...Damian Wayne - Robin
The letters sprawled across her screen, a list of nine names and mantles and she read them one more time, a whirlwind of emotions making her stomach flop.
Jade knew something now, something terrifying and powerful and now she had to keep it a secret.
But she couldn't, because you can't keep secrets, no one ever could, not from them. They would know, and they would find her, and she would die because she was just a little too nosey and a little too skilled. There's no way to contain knowledge like that unless you end it.
Curiosity killed th' cat.
Her fingers scrabbled against the keys, now trying frantically to find the delete button. Erase it, wipe the slate clean, forget it, and she could have her chance at life back.
Maybe?
But erased files weren't even hard to restore, it wouldn't stop them and it couldn't protect her and she was already a dead woman walking who'd fought too hard for her life.
They're gonna kill me.
She felt her fingers grow numb. No. No.
But... Woul' it really be tha' bad?
The Bats were practical, not brutal, not ruthless, not cruel. Practical. It probably wouldn't hurt, and she'd see her parents again, and she wouldn't have to fight so hard to stay alive. She'd've lost the fight but won in a different way.
I... I don' wanna die.
Maybe she wanted to in a strange, twisted way, to give up, to see if her parents still wanted her in whatever heaven was real. But she did not want to die.
She felt cold suddenly, frigid and numb and her thoughts wouldn't stop swirling and she couldn't do anything but let tears start to plink down. But no, she didn't cry, she didn't panic, she didn't.... She ran, she hid, she lied (liar, thief, coward, survivor), and none of this would hold up when they found her because they would, and they'd find her no matter where she hid, and she would die despite her fighting.
Her footsteps were heavy as she plodded over to a corner, the little space near the door with spiders that helped get rid of bugs, and she threw herself down to try and get the reigns back on everything because she was stubborn to the last and she would try to at least die with a clear head.
There was a Bible sitting on the couch, well-worn and well-loved. It was her mother's, and then it was hers, far sooner than it should've been.
She hadn't touched it in years, except for yesterday, when she picked it up and turned some pages again for the first time in a full year. She wondered if Jesus had welcomed her parents, and if He had room for her yet, and if He would forgive her for ignoring Him (and pushing Him away).
Tears started to fall and she started shaking. She was stubborn, fierce, strong, a survivor. A survivor about to die.
She didn't hear the tap at the door, or register the door opening, or wonder who it was because she was the only one who lived there and she'd only let one other person in.
She panicked when she saw the mask, red and lifeless and meaning death.
Hood.
This felt like one of joker's twisted puns, that he would be the one to kill her, the one who taught her and watched her back and bound her wounds and taught her how to hide and live and survive, the one who loved her mother's tea recipe and liked the same books, who she'd slowly started to mark in her mind as 'brother'.
He didn't seem to see her.
"J?"
His voice was shockingly soft, and the helmet's modulator was off.
She pressed tighter into herself. Lucky. She was lucky that the lights stopped working, lucky that she'd worn dark colors, lucky that she had dark eyes and hair. Dark child, she mused. Dark survivor.
Quiet swears came from by her desk.
She snapped out of thought and a sharp breath of air escaped her lips. He was looking at the computer, scanning the page of everything she knew, and she couldn't even tell what he was thinking because of that stupid mask.
Something forced it's way out of her chest in the form of a hysterical sob and she wished she could rewind time because maybe he would've left, maybe he'd decide she'd already run and go to chase her, but not now he wouldn't. He turned around and looked straight at her.
"Jade?"
Okay. She was about to die. She was about to see her mom again and probably get a scolding for the times she lied and stole and swore.
Okay.
But he crouched in front of her, slowly and carefully.
She shrank away from the helmet's blank stare with a half-accidental hiss, balling her hands into calloused fists and feeling cold swell in the general vicinity of her chest that made it hard to breathe.
What're y' waitin' for?
"If y' gonna kill m' do it now."
Now it was her speaking, hissing the words at him through tears and a twisted face. Maybe they were cruel, cruel for dragging it out like this and making her wonder if maybe he wouldn't.
"'re you afraid of me?"
His voice sounded strange, strange in a way that meant sadness and confusion. What?
"...How can I not be?"
Now she saw pale blue eyes widen under the mask. His hands twitched and rose slowly, oh god, probably reaching for a gun, he was actually gonna kill her-
But there was a quiet hiss and the mask came off, showing a kind and... sad... face, with a "J" branded on one cheek in cold joker script (ohmygod tha's an actual frickin' brand) and a pale scar across the bridge of his nose. There was a streak of white in his black hair that made his pale-blue eyes look lighter too, so she focused on that instead of the brand to avoid feeling sick.
"I'm not here to kill you, J."
He murmured. Jade blinked a few times in the dim light. He wasn't a liar, he wasn't... if he was going to kill her he would be honest about it or already have. Brother was like that.
She latched onto him with her arms around his waist and felt that now it was relief and tears and something else she couldn't name that wouldn't let her breathe, holding him tight and feeling him hold her back and she heard him start to hum that tune from lord of the rings that they both loved but he taught her.
Brother.


















