His True Master
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Summary: Wendy's always heard that blood is thicker than water. Now, under Mr. Joker tutelage, she learns that tea just may be thicker than blood.
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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and Joker, at least, don't like me.
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"Do you remember the plan?"
Wendy looked up into the deadly serious, stern, almost frowning face of her boss, and nodded quickly, surreptitiously wiping her palms on her skirt. Really, this was a bit nerve-wracking…such an important task, when she was rarely trusted with anything outside of the building!
Joker's expression relaxed a little, apparently satisfied that she was regarding with the seriousness it warranted, and he nodded.
"Excellent. Now remember, Wendy, whatever happens, you will not deviate. Is that understood?"
Eyes wide and slightly panicked, she gave another quick, almost frantic nod.
"Understood, Sir."
"Good," he said with a full-out almost-smile, before speeding up as they approached the store. "And remember," he added as she hurried to keep pace, "no stops, no matter what happens."
"Right!" she said with a dramatic hand gesture. "I'll limp to the meeting spot on a broken ankle, if I have to!"
"Alright, this is it," he muttered, resting one hand on her shoulder as the automatic glass doors of the grocery store slid open. "Your priority: Isle 7, Hot Beverages. Tea isle. Go! Go!"
He shook his head with a long sigh as the blonde sprinted through the supermarket, blessedly sparsely populated, as might be expected from any average Wednesday afternoon.
We just had to run out of tea mid-week…
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She bolted through the household cleaning products.
Must…get…tea…
As jars of polish and bottles of air freshener flew to the left and to the right, and the crash of several shelves collapsing echoed behind her, Wendy wondered dimly if she ought to have gone around the shelves, instead of through the shelves.
Must…get…tea…
Would that have been a deviation? She just wasn't sure.
Must…get…tea…
And if she wasn't sure, it was safer not to risk it.
Must…learn…to think…in…complete…sentences…
She veered abruptly to the side, narrowly missing sending a kindly old man the way of the cleaning products that had just finished flying through the air.
Oh, dear…I hope that didn't count as deviating…
"Excuse me!" she called to a group of three men in business suits stretched in a row across the entire isle, and very decidedly not moving.
None of the men left their conversation long enough to glance in the direction of the little blonde pelting through the canned fruits isle toward them.
"Excuse me!" Wendy called again, more frantically, as it occurred to her that she might not be able to stop if these men should really prove to beTHAT stupid.
They did.
"Oh, no," she whimpered, cringing and throwing her arms up over her head as she crashed, at full tilt, into the man in the center.
"AAAAARGH!" he noted curiously as he flew through the air and into a shelf of biscuits.
"Sorry," Wendy called back over her shoulder.
As she reached the end of the isle, she reached blindly for the one of the metal poles supporting the shelves, and used it to swing herself around into the next isle.
The hot beverages isle! Finally, she thought with fervent thankfulness as the sign hanging above caught her eye and distracted her from the shelves collapsing behind her due to the supporting pole having been jerked out of place.
Then, as she entered the hot beverages isle, she saw something that made her freeze in horror.
"Oh, no!" she squeaked as an elderly lady, grey hair attractively arranged and cheeks faintly rosy above her a soft blue summer coat, wandered down the beverages isle and came to a stop directly in front of the last box of Mr. Joker's favourite brand.
Wendy adjusted her transmitter as the old lady reached for the small package. "Mr. Joker! There is a kindly old lady currently making a move for the last box of The Brand! Requesting further orders!"
She waited very quietly as Mr. Joker hissed something that she suspected was "Curses! Foiled again", and then began to speak in the same cool, unruffled, authoritative voice that he always used while directing missions. "Recall that there are to be no deviations from the plan, Wendy."
"S-sir?"
"Tackle the old bat to the ground, and pry the tea out of her cold, dead fingers if you have to," he paraphrased, still in that same important-business voice that always gave her that special fluttery girly feeling.
On this occasion, however…
"Sir, you—"
"Orders are orders, Wendy," he said coolly. "And you have your orders."
"But Mr. Joker, I think it's your mother!"
A long silence. Then…
"Get me a visual."
Obediently, Wendy set about trying to work out exactly how to use all these silly gadgets anyway, and concluded with a silent sigh of relief that she must have done something right when she heard Joker make a noise of mild surprise, and then deep consideration.
"You were right, Wendy; that is my mother. Hmm. This will change things slightly."
"Well, I should hope so, Sir!" Wendy blurted out before she could think better of it, and then decided that she still would have said it anyway.
Honestly, there were some lines one just didn't cross. What kind of madman would order his secretary to attack his mother over something so silly as a box of tea, when there was a shop just down the street from here that sold it at a better price? Absurd! Certainly, Mr. Joker wouldn't be so silly; he was far too level-headed, not to mention kind and wonderful, for that.
"Yes; I'm afraid you won't be able to handle this with brute force," Joker was meanwhile saying, making a quick decision to humour the girl by crediting her with the immense physical strength that she prided herself on, as a former rugby star, you know, and blatantly did not have, being about as physically intimidating as a friendly, declawed kitten whose most vicious attack was to snuggle her victim to death. "However, her leg has always given her trouble. Aim for the weak point: the left knee."
"Mr. Joker!" she exclaimed, horrified.
"Yes?"
She gibbered incoherently for a moment, and he waited calmly for her to continue.
"You're actually asking me to attack your mother!"
"This is a matter of life and death, Wendy," he explained, voice low and intense.
"No, it isn't! It's a matter of tea!"
"That's what I said."
"This is silly!"
"Wendy, she has just reached the end of the isle. If you lose sight of her, and we lose the tea, there will be a very definite pay cut in your future."
"Mr. Joker, I am not mugging your mother for her tea!"
"As long as you are with the Special Operations Unit, you will do everything in your power to secure the success of our current objective," he said, hints of fraying nerves clear in his voice.
"But there's a store just down the street that sells the same brand!"
"We're not going to the other store! I need tea! Quickly! It's been at least forty-five minutes!"
"I think you ought to consider a switch to chamomile," she muttered. "It would do you a world of good."
"For the last time, Wendy, I don't drink chamomile!"
"I know, Sir."
"Now, we seem to be in luck, as the old woman has turned around, and is making her way back towards you. So let that assuage your conscience, Wendy. This is clearly Fate."
"But, Sir—"
"Enough discussion. Now, fetch my tea!"
"Yes, Sir," she agreed reluctantly, before adding in a mutter as she started forward, "If I go to Hell for attacking a harmless old lady like this, and he's not there, too, I'm going to be very cross with him…"
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Joker pressed a hand to his forehead and gave a slightly shaky sigh. On days like this, smoothing his hair back would simply not suffice.
Really, he trusted Wendy completely – she was the only one currently in the city and not on vacation time that he would have trusted with something so important – and had every confidence that she would carry out this mission, regardless of the cost.
But it was such an important matter. And the three-quarters of an hour since his last cup of tea were beginning to feel like an eternity. If she should fail…
Just as he had coldly replied to the concerned inquiry of an elderly man that yes, he was getting plenty of fibre – this was, incidentally, also shaping up into one of those days that made him hate the elderly – a series of crashes and shouts, some of them his mother's and some of them his secretary's, drifted forth from the earpiece.
He nodded, satisfied as the more distinctly elderly of the two female voices let out a long, pained scream. Wendy had found the weak spot. He made a mental note to increase the intensity of her combat training. She was clearly ready. Perhaps she might be able to move on from the video games, designed especially to cultivate her natural violence, into actually fighting someone.
Then, as a horrifying, sickening crunch of cardboard being smushed filled his ears (or his ear, at any rate), he felt time slow to a stop, and without a second thought to the odd looks he knew he was receiving, took off through the store at a sprint.
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When he arrived at the hot beverages isle twenty feet away three minutes later, trying to be subtle about gasping for breath and ignoring the stitch in his side, he was greeted with a scene of destruction and chaos.
Hot beverages of every description, in pouch, canister, and box alike, were strewn about the floor, having been knocked from the shelves on either side of the isle during the struggle between the two women currently lying, limp and unconscious, on the ground.
He approached the younger of the two and crouched down next to her. When he grasped her shoulders lightly to turn her over, Wendy made a soft noise of protest and curled more tightly and protectively around whatever that was that she was holding – he couldn't quite tell, but a flash of the familiar colours of the label of The Brand made him catch his breath and nearly weep in relief.
Once he had contrived to get her safely turned over on her back, he carefully tugged the small, precious package from her arms and brushed some coffee grounds tenderly from the cellophane wrapping.
"Thank heavens the tea wasn't harmed," he murmured fervently, holding the little box close.
Then, as his gaze happened to light on the unconscious blonde on the floor next to him, he smiled fondly.
She had done well.
After brushing a bit of hair from her eyes and some coffee grounds from her vest at great length and with a good deal of extra lingering, he picked her up unceremoniously by the back of the skirt, tucked her carefully under his other arm, and started from the beverages isle.
"Sorry, Mother," he said to the tiny grey-haired woman lying amid a pile of dented coffee tins as he stepped carefully past her. "But my secretary never loses a fight. And I suppose it's your own fault for raising me on this brand.'"
Yes, he decided as he approached the check-out line, the mission had been a complete success. And now, if he could just wake Wendy up before they got to the car, even better.
Now that the tea was safely in hand, there were still other things – crucial things – to be considered.
After all, what was the perfect tea without the perfect cookies to match?
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End Notes: Oy. That's all. Just oy. XD