Chapter Text
"I'm glad to see you, Penelope. You haven't come in for a session in a while. I was getting worried."
Dr. Joan Rimsy smiled in a way that could only be catalogued as sympathetic, but behind it, Penny detected a sliver of apprehension. It was the doctor's fear that this was beyond her level of expertise. The same way a priest feels when he hears the confession of a criminal and doesn't know what to do about it. Penny had confessed to no crime. But a crime had been committed in her name.
"You've seen the news, I assume?" she asked – unnecessarily – because everyone had seen it.
Joan hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. But I'm interested in hearing your side of the story, if you are able share it. I'm sure it took a terrible toll on you."
Penny looked away briefly. She liked to focus on the various knickknacks that Joan displayed on her desk. Chinese paperweights, ceramic kittens, bead necklaces. "Actually, I came here today to get my pill refill. Because, as you say, there is a certain toll on my psyche right now."
Joan clasped her hands in her lap. "You know I can't hand out subscriptions unless you talk to me, Penny."
"What's there to talk about? You saw it on TV."
"What I saw is not what interests me. Your feelings on the matter, however, interest me very much."
"My feelings," Penny drawled, sinking down into the sofa. "I have no feelings about it. I'm weirdly numb."
It was not entirely true. She was forcing herself to stay numb; otherwise the guilt would overwhelm her, and this was not the time for meltdowns.
"Let's talk about numbness then," Joan prompted eagerly. "Was that your initial feeling upon seeing the footage?"
Penny blinked. Her initial feeling…Is there ever an initial anything? A moment of clarity when the chemicals in your brain are all aligned and you know exactly how it begins?
Her initial feeling was about how other people would feel. She knew it would haunt Gotham's nightmares for the coming weeks and it would make its citizens think twice about vigilantism and taking the law into their own hands.
The image was only later censored, so every household got to see the raw footage on their flat screens. The man in the Batman suit, hanging from a flagpole in the middle of traffic. His mouth had been painted over to resemble a clown's smile.
Really, Jack didn't need to go the extra mile. It would have been enough to show this gruesome aftermath of violence.
But the Joker wanted the world to see the process.
The video was broadcast on the news for the same wide audience. It showed the man in the Batman suit, still alive, strapped to a chair in a nondescript location. His face was stripped of the mask, and it was small and pudgy and frightened.
Jack was wielding the camera in a grotesque fashion, making it shake and swerve chaotically. He was breathing noisily in the background, chuckling - clearly enjoying himself.
"Tell them your name," he instructed, doing a close up of him until you could see the snot under his nose.
"B-Brian Douglas."
"Well…hello, Brian. Are you the real Batman?"
"No," the man replied dejectedly.
"What do you call yourself then?"
"N-nothing."
Jack didn't like this sort of cowardly lying. The footage was not very clear, but the experts who analyzed the video later claimed that the Joker had taken a hammer to Brian's knees and that's why the man started keening and weeping in his chair.
"Again, Brian," Jack purred, zooming in on his miserable face.
"I'm …we're all Penny's Knights," he confessed between dry sobs. It had been the name they had decided upon, or rather, the signature Anton had given them in their group meetings. It hadn't seemed like a pipe dream then. It had seemed possible to make a change.
"Penny who, Brian?" Jack egged him on.
"Penelope…Liss…."
"Hmmm, do I know her?"
"She's the woman who faced off…scum like you!" It had been Brian's last-ditch effort to defy his attacker and go out with his dignity intact.
But it only earned him more derision.
"Oooh," the Joker cackled in pure delight, "she inspired you, is that it? You wanted to make her proud."
Brian's voice faltered slightly. "She…doesn't have to fear people like you."
"No, no she doesn't," Jack cooed, the image shaking spasmodically with his laughter. "But you, Brian. Oooh, you do. You really, really do."
His last words had a cold, rough edge to them like a switchblade tearing into skin.
The footage was cut off at this point just as Brian started to scream.
The newscaster read from the prompter in a grim face. "The man known as the Joker left an additional message at the crime scene. It was found on Brian Douglas' recovered corpse."
They didn't specify that it was carved into his stomach.
A small title card appeared on screen with the words: "Give me Penny or else."
As demands go, this one was pretty straight-forward. There was no mystery, no cipher.
The sentence was like a strange tango, stomping on her synapses. The words were like dancers who pulled back elegantly and then swiftly ground their heel into her frontal lobe, paralyzing her reactions. That's why she was numb.
But she had already made a decision in her mind. Everyone had.
The public didn't want to admit it, but between her and the fathers of young children, the hardworking husbands of this city, the choice was damn easy. She was only a young, ambitious woman. She did not have a family. She did not plan on making one. She was not married. A lot less was at stake for her. She could be removed and another bright young woman would replace her without much fanfare. Even though the public had briefly glorified her, she was now ready to be sacrificed.
Dr. Rimsy cocked her head to the side. "Penelope, did you hear me?"
Penny stared at the chipped nail polish on Joan's fingers. That was not very professional of her. She should take better care of herself. How could she dispense advice to others when she was not put together?
Penny wrung her own fingers together. "I heard you."
"Would you like to tell me…about your first reaction, upon seeing that footage?"
She reached into the bottom of the well, that stone brick well she kept inside of her, in which old waters waited to be pulled up in buckets.
She pulled up a bucket-full. She smiled like a grimace. "I just want to kill him."
There was a strange pause afterwards. A silence that did not sound like silence.
"Excuse me?" Joan asked.
"I just want to take a knife to his throat," Penny said, staring at the ceramic kittens on the doctor's desk. Their heads bobbed up and down happily. "But I know that's not what you want to hear. I know it's not good, or right, or positive or healthy."
Joan had an involuntary impulse to bring her fingers to her mouth, but she stopped in time. Oh, so that's why the nail polish is chipped, Penny thought. She bites her nails.
"I don't want to censor you, Penny. There's nothing we can't talk about here. It's natural to feel angry and to want to hurt back –"
Penny shook her head. "I'm not angry. I don't want to hurt him back. That would be - that would be a relief. It would make me feel normal."
"You don't feel normal?"
"No, I'm not very normal right now."
"Why do you say that?"
Penny inhaled sharply. Because killing him is not about retribution or justice. I'm not Batman. I'm not Brian Douglas. For me, it's about pleasure. I want to kill him and I want to enjoy it. I really, really do. "You shouldn't bite your nails."
"Pardon?" Joan asked, lowering her glasses.
"You should not stick your fingers in your mouth. It's unbecoming of you, Doctor. Now, unless I am getting a refill, I'll be on my way."
She was growing harder by the minute. The youth was seeping out of her skin. When she looked in the mirror, she saw tusks growing from the side of her face. She looked like a starved hyena, like a beast who wanted to tear into flesh.
Penny heard the sirens wailing downtown. Gotham was like a pot on a sizzling fire. She could smell the burning meat from up here. The Wayne Tower penthouse was her familiar gilded cage, but she was no canary. Lucius had forbidden her to leave the premises. Plainclothes policemen had been posted inside and outside the building, surrounding the perimeter. Bruce Wayne had called to tell her that he was handling the situation.
At seven o'clock that evening, a second Batman corpse was found, floating by the docks, face down. Swimming with the fishes, as they say.
There was the same message carved into his bloated green stomach. Give me Penny or else.
Penny drew a hot bath. She wanted to smell good and she wanted to rinse her skin until it was red. She didn't want her skin to look green. She lay in the tub for an hour, contemplating how it would all go down. She did not have a very sound plan, if all things were considered, but she was more than ready to get her hands dirty.
She got out of the tub and dried herself up, after which she put on a black bra and panties. Cotton, for comfort. Black sweatpants and a dark blue sweater which still had inklings of perfume.
She did her makeup carefully. Light and tasteful and just a touch bold. Her lips were bright red. She lingered on them until they looked perfect.
Lucius would have told her she was doing herself up for nothing. There was no chance of her getting out of this building.
But they simply didn't know about her loyal assistant, Becky. They didn't know her like she did.
"Your brother – he's got your brother, doesn't he?"
Becky put her face in her hands and dry-heaved.
Penny gently pried her hands away and held them in her lap. "You can save him."
"Please, Ms. Liss, I can't even save myself –"
"I know you feel helpless right now, but you have more power than you think. We both do. The fact that we are still here is proof of that. We haven't let these men crush us like bugs," she said, squeezing the girl's hands.
She saw in Becky's shining eyes the self-loathing and despair that had always been there. And she saw the burning desire to be loved and accepted and forgiven.
"We are not bugs..." Becky repeated, mesmerized by the words.
"You can get me to him, Becky. To Jack. And I can make him release your brother."
Becky turned a sickly white, like curdled milk. "I can't, I can't. They already suspect I'm talking to you behind their backs, that I'm not being loyal –"
"But you saw it yourself. Jack wants you to bring me. You saw the carvings."
Becky shook her head, tears in her eyes. "No, Ms. Liss. It's a game for him. And he doesn't win if I just bring you there. He wants you to be delivered by Gotham."
"And who says you're not Gotham?"
"I'm no one."
Pennny grabbed her by shoulders. "Look at me. You are everything, Becky."
"Everything?"
"Everything he's not expecting," Penny replied with a beatific smile.
She had told Becky who to contact, what to do. Now, it was only a matter of minutes and seconds. Penny sat down on the sofa with a glass of chilled wine, dressed and ready. She didn't actually drink the Claret. She needed perfect clarity. But she liked holding the glass, she liked pretending.
The door clicked softly and her shy little assistant entered the penthouse, dressed in black sweatpants and a dark blue sweater, almost identical to what her boss was wearing. She was also holding a regular backpack, something that would not look remiss in a school.
Penny went to her and pulled her into an embrace. "You're being very brave."
"Me? What about you?" Becky said softly, almost in a whisper. Her eyes were blue with electricity. She looked like a young girl who was about to go on a roller coaster. A part of her couldn't wait to do what she was going to do.
Penny smiled. "Tell me, did you have any trouble?"
"No…not as much as I'd expected."
"I told you, you have more power than you think. People don't look at you carefully, which means you can get away with many things."
Becky smiled an impish smile. "That's true." Her face turned sober for a moment. "Is it safe down there?"
"As safe as it can be up here," Penny remarked, zipping up her jacket.
They took the stairs down to the third floor cafeteria. They both said hello to the policemen stationed there and asked them to join them for dinner. They politely declined. It was not part of their duties.
They walked fast to the kitchen area in the back, the storage room and – the elevator.
Penny slipped a Vicodin between her lips and tilted her head back. This sealed box – it was going to get her out of here, it was nothing to fear.
She had taken Lucius' keycard and Becky had made copies, as asked.
The elevator doors opened and they both slipped inside. Penny held her breath. They went down, much lower than three levels. They were going to the basement, which was the location of the Applied Sciences division. The highly classified division which had given her such a headache in the media. The division which Lucius kept from her, because he thought his secrets were important and devastating.
Well, tonight she did not care about his secrets. The basement would offer her an illicit way out of Wayne Tower. That's all that mattered. There was someone screaming in her head, but imagined sealing that mouth shut.
She opened her eyes and the elevator door parted. At first it was dark, darker than any space in the city. It felt wide and drafty as she stepped further into the abyss.
Then, the motion sensors kicked in.
They were in a giant hall, the size of a stadium. It gave one the sense of a luxury car exhibit, because there were various vehicles lifted on podiums, placed on display. They were not your average Toyotas and Mercedes. They were not a brand she knew. But she had been in one of them, the night of the Gala. She had ridden in it with the Batman.
She stood, mouth agape, before the body armor which had become Gotham's symbol of heroism. It was awfully magnificent, seen at this scale. Further on, there were more weapons and ammunition.
Becky shivered next to her. "Oh my God…"
Penny braced herself. "So this is what we've been hiding down here. The Batman's secret stash."
Becky laughed nervously. "This can't be real…I mean, this is – this is insane. We're supplying him with weapons?"
"I've heard of more insane things."
Penny turned around, taking it all in. The shock was dampened by a strange feeling of pride. She could bet anything that no woman had ever stepped down here. And now there were two.
She sized up the impressive arsenal. "Becky? Open up your backpack."
They went in opposite directions, to confuse the policemen. They would see two Penelopes, two gazelles running in the jungle.
Becky promised she'd circle the perimeter and then she would not be far behind Penny.
Mr. Lau's car was waiting for her under the tracks.
Penny opened the door forcefully and got inside. The Chinese man had a ready-made smile for her.
"Ms. Liss. It's a lovely evening for a drive."
She leaned back into her seat. "Then take me to him."
His expression did not change, but his eyes flickered a shade darker. "…you haven't changed your mind. Good, I would hate to disappoint Mr. J. He can be quite useful, I've found."
Penny wrinkled her nose. Jack wouldn't have many uses when she was done with him.
"But where is your little assistant? The lovely girl who contacted me?" he asked eagerly, hungry for more young meat.
Penny smiled a coy smile. She leaned forward, tucking his tie into his suit. "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return hither."
Mr. Lau lowered his eyes. "Oh, I certainly regret we only have this time together."
He instructed his chauffer to drive.