fic: dogs of war (gw/batman)
Aug. 22nd, 2008 02:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jukeboxhound_backupDogs of War
Pairing: vague 1x2 (and totally Joker+Batman if you read as much subtext as I do)
Warnings: Two racist terms, some foul language, and anarchism.
It took several hours and three computers sacrificed to security viruses before the Batman was able to find his targets.
“Sweepers Salvage.”
“Wing,” Batman said gruffly, “I need help from you and Death.”
The vid-phone’s screen on the other end was suddenly turned on, showing that the flat, mature voice which had answered actually belonged to a teenage boy sitting a small office filled entirely with computers and electronics. The boy didn’t seem surprised to see the Batman on the other end. If the neutrality of his Japanese features was anything to go by, there wasn’t much that surprised him anyway. “Mission?”
“I need every cell phone in Gotham tuned to a particular sonar frequency.”
Wing’s brow furrowed slightly in thought. “Show me.”
Batman revealed Lucius’ brilliance with his own cell, demonstrating how the small chip inside was able to send out and receive a signal that mapped out its surroundings within a decent-sized radius. The boy watched with narrowed blue eyes before he nodded sharply. “Ninmu ryoukai.”
Then his fingers were flying over his keyboard, every so often demanding a number or measurement in a terse voice. Batman forced himself to be patient, knowing that despite appearances Wing and his partner Death were his best chance.
“Batboy, darling!”
Speak of the devil. A round face with purple eyes and a wide grin appeared upside-down in the vid-phone’s screen, just as young as the first boy but far more loquacious. “It’s been geological eons since you last contacted us to do your evil bidding, Batboy. Don’t tell me you’ve found other little boys to play with.”
Batman ignored the crude joke and instead outlined what he’d asked Wing to do. As he spoke, the face in the screen rotated until Death was lounging right-side-up in a chair, a leg in black leather tossed haphazardly over the arm. Although Wing was dressed in casual jeans and a green shirt, Death looked like one of Gotham’s own street dealers in boots and a torn leather jacket. “I want you to tell me what you know of the Joker,” Batman finished.
“Probably started a life of crime after his last gig laid an egg,” Death cracked, anticipating the smack that his partner tried to deliver to the back of his head. “Actually, I’ve got no fucking clue who you’re talking about, man. The Japs over here have their own pantheon of themed villains, you wouldn’t believe some of the shit they wear—“
Batman had previously downloaded the Joker’s footage originally aired on the news and now used his obscenely expensive Wayne Enterprises phone to send it to the pair. Death scanned the footage while absently playing with the end of his long brown braid. Despite his previous irreverence, he watched the Joker’s little masterpieces with sharply focused seriousness. When he sat back, a thin smirk ran about his lips.
“Well?” Batman barked, patience running thin. Harvey wouldn’t be kept in a holding cell for long before being taken down to Central, and there was no way in hell he was going to allow that man to die.
“Jesus, Batboy,” Death murmured, “you are fucked.”
“I would rather have Jap tastelessness than gai-ko madness,” Wing muttered dryly after watching the footage over Death’s shoulder, making his partner laugh. Having been quite familiar with the derogatory word in his youth, Batman didn’t need a translation.
“Death,” he snapped irritably.
“All right, Batboy, keep your panties on.” The boy with the purple eyes and the braid laughed again, but this time it sounded darker and rather manic. “What do you want to know about the Joker?”
“What is he after?”
Death blinked at him innocently. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
“How do I stop him?” Batman amended, jaw tightening when Death started laughing.
“That’s like asking the fucking Devil to repent, sweetheart. ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’ is more than just a pretty bit of old poetry.”
“There’s always a way,” Batman said with quiet intensity. “Whether it’s money or anarchy, criminals are always after something. The Joker is no different.”
“Why do you fight?”
“…What?”
Death gave him a razor’s smile. “Why do you fight, Batboy? No, I know you won’t answer that, it’d give too many clues to the face behind the mask. But I can guess. You got hurt somehow—maybe someone broke into your house and made your mummy scream, or maybe your main squeeze got pushed off a bridge. Maybe your daddy died in the line of duty and you want to live up to his name. Maybe you’re just fucking crazy in the genius way that Wing is.” He winked at his partner, who gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “Maybe it started out as revenge or grief, but you’ve made yourself into a symbol, sweetheart. You’ve made yourself your own cage by trying to serve some abstract impossibility.”
“What does this have to do with the Joker?”
“The second you form an opinion on something, anything, there’s gonna be some asshole that doesn’t like you. Think about it like this: if you hadn’t made yourself the Batman, the Joker would’ve never existed. Before, everyone was content to muddle around in their worthless little opinions and wishes and broken dreams. But then you stepped up to the plate, you pissed in God’s eye, and so the Devil is answering you back. You’ve both sacrificed yourselves to the same fucking thing, you just have different MOs.”
“Kill you? I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off Mob dealers? No, you… You. Complete. Me.”
You complete me.
Death started playing idly with the end of his long braid, watching Batman through lidded violet eyes. “Haven’t you ever questioned it, Batman? Haven’t you ever watched a murderer walk free because he had the cash in one hand and the judge’s cock in the other and think, ‘this isn’t fair’? That maybe all your pretty law books and shiny gavels are no more impartial and equal than Nazism? The people you protect all pretend that they’re living in a world of order, that the wrongs committed against them will be punished. And in the middle of all this fucking self-delusion, the old lady next door is being robbed blind by her caretaker. No one helps the girl being stabbed to death because it’s the law’s job to protect her, not theirs. People look away when they see a suspicious bruise on a child’s face because it’s none of their business. It’s never their fault, their responsibility, and their very belief in some distant ideal of justice is what’s slowly killing them.”
The sneer on Death’s normally cheerful face was a work of art.
“That’s the society you’re trying to preserve. The Joker may be many things, Batman, but if there’s one thing he isn’t, it’s judgmental. Discriminatory. He’s the anarchy that your pretty little paradise can’t handle—he represents the world where the only currency is a man’s word and the greatest vice is lying to yourself. Have you noticed that while you’re restricted to the shadows, he’s out in the sunlight with his arms thrown wide?”
Yes. He’d noticed. “And his honesty is written in the corpses behind him?” he said flatly. “In the napalm and C-four and third-story lynching?”
“Hey, every man’s got to have a hobby,” and Death started laughing long and loud, as bitter as a Vietnam veteran despite still going through puberty. Batman didn’t know the identities of the two teenage terrorists, had only met them by mistake during his stint in a Chinese prison some years ago when an inmate had taken Death’s long hair as a sign of effeminate weakness. The young boy had promptly broken three of the man’s fingers before snapping his neck; Wing had watched impassively, later giving a thorough critique of the other’s style.
Even now, Batman wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to know where the two had come from.
Wing unexpectedly got up from his chair and came up behind Death, draping his arms around the laughing teen’s shoulders and giving Batman a hard look. “I’ve hacked the phone companies and sent you the information. You should now have access to every registered cell phone in Gotham.”
The connection was cut and Batman was left staring at a dark screen, unsure if the laughter ringing in his ears belonged to Death or the Joker.
TANGENT #1:
maldoror's fic Freeport has very nearly sold me on anarchism. And no, I'm not being facetious.TANGENT #2: Found this article about ten minutes after finishing this oneshot.
"Fearful for her grandson, Khadan-Newton began a drawn-out, heartbreaking effort to rescue him and his mother. She pleaded with police, social workers, judges and politicians to intervene, but she said she always got the same response: Since the child was with his mother, who left home willingly, nothing could be done. She sued for custody, but her daughter could not be found to be served with papers."
TANGENT #3: How many people have I pissed off with the flist flooding?
