At the Gator's 8 (Patreon)

At the Gator’s 8 - or ‘I am Croc or Waylon, but no Killer’ (DC Comics/DCAU, Killer Croc!SI)

There are two kinds of young workers: the one that has no clue how the job works, but is willing to put their best into it; the one that was unable to even consider the concept of making a living by actually working.

There are many mature ‘kids’ nowadays, I know, especially in Gotham, but this distinction was quite visible when looking at the work of Jinx and ‘Leo’. It took me a while to recognize the pinkette was originally a ‘little thug’-tier criminal early on together with her boyfriend. That was before she was scouted to join HIVE, and long before she really put an effort into becoming a villain.

After all, her reasoning was to try and make a living with what situation she was stuck with: her skin was a light gray, her pink hair was shaped like that and her powers were generally tied to misfortune.

Not many could easily see the point of risking hiring this sort of individual for PR-related and genuine concerns tied to her powers. The first day of work was, however, telling of one thing: Jinx had the guts and the means to make money legit.

I wasn’t sure just yet how much of that was her being interested in her fangirling over me, or the fact that she had in herself, but I was actually leaning on the latter. The fangirling was mostly contained until after the shifts as she wanted to hear stories of the old wrestling career I got, some of which she remembered but wanted to hear my ‘perspective on those’.

Cute, but not too obsessed over the situation.

Still, her boyfriend was shite. That’s me being quite generous actually.

First day? Barely putting an effort. Second day? Missing because he had another chore to do. Third day? He got a case of the flu, but I told Jinx that any stupid excuse would warrant him the equivalent of time he was skipping trying to be a smartass with me.

The exchange worked as day four rolls in, he is in there, and I am pushing him around to do twice his expected tasks for two days straight. Jinx gets to relax a bit as her boyfriend ‘kindly’ took care of part of her job due to his effort to ‘make up’ for missing on the job. Did he hate it? Yup, and I enjoyed those scenes a lot those days.

I still kept track of any issues the idiot was creating by being an antagonistic shit, and then something else happened right as I had them both leave as expected at the end of their shift. I could hear them bicker for a time, then both would leave- usually.

Today was different as it was two weeks into this trial period, as I saw Jinx return inside the bar. Alone. She sat by one of the stools by the counter and… looked nervous. I didn’t push it, letting her recoil a bit as the girl finally mustered the words she needed to say in this awkward situation she found herself stuck to deal with.

“I-I would need a place to… stay,” The girl remarked weakly. “Leo… forgot to give me the keys to our flat.”

‘Forgot’? More like he purposely did this to her. The scumbag was being controlling of her now to ‘establish a point’. Her head was so low that she was practically moments away from resting her chin on the counter.

“Did anything happen?”

“A… A misunderstanding. Leo being an idiot.”

“Like he usually does. Or maybe it’s a bit more than that.”

She huffed. “It’s private.”

“It becomes a concern because if there’s something worrisome in sight, I need to intervene as the responsible adult around. Not because I think you can’t do it, but because you shouldn’t be put through it just yet.”

More silence, I looked out of the window and I saw it was getting a bit snowy. Yup, that explained why Pam looked a bit sleepy at this point despite how energetic she used to be during warm times. And why she left Louise in charge of sex while she went to sleep earlier than she used to.

I knew she was just being sleepy due to the cold, but it was a bit concerning at first and-

“I think he doesn’t love me.”

I stopped cleaning the glasses and took a seat right in front of her. Jinx blinked, didn’t even look up to stare at me as I studied her current mood. She was quite drained, but it wasn’t the work- yes, she was physically drained, but the way she looked so depleted was tied to her mind.

“How long?”

“A few months. He just…” She sighed, pausing for a moment. “He just stopped being so caring around me. He would just focus on the crimes, be giddy when going out for those and… and there’s the fact- no.”

I blinked, and saw her tense up a bit. “I shouldn’t say.”

…

“Then don’t,” I affirmed calmly. “How are you?”

She finally looked up. Usually her gaze was so full of energy- kind of what you would expect from a rather cheerful Jinx at work. This one lacked it. She looked so spent and unable to muster the strength she needed to smile at the issue.

“Tired.”

Tired of talking, tired of thinking, tired of trying.

I slowly nodded, looking down to my right fist as I caressed it with my left palm.

“Do you want to know why I really left that world?” I asked politely, thinking of a way to drive the message without being too pushy about it. “The one of wrestling?”

A blink, and curiosity was drawn into her face into a softer look.

“Each gig had a particular situation. My manager would be paid, I would then do the gig, and then the manager would pay me with what money he was given ‘depending on how good I was in my performance’. He promised that eventually I would have gotten 50% of that cut.”

…

“It was always 10%. One time it got up to 15% for my birthdays but… that was lost in the next few years,” I continued to speak, and Jinx was entrapped by the narration. “I talked to him, asked him why he was holding so much for himself and he said something along the lines of ‘oh, you know, taxes and other crappy stuff’. That was before I learned he was not paying the taxes.”

“And that’s bad.”

“The IRS is the worst nightmare in this world, trust me,” I assured the girl, who nodded in return despite looking unsure on this statement. “Still, the point I want to bring up is that… we all go through delusions. We all go through the process of doing something that sounds solid, we spend a lot of time nurturing it and we find out that we were the only ones caring for it. We talk, we think, we plan and it doesn’t work- that’s when we need to stop a moment and think what to do next. We get tired, and diplomacy is doing nothing but stressing and hurting us, so how do we move forward?”

“How?” Jinx asked quietly and I sighed.

“That’s your question, Jinx. How do you move forward from this?” I returned to her. “Understand that I can give you a similar situation from where you can start thinking from, but this is your problem and you should be the one tackling it. Maybe there’s more to it that you don’t know. After all, one thing is being cheated on by a manager that likes money, the other is your boyfriend being a brat.”

A slow nod ensued, and I turned to Louise. “Louise, can you please help Jinx find the guest room upstairs?”

The young woman peeked from her corner, nodding as it was getting relatively late so she could catch a break herself. I gave her the key, and Jinx smiled a bit as she followed Louise upstairs and… I sighed tiredly.

“I don’t think he is cheating on her,” Pam’s voice came through as she came with the plate with a few used glasses to clean. “I am willing to bet he is just too addicted to crime.”

I frowned. “What?”

“It’s something I heard on TV about people being too deep in the rush given to them by being criminals,” The woman explained. “He is definitely still going at it.”

I sighed at this, and closed my eyes to think about this. Just for a moment, and then… I felt really tired.

“This is a pain in the butt.”

Pam snorted at my words. “You made your bed, now you lay on it, hun.”

Fair is fair. But as if the evening couldn’t get any odder, a recent addition to the growing list of frequent customers. Tiny, stacked in a way that no ‘child’ should be and with some light makeup on. She struggled a bit to get on the stool and-

“Hello, Way-Way, how are you~?”

“Hello Mary.” I replied to the one that would have turned (and possibly is on the path of becoming) Baby Doll.

AN

Well shite! The version I am going for is the ‘latter design’ in the DCAU. Not the one with blue eyes, but the one that tried to dress up adult-like while fancying Killer Croc.

Next time, a proper introduction to Mary Dahl and… some more on the Harvey Dent situation. Butterflies sure are spreading in Gotham.

Also, removing this from the polls from now on as it will get a thread!