Control Premium
General disclaimer: All distinctive characters and related elements featured in this publication are trademarks of DC Comics. I claim no rights or profits.
The text of the publication is intellectual property of myself, Lana Dragičević. Not to be used, altered or distributed without my expressed, written consent.
Notes: All the chapters are named for business terms, because I thought it suited a Penguin-focused tale.
Control premium is the amount an investor will pay in order to acquire control over a company. A takeover is the purchase of one company by another.
This story shows a period in Gotham before the Batman, when organised crime was florishing. Some of the characters' personal history details may be told a little differently from the comics, due to the fact that I haven't read their origin story.
Chapter One: Takeover
The elderly woman shuffled across the room in her slippers, her hands picking tresses of her greying hair into a makeshift bun. She glanced at her son, who was sitting at the kitchen table and reading the newspapers.
'I need you bring me flour today when you get back', she told him matter-of-factly.
'Yes, Mother', he replied dully and continued to read.
'And two lemons. Some sugar, too, we're nearly out.'
'Yes, Mother.'
'I have a busy schedule today, it's Friday, you know how it is.'
'Yes, Mothe − How what is?' He looked up from his papers, a faint frown on his round face. 'Wait a moment... What are you planning on doing?'
She looked down at him as though she thought he had gone mad.
'It's Friday, Oswald. We always have sponge cake on Friday. You know Chester loves it, so I make it.'
Oswald Cobblepot swallowed painfully. He had long ago gotten used to the fact that his mother was going senile, in addition to her already vaguely confused mental state. It still hurt, though, when she said things like this.
'Mother?' he said tentatively, as she went to wash his empty coffee cup.
'Yes, Oswald?'
'You do know Father has been dead for the last twenty years?'
Again that look from her, as if he was an idiot on top of his short stature and deformed hands. Oswald had grown to passionately hate that look.
'Now why would you say such a thing? I'm really shocked, Oswald. You know I dislike your odd sense of humour. Sometimes I think you're not quite right, I swear I do.'
Oswald's nostrils flared.
Horrible, commandeering woman, he thought. Do you even know that I only moved back here because I'm afraid to leave you alone, in case you hurt yourself unwittingly? Of course you don't. You only know how to bully and bother and nag.
She continued to wash the same cup, over and over again. Oswald suddenly felt pity overwhelm him.
'I'm going now', he told her gently.
'Have a good day at school, Oswald', she said.
'Work. I am twenty six. I go to work. I'll bring Mrs Beckerly over, from next door.'
'Why is that woman always here? She just bosses and bullies me around!'
'About time someone did...' muttered Oswald to himself and took his coat from the stand.
He in fact happened to pay Mrs Beckerly to take care of his mother while he was away. Her condition was getting worse every day.
He would have to find her a good retirement home soon, when her state made her completely unfit for living here. Still, as long as she managed, he preferred to keep her at home, where she had lived all her life.
'Did you clean the pet shop out yesterday? There's dust bunnies in the corners.'
'We sold the shop. Remember?'
'Oh, yes. Yes. Can't think of why, though. It was going so well.'
Until the break-in, Oswald recalled. It was all done purely out of malice, to thoughtlessly hurt them. He even knew the local idiots who'd done it - but that had never been proven. They'd gotten away with it, just as everyone else who had ever hurt him.
'Goodbye, Mother. Rest yourself. I'll be back this evening.'
He'd never seen so many dead animals.
They had killed everything, even his beloved parrots. The loss wasn't just that they were the most valuable creatures in the shop – those birds had become his greatest companions over the years. He'd put their little broken bodies away very carefully; had spent the entire day sobbing and helplessly wiping blood off the floor and walls.
They'd sold the shop. It was impossible to afford starting all over again.
Oswald had thankfully learnt a lesson from it. The world trampled all over you mercilessly. There was no point in trying to be fair, struggling to maintain an honest existence.
'Take an umbrella, Oswald. It could rain later.'
He had already reached out to take it. He tried to stop himself, even though he'd feel somehow wrong without it. Stupid way of thinking, but she had always fretted when he didn't take it and, eventually, it had become a habit impossible to shake off.
'It's very sunny outside', he said mildly.
'But you know how it goes, unpredictable spring showers and so on.'
'It's autumn, Mother... But if you insist, I'll take it with me.'
He left her muttering about how the days flew by and knocked on the neighbour's door before going downstairs. Without old Mrs Beckerly, he didn't know how he'd manage.
She was the one who had called him two months ago, when she'd spotted poor Mrs Cobblepot standing outside in the middle of the night, holding an umbrella as if waiting for her deceased husband to arrive. Mother had never gotten over his untimely death from pneumonia; the downpour that had proved his undoing still haunted her.
Oswald crossed the street, airily passing by another young man from the area, one he knew to be a petty gang member these days. He also recognised him as one of his childhood tormentors, but oddly enough, the bully wasn't laughing at him now.
No calls of 'Oswald the Penguin' greeted him; no pieces of garbage were thrown at him any more. The unpleasant individual merely nodded and went around a corner, to furtively watch him leave.
Oswald breathed the fresh afternoon air with self-satisfaction.
Perhaps this change of behaviour towards him was not as strange as it seemed. Everyone in the underground these days knew who Oswald worked for.
***
Passing a large building site, walking beneath a new metal arch for the increasingly popular monorail system, Oswald entered a nondescript building at the edge of the city. He climbed the stairs and rang the doorbell to an ordinary apartment.
A pretty young woman opened it, narrowing her eyes at the sight of Oswald. The small man ignored her. He was used to getting looks like this from the ill-mannered secretary. She let him in and resumed her position at a desk, where she continued to apply red lacquer to her nails. Oswald shot her a look of utter disdain and went into his own makeshift office within the apartment.
Arnold, the bookkeeper, was already there, writing something down and listening to the radio. Oswald greeted him with a small smile and sat down at his desk, shifting aside neat stacks of paper. The room was full of crates of goods which had, ah, fallen off the backs of trucks; falsified paperwork filled any remaining flat surfaces. In the middle, a small emptied area held enough space for two desks, two typewriters and two busy workers.
This was the place where crime boss Albie Wesker employed them to calculate his various profits and do some very creative accounting when it came to paying his taxes. Oswald created reports from the financial transactions diligently recorded by Arnold.
'How was your weekend?' Arnold quavered in his reedy voice.
'I...' said Oswald. Nothing much had happened, really. He picked up a file and proceeded to analyse the papers within.
'How was yours?' he asked Arnold kindly.
'V-very nice. I bought a new record and listened to that. I can c-capture the voice quite nicely now.'
Oswald nodded. He liked Arnold. The weak little man was some years older than him and already balding. He looked at the world worriedly through large round glasses, his demeanour always faintly apologetic.
Truly, to look at him, one would never have said that this was Arnold Wesker, nephew to Albie 'the Ferret' Wesker.
On the other hand, being a member to such a family of gangsters was what had made Arnold the way he was. When Oswald had first taken up his job within the mob, he had been warned of Awkward Arnold, the youngest son of Albie's late brother.
The poor wretch had apparently been present as a child when his father and elder brothers, erstwhile heads of the family, had been murdered in a gunfire. He'd never been quite the same. His uncle had taken up the leading position, leaving his distraught nephew to lask behind at the rear of the hierarchy.
After meeting the mild-tempered man face to face, Oswald had been uncertain as to why everyone considered him dangerous.
Arnold, who rarely spoke out of turn and often stuttered, unless he was singing or imitating a famous voice. Arnold, who always wished to be helpful, and who collected old records, theatre dolls and toy trains, and many other harmless objects.
That had been until he met Mr Scarface.