In the Birdcage, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
I: The Boy Who Chirps - Part 4 (rough draft)
A/N: I'm censoring parts of the fic from here on out (though this particular chapter didn't need any censoring), and I fixed the previous three chapters to match. Although it turns out I have to write BWL's scenes in real-time after all, censoring him before I post still helps.
o.o.o
Dick startled out of a doze when he heard someone entering the room again.
It was the Batman, of course, and this time he wasn't alone. Dick shifted frantically, but couldn't move much with his wrists lashed to the headboard. "Here he is~! My poor kitty's been absolutely miserable. I do hope you can help him, doc."
The woman whose arm he was gripping was staring at Dick with huge, horrified eyes, her mouth moving soundlessly. She wore a collar, too, but hers was made of clunky plastic rather than leather.
The Batman gave her a rough shake. "You're going to take good care of him, aren't you?"
"My God, what-?! What...?!" He shoved her so hard that she fell across the bed. She scrambled, limbs cringing away from foul-smelling stains even as her body shifted protectively between the child and the man. Dick stared at her with a tiny ember of hope. He'd thought that the 'doctor' would be another torturer, but this woman looked to be as much a captive as Dick was. She probably wouldn't hurt him. "Y-You told me... You can't just...!"
The Batman held up some sort of controller. "Of course, if you can't help him, I suppose I'll just have to look for someone else. *SIIIIGH*"
"N-No, please! No! Please, please don't! I'll do my best! Oh, God, please, don't!"
He smiled predatorily and lowered the controller. "Now, that's what I like to hear." Then he just stood there and waited expectantly.
The trembling woman turned to Dick and hesitantly laid a hand against his cheek. "Hello, sweetheart...oh, God, you're burning up..."
Tears started to sting Dick's eyes. It had been so long since someone had spoken to him with any sort of genuine affection.
"Wh-Why do you have him tied down in all this filth?! Of course he's sick!"
"What do you suggest, then?" the Batman asked sweetly.
"I- He's- He's just a child."
"Yes, he's my baby and he's sick. Make him better," the man demanded matter-of-factly.
"I... He's...he's frightened of you. He...might not get better if you...hover."
It was a pathetic attempt, but the man pretended to fall for it. "Oh dear, are you serious?! To think, all this time, my poor kitten was being smothered by all my attention! You're so clever, doc; I'll leave at once! Good luck~!" And then, with a slam of the door, he was gone.
The woman exhaled and burst into tears, and soon Dick was crying, too. She pulled frantically at the restraints, then calmed down enough to pick at them more methodically. "What's your name, sweetie?" she asked as she worked.
"Dick," he managed to choke out. "I-I'm Dick Grayson, he kidnapped me-"
"Oh God," she realized with a surge of fresh tears, "from Haly's Circus? The one that burned down?"
He cried harder.
"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, oh, poor thing, I'm so sorry...!"
"He killed my mom and dad," the boy sobbed. "He blew up the circus, I bet it was him who made them fall, too. It never, Mom and Dad NEVER did an act without triple-checking the ropes, they checked the ropes, I saw the ropes, they were FINE, someone messed with the ropes after and th-they, Mom and Dad, he killed them, he killed Mommy and Daddy...!"
He was already clinging to her with the first hand she had freed. When she managed to loosen the second rope, he squeezed her tightly as he cried into her shirt, and she hugged him back.
"I'm so sorry, Dickie," she whispered. "He kidnapped me, too. I...I'm not actually a people doctor, I'm a vet. He grabbed me when I was walking to my car tonight and brought me here...he told me you were a cat- Oh, God, he's sick, he's crazy, he strapped this- this thing around my neck, it's a bomb and he's going to kill me if I don't do what he says...!"
After they had cried for a while, Dick got hold of himself first, and he saw the lady struggling to calm herself down, too. "What's your name?" he asked, because it had helped when she'd asked his. He was so glad to hear someone, someone nice, call him by his real name again.
"I- M-My name is Becca," she said, scrubbing at her eyes. "Oh... Oh, Dick, we've got to do something about this, this is horrible." She got a clean-ish pillowcase from the far end of the bed to tie around his waist and then helped him to the bathroom, but was appalled by the state of the bathtub. He was too weak by then to make it much farther, so she made him as comfortable as she could on the carpet just outside the bathroom so she could scrub the tub with ancient cleaning supplies she found in the cabinets.
He woke up from a doze to hear her exclaiming, "Oh my God...oh my God, there is NO HOT WATER in this house, oh my God, what am I going to do...?!"
She ended up sponge-bathing him. Although she seemed to think he would be embarrassed, he was long past caring that she saw him naked. What made him cry was the discomfort of the cold washcloths, even though she tried exhaling on them to warm them.
She found clothes and extra bedding that had been clean before they'd started gathering dust. She shook them out and got Dick dressed and wrapped in blankets on the divan by the wall, with a freshly-cleaned trash can beside him in case he needed to throw up again. He fell back asleep to the sound of her quiet cursing as she worked to get the rest of the room cleaned up.
He jerked awake, but found that it was only Becca gently shaking his shoulder. "I have some soup, and it's warm," she whispered. "Can you sit up, honey?"
It took him a very long time to eat as much as he could tolerate of the soup. Becca kept crying off and on, but he didn't know how to comfort her, since he would have cried, too, if he wasn't so tired. "Do you think he's going to kill us?" she asked tremulously.
"I don't know..."
"Oh, Dick, I can't stand this! I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here and I've got to take you with me; oh, God, I've got to figure out how to escape from a murderous psychopath-! Oh, Dick, doesn't he remind you of the Joker?!"
"No," Dick mumbled. The Batman wasn't a joker at all, his 'jokes' were horrible, not funny.
"He does...he does, he's got that awful, awful smile just like the Joker, and that pasty white skin, it's like someone smashed the Batman and the Joker into one person...and this house, do you think he killed Bruce Wayne and stashed his body somewhere...?!"
Listening to the hysterical tone of her voice, Dick started to wonder, his heart sinking, if maybe Becca wouldn't be able to help him as much as he thought she would. 'She made you clean and brought you food,' he told himself. 'Be grateful. She's better than HIM.'
The rest of the night passed. Dick slept some more, waking up off and on to the sounds of Becca's manic cleaning or frantic sobbing. The first time he woke up when there was daylight, he saw Becca curled up asleep in a pile of blankets on the floor near the divan.
There was a sharp, irregular knocking at the door that probably matched the tune of something. "Oh, Fluffy~!" called a voice from the other side.
Dick disentangled a hand from his cocoon of blankets and frantically shook the woman's shoulder. "Becca...Becca, wake up...!"
The Batman swept in with a flourish. Becca screamed and scrambled backward, then started crying hysterically. Dick stirred, but was too weak to get up or stop the man from ripping off the covers and examining him with rough, proprietary hands. "Hmmm, still sick, I see, but he's looking much better, much better! Nice job, doc. Up- To the right- To the leeeeft...good boy." Black-nailed hands abruptly released him, and Dick fell back against the pillows. Crying softly in fear and revulsion, he struggled to bury himself back in the blankets, his skin crawling where the man had touched him.
The Batman strode over to Becca, who cowered. "Please don't kill me...please don't kill me...!"
"Don't be silly, doc! You've been doing such a good job. Come have breakfast, I made it myself~" He dragged the weeping woman out of the room.
As soon as they were gone, Dick struggled out of bed, tried to stand, and collapsed. He could crawl, though, so he made his way to the nearest window. This room was on the second floor. The window latch was in bad shape and too hard for him to undo, but maybe Becca could do it, if...if she came back, if their captor didn't kill her.
Dick tried the next window. The latch budged farther than the previous one had, but he still couldn't get it completely undone. By then, he was so tired that he couldn't make it back to the divan, so he fell asleep on the floor, his limbs feeling weightless and his nose so stuffed he couldn't breathe through it at all, his head so swimmy that he wondered if he was going crazy.
o.o.o.o.o
Becca came back. She couldn't do anything but cry for a while, but finally she was able to tell Dick that the Bat-Joker (as she called him) had said they could move to a different room with an unsoiled mattress. She couldn't lift Dick on her own, but she helped him shuffle to the room next door and got him settled on the bed. Then she lay there hugging him for a long time, which was kind of nice but also really hot.
When Becca wasn't sleeping or crying or telling Dick about her pets or her ex-fiancé or escape plans that even he could tell would never work, she went tentatively exploring. The TV showed nothing but static, but she did unearth some old Disney videos that she was able to put on for Dick. When she dared to ask for food other than soup, both she and Dick were shocked that it was provided - fresh purchases, sealed so they'd know there had been no tampering. Dick and Becca sat on the bed together, eating tuna with crackers and watching Pinocchio and crying, whispering ideas for escape to each other whenever they thought of any new ones.
On the second night, Dick's fever finally broke. He woke up feeling cold and covered with drying sweat, and better than he had in ages. "Becca?" he whispered. She jerked awake. She had more trouble sleeping than he did, so he felt bad, but also like he could survive an escape attempt if they tried one. "I feel better. And I need to pee."
"Okay," she said, getting up at once. "Do you need help?"
He tried getting out of bed. He was a little wobbly and weak, but at least he felt clear-headed and completely connected to his body again. "Maybe a little."
He peed and she took his temperature, which was normal, and gave him a granola bar to eat, which helped a lot. "Becca, can we please escape now?"
She made a pained little gasping sound. "Not yet, sweetheart, not yet. When he sees we're gone, he'll just blow me up." She pointed to her bomb collar, and Dick's heart sank. "But, Dickie, listen...if you pretend to be sick a little longer, I can- I'm gonna try to..." She drew in a shaky breath. "I-I'm gonna see if I can get the controller, baby. While he's sleeping. And when I have it, then we can run and someone can get this thing off me when we reach the city."
"Okay. Let's try to save some water and stuff to bring with us, just in case."
Neither of them could sleep, too keyed up with anticipation and apprehension. When the sun began to rise, Becca used the bedside lamp to keep Dick's skin fever-hot, and the boy did his best to act like he'd felt when he was still ill, both longing for and dreading the next moment their tormentor would stick his head into the room to check on them. In the meantime, having nothing to listen to but Becca's anxious rambling was hard, so he asked for another movie.
"Fluffy~!"
Dick coughed to try to hide his shudder and let out a little moan, which didn't take much acting ability.
"How's my kitten doing today?"
"He's still sick," Becca said, her voice too fast and high-pitched. "We need more food and medicine - the kind I asked you to get."
"Hmmm." A white hand pressed briefly against Dick's grimy forehead and then gripped his face, turning it upward. Dick forced himself to keep his eyes heavy-lidded and his body still, wishing he could get his breathing to slow down. "I don't know, I'm starting to think it's just that you're a sucky doctor."
Becca whimpered. Dick didn't know whether to stick to the plan, or try to protect Becca and risk blowing their cover.
The man abruptly dropped him. "Eh, I'll give it another day or two. Get well soon, Fluffy!"
Becca exhaled in deep relief when the Batman left. "Ohhh, Dickie, just a little longer, just hold on a little longer, and then we'll be out of here!"
Dick couldn't shake the eerie feeling that their captor could somehow hear them. "Maybe...maybe you should whisper."
The day seemed to crawl by. Dick couldn't stand sitting through anymore movies, so Becca found a stained deck of cards for them to play with, and a few books to read to him. The Batman popped in a few more times, but didn't try to approach Dick again.
"He keeps it in his coat pocket," Becca whispered excitedly to Dick. "Tonight, I'll wait 'til he's asleep, he'll have to take off his coat before he goes to bed. I can steal the controller then."
"What if he...what if he takes it out of the coat before he goes to bed?"
"He'll still have it nearby. It shouldn't be too hard to find."
They did manage to sleep a little, taking turns so that there was always someone on watch, though neither of them got much rest even when it was their turn to nap. At long last, the sun began to set, but then they had to wait even longer for the Batman to go to bed.
"Dick," Becca suddenly gasped at about 9:30, "the Batman...he works at night. What if Joker-Bat works at night, too?!"
Dick felt cold. But then he remembered, "He was awake during the day, though. Maybe that means he'll sleep at night?"
"Oh, God, I hope so..."
At about 1:00 in the morning, Becca nervously crept out of the room. Dick felt like he was going crazy waiting for her, so he started mentally reciting all of Mr. Haly's introductions to each act.
After about twenty minutes, Becca rushed back in on tip-toes. "Dickie! Dickie!" she whispered in jittery triumph, waving the controller in one hand. "He does sleep at night! Snores, too."
Relief crashed down on him. Dick swung out of bed, pulled on the shoes Becca had found for him earlier, and retrieved from its hiding spot the duffel bag he and Becca had packed bit by bit throughout the day. He turned to find Becca stripping the sheets off the bed. "What are you doing?"
"So we can climb out the window."
Dick stared. He had seen the view out those windows, and he remembered, on the nightmarish drive to this awful house, how much time had passed between the last sounds of traffic and their arrival. "Becca...I think we need a car."
She paused. Then she slapped her palm against her forehead. "Aaaaaggghhh, I'm such a dummy...!"
"I know where the garage is." He led the way, glad that Becca thought to pause on the threshold and see if there was a key rack (there was).
She lit up like a kid in a candy store when she saw all the vehicles they could take their pick from. "This is almost too easy!"
"It is, isn't it?"
Both of them whipped around in horror and were chilled to find their captor leaning casually in the entryway to the mud room.
"NO!" Becca shrieked. "NO! NO-!"
"Becca, run!" Dick cried, trying to drag her toward the nearest car, but the key he'd grabbed didn't fit in the lock.
The Batman's approach was slow, his smile wide and cruel. "Going somewhere?"
"You can't kill me!" Becca screamed hysterically, brandishing the controller. "You can't blow me up! You can't do it without this! You can't!"
"Doc, calm down. I would never, ever kill you with a bomb."
They both stared at him, terrified and confused.
"I can't activate that bomb without the controller, so you're right. You win. No bombs for you." BANG
It was so sudden, Dick couldn't understand what had happened at first. It took him several seconds to realize that what had just splashed across him was blood. 'No...'
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" the Batman was laughing uproariously, carelessly swinging the gun still smoking in his hand. "Your faces, you were all, like, 'Wuuuhhh?' and then BANG and then, ha ha ha ha, she doesn't even have a face now...!"
'N-No. No. No. No.' Dick stared down at himself, because as awful as the bright crimson splattered across him was, he couldn't bear to look at his tormentor, and he knew he absolutely could not look beside him. He couldn't look. He couldn't look. If he looked, he would see...he would see it, he would see 'No, no, no, no, no, no...!'
He couldn't move. Even when the demon man took hold of him and started to drag him back across the garage, he could not make himself move, even to try to save his own life. He couldn't lift a finger to stop it when when the stained clothes were sliced apart and tugged off his body.
"Ridiculous; I can't stand people who cram their pets into costumes, it's revolting. You're not even her pet, you're mine."
The cage door shut, the lock clicked. Footsteps marched away. Dick lay there on the cold, fuzzy, smelly metal and could not move or make a sound, could do nothing but shake as he listened to the sounds of booted feet moving back and forth, to the sound of quiet curses, to the sound of...something being dragged across the floor. Then a door slammed, and it was silent.
To be continued...
A/N: Man, I thought I'd have a chance yesterday to catch up on TBWS's behind-the-scenes work. Unfortunately, I happen to be stuck in one of my days-long research binges, so all I had time to do was make a bit of progress on the TBWS timeline and a lot of progress on the prequel, which is low priority. The next ItB chapter is drafted, at any rate.