Feral McGee™
It starts with the Joker.
His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he?
Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again.
The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does.
It happens like this.
The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair.
Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham.
And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair.
Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up.
He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold.
Then he looks towards the camera.
“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves.
Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham.
“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”
“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”
—
The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler.
He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes.
While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely.
Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch.
They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”
The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black.
Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless.
“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”
“Hn.”
—
After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised.
Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on.
Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down.
Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.
He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again.
And then the Joker escapes.
It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after.
Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up.
They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™.
The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid.
Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed.
“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say.
They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger.
“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood.
“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”
Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it.
In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him.
When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker.
“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”
The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”
“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice.
“Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”
“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”
“Hn.”
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Harley crawled into the apartment. It was organized, but it looked like the occupant didn't have a lot of time for cleaning. She walked softly through it, taking it in. There were photos of her target and what had to be her family, but no friends or romantic partners. Some had a pair of older adults, matching traits meant bio-parents. More of the photos were of the target and a younger boy - a little brother, the highest likelihood of becoming another target if things go bad.
Harley continued forward, following the light to where her target was. She stood in the doorway, looking in.
Dr. Jasmine Fenton, Arkham Asylum's newest psychologist, just got her degree and everything. She did what most newbies do, actually thinking she could get through to the Joker. Harley didn't want to say it was impossible, but everyone who tried ended up in a new job or dead. Harley would try and make sure it was the former and not the later.
Harley watched as the redhead read over a file as she ate from a takeout box. She didn't want to scare the girl, yet. The scaring her away from Joker came later. So, she had to wait for the perfect moment to-
"I know you're there." Jasmine didn't look up from her file, but held out the last box of Chinese food in Harley's direction. "There's plenty if you want some."
"Awe, you ruined the surprise." Harley walked out of the shadows of the hallway into the girl's home office. She snatched the offered box of food and took a few bites as she jumped to sit on the desk.
"I'm hard to sneak up on." Jasmine said, closing her file and finally looking at Harley. "So, Dr. Quinzel, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this evening?"
"Oh, call me Harley!" She laughed, she wasn't called Dr. all that often any more. She tapped her chop sticks on the file Jasmine just closed. "I thought you'd like a consult on your new patient, Dr. Fenton. I've got a lot of experience with him."
"I prefer to go by Jazz." She said with a smile, "While I appreciate the offer, I'd like to see how far I can get on my own. And, sorry, but I'm pretty sure your license was revoked."
Harley nodded as she swallowed to get the noodles out of her mouth. "I get it! You're new, fresh outta school, gotta prove yourself. But Joker ain't the guy to do that with. He eats people like us for breakfast, and in all the years he's been in Arkham, no one's been able to get anywhere with him."
Jazz sighed, "I don't like to believe people are lost causes. There's always something we can do to help."
"You can't help everyone, especially when they don't want it. And it's not just a question if whether or not he can be saved or whatever." Harley set down the now empty box, Jazz pointed to another one that still had food in it, but Harley declined. "If you keep it up, he'll think you're worth his time to torment. There's no telling what he'll do when he inevitably gets himself out again."
"I'll be fine." Jazz said, but Harley had to cut her off before she said something stupid.
"It's not just you! You've got family out there he can target, your parents. Your Brother! Anyone you date will become a target! He'll do everything in his power to make your life miserable!"
Jazz chuckled. "If he wants to target my family, his funeral. My parents are - were supervillains. They've really only become less- well, hyper-focused on eradicating an entire race of being- in the past few years. And my brother - I'm pretty sure he's conditionally immortal. So that's nothing to worry about."
"If it's conditional, Joker will find a way around it." Harley said, but she had to admit, this might have been an unnecessary trip. "You sure y'ain't got nothing to worry about? What about you? How conditional is your mortality?"
Jazz smiled. Her mouth seemed too wide and with too many teeth. "Oh, I am nowhere near immortal. But..."
She stood up and the room was suddenly a black void. Toxic green eyes and mouths filled with glowing white teeth opened around them. "I doubt anyone could get close enough to test it."
The room was suddenly back to normal, but whatever that thing was was still there. Harley could see its eyes watching her with amusement from inside Jazz's oversized cardigan.
"Well, I guess this really was a wasted trip. You've clearly got it covered."
"Not entirely." Jazz said, her hand wend up to her neck to rub nervously, "Well, you see... I don't really have a lot of friends. People tend to get - uh, creeped out, you know? Or chased off by my parents or brother or whatever..."
"You wanna be friends?" Harley laughed so hard she almost fell over.
Jazz's face turned bright red and the shadow eyes looked way less amused. "Yeah, stupid question. You've clearly got your own things going on."
"No! No, no." Harley had to take several deep breaths before she could look Jazz in the face again. "I 100% wanna hang out with you!"
"Really?"
"Oh yeah." She took another deep breath, "I mean, I really should have made a support system before trying to take on the Joker back when I worked for Arkham. This" she pointed between them "can only end well."
Jazz's face turned brighter than the sun. "Oh my gosh! This is amazing! We should - I have Thursday's and weekends off - What - what kind of things should we-"
Oh man, Jazz was like an excited kid. She must have had a really lonely childhood... they can psychoanalyze each other later. "Come over for girl's night next week. I'll tell my gf and bff to expect an extra person... Does the-" she motioned to the cardigan creature "-go everywhere you go? Does it need food?"
"Oh, don't worry about Jet, they only eat who I tell them to."
Harley barked out more laughter. "You're going to fit right in!"
Now featuring a Part 2
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