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The worst part of getting sent to Arkham, in Jonathan Crane’s humble opinion, had nothing to do with the asylum itself. It wasn’t the awful food, the cold cells, the orderlies with chips on their shoulders and meaner temperaments than any actual thug Jonathan had ever hired, not even the ever shifting medical cocktails or experimental therapies of questionable legality he was forced to endure.
No, to Jonathan, the worst part about being sent to Arkham was the aftermath, when he escaped the sorry excuse for an institution and had to collect everything he lost on arrest. Years of experience in the game has made it easier--he’s learned to prepare in advance, to keep many hidden boltholes of supplies and scatter copies of his research in secret locations all about the city so his work is never completely lost.
It’s become almost routine these days, which makes it no less annoying. First, he has to take a quick trip to one of his hidden boltholes to pick up a backup costume and his emergency supply of fear toxin (lethal and non-lethal varieties) to get himself back to form. The next step is a few bank robberies and other heists to round up some funds. Once he has enough of those, a few phone calls to the Broker (real estate agent of evil) and the Carpenter secure him both a new lair and, if need be, a living space (he has learned not to have the two in the same place).
He has learned, too, not to build any further than that for the first few weeks, until he is sure that the Bat has well and truly lost his trail. Nothing is more devastating than to finish all the tedious work of reassembling your life only to have it ripped from you a day later.
When he is sure that all is well, and his new home is primed, hidden, and ready, then the real work can begin.
His first stop is always Oswald's aviary. It's the easiest to find, and Oswald tends to be the most agreeable. Back in the early days, Jonathan used to wander the habitats himself in search of his quarry, but one too many run-ins with an enraged cassowary had convinced him that this was a bad approach. These days, he simply found Cobblepot's office and settled in a shadowy corner until its owner came home.
Oswald liked to visit his aviary several times a day, once in the morning and again once all his business was done, so usually sometime in the evening. Jonathan understood it was the crooked businessman's way of unwinding.
He had been waiting about thirty minutes before the door swung open. Oswald turned to flick on the light and set his hat and umbrella up on the stand in the corner, just as Jonathan had expected he would. He had chosen this corner with that knowledge, so Cobblepot would have his back to him when the room lit. Oswald was such a creature of habit.
Slowly, his silent tread eased by the wrappings of burlap around his work boots, Jonathan crept up behind the infamous Penguin. He came to stand right behind the other man and waited for him to turn around, patient as the grave.
When he did turn, Oswald jumped back with a very satisfying shriek at the sight of the Scarecrow looming over him.
"Good evening," Jonathan said, unable to help a grin behind his mask.
"Cripes, Professor Crane! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me?" Oswald huffed and puffed and dusted at his front, brushing off his clothes as if Jonathan had dumped him into a dust pile instead of simply making him jump. "I had not heard that you were out of our nefarious nuthouse already."
"Where is he, Oswald?"
"You know I only look after him for you as a friendly favor during your unfortunate incarcerations. Must you be so damned dramatic and menacing every time you come to collect him?"
"Certainly, I appreciate your consideration. I will appreciate having my bird back even more."
Jonathan kindly did not mention the truth, which was that Oswald would gladly keep Jonathan's pet indefinitely if he thought he could get away with it.
Oswald led him down to one of the large cages on the lower level, grumbling and muttering all the while. The cage held a multitude of birds, all sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings. The extent of Oswald's collection really was amazing. If Jonathan had an interest in any birds other than his own, he might have enjoyed his trips out here more.
Shooting him a dirty scowl, Oswald unlocked the cage door and gestured for Jonathan to enter. Jonathan did no such thing, of course. He only came close enough to poke his head inside, so that if the Penguin tried to close the door on him he would only bash it into Jonathan's lanky frame.
"Kraw?" Jonathan called softly. Near the back, one bundle of black feathers shifted, a beady black eye appearing above the mass. Jonathan held a hand out to it. A light flutter of feathers, and the bird's solid weigh landed on his wrist. Jonathan pulled the bird from the cage, inspecting him as Oswald shut the cage back up.
"He really is a beautiful specimen," Oswald said, in that warm and admiring way he reserved only for talk of birds.
"That he is." Jonathan held his wrist to his shoulder, encouraging the crow to climb up, which he did with a hop and a flutter of wings. "Thank you for looking after him."
"Humph. I don't think you appreciate how despicably difficult it is to sneak him out from under the GCPD's wing. I ought to be charging you for the service."
"But you won't, of course," Jonathan said softly. "Because we are such good friends."
They stared each other down. Oswald’s eyes flicked to the canisters of fear toxin lining Jonathan’s belt, and then back up. He turned away with a disgruntled huff, waddling towards the stairs.
"I'll let you see your own way out, then, since you were so good about finding your own way in,” Oswald called over his shoulder. “Use the front door for once next time, won't you?"
They both knew that door was booby trapped to hell and back, with the intent of catching a certain Bat.
"Good night, Oswald," Jonathan said. He chuckled under his breath at the grumbled response and turned to the bird on his shoulder. "Let's get you settled back home, shall we?"
The next stop was always much harder to find, and took a few nights of dedicated searching. Jonathan was no expert at tracking people down when they did not wish to be found, but when it came to this certain person he had acquired a knack for it, out of necessity and stubborn determination.
Selina always chose an expensive apartment near the top floor, one with plenty of floor space, large windows, and easy access to the neighboring rooftops. She liked to be in walking distance of both a pet shop and a veterinarian, with an animal shelter or two as well if she could manage it. It helped, too, that her aliases were always cat puns. With these parameters in mind, Jonathan could find her within a few days’ careful search.
He waited until a slender shadow had slipped out from the window and darted away into the night, then made his move. Unlike the aviary, Selina’s apartment was small enough that he didn’t need her help finding his goal. He climbed up the fire escape and entered through that very window Selina had just left. He alighted in a study, where no less than three pairs of eyes flashed in the dark at his entrance. One of the cats near the door started to hiss.
Ignoring it, he pulled the flashlight from his belt and clicked it on. Normally he would trust his own exceptional night vision for a late night excursion like this, but he did not want to risk stepping on one of Selina’s cats. Not because he was afraid of being scratched or bitten--their teeth would never pierce his thick boots--but because a yowling cat woke up neighbors like nothing else.
It was 2:30 am, so he was surprised to find a light on in the bedroom. Selina lived with a roommate sometimes, some civilian friend who Jonathan spared little attention, but the woman almost never stayed up this late. No matter, he could be quiet. As tempting as it was to sneak up and terrify the unsuspecting woman, he really did need to get in and out quickly. He had other business to attend to.
He crept from room to room, checking the cats as he went. There had to be at least twenty of them scattered all over the place--which was 19 more than any person needed to have--in every variety from calico to tabby. He wondered if Selina didn’t have a hoarding disorder. Kleptomania, certainly, that was a given, yet the apartment was too clean for a genuine hoarder (other than the cats).
Most of the felines either slept or tracked his progress with indifference, until he got to the TV room, where a soft, inquisitive ‘meow?’ caught his attention. A ball of sleek black fur toddled out into the beam of the flashlight, its orange eyes glowing from the reflected light.
“There you are,” Jonathan murmured, kneeling down to hold a hand out to the cat. She meowed again and ran up to him, batting her cheeks aggressively against the outstretched limb. “Yes, I missed you too.” He cradled her in his arms and stood up with 8 pounds of fluff purring against his chest.
Just then, the light flicked on. Jonathan turned on his heel, cat squished tight to him with one arm while the other flung outward, the fear toxin dispenser on his wrist armed and ready. He had been expecting a woman in her pajamas, or, if he was less lucky, Selina herself back early from her nightly burgling. What he got was a very surprised Edward Nigma.
“Edward?”
“Jonathan?”
They regarded each other for a moment.
“Why are you wearing one of Selina’s old outfits?”
Edward cleared his throat, awkwardly shifting the suit of what should have been skin-tight purple leather, which draped rather sadly from his short frame. Jonathan hadn’t realized how much taller and more muscular Selina was than Edward before now.
“Why are you stealing one of her cats?” Edward retorted.
“This is my cat,” Jonathan hissed. “I’m taking her back.”
Edward considered the cat with a thoughtful look. “So it is. Hello Spooky! Riddle me this, who is the cutest cat on the block?” he cooed, leaning forward and waggling his fingers. She meowed cheerfully in reply.
“Her name is Phobos, Edward. She is a creature of terror,” Jonathan insisted.
Phobos tilted her head back so she could stare at Edward upside down, then meowed again. Edward’s lips twitched with barely restrained laughter.
Jonathan sighed. He had picked her up off the streets specifically because of the fearful superstition that surrounded black cats, only to discover she had the personality of Minnie Mouse. Her antics amused his test subjects more than they terrified. Disappointment as an object of fear that she may have been, she was still his.
“Any time I get sent to Arkham for more than a few days, Selina kidnaps my cat,” he explained.
“Well, what do you expect from a cat burglar?” Edward asked, chortling at his own pun in his special smug, self-satisfied way.
“You haven’t answered my question. Why are you wearing that?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never wondered what it would be like to wear someone else’s costume.” Edward planted one hand on his hip and struck a pose. The long leather glove flopped even further down his slim arm, highlighting the poor fit.
“It has never crossed my mind.”
“You’ve not pined for a snazzy green suit with question marks on it? Not even once? I assure you it smells a lot better than your get-ups.”
“I like to think I have better taste.”
“I don’t have to take this from someone who dresses in potato sacks,” Edward huffed.
“Then don’t. I must be on my way,” Jonathan said. At the doorway he paused, considering Edward out of the corner of his eye. “Other than raiding Selina’s closet, why are you here?”
“Oh, she wanted to talk to me about something. I got bored waiting for her to get back, so...” Edward waved a hand at his current outfit. “The fit isn’t great, obviously, but I do like the purple.”
Jonathan snorted. In the grand scheme of things, he supposed, going from a green morph suit to a purple catsuit was a lateral move.
“Goodnight, Edward.”
“Jonathan. Spooky.”
“Mew!”
Mere seconds after he departed down the fire escape, Selina returned to the window, so Jonathan was still in ear shot to catch her startled yell.
“Edward where did you even find that?”
He always put the third stop off for as long as he could stand. The mere thought of all the physical labor it would involve made his back hurt. It was well worth it to hire one of his favored thugs, were any of them out of prison, just for this little task alone. Luck was with him this time: Anthony was both walking free and available to work. The man may have been an uneducated lout just like all the rest, but he was an uneducated lout with more than half a brain cell, a rare trait among henchmen. Anthony respected knowledge, and by extension respected Jonathan. No threats were ever needed to keep him in line, though Jonathan liked to push him around anyway. It was too much fun to resist.
Finding this target was much easier than tracking down Selina. All one had to do was keep an eye out for a certain suspicious bookmobile, then search the surrounding area for a property with a lot of floor space being rented to someone whose name was a literary allusion. Jonathan found it within two days.
“What’re we doing here again, boss?” Anthony asked him as they stood contemplating the front door.
“We are getting my books back,” Jonathan replied. He tried the knob and was not surprised to find it locked. “Make an entrance, if you please.”
Anthony obligingly kicked the door in, prompting several yells of alarm from inside.
Jonathan went in first, ducking extra low to get his pointed hat through the frame. The interior looked more like a private library than a lair, with bookshelves crowding every wall and dividing up the floor space. The sweet aroma of old books slipped through the filters of Jon’s gas mask, filling him with a fierce ache for his own little armchair and an igloo of books to surround it. Soon, he told himself.
Naturally the lair was not unoccupied. All over the room, heads poked out from among the shelves, blinking owlishly at the apparition darkening their doorway. Every last man of them wore thick oval eyeglasses and blue collared shirts. At the room’s center sat a man in a brown suit with a book lamp attached to his fedora, whose glasses were twice as thick as everyone else’s. His posture of alarm dissolved into a peevish fury once he registered who he was looking at.
“Oh, no, not you again!” he snapped.
“Bookworm,” Jonathan greeted, his voice distorted to an unearthly hiss by his gas mask. It was an effect he had spent a long time perfecting. Beside him, Anthony did his best to be helpful by looming with his arms crossed. “You know why I’m here.”
“I don’t have them this time, straw-for-brains. Search my entire collection if you wish, you won’t find a single familiar cover.” the Bookworm told him haughtily.
He delivered this line much too smugly for it to be the truth. Jonathan let his eyes wander over the space, comparing it to what he knew of the building’s dimensions. It was much smaller than it ought to have been, which could only mean one of those bookcase walls hid a secret room.
“Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes...” Jonathan recited in a sing song.
“You don’t scare me, Scarecrow!” Kingor bellowed. His eyes all but screamed his anxiety. “You’re outnumbered and outbrained. Maybe you should take a trip to visit the wizard, get yourself a real brain before you try to associate with my class of criminal.”
“Yes, associating with your class of criminal is quite debasing for me,” Jonathan said.
The Bookworm stood up so quickly his chair screeched back across the floor, his eyes blazing. “You--you think you’re so much better than me? We’re practically the same! What makes you so much more of a threat, a suit of rags and some measly chemicals? I know what you are under there, just another scrawny nerd with only half my class and a quarter of my brain!”
“So you say, Kingor. But unlike you, I have actually gotten published.”
The Bookworm let out a screech that could have peeled paint. Jonathan wished he could bottle it. “Get them! GET THEM!”
It really was amazing that such a small, powerless man had managed to survive in this town with a temper like that. At his shouting, the men who had been cowering among the stacks all set their glasses on the shelves and swarmed forward. Even with their greater numbers, they posed very little threat. Jonathan suspected they weren’t so much a real gang as they were a writing group gone bad.
“Don’t bother,” Jonathan told Anthony, slapping a gas mask into the big man’s chest before he could finish his step forward. Anthony scrambled to put it on while Jonathan unhooked one of the gas grenades from his belt and lobbed it at the approaching bibliophiles. Within seconds the whole gang was on the floor, writhing and screaming, their esteemed leader yelling loudest of all. He picked his way around the screaming bodies, to the Bookworm’s side.
“No! The words...dissolving...! Why...why...the ink! That treacherous iron gall ink! Fools....fools...!”
An obscure fear for an obscure man. Jonathan seized him by the collar and wrenched him up off the floor, savoring the terror in his eyes. He wondered what the man was seeing right now--a monster made of corrosive ink, perhaps, eating the Bookworm’s precious tomes?
“Tell me where the stolen books are, Kingor!” he roared.
“Oh god please--please no, not the Shakespeare--”
“TELL ME.”
G-g-g--there!” The bookworm stabbed his finger frantically at the wall to their left, “s-second bookcase, the 1st edition sleepy hollow!”
“Cheeky,” Jonathan grumbled, dropping the man like a garbage sack. He waved for Anthony to follow him and approached the indicated bookcase. There was the copy of sleepy hollow, directly at Kingor’s eye level, midway down the shelf. He reached out for it, but hesitated.
“Something wrong, boss?”
“Try to take out the copy of Sleepy Hollow, just there. Do not open it and be prepared to jump away from the shelf if necessary.”
“Uh. Okay.”
Anthony pulled the book back two inches before it stopped short with a clank. Some hidden machinery chugged noisily too life, swinging the bookcase forward. The revealed room contained one chair and a whole lot of boxes. Eagerly Jon opened the nearest one, pawing carefully through the books inside. Yes, these were his books alright--the DSM-5, Psychopharmacology for Mental Health Professionals, several battered old James Joyce hardbacks and his prized collection of William Hope Hodgson.
“Load all these boxes into the truck. Do not open any of the books. I’ll need to check them against my database and make sure he hasn’t left us any nasty surprises.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
As they hauled the books away, Jonathan was strongly tempted to steal some of the Bookworm’s collection in retaliation. But, the risk was too great. Kingor was fond of putting everything from knockout gas to explosives in hollowed volumes hidden among his books. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“Can’t you just get an e-reader, boss?” Anthony panted beside him as he staggered under the weight of his box.
Jonathan had one, and it was so loaded with free copies of classic and public domain titles that it was nearly out of memory. He never remembered to charge it, though, and it was currently sitting in a box somewhere in his new home.
“Shut up and put your back into it!”
“...but if they get married, she might make him happy, you see? And then he won’t have a reason to be Batman anymore. Can you imagine it? No Batman! I mean. What would we even do with ourselves? Without Batman, crime has no punchline!”
Jonathan tipped his head back and sighed. There were so much logic twisted out of shape in that statement that he didn’t know where to begin. "Yes, because having someone else live in your house, sleep in your bed, and eat your food will fix every problem you have. It is a 100% guaranteed recipe for happiness."
"Right? You get me! So what do you say, Jonny-boy, are you willing to help me kidnap the Batman so I can save him from marital bliss?"
Jonathan would have buried his face in his palms if he could move his arms.
"I did not come here to get tangled up in another one of your crazy plots."
"Fine, be boring," Joker huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "What did you come here for, then? Trouble with the chemistry set? Need a clown for the kids' birthday party? Or dare I suggest it--a booty call?" he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t expecting to run into you and you know it. I'm here for the equipment Pamela stole from me while I was incarcerated. That's it.” Jonathan eyed the clown hanging beside him. “You came to steal some of her chemicals, I suppose?”
“Steal? Moi? Such slander, doctor! Why, I just wanted to borrow a cup of bromide, in a neighborly sort of way.” Joker dissolved into cackling laughter. Jonathan took that as a ‘yes.’
They were inside one of Pamela’s greenhouses, both hanging in the air and trussed up by vines. Jonathan at least was upright, his arms pinned to his sides and his legs braided over with creepers. The Joker had wound up upside down, tied around the legs and waist while his arms hung free.
Even the most well-worn of routines hit their occasional snags, and unfortunately, this particular venture to stop number 4 had gone belly up in the worst possible way. No sooner had Jonathan entered the greenhouse lab than he had bumped into the Joker, who had been startled into triggering Ivy’s plants. Now they could do nothing but wait for the master of the house to come home and pray she was feeling merciful.
“You do realize they’re not going to go through with it,” Jonathan said.
“You think so?” the clown perked up, attempting to bring his head up horizontal. The blood rushing to his head almost put a hint of life-like flush in his corpse-pallid cheeks.
“Selina and the Bat have tried to get hitched seven times in the past. It never goes through.”
Joker’s face scrunched up in thought as he attempted to comb his spotty memory.
“Has it really been seven?”
“By my count. Who knows how many times they’ve tried to do it in secret and changed their minds.”
“But what if this is the time they really do it? What if eight is the magic number? What are we supposed to do if Gotham is invaded by bat-cat hybrids??” Joker demanded, his voice growing shriller and more urgent as he worked himself closer to a panic.
A performance of panic, anyway.
“It won’t,” Jonathan told him when Joker stopped to take a breath.
“How can you be so sure?” Joker snapped at him, more genuine in his anger than he had been in his meltdown. Perhaps there was some real anxiety lurking behind that painted face after all.
Jonathan was unmoved. He did not find Joker as disturbing or frightening as many did--god knew very little could scare Jonathan Crane anymore. Perhaps it was because they’d both been around since the early days. It was hard to fear a man after you’d watched him rob a bank on a pogo stick.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret: Selina is terrified of commitment.”
“Commitment?” Joker blinked up at him owlishly.
“To her, you see, it’s the first step on the road to dependency, and there’s nothing that cat fears more than a leash. Trust me, I would know. I’ve gassed her.”
“What does that sound like? Ohhh, noooo, not the rings, not the rings! Someone save me from this ball and chain! Ahhhhh!” Joker waggled back and forth in his bonds, screeching his Selina impression in a very unflattering falsetto.
“Something like that,” Jonathan said. “If the wedding business is so upsetting to you, have you considered talking to Selina about it?”
“Eh. We haven’t hung out since that time I tied her to a conveyor belt at the kitty litter factory. You’d think she could take a joke by now.”
“Well, talk to her then. Good communication is key to any healthy relationship.”
“I guess we’re overdue for a girl’s night out.” Joker hummed thoughtfully. “Ahhh, I feel so much better now. Great session, doc, you always were my favorite shrink. Worth every penny.”
“You’re not paying me.”
The Joker just burst out laughing, the force of his own guffaws pushing him to sway gently back and forth. Jonathan grit his teeth, redoubling his efforts to reach his pocket and the small blade he had hidden inside. He could deal with Joker’s rapid mood swings, tasteless black humor, and violent outbursts. It was the laughter that grated on his last nerve.
“Well, well, what have we—oh.” Pamela had just sauntered in through the greenhouse doors, her silken purr cutting off abruptly as she took in the scene in her garden. Her coy look furrowed into a scowl, and she planted her hands on her hips. “I was expecting you,” she told Jonathan. “I wasn’t expecting you to bring a friend.”
“I didn’t bring him,” Jonathan told her. “He came here on his own.”
“Now Pamela, what kind of way is that to greet an old friend?” the Joker asked her, his wide red mouth pulled back into his best approximation of an ingratiating smile.
“You’re no friend of mine,” she told him. “If it weren’t for the fact Harley likes you, I’d have disposed of you a long time ago.”
“Aw, Pammy, dear. Whatever happened to the old Arkhamite solidarity?” Joker asked.
“Oh, please, there is no such thing. You’re all just more humans to me.” She waved a careless hand, as if to bat the idea out of the air.
“Except Harley,” Joker reminded her.
“...except Harley.”
“And Selina?”
“And Selina.”
“And Eddie sometimes?”
Pamela made a face.
“Alright, not Eddie. Ha!”
“Pamela,” Jonathan interjected before the Joker pissed her off too much. “I understand you have every reason to be upset with us for--”
“Trespassing in my garden, again? Disturbing my dear children, with aims to steal my supplies and set back my world-saving work? I’ve killed men for less, doctor.”
“Recovering my own stolen property,” Jonathan corrected. “I know you slipped in and took my chemistry equipment after the Bat hauled me off. Mr. Freeze told me so, and the police reports corroborate it.”
“That equipment had been confiscated by the GCPD. That makes it up for grabs, and I grabbed it.”
“Technically that makes it important police evidence.”
Pamela snorted, expressing succinctly her opinion for the GCPD. One of the neighboring plants lowered its bulb into her shoulder, nudging it, as an affectionate doberman might do to show its desire for attention. She stretched up one rough green hand and scratched it behind the leafy fronds.
“I stole it fair and square. You tried to steal it, and failed. So here we are. That’s Arkhamite solidarity for you.”
Jonathan squirmed in his bindings. Now that he considered the whole scenario again, it gave off the distinct impression of a trap. Pamela shouldn’t have needed to take everything from his old lab. She had her own fully furnished workspace. It had been no lie, either, what she’d said about killing men for less than he’d done. If the Arkham crowd ever did show restraint to each other, it was for one reason only: because they thought they might be able to use each other.
He sighed. “You want something.” As one of the only men in Gotham with some immunity to Pamela’s mind-control (one of the happier accidents of his extensive self-experimentation with various neurotoxins), Jonathan was in the unique position of being subjected to Pamela’s other modes of persuasion. None of them were ever pleasant.
(The other man with mind-control-pheromone immunity was currently cackling beside him.)
“I’ve had an idea.” Her eyes lit up like twin emerald sparks. “Every day that I consider the state of our poor mother Earth, the clock ticking down to that moment when our carbon saturation reaches the danger point, and the poisons spilling into her oceans and atmosphere does irreversible damage, it fills me with terror. A terror I want to share with all the policymakers of America.”
She began pacing back and forth, all but spitting her words. Little creeping vines wriggled in her wake, following her heels.
“I try to cut down the human population, and Batman stops me. I mercifully elevate the meatsacks of this city to the level of plants so they can keep their miserable lives. Batman still stops me. I ignore the innocents and target the jackals responsible for poisoning our planet, and STILL Batman stops me. If it weren’t for the intervention of Wayne Corp, the worst of them would still be active. So. This time, I will be subtle. You will help me condition the men at the top into such fear over our environment that they clamp down on all pollution, destroy the fossil fuel industry, and reduce our carbon emissions to 0.”
Jonathan took a moment to think while the Joker giggled in the background. “That should be doable,” he said. “It will take a lot of planning and infiltration. Delicate work.”
“We’ve never been afraid of a little hard work, have we?” Pamela asked.
“You know I’m usually open to collaboration. Why go to all this trouble when you could have just called me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve intruded into my sanctuary, and I’m being merciful. You will work for me in exchange for me not feeding you to my pitcher plants.”
So she wanted to play it that way, did she.
“Fine. Now let me down so I can get back to putting my own house in order. I’ll get in touch with you when I’m ready.”
“If I let you go, you’ll disappear into some hidden lab of yours and none of us will see you for months. No, you’re staying here where I can keep an eye on you, and we’re getting straight to work.”
Jonathan bristled. This was the problem with collaborative projects with other rogues. Everyone wanted to be in charge, and no one liked being controlled.
“Pamela...” he hissed through clenched teeth.
An explosion of heat and noise from somewhere to his right knocked Jonathan off his feet. He hit shoulder first and temple second, a crack of painful white light searing his head. The binding plants flinched away from him, squealing with almost animal noises. Groaning, Jonathan cracked his eyes open. He pushed himself gingerly upright, head swinging to the right in search of the source of the explosion.
Pamela’s laboratory was in flames, the equipment all scorched and broken. The woman herself had recovered already and was running around with a fire extinguisher, screaming about her babies. The Joker had vanished, the only sign of his presence a cackle of distant, fading laughter. The clown must have slipped away while Jonathan and Pamela were distracted, and mixed up a little havoc in the chemistry lab. Letting Joker loose near a chemical laboratory was like tossing a lit match into a tank of gunpowder: explosions were inevitable.
He would decide later whether this turn of events was good or bad for his future health. Pamela would be furious with both of them, but Jonathan had no intention of playing housepet for her anyway. He limped to the nearest exit and disappeared into the Gotham shadows. It seemed he would just have to bite the bullet and buy a new laboratory after all.
At last, everything was set. His living space had been fully furnished, his books all set into place on their shelves, and in piles on the floor, and on every blank surface. His cat and bird had settled among the stacks. His new lair had been established, equipped and resupplied. It had been a steal, really. The Broker had managed to find him an outfitted hidden lab in the subbasement of an old burnt-out apartment block. Why the former owner--some kind of bizarre specialist private detective--had needed a hidden lab, the Broker couldn’t say, but the formica counter tops were a godsend.
He had just finished putting away the spoils from his latest raid on Gotham Chem and was coming home for a well deserved rest. There was nothing like a good book and a warm fire after the excitement of a well-executed heist. He came in humming an old Chuck Macgregor song under his breath, hat and burlap mask in hand. These he hung on the hook by the door, in a rare whimsical mood. Only two things could ever put him in such high spirits: the tormented screams of his test subjects, and the completion of a hard task well done.
“...baby, look at you now...” the last note died in his throat as he turned around and, for the first time, registered the forbidding redhead in black leather seated in his armchair.
Batwoman had his cat in her lap, her gloved hand smoothing the fur down the animal’s back while she smirked at him. Phobos was purring loud enough that Jonathan could hear it from across the room, the traitor.
Jonathan bristled, his right hand drifting to the plastic skulls hanging from his belt. Each concealed a cartridge of fear toxin--he’d learned to hide his weaponry better after having it taken and used against him one too many times, not only by the Bat, but by GCPD and sometimes even civilians.
“Can I help you?” he hissed.
“Maybe. 9th Street. 10 pm, Thursday. A whole crowd of evening pedestrians suddenly breaks out in a panic and trample down towards Broadway, screaming about “the eyeball ghost”. So I think to myself, who’s out of Arkham right now who likes causing mass hysteria for kicks?”
“Research,” Jonathan corrected testily. “Any enjoyment I get out of my field testing is secondary to the advance of my science.”
“I don’t hear a denial anywhere in there, Halloween King,” Batwoman said. Still she made no move towards him, just sitting there and stroking his cat like some kind of goth Bond villain.
Jonathan wracked his brain for what he was doing last Thursday. He didn’t recall gassing any crowds that day. In fact, it rankled a little to realize there had been a mass panic and he hadn’t been present. It would have been great fun. Educational.
“Not that I expect you to believe me, but it wasn’t me.” He paused. “Did you say ‘eyeball ghost’?”
“That’s what they were screaming. ‘She’s coming for my eyes,’ ‘fingernails like knives,’ etc.”
“My toxin drags forward the deepest, darkest fears from a person’s psyche. Because of this, the hallucinations are highly individualized. If this were my toxin, they would not all be seeing the same thing.”
Batwoman considered this. “You’ve used toxins that trigger specific phobias before.”
“Specific hallucinations,” he corrected. “For use in targeting common phobias. Spiders, snakes, heights, etc. I’ve never encountered a drug that can make people hallucinate about ghosts.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Maybe.”
“Assuming I believe you...”
She pulled a folder off the stack of books next to the armchair and tossed it just so, so the contents artfully splayed out over the coffee table. Photos of people running, screaming, trampling each other or cowering on the ground, spread over the lacquered wood. Jonathan lurched forward as if pulled on a lead, transfixed by the images of terror.
“Tell me everything you can, and I’ll let you keep the pictures.”
He scooped up the stack and examined each photo with a critical eye. If a little smile pulled at his cheeks as he did so, well, he couldn’t help enjoying his work. The photographer must have had a good burst mode on their camera. The blur was minimal despite the frantic energy of the subjects, perfectly capturing their wide eyes, blown pupils, screaming mouths--
“Focus, Hannibal Lecture,” Batwoman scolded.
“I am,” he hissed. He inhaled sharply, adjusting the glasses on his nose. Then, in a calmer tone, he asked. “Have you noticed they’re all running from a single point? It’s as if they’re all seeing the hallucination in the same place.”
His uninvited guest perked up, her hand stilling in his cat’s fur.
“Could it be the spot where the neurotoxin was dropped?”
“You’re making the assumption that it’s in a gas form. Even if it was, they shouldn’t have enough presence of mind to flee from the higher concentrations of toxin.” He went over the photos a second time, considering the angles of the fleeing bodies. “It’s more likely there was some kind of trigger right around there, maybe in the window of that condemned video store. Yes, that’s definitely what they’re all running from.” He held one photo up close and squinted at the video store. “Whatever it was, it didn’t show up in the photos.”
Batwoman’s explosive sigh startled him so much he almost dropped the pictures. “Shit. It’s a real ghost.”
“That’s your first conclusion?” Jonathan asked. A lot of strange things happened in Gotham, true enough, yet as a man of science Jonathan was loath to attribute much to the supernatural.
“Buddy, if you’d seen half the shit I have this week...” she trailed off.
“Ghosts do not exist,” he said. He very adamantly wanted to believe ghosts did not exist. The idea that Great Granny Keeny might come for him from beyond the grave had haunted him well into adulthood. He hadn’t managed to lay that fear to rest until he’d met Batman, and been forced to confront that very scenario with a dose of his own medicine. Only bats scared him now.
“Tell that to La Llarona.”
“The...hispanic folk tale?”
“No, she’s real. I met her. Almost got drowned by her. Didn’t get a t-shirt.”
“Do you fear the water, Batwoman?” he asked, excited by the small tremor in the way she pronounced ‘drowned.’ On his mental list of phobias held by Gotham’s protectors, Batwoman’s entry remained stubbornly empty. Sure, he’d gassed her before. It hadn’t gone well.
He still couldn’t believe she actually bit him.
“The formless pressure of water assaulting you on all sides? Light fading as you sink away from the surface into the crushing dark below? The scream for oxygen burning in your lungs?”
“Yeah, alright, let’s wrap this up before you work yourself into a feargasm. I’m taking you--”
He caught the glitter of the batarang in her hand and reacted on reflex. The skull was already in his hand, hidden cupped in his palm the whole time he’d been examining the file. Confronted with the possibility of violence from a bat in his belfry, Jonathan did as any self-respecting rogue would have: he panicked and threw a grenade at her.
The skull exploded into a cloud of billowing orange smoke. Batwoman was on her feet the moment the plastic hit the carpet, her arm winding back for the throw. She had a gas mask in her other hand, ready to snap on her face and hold back the toxin. Phobos hit the floor on all four feet and took off in a black yowling blur, spooked by the flash and bang of the grenade. By design, the fear gas itself had no effect on his pets.
Jonathan backpedaled rapidly for the door, not willing to turn his back on the intruder. A batarang flew out from the smoke, clipped his arm and drove burlap into plaster, pinning him by the sleeve. He ignored it, fumbling to get his own mask on one-handed before the cloud reached him. The slender black-red knife of Batwoman’s figure had already vanished inside the orange swell, and its whispy tendrils steadily crawled across the room, reaching for the walls.
In a screech and a flutter of wings, Kraw leapt off his mantelpiece perch and dive-bombed the cloud. Batwoman yelped and emitted a storm of muffled cussing that would have made a marine blush. A click and rattle of plastic at his feet--Batwoman’s gas mask skidded over the carpet, knocking against his toes.
“@#$%-ing bird!”
Bless that crow, the years it took to train him had been worth it.
Jonathan attempted to pull out the batarang, flinched when the sharp edge cut a line down his thumb. Instead he wrenched at the caught fabric, sawing through it with the edge. Batwoman was still cursing, stumbling, knocking over books and furniture. Though he strained his ears to catch any hint of what awful fear she might be experiencing, all he heard was more cursing, complaints about his bird, and an accusation that he was, quote, “a sinister Disney princess.”
Hissing, Batwoman dove out the window and ran off. Free of the batarang and the interloper, for now, Jonathan took the moment to catch his breath and stand still. The confrontation had given his overtaxed adrenal glands a rare jolt, and he was enjoying the way his heart raced. Kraw fluttered up to perch on his shoulder, wings ruffling in a self-satisfied way.
“Very good, Kraw. Excellent work,” Jonathan soothed him. He scritched the feathers at the base of the bird’s dark head. “I think you’ve earned a treat.”
Kraw cackled with enthusiasm.
While he dug some fruit out of his fridge, Jonathan dialed the Broker.
“It’s Crane. I’m going to need another living space. Yes, already. I had better not find out you have any little information leaks in your organization, or I will have to show you the true meaning of terror.” He glanced over his shoulder at the piles of books. God, his back ached. “Would you also know of a discrete moving service?”