Spoiler warning: Chapter features Wonder Woman.
Chapter 1: Captured (3833 words;SFW)
Day 0, Gotham City
Rydan stands with his back pressed against the wall next to a heavy steel door. He has a machine gun ready in his arms, and a loaded pistol waits in his side holster. He shifts slightly, uncomfortable in his gear, the joker has insisted everything be clown themed. If Rydan is true with himself, he would take the machine gun in his hands, and beat the Joker to near death. But the Joker had a way of bringing out the worst in people, and he paid the bills. The military had given Rydan a lot of things, but had not left him with a very marketable skill set, and no one in Gotham could be a hired gun for long without getting scouted by the Clown King himself.
Suddenly the Joker stands up, grabbing a nearby steel bat.
“Well as much as I love playing with the bats and his toys, I think it’s best time we be going, we wouldn’t want him to end the fun early.” He ends the sentence with an unnerving laugh, and Rydan silently follows him to a hidden exit.
Once we get to the top of the steps, the Joker looks at Rydan.
His eyes are completely devoid of humanity. “You know what I just realized?”
Before Rydan can give an answer, the bat makes contact with his temple and sends him tumbling down the stairs. “I haven’t gotten to have any of my own fun, back here making sure everything runs smoothly.”
He can barely hear the jibe over the pulsating ringing in his ears. The Joker drops a small green glass vial in front of his face. Rydan’s eyes fixate on the swirling smog within, as the rest of the room spins. His trance is broken by the crash of the steel bat, smashing the vial open and sending glass towards his face. His lungs instantly start burning, and he instinctively attempts to crawl away.
“Oh don’t worry deary, this won’t kill you,” he lets out another demonic laugh, clearly enjoying himself, “it will just hurt a whole lot.”
Rydan lets out a pain filled groan as he feels the poison spread like wildfire through him. White hot tendrils expand out from behind his eyes, twisting their way through his brain, down his spine, and to every cell of his body. Where reality once lay, only fiery pain exists. He can feel an unearthly heat behind his eyelids and complete darkness surrounds him. He starts to hear the screaming next. Deep tortured wails fill his ears and he curls up on his side trying to dappen the ear splitting screeches. The voices change continuously, replacing all sense of self and thought. They shift pitch, tone, age and some come with a painful stab of recollection. The toxin feels as if it is learning and is honing in on the most painful screams. His eyes squeeze shut but no matter how tightly he curls the flames won’t stop licking his face. He lays and waits in unspeakable pain, his every muscle tense as an eternity ticks on within his mind.
Meanwhile, Wonder Woman looks down over a desolate, savage landscape. The streets of Gotham are empty at most times, thankfully, but it lends them a forsaken atmosphere. Seeing no signs the gas spread farther than Flash noticed she activates her Watchtower comms, “I’m seeing some damage to the tower on the intersection of 12th and Winchester. We’ll need to send Damage Control there.”
As she lands fifteen stories below, Batman responds, “12th and Winchester, affirmative. Scarecrow is in custody. He’ll be secure until his trial.”
“I’m going to do one more search of Scarecrow’s lair. Something feels like it still doesn’t add up.”
Batman agrees, “I feel it too. This attack was too erratic for Scarecrow to have acted on his own schedule.”
The doors had already been melted this morning in Cyborg’s fight with Grundy. So she just steps over the puddle of semi-cooled steel on her way in. The decrepit hospital isn’t large, so she doesn’t expect to find anything they didn’t on first patrol. But she keeps walking the halls... and stops, and turns around. That stretch felt wrong.
She takes a few steps back and looks into one of the rooms. A mass of dusty bed frames and rusted IV poles, the room looks like it hasn’t been entered in years. She peaks around the door frame, observing the size. She walks back down the hall towards the next room, closely observing what was supposed to be their adjoining wall. She walks back to the first, double checking her assessment. There was missing space between the two rooms, a few feet stolen from each, subtle but there.
She taps comms again, “I think there may be a secret door. Authorization to demolish.”
J’onn’s voice comes through, “Granted.”
And with that, she smashes in the wall of the hallway about halfway between the two doors. And there it is.
“I found it. A stairwell going down.”
Batman tells her, “That building doesn’t have a cellar. They must go right into one of the old abandoned subway networks.”
“I’ll find out where it goes.” She cuts the connection again.
A few steps down the dark stone stairway, she hears whistling coming from behind the curve. She leaps up to the ceiling of the stairwell, and digs her fingers into the cement to stay out of sight.
The Joker. That was the missing element in this scheme. That’s why Scarecrow acted early, before he was ready for us. Joker never has worked well on teams.
When he’s in full view under her, she silently takes off her tiara, and throws it. The dull side clangs off the dome of his head, and he falls unconscious. She drops down and catches him before he can tumble down the stairs and possibly break his neck. She checks his pulse, and pulls an eye open to confirm he’s unconscious, and unharmed. And she picks up her tiara.
She speaks into comms again, “I’ve captured The Joker. He must be where Scarecrow got the piranhas from.”
With a red blur so brief even a regular Amazon couldn’t perceive it the Joker is gone.
She keeps going down the stairs and asks, “I thought you were studying this new Fear Toxin for a treatment, Flash?”
His voice comes back with the distortion she has come to recognize means the Watchtower computer has artificially slowed it down so others can understand him, “I am. But Cyborg is recharging, so no-one else could get Joker into containment sooner. And I knew how pissed off Batman would be if we let him get away.”
She nods, just before Bruce’s voice comes over to confirm, “Thank you, Flash.” She smiles.
When she gets to the bottom of the stairs she sees one of the poor men Joker forces to dress as clowns. It’s a few steps closer she realizes he isn’t dead, and sees the smashed vial of Fear Toxin.
She quickly leaps down the rest of the steps. She sweeps the rest of the room with her eyes, but there doesn’t appear to be any other minions or any contraptions. Just, as she’d suspected, massive aquarium tanks full of piranhas with human teeth, that have been retrofitted to the old subway tracks to get them here.
She kneels next to the man, and lifts his head to look at her, “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”
Her soft voice breaks Rydan’s horrible visions, but only for a moment. Through the pain, he feels her warm hand against his cheek. He tries to ask for help, but it comes out as a painful whimper. He attempts to reach out, every movement is accompanied by the feeling of razor blades grating against his bones.
Suddenly the pain stops and his demons silence. His vision snaps back into focus and suddenly he is looking at a beautiful woman. He quickly assesses himself. He is lying on the cold floor, with her soft hands holding up his neck and face. He can feel blood trickling down his face. In his painful reaching he had managed to press his hand against the lasso that rested on her hip.
“Shit.” Is all he manages to say.
Suddenly the pain and demons seem like a welcomed friend compared to a stay at the Arkham Asylum. His hand slips down, weakened by the torture he just endured and he is plunged back into the vicious hallucinations.
She sees his expression of terror return and quickly tightens the Lasso around his wrist, dispelling the visions once again. She brings her fingers gently to his chin and turns his head back to her, looking in his eyes for signs of instability, pain, aggression, and asks again, “Can you hear me? Are you injured?”
As reality floods back in, Rydan takes in his situation once more. He looks at her, finally able to really see her with his own torture forced to the back of his mind. Her intense gaze holds his as she speaks with authority, her power radiating through her. He looks up to her tiara and feels a wave of recognition. He knew her as Wonder Woman and although he didn’t know much about her, he did know that if you got this close, you weren’t making it to work the next day.
“Y-yes, I can hear you.” He hears his voice, but he doesn't feel like he is in control of the words it is forming. He looks at his hand, lightly wrapped in the lasso. Whatever this is, it must be doing more than keeping away the visions.
“I don’t think I am hurt too bad.” Maybe he can get away with it and wait for this drug to wear off. “But I think I am going to try and run now.”
As the words leave his lips, he realizes that now running was pretty much pointless. His body seems already committed to the movement as he grabs the coil of the lasso, and uses his free hand to whip up dirt into her face before trying to scramble away towards the enormous maze of tunnels that was the Gotham sewer system.
Wonder Woman’s hand closes a little more firmly around the handle of the lasso as she hears his words. She’s surprised, and blinded for a moment, and while she blinks out the dirt, she feels the Lasso go taught as he tries to run with his wrist still bound. She takes another moment to make sure her eyes are clear while he strains against her, and then she stands up, and pulls him back in, coiling the lasso around the fingers of one hand. His strength is coming back, but he is still easily pulled forward. He stumbles, his knees weak from the toxin.
She shakes her head at him, “This Lasso is unbreakable. It has bound Superman, and your own city’s Bane.”
She looks down over his garb. It’s misfitted. Obviously too tight, the body armor digging into his shoulder in one place. The Joker wouldn’t have much reason to carry armor in comfortable sizes. Anyone who works for him is too desperate to have any other options.
She thinks for a moment, and then continues.
“I won’t take you to the GCPD, unless you choose it. There are other fates available to you, once Flash finds a treatment for the toxin in your veins.”
“And what would these other fates be?”
He keeps his eyes on her, constantly looking for changes in posture or balance. Not that there was much point to that, he doesn’t know the full extent of her powers, but is pretty sure she can outrun him. Even with the situation as it is, he can’t help but appreciate how beautiful she is. His eyes linger on her soft lips for a moment, before he brings his gaze back up to her sapphire eyes and meets them as she speaks.
Wonder Woman stops pulling him in with about half a meter between them, and stands at ease apart from her grip on the Lasso, leaning in a little so she can speak softly, “I know why you became who you are, just as I know how Batman became who he is. This city is a machine. Vast, thoughtless, uncaring, merciless. The Watchtower has a process for people like you, who got caught up in the cruelty because of the circumstances of their life, not the choices they’ve made.”
Rydan can’t help but shake his head and let out an almost humorous sigh. “I would take it that you, him, and your entire organization know very little of this city. This city isn’t a thoughtless machine but a targeted killer. A corrupt few benefit while the rest of us suffer. The league only helps once it’s too late. Even working for the Joker I was doing more to actually fix the problem than the league ever seems to do. So fuck that. If my options are to go from one organization that destroys the city to another or prison, I’ll take prison.”
He holds her gaze steadily, forcing himself to ignore her beauty and view her as an enemy. She notices the deliberateness of his eye contact. Most men would be taking the biggest eyeful they could, at this distance. His respect reinforces her decision to offer him more than treatment.
“You’re coming with me to the roof. I’ll fly you to the Watchtower. Flash will treat you. Then, you will have a choice to make. I’ll take you to the GCPD, back to this city and the circumstances that led you here. Or you can submit yourself to League questioning. You’ll be put under Lasso, and a telepath will determine if you’re a threat. And if you’re not, we’ll find a place for you outside Blackgate. Maybe working with Damage Control, or on the Hall of Justice security staff.”
He listens to her words, not really considering them. Her voice is soothing, yet laced with the kind of power that made you listen.
“And who is going to protect me from The Joker if I talk? Darling, I may be a deeply broken individual, but I am not stupid.” He pauses with confusion, unable to understand why that left his lips, “Do you have any idea what he does to people who talk? I much rather you leave me here to wait the drugs off than suffer what he would have in store.”
His voice takes on a deadly serious tone at the end before he lets out another sigh.
“Some choice of fates. I could work for the pigs for a week and die a painful death, or I could rot in prison and I still might die a painful death. May I request options that don’t end in painful death?” He becomes physically exhausted thinking of how fucked he is.
She leans in, squaring her shoulders firmly, and lifts her fingers coiled in the same shining thread that ensnares his wrist into his direct view, the motion pulling him a little closer too.
“Do you believe me when I say that I too am bound to the truth by the Lasso even as I command it?”
“Yes.” He says after he is made to step slightly closer, slightly shocked by how effortlessly she moved him.
She closes her fingers into a fist, presenting conviction, “Then you can believe as I tell you that we can protect you, from Joker, and from Gotham.”
“Truth is subjective. Just because you think you can protect me doesn’t mean you can.” He pauses for a moment, “I would want to see exactly what measures you have before I considered joining.”
She nods, and turns to the stairs, pulling Rydan behind her, “It will take Flash some time to manufacture your treatment. You will see the Watchtower and have time to consider.”
She escorts her captive all the way up several flights of stairs to the roof of the building. Rydan follows behind her, stealing glances at her form as they make their way to the roof. If only they had met under different circumstances, he found her truly exquisite. He doesn't try to fight, staying close enough to her to keep the lasso slack. He keeps himself as prepared as he can, which isn’t very considering the dull pounding that has started behind his temple. As they climb the multiple flights of stairs, he becomes more aware of aches and pains. He starts taking mental notes, and by the time they are heading up the last flight of stairs he is aware of two things; getting hit in the face with a bat before falling down stairs sucks, and nothing seems broken.
She pries a small transparent rod out of a loop on her belt. She throws it out onto the flattest part of the rooftop, and it disappears into the air with a twinkle of reflected light.
She taps comms, “I have a victim of the Fear Toxin. One of the men Joker recruited. I think he could be a candidate for rehabilitation, but he wasn’t immediately receptive to the suggestion.”
J’onn’s voice sounds in her ear, “Understood. A medical bed will be ready for him, with a security shield.”
“We likely won’t need it. My Lasso is keeping the hallucinations away. I’ll be nearby to watch him.”
As she calls ahead for them Rydan can’t help but stare at her. Her gaze is distant as she speaks, the wind stealing her voice before it can reach his ears with much clarity. The moonlight streams through her dark hair as it dances in the wind. He forces himself to turn slightly away not willing to give into his desires to undress her with his eyes.
She reaches forward, and the ramp for the invisible jet opens for them, the interior becoming visible through the door. Rydan’s attention is thankfully drawn away from her by the hole opening up in space. His brain has a slight disconnect as it tries to process what he is seeing. Despite working around million dollar technologies and ancient magic all the time, seeing it never feels normal.
Day 0, Invisible Jet
She looks back at him as she leads him up the ramp and into the main cabin, a room with lockers and storage compartments covering one wall, and a row of seats with buckles and parachutes facing inward on the other, broken only by the hatch we entered through. Everything is practical, but sleek.
She takes him to one of the benches and ties off the lasso to a strap handhold. As her hands move away, the knot vanishes into just a seamless circle of rope with an enchanted twinkle. She crosses to one of the compartments on the other wall, and takes out a few simple pieces of clothing, and brings them to him, setting them down on one of the seats next to him.
“I need to go set our course. If you wish to change out of the clown costume, you may.” she pauses, and asks, “I’ll only be away a few minutes, but is there anything else you want? Some water?”
“You.” He blushes hard and looks at his wrist, suddenly debating cutting it off. “And the water would be great, maybe a first aid kit.” He is forced to finish through his embarrassment.
Wonder Woman tries not to react at all to his first request, and before she leaves she brings him the first aid kit from where it’s latched to a wall. It was not the first time the Lasso had compelled such a response, and likely wouldn’t be the last either. She heads towards the front of the plane and Rydan curses the combination of curiosity and attraction that made wanting her his truth. She definitely didn’t lack physical beauty, and she had an intensity so strong he could feel the atmosphere shift when she left.
He slowly strips off his uniform, large red lines dug into his skin from where the armor fit too tight. He pulls off his shirt and starts checking his arms and torso for injury. Among the red indents are scars from years of battle and tattoos from even more years of travel. He stares slightly shocked at how the fear toxin could hurt so bad without leaving a mark. Bruises have already started to darken down one side of his body. He starts probing along his ribs, taking in some sharp breaths as he hits sensitive spots.
As Wonder Woman tells the jet where to take them, she ponders why she wasn’t more careful with her question. After all these centuries, she knows perfectly well the thoughts that dwell under the surface of the mind. More so than embarrassment for herself, she feels sorry for embarrassing him.
She waits a few minutes, confirms odds and ends with J’onn, that Booster Gold will search the subway tunnels over the next few days, and Dr. Hamilton will help Orin de-mutate the piranhas and release them back to their native habitat.
Meanwhile, in the other room, Rydan starts peeling off the rest of his body armor and removes a knife from one of his calves and a revolver from the other. He stares at them and thinks for a minute. After weighing his options, he realizes he doesn’t really have any. He was here, and trying to fight it was just a waste. He opens the cylinder and tips it up over his dirty clothes, the bullets falling out into a loose pile on top. He sets the empty pistol and the knife on top and slips on the pants she had given him. He reaches for the shirt. He unfolds it and scrunches his eyebrows. It definitely didn’t feel like enough fabric, and little investigation revealed that it was a medium.
He shakes his head, not even willing to try it and carefully folds it back up. He debates slipping on his old shirt, but decides it is far too gross for a re-wear. He sits down turning his attention to the first aid kit. He looks through the various bandages, solutions, and tools while planning the best way to address the bits of glass in his face and the broken skin at his temple.
Wonder Woman is taking the opportunity to readjust and clean some of her outfit that had been tarnished battling Grundy. The swamp magic that made him was powerful, or else the smudges she diligently scrubs off would never have taken to the divinely empowered metal and fabric at all. With that done, she dresses again as well, and stops on the way back to the main cabin to get a magic glass, which upon being turned upright begins to fill itself with water. She steps back into the main cabin to bring him what he asked for.
