Archive of Our Own ^beta

There were very few things in life that scared Talia al Ghul.

Since she was a girl, she was terrified of scorpions. They way they scuttled, their arching tails. In her memories of that time, there is always the smell of lavender and cedar, sprayed on her window frames, at her door, to keep them away. The servant girls went around the compound every morning to shake out shoes and boots, catching the scorpions in buckets, dumping them in a well outside the back gates of the League compound. Sometimes the men that had displeased Father were dumped in the well along with them.

At the height of her love affair with Bruce, love drunk and stupid, she had toyed with the idea of taking up the mantle of Scorpion, following in his footsteps, becoming what she feared. She had dropped the idea completely, though. She could stand on her own, fearsome in her own right.

Losing control of her physical self, her mind overtaken by some outside intelligence, forcing her against her morals and desires. Her sister had done that to her, once, and her father as well, poisoning her against her little prince. The scars still remained, though the manipulation had vanished.

She feared that Damian would never forgive her. He shouldn’t, of course. She’d tried to kill her child, a boy who at the time hadn’t even come up to her shoulders, and still had six of his baby teeth in his mouth. Her boy was made of compassion and righteousness, though. He would eventually stop flinching when they saw one another.

She’d felt fear when her father, always her father at the heart of her misery, had ordered Jason be taken away from her. She had been so patient with the boy, allowing him to slowly reclaim his mind, to overcome this incredible hardship, and Ra’s had ordered her experiment void, as empty as the shell he thought Jason to be.

She had learned that the world was not safe for her sons, and she feared that.

Now, she faced that fear again.

She had gotten the call as she was taking the subway home from work, crowds of Metropolis commuters indifferent to the seismic shift that had just happened in Gotham. They played on their phones, talked quietly to their seatmates, leaned their heads against cool glass to wind down from work, all while Talia’s entire world ground to a halt.

Parker Row had been in a motorcycle accident, and she was still listed as his primary emergency contact. They asked if she could come, as quick as she could, to Gotham Mercy hospital so there would be someone to make medical decisions for him if he was not competent enough to make them for himself once out of surgery.

She’d exited the subway car at the next stop, hands shaking as she dialed her assistant to ready the Lex Corps helicopter and ran back towards her office.

The helicopter ride was interminable, but much quicker than a cab. This wasn’t the first time she wished she were on better terms with Damian’s best friend’s father. She would have been in Gotham within moments.

They’d landed on the helipad of Gotham Mercy, startling the staff. She’d marched down to the trauma bay, and waited to be told where to go by the lady at the information desk. Talia’s fingers tapped restlessly on the counter while she waited as the they looked for Jason in their system.

“Parker Row is currently in surgery Ms. Head. You can wait for his doctor in the waiting room.” The woman’s voice was mellow and light, and her name tag read ‘Lillian’. Lillian’s voice did nothing to calm the raging fear in her.

Talia thanked her. Her heels clicked sharply on the linoleum as she walked into the waiting room. It was small, stuffed full of uncomfortable chairs, outdated magazines, and television sets with their volumes turned low, ignored by the few families waiting for their good or bad news.

It also held Roy William Harper Jr., 5’11”, 84 kg, expert marksman and hand-to-hand-combatant, highly skilled martial artist, Justice League reserve member, formerly of the Titans, currently of the Outlaws, and supposed to have been watching out for her son.

All other people in the room faded away as Harper’s frame dominated her field of vision. He sat slumped in a chair, legs spread before him. His eyes were closed as he rubbed his temples.

They had never met before. There was no need. Talia had done her due diligence when Jason and the princess had rescued him from that prison. On paper, Roy Harper seemed a good choice to watch out for her son, a steady and loyal presence in other teams that was well trained to cover Jason’s back. He had worked for years with Jason’s Robin predecessor and also with an agent of the League, so their combat styles should mesh well together.

All that, and still he had failed.

Talia planted herself before him, and waited for the idiot to open his eyes. He huffed, rubbing at his face and said, “They won’t tell me anything.”

“Of course not,” she responded, cold. “You aren’t family.” She sat down on the chair beside him, momentarily overwhelmed by the reek of harsh chemicals coming off him in waves. She ignored it. “What has happened?”

He pulled his body to the far side of his seat, unsettled with Talia’s sudden nearness. His eyes were bloodshot, blue of his irises standing out starkly. “I just said they won’t tell me anything. He was taking too long running errands, so I tracked him and he was here, in the fucking emergency room. Got Oracle tracking backwards for me.”

“And you haven’t tried to piece this together, figure out if this was truly an accident or if one of the many mutated morons who call this city home targeted Jason? You thought that this would be a good time for a nap?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth, disappointed and annoyed. Harper had had great potential as Jason’s partner. He was as loathsome as Nyssa.

He stared at her, teeth gritted. “I’ve got someone working on it,” he repeated.

“Hmm, yes of course.” Talia pulled out her phone, sending messages out to her operatives in Gotham. She would have more information within an hour. “What were you doing while my son was targeted?”

“Oh my God!” he hissed, getting up and sitting down in the chair across from Talia, angling his body to keep her in his sights. She now had the full force of his glare on her, eyes as fiery as his hair. “I was restocking our explosives since ‘your son’ blew another fucking warehouse last night,” he said in a harsh whisper.

She stared back, saying nothing. He groaned, pulling at his hair. “All I have is the location of the accident, and that at first glance it doesn’t look like it was an attack.” He messed around with his phone, turned it off and sighed again. “Oracle’s still looking into it.” He slumped back, spreading his legs again, low in his chair. “Anything you want to add?”

“Not to you.”

“Well, that’s just great! I really appreciate you sharing info with me! Jay speaks very highly of you, so it’s just so wonderful to experience your, your fucking everything right now!” he sputtered, waving his hand wildly as if to encompass her ‘everything’.

She raised a brow, silent.

“Like getting blood from a stone,” he huffed, crossing his arms across his chest. He looked up at her through his lashes. “You would think Jason had learned that from Bruce, but it may as well have been from you. God, you’re all the same.”

“If you are comparing me to Bruce, I’ll have to ask you to stop. We two have a very different sets of morals.” She let her lips curve up into a mocking smile.

Harper rolled his eyes, low laugh spilling from his lips. “I’m not afraid of you, lady. What could you possibly do to me that Jay wouldn’t be incredibly pissed about?”

“A great many things that he wouldn’t be able to trace back to it’s source, I’m sure.”

“Uh huh, that’s nice. Take your fucking ninjas and piss off,” he said, squirming in his seat. “Your staring is giving me the creeps.”

She tilted her head, and smiled. “It’s the least you deserve.”

The first hour of the wait passed with Talia continuing her staring and Harper huffing his displeasure. Faizan had gotten back to her, and he corroborated Harper’s claim of an accident. Turn’s out a Honda Accord had sideswiped Jason’s motorcycle, the driver released from the scene without a scratch on them. She instructed him to dig deeper into the driver, not entirely convinced.

A doctor appeared in the door of the waiting room, and she and Harper stiffened, alerting on him like hunting dogs. “Family of Perez?”

Harper slumped again. Talia went back to her phone. The family of Perez got their news. It looked good. She went back to waiting for her own.

In the second hour, Harper’s phone chimed. He shot up, reading over what was sent to him. “OK, OK, Jesus. Alright.” He sighed, looking out the window, eyes lost.

“What has happened?” she demanded, immediately tense.

He shot her a sardonic look, cruel smile stretching his lips. “I don’t want to share with you.”

“Tt, it’s information I’ll have soon enough.” She went back to her phone, gripping it tightly and willing Faizan to update her again. Her eyebrows creased in worry.

She heard Harper sigh softly across from her. “Oracle says he’s in pretty bad shape. Transverse fracture in the femur, compound fracture in the ulna.” He blew out another breath. “What they’re really worried about is the brain bleed.” He huffed a depressed laugh. “Jaybird’s scans are not promising. They’re not sure if he’s gonna even wake up, or what shape he’ll be in if he does.”

The blood left her face, memories of a short, skinny kid docilely following her around League compounds swirling though her head. She couldn’t watch Jason become like that again, flashes of recognition from him few and far between. She looped her Swiss undercover operative in. They may be able to sneak Jason into a Pit if they timed it well enough.

Harper left his seat to pace, long legs striding across the floor. His boots clicked on the linoleum. Talia closed her eyes and mustered her courage.

The third hour passed with Harper contorting his body across two seats, his head hanging at an uncomfortable looking angle. His knee thumped against the chair back as he stared at his phone screen. Talia had had no more news in the past half hour. She trusted her crew to be working diligently, but desperately wished they would give her something. Oracle was seemingly outpacing them in finding information.

Harper sat up, stretching his neck, head twisting back and forth. “I’m gonna go get coffee.” His voice was rough with disuse. “You want anything?”

She didn’t look at him, focused only on the TV in the corner playing ‘The Price is Right’. The quick shifts from game to game kept her mind from spiraling. “No,” she murmured.

“Right. Call me if the doc comes.” He stomped out of the room.

Talia slumped over, free to let the tears come. Three more doctors had come by already for other families, and she was still waiting for her news. She wished she could turn invisible, watch her son’s surgery from the viewing area of his surgical suite. She wished she could read minds so that she could know what Jason’s surgeon was thinking, what his prognosis was. She wished her father was dead so that she could have her men storm the hospital to snatch Jason, so that she could freely place him back in a Lazarus Pit, so that she could heal her son again. She had done it once, and it burned at her that she was unable to exert that control again.

She received no looks of pity from the other occupants of the waiting room, all of them lost in their own desperate wishing as well.

She leaned over her knees, burying her face in her hands, trying to breathe through her fears. She felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up to see Harper, standing over her, bottle of water in his hand, nudging it against her blouse.

“Here. Brought you some water.” He looked sympathetic.

She wiped the tears from her face and accepted it.

The fourth hour passed and Talia was tired. She had been busy this past month, pulled in what felt like every direction as she undermined Alexander Luther. Jason had also been busy, rushing to and fro across the globe with Harper. They hadn’t had time for more than confirmation of life and safety texts.

She wondered what her life would be like if she and her sons were normal. Jason would be at college, no doubt, busy with building his life as a man, finding his place in the world. Damian would be starting high school, would be learning to drive, would perhaps be experiencing his first crush. She would worry about mundane things: bullies and school work deadlines and PTA meetings.

Although, she supposed, in that life her sons would still be in danger, the world being what it was, filled to choking with despots and genocidal warlords and alien incursions seemingly every month. At least she had access to primordial healing water in this life.

She sighed. “As a teenager, Jason was very sweet,” she said. Harper, from the two chair slump he had returned to, looked up at her. “Bright. Kind. Energetic.”

He barked a laugh, eyes crinkling. “Yeah, I remember that, braces and all. Always underfoot at the Tower, losing his mind over every little thing.” He affected a high pitched squeak, ‘What’s this button do?’, and boom, the kid had triggered the fire suppression system.” His eyes rolled. “Although, I’m pretty sure he did that on purpose. Dick was ignoring him to flirt with Kory.”

“He was so polite to me. Such a change from Richard. He never liked me,” she sniffed, twisting her handkerchief, lost in memories of a young Jason, fresh on the scene as Robin. He had been a bright, giggling light to Bruce, to her, at the time, following her around when she visited Gotham, asking her question after question about Arabian horses and how to work camel hair into cloth. She had gifted him a deep green thawbe on her second visit, already enchanted by his spirit.

Harper snorted. “Lady, you don’t know that half of it. Dick despises you.” He sat up straight in his seat, more engaged then he had looked since she arrived. “Jay was a natural at marksmanship, easy to teach. He wanted to know everything, and he wanted that knowledge now.”

“Yes, he could be so impatient at times. He hungered for the world.” She leaned her head on her hand, elbow propped on the arm rest. “He was so very small then. When I saw Jason again, weeks after the Pit, I almost didn’t recognize him. That little boy had become a man in a blink.”

Harper shot a sly look at her. “The small size made him good at undercover. I think he thinks he’s still a short stack sometimes.”

“You mean how he always ends up smacking his head on low doorways?” she asked, voice dry as the desert she called home.

“That and how he keeps getting stuck in vents,” Harper said, voice and face striving for innocence and failing miserably.

Talia laughed, delighted. “He doesn’t include that in his updates.”

“He wouldn’t, would he? Can’t let anyone know that he’s fallible.” The smile slid off of Harper’s face. “He’s gonna be fine. He can shake this off, easy.” He looked up and his eyes were watery.

“I will make him fine if I have to,” she said, conviction strong in her voice.

“I’m glad he’s got you, Talia, and not just for the magical goop. Not many people in Jaybird’s corner.” He went back to rubbing his temples.

“Tt, of course. He’s my son.” She supposed she could be glad Jason had Harper, too, someone who would wait hours for news on her boy.

The fifth hour passed, and Dr. Jerome Banks called out, “Family of Row?”

Harper shot out of his chair, making a bee-line to the doctor. Talia followed more slowly, readying herself to face however the chips may fall. Dr. Banks looked askance at Harper, and said “I was warned about a pushy red head. Hospital policy is family only.”

“I am Talia Head, Parker’s mother,” Talia said, clutching Harper’s upper arm and dragging him closer to her. “And this is my personal valet. I’m waving Parker’s right to privacy in this instance, since Mr. Harper will be taking the burden of caring for my son when he is released. Now, what is his condition?”

Dr. Banks seemed appeased. “Well, it was pretty touch and go for a while with the brain bleed. We managed to stop it, and it doesn’t seem like there will be any catastrophic effects from it, but you have to remember that the brain is a tricky organ. We won’t know what’s what until he wakes.”

Talia nodded. There would be no lasting ill effects. She would make sure of it.

“Fractures were easy as pie to put back together, kid has good bones. Recovery time on those will be minimal. With all of his injuries, though, he’s looking at a few months of recovery time and lots of PT.” He lowered his clipboard and looked between the two of them. “Now, he isn’t stable enough for visitors at the moment. You can try again tomorrow, but it isn’t likely he’ll be in better condition. Do you have any further questions?”

“Uh, no sir,” Harper said, looking overwhelmed. “Thanks, Doc.”

“Thank you, Dr. Banks.”

The doctor left, and Talia’s new wait began.

She waited until 10 PM, when the nurses in the ICU changed shifts, to infiltrate Jason’s private room. She found Harper, kitted out in his uniform, sitting in the only seat in the room next to Jason in the bed.

“Nice stealth suit. Also, you’re late.”

She ignored him, attention firmly on where Jason lay, diminished in a hospital bed. His left arm and leg were in casts, and his head was wrapped in bandages, dark curly hair peeking out on the right side. He was wired and tubed up, but Talia felt heartened now that she could see for herself that he was alive.

She snatched up the clipboard at the foot of his bed, glancing over it. All seemed to match what Dr. Banks had already told them, with some slight updates on his condition.

“We should figure out where he’s gonna be recovering,” Harper said, holding Jason’s uninjured hand.

The door to Jason’s room opened, and they spun towards it. A young nurse stood before the slowly closing door, eyes wide, frozen. “Oh gosh!” she squeaked.

Harper leapt up, saying “I’m Arsenal, see, it’s cool, I’m Arsenal from the JLA.” He rushed over to her, placing his hand on her back. “Breathe, just breathe, we’re not here to hurt anyone. Just wanted to come by and check on an informant, everything’s fine, everybody’s cool.”

He looked over to Talia, and shook his head. She huffed, and resheathed her kris. She could see his eye roll clearly through his visor.

The nurse pulled herself together, slowly. “Um, um, there’s protocol for this.” Her face twisted in anguish. “Oh gosh, I don’t remember the protocol.” She seemed to be heading back to hyperventilation.

Talia sighed, annoyed, as Harper led the nurse to the chair and pushed her down into it, pressing on her back gently to slump her over her knees. He crouched beside her. “It’s cool, you’re cool, keep breathing, you’re doing great,” he murmured. “Protocol’s easy. You’re gonna catch your breath, then you’re gonna upload our pictures to Delphi, and the program’s gonna spit back that we’re both supposed to be here.”

It took fifteen minutes for the nurse to calm back down. Harper’s clearance through Delphi dinged back to the nurse’s tablet within seconds. Talia’s took minutes. ‘Barbara must be feeling petty,’ she thought.

The nurse left, shaking, and she and Harper went back to staring at Jason.

“He’s coming with me to Switzerland.”

Harper grimaced. “Let’s see where he is, mentally and physically, before we go tossing him into Pits. He’d like to avoid that, if possible.”

Talia glared. “He would have no recovery period. He would be able to go back to his work immediately. You would have me let Jason go through unnecessary pain? For what?”

Harper sat back in his chair, taking off his stupid visor to rub at his eyes. They were still bloodshot. “I get it, not wanting to watch your kid in pain.” He looked to her, eyes pleading. “I know I can’t stop you, but please just let him make that choice on his own. I don’t want him waking up in the Pit, not knowing what’s happening.”

She scoffed, turning from him to look again at Jason. It would break her to look into his eyes and see all that he was, all he had become, vanish again. Jason Todd, empty shell, version 2.

She watched Harper run his fingers over Jason’s hand out the corner of her eye, gazing steadily at her. “I can’t stop you and your army of ninjas if you decide to take that choice from him. I’m asking you to let him make that decision on his own. He’s his own person. Let him tell us what he wants when he wakes. Let him, for once, not be at the mercy of forces outside of his control.”

Jason regained consciousness on the fifth day of waiting, black lashes fluttering open out of sync. He groaned, body trying and failing to stretch out in the small bed. The cannula under his nose was crooked.

“What the fuck?” he moaned, words slurred, scratching at his IV. “Is there a fucking catheter in me?”

Harper leaned over him, grabbing his cheeks. “Hey big guy, stop with the squirming. You, Parker Row, are in Gotham Mercy. You have been here six days. Broken ulna, broken femur, TBI. And, yes, there is a catheter. Some guys have all the luck. Welcome back, Jaybird.” Harper’s grin stretched his lips, manic.

“Roy?” he asked, confused. “Did I get taken down by a frigging Honda?”

“You sure did, buddy.” He smacked a kiss to Jason’s forehead, then plopped back down into his seat. “I’m never gonna let you live it down.”

“Ugh, I wanna be unconscious again. Tell Talia to stop hiding in the corner.” He closed his eyes.

Talia walked over to the bed, leaning down to softly brush a hand over his bandages. “You’re back rohi.” She bussed a light kiss on his cheek. “Never worry me like that again,” she whispered, tension finally unlocking from her body.

“No promises. Kinda got a dangerous job, T.” Jason opened one bloodshot eye, looking at her steadily. “I know what you’re thinking. No Pit.” He closed his eye again, grimacing as he shifted. “This hurts like a bitch, but I wanna save that for more life threatening injuries. Don’t wanna end up like the Grand Vizier of Shitstains.”

Roy’s grin was smug when she looked at him. She glared. “We’ll talk about it later, when you aren’t high on morphine.”

“Whatever. Hey Gingersnap, you been giving me sponge baths?” The grin on Jason’s face was as crooked as his cannula.

“Jason shut the fuck up.” Harper’s words were harsh, but it was easy to make out the fondness there, the lightening of worries they both felt that Jason was seemingly not changed by his injury.

“No. How weird was it doing it with my mom in the room?”

“They have nurses for that, Jaybird.” He snatched Jason’s hand back, again running his fingers on their skin there. “Speaking of which, we should probably let them know that Sleeping Beauty here is awake.”

Talia looked at Jason in his hospital bed, pale and bruised, but smiling and alive. Not catatonic. Not under six feet of graveyard dirt. “I’ll get them.” She leaned forward, placing another kiss on Jason’s cheek, smelling lavender and cedar.

Jason smiled, eyes closed. “Thanks, T.”

Everything, everything she did now, since she had first felt Damian kick inside her, since she had watched a catatonic boy pluck a scorpion off the hem of her robe and fling it out of a window, was to make the world safe for her sons. “Of course.”