Chapter Text
Medea remembers the aches brought on by the crowbar, the sting of betrayal, the ticking of the timer, the heat of the explosion, the thick, heavy, choking smoke she inhaled.
She remembers being alone when she took her last breath. Alone, and afraid, and in pain. But when she closed her eyes as her life drained out of her, Medea couldn’t feel the pain anymore.
“Open your eyes, my child,” a voice calls out, “you are safe here. Open your eyes.” Medea is vaguely aware of the hand carding through her hair in a motherly way, like how Catherine used to when she was even younger than she was now.
She listens to the voice and opens her eyes slowly. In front of her is a woman she’s never met before as far as she can recall.
“There you are sweetling,” the woman smiles, “Now do you know where you are?”
“No… I don’t— where is this— what place—” Medea takes a deep breath, “I’m dead… I died… who—?”
“Hush child, you’ve nothing to worry about here. Yes, you did die.” the woman confirms. “And as for who I am… well I am Death. Welcome to my home, Medea.”
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Death is kind to her. She’s patient when Medea gets upset and frustrated to the point it all boils over and she’s breaking down over her death. She’s helpful as Medea comes to terms with being dead. She’s caring, and motherly, for all that she is quite literally cold.
You can only have so much when you’re a dead kid existing in Death’s own home rather than any afterlife, but Death gave her everything she could. Medea’s time with Death was a happy one, full of endless books for her to read and all the familial love she could ask for.
But dead kids don’t have friends, dead kids can’t go to college, dead kids can never know what it’s like to grow up.
When she was younger, Medea had known she likely would die young. Oh, she fought and she survived and she held onto hope with bloody knuckles and muddy hands and tear tracks down her face but oh did she hold onto that hope, that raw and dirty hope. And then she had stolen the right pair of tires and ended up in a position where holding onto hope came a little easier, a little less of a battle.
She had forgotten to hold it cautiously as she once had. She had let that hope seep into the cracks and fester until she was surprised at dying young, rather than resigned as she once might have been.
Death could see it was weighing her down. It wasn’t often that Death took a liking to the mortals who passed into her domain, but there was something about Medea that had drawn her in from the moment she had met the young girl.
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Medea didn’t know it, but this was not the first time she and Death had met. No, the first time Death met Medea was when the girl was only four years old. The girl had fallen ill, so very ill and feverish, and Catherine and Willis had been doing their best to nurse her back to health but no amount of cold cloths and stolen children’s medicine was keeping her fever down.
The little girl drew her first last breath that night.
When Death met her, she knew she had to send Medea back, to give her a chance at life. It’s painful every time a child enters her domain, but Death has learned to cope with it. But this child… Death grew attached in the single evening they spent together in her domain. She knew she would do anything for Medea.
The next morning Medea was alive again, her fever had faded, and there was one small, barely noticeable strand of white in her hair. A mark of Death.
Medea remembered none of their meeting that morning when she awoke, but from that day on Death had kept a careful watch on the girl from a distance. One day they’d meet again, Death knew, but until then she’d hold off on speaking to Medea.
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“You aren’t happy here.” Death comments one day.
Medea tries to deny it, “No, that’s not true. I’m happy spending time with you,”
“But you grow weary here, child,” Death says softly, “I can see it, your restlessness, your frustration at being dead. There is only so much one can do in my domain and my own home, I know. It is not where you would have liked to end up so soon. It’s alright, child, you don’t need to deny it.”
“I… I just…” Medea sighs, “I had hoped to live for longer. To not just be another Crime Alley kid who died young. I wanted… to be able to make a difference.”
“Mhm, yes, I know my child.” Death sits down beside her, brushing some hair out of her face, “I have a gift for you,”
“A gift?”
“Yes,” Death nods, “a gift of immortality… of a sort. You will still be able to die, but you will also be able to return to life each time. It is… not strictly within the rules, but it is not against them either for me to give you such a gift. Would you like that, sweetling? To return to life?”
“Yes, please!” Medea doesn’t hesitate with her answer, no pausing to think it through, she wants so badly to have a chance to do everything she can’t if she stays just a dead kid. In that moment she forgets something: dead people never really have anything left waiting for them in the land of the living. Not the ones who no one has purposely tried to get back.
“Now sweetling, a word of warning… you have been dead for quite a while now. I do not know how that will affect you returning to life this time.” Death cautions her, “Nor do I know where you’ll wake.”
“I… I understand. I want to return. Please. There is so much I can still do!”
“Then this gift shall be yours to keep,” Death smiles, “Don’t come back here for a visit too soon now, my child.”
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It’s dark and it’s cramped. Those are the first things Medea registers when she wakes. Next she realizes that she needs to breathe again, she’s alive once more to do so. That’s when she registers the fact that she cannot breathe where she is. Not well, anyways. There’s no air for her to breathe in. Faintly, very faintly, she can hear rain pouring from the sky. Wherever she is, it smells like wood, and dirt. All at once Medea realizes exactly where she must have woken up.
Her coffin.
She’s alive again but if she doesn’t get out of this coffin soon, she’ll die all over again before she can even see the sky another time. It’s this thought that sends her into a panic, and she begins to claw at the lid to her coffin. Her nails scrape against the wood and absently she curses Bruce for burying her in something so high quality.
Medea can feel the skin on her fingers tearing the more she beats and claws at the wood, warm blood running down her hands from her fingertips. This isn’t working. She drops one hand down, continuing to pound against the coffin with the other, to search for anything she can use to do more damage to the wood.
When she feels it, she silently thanks whoever decided she should be buried in such sturdy high heels. She knows such a thing isn’t typical, so she considers it good luck that she was buried with shoes at all.
It’s getting harder and harder and harder to breathe but finally, finally she gets the wooden lid of her coffin to break. Her hands are already torn to shreds so she pays no mind to the new cuts on them she gains from pulling herself up through the broken coffin, gives no attention to the dirt mixing with her wounds as she begins to dig herself up and out from under the ground. There is no time for her to pay attention to anything other than staying alive.
Vaguely, Medea is aware of when she grows closer to the surface, the dirt becoming more muddy as she goes, the worms she can feel wriggling against her skin as she claws her way up from the mud.
The first real breath she’s able to take sends relief flooding through her veins. She’s barely aware enough to pick the worms off her skin and wipe the mud from around her face, already halfway washed off from the rain.
Everything feels… hazy. She’s not quite aware enough to… process anything. She remembers everything but it’s like it’s all… hidden behind a fog in her mind. What did she come back for? What’s left for her here?
Her limbs feel heavy as she stands up from the mud, funeral dress dirtied beyond saving and tattered from where it caught on the jagged wood of her broken coffin. It feels like she’s thinking through honey and that she’s not all that there right now. Her mind feels like it’s… weighed down and covered in a haze of fog.
Where was she going? Up, up and out from the ground, but she’s out now, so where does she go? Home? Where is home now? She has several.
She’s made up her mind without knowing exactly what she’s decided, her limbs moving without her being fully aware of where they’re taking her. She isn’t worried. Distantly Medea thinks she should be, but everything just… isn’t registering. It’s as if she’s… back and intact but not… not quite present yet.
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She wanders the streets for a while after she leaves the cemetery. She’s present enough to follow her basic survival instincts of fighting to protect herself and eating so as to not starve, but beyond that she’s still not all back, the fog still lingers in her mind. Then one night there’s bright headlights and skidding tires and a forceful impact and she thinks she sees Death again briefly but then she’s waking up in a hospital as a Jane Doe who’s noted as being seemingly catatonic.
Sitting in a chair next to her hospital bed is a woman Medea recognizes, she remembers meeting this woman during her time as Robin. Still though, this recognition brings no outward signs of it, just a flicker of her eyes as she glances over, still not seemingly all that present.
Talia al Ghul reaches forward to brush back some hair from Medea’s eyes, “Hello, little one,” she greets, “It is a surprise to see you so… alive.”
Later, when the doctors clear her, Talia takes her from the hospital, and thus begins Medea’s time with the League of Assassins.