"Alright kiddies!" Joker threw his coat over the back of a chair as they entered a room complete with a large table surrounded by chairs. "Go on and explore, or stay here if you want to, just be back here as soon as I call you alright?"
"Yes sir!" Matthew saluted.
"No problem," Victoria grinned as an aroma caught her nose.
"Good kids," Harley smiled and hugged Matthew before walking off with the Joker.
They stood there for a few minutes taking in their surroundings.
"Well," Ally stretched up her arms and yawned. "I'm going to find the bathroom." She turned on her heel and walked out the door and down the hall.
Victoria's nose started twitching hungrily as she edged towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Briar asked her as Victoria began to move past her.
"I can smell tea," Victoria mumbled, blindly following her nose. "And, unfortunately, coffee."
"Coffee?" Briar's pupils dilated and adopted a glint of incomprehensible greed, and, suddenly very interested, she started following Victoria out of the room in a rather zombie-like fashion.
"Wait," Victoria sharply stopped in the door way, making Briar bump into her. "Are you two going to be ok?" She turned back to where Sophie and Matthew were swinging in the chairs around the table.
"Yeah we'll be alright." Matthew smiled.
"Alright then just don't get killed while we're gone, yeah?" Victoria grinned at the two youngest of her friends.
They nodded in unison.
"Let's go then!" Victoria grinned happily to the girl beside her before she began skipping down the corridor, following her nose towards her favourite drink in the world. Briar was also following Victoria's nose towards her favourite hot drink.
The two walked down a long corridor. After about five minutes of speed walking Victoria stopped suddenly, "In here," she said turning and walking though the door to a small kitchen. In the corner sat an old stove that had a small metal tea pot, the boiling liquid inside it making it rumble softly on the spot. Off to the stove's left was a little line of worktops on top of one of them was an electric coffee maker that steamed steadily giving off a sour aroma, enjoyable to some.
As if the two were on wheels, they glided across the floor and moved in time like a clockwork machine. Victoria got the milk as Briar got the cups. Victoria sat the milk down on the work bench that stood between the coffee maker and boiling tea pot as Briar handed her a tea cup. Briar picked up the milk jug and poured an equally small amount of milk into each mug as Victoria picked up the tea pot and poured her self a steaming mug. Victoria put down her tea cup and picked up the plastic coffee jug and filled Briar's mug as Briar put the milk away. At the same time the girls took a deep gulp of their selected drink.
"Ah! It's good to know that no matter what dimension you are in, some important things never change," Briar swallowed smiling to herself.
Victoria nodded deep in thought, a slightly frightened look in her eye, "Hey you know who drinks tea in Gotham to no end?"
Sudden realisation dawned on Briar's face as the large coffee mug stopped half way on its journey back to her lips. "No way, you stole Jervis Tetch's tea!" Fear was now reflected in her eyes also as her quick mind set to work. "And the man who is most likely to be putting on a jug of coffee at the same time as Jervis is –"
"Is going to have our heads." Victoria finished for her, she rubbed her face roughly. "Do you think they will really mind?"
"Well Jervis seems a nice bloke so my bet is almost definitely no, but Jonathan Crane is ruthless and my bet is on almost definitely yes." Briar gulped totally oblivious to everything else in the world except the two mugs in front of her and Victoria.
"Maybe if you tell him how very, very hot and sexy we think he is he'll be nice for once," Victoria suggested, a desperate smile on her face.
"I will only tell him that if you tell Jervis Tetch that you want to sleep with him," Briar joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"I never said that!" Victoria squeaked. "I said I wouldn't mind to go on a date with him, quite obviously your definition of a date and mine differ greatly you slutty kitty cat." She smirked.
"Well I wouldn't mind taking Jonathan Crane on one of my kind of dates," Briar giggled.
"To be perfectly honest neither would I," her friend laughed back.
They continued giggling girlishly for a second until a deep cough interrupted them. Suddenly they were both as still as two young deer in a car's headlights. Briar and Victoria turned to the source of the cough.
It was obvious who he was, amazingly tall, insanely thin, auburn hair and reading glasses that sat upon his nose. Beside him stood a man whom was about a head shorter than his friend, he had messy blonde hair which was weighed down by the unmistakably large hat perched on top of his head.
"Who exactly are you two?" Jonathan Crane glared.
Victoria squeaked and hid the tea cup behind her back as she noticed Jervis' eyes flicking between the mugs in the girls' hands as Jonathan's stayed firmly fixed on their faced.
"Puh…puh…puh…nyeh," Briar managed to stutter out.
The obvious suspicion on Jervis' face immediately turned into a look of complete confusion. "Puh, puh, puh, nyeh?" he repeated slowly.
Victoria's facial expression was a mirror image of Jervis'. "Seriously?" she whispered.
"Well then you handle this!" Briar hissed back, her mug of coffee still in hand.
"Only with your back up dearest," She glared as she cleared throat to speak. "Wh-what my friend here m-means to say is th-that my n-name is V-Victoria and this is Briar," Victoria waved to Briar behind her, who smiled sheepishly and gave a small wave before Victoria continued with her stammered introduction. "T-the um… Joker brought us her on…on account of the fact tha-that Harley Quinn thought m-my young friend was adorable, wh-which is his. I-I was simp-simply following my nose when we st-stumbled upon this little kitchen." Victoria nervously cleared her throat again, silently hoping this would stop her tripping over her words. "We only realise who could've possibly have made the tea, and coffee, after we had taken the first gulp. And since it was already diluted by the milk, we thought it a waste to throw it out." Victoria took another deep breath and rushed the last bit of her speech. "And now that I have answered your question can I please ask you how much of our conversation did you hear?"
"From the part where you said I seemed like a nice bloke." Jervis answered in his undeniably British accent.
Victoria looked at Briar who looked straight back at her before they both look back at the men standing in the door way. "Well fuck." They both swore in unison.
"Next question," Jonathan began but he was interrupted by Joker hollering through out the whole building.
"Kids!" He yelled. "Come back to Uncle J!"
Ally walked out into a dark corridor. "Come on," she spoke to herself as she moved down the corridor quickly. "I gotta pee!"
Finally after a least 15 minutes of searching, she came up on a labelled clearly 'Lavatory'. "Lavato-what?" Ally asked herself as she searched her brain for that word. Ally got a flash of Victoria on one night of a sleepover. "She said "I've got to use the lav."" Ally thought aloud. "Lav, LAVatory! Sweet!" Ally grabbed at the door handle and tried to turn it. It was jammed. She twisted the handle repeatedly; when that didn't work she shook the door violently.
"Hey!" I rough voice yelled from behind the closed door as something heavy hit the door, knocking Ally back a few inches. "Some of us are trying to use the crapper here!"
"Oh it was locked…damn it." Ally turned and bashed into what seemed like a brick wall. She blinked and looked up to see an extremely heavily built man wearing what seemed like a Mexican luchadore mask. He smiled down at her.
"Hole señorita, are you lost?" he asked sweetly.
Slowly, eyes wide, Ally shook her head and gave a small, shy smile back. "I just um… need to use the loo." She answered honestly. "But there is someone in there." Ally pointed to the door behind her.
"Ah sí niña I heard him," The strange muscular man walked towards the door and knocked on it softly. "Señor Dent, could you please hurry up. We have a guest."
"So what do I care." The gruff voice replied again. "Tell you what scared I don't come out, clean I do. How does that sound?"
Ally's near bursting bladder encouraged her confidence to speak up, "Seems fair enough, flip for it then." She said through the old wooden door. Ally listened, she heard the high pitched metallic ting as the coin flipped, then the small clap as it hit the man's palm and finally she heard the small, "Damn." That escaped the man's lips before there was the noise of the toilet flushing and the sounds of running water and a man coming towards the door. Ally and her new friend backed off from the door as the lock clicked, and the door creaked open revelling a man wearing a half black, half white suit and odd blue skin, marring the left side of his face while the right was normal and handsome.
"And who are you?" this new man from the toilet asked as the coin that had got him off the loo was being flipped repeatedly.
"My name's Ally." She replied shortly, looking the man up and down.
The coin man merely grunted and the Spanish man took it upon himself to introduce them both. "I am Bane, Roja and this is Señor Harvey Dent."
"People call me Two-Face." Harvey added gruffly.
"OK well I gotta –" Ally started making her way towards the bathroom door but was interrupted my Joker yelling down the corridors of the old warehouse.
"Kids!" His voice was loud and annoyingly happy. "Come back to Uncle J!"
"Oh God dammit!" she yelled back.
Sophie and Matthew watched as Briar and Victoria left the room.
"Well," Sophie sighed spinning around in her comfy chair. "What now?"
"I have no idea," Matthew got up off his seat and started to walk around the table. "We could explore, but you don't want to move do you?" He stopped at every door as he walked past them and looked through it before he continued walking.
"How did you know?" Sophie smiled and continued spinning.
"So how do you think we got here?" Matthew sat back down beside Sophie and threw his legs unto the large table.
Sophie turned to look at him, "Well obviously, the spoon brought us here."
"Well duh!" Matthew removed the 10 pence coin from his pocket and started to flip it, an odd nervous habit.
Ting. Thump. Ting. Thump. Ting. Thump. The rhythmic noises of the coin as it was flipped in the air and caught were all that could be heard for a few moments as the two sat in silence.
Sophie continued spinning in her chair until she stopped suddenly. "Matthew? What will happen if we can't get home?" Her face was worried.
"Why would we want to go home?" Matthew answered happily. "We're in Gotham City, we are hanging out with the Gotham City rouges! This is the best thing that could've happened, EVER!"
"Yeah but, aren't you worried about your family? I mean they'll be worrying about you?" Sophie looked confused.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Matthew raised his eyebrows as he looked at Sophie.
After a few minutes Sophie sighed, "Oh yeah, you hate your family. Sometimes I don't get you Matthew." She started spinning in her chair again.
"Most people don't," He leaned back and closed his eyes. 5 minutes passed before anything else was said and again the only sound in the room was Matthew and his coin.
Suddenly murmurs of voices were heard outside on of the doors.
"Do you have any idea what Joker was on about?" A voice with a German accent said.
"Do you ever have any idea what that clown is on about?" A know it all voice answered as he walked through the door frame. "He talks nonsense! He comes back here talking about getting some kids from –" The man stopped midsentence as he looked around the room.
Sophie had stopped spinning and was now staring at the floor, her face going slightly flushed again, she recognised that voice.
Matthew was still flipping the coin and was grinning up at the men who had just came through the door way.
"I suddenly understand," the snowy white man concluded as he clanked across the floor towards the two children.
The other man walked over towards the children and looked down at them. This man had red hair and was wearing a dark green suit. He looked at Sophie before turning to Matthew, "What's wrong with your friend?"
Matthew flipped his coin in the air and caught it. Tails. "Oh that's because she loves you." He answered simply and went back to flipping his coin.
"Matthew!" Sophie shrieked at the little boy. "You don't tell people that." Her eyes were wide with shock and her face went a deep red.
"Really?" Edward smirked in his famous smug smirk.
"Oh yeah," Victor spoke from his seat in the corner. "That is a great boost to his already huge ego." He rolled his eyes.
Edward scowled before continuing, "So dear, what is you name?" He smiled sweetly at Sophie.
"It's um…Sophie," She mumbled quietly, her blushing intensified as Edward Nigma addressed her.
"What a lovely name." He crooned. "and what's your name little boy?" he asked Matthew.
"It's Matthew." He grinned back. "and don't worry about Soph she just gets really nervous whenever she talks guys she really likes." Matthew had a sly smile painted on his face.
"Wow Edward," Victor again from the corner. "You are actually willing to try and seduce a young girl. You are endless."
Again Edward scowled again and turned away from Sophie. He took off his green bowler hat and purple mask and threw them in the corner with his cane. "I wasn't trying anything Victor I was just being friendly."
"A little too friendly by the sounds off it Eddie." Joker's familiar voice chuckled behind him. "But still time you met the rest of the kids." He grinned as he cleared his throat. "Kids! Come back to Uncle Joker!" he yelled happily.