Keep Moving (DC Comics, Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd)
Title: Keep Moving Author: Fandom: DC Comics Pairing/characters: Stephanie Brown/Jason Todd Rating: PG-13 Warnings: A/U, mentions of domestic abuse, assault, and murder Word count: ~1200 Prompt/challenge you're answering: Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown can communicate without saying a word. Summary: Stephanie Brown's life changes the night she leaves her abusive husband. -
Steph checked on Annie. Her daughter was lying her bed crying quietly into her teddy bear, pretending to be asleep. She turned away and closed the door. What could she say? How could she explain the screaming every night and the bruises that never healed? Every time she promised herself it was the last time. It wasn't. It never was.
She stepped careful in the living room, trying not to disturbed the broken frames littering the floor. Dean was sleeping on the sofa with a news paper over his face. She lifted it off and folded it carefully, setting it aside. His face was never a comfort. Even when they were young, she'd never been in love with him. Enchanted once, but never love. They'd tried for Annie, but that excuse exhausted itself the first time he came home too drunk to stand and angry enough to swing.
This wasn't the life she wanted. Fighting back the tears, Steph stumbled for the kitchen phone, stabbing in her mother's phone number. At the third ring, she hung up. It was tradition. She'd break down just enough to call her mother, but Steph wouldn't stay long enough to talk. She couldn't stand the idea of her mother saying 'I told you so'. Leaning against the phone, Stephanie wept.
Dean grunted and rolled over, grappling for the remote sleepily. She froze and watched his hand go limp as he drifted off again.
She couldn't stay here, not tonight. Steph didn't know where she'd go, but she and Annie weren't sleeping in the apartment if Dean woke up. Quickly, she pulled off her pajamas and found a shirt and jeans in the laundry. Her shoes were by the door with her keys and billfold and it was six careful steps to Annie's room. Her daughter had managed to drift off, but she didn't argue when her mother slipped her arms into her heavy jacket and put on her snow boots. Clutching Mr. Puff, Annie hung loosely around her neck.
The Pie Diner next to the Korean market would be open for another four hours and Steph could figure out how to get them to a cheap motel by the time it closed. Six blocks wasn't too far away. The wind was cold and she couldn't feel her fingers, but Stephanie didn't wake Annie and make her walk. All she had was her daughter. She wanted to hold her.
When the diner came into view, Steph got stupid and relaxed. Gotham was never safe and a single woman running about at eleven was a prime target for anything no one wanted to think about. They caught her from behind and slammed her into the alley. Annie screamed in pain when they bounced against the brick and Steph smacked her head on the wall.
“Found her wallet?” One asked while his partner ran his hands lasciviously along her pockets.
He laughed in her ear, “Sure enough.” But he didn't take his hands away after he handed it off. One slipped past the waistband of her jeans.
Stephanie didn't beg, she just curled tighter around her daughter and kept her head down. God, what was she thinking? Dean was nothing compared to this. He'd never hurt Annie. Steph could take a thousand angry beating if she could just turn back time and never leave the apartment.
Two shots rang in the night and all she could hear was the anguished screaming and heavy crush of fists meeting skin. Annie cried harder and Steph couldn't keep the frightened tears back anymore. She whispered a fervent prayer into her daughter's soft hair.
A careful hand on her shoulder made her shudder, but she turned with the pressure and met a glistening red helmet without a face. She swallowed hard and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. The muggers were dead in the alley, blood pooling under their dismembered corpses. Steph felt a satisfied thrill deep in her stomach that made her sick and she covered Annie's face.
Her rescuer pause and reached for her swollen eye and Steph couldn't stop the heavy flinch. He stopped and pulled his hand away slowly. Then, so she could watch him, he picked up her wallet carefully. Without a word, he pulled out her license and gave it a long look. He tucked it in the breast pocket of his black leather jacket and handed her wallet back.
With a nod, he pushed her towards the diner. Steph paused and spared him a thoughtfully glance, but he shook his head and turned away.
She didn't need to know where he was going. It was better that way.
The Pie Diner was a blur of frantic servers and uniforms asking question after question. Stephanie couldn't remember what they asked her, but she repeated what she never saw. She never saw their faces, she never saw them die, she never saw which way Red Hood went. That's what they called him. A vigilante, they said, another murder, and Steph couldn't feel any sympathy for the two men with wandering hands.
There was a hospital visit and a lovely woman in a pink suit tried to take Annie away while the police took photos of Stephanie's bruises, but she wouldn't let go of her daughter's hand. Finally, after the sun came up, a black and white drove them home.
Dean was shot between the eyes on the living room sofa and someone had cleaned up the broken furniture. Even the glass was gone.
There were more questions, most centering on whether or not Stephanie pulled the trigger, but the officers left her alone once the coroner arrive and gave them a preliminary time of death. Dean died while she was in police custody for the assaults.
Red Hood, they muttered between them.
You can't stay in your apartment, they told her with an air of officiality. Do you have a place to stay? The police may have further questions, they said, but she knew they wouldn't.
She was about to tell them that when a large black haired man pushed past the officers.
“She called me, alright!” He declared loudly, kneeling next to her. His hands were warm around hers when he ask, “You ok?” Steph started, and turned her hand over. Her driver's license stared back.
Red Hood had the brightest eyes she'd ever seen and Stephanie smiled wide and teary and nodded, “Yeah, I'm okay,” and began to cry. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him gratefully, “We're both okay. Thank you for coming.”
He squeezed her back, “It's what I'm here for.”
“Sir,” a burly officer interrupted, “We're going to need your name.”
“Jason Todd,” Hood replied. The officer asked him a list of short questions about Dean's enemies and Jason just shook his head, “I never knew him well,” he admitted.
The officer left and Steph sighed, “Neither did I.”
Jason nodded.
They watched the coroner wheel out a black body bag and Annie climbed in her lap.
Steph nodded, too.
“Well,” She said, “I could use some breakfast. Join us?” She offered.
“Yeah,” Jason agreed, taking her hand. “I think I will.”