A Safe Place To Fall

The sound of crowbars hitting flesh and Kevlar was like music to his ears, the Scarecrow mused as he ran full force away from the tell-tale sounds of his Henches pummeling the Dark Knight into the concrete. Yes, to anyone else it would have been a horrible, gut wrenching noise, but for him it was the tune of salvation and freedom. Least he be the one there getting the beating, fists he knew were designed and strengthened to break bones encased in flexible armor and leather marring his whippet thin body once more. No, no, let his employees take the beating for a while, since they were so keen to dish out a fight, and let him escape off into the night with nothing but his pride and costume still intact.

He’d long since stopped carrying chemicals on his body away from labs.

Let the women do the work, after all, they had volunteered. And really, who was he to say no when they were so determined to get chemical burns when they got caught escaping? (And they always got caught escaping…it was just who caught them that always seemed to change.)

Tonight it had been the Batman himself, a first in almost two weeks of his absence and the ever present hovering of Bat-Bunch. Nightwing had shown back up in Gotham at the same time the Bat had disappeared, the ever-present Robin diligently at his side. There had been no sign of Batgirl, but that was hardly a surprise, seeing as how she’d faded from the forefront some time ago. But not the Bat, which was bizarre in and of itself, seeing as how Jonathan was convinced he lived within the stone itself of Gotham City. It left Jonathan feeling uneasy and his Henches with extra tension to work out.

By the sounds of metal still striking flesh, they were doing a damn good job taking it out on the once-more present Batman. Too bad he hadn’t stuck around to watch, because by the sounds of things, they were winning…for once.

Normally they just got in a few pot shots, enough to give him a decent head start, before the Bat started to get serious and they started to get broken bones and concussions. On several occasions they’d even had the luck to be on the receiving end of torn ligaments and fractures bad enough to require pins, not that Arkham had bothered. That’s why the older of the two still had a bit of a limp when she walked, having broken her foot in more ways than one, and the younger of the two still flinching when picking something up when she thought no one was looking. Regardless of what they said, he knew that they still hurt, as he himself did, and despite what they’d like, none of them were getting any younger.

But apparently neither was the Bat…that or they were just really, really upset.

Ah, there were the sounds of metal hitting concrete instead of flesh, and then the sounds of confusion mixed with panic and adrenaline, though they were dulled and muted by his distance now. He’d be lucky tonight, only a few scrapes and bruises, the knowledge that he’d gotten the drugs out of the labs without the Bat figuring out how he’d smuggled them out, and a few weeks (hopefully) of peace when his Henches were drug off for their relatively short stay in Blackgate or Arkham. Really, couldn’t the dunderheads at Central make up their minds as to where they were being sent?

Apparently not, not like he really cared anyways. Either way, it only take them a bit of finagling or work to get back out and to return to him like some sort of overly-aggressive strays…which they were, in a sense. His overly-aggressive strays and he rather thought it odd to think of them like that. Normally he wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole, not if he could help it anyways. They were always…touching him. He didn’t like it.

But tonight they were –not exactly touching- someone else.

Well…more like beating the living Hell out of someone else, that someone being the notorious Batman, but still it wasn’t him. Not that he wanted them to beat up on him, anyways, but sometimes it just irked him to no end when they stayed behind to fight while he ran away like the coward he was. Eddie would accuse him of caring for them, Doctor Chimera of even going to so far as to love them, both of which were untrue and true simultaneously in their own way. He did care what happened to them, because what happened to them ultimately decided what happened to him in the end. He wasn’t heartless…totally, anyways.

But back to what he was doing before he lost himself in his mental musings, as in back to running in a dignified yet appropriately terrified way. The Batman always did have that lovely affect on him, and if there was one thing he knew almost as well as his own Toxin formula, it was that the Batman rarely worked alone anymore. Somewhere out in the dark back alleys there would be another one, a smaller one, but another one none-the-less. So where was the unlucky little devil now? He had a special new batch of Toxin he especially wanted to try out, and with the way things were going tonight, it would be the perfect time to do so.

The swirling sound of a bola flying through the air was his only indication that he wasn’t alone before metal met flesh and soon flesh met dirtied concrete mixed with garbage. It stung where the pavement ate through his thread-bare costume, but no more than scrapes did normally. He’d long since learned not to try and break his fall with his wrists, after having them broken on more than one occasion from doing so.

When that particular train of thought was disturbed by the sudden appearance of his least favorite flying rodent, one that had a ridiculously touchy way of going about crime fighting and no style what-so-ever with that head of long hair, he had to keep from flinching and prepare his now-slightly shaking hand for the delivery that was to come. It would be glorious when Toxin met with nubile young lungs such as the pair that Nightwing possessed, and he couldn’t wait to hear the infuriating man’s screams once it had. They reminded him of past screams heard countless times when he’d used Robin to his advantage.

And regardless of what others thought, he still wasn’t stupid enough to miss the fact that the Robins –yes more than one- changed throughout the years. At least three times, by his count. The body styles had changed, as well as the fact that unless Batman hired a child with a growth problem, the younger male would have gone into a growth cycle at some point. Currently, it looked like he never had, since this was a fairly new Robin. But it didn’t matter…not now, anyways.

What mattered was the fact that he was two feet and seven inches away from the sounds of gas hitting the night air and screaming.

But then Nightwing stopped.

Just as the sounds of labored breathing and metal striking brick started.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite little plague doctor?” Nightwing’s attempt at humor had always been filled with flirtatious mannerisms and badly concealed puns. “What, was the big man not enough for you? Need someone else to dance with?”

His Henchwoman didn’t say a word as she took a slightly-limping step towards him.

“I see you’re not in the mood for words. Okay then, how about this?” Nightwing offered, throwing a bat-a-rang at her, which she swatted out of the air heavily with her modified crowbar. Nightwing whistled lowly. “I see someone’s not playing around tonight. Okay sugar, if you want to dance, I’ll dance.”

And then Nightwing launched himself at her, a crowbar flying to meet a set of retractable staves mid air, the clanging sounds of metal on metal growling into the open night air. The atmosphere was tense now that he realized something had gone wrong with the Batman. Espi had yet to return, and he was far enough away that he could no longer hear the sounds of the battle he could when he’d started his own escape. But something had to have happened, since only one of his Henches was here now. They rarely left him alone, and it was even odder for them to split up unless absolutely necessary. They were a better force combined, and they knew it.

So did Nightwing and Batman.

“So where’s your partner in crime, my dearest Poe?” Nightwing taunted as he parried a forceful blow from above, countering it with a low glancing sweep of his own. “Rare I find you lovely ladies without one another, though I’m far from complaining. I like it when I have you all to myself.”

A shriek of fury and rage were all that he got in response, as well as another limb-jarring blow from her weapon. Even Jonathan could tell that Nightwing was having trouble keeping the blows from making their landing sound on his body, as he danced away from her with each passing second. She hadn’t started a direct Toxin flow yet, but still, her strength seemed to be stemming from another source. He wondered if Espi was producing the same results, and if that’s why they’d split up. If the other woman was holding her own against Batman. She probably was, knowing her.

“Alright, I get the picture! Clearly you’re not in the mood for romancing tonight; otherwise I’m sure I’d have heard your lovely voice before now.” Finally a blow connected with his back, sending him sprawling into the alleyway wall. “If you want to play rough, I’ll play rough. But I’m just saying now, I don’t like to have to hit ladies.”

Crane nearly laughed at that.

Those two, ladies? Nightwing would be better off calling the Tranny that worked a near-by street corner a lady before those two, and that was a fact that they readily endorsed themselves. They were far from ladies, and the very idea that Nightwing was calling them such made him want to laugh.

But he didn’t.

Instead he focused on getting the loops of wire untangled from around his legs, pants, and boots; so that he could once again take the opening he was being given and flee back to the Nest. He wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. His nails and long fingers worked far better than the girls gave him credit for anyways.

But the sound of whimpering was enough for him to snap his head up in the fight’s direction as he saw his Hench once again catch the vigilante upside the head and send him careening into the wall forcefully, the man sliding down it almost pathetically as he held himself in pain. Jonathan wondered if the man was even still conscious enough to know he was making pain-filled noises, but then doubted it when his bodyguard gave one finally kick to his midsection before turning back towards him, stooping down to help him without a word.

Someone was definitely not in a very good mood.

He doubted either woman would be for a while.

--

What he’d forgotten to take into account was how much of a mood the utter breaking of his companion would put the Batman into when he finally found him in the alleyway a long time after they’d disappeared into the night for good. Not that he expected any sort of emotion but anger and ferociousness out of the Bat in the first place, but something about the hurting of his pupils did something to the man’s already unstable bat-brain.

And here he thought that his own injured employees had been pissed upon returning to the Nest.

At least Colin was staying with Doctor Chimera this evening, and hadn’t returned to the Nest with them, otherwise he’d have been witness to the utter carnage that lay waste to the inside of the hide-out. And that was before the Bat had gotten there. It was a known fact that the use of the Toxin had rather…interesting side-effects on the women in his employment. He knew that it –for lack of better terms- often made them randy and utterly violet in their wake of rampaging emotions. He knew very well the outcomes of such things, as he was often the focus of the emotions.

What he didn’t know was just how embarrassing it was to be caught in the middle of such acts when the Bat came barreling through the sky-light and flimsy roof, followed by a worse-for-wear Nightwing.

Needless to say, they were the talk of Arkham for nearly three weeks before something else came up.

It was a long three weeks.

Continuity: Fall of 2016