Now Beta'd. As always many thanks to my beta Eeyop :)
"I have everything," Tetch said, grinning, suddenly appearing next to the car. The back door opened and Tetch clambered in, liking this car a lot more because he could climb in with some dignity. "Where are we going now?"
"You ask a lot of questions," Sam griped.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine," said the husky dark voice of Two-Face, who was sitting opposite them and partially obscured in the shadows. "You have a right to know, as you'll be my most important man in the upcoming weeks. It's a new place, somewhere where you'll get all the extra technology you'll need. It used to be one of the Joker's old bases, but Harley, when she joined me temporarily, showed me where it was. It's mine now."
Tetch gulped. "Erm, Mr Joker won't be back for it, will he?" His mind flashed back to the massive grin, the long length of wiry insanity that had held out his claws and called to him in the night. He shuddered.
"That fool can barely remember what he did last week, never mind where one of his old bases is at. You'll be fine, trust me."
There was a small silence in which Tetch felt like he was drowning. He was infinitely scared of Two-Face, and even Sam put him ill at ease. "M-may I ask when we will see the others again?"
Sam chuckled darkly while Two-Face explained. "Their time with us has expired."
The car pulled up at an old deserted alleyway on the outskirts of the city. Sam opened the door and held it for Two-Face.
"What do you mean 'expired'?" Tetch called to the leaving figure.
Sam ducked down and shouted, "He means they're dead meat. Now hurry up and get out, I'm getting soaked here!"
Tetch scrambled out of the car and followed after the other men. "R-really? But I thought they were part of us, part of the gang?"
Two-Face suddenly whirled around and Tetch knew in that moment that he was no longer speaking to Harvey, but to Two-Face. "You think that there is an 'us'?" he growled before letting out a rough laugh that sounded like pieces of charcoal being scrapped and beaten up against each other. "That's hilarious. I get that you look like an overgrown ten-year-old, but you actually seem to think like a kid as well. We need Batman off our cases; we need to keep your little crime," he jabbed Tetch in the chest, "completely out of sight. To do that we need to make sure that Bats and all his army of cops are kept very busy for the next few months. My boys are good at keeping cops and Batman busy. But –," he looked up at the hellish sky, with its shots of electric blue streaks shooting through the black clouds pregnant with stinging, polluted rain water, "people like those guys don't survive nights like this. It isn't just the innocent civilians who die on breakouts; it's the weaker ones from the asylum and Blackgate as well. Nights like these are a sort of reckoning for us. They separate the strong and the weak. The men you met are the weak. Nice guys, nice guys, but weak. If you want to survive being a part of the Rogue Gallery, and I doubt you'll ever be great, you have to learn that there is always, alwayscollateral damage." He grabbed Tetch by his upper arm and dragged him into the building through a rusty side door.
Inside, Sam had already switched on the heating and was lighting up a cigarette. Tetch's work was now laid out on a table in the centre of the room.
"Those people would sell you out in a second, Tetch, trust me; it's better to get them than to let them get you."
Later that evening, alone in the rundown cellar, Tetch reflected on those words. Two-Face had left, evidently having things to do and trusting Tetch to stay inside and to get on with things. There was a little room in the back with a bed (in a lurid heart shape – he had been informed that Harley Quinn had probably picked out that piece of furniture) as well as half a dozen old photographs of Quinn and her Mister J. Tetch decided to throw them away later.
At that point in time he was busy working, not on what Two-Face wanted, but on what he wanted. He smirked; it was just like old times. He was the only person in America who knew his specific field; he was a Founding Father in that sense. This meant that it was easy to fool people into thinking he was doing what he was supposed to. Heck, he had gotten away with it in Wayne Enterprises for almost a full year. (In this case, it was now Sam, who was near the door, reading a magazine and paying little attention to Tetch, who was being fooled.)
Tetch was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He had learnt a lot from his short stay in Arkham. First of all, with the plan he was beginning to lay it was almost a certainty that he would end up back inside. He knew that in order to survive that place, he would need to get more sophisticated and would need his technology on hand. And that meant designing his devices to be less obvious; he loved his Playing Card design, and there would always be a place in his heart for them, but in Arkham he would need them to be hidden away.
He worked quickly and quietly for a few solid hours, hearing the rain beating down outside, before he finally had a few small prototypes. He grinned goofily, holding them up to the light.
"All I need now is to test them," he whispered to himself, "and I know just how I want to do that."
He went up to Sam naturally, Sam looking up at him at the last moment.
"What is it, Te–?" He didn't finish his query when Tetch placed the small button-like prototype beside his ear. The small mechanism stuck on Sam, making the man immediately grow quiet and compliant.
"Not bad," Tetch said to himself, "but this won't last, it won't stay on him for long. Ok, Sam, I need you to tell me where Bobo and the others are, and if it's too late to save them."
"It's a big heist on the central bank," Sam said tonelessly, his eyes heavily glazed. "It's all flash but no logic, just as the boss wanted. A lot of people will get killed and it'll keep the Bat busy. Bobo and the others won't last very long, even if they get out of the bank, which is programmed to blow up at two a.m.; they will still be caught by the Bat or the cops in no time at all."
"Do they know that it's going to explode?" Tetch glanced at the clock on the wall. It was close to midnight.
"No, none of them know. It's been rigged to look like a job gone wrong, like they put too much dynamite to get into the main safe."
Tetch reached into Sam's pocket and grabbed his car keys. "Thanks, Sam. Now you stay here nicely while I go save who I can."
The storm was still going, but it was more heavy rain than sharp stabs of lightning and roaring of thunder. It was as if the sky was an angry child, first sullen and cloudy in the afternoon, then throwing a violent tantrum in the form of all the light works that was witnessed in the storm, and now it was weeping ardently, defeated but still seething with impotent rage.
Tetch hadn't got any clothes other than the ugly jumpsuit he had been forced in from Arkham. However, Bobo had been kind enough earlier to find him a long mac that held off the wet with limited success. He wrapped it tightly about him as he pocketed the prototype mind controllers and stepped outside.
"I've only just managed to get a friend," he decided. "I'm not willing to give up Bobo. I don't care what Two-Face says, he only sees me as collateral damage as well. It's in my best interests to find Bobo, Wheels and all the other guys, and to make sure they are safe. They will protect me, even if I go back inside."