AN:So, this is sort of a fix-it for that shady Kringle look-alike and the emotional pain her appearance has already caused me. Each chapter will begin with verses from one of the 70+ poems written by Lewis Carroll that I spent hours reading and have now been driven mad by.
PAIRINGS: Edward/Oswald, Edward/Isabella, Barbara/Tabitha, Butch/Tabitha, Oswald/minor original male character
WARNINGS: rape/non-con (sex while under hynosis), canon-typical violence
Little Birds are teaching
Tigresses to smile,
Innocent of guile:
Smile, I say, not smirkle -
Mouth a semicircle,
That's the proper style!
- "Humpty Dumpty's Song" by Lewis Carroll
"Edward… ehem. Ed, I love you." Penguin clears his throat and changes his tie for the fourth time. "Ed, there are many things that my mother taught me, and one of those things is that love… No. Edward..."
"This is just pitiful," Tabitha mutters to herself from her hiding place behind the cracked open door. She came here to slowly kill the mayor and the weasel who betrayed Butch but this is much more entertaining. And useful.
Tabitha quietly creeps down the hall (although Penguin probably wouldn't even be able to hear her over his mushy ramblings if she stomped down it) and climbs out the window she entered through. For a kingpin mayor with many enemies, he sure has terrible security. She only had to kill one defenseless maid.
Once Tabitha is far enough away from the mansion she pulls out her phone and a business card from her bag. She leans against a tree as she dials the number she's been too lazy to enter into her contacts.
Tabitha smiles when a voice answers. She was always told that smiling adds a friendlier tone to your voice. "Mr. Tetch, this is Tabitha."
"Ah, miss Tabitha, how are you?"
"Great, thanks," she answers as politely as possible, masking the annoyance that small talk always causes her. Tabitha is a "get to business" kind of girl. She nearly launches into her reason for calling before quickly adding, "And how are you, Mr. Tetch?" Tabitha knows how insanely sensitive the man is about manners and… basically everything.
"I must admit I have been better," Jervis says sadly.
"Kudos to you for what you did to Jim, though, right?" Tabitha tells him, genuinely impressed. She's not much of the codling type but it seems to perk the man up a bit.
"Thank you, my dear, I was quite enthralled. May I ask you, now, about the nature of this call?"
Tabitha rolls her eyes at the hypnotist's ridiculous compulsion to turn everything into a nursery rhyme. "I have a favor to ask you. Well, a proposition, actually. We can pay you handsomely."
"Go on," Tetch tells her, although Tabitha is sure he's not too interested in the cash.
"That choice you made James Gordon make. I want you to put someone else in that position."
"And who would that be, miss Tabitha?" Tetch asks a bit blankly. Jeeze, if it isn't about Jim Gordon. Good thing Tabitha has a way of tying him into all of this.
"Mayor Cobblepot's chief of staff, Edward Nygma."
"Tabitha, darling, why would I do that? Is this about your friend Butch?"
"Partially," she tells him. "But it's also about Jim Gordon. It would be a win for both of us."
"How so?" Tetch sounds like Tabitha has his full attention now.
"A while back Nygma framed Gordon for murder. Got him sentenced to Blackgate."
"I am well aware of that. That fact gives me little motivation to make Mr. Nygma suffer. In fact, I quite admire him for it."
"But he slipped up," Tabitha continues. She knows Jervis has selective memory retention. "In a big way. That gangly freak is the reason James Gordon's name has been cleared. Why he is free to roam our streets doing whatever he wants. Killing whoever he wants."
There is a pause on the other end of the line and Tabitha wonders if Tetch is taking a moment to weep about his recently impaled sister that he spent years trying to impale in a different way. But after a few moments, he speaks, sounding pleased.
"I'm listening."
"Tabby, how's it going?" Butch answers on the first ring, of course, smacking on what Tabitha assumes is a piece of rare steak.
"Gross," is her reply.
"Where you at?"
"Just outside the mayor's mansion," Tabitha replies casually, kicking a pebble with the pointed steel toe of her leather stiletto boot.
"Why?" Butch asks, mouth still full. He's probably chewing on a tough piece of fat. Tabitha wishes she had just texted him, but with only one real hand and gargantuan fingers, Butch's texts hardly ever make sense.
"Oh, you know. Just wanted to have a little fun. A little torture, a little homicide," she says wistfully, twirling her whip in her hand. Next time , she thinks.
"Is Nygma there?" Butch questions her.
"No. But the two had plans for dinner at eight. I figured I'd kill two birds–or, one bird and one freakishly tall nerd with one stone." Tabitha smiles to herself at her re-wording. She's not usually one to make jokes. She knows it would have made Barbara laugh, though.
Butch, however, does not seem amused. "I told you, I don't want Penguin dead."
"Well I do," Tabitha snaps. 'You know he'd have you killed in a heartbeat. And you know he'd do worse to me."
She knows she's hit a soft spot. Butch is just a big teddy bear on the inside, especially when it comes to Tabitha's wellbeing.
She hears Butch swallow, finally. "Yeah," he says gently. Tabitha never knows whether she finds the man's soft sentimentality endearing or pathetic. All she knows is that it's a turn-on watching him strangle people.
"Oddly enough, though, I've discovered some very interesting information that is going to make things much more fun."
"Oh yeah, what's that?" Butch doesn't sound nearly as intrigued as she'd hoped he would. She'll have to tell Barbara as soon as she gets back to the club. Preferably while drinking a martini and being eaten out.
"Our little Ozzie is in love with your traitor," Tabitha says in a mockingly sweet voice.
Butch laughs at that. "Oswald, in love? He's never shown interest in anyone but his wack job mother."
"I know. Severe Oedipus complex. But I'm telling the truth, Butch. He was rehearsing his little confession in front of his mirror, blushing and giggling like a little schoolgirl."
Butch sighs. "Penguin's being played. You know that, right, Tabby?"
She knew he would be hard to convince. "That's what I thought, at first. But here's where it gets even more interesting. The bespectacled weirdo loves him, too. For some reason." Tabitha is almost embarrassed at how giddy she sounds. This is going to completely destroy their two enemies.
"Yeah, right. Nygma is a self-inflated sociopath. The only person he's capable of loving is himself."
"That's not what Jervis Tetch said," Tabitha tells him smugly.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I've been in touch with the crazy hypnotist over the past hour or so. I had a tail on Nygma. Tetch and I hatched out a little plan."
"Hatched," Butch says, chuckling. Of course he would find an unintended pun funny.
"Butch, focus," Tabitha scolds. "So I figured we play the little 'pick who you love' game that got that perky little reporter shot in the stomach."
"So, sit Penguin down with Nygma and the statue of Gertrud and see which emotionless piece of stone he blows to pieces?"
Tabitha sighs at Butch's denseness, although she honestly believes that that might actually play out well somehow. "No. We're gonna make Nygma choose. You want to get him where it hurts, right?"
"Who else does Nygma love?" Butch asks skeptically.
"Well, there was that Kringle girl."
"Who is dead because the psychopath strangled her," Butch points out. "If that's how he shows love we may not even need Tetch."
"It was an accident," Tabitha tells him. "Bring me one person in Gotham we know who hasn't accidentally murdered someone."
Butch is silent for a moment, probably trying to think of someone.
"That was rhetorical," Tabitha clarifies.
"So what's the rest of the plan, then? We don't have the rotting corpse of his ex."
Tabitha shrugs even though Butch can't see her. "I told Tetch to do his voodoo magic crap and figure something out."
Butch laughs, choking on something.
"Don't almost die again after I went through the trouble of saving you or I swear to God I will kill you myself," Tabitha scolds.
Butch coughs a little more before responding. "I'm sorry, Tabby. It's just–how did he respond to that?"
"It went something like," Tabitha lowers her voice to a petulant growl, "'Mind your tone or I'll hang up the phone.'"
Butch cracks up, something that's rare for him. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to have anything in his mouth or throat.
"Anyways, I politely apologized and he agreed to make it happen. We'll throw the little party at the club, you can be backstage watching it all go down."
"You'd really do all that for me?" Butch asks.
Tabitha groans. "Ugh, will you stop? I'm doing it for the both of us. You think Penguin is mad at me now? Imagine what he'll do if he finds out I sprung you from that ambulance."
"Which you did for me."
"Shut up," Tabitha snaps, flipping her phone shut. About ten seconds later she gets a text.
Butch: 4
7:15 pm
God, she needs a drink.