The Joker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thelastlaugh) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
metalogs2022-06-25 08:13 pm
thelastlaugh) wrote in metalogs2022-06-25 08:13 pm
Entry tags:
A Robin Redbreast in a cage, Puts all Heaven in a rage
Who: Locked to Tim Drake. A surprise for mostdangerousbird
What: A patrol interrupted
When: After things have settled post-kaiju
Where: A shady part of Central City
Content Warnings: Kidnapping
The thing many people don't consider about the Joker is that there is method in his madness. He has gained and frittered away small fortunes, run entire criminal enterprises just to have enough money to try to kill Batman with custom built acid cream pie catapults and so on.
That is what he's done here. Quietly built up what he needs to terrorize the place, made his little plans, gathered information.
Like rumors about an avenging shadow. And a bat-dab.
When he hears that from an informant, his laugh bounces off the walls off his newest Ha Ha Hacienda. Humormist, a large, abandoned vape shop in an area of town with quite a few abandoned buildings. The shop is never open but because of what it is, the rare passers-through don't think anything of the occasional smoke and vapors that rise from the chemical processes going on in the back rooms.
The Bat is here, and where the Bat goes, the bat- and bird-Brats often follow.
So he puts out feelers, pays people to keep an ear to the ground. A low-rent crook with invisibility powers spots a few flashes of color one night when Robin is staking out a park. It doesn't take much to figure out a few places where he passes through on patrol. There are rumors of kidnapping. If he's staked out one park it may be that he's trying to unravel the mystery - and that he'll go to the places where kids might be taken.
He figures out a few vague patterns, sets everything up, and waits.
One night, on patrol in an area mostly filled with derelict buildings, Robin hears the faintest sounds of a little girl sobbing crying out, maybe a child of about 12 or 13 years old.
"Help! Help, please! Is somebody there? Anyone! Please!"
mostdangerousbird What: A patrol interrupted
When: After things have settled post-kaiju
Where: A shady part of Central City
Content Warnings: Kidnapping
The thing many people don't consider about the Joker is that there is method in his madness. He has gained and frittered away small fortunes, run entire criminal enterprises just to have enough money to try to kill Batman with custom built acid cream pie catapults and so on.
That is what he's done here. Quietly built up what he needs to terrorize the place, made his little plans, gathered information.
Like rumors about an avenging shadow. And a bat-dab.
When he hears that from an informant, his laugh bounces off the walls off his newest Ha Ha Hacienda. Humormist, a large, abandoned vape shop in an area of town with quite a few abandoned buildings. The shop is never open but because of what it is, the rare passers-through don't think anything of the occasional smoke and vapors that rise from the chemical processes going on in the back rooms.
The Bat is here, and where the Bat goes, the bat- and bird-Brats often follow.
So he puts out feelers, pays people to keep an ear to the ground. A low-rent crook with invisibility powers spots a few flashes of color one night when Robin is staking out a park. It doesn't take much to figure out a few places where he passes through on patrol. There are rumors of kidnapping. If he's staked out one park it may be that he's trying to unravel the mystery - and that he'll go to the places where kids might be taken.
He figures out a few vague patterns, sets everything up, and waits.
One night, on patrol in an area mostly filled with derelict buildings, Robin hears the faintest sounds of a little girl sobbing crying out, maybe a child of about 12 or 13 years old.
"Help! Help, please! Is somebody there? Anyone! Please!"
no subject
It’s the only predictable part of his patrol, every bit as reliable as the logic of where there’s a Bat there are bird-Brats.
One of the teens hasn’t shown up in a week, and tonight’s the first night of searching for where they might be holed up. There’s an old industrial sector about fifteen minutes walk from the park - mostly outdated 1920s warehouses that sit empty when they’re not being squatted in.
This one’s a little taller than it’s neighbors, with the upper floors being a maze of small storerooms and offices with mullioned frosted glass windows in the walls, half the panes busted.
The crying echoes terrifically with the cinderblock walls, barely covering the noise of his footsteps as he rushes to find her. ]
no subject
[The cries devolve into despondent sons.]
[When he finally tracks down the right room, he finds the child curled up in the corner of a room, a chain running from their ankle to a nearby radiator. She's sniffling, curled up in as small a ball as possible and has the blanket tightly wrapped around herself.]
no subject
He’s not here, I promise.
[ He drops to a crouch near her, and he keeps his voice quiet and soft, with no hoarse gravel to age it. ]
I’m going to get you out of here, okay? My name’s Robin.
[ A pause let that sink in. Picking the lock at her leg would be better than the one on the radiator - then she’s not dragging the chain on the way out. ]
I’m going to touch your leg so I can get that chain off you, is that all right?
[ He reached to tap her shoulder and get her to look at him. ]
no subject
[ In fact, it turns around completely backwards and reveals that it's not a child at all. It's just a very detailed mannequin, with a ventriloquist dummy head.]
[Gas shoots out of a hole where the nose should be, at such a rate it fills the room almost instantly. The mouth has a speaker.]
[The dummy's face is painted to look like a clown's.]
[The pre-recorded cries for help give way to a voice, distorted by the effects of the knock out drug, but familiar, echoing the way it does in Gotham's nightmares.]
Tell me, Bird boy, have you ever heard the one about the ventriloquist that lost his dummy?
Now he's just a schizophrenic!
[Then the laughter comes. Familiar. Mocking. Delighted. Communicating more than words, letting the mad cruelty spill out of him for all to hear.]
HA HAHA HAHAHAHAHA!
no subject
There must be an air compressor in the doll’s chest, he realizes.
He’s got a hand on his rebreather, but his legs have already given out. When did that happen?
The voice is the last thing that he want to hear as the last thing he hears. He wants to remember the joke, in case there’s anything to it, but the only thing that’s going to stick is the laughter that drags on as his eyes twitch under the mask.
And then they stop, and his body slumps further when his brain slams into unconsciousness. ]