#scaryverse

Most of them are exactly what you'd think: animals, general nature, plenty of her and Shaun and Mom and some of Dad. Her grandparents, a little. Plants. People she doesn't know, places she doesn't recognize. Quite a few of a young man with a chipped tooth and a red buzzcut and a beaming smile.

But there's some that are. Kinda weird.

There's one that has five pages of a cartoonish man in a...she guesses it's some kinda ninja mask...suffering various humiliations. He gets swarmed by monkeys, trips and falls off a cliff, crushed by a piano...

She gets the feeling Uncle Antoine didn't like this guy too much.

But there's more. A very detailed drawing of a tank--the tank, from the weird photo--with a one-legged man's lower body under it. There's Jimmy Rogers, but he's surrounded by monitors. One picture takes two pages: a sprawling compound with tanks and soldiers and a caption stating 'home sweet home'. And then there's Him. The one with the bizzarro helmet.

If she hadn't seen that photo, she'd have thought he was some kind of comic character. But he was real, and here he is again, leaning against the edge of the paper and looking at her.

He's here a lot. He was certainly something, she thinks, if these are accurate. He's seldom still: she finds him mid-flip, mid-lunge, mid-everything. But she also finds him whacking into a door frame, being picked up by a giant of a man with a bald head and a butterfly tattoo sleeve, and sitting behind a desk with a few z's above his head.

And she sees him in Gotham City.

However.

The hands-down funniest way for Jason to introduce himself properly to the Squad is as follows:

Jason: *sneezes during road trip. sound is muffled due to helmet and a friendly argument in the backseat*

Jason, inwardly: ewewew...fuck it, I can't live like this

Jason: *raises faceplate*

Red Hood. Unmoving. Maybe dead, maybe not, but he's sprawled on his back and blood is pooling beneath him.

He's gotta be dead, right?

(Never mind the rumors that he doesn't stay down, that he's come back at least once already.)

(Never mind that he might be Robin's angry ghost.)

He risks approaching. Hood doesn't so much as twitch. Okay. Okay. He'll just check this out and then backpedal, call it in, and hide in the security office until the boys come.

Greg has no time to register his mistake before Hood moves, kicking his legs out from under him and disarming him before he hits the ground. Hood inspects the gun, nods once, and aims it at Greg.

"Thanks for that, I ran outta bullets." The grin behind the helmet is audible. "Tell your friend thanks for the blood puddle."

"No-no--please--"

Antoine hasn’t lived this long without developing a healthy sense of paranoia. If he’d developed it earlier–

Well. Dwelling can’t change anything.

But something’s off. Look, the Arkham Knight is…fuck it, Antoine doesn’t have to be charitable. The guy’s weird. The whole…armor…thing…aside, the guy’s straight-up weird. Antoine’s not sure what to make of him, really, but it doesn’t matter too much. He’s pretty confident, by this point, that he’s not going to snap and rip his head off, and that’s kind of enough. Paycheck’s solid, work is steady but–barring yesterday–not too rough, and so far, on a theoretical Rate My Employer, Antoine would give this a solid seven point five. Points docked on principle more than anything else.

But something’s off. Something has been off since yesterday. Sure, could be nothing (who the hell rushes a guy with a minigun head on, huh?), but…

He flicks his lighter a few times, thinking. What he should do is just stay in his lane, really. It’s just…

The Arkham Knight isn’t the type to zone out. Or if he is, Antoine’s never seen it. But yesterday, he was clearly out of it, because two times it took multiple pokes to get an answer out of him. And honestly, the guy can be…he hates to use the word clingy in regards to, well, That, but…he kind of is. Very, very seldom has he been out of touch for more than a few hours. Like, maybe three times has he disappeared somewhere for a couple of days. The rest of the time? RIP Antoine’s inbox.

…

He should stay out of it. People are allowed to have an off day or whatever, and anyways, it’s not his business. It’s not. He’s hired to shoot at things and drive (because the last time the Knight was behind the wheel was a certified clusterfuck and that’s never allowed to happen again), and that’s it. So what, the guy’s tired after…after all of that. That’s normal. A good sign, even.

(Antoine’s never seen anyone move like that and man is he glad he’s not a target.)

…

Texts are free. And easy. It’s reasonable to see if they have another job lined up yet.

What’s next?

There. He did his bit. Checking in without overstepping. 

He sets his phone aside, because there’s no reason to mind it, that’s ridiculous, and then picks it up again because that’s where Twitter and Buzzfeed live. But that’s fine. What’s he supposed to do, stare at this sketchy-ass ceiling that has what appears to be a bloodstain on it? Come on. 

Four quizzes (why does Buzzfeed always assign him clam chowder? He hates clam chowder!) later, there’s been no answer. This is also weird. The boss is not a big believer in downtime as it is, and he’s not the ‘left phone on DND’ type. Antoine suspects he doesn’t sleep much, because there’s been plenty of times his phone has gone off at odd hours because ‘client acquired’ or ‘job parameters changed’.

The feeling of something being wrong is growing. 

It’s nothing. It has to be nothing. 

(But what if it’s something, what then?)

Before he can overthink it, Antoine gets up, cursing everyone and everything in pretty equal measure, and heads next door. Just a quick check in, make sure everything’s fine (which it is), and he can go back to his own room, maybe get some sleep.

The Knight’s room is silent. No TV, no voices, no nothing. Antoine gives four hard raps, and, when nothing happens, risks calling.

“Hey, boss, you all right?”

No answer.

He knocks again, to the same results, and considers ignoring this whole thing for about ten seconds before heading back for his lockpick kit and his gun.

It’s only after he’s picked said lock that he registers the probability of the deadbolt, but he made good choices: said deadbolt’s not thrown. Something’s definitely not right.

The room’s dark. The armor’s piled semi-neatly in a corner, and the helmet is resting on the desk, eyes no longer that creepy glowing blue. No signs of anything wrong, but…

It takes him a minute to realize the Knight himself is in bed. Antoine reflexively half-backs out of the room before realizing that he hasn’t moved. 

“Sir?” he asks quietly. “Arkham Knight? You okay?”

He doesn’t get an answer.

(There was another time he didn’t get an answer, and that–)

Antoine turns on the light. 

The Knight’s buried in blankets, up to nearly the top of his head. Antoine leaves him for a second, checks the bathroom to make sure the room’s empty. Nothing. No signs that anyone else has been here.

Out of options, he heads back, sets his gun aside, and tugs the blankets down.

The first thing he registers is that this is a kid. Or damn near, anyway. Eighteen, maybe? Before that can sink in, his eyes find the brand: large, not that old, really, on his face.

Jesus Christ–

He’s not dead, at least. Now that his blankets have been taken away, he’s shivering, face scrunched up in clear discomfort. Antoine places two fingers on his neck and pulse be damned, he’s warm, blanket pile or no blanket pile.

This is potentially really, really bad.

Okay. He can compartmentalize. How the hell a kid got to be like this can wait. Whatever the deal is with the brand can wait. What needs to happen right now is a cooldown, and then finding out how this happened. Illness, injury, whatever. It can be fixed. It’ll be fine. He can deal with this.

“Hey, boss, you gotta wake up for me, okay?”

“Mm…”

Good. Good, good, good.

Antoine gives him a hesitant shake.

“Come on, you’re burning up, we gotta deal with this.”

The kid’s eyes flutter open, hazy and unseeing. That’ll do.

“No…”

“Yeah. C’mon, up we go.”

He pulls him upright despite his weak protests. Christ, armor or no armor, he’s still heavy. Heavy and uncooperative; he’s not trying to pull away, but he sure as hell isn’t helping to keep himself upright, either. The result is that Antoine has to half-carry, half-drag him into the bathroom. He doesn’t wanna go, either: the minute his feet touch the tiles, he tries to tear free and nearly yanks them both to the ground in a thrashing panic.

“Easy, easy, you’re okay, you’re just gonna cook if we don’t–”

“No-no–please–”

Block it out, just block it out, don’t think about it. Focus on the situation at hand.

Normally the Knight could easily free himself. But this time the thrashing stops as suddenly as it starts as he tries to double over, sliding out of Antoine’s arms to puddle on the floor, shivering and curling into a ball.

“Okay, boss,” he breathes. “Wet clothes suck, so we’re just gonna get you situated, please don’t try to bite my fingers off or something, okay, that’s not how I wanted my Friday to go…”

The Knight lets Antoine kind of…uncurl him a little bit (those are barbed wire scars, what the hell–), but he cringes back when Antoine goes to tug his shirt over his head. He doesn’t put up much fuss other than to try and hang onto the hem, though, and it’s easy to nudge his fingers away.

The problem is immediate. There’s a bandage on his side, but the dangerous red of infection is obvious without it. Antoine takes a second to breathe, to remember that there are no palm trees and that this is going to be fine because he’s not the stupid twenty year-old he was back then.

(Hell, he’s older now than Z.Z. ever got to be.)

“Tabling that…okay,” he says shakily, tapping the kid’s face until he looks up, “okay, halfway there, we’re gonna get your pants off and get you in the shower, okay? For the love of God, don’t try to kill me, I’m literally trying to keep you alive here, that’s all.”

He doesn’t get an answer, but he does get a reaction when he goes to tug his sweatpants off: panicked flailing, and a spooked, “No–please–”

Compartmentalize.

“Just be still,” he says roughly. “Okay…shower, okay? We’re gonna cool you down and clean that and get you back to bed. That’s all, I promise.”

The Knight stills. Well. That’s not the right word. He slackens, limbs going loose like a corpse’s and eyes drifting to some spot past Antoine’s shoulder. It’ll do.

Antoine hauls him into the shower and turns the water to lukewarm. The Knight stays still and heavy, breathing shallow, while Antoine pulls the head down and directs the spray towards his hair first, scrubbing his fingers through it to try and…kinda wash it. A little bit. 

“Okay…so far, so good…just stay real still for me, we’re gonna fix you up and have a talk about not keeping this shit to yourself…”

The Knight’s quiet as long as the spray stays on the top of his head. Not so much when Antoine goes to move it lower: he manages to rally himself enough to try and sit up, rambling, “No more, no more, please, I-I-I’ll be good, I–”

Jesus Christ. Okay. Just. Just table all of this, every last scrap of unasked-for information. He is a professional, this is manageable.

“You’re okay,” he says, because Jesus Christ this is not manageable. “We’re just gonna clean you up and get you back in bed. Just stay still.”

How much of that registers is anybody’s guess, but the pleading stops when Antoine redirects the water spray to his torso. It takes a minute or two, but the shoddy bandage does loosen, allowing him to see the full extent.

Okay. The infection is bad, but the injury itself is just a graze that hasn’t been dealt with properly. Stitches not required, just a cleaning (that’ll be fun) and antibiotics. Probably. 

His temperature’s going down, at least, so Antoine can worry less about his brain cooking or something. He turns the water off, pretends he doesn’t notice the barest hint of relief flicker over the kid’s face, and hauls him out of the shower and onto a towel.

“Okay, boss,” he says, “I gotta clean this out. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, ‘cause you let it go, so please, please do not bite me, claw my eyes out, or otherwise try to kill me.” There’s no answer. Not surprising, really; he’s awake, but clearly not here and selfishly…Antoine really, really hopes he’s dissociating. Might make him less dangerous. “I’m gonna go grab the first aid kit. Be back in a minute, stay down, you hear me?”

Confused blue eyes glance up at him with exactly zero recognition. So who knows. He doubts the Knight can go anywhere, though, so he gets up, darts next door and grabs his kit before taking a few extra seconds to just…breathe. Reorient. 

Compartmentalize.

First aid kit. Clean that out. Get the kid into dry clothes and back to bed. Anything after that? Figure it out then.

This is manageable.

The humidity here is doing him no favors and all right, maybe he doesn’t need to be quite so rough when he cranks up the air conditioner, but too bad. Okay. Door locked, boss right where he left him and look at that, still breathing, see, this is already going great! 

“Okay, boss,” he says, crouching down, “this is gonna suck, but I’m kinda sure dying sucks more, so just…just stay still for me.”

The Knight gives no indication that he understood any of that, but it’ll click soon enough, oh boy, will it click, it always does–

Compartmentalize.

It’s been a while since Antoine had to do something like this without the reassurance that a medic would be there soon to fix any fuck-ups, and if this needs stitches it’s probably gonna scar, but from the looks from the looks from the looks

Compartmentalize.

of it, that won’t matter. Okay. First order of business, clean the skin around the wound with soap, keep this from getting worse. That’s the least sucky bit and at least he’s not stuck using fucking hand sanitizer, because man, that’s not ideal but when that’s what you got you make do.

The Knight’s quiet for this bit. Nice and still, staring off somewhere behind Antoine’s shoulder. Good.

Unfortunately, that’s the nicest bit of this. The next bit, the cleaning out of any dead tissue or debris or whatever-the-fucking-fuck is in there, is the not-nice bit. In Antoine’s experience, it’s not the world’s worst thing, but…this is kinda, um. Kinda a lot infected. Ideally he wouldn’t be the one doing this, his track record is not good, oh boy, is it not good.

The first little bit comes out nice with the saline. But Antoine finally finds the probable cause of all this: little scrap of shirt that got…dragged in, probably. Got dinged enough and then with the compression shoving it down there…and it really doesn’t want to come back out.

Fun times.

“Stay. Still,” he says when he goes digging for the tweezers. “I gotta dig this out.”

Tiles nice clean tiles this is fine you can handle this

Fucking humidity I hate this

Compartmentalize.

The Knight’s not too thrilled about the tweezers: he tries to squirm away, but when Antoine grabs his shoulder he freezes like he’s been sh–stepped in a bear trap, eyes wide.

“Stay still.”

“Yes, sir.”

On one hand, great, verbal. On the other hand, Antoine kind of never wants that directed at him again, thanks.

Tabling that, too.

Breathe you gotta breathe shaky hands are the real killer here–

Better this than shrapnel.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he says, unsure who he’s trying to convince now, and that’s enough waiting, he needs to get this out.

It’s in there pretty good, for a shallow wound, and the tweezers slip the first time he tries to get it. The second time they catch and grip tight, but it doesn’t quite want–

The Knight’s breathing catches and Antoine knows he’s still alive because he can see his pulse in his throat and that’s good enough that’s good enough–

“Please–”

Compartmentalize.

“Don’t–” He gags, hands convulsing against the floor and head pressing tightly against the tiles. “Don’t, please–”

Compartmentalize.

The kid keens behind clenched teeth but it’s all right, he’s fucking got this–

There!

Little thing. Bit of cotton, that’s all it is, just a bit of metal cotton, it’s cotton. 

He sits back on his heels and breathes through his mouth because that cancels out the bloody palm tree smell. God, that useless fucking air conditioner–

“Halfway done, boss,” he breathes, and the Knight just breathes, shaky and pained. He can have a second. Antoine kind of needs the second, too. “Probably the worst of it’s over.”

He doesn’t get an answer. Okay, second’s over.

The rest of it’s smooth sailing, especially after the boss slips into unconsciousness and can’t…can’t talk anymore. This is gonna need antibiotics, and he’s gonna need vodka, so much vodka, but this is manageable now, this is fixable. He dries the kid off the rest of the way and manhandles him into clean clothes retrieved from a duffle bag he finds under the bed before he has the unhappy realization that now he has to get him back to bed.

“Why are you heavy,” he complains, because bitching keeps the palm trees at bay. “You’re what, like twelve? This is bullshit.”

“Aww, he’s a bitty baby,” Z.Z. teases, ruffling Antoine’s hair in that way he absolutely hates. “I should start carrying lollipops.”

“Screw you, man, I’m an adult–”

“Ay, Altair, we should start a star chart–what the hell is that–oh God–”

Hotel. Tiles. Nice safe tiles. 

Get it together.

He presses his lips together and figures okay, the bed is not that far because this is a cheap motel and thank God for that, and says a silent apology to his back before getting the kid into a fireman’s carry.

Least you don’t have to contend with the armor, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Z.Z.’s teases, and he ignores it. Even though it’s true.

The boss doesn’t wake when Antoine plonks him back on his mattress, but he’s still breathing and that’s enough for now. Antoine tucks him back in, runs a trembling hand through his hair, and figures he should finish this now while he’s still out and can’t freak out or try to run.

“Be back in a bit,” he says, knowing there’s no point to it. “Just stay down.”

* * *

It’s really not that hard to track down back alley antibiotics. You have to know who to ask, and whether they need to be threatened, bribed or simply flattered, but at the end of the day, they’re stupid easy to obtain. He has more trouble finding a bottle of vodka in a town that seemingly worships tequila. Tequila’s nice, but it’s not gonna cut it today.

The boss hasn’t moved, not even a little, but he’s still breathing and Antoine’s fucks to give stop there. Especially because he does wake up, kinda, even if he’s still out of it and…not, uh. Not really the Arkham Knight at the moment.

Fucking Gothamites and their worksonas.

“Hey, boss,” he says, and the kid’s face goes carefully blank. Politely interested. Okay. Okay, okay. “You fucked up kinda bad, so you need antibiotics.” He rattles the pill bottle and that gets him a reaction: naked panic that barely gets smoothed over. “Yeah, they probably leave a weird aftertaste, and I had to ballpark a dosage, but you’re fucking heavy and I’m not hefting you into a dumpster, housekeeping be damned.”

Nothing. Antoine pops the lid (really, child safety lid on contraband–whatever. Whatever.) and shakes out a little pink pill. Allergies cross his mind but honestly, it’s allergies or the alternative, and sometimes you have to make sucky choices.

“You gotta take it,” he says, and for once his luck holds: rather than fight him, even cursorily, the Knight reaches over with a shaky hand and takes it, visibly steels himself, and dry-swallows it without complaint. “I did bring a water bottle…okay. Good job.”

There. That’s all he can do right now, which means his next course of action is to haul a chair between the boss and the door, crack his vodka bottle open, and take a good four-second swig.

Tastes like shit–cheap vodka can be fixed, but eh, it’s not about the taste right now–and burns like hellfire going down, but his head clears up and his hands stop their goddamn shaking.

He tips his head back to look at the water-stained, cracking ceiling and sighs, tasting a relative of acetone on his tongue. Christ, none of this was on his bingo card today. Injuries, okay. Name of the job. He’s got his share, sure. But not…

Brand’s healed over, a voice in his head says unhelpfully. What is this kid, eighteen or so? He’s had that a while. 

That’s the worst of it, sure. But the other scars, those are old, too. He’s been fighting some kinda war for most of his life, looks like, and now…

He takes another swig of vodka. It does not delete the fact that while plenty of those scars are clearly from the give-what-you-get of melee, more of them look like torture. Antoine doesn’t usually get too involved in that sort of thing–not his skillset–but he’s not an idiot. He knows what the aftermath looks like, that’s usually when he’s been called in. To be the nice balm.

He could try to trace what injuries he remembers. Boss is a Gothamite, he might be able to find something pretty interesting if he dicks around on Google enough. But he really doesn’t want more information than he already has, thanks. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Knight’s plenty competent–well, current situation aside, anyway–and honestly? Everyone in this business knows that Gotham is Batman’s city. Seems the Bat’s getting a little lax, if this kinda shit can go down without him intervening. 

Good thing coups are familiar territory. 

He takes another swig and finally, finally his heart rate starts to settle and the lingering smell of bloody palm fronds starts to dissipate.

Yeah, none of this was on his bingo card. They’ll be in for a fun talk when this blows over, and tomorrow he’s going to start trying to track Jimmy Rogers down–he’s the best techie Antoine’s ever met, even if he is…well…a Way, and taking down Gotham’s Bat means you need the best–but today? No. He’s just gonna stay right here in the air conditioning and try not to think too hard.

Losing It

Close Call

Giggles

Returning Home

Brought Back But You're Running

Long Live the Knight

I Am Faded Through

Komodo Protocol

The Monster Never Dies

I'd Crawl on Broken Glass to be the One That Laughs Last

The Sun Rises (On Your Corpse)

Game Over

And on a technicality...

Watch Your Mouth

ALSO, while this playlist technically applies to the Arkham Knight in general, it really applies to this sequence of events, so it can come here too.

A little glowing square--shitty phone--burns behind Jason's eyelids until he opens them. Joker's little Twitter poll is on the screen.

Currently, the 'death' bar is a good bit bigger than the 'live' bar. Comments are turned off.

...

What?

He--he'd put his life on the line for Gotham, ended his nights broken and bleeding so these people could be safe a-and--

Hiding behind a goddamn thirteen year old, did you ever think they'd be different?

"You just don't have the popularity of the first one," Joker continues, grinning. "Sorry, sweetie."

Jason closes his eyes and drops his head when the purple hand reaches, almost kindly, out to caress his face.

"There's still a few days! Tides could change! You never know..."