AN: Yup, Razor is the same poor sap that appears in the Arkham games. Poor baby. He has shit luck.

Christineoftheopera-Between her and Edward, she's the lesser of two evils. Eddie's sweet. Edward always has to clean because of that goddamn OCD. There is that.

"Now." Richardson looked at the group of assembled henches. "I am going out to pick up a few things. Jonathan is-finally-asleep. While I'm gone, I would like him to stay that way. So listen up. If you wake him, even for two minutes, I will know, and I will ensure that you do not do it again. Is that clear?"

"Yes, M'am."

"Good. I shouldn't be gone for long. Remember..." She held a finger to her lips. "Silence."

Razor shuddered. Crane was a crazy, volatile bastard, but Richardson was the one who liked to cut things off.

Once she was gone, the group breathed a collective sigh of relief and the tension in the room eased.

They hadn't actually seen either of them since a badly botched robbery a few days ago. All Razor knew was that the Bat had showed up, shit had gone down, and they'd come back very much the worse for wear. The boys had swapped some rumors about them maybe dying up there, and then this afternoon Richardson had come down in a piss-poor mood.

Razor, for his part, did not want to make that mood worse. If he had any say, Crane wouldn't hear so much as a peep.

The universe had other ideas.

CRASH!

Every nerve he had tensed to run and he spun around, fingers flexing around an imaginary neck.

"Who. Did. That."

"I lost my grip?"

Charles. Fucking Charles and his fucking water glass and-

Namaste. Oom.

"I am not killing your stupid ass because if-by some miracle-that didn't wake the boss, murdering you will wake him. Clean that up and go sit in the corner."

The sound of glass being swept into a dustpan sounded unreasonably loud and he kept glancing at the stairwell, expecting Crane to have stumbled down to see what had happened.

Somebody up there loved him. For once.

He breathed a sigh of relief and sagged against the wall, thanking his lucky stars that Crane hadn't come down.

Once the mess was cleaned, Charlie pulled out his phone and it beeped. Razor swallowed a squeak of panic and leapt across the room to snatch it from his hands.

"Quiet."

"Dude, he's up there, probably with the door shut. Relax."

"I don't care. Either he'll come down and shoot us all, or Richardson will do unspeakable things to us. And I don't know about you, but I like my dick where it is."

"She wouldn't-"

"She would. I've seen it." Or, rather, the aftermath, when she'd tossed the poor bastard out with the 'doctor's orders' of putting ice on it and to go in if it looked like there was an infection. "So if you want to take that risk, do it somewhere else, where I won't get blamed."

"Whatever. Wimp."

What? Fuck this punk. Shit was going down now!

"Come here."

"Hey, man, what the-ow! Leggo, that hurts!"

"Take it back."

"No!"

He frowned and pulled on the arm harder, until it was near to popping out. Charlie grimaced and suddenly went still.

"I'll wake the Doc."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

Damn.

"This isn't over."

"Whatever." He turned and started walking away. "Wimp."

The minute it was safe to do so, he was kicking this fucker's ass.

All was silent. Richardson had been gone for fifteen minutes, and so far nobody had really done anything apart from sit down and not touch.

"I'm bored."

"Shut up."

"Come on, man."

"No."

"Just a board game or somethin', geeze-"

Scrit-scrit-scrit.

Razor twisted around and found himself staring at a big, fat, grey rat. Ew. He flapped a hand at it to scare it off and it fled-

-knocking a beaker over on the way. He dove for it and caught it before it hit the ground, but the rat kept going, narrowly avoiding glasses and beakers and notebooks.

Shit.

He placed the beaker back on the table. Where had it gone, it had just been there-

THUD!

Notebook down! Notebook down!

For all Charlie's bravado, he was just as jumpy as the rest of them and he made a rather impressive dive to catch a falling vial.

The rat jumped off the counter and booked it. Razor let it go-it was no longer going to break shit, and that was the important thing.

Crane had not come down. Against all odds, he hadn't woken up. Thank. Jesus.

Razor was just thanking his lucky stars-again-when there was a CRASH!

"Charlie!"

"Shit."

At this point, Charlie was going to be murdered for sheer clumsiness.

"Clean it up."

After the rat incident, nobody complained of boredom. But the universe was apparently pissed at Razor for some reason-dude, seriously, he did what he was told, that was all, no reason to be on God's shit list!-and something...happened.

He was sitting quietly on the floor, playing Candy Crush, when he smelled...smoke?

Was that smoke?

Shit, it was smoke! Fuck-fuck, they were gonna die...

Wait. That was toast smoke, his stupid cohorts were making a snack...

And the smoke alarm was very, very sensitive.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. He jumped up and began to run towards the kitchen, mouth shaping, "NNNNNOOOOOOOO!", as the smoke wafted towards the innocent little plastic circle on the wall.

Gonna make it...gonna make it...

His fingers just brushed against the plastic. It was gonna be okay. Everything was gonna be okay.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!

Nothing was gonna be okay!

He ripped it off the wall and yanked the battery out. The beeping ceased.

But not quite fast enough.

"What is going on down here?"

Fuck my life.

"S-s-sir." He swallowed hard. "These idiots...I tried to keep 'em quiet, Sir, I swear, they're just dumb...like kids, y'know, and...um..."

Crane raised an eyebrow.

"I do not hire children, Mister Razor."

"Of course you don't, Sir, I didn't mean-"

"Silence."

He shut up. Crane rubbed his eyes and muttered something about imbecilles.

"Just go outside."

That was it? They weren't going to be taken to the basement?

"Y-yes, Sir, right away-"

"Jonathan?"

WE'RE GONNA DIE.

"Kitty." Crane turned around. "Where'd you go?"

"Wal-Greens, they got the new Essies*. What are you doing up?"

"Smoke alarm."

"Is that so?" She gave Razor a wide smile. "I see. Come on, let's go back upstairs, hm?"

"Indeed."

They walked away and Razor sank to the floor. Maybe it was time to start seeking new employment.

THE END

*Nail polish brand. (They have a really pretty shimmery yellow colour that I so want that NOBODY in my town is stocking. Ugh. Internet to the rescue!)