prodige: (pic#)
Matt Holt ([personal profile] prodige) wrote in [community profile] dappered2015-09-23 06:59 pm

Arkham AU



[ He goes in order.

It galls him not to start with the replacement but the boss’s orders are clear: the show has to have symmetry. A flashy opening, rising tension, and then a dramatic finale. It makes sense to start with the brat, who comes with his own pack of enemies and baggage. It’s made to look like a voluntary absence. He even leaves a neatly typed note.

The brat is strong. Jack is charmed by his ferocity, despite everything, and as a gesture of goodwill beats him unconscious so that he’s not awake when the boss drops by to see the first captive. It earns Jack a split lip of his own that the kid isn’t awake to be toyed with, but the boss has a schedule and he’s on his way. This is Jack’s first solo show without his mentor keeping a firm hand on his collar. He can’t be babysat forever.

He snaps like a dog at the blow, lips drawn back over bloodied teeth, but he knows better than to bite. The hand that hits him, that cuts him, is the same hand that strokes his hair and feeds him, and he submits to being blindfolded and bound (hooded like a raptor) for his food. The boss likes to sit sometimes with Jack on the ground next to him, cheek pillowed on his thigh. The boss likes to do meetings with him in this position, sometimes chained to the floor like a tiger leashed next to a throne, sometimes with Jack’s arms around his waist, hiding his face. Their guests don't know who he is. The ones that suspect keep their mouths shut, that the Joker has a boy the way the Bat used to have an adopted son.

He's not really a boy, though. He can’t perch the way he used to. His collar is heavy and iron, and he kills when he's given the signal before circling back to his master's hands.

The brat doesn't recognize him, not that there's anything to recognize behind the blank face of his harlequin mask. The brat gets a boy sized birdcage and a headache when he wakes up, and rails at Jack in several languages.

The replacement puts up a good fight. The replacement, he thinks, figured out he was coming. He doesn't look or act surprised at the costume, although he tries to get Jack to talk the way the kid hadn't. It's smart. Jack laughs at him because that's what the boss wants. The replacement asks about Damian. The replacement talks about Batman.

Jack stops laughing and drops him as brutally as he can, unprepared for how the words made him feel. He hates Batman, of course. He hates everything Bat, except maybe the little birds (although he's careful not to tell the boss that), and for a moment he wishes for the blindfold and the ropes and the boss’s cold fingers stroking the brand on his cheek to make sure it would scar, because that was safety to him. He knew what was expected, to be quiet and still and good. Hearing Timothy Drake tell him that he doesn't have to do this, that Joker is a madman that will kill him one day no matter how well he obeys or how loyal he is, makes something churn in his stomach.

He knows the boss is crazy. It's hardly a secret. But the boss made him. Stripped off all that scar tissue of abandoned son, failure partner, and made him into something raw and lean and deadly. He doesn't need a partner and neither does the boss. He's a bomb with a wind up clock. He feels the hand on his leash even when the boss is a continent away.

Red Robin gets another birdcage, and Jack isn't kind to him. He leaves him conscious for the boss’s inspection, and kneels patiently on the cold floor in his hood and jesses, taking delicate bites from the boss’s hand while boy wonder number two bleeds. Being blindfolded means he doesn't have to watch or listen to the narration, only be seen, and he shivers absently at the wet trails painted over his lips. Something about him being there gets Red Robin shouting. Jack tunes him out.

Nightwing is the last bird on the list, although he's been scarce of late. Jack doesn't want to wait around on someone else's cue so he takes to the rooftops of Bludhaven in open challenge, playing bait. If he catches a bat instead of a bird, well. The boss man had plans, and Jack had plans. It was always going to come down to who had the better timing. ]