Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air in Neo-Gotham’s Hamilton Hill Plaza tasted of ozone, recycled oxygen, and the cloyingly sweet scent of impending chaos. Flying vehicles, sleek as polished river stones, zipped between chrome-and-glass skyscrapers that speared a perpetually bruised twilight sky. Down below, the pedestrian thoroughfare was a river of humanity, a vibrant, noisy current of fashion-forward citizens and weary corporate drones. It was, in short, a perfect canvas. And the Dee Dee twins, along with their lanky associate, were about to paint it puce.

"You know." Ghoul began, his voice a reedy, hesitant thing that seemed to be perpetually searching for its next word, "these... these pies. They have a certain... je ne sais quoi." He held up the device in his hands. It looked like a cross between a leaf blower and a bazooka, with a wide canister on top filled with a bubbling, viscous purple substance. A long, comically oversized pastry bag was affixed to the nozzle. "A real... panache."

"It's just goop, Ghoul." Deirdre Dennis said, her voice flat and bored. She leaned against a holographic newsstand, idly buffing her nails. Her twin, Delia, stood beside her, bouncing on the balls of her feet, vibrating with suppressed energy. Their faces, painted in the stark white of a mime with exaggerated red circles on their cheeks and black-lined eyes, were masks of contrasting emotions. Deirdre’s was a study in adolescent apathy; Delia’s was a canvas of pure, unadulterated glee.

"It's not just goop." Delia chirped, her voice a whole octave higher than her sister’s. "It's super-stain, insta-set, lilac-scented goop! We spent all morning on the scent profile!"

"Yeah... the lilac." Ghoul intoned, sniffing the air near the nozzle. "It's... subtle. Yet... insistent. Like a... a ghost... who sells potpourri."

Deirdre rolled her gray eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't pop out of her skull. "Can we just get this over with? My soles are getting scuffed." She pointed a white-booted toe at the pristine plasteel sidewalk.

"Patience, Dee Dee." Ghoul said, adjusting his goggles over his thin, Scarecrow-like face. "Art... it requires... a moment. The right moment."

The right moment, it turned out, was when a trio of impeccably dressed executives from Wayne-Powers exited the gleaming obsidian tower across the plaza. They walked with the unearned confidence of men who measured their worth in corporate takeovers and market share percentages.

"Showtime." Delia whispered, her grin stretching her painted face into a caricature of joy.

Ghoul hefted the "Pie-per" cannon, as he'd christened it. He took a deep breath. "Say... hello... to my... little... friend."

SPLAT!

A perfect glob of glistening purple goo sailed across the plaza and impacted squarely on the chest of the lead executive. His pristine white suit was instantly violated by a starburst of lilac-scented villainy. He stopped, looking down at his chest with an expression of pure, uncomprehending horror, as if a pterodactyl had just relieved itself on him.

Before his companions could react, two more shots rang out. SPLAT! SPLAT! Now all three were adorned with the Jokerz' latest creation.

The plaza, which had been a symphony of urban hustle, fell silent for a beat. Then, a few scattered giggles erupted, quickly swelling into a wave of laughter from the onlookers. The executives’ faces turned from shock to crimson fury.

"Who did this?!" one of them bellowed, his voice echoing off the surrounding glass.

"That's our cue!" Delia sang.

The twins sprang into action. They were poetry in motion, a whirlwind of white and red. They launched themselves from the newsstand, executing a series of flawless, synchronized handsprings and cartwheels that carried them across the plaza with impossible speed and grace. They landed in perfect unison in front of the sputtering executives, striking a pose with their hands on their hips, heads cocked to one side.

"We did!" they announced together, their voices a strange harmony of boredom and excitement.

Ghoul trotted up behind them, the Pie-per resting on his shoulder. "It's a... a statement. About... corporate culture. And... you know... stickiness."

One of the executives, recovering his composure, jabbed a finger at them. "You're those Jokerz punks! Security!"

As if on cue, two burly security guards in gray uniforms began to push their way through the now-thick crowd of gawkers, many of whom were filming the spectacle on their wrist-coms.

"Uh oh, the fun police." Delia pouted.

"Let's dance." Deirdre said, a flicker of interest finally lighting her eyes.

What followed was less a fight and more a ballet of humiliation. The guards were big and strong, but the twins were quicksilver. They moved around the guards’ clumsy lunges, a blur of motion. Delia giggled as she slid between one guard's legs, popping up behind him to give him a playful shove into his partner. Deirdre, with cold efficiency, used a guard’s own momentum to flip him onto his back, where he landed with a heavy oof.

While they danced, Ghoul provided artillery support. SPLAT! A pie hit a security camera, blinding it. SPLAT! Another splattered across the windshield of an arriving GCPD cruiser, causing it to swerve harmlessly into a row of public recycling bins.

"I think." Delia said, effortlessly dodging a clumsy swing, "this is our best one yet, Dee Dee!"

"It's not completely lame." Deirdre admitted, sidestepping and tripping the second guard as he charged her.

From the sidelines, Ghoul surveyed their work. "It's... a masterpiece. A... sticky, purple... masterpiece. The people... they love it. We're giving them... a show."

He was right. The crowd was eating it up. This wasn't the terrifying, city-threatening crime of the old days. This was street theater, a splash of vibrant, harmless anarchy in the rigidly structured world of Neo-Gotham. It was fun. It was silly.

And it was about to be over.

A shadow fell over the plaza, so swift and sudden that it seemed to swallow the light. It was a fleeting darkness, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it eclipse that drew every eye upward. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd.

High above, silhouetted against the bruised purple of the sky, was a figure. Angular, dark, with pointed ears and glowing eyes.

Delia stopped mid-cartwheel, her eyes wide. Deirdre froze, her hand halfway to delivering a flick to a guard’s nose. Ghoul lowered the Pie-per cannon, his jaw agape.

"Wow." Ghoul breathed. "The... the big guy. He... he actually showed up... for... pie."

Delia’s painted smile didn't falter. It widened. "Ooh! A party crasher!"

Chapter Text

The descent was terrifyingly silent. Unlike the lumbering hover-vehicles of the GCPD, Batman didn't announce his arrival with sirens or flashing lights. He simply fell. He landed on the plasteel with a whisper of sound, a dark specter amidst the chaos of color and laughter. The crowd, which had been a boisterous audience, instinctively drew back, a wave of fear and awe washing over their previous amusement.

"Party's over." Batman's voice growled, filtered through his mask to be a low, synthetic rasp that cut through the plaza's ambient noise.

"Aw, but we just got started!" Delia whined, striking a mock-pouty pose.

Deirdre, however, was all business. Her bored demeanor vanished, replaced by a focused intensity. "Ghoul. The goo." she commanded.

Ghoul, snapping out of his stupor, aimed the Pie-per. "Right. The... the goo. For the... bat."

He fired. A large, lilac-scented projectile shot toward the dark figure. But Batman didn't even flinch. With a fluid motion that seemed too fast for the human eye to track, he sidestepped the purple missile. It sailed past him and splattered harmlessly against the obsidian wall of the Wayne-Powers tower.

"Okay." Ghoul said, his confidence wavering. "Plan... B."

Batman closed the distance in three long strides. He moved with a purpose that was chilling. Ghoul, panicking, swung the heavy Pie-per cannon like a club. It was a clumsy, desperate move. Batman ducked under the swing, his arm shooting out to strike a nerve cluster at Ghoul’s elbow. The lanky Jokerz’s arm went numb, and the Pie-per clattered to the ground. A second, precise strike to the back of Ghoul’s neck, and the tech geek folded like a cheap suit, his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed in a heap.

"Well." Delia said, blinking. "That was fast."

"He's all yours." Deirdre said, her own body tensing. "I'll take the left."

They didn't wait for a reply. They launched themselves at Batman simultaneously, a perfectly synchronized attack from two different angles. This was their true strength. Not the pies, not the gags, but their flawless coordination. They were two halves of a single, chaotic fighting machine.

Delia went high, a spinning kick aimed at Batman's head. Deirdre went low, a sweeping kick designed to take out his legs. It was a classic pincer movement, one that had befuddled opponents far more experienced than a couple of security guards.

But Batman wasn't a security guard.

He dropped. Both kicks whistled through the air where his body had been a nanosecond before. As the twins passed over him, he sprang back up, a Batarang already in his hand. He didn't throw it to injure; he threw it at the ground between them. It exploded with a sharp crack and a burst of thick, white smoke.

The twins coughed, their perfect synergy broken by the sudden disorientation. They couldn't see each other, couldn't anticipate the other's moves.

"Hey! No fair!" Delia yelled from within the cloud.

Batman moved through the smoke like a shark through water. He grabbed Delia's arm, using her momentum to spin her around and send her stumbling out of the smoke cloud, dizzy and off-balance. He then turned his attention to Deirdre. She was more composed, already trying to fight her way out of the smoke. She lashed out with a blind kick. Batman caught her foot in his hand, his grip like iron. He twisted, and Deirdre, skilled as she was, was forced into an awkward, uncontrolled backflip, landing hard on the plasteel.

The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds.

From the edge of the plaza, sirens grew louder. The GCPD was finally getting its act together.

Deirdre pushed herself up, rubbing her shoulder. She shot Batman a look of pure, venomous frustration. She knew they were beaten. The element of surprise was gone, Ghoul was down, and the cops were closing in. It was time to cut their losses.

"Come on!" she snapped at her sister. "Let's bounce!"

But Delia wasn't listening. She looked at Batman, not with fear or anger, but with a strange, competitive fire in her eyes. The game wasn't over for her. This was the final boss, and she was going to get one last hit in.

"Not yet!" she yelled. With a burst of reckless energy, she charged Batman, leaping into the air for a flying, two-footed kick.

It was a stupid, telegraphed move. Batman sidestepped it with ease. And in that moment, Delia’s recklessness caught up with her. Her momentum carried her past Batman, past the edge of the plaza's main level, and over the railing.

For a moment, she just hung there in the air, a surprised 'oops' expression on her painted face. Below her was a fifty-foot drop to the lower transit level, where a sleek, silent Maglev train was approaching the station at high speed, its electromagnetic field humming with deadly power.

Deirdre screamed her sister’s name, her voice cracking with genuine terror. "DELIA!"

Delia's eyes went wide as gravity took hold. She began to fall. The wind rushed past her ears, whipping her orange pigtails. The world became a blur of motion, the only clear thing the rapidly approaching train below. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. This was it. This was how it ended. A stupid, pointless mistake. A splat of a different kind.

A black shape blotted out the sky.

Batman dropped over the edge, plunging into the abyss after her. He fell faster than she did, a controlled dive. He wrapped a gauntleted arm around her waist, the armor hard and cold against her side.

His rocket boots fired with a soft whoosh, arresting their fall just feet above the speeding train. The heat from its passage washed over them. They hovered there for a second, suspended between the sky and the rails, Delia held tight in a grip of unyielding steel.

Then, with another burst from his boots, he soared back up, landing them both safely on the upper level just as Commissioner Barbara Gordon and two GCPD officers arrived, their weapons drawn.

The plaza was silent again, the onlookers holding their collective breath. Deirdre stood frozen, her face a mask of shock and relief.

But Delia wasn't looking at her sister. She wasn't looking at the police. She wasn't even aware of the danger she had just been in. She was looking up at the dark, armored figure who still held her firmly against his side.