed Bathsheba, often enough, when all the other snakes are partially handled by some of the other performers? Would she even remember to pull her in when the nights get below freezing? He hates the fact that the answer is almost definitely 'no.'

Can he leave her here? To starve, or to die of exposure? Or does he take her with him, into the city, where food still isn’t guaranteed, and the only warmth she gets for a long while will be from him, and possibly him alone. Does… does he risk that? Hurting her personally, making that decision, or simply allowing someone else to be responsible, despite knowing the inevitability of Sheba’s fate.

In the end, it’s a far simpler question.

Would the bus driver care enough to try and stop him?

(Spoilers: Its Gotham. And Benjamin Taggart had seen freakier things than a skinny ginger teenager who laughs too loudly, a tiny blued eyed preteen menace who seemed to stare into his God dam soul, a dog whose mere presence is mean enough to get instant membership in the Gotham Riot Squad, and a nine-foot-long living snake wrapped around someone’s body like a scarf.

Bejamin simply sighs, tells the two little dweebs that their pets better not make a mess, and rings them up a fare.)

Chapter Text

The Bus is an experience, for lack of a better term.

Matt had long gotten used to Gotham Public Transport. But he was used to twenty first century public transport, not late seventies Gotham Public Service and its underfunded, not Wayne Enterprises supported staff and stations. The bus wasn’t just dated for him – it was dated for now. It looked like something that crawled its way out of a Nuclear Test Zone – its rust stains had rust stains, and its dents warped so much that they almost seemed structurally integral to the vehicle itself.

And its seats.

He’d forgotten how bad old vintage seats could be. He was used to the ones in cars from those road shows, where the single piece foam and woollen back piece was a simple, flat, but still comfortable enough to sleep in, shape and form. These ones were…

Well, he’s fairly sure the lumps digging into his back used to be functioning springs, and that the pattern on the seats were once a light threaded blue and red tartan before they got ripped to bits. It kind of… messes with him, how much Wayne Enterprises had actually changed about this city before he was ever born. Or maybe it was just time? Maybe back in these days, all systems and cities had the same problems? He wouldn’t know.

Matt does know that Jerome makes him take the window seat midway up the bus, and that the teenager has been sending a very stone-faced glare at the two other men on the route. The elderly lady sitting right behind the bus driver barely gets more than the occasionally suspicious squint. But the two other male passengers? Oh boy. And in a way…

Matt gets it.

He remembers the stories of Old Gotham. Even if, in his time, it hadn’t changed much, it was once a hell of a lot worse than anything he’d personally known. People had a reason to be scared. People had a reason to watch their back.

He thinks, from memory, that Arkham had been closed just after the Second World War, and that instead of sending the patients elsewhere to be treated, he thinks he remembers that they were just… released. Out into the city. There was a reason Gotham had its reputation, and that reputation long preceded the arrival of Killer Clowns and mad men with gimmicks.

The hard part about this whole affair, is that he’d probably feel a great deal more safe it he had all his stuff, but the only things that are with him is what was on him and… that. Wasn’t all that much. He was lucky that he’d been wearing the shoulder pack he usually takes to school, but it didn’t have anything worthwhile in it. No phone – which probably wouldn’t have worked anyway – no clothes, and no wallet. He only had a few empty notebooks he’d absentmindedly packed in the day before everything went to hell for a club he’d just signed up for, and forgot to take them out. He has a lunch bag – with some dried snacks in it, he’ll have to ask Jerome if the driver would argue about eating food on the bus – and the world’s most pathetic first aid kit. A grand total of a band aid, some wet wipes, painkillers, and a small compression bandage that Terry had once stuffed in there back when Matt used to worry about things like bullies and falling off his skateboard.

Staring at his bag now – a cheerful yellow and black, which oddly makes him think of Max and her favoured clothing styles – he gets another sudden rush of homesickness that he’s been steadfastly trying to ignore.

Considering the way Ace has rest his head on Matt’s shoes from where the hound was draped along the flaw, he isn’t doing as great a job as he’d have liked. The only positive is that Jerome seems the kind of guy to straight up ignore that kind of sentiment.

Wondrously, he does exactly that.

“So,” the Bus driver drawls in a voice so monotone, Matt wonders how many hours this man had been driving to not even make an attempt at feigning interest. “Where to from here, boys?”

Matt sends a quick panicked look at Jerome, who has already raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smirk – turd – and does his best to mouth; ‘Bowery?’ In a clear enough manner that he can actually get his point across. Jerome tilts his head, seems to consider this for a second, and calls back to the Bus Driver.

“Amusement Mile to Park Entrance, to catch the tube.” The Bus Driver nods, whilst Matt frowns.

“That’s four stops,” Is it? He’s sure it’s more than that… “I’ll tell you when.”

“Amusement Mile?” He whispers to Jerome as the Bus starts back up, and the man closest to the back groans in detest – he must have been hoping the bus was on route to the mainland, which means he must have boarded the wrong one by mistake, loser – and Jerome purses his lips, eyes narrowing with what Matt has begun to realise is quite possibly a very poorly hidden shit-eating grin.

“Yep.”

“No,” Matt states softly, suddenly more unsure than he’s ever felt about anything, and yet still most certainly right about this. “Its Carnival Mile. That’s… That’s the name of this strip of land.”

“Hmmm,” Jerome makes a show of leaning further back, and his long, spooky snake companion sticks its head out and stares at him. “No. Its really Amusement Mile. That is the name of the Park.”

Matt frowns, and he knows he’s right. Is he messing with me? He has to be. Unless the names changed at some point? But why? Businesses don’t need to change them like that, not even in corporate worlds.

“Amusement Mile. An… Amusement Park… called Amusement. Mile.”

Matt raises his own eyebrow, doing his best to mirror the expression, crosses his arms. “Really.”

Jerome nods, slowly, and Matt bares his teeth because he recognises the faux pandering expression growing on the teen’s face as one Terry had perfected for when he does things like write gullible on the ceiling, and proceed to pester him about it for a month, before Matt caves in and checks and realises that there was gullible written on the ceiling, he’d just refused to look, which still made him gullible.

(Terry really would either love or hate Jerome, and Matt is becoming more excited by that prospect by the second. Someone to help him bully Terry? Yes, please!)

Matt scoffs when Jerome tuts at him. “Aw, did someone tell us that it was called something else? Do you City Folks call it the Carnival Strip, now? Clown Central? Circus City, perhaps?” Jerome makes a point of patting Matt’s head slowly, each tap light, and barely enough to move his hair, but full of purposeful condescension. “Naw, you’ll figure it out! Trust a Roadie, kid. When you book the venue, the print declares itself, ‘Amusement Mile!’ In the brightest of colours, so by legal definition, that’s what it has to be.”

Grumbling, he rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

Jerome cackles – and there’s this edge to it, this slight maniacal lilt, that prickles on Matt’s awareness like the way your hair raises when lightning is going to strike – before simply sighing, and stretching his feet out under the seats in front of them.

Matt regards him sourly for a moment, before something flashes into thought. A niggle, a possibility, and guarantee that Jerome won’t end up back where he started.

“Hey,” Matt whispers with somewhat nervous fingers wrapped tightly on his lap and in his bag. “If you’re not going to have to go home anymore, then maybe…”

Jerome squints – and he knows that someone like Jerome would be able to smell a rat from a mile away, but Matt still has to try – and crosses his own arms, his snake’s head bobbing back under his jacket.

“Maybe what, huh?” Something sharp has entered Jerome’s eyes. “Got something else in mind that you realise you needed me for?”

(There are… implications to that, that Matt doesn’t understand. But its fine. One day, he’ll tell his big brother everything, and Terry can put on the Mask, and the people who made Jerome so sharp and angry and heavy with pain he practically smells of it will go far, far away, and be placed exactly where they belong. For now, Matt just has to remember the details. Because there is a lot wrong with what is in front of him right now.)

“Do you…” God, how does he word this in a way that’s not offence. “Do you think we could go to a second-hand store, and get you some new stuff?”

And for a long moment, Jerome just stares.

Before he throws his head back, and laughs. (Which deeply upsets the man behind them in the back seat, but Matt pays him no mind after the guy backs down with just a sharp look from Jerome. Oooh, I’m a big strong adult scared silly by a teenager who’s probably no bigger than your average librarian, oooh!)

“Yeah!” Jerome decides between snickers. “Hells bells- why not, huh?”

Matt grins – it probably wont help him much, but it’ll at least help Jerome, and give Matt a reason to hang around a busy part of the city. The more time he spends with people, the more likely he and Terry are to find each other.

Ace lets out a deep sigh from below Matt’s seat, and both Matt and Jerome grin at the sulking dog. Matt laughs quietly as Jerome mimics Ace’s huff right back in the dog’s face to the canine’s complete bafflement, and has to choke down an even louder giggle when Jerome splutters after Ace licks him right on the mouth.

Jerome glares at Ace, whilst the dog simply looks up at him, effortlessly attentive. Before wiping his mouth, and grimacing when it comes away wet.

“Oh, ew!” Matt giggles when Jerome shoots him a look, and its Jerome’s own fault for putting his face in kissing range – Ace is irrepressible. He got Terry mid change after a patrol, it was the funniest thing he’d thought he’d ever see, and Matt thinks this might get close mostly because Jerome seems even more disgusted than Terry was that he got a full smooch, with tongue, without warning, from an animal that knows no better.

“Ugh,” Jerome’s voice has gained a showy drawl. “And I bet you’re a ball licker, aren’t you mutt?”

Matt mock-gasps, and covers Ace’s ears. “Don’t listen to him, Ace! You’re a purebred mongrel, you hear me?”

Jerome sticks his tongue at him. Like a completely mature person, Matt sticks his tongue out right back, before remembering that he’s supposed to be acting as an adult right now, and forces his expression to return to seriousness. Which was doomed. From the start. Because Jerome doesn’t let that slide.

He reaches out a flinger, and flicks Matt on the forehead. “Dingus.”

Matt grumbles, patting Ace – who is probably missing his Master as much as Matt misses his family, his brother – and trying to keep himself stern.

A large scaly head leans back out of Jerome’s jacket, and Matt can’t help but ask.

“…Uh.” He fidgets with Ace’s ears out of slight embarrassment – it’s a snake, he’s seen dozens of them, and this one isn’t even under freakish mind control or magic or something, so what’s he so nervous about?

“You’re snake… it’s a python, right?”

“She,” Jerome answers, giving the serpent’s scaly chin a little rub. “And yes. She’s an African Rock Python. They’re one of the world’s largest snakes, so she’s at around half her full size.”

“…Half…” Matt stares at the dark, glossy eyes of one of the largest naturally occurring snakes he’s ever seen, and tries not to visible gulp in trepidation. “…Uh, how old is she?”

“From memory? She’s… somewhere around six or seven…”

Matt is so fascinated by the staring contest he has going on with the python that he almost misses Jerome’s strangely empty expression. He suddenly gets the notion that he needs to keep the other boy invested in the present conversation and not… whatever could be consuming his attention, which considering what Matt’d had to go through just to get him onboard, would not be a pleasant thought.

“…What’s her name?” Matt may have a… slight fear of snakes, but something about the almost affectionate grasp the python has on Jerome is beyond his experience with the strange creatures. Even after Kobra and all his rampages on Gotham in Matt’s time, he finds himself appreciating that this snake is beautiful, and elegant in her own right.

“…Bathsheba.” Matt blinks, watching Jerome pop his jacket collar to let the snake shift herself around once more. “She’s a gentle giant. Everyone was worried back when I was a kid, because her breed has been known to kill unprepared handlers.” Jerome sends a glance Matt’s way, and he’s surprised to see the strangely comforting smile emerging on his face.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to hold her.” Jerome sighs. “She’s probably needed to leave just as much as I do. No little glass box the size of a fridge was ever going to be big enough for her. Something was bound to happen eventually, I just… hope I can actually give her better than what she was getting, and not just another variety of sterile containment.”

Matt slumps back against his seat. The bus rumbles warningly – they’re approaching the first stop along the way, and no other bus stops have had patrons waiting, so its probably going to be a shorter trip to the train than he’d hoped. He’d never thought about what a snake needs to be happy, but now that he looks back on it, that tiny little cabinet at the Circus was bordering on cruelty. It looked more like a transport box than a home, and he’s sure that the snake needs to be transportable for a group of performers, but had Bathsheba ever been given a real terrarium? A free environment to explore? He somehow doubts that…

In a way, Jerome and his snake are more similar than Matt had first noticed. Maybe it’s a new chance for both of them. It all depends.

“…Sorry, kid.” A hand ruffles his hair, and Matt huffs, quickly batting Jerome’s arm away as he grumbles. “That’s a bit gloomy. And way too philosophical for someone like me. I’ll figure things out, and we’ll be fine.”

“…Hey…” Matt squints suspiciously. “What makes you think I’m worried or nothing? I barely know you!”

Jerome scoffs, startles, and then gives out a strangely soft – and yet somehow just as unsettling as earlier – laugh.

“Because, tyke, if this was what you think your game face is, you’d never win a hand at cards.”

And Matt can only groan in frustration.