Mary Wayne

Danielle was the first, happy and optimistic. She smiled and Mary turned away because it had taken her years to learn how to smile again and she, she, acted like it was natural. It made her wonder if the fault was with her and not the world as she watched the young girl swing and twist through the air. Danielle was the heart she had forgotten how to use.

Jason was the second; the one nobody trusted and so the one she trusted the most. The one who was everything she ached to be and was afraid to turn into. She was dark and surly and understood, although Mary never spoke of it to her, the ache and rage of losing someone. A child who reminded her of the child she should still have. Jason was the anger that curdled into fear in the pit of her stomach at night.

Tim was the third. The one who tracked her rather than stumbling across her, planning ahead in life as he did in their chess games where silence fell except for the rustle of clothing and the clink of the pieces on her frosted glass board. He was calm and collected and intellectual and reminded her, in odd little moments, of Ra’s. Tim was the mind that had kept her alive all these years.

Each of her little birds eventually flew away and it was a sweet sort of agony to know they could fly on their own. They didn’t forget her; there were flowers on Damian’s grave and a shadow that followed her on patrol and ciphered messages sent to her email inbox in case she was lacking a challenge.

Such dutiful observations of gratitude.

They were all so careful of her.

She remembered when Jason first arrived – Joanne, back then – and Danielle showed him around. Jason had spotted one of the few pictures of Damian she – well, no, Alfred – kept up and started to ask, only for Danielle to shush him quickly.

“That’s Damian. He… He died. Don’t ask about him.”

Danielle had a girlfriend now; she moved in with Commissioner Gordon’s daughter and they’re going through police academy together.

Jason was quiet and slipped away from her like a shadow, but there were rumours of a vigilante called the Red Hood when the sun sets, and when it rose again he was working on anything and everything and getting by and, most importantly, keeping off the streets. Keeping away from the mob and from gangs and from killing.

Tim was an honours student at school with a bright, bright future ahead of him. Intellectual and calculating and just – just a little bit cold, but the rest of her birds keep him warm enough to laugh and smile and let them think he’s restricted by moral codes rather than just choosing to keep to them because it’s just that bit easier than breaking them.

They were living and she was as dead as her son, rotting in her mausoleum without anyone realising. 

 The life support machine beeps continuously; a monotonous background drone. She keeps an ear out for any changes but, for the most part, her attention is fixed on the small, broken figure hooked up to it. The little hand she holds in both of her own is cold and fragile; unresponsive no matter how much she squeezes it and wills consciousness back into her son.

The doctors, trying to be helpful, have said that the body goes into a coma to protect itself; to heal itself. They tell her to think of it as sleeping and shutting off non-essential functions to focus on repair.

That doesn’t change the fact that Damian is battered and bloody and broken, though. Ribs fractured and tissue torn and damage more numerous than she can bear to listen to. It’s a miracle he’s still alive, even if he is being aided by a machine.

It isn’t that Mary doesn’t realise she’s wasting time that would be better spent tracking down that psychopathic clown, but she physically can’t pull herself away from the bed. It’s as if, during the time she’s been sat on the hard plastic chair, she’s put down roots as thick as an old oak and cannot be torn away.

This is her son. How can she leave him, even for a moment? What if he doesn’t wake up? What if he does wake up, just for a moment, before – well – and she isn’t there? What if the last face he sees is that of some anonymous nurse, rather than hers?

A small sound registers in the darkness that has fallen; a scrape – a hint of a breeze – and then a hand on her shoulder.

“Do you always have to show off?” her voice is as tired as she feels, and hoarse, although she hasn’t been screaming or crying. She thinks that might have disturbed Rachel, when she had sat with her for a while.

“I had a feeling it would be difficult to simply walk in,” he replies in a voice that reminds her of warm winds and spices in her nose.

“Well, it is a private ward.”

A sigh, heavy with – something. She’s too tired to put a name to it; too tired for any of this. For him.

“Can’t I see my son?”

A whole host of nasty retorts spring to mind, but she’s too tired to be nasty as well. “Worried your empire is about to disappear?”

Well. Too tired to be overly nasty.

His laugh isn’t loud but it’s still jarring; for the first time in what must be hours, she turns away from Damian to fix him with a look of shock and disgust. Seeing her must be amusing somehow because he laughs more.

“Hardly,” he manages eventually. “He’s strong. This won’t finish him.”

She turns away and hunches her shoulders, prickly at the easy dismissal of the fear that has kept her rooted to her chair for hours on end.

“How can you be so sure?”

“He’s your son, isn’t he?”

She presses her lips together, ducking her head so her hair is a curtain and hides the smile she’s trying so hard to keep at bay. Her son. He does that, occasionally; this indirect praise, sweeter because she always expects him to claim it for himself.

“You need to eat, drink, and sleep, but for the moment I’ll settle for getting you to drink something.” Footsteps, to the table by the door and back again. He doesn’t ask how long she’s been here; perhaps he already knows. “Here.”

When she doesn’t react, he lays a hand over hers and tried to uncurl at least one from Damian’s. Of course, she doesn’t allow it.

“You can’t tether him down.”

“I—“ Stop. Try to breathe. Don’t show weakness, ever. Even though she’s already showing it.

His voice is gentle; tender, one might say. “Do you want me to go and kill him? And you can stay here?”

Childishly, wordlessly, she shakes her head, trying to find a way to speak without breaking down. She hasn’t been screaming or crying, but she keeps veering towards the precipice and if she falls she will keep falling because in all of this she has forgotten how to fly. If she falls, she won’t be able to do what needs to be done tonight.

“If… If he… If he’s going to die, and he might, I swear he might, then I’ll do it. I’m the one who failed.” If she had trained Damian better, kept him safer…

“Guilt is an ugly road to walk down.”

For a moment there’s confusion but then – of course. His wife. The dead wife. All their talks, in that cold uninviting place that felt more like home than Wayne Manor has for most of her life.

“Let me put it this way,” he continues. “Regardless of what you do, I will kill that madman. If you want to do it, then we can do it together. If you don’t, then I’ll do it by myself and you can stay here, or go home, or watch, I don’t mind. But if I blamed you, I’d kill you as well.”

She feels like she’s twenty-one again, trying to find her footing on a frozen lake. This is vengeance speaking, no doubt of it, but… Damn him, damn him to hell, it’s a test as well. He wants to know if she’s broken; if the Joker has managed to do what he tried and failed.

The cliff is coming up again and she can’t fly, she can’t, she can’t…

Damian lays as still as ever, a child, a child, and who knows how many more children will be dead or dying by morning?

Her mouth opens but no sound comes out. She can feel his eyes on her like a hawk; can almost feel his chest tighten as he unwittingly holds his breath, waiting on her answer. Urging her to fly with him.

I can’t, I can’t…

The life support machines beeps on.

I can. God help me, I can.

“Together?” he whispers, so quietly it could be that he’s trying to plant the idea in her subconscious.

She pauses. She breathes. She nods.

“Together.”