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ghostbsuter · 6 months

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Water drips down in the corner, the steady dop drop drop— does wonders for the bat.

Batman has been taken, tied up, and undressed of his utility belt. It takes him a second to figure out who took him, by the large but empty and run down warehouse, the sound of the shore not far away.

The docks. He shuffles, bound and comm off.

Then, the steel enforced door slams open and Joker enters.

"Batsy!" He calls, overjoyed. The man walks to the bound vigilante and crouches to his height.

"It's been so long, hasn't it been?"

The vigilante grunts. "Joker."

"Today will be different." He goes on, "today, we have," the crime Prince drums his fingers on Batman's thigh. "A guest!"

He freezes at that, Joker has a civilian.

(Oracle sends out the message, her voice firm, and the coords are shared to the rest of the clan in seconds as she looks at her monitor. Batman's red dot at the harbour bright.)

"I'm a guest now?" The voice of a child asks, it brings slight confusion that the boy wasn't tied nor harmed in any way.

It's relief that he seems okay, but the danger of standing next to the Joker has Batman wiggling in his restrains.

"Is that a promotion or demotion for son?"

A brief look of annoyance enters Joker before being smoothed out, the boy is dealing with a delicate time bomb. Uncomfortably close to the madman.

(He hurries in the process of breaking free.)

"My son! My blood!" Sings the clown, throwing his hands around the boy's shoulders and prancing around.

Which brings another question.

Son?

Cool lighting hits the boy's head and the tuffs of pink, blue and green become more obvious, hidden beneath black hair previously.

Joker and Harley have a child. A son.

He will visit harley later. The boy comes first.

"Dante! Danyal! Daniel?" Joker croons, shaking the boy. "What was it again?" He stops, turning his son toward him with a grin.

(Robin drops down behind him, hiding, katana ready to be swung.)

"Danny, actually," the child— Danny– shrugs off the hands and steps back. Unflinching from the judging stare, simply waving off the hands creeping to his throat.

"Danny," the name is tested, and the Prince of Crime hums to himself. "We can always replace it as Joker Jr! It fits you better than Danny."

(Red Robin and Spoiler get on position above them, ready to pounce from the construction pillars.)

"Yeah, I don't know about that." He chuckles nervous, catching Batman's eyes and—

His eyes alone scream of fear, scared– scared—!!

"We will get you an acid flower, a new suit as well, the hoodie looks horrible on you." The man notes, humming.

"I prefer hammers." Danny replies with tense shoulders.

Joker clicks his tongue, "You always went after your mother." he hisses, outright glaring at his son now. His hand tightened around the crowbar he'd gathered not long ago.

"I mean," he hesitates, eye trailing off the Joker and over his shoulder. "I did come out of her."

The sound of a loaded gun shatters the silence, and Joker is pulling Danny, switching their positions and pushing him right in front of the gun in Red Hood's hand.

"Always a coward, hiding behind others, aren't you." Danny stops himself from squealing. That's the Red Hood!

(Escrima sticks light up with electricity as Red Hood speaks.)

Joker is ticked off, party ruined and surrounded now that he looks around.

Oh well, he can get his son on his villain path another day.

Cackling, he evades the escrimas, dodging the wonder boy and evading the twin attacks from above.

He pulls out a trigger and presses the bright red Button.

"Have fun bats and birds!"

The warehouse is completely flooded with fear gas, scarecrow wouldn't be mad he sacrificed one of his warehouses, will he?

It's all blurry. In one moment, his view is shrouded, and he's coughing. In another, he gets picked up and brought outside, the Joker gone.

An oxygen mask is placed on him by a paramedic, being handed off to an ambulance that had been called.

Peeking around, he sees Red Hood (!) still lingering around. Danny catches his eye and with a wave, the man is walking towards him.

He simply crosses his arms and tilts his head, waiting.

"Could I get a picture?" Danny blurts out, flushing after and coughing, holding the oxygen mask in his lap.

Red Hood makes a show of his shoulder sagging before crouching down and leaning toward him.

Later, Danny will look at the picture with a boyish grin, crooked and charming.

.・゜-: ✧ :-

A continuation

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flavoroptimizer · 6 years

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Part 7

He'd borne his punishment with as muvh pride as he was able, knowing the children who made his life difficult were spemding their time in recuperation knowing he could easily harm them if they pushed him past tolerance. Even with his claws reduced to mere stubs, his peers had been alot more careful around him after that. Most of them, anyway. The garderner's son, a Golden Jackal by the name of Tabaqui, had taken to following him around when the pup was not working on tasks for his parents. Unlike the othwr children his little display of violence had apparently interested the older boy wherw it left others terrified. The most dramatic thing that the pup could recall happening before the fight had been an outbreak of the Bubonic plague following a particularly heavy rainy season(which had then been followed by a drought of all things vecause the weather in Bombay was nothing if not contradictory) but that that had been different. The bodies dropping A tiger cub enacting vengence upon those who had treated him poorly was far more predictable than a deadlt disease that struck without warning and had been responaible for takung the lives of four servant abs one of thw master's children. So, feeling he hed wanted to be associated with the tiger cub. He was not offering friendship. Instead he seemed content to be his talkative shadow. Lungri had no idea what to make about the strange vhange of evwbts, but as long as the pup left him undisturbed, he let him be. Following that incident he had started to pick fights of his own just to remind them of his prowess. He was no one's victim and if they wanted to scarw him thet would learn he wasnt one to be trifled with. In these moments he liked to pretend he was a deadly warrior king visting his revenge upon a clan of unruly bandits tht had invaded gis home. When he visited his wrath upon them he made it abundantly clear that if they nade any attempts on him again they knew he would not hesitate to show them exactly what had made his ancestors so deadly. In doing so he was giving up on the chance of friendship but it had always been an impossible goal anyway. He was better than them anyway, or so ge tried to convince himself. A part of him had briefly hoped things would change when his mom married a man who was outside the caste system. Tigers didnt usually form bonds outside of what they had with a parent. So, in the absence of the one that would normally form between a cub and their mother, he had hoped he could build one with his stepfather. As usual, he did not get what he wanted. The man had been friendly but he had gently informed the child that he wasnt qualifiwd to be anyone's father. The child in him wanted to tell him that in marrying his mother he had volunteered to be fathet by default. But you couldnt force someone to genuinely think of you as family. He would have already done so with his mother just in case she didnt feel for him what he felt for her. But his mother was not one incluned to abide by neediness. Demanding love and attention from her had never gotten him anything but cold anger and imposed silence. Why would the cook be any different? And if the behavior would only alienate gim further there was no point in seeking to begin with. It was logical to put it bwhind him. He was intelligent enough to recognize the futility in demanding something if the action did not earn him the desieef respomse. but beneathw the grudging acceptancw he seethed in anger. Adults were all the same. They diaplayed perfectly painted puctures of domesticity snd scorned hin when he wanted a piece of that to call his own. He may have solmnly accepted rhat the man would be father in name only, but in the aafty of his own thoyghts he cuesed the man for the rejection. He could have pretended to accept him as a son. Lungri was no mind readet. Instead he knew the man hadnt thought of him as sych at all and hed mentallu added yet another item to his bullet list of impossible dreams. But by saying he hadnt wanted to be "anyone's fathwr" in general instead of stating he hadnt wanted to be his father specifically he had unknoeingly presented himself as a target. It wasny his fault his stepfather hadnt wanted him so the blame lay instwad on the personal failings of the man who had married his mother. And he was more than happy to blame the adult rayher than himself for having done something to make the man dislike him. He prefered raging at othets in his head to rhw senseless repetitive wishes he had if he dwelt too long on hos lot on lifw. If he didnr aim those feelinga at external forces he would be thw ine subjectwd to them instead. And if he was the one to recieve all his bittwrness and anger he felt he would surely drown in the black morass of his emotions. His mother's status within the household had risen with her marriage(and lowered within society proper) but Lungri's position had not been affected. The man was not his biological father nor was he adopting him, which meant his caste remained the same. He was a herder, just as his grandfather had been beforw him. He had darkly observed that it was almost as if nothong had changed. He still recieved hust as little of the attention he wanted as he had always lacked. He had still been bren born handicapped, even something as relativelt small as a lame paw meant hr would be prevented from inheriting money or land by law. So upon learnibg he would not be forming any familial bonds with his step father, he chise to ignore the marriage and the cook himself outside work. It was a surprisingly easy thing to do. Perhaps the years he had spent maintaining a professional distance from his mothet made ignoring someone who shared no relation to him simple by comparison, or maybe he was kust givibg the man yge cold shouldet for denying him a familial tie hed always thought hed needed but thats how things were between himself and the man who was his stepfather. The cook was friendly but distant in returm. Strangly, the samr coulf be said of the relationship between the man and his mother. They worked together but they did not have the same sense of intimacy hed witnessed between ths gardener and his wife, the grass clipper. To his knowledge, neither his mother or the man she'd married had even seemed to sharw a bed. He tried not to question the arrangement out loud, but it was odd to say the least. When hed seen the cook embrace the man who tended the master's horse a suspicion had grown in his mind but he had opted not to ask hin outright, once his mother who had been with him ordered him to drop the subject. If he was right it had explained some things about his mother and stepfather that hadnt sat well witj him, but it also left him questions hed wanted answeting. Foremost in his mind was what kept them together if neorher party cared for the other in marriagable ways and what prompted their decision to get togethwr in the first place. Hed needed to talk to someone about it. Having no friends of his own and knowing his mother well enough to realize she would not answer any of his questions, hed brrn forced by necessity(all these secrets had left him fit to burst) to corner Tabaqui about it during dinner. The other boy was an entire year older than him and he had felt the disparity when those amber had looked at him increfulously, surprisef to learn the cub had honestly never heard of storied kf men who slept with men and wete caught by the authorities. Lungri hadnt anf had bitten yhe insi his hims. Out of all the sexual talk hed heard, it had been the British who had instigated it. His fellow wervants had never seen fit to discuss such subjects frankly without the master or one of his gueat's prompting them ob the matter. That wasnt to say rhe subject wasnt discussed. Or even that it wasn't broufht up somewhat frequently. The real difference was that moat seemed content to skirt around the acrua detaila, relying on euphimisms to get the point across while yhw English wetw generally quirw drynk ehen thwy brought it up and sometimes had a language barrier . Tabaqui hd onlu snorted at that, anf stolen a bit of the bread off his plare. The boy was hobestlt the most irrevalent person he knew, dismissive of cultural norms and people in general. Je chose to follow thr young tiger around when hr wasn't workinh because he found it amusing. Hw had settled down stealing a bit of his audience's rice and in a soft whisper casially spoke of the punishment q people, those of every religion he knew, were keen on leveling against those seen as sexually abnormal. He had found himself disturbed. Both by what had been described and how easily the boy spikr of such horrors, like an elderly woman discussing a friend's trouble with a rebellious daughter, he was simply too cheerful about the suffering of others to be entirely comfortable in his presence. Tabaqui hsd then topped it off with a casual memtion og men who married womwn to hide their identity like a performer might wear a mask. Lungri had decided from that point on he would not discuss matters with any especially dark answers with the other boy. He seemed to like it a little too much to be entirely comfortable.

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