Dr. Zaroff Mandrill is expecting a phone call. He doesn't even check the caller ID when his mobile starts ringing and he answers, braced for business. But the voice on the other end of the line catches him off guard.
"Manny." It's Jim McSweeney, of all people, and how the doctor curses the impeccable, unfortunate timing he's always somehow had. His voice cracks on every word. "Did you see the news? Did you hear about Connor?!"
"Yes, I did," he replies carefully. Clipped. Clinical. "I'm sorry, Jim. It was a tragedy."
"How did he even find them?" The walrus gets right to the point; Zaroff has always liked that about him. "Connor was always so careful. I thought for sure he'd outsmart him…"
The doctor can already feel his shallow patience waning. Honestly, it's a miracle it hasn't dropped completely yet as he acts out sympathy for Cooper. Jim always did bring out the only softness in him.
"You know how that creature was, Jim. Sooner or later, he was going to catch up. Perhaps if circumstances had been different, this could have been avoided."
There's silence on the line, punctuated only by the occasional sniffle, and something strangely close to bitterness begins rising in his throat. Why cry for a business partner? Why shed tears for a man who dragged you into his orbit, promised the sun and moon for your talents, and then spit you into the vast hostility of the world with nothing for your troubles?
He's snapped out of his seething as his claws crack the wood of his chair's armrest. It's enough to ground him for half a second, until his former partner's next words nearly put him right back into a rage.
"I know you never met his kid, but do you think you could – find out about him? Can't you? Find out if he survived? I tried looking myself but them damn cops have the whole thing locked so tight –"
"Jim." The claws go back to digging into upholstery.
"–and I thought, since they've only released confirmation about Connor, maybe –"
"Jim." Grinding teeth.
"– you don't have to do anything else. I know you said you wanted nothing to do with Sly, Manny, but that was years ago and this is just one thing, please –"
"McSweeney!"
It comes out in a snarl, so much more than he'd meant. But it gets the job done; the walrus shuts up.
"McSweeney, listen to me." He pinches his brow to ease his scowl, knowing it will show in his tone otherwise. "It's too late. You're calling because you've seen the press conference. 'Cooper Family Found Slain.' The owl finally got what he wanted."
Zaroff hears his former partner take a deep, shaky breath, ready to make one more counterargument, and so he pulls out his trump card.
"I saw the pictures."
Jim exhales, horrified.
"I broke into Interpol's record system as soon as the news came out. I…had to be certain."
He doesn't say that he only went snooping long enough to confirm Connor's death. He doesn't say why he had to be so certain. What Jim doesn't know won't break his bleeding heart even more.
Case in point: the walrus begins to weep over the phone. Zaroff stares detached, almost clinically at his clenched hand as spiderweb fractures crack down the side of the chair.
"I'm sorry, Jim," he says, and means it. Sorry the man ever got involved with a lowlife like Cooper. Sorry he's still so easily pulled apart by his emotions after all these years.
Sorry Zaroff can't bring him in on the fortunes they are both owed, because even in death Connor has found a way to ruin things. When there's no immediate response, the doctor presses the phone a little closer to his cheek. His voice comes out softer than he expects.
"Step away from this, Jim. All of it - the case, the crime, the life. You're only going to hurt yourself if you don't."
His former partner makes a sound he can't identify, mournful and despairing.
"...Maybe you're right," McSweeney finally admits, and there's another new emotion there that Zaroff also can't place. It seems stronger than resignation. "I knew there was a chance this would happen. I'm really…heh. I really got in over my head, huh?"
The doctor doesn't know what conclusions he's just come to, but he doesn't ask. It's always been better not to in their line of work.
"Take care of yourself, Jim."
"Yeah…" He sighs like a dying balloon. "You too, Brainiac."
Zaroff doesn't know who hangs up first, but he stares at his phone for a long minute afterwards, wrapped in emotions he thought he'd purged eight years ago.
Then the screen lights up in another incoming call, and he snaps out of his strange mood. There are much more important things at hand than one sentimental, remorseful old walrus.
The boardwalk is deserted when the doctor arrives. The moon above offers the only source of light as he steps out of his car and into the chilly coastal wind, casting an eerie glow out on the ocean.
Zaroff walks halfway down the wooden avenue before turning around to wait, back to the water and eyes on the empty road. He doesn't have to stand in the cold long before another set of headlights appear, washing everything out in harsh, stark white.
It crawls to a stop and he straightens as two figures make their appearance, contrasting greatly in size and how they carry themselves. A frog and a bulldog.
They stop several feet from him. Everyone is wary of each other and for very good reason.
"Well?" The mandrill finally cuts through the silence, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. "Do you have it?"
The frog reaches up under his hat and pulls out a folded piece of paper, holding it out towards Zaroff. He crosses the distance quickly but non-threateningly, eyeing the bulldog who has folded his massive arms to glare down at him as he takes the offered item.
Unfolding it reveals a map. Coordinates in the middle of the Pacific ocean for a tiny dot of an island. The mandrill feels his face split in a triumphant grin before meeting the frog's eyes again.
"And the cane?"
The two share a glance, and Zaroff realizes immediately.
"You didn't get the cane?" He snarls, clenching the paper tight between his fingers. "That was part of the deal!"
"Plans changed, buddy," drawls the bulldog, and he just knows this is an intellectual caveman; hired muscle who isn't worth even speaking to. "You oughta be grateful we even got that weird map for ya."
His gaze swings furiously to the frog, who sighs as if inconvenienced. "What my imbecilic partner means to say, doctor, is that we didn't have time to look for the cane. It took a significant while just to find Cooper's Thievius Raccoonus, and we couldn't allow ourselves to be seen and traced back to the crime."
"But - you - that - you were supposed to get me that cane!" Boiling anger spikes through his brain, makes his claws twitch in a great desire to rip this haughty socialite limb from limb. "That was the arrangement we made! I track Cooper down for your pathetic team and you return with what I'm owed!"
Both Fiendish Five members bristle at the hostility and the insult to their group, but just as the bulldog takes a menacing step forward with some crass word on his tongue, his face goes slack and he stiffens.
The moonlight above Zaroff disappears.
Every strand of fur along the doctor's body stands straight up as he feels - not hears, not sees, feels - the presence landing behind him. Ancient survival instincts scream as he turns slowly around.
The yellow eyes of death itself are what greets him.
He stares up at what can only be described as a monstrosity. An amalgamation of science and supernatural encompassed in a gleaming metal body stares back at him. Zaroff's mind prickles under the smoldering, patient fury of that stare.
He knows who Clockwerk is. He has seen him, once - from the live feed in Cooper's recon tech as the owl made an attempt on Connor's life six or seven years ago. But watching through the lens of a camera is nothing like encountering the real thing.
Looking up at this prehistoric bird who could crush him in its beak alone, Zaroff has a pang of sympathy for Connor Cooper for the first and last time in his life.
"You are unhappy with our deal?" Clockwerk asks. His voice is less a voice and more a metallic echo, and the mandrill nearly shivers.
"I…" Zaroff swallows, clenches his hand around the map, and finds his nerve again. "I was promised Cooper's cane as well as this for my services. I tracked him down nearly a month earlier than expected, even! And you're telling me that you didn't have time to find it?"
He can't quite summon his original fury, no matter how he tries. The owl seems to understand anyway, though, because he cocks his head just the tiniest bit, and never has a common bird trait been so intimidating.
"I understand your rage," he speaks softly, far too softly for someone of this size. "You are right to be angry at a broken contract, and you are right to be angry at our flippancy. You are justified in your hatred."
It should be reassuring. It's probably meant to be. But the doctor feels only unease as those yellow eyes stare unblinking at him.
"But there is still a chance for you to walk away with everything you have been promised."
Zaroff tenses, thinking it's a threat - that Clockwerk is allowing him to leave the issue alone with only half his prize and his metaphorical tail between his legs - but the Fiendish Five's leader holds up a single claw to continue without interruption.
"Interpol has confiscated all of Cooper's belongings and will be transporting them out of the country very soon. They will be short-sighted enough to bring his cane along, I have no doubt."
The mandrill's mouth is dry even as he finds the willpower to snap at the owl. "So - what? I'm the one who has to retrieve it? I still have to do the heavy-lifting even though you promised to bring it to me yourself?"
"Make no mistake, Dr. Zaroff Mandrill," Clockwerk says without inflection; without emotion. "The Fiendish Five do not leave witnesses to our crimes unless it suits us. I agreed to your bargain because I knew if there was anyone who came close to hating Cooper as much as I do, it was you, and I knew you would stay quiet about this whole affair. But there are things in play here that you do not understand."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means," - and the owl looms, looms over him like the grim reaper - "that I am giving you a chance to show you are better than that loathsome Cooper; than that loathsome bloodline. Show the world you are a thief more capable than he will ever be."
If Zaroff were not afraid for his life, he would have caught the strange inflection at the end of Clockwerk's speech. But he very much is, and it slips past him like a ringed tail in the night.
"I - I will," he whispers, cowed in a way he has never been before in all his years of crime. But there is a pit of fire in his eyes now, burning in hatred and the beginning of obsession. "I'll show you. I'll show everyone."
The owl disappears into the night sky, and his companions take their leave right after, leaving Zaroff standing on a desolate boardwalk with a precious piece of paper held like a lifeline.
He stares up at the distant shadow blocking the moon until it's gone, and has the thought -
A monstrosity like that could be quite useful, someday.
A/N: I'm still alive! Crazy, right?
I will fully admit that I never intended to leave this fic hanging for so long, and hopefully never will again. It's definitely one that I want to see through to the end no matter how long it takes, because the support you all have given it still continues to blow me away for such a small fandom. If any of you are still around to read, thank you so much.
If anyone is wondering why Dr. M has a map for Kaine Island when Connor gave the original to McSweeney, I'll tell you a secret that I couldn't fit into this chapter: there never was a copy to be found in the house. Clockwerk had this one himself, all this time, and it was an easy bargain to make when his obsession was more with Cooper himself than any actual riches.
And he fully intended never to bring Dr. M the cane - gotta give the Cooper child some kind of fighting chance, after all!