A/N: This story takes places roughly seven years before the start of Season 1 / Team Year Zero, three years before the flashbacks Conner saw of Mount Justice in Issues #01 and #02 of the comics.
For those of you who haven't read the Young Justice animated comics: it is canon that Snapper Carr—aka Mr. Lucas Carr, M'gann and Conner's civics teacher at Happy Harbor—worked for the Justice League when he was a teenager, and had full access to their base at Mount Justice. (This was before Batman or anyone else had a sidekick, so no one from the Team would have met him during this time.) Snapper was in charge of publicity and some other odd details before the League went public, but when he was eighteen, the Joker tricked him under unknown circumstances that got him to reveal the location of Mount Justice. The Joker then used that information to infiltrate the Justice League's base, destroying it from the inside. He knocked Snapper unconscious, beat him, and used traps to distract the League's heroes before the big finish. Conner saw it all happen as part of a psychic flashback.
This fic takes place three years before all those events took place. The comics never said one way or another whether or not Snapper and the Joker had met before the incident, so I'm exploring the idea that they had. Timeline-wise, Snapper is fifteen here, Batman has never met Dick Grayson, and Cadmus probably isn't even open for business yet.
Enjoy your history porn. And, uh, your softcore torture porn, since this is the Joker we're talking about. No actual porn; I'm not very good at writing it. Sorry.
"Wakey, wakey," a voice croons from somewhere in front of him. The singsong words pull Snapper reluctantly from the depths of unconsciousness, skin prickling a chill at the back of his neck as he tries to groggily open his eyes.
His head hurts. Everything hurts.
The voice isn't done. "Come on, sunshine," it says, the words saturated with unsettling cheerfulness, and Snapper registers dimly that the speaker is male. "Time to get up, little boy! You've been out like a light for two whole hours now...it's starting to seem rude, as a matter of fact..."
Something is wrong. Snapper's mind feels badly disconnected from his body, making it hard to think and nearly impossible to move. He's beyond tired right now but something in his gut is telling him he definitely shouldn't give in to the urge he has, to go back to sleep and forget about this.
He fights his overpowering exhaustion. With a supreme effort, the teen forces his eyelids apart, to the sight of a blurry dark room in which not much of anything can be distinguished. Seconds pass, and a tall figure gradually materializes in his vision, human-shaped and slightly more colorful than the surrounding shadows. The man's face is pure white over his dark clothes, making it look like there's a ghost's head floating before him in a sea of blackness. As the all-encompassing blurriness in Snapper's vision gradually fades into something resembling clarity, he notices a painted red grin on the lips of that face, which are drawn so far back as to reveal a set of teeth wider and more feral than a shark's.
Frightened, Snapper tries to speak, and discovers that he's too weak in his chest and lungs to make any kind of sound. The muscles in his extremities feel heavier than lead; at least, what little he can feel of them does. His legs are tingling with numbness beneath him—is he in some sort of a chair? yes, he confirms, with a sweeping glance downward, but he has no idea how he could have fallen asleep that way. Snapper's so tired he thinks he'd slide bonelessly right onto the floor, if there wasn't something holding him in place. He can't even hold his head up properly on his own. He has to strain his eyes to look around, and even keeping them open is a struggle. With growing certainty he realizes that the situation he's in is probably worse than he'd feared.
Snapper tries moving his arms. He can barely twitch his fingers apart on the first attempt, and even that's hard. His hands are trapped, immobile, somewhere behind him. With growing panic, he registers that he's been tied to the chair beneath him, ropes binding his torso, hands and ankles tight enough to cut off his circulation. He's been kidnapped.
The man in front of Snapper tuts disapprovingly, snapping the teen's attention back to him.
"Now, now," the stranger's voice chides, all at once lighthearted and faintly threatening. "Come on, little Snapper; up, up, UP! I didn't go through all the trouble of bringing you here, just to have you sleep the day away and ruin my fun."
Oh god. He knows that voice.
The teen's captor continues speaking, oblivious to the way that Snapper's stomach is sinking lower and lower with every word. "After all, this business will have all been for nothing, if Batman gets here too soon to crash the party," the man says, gesturing with one hand toward Snapper tied up in his chair. "You can see for yourself that I've got Batsy's present all wrapped up for him nice and tidy, but it just wouldn't be the same without the proper...decorations."
The man reaches into the jacket of his purple suit with one hand, and pulls a switchblade out from one of the inner pockets. The harsh laugh that accompanies the motion dreadfully confirms for Snapper what he hadn't dared to believe, when he opened his eyes to the sight of that white-painted face: the man who abducted and brought him here is none other than the infamous Joker, Batman's nemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime in Gotham City. Snapper had found the villain disturbing enough in static images and voice clips safely behind the monitor screens at Mount Justice; seeing him him in person is no less than the actualization of some horrifying nightmare.
Even as the Joker's footsteps tread closer toward him, making Snapper's heart pound with adrenaline, a part of his brain still doesn't comprehend that this is actually happening. He isn't Batman, isn't anybody worth targeting, in the grand scheme of things. Snapper Carr—Lucas Carr—isn't a superhero or a bigshot name. He's just an ordinary fifteen-year-old kid, save for the fact that he was lucky enough to end up being let in on a big, important secret regarding some powerful and important people. And that had only happened because they had needed a tip at the right time, and Snapper was there.
He still tries to do whatever he can as their assistant, and of course he keeps their secrets in confidence from the rest of the world. The Justice League isn't supposed to be public knowledge yet. By all accounts, a guy like the Joker shouldn't know, or care, about who Snapper is in relation to someone like Batman.
Yet here he is.
Cold fingers yank Snapper up by his chin, interrupting his tumultuous thoughts. With a rush of terror, he finds himself staring into a gleeful pair of jaundiced, yellow eyes, set in a face as white as death itself. The Joker is smiling at him as he leans in close, the kind of smile that drops the temperature in a room by ten degrees.
"Ah, here we go!" his captor says, grinning down at him so widely that Snapper thinks fleetingly that those blood-red lips might just open and swallow him whole. "So good to see you up and at 'em, Snapper! That IS your name, right? No offense, baby boy, but watching you saw logs in that chair for hour and a half was getting really boring—and to tell you the truth, you're boring enough as it is. Now that you're finally awake, I'm ready to have some real fun! Let's give you some nice bumps and boo-boos to show off to Bats when he finally gets here, hmm?"
The Joker holds up his switchblade up in his free hand, deftly flipping it open with a flick of the wrist. The blade of the knife springs out, so that the gleaming point is extended just centimeters away from Snapper's eyes. His blood turns to ice.
"No," Snapper hears himself rasp out loud, trying weakly to jerk his face free of the Joker's grip with his wide eyes still fixed on the blade. "No, no, no, please..."
"Begging already? But Snapper, the fun hasn't even started yet!" the Joker laughs, lightly slapping his cheek a few times in quick succession with the hand that's holding the knife. "Is something the matter, boy? You aren't smiling; we certainly can't have that! Did mean ol' Uncle Jay wake you up from your widdle nap too soon? Don't you worry, kid, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that'll have you wide awake and raring for action in no time..."
The villain's other hand abruptly drops away from Snapper's chin, causing his head to loll forward unresistingly against his chest despite his efforts. His heart is racing, but he still can't control the weakened muscles of his body any better than a doll's. The Joker must have drugged him. He wonders at how long the sick freak must have been planning this out.
Snapper can't see anything from his new position, so it comes as a surprise when an unexpected SMACK decks him soundly across the face, with bruising force, a backhand so powerful that he hears something in his neck crack when it snaps violently to the side. Snapper shouts in pain and shock, tasting blood in his mouth, but before the attack's even sunken in he's already being yanked backward by a merciless fist curled in the middle of his shaggy hair.
He sobs raggedly in terror, trying to pull away, but then he freezes rigidly a second later with his breath held in: there's no spoken command from his tormenter, and Snapper can't see the Joker's face from where his head's being held, but there's no mistaking the sharp point of a knife held lightly against the skin of his jugular. The blade isn't pressed down far enough to break the skin yet, but his throat bared and open, like an animal's to a hungry predator, and Snapper doesn't find any comfort in knowing his death is at least one or two precarious moment away. Only one psychopathic whim stands between Snapper and a painful slash of the blade that would bleed him dry all over the hardwood floor, and the crazed laughter echoing above his head tells him in no uncertain terms that his captor finds the prospect absolutely hilarious.
"It's time for some party games, Snapper!" the Joker says with matter-of-fact cheerfulness, after his laughter gradually tapers off into calm again.
"The rules are, I'm going to ask you a few questions about Batman's newest little social club of super-friends—you know, the one he's been running off to when he's not in Gotham City? I'm sure it rings a bell or two, given that you happen to be the adorable little mascot of the whole outfit. Your job is simply to give me all the answers, which I suggest you do, if you want the chance to live until our other guest arrives. Simple enough, isn't it? Be honest."
It's a moment before the Joker's words even sink in, and Snapper blanches, horrified, when the meaning finally clicks. "C-Can't," he stutters unthinkingly to his captor, shaking his head back and forth so minutely that the motion is lost over the violent trembling of his body. "Can't t-tell. N-Not anyone. It's n-not my s-s-secret—"
The villain's laughter tapers off a bit, though not completely. Heart racing, Snapper feels the Joker leaning over him, until the face of his captor is suspended inches above his own, so that he can feel the man's breath ghosting on his mouth. Snapper shudders hard all over, unable to stop himself from cringing away. He's expecting to be hit, or slashed with the knife, but instead the Joker smiles, a creeping smirk that makes his face look somehow even more frightening than before.
"So it is true," the villain tells him softly, and with a bolt of terror Snapper realizes he should have lied. "All the little heroes coming together, making friends with one another, sharing their toys and their tools...I can see now why the rest of us are starting to feel a little left out, hm? When even an utterly unremarkable little thing like you knows exactly what Batman is up to, before the likes of his greatest nemesis...I'll bet you think that's pretty FUNNY, don't you, pretty boy?"
He's caught. Utterly helpless, and knowing it, Snapper wrenches his eyes shut as tightly as they'll go, and clenches his jaw until it hurts so that he doesn't make a sound. He can't stop his body stop from trembling violently all over, even though he knows it's liable to get him pricked on the point of the knife. It's too late to avoid what's coming anyway. He wishes he knew how this had happened, what he could have done to stop this psychopath from finding him, but Snapper's mind is a blank wall that refuses to let him think of anything besides the nightmare of the present. His face throbs from where the Joker slapped him earlier, a bad omen of what's almost certainly coming.
The Joker starts to laugh again. Slowly, at first, then harder, until the sound is so deafeningly loud that Snapper would give his last request for a way to free his hands, just to cover up his aching ears. The laughing is so pervasive it feels as though it's coming from inside him instead of out.
"SHUT UP!" Snapper finally roars, knowing he's dead either way and pushed to his absolute limits of what he can stand. "Shut up, shut up, you FREAK! You got what you wanted from me, you already got it, so just—just KILL me and be done with it, or else LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Unfortunately for him, the Joker only laughs louder, mocking his helplessness. Still howling, he lets go of Snapper's hair and backhands him hard across the face again: once, twice, three times, until his captive is crying out with agony instead of rage.
When the abuse stops, Snapper moans in pain for lack of any other action he can take. Blood drips from his mouth and onto his lap, a feeling he barely notices over the screaming of his nerves from fractured teeth. Seconds pass, and the Joker's shrieking laughs finally slow down long enough for him to speak.
"Kill you? Oh, my precious boy, looks like you're funnier than I gave you credit for!" the Joker says, gleefully pinching Snapper's bloodied cheek with his hand as one might a child. "Kill you! Aha-ha-HA! Now THAT is an absolute riot! The night's just begun, Snapper, it's only begun; you and I are going to have so much fun together before it's done and over with...go on, boy, SMILE! This is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks, the funniest thing, I can't believe you aren't even laughing yet...!"
Snapper closes his eyes lets out a guttural sob as the villain laughs, no longer fighting the tears and snot dripping down his face over the flow of blood. He's pretty sure he'll need his strength for other things, before the Joker's fun has finally run out.
He hopes the League doesn't bury him as a traitor. If they ever manage to find what's left of his body, that is. Knowing the Joker, it's hardly a guarantee.
The teen buries his mind in a dark place and waits for the worst.
—
High above the rooftops of Gotham City, one more set of agonized screams joins the others. The sounds are soon lost, drowned in the nightly din of the broken and dying, criminals and victims, all those voices struggling to be heard over the constant wailing of police sirens.
Below the swell of noise, a grim shadow races through the alleys. Batman is searching. One teenager, a single boy among thousands, didn't return home to his family in Happy Harbor when the sun went down. That teenager matters more to the Dark Knight than most, alongside a number of heroes like him. A brightly-wrapped present left on the doorstep in the boy's stead had his parents caught up in helpless peals of laughter, unable to stop, until they choked from the lack of air. That one clue is more than enough to pin the culprit. Not that it helps any in finding him.
Batman hasn't got much experience with kids, but he does know the Joker, better than anyone else who's met him and walked away with their sanity intact. If that maniac wants something from Snapper Carr, it can't mean well for the boy, or for the Justice League he swore to protect and assist in any way he could. That same League never thought to protect Snapper, for his time spent away from them, from potential harm wrought by their enemies wanting an easy target. They had assumed, wrongly, that their secrecy would be protection enough.
It wasn't enough. Batman knows that now. Another lesson learned too little, too late.
He knows that if he doesn't find the boy soon, Snapper Carr will be the one to pay for the League's mistake. Eyes narrowing behind his cowl, Batman runs at a faster pace. Runs with purpose.
The Justice League never wanted the blood of children on its hands...