Summary: Sometimes, it doesn't take a mask or powers to be a hero. It just takes standing up...
Disclaimer: "Batman: The Animated Series" and all associated characters and situations are the property of DC Entertainment and Warner Brothers and are used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.
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"Everyday Heroism"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'
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The same day can mean different things, even to the same people; to a Christian, Easter was the day of the resurrection, something to be celebrated; to someone of Irish blood, it marked the Easter Rising of 1916 and a week of bloody struggle. If a person was a citizen of Gotham City, Easter meant the same thing as most holidays; something to be watchful over in case of the so-called 'Gotham Rogues' deciding that it was time for a crime-spree.
And it wasn't always Calendar Man that they had to be concerned about either. Two-Face being known in certain circles to be fond of Groundhog Day - second day of the second month with seeing or not seeing the shadow being comparable to the flip of a coin - was a good example. So the current situation was one that could have, perhaps even should have been foreseen; after all, it was a well-known fact that Lewis Carroll's stories about Wonderland had featured a White Rabbit fairly promeniently. Unfortunately, information about new members of the 'Rogues' takes time to circle and even then many Rogues are considered as much urban myth as The Batman that fights them, so not everyone knew that in recent months there had been an addition to the ranks of Gotham's resident super-criminals, far less what their 'theme' was.
Regrettably, the situation had not been foreeen and so all present were taken by surprise when the Gotham Historical Society's 'Easter in The Park' fundraiser was suddenly and soundly interrupted by the noisy arrival of numerous henchmen and their employer to the park pavilion where they were gathered. To add to the chaos, the Easter Bunny that was part of the fundraiser suddenly dumped their basket of eggs onto the head of the Society's chairperson before moving over to punch the lone member of the Gotham Police Department that was providing 'security' for the event and knocked them out. Those in attendence who were not distracted by the Easter Bunny's actions were taking in the sight of the man leading the criminal invasion; mismatched clothes in plaids and stripes, a jacket with tails, bowtie and top-hat, all with a pair of neatly pressed clean white gloves.
"Calloo, callay, just remain calm and do as I say," the Mad Hatter announced to the stunned crowd. "Put all your cabbages and kings in my friendly White Rabbit's basket and no vorpal blade will go snicker-snack."
Strangely enough, instead of guns, the henchmen that had accompanied the Hatter did have what seemed to be some kind of military combat knives - obviously the 'vorpal blades' to which he was referring - that they were brandishing for the 'Easter In The Park' attendees to see. More than one child that were there began to react badly, several starting to whimper in fear and others trying to hide behind their parents. Those parents were trying to avoid their own fear by focusing on the costs of the therapy their kids would need in years to come, leading to a few of the parents whimpering for an entirely different reason than the children. Everything froze and everyone went silent, however, as a firm and defiant voice cut through the chaos with a commanding snap.
"Jervis Tetch, I am ashamed of you!"
As the speaker stepped forward into plain view, the Hatter found himself stuttering, "Ah-ah-Alice!"
"Despite myself, I understood what happened before; you knew the people you targeted, even me. But this?" Alice Pleasance waved a hand to take in the crowd. "These people have nothing to do with you and you're hurting them for what? To try and play up the 'Mad Hatter' character? What happened to the Jervis I knew?"
"I... but... you... I..."
"Because all I'm seeing here is a criminal and a... a thug!" She spat out the last word angrily.
"But, I just... We're..." Not expecting to see his former assistant here, or ever again in truth, Jervis Tetch was completely taken by surprise. Pointing at his mind-controlled victim, he offered, "White Rabbit?"
"You're terrorising children!" Alice accused sharply.
"I... I..." Jervis stammered, unable to defend himself.
"Billy and I never got married, we ended the engagement and I gave him the ring back," the blonde suddenly remarked, making Jervis feel as though he were tumbling down the rabbit hole.
Alice decided to leave out how Billy had become embittered after being kidnapped and victimised by the mind control that was used on him, blaming her for it all because it had been done with the intent of wooing her away from him. Instead, she simply began at what she thought was the important part of the matter.
"I refused to not believe that you had just been sick, mentally, instead of 'evil' like he wanted to say you were," she continued, thinking that there had been too many good memories of him for her to be able to believe otherwise.
Billy's worst response to one of the times she had tried to convince him of that was still burned into her memory; he'd looked her in the eyes and remarked "Everyone thought Jeffery Dahmer was a nice guy, too..."
Alice had closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before opening them and looking Billy straight in his own eyes, "I used to think the same thing about you."
That had been the last time they'd spoken on it, she'd given him the ring back the next day.
In the present, however, Alice was looking Jervis in the eyes as she spoke, "But ruining a fundraiser, a children's day in the park and a holiday? I'm not sure what this is if it's not 'evil'..."
The idea that he may have become evil in Alice's eyes - certainly the public's, but their opinions simply didn't matter as much to him as Alice's - took the fire that had been waning in Jervis and snuffed it out completely. With a defeated sigh he dropped to the ground where he was to sit on the grass, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging his legs as though holding on for dear life. Scattered around the gathering, The Hatter's hired henchmen didn't move, unsure of what to do with their employer being talked down as he was.
After a moment, as though he felt their eyes upon him, Jervis looked up and around at the minions awaiting instruction and waved his hand in a dismissing motion, "Move on down, move on down, away and away like little clams you go."
The henchmen looked around at each other and most of them started to move away from the crowd, intending to hide or dispose of their weapons and disappear. One started to speak, intending to ask if they were going to finish the job they'd been hired for, leading another to jab them in the ribs with an elbow.
"Hey, man, unlike some of these rogue types, this one pre-paid; we've already got our money and now he's not wanting us to risk ourselves against the cops or the bat. Just do what the man said and let's go," the perpetrator of the elbow assault hissed at their compatriot, grabbing them by their elbow and giving them a good tug.
Glancing back over his shoulder as his friend drew him away, the one who had started to speak couldn't help but be concerned about his now seemingly-former employer. While being paid beforehand was always a nice bonus, it meant he got paid whether the job was a success or not, there was also the fact that despite the guy being a little weird, the worst he'd do was stick a card on your head and make you do things without remembering them. It was bad, but at least it wasn't dying because the guy hiring him flipped a coin or thought it would be funny. He hoped that whatever it was this woman was going to do to him, it wouldn't be too bad. For a costumed super-criminal, this 'Mad Hatter' didn't seem like such a bad guy.
Somehow, during all of the chaos, someone at 'Easter In The Park' had managed to contact the Gotham City Police Department - through 911 - and only minutes after the henchmen had disappeared, the police arrived. Had it merely been a simple hold-up and hostage situation, they would have arrived faster; but, special procedures for dealing with 'rogues' had delayed them. Officers had to be directed to the location, including special response teams, cordons had to be established, choppers put into the air, the Commissioner himself had to be contacted and all of that took time. When they arrived, however, the situation hadn't changed and Commissioner Gordon and several of his best officers came rushing up the park path at the same time as the Batman came swinging in from the pavilion' roof - all to find Jervis Tetch still sitting on the ground depressed, hugging his legs, while Alice Pleasance frowned down at him disapprovingly.
As part of a predetermined plan of action, a handful of officers split away from the group; one going to check on their downed collegue and the rest headed for the Easter Bunny-slash-White Rabbit who was still standing there, non-responsive to the world around them. By the time that Gordon and his remaining officers were approaching the Hatter, the Batman was among them.
Gordon looked at the blonde woman waiting for them with curiousity, "Miss... Prentiss, wasn't it?"
"Pleasance, Alice Pleasance," she corrected. "And I believe Jervis here has something he wants to say to you, Commissioner..."
Jervis looked up at the Commissioner and held out his hands with a resigned sigh, "Callay, calloo, you know what to do... I surrender, Commissioner; Arkham, Blackgate, take me where you will. Off with my head, as the Queen of Hearts said so well."
The Commissioner and the Batman exchanged a look that said neither of them were entirely sure how to handle the situation with most of the work already done for them. Arching an eyebrow that was visible despite his cowl, Batman gave a half-nod towards Jervis and then smoothly moved so that he was offset but between him and Alice so that he could move to intervene if the rogue suddenly became aggressive in any way.
"Johnson, Kelly, secure him and put him in the wagon," Gordon instructed, waving two of his officers forward.
Carefully, one of them pulled the Hatter to his feet, the other providing cover as the first moved to put handcuffs on the prisoner. The rogue didn't resist in any form, the fight seemingly drained out of him by the confrontation with the young woman nearby. Though he gave no sign of it, as they led him away, Jervis Tetch could still hear the conversation that began between Alice, Gordon and the Batman.
"I think we can figure out roughly what happened here, Miss Pleasance, but why don't you tell us your version to start with?" Gordon suggested.
"It just... happened," Alice began. "Everything was normal, then Jervis showed up with a lot of armed men - he sent them away before you arrived, just told them to leave and they did, but I didn't see any cards or anything, they seemed to be themselves."
"We'll alert the nearby patrol areas to keep their eyes open for anyone suspicious," the Commissioner reassured her. "Keep going."
"The Easter Bunny attacked the Master of Ceremonies and your officer - I think he was being controlled," she commented. "Jervis told... well, he said it strangely, like something out of Lewis Carroll, but he told everyone to hand over our valuables and the men with him showed off their knives."
"Did they use them on anyone?"
"No, they just showed them off. It made some of the children start crying, it was upsetting them so badly. I just saw them, heard them, it was... they shouldn't have been crying like that, they should have been being entertained by the Easter Bunny like they came to be, it just got to me... And I... I confronted him, Jervis, I mean," she spread her hands as though trying to encompass all the events that had happened by the action.
The Batman spoke up, "That took a lot of courage, Miss Pleasance."
"It took a lot of something, but I'm not sure it was courage, Batman," Alice admitted. "I saw Jervis acting like this and it just made me so mad that I had to do something."
"Just be careful that feeling doesn't control you," Gordon advised.
"I still want to think of him as a friend, do you know that?" The blonde shook her head, "It's not easy to see a friend turning out like this."
"No, it's not," Batman agreed, thoughts of a man split in two physically and mentally being brought up.
"I only hope... I know they can't 'cure' him or anything like that, there's no magical fix-alls for someone's mind, but I hope he can find his way out of this, this mess he's in."
"So do I, Miss Pleasance, so do I," except Batman wasn't sure if he was actually talking about Jervis Tetch or Harvey Dent.
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Author's Note: Bwa-ha-ha. Mine is an evil laugh. It's just too bad that I didn't have this written and finished in time for Easter...
