The Adventures of Martha Ridley Wayne

Chapter Nineteen: Communication is Key

         We enacted the plan on a Friday night. I told Jason that everyone was going to be out and that Alfred wanted to see him. Tim told dad that I wanted to talk to him about a case he'd been working on. Dad was in his study when I pushed Jason into the room before slamming the door shut behind him. Earlier Tim and I had Batman and Red Hood proofed the place and made sure they couldn't escape except when we would allow it.

"What the hell, Marty? What is this?," Jason yelled through the door.

"This is me getting my family back. This is me helping you feel better. This is me giving you the chance to talk it out like civilized human beings for once," I replied.

"Ridley, let us out of here," my father growled.

"Not until you talk about your feelings. If you won't do it, I'll come in there with Alfred and neither of you will fare very well."

"Why is this so important to you?," Jason asked.

"Because believing that dad doesn't love you is killing you and the same goes for him. Your fighting is pointless since you both want the same thing: to be loved again. Now stop talking to me and start talking to each other."

I stayed outside the door during the beginning of their conversation to make sure they were making good on their promise to talk without yelling or punching. It started getting really personal and I left at that point. Despite already knowing everything Jason and my dad were confessing to one another, it just felt like an invasion of privacy on my part. Tim was waiting for me up in my room.

Yeah, he was in my room not Jay's old one. I don't remember when or how it happened, but I started sleeping there again. Most of the reasoning behind it was so that Jason would have a place to stay when he decided to come back home. I used the word 'when' instead of 'if' because I had to believe that he would come home soon enough. If I hadn't believed that, I would have most likely gone on another bender.

After years of making a mess of my life, I decided to finally start to clean it up and help others along on the way. It felt good to fix all of the things I had broken in the five years since my brother's death. I was even starting to consider letting everyone else go back to calling me by my given name if everything went the way I was hoping it would. Tim was someone who I didn't really want calling me Martha just because we met when I was someone else.

Maybe that didn't really make sense, but I felt like Tim saw me for who I really was not for who he wanted me to be or who I used to be. Ridley just kind of fit with that, that name gave me freedom when I wanted it. Martha was a name that gave me a family though and I wanted that back as well. For some reason, the whole name thing became my biggest issue for a time and maybe that was because I had mostly tackled the major problems.

All I wanted was for my life to sort itself out because the whole 'changing your life for the better' thing was far from easy. It was much easier to destroy my life and my relationships than it was to repair them, but that was a no-brainer. I knew it would be hard, but I didn't think it would be as hard as it ended up being. Yet with every thing I got under control, I began to feel more and more like myself than I had in years.

A few hours later, there was a knock on my door. Dad and Jason were standing there with smiles on their faces and I was so taken aback that I was certain it was a dream. The rest of the day was spent with the entire family gathered around the TV, making fun of the stupid dialogue and how their fighting techniques would get them killed. It was indescribable, the feeling of having a family again.

            They would never dare to admit it, but Jason and dad were both grateful that I decided to force them into talking. Jason moved back into the manor a few months after he and dad talked it out, which was a great relief to me since his apartment was a total dump. It took a bit longer than I would like to admit for me to stop automatically going to Jason's room when it was time for me to go to sleep. Jay said it was hilarious and also adorable.