In the Birdcage
(rough draft)
A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: Prequel to The Birds Who Smile.
Warnings: Child abuse throughout the fic; occasional strong language.
Also, since this is being written after I'm over 20 chapters into The Birds Who Smile, there will be some inconsistencies between the two stories that I won't be able to fix for a long time, if ever.
The short version: I'm revamping this fic so that most of the scenes where the Batman Who Laughs is onscreen will be written in Synopsis Mode rather than real time. See the author's notes at the end of this chapter for a full explanation.
I: The Boy Who Chirps - Chapter 1 (censored version)
He felt numb. Even though the broken bodies had been covered up, he could still see them in his mind. He could do nothing but look at those bodies as someone put a blanket around his shoulders and sat him down, as people came and talked to him and went away again, as a policeman gently tugged him to his feet and led him to the back seat of a police car.
Dick rested his face against the window and closed his eyes, still seeing those bodies. He dimly registered a horrible smell somewhere nearby, but couldn't bring himself to care. The car dipped slightly as the man got into the driver's seat, then the engine started and they drove away.
The boy's lips finally moved, and belatedly, he realized why. "I want..." He'd already...he'd already lost his family. He didn't want to be taken away from the rest of his world as well, from the other people who loved him.
The man spoke before he could say any of this. "Do you want to hear a joke?"
Dick stared. "...My parents just died."
"My parents died, too. Isn't that a funny coincidence!"
Goosebumps were starting to form on Dick's flesh. Something about this man was not right. He turned to the other police officer, the heavily shadowed one who'd been sitting silent and unmoving in the passenger seat all this time, but he didn't have a chance to get his attention before the driver spoke again.
"Anyway, here's the joke: how does a circus leave an unforgettable impression on its final night in Gotham City?"
"Please-" The sound of explosions behind them made Dick nearly jerk out of his seat. He whipped around and stared out the back windshield in horror as the Big Top slowly sank into a sea of flames. "NO!"
He tried to throw himself out of the car, but it was designed so that prisoners couldn't open the doors from the inside. "Let me out! Let me out, don't you see what just happened?! My people are back there! My...my family...!" The only family he had left. Because his blood family was dead. "LET ME OUT!" Dick tried to scream, but he couldn't seem to get enough air. His parents were dead, and now the rest of the people he'd known all his life were dying, too; burning alive, screaming in terror and agony- "LET ME OUT...!"
He didn't know how long he fought, but had to give up when his hands were bruised and aching from unsuccessfully trying to break out of the car. "Please," he begged. "Please, let me go. Where are you taking me? I haven't done anything wrong, you can't arrest me!"
"Of course I can't arrest you," the driver laughed. "Only law enforcement officers can do that~"
"But...you're..."
"My buddy here could. If he was, y'know, still alive." The driver shook his companion's shoulder in a friendly way, and Dick started screaming again when the corpse of the officer whose uniform and car the kidnapper had stolen slumped down into the meager light with a plop. "Oi, kid, shut up."
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!"
Miraculously, the car pulled to the side of the road and stopped. But the fake police officer was getting out and coming around to the back, Dick still couldn't get out, when he opened the door he'd block the escape route but it was still Dick's only chance; if he was very quick, maybe he could-
BWL catches him and starts choking him, talking to him in a partly-joking, partly-threatening tone like he's an animal and ordering him to be quiet.
Dick agrees to be quiet when he's released, but BWL doesn't believe him, so he's stripped naked, bound, and gagged with his own clothes, pushed to the floor of the car so he can't signal to other drivers for help.
Physical description of BWL: His skin looked wrong, like it wasn't quite a human color beneath all the foundation he'd caked on; the bits of hair peeking out from under his hat looked almost green, and there was...something wrong with his mouth. The lips were too red, the tongue too long, the teeth too sharp. His eyes were the worst: blue, but burning with such malice and madness that they looked almost like dark pits.
"Hmmm. See, I want to believe you, but I don't like your eyes. You're a tricky little bird, I think. Just how I like 'em. You'll be fun to break. But I can't have you trying to get the attention of other people on the road, now, can I?"
Dick wept with the humiliation and the pain of it, until his nose started to clog from all the tears and it got hard to breathe, and with his mouth bound, he realized he could suffocate to death if he kept crying. So he tried his best to stop. He couldn't think about his lost family, or how emotionally and physically miserable he was; the only safe thing to think about was how intensely he hated the man who was tormenting him.
They arrive at the manor. Dick is dragged out of the car, hit a few times to take the fight out of him, and ungagged; his legs are released.
"Listen, Dickie, I'm going to take the gag off now. I own this manor, so there is no one within miles of us except for my son, and trust me, he's not going to help you. If you scream, no one will hear, no one will rescue you, but I will get annoyed, and now that there's no one around to see but Damian, I will beat your ass off. Do you understand?" There was a pause. "Do you understand?" he demanded, and struck Dick again.
Fresh tears trickled down the boy's face, and he nodded.
"Good. I'm taking the gag off now."
At long last, Dick's mouth was free. First he sucked in air, and choked; he was still fighting for breath as his kidnapper grabbed his still-bound arms and marched him into the house.
It looked like a grand, elegant mansion, but it was dusty and messy. Dick's bare feet tracked across sticky patches and barely skirted small, scattered items that looked like they'd be painful to step on. There were occasional bugs crawling across the floor, and tiny animal droppings littering the edges.
The man finally shoved him into a large room filled with expensive but damaged furniture, empty and broken picture frames, vases with dead flowers, and heaps of dirty dishware and discarded packaging piled on all the flat surfaces and the floor. There was a boy in there, a little older than Dick, lounging on the couch and throwing daggers at a poster of Superman.
Dick couldn't help tugging against his captor's grip and crying out, "H-Help! H...Help me...!"
The boy shifted to look at him, frowning. His skin was paper-white, his mouth red and sharp, his eyes hollow. His figure was small and gaunt, but covered with painfully defined muscle. "What's that, Father?"
"I brought him for you, Damian," the man said proudly. "You said you were bored because Superboy's not around for you to play with anymore."
The boy sat up and sneered. "And you thought my interest would be piqued by some common gutter trash? I don't want just any old toy, I want another Kryptonian! Humans are far too easy to break."
Dick was weeping again, hopelessly, realizing that the man had been right and he would receive no help from this 'Damian' boy.
"Well, you'll have to make do with whatever metas you can scrounge up, because all the Kryptonians are dead now," the man huffed.
"Hmmm, I suppose I could use him as a practice dummy," Damian mused, eyeing Dick's body like he would a slab of meat.
"Please let me go," Dick sobbed. "Please, please, please let me go...!"
"After all the trouble I went through to get him, you'd just kill him on Day 1?" the man said indignantly to his son, acting as if Dick hadn't even spoken. "I had to blow up a whole circus to get away with this, you know."
Dick screamed in despair. His captor struck him hard again; he hung his head and tried to cry more quietly.
"You had to, or you just wanted to?" Damian scoffed.
The man's mouth stretched in a wide, shark-like smile. "Seemed like more fun that way."
"Why are you doing this?" Dick wailed softly. "Why are you...doing this...?"
"I think I'll keep him for myself, actually. I've always loved children. Ooohh, now I'm getting ideas... Watch him for a minute." He tied Dick to a heavy table leg and then left the room.
Dick sniffled and tried to get his voice under control. "D...Damian?" he finally managed.
The boy whirled and hurled a dagger at him, and Dick screamed when it sliced a gash in his arm. "Do not speak to me, cur," the boy snarled, "unless I address you first. Or I'll aim the next blade closer to your heart."
Dick curled into a tight ball to protect himself, tucking his head. He was going to die here. Everyone he loved was dead, no one had seen him be taken, no one would know where to find him or even to look for him. 'Help me!' he screamed in his thoughts. 'Someone help me! Mom, Dad, I want you back, please come back, come back, come back, come back...!'
BWL comes back, releases Dick, hits him for 'mouthing off' to his son, then bandages the injury with a piece torn off the shirt Dick had been tied with. He fastens a thick leather collar around the boy's neck.
"I don't think you get it," he said conversationally, now attaching a long chain to the collar. "You're my pet now. You are on the same level as a dog or a cat or a bird, maybe a ferret. And pets don't talk. When you tell a dog to 'Speak,' it doesn't actually speak, right? It barks, because it's not a human being, it's an animal. Even the STUPIDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD should be able to understand that."
After more threats and abuse, Dick doesn't dare speak again.
The demonic man yanked on the leash until Dick staggered to his feet.
"Let's go, Fido. Or maybe Fluffy or Twitterina or Mr. Bushytail, I haven't decided yet."
Dick shuffled miserably after his captor, feeling so alone that it was like a physical pain, just as bad as all the aches and twinges and stinging and throbs from the abuse. When the man finally stopped in the mud room and ordered him to crawl into the dog crate that was there, Dick hesitated only a moment before obeying. What other choice did he have?
The cage smelled like the animal that had once occupied it, and was lined with clumps of fur-filled dust bunnies. There were two filthy bowls in the cage, engraved with the name 'Titus' and crusted with dirt, insect activity, and traces of ancient dog food, and the floor was lined with an equally filthy towel. Dick tried not to touch it with anything other than the soles of his feet, not daring to push it out of the way with his cruel captor watching.
"Gotta take care of my new pet, now, don't I?" the man said, drawing out the bowls before shutting the cage door and fastening a heavy lock on it. Then he went away.
Dick crouched there, naked and shivering and hurting, and wondered if he was having a nightmare. He hoped to God he was having a nightmare. He spent a few minutes desperately imagining his mother shaking him awake, until the man came back with the bowls. They were now filled with dog food and water, but had not been cleaned.
"Good thing I didn't throw out the rest of the kibble when when Damian finished playing with Titus," the man said, unlocking the cage long enough to slide the bowls back inside. "There we go! All settled. Be good now, okay? Daddy's had a long day, and I have to concentrate very hard on my work tonight, so no barking or whining! Or I'll have to come spank you with a rolled-up newspaper." He laughed. "Or something more effective than a newspaper. You understand, Fido? Speak!"
Dick opened his mouth to beg again, but at the very last second, he realized this was another sick test. He managed to make a strangled attempt at a bark instead.
The man burst into laughter. "Good, very good, maybe you're not as dumb as you look!" He stroked his chin in a thoughtful way. "That didn't sound anything like a dog, though. Maybe you're not a Fido after all. I'll give it some more thought later; for now, to the Batcave!"
This time when he went away, he turned out the lights, leaving his prisoner in complete darkness. Dick shoved the stiff, dirty towel and the bowls as far away from him as he could, then huddled at the back of the cage and wept.
To be continued...
A/N: Okay, so here's the deal: Writing this fic makes me feel gross and I can't stomach being in BWL's revolting headspace anymore, and it's also bothering me that this story does absolutely nothing to make the world a better place. And BWL is horrible enough, he does not need so many opportunities to come up with even more spontaneous nastiness while I'm drafting.
So from Part 4 onwards, I'm going to try summarizing most of the parts where BWL is onscreen, and I've fixed these first three chapters to reflect that as well (though they're not as summarized as the rest of the story will be, because I did already write them). Hopefully, the added bit of distance will make this fic less unpleasant and a little more worthwhile to work on. I know a lot of people want to see how the birds interacted with each other before their rescue.
(From the previously-posted full version:)
Writing this story kind of makes me feel ugly. I think it's because when I write, I have to slip into each character's head for every word and action in order to know what they'll do and say (which is why it's so hard to write characters I don't know well), and the Batman Who Laughs has a really ugly mind. I've written from an abuser's perspective before, but I never felt like this with Carried Off because, despite all the horrible things Astrid does to Hiccup in that fic, she never actually intends to abuse him. (Also, for all his inability to escape, at least he's an adult dealing with a peer and figures out a way to fight back, even if he's only defending a small piece of figurative territory rather than gaining ground.) Her treatment of him stems entirely from fear, anger, and ignorance. BWL, though, is sadistic, he knows exactly what he's doing, he wants his victims to suffer, and it's sickening, especially because they're children and I know it's going to be a very long time before they're rescued. It makes it even worse to know that millions of children in real life suffer at the hands of monstrous human beings, too. There are some kinds or levels of abuse I just can't bear to write under any circumstances, so this fic will actually be tame compared to what I know some people have experienced. I've read accounts from real victims that make me want to scream with outrage that anyone could even conceive of doing such barbaric things to any living creature, much less a child.