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It had started a couple of weeks ago, with Penguin sitting in his study, looking over his henchmen’s salaries and grumbling up a squeaky, insulting, storm. One that rivaled the summer one pelting away at his windows.
‘Waging war against the Bats is an (un)fairly expensive venture and being thrown in prison or Arkham at every turn doesn’t exactly rack money in.’ Had been his main argument when Henry’d come in to try to get enough money for an extra burger this month, maybe. Or maybe even two, if the Boss was generous and he felt like splurging a little.
‘What better well of money in our gloomy Gotham City than its very own resident billionaire’, Penguin had added, conveniently ignoring the fact that he also was filthy rich, and could have paid out of his own pocket for once.
‘Well, Boss, I sure do see your point’, Henry had argued back, willing to overlook that last thought for the sake of his job, ‘but how the fuck do we do that’.
They’d come up short.
And that was when Riddler had come into the picture. Riddler and his grand plans. Riddler and his overly convoluted ideas no one but the Boss was ever entirely on board with.
‘I want to extort a few millions from Wayne.’ The Boss had said, gleefully twirling his umbrella - which was not any kind of euphemism, thank you very much - in the kind of tone normal people used to ask other normal people if they wanted to go out and get milkshakes.
‘I have just the bomb we need.’ Riddler had replied, in the way said other normal people replied with an excited “Sure! Wanna go see a movie afterwards?”
------------
So, yeah.
That’s the story of how Henry finds himself tying a friendly billionaire, pearly white teeth and all, to a chair in the middle of the Iceberg Lounge, while Penguin and Riddler smugly eat little olives out of their glasses at the ice-bar behind him.
The tying’s mostly for show. Wayne couldn’t chew his way out of a bowl of cereals if someone handed him the spoon to do it.
Plus, Henry doubts the man’s too willing to try and escape, considering the small, innovative Riddler bomb that’s tied to his leg. The one that’s there should any of the Bats show up before the two Rogues - and Henry, hopefully - get their money.
All in all, a well thought up plan.
If it weren’t for the fact that the plans involving the Waynes somehow never worked, that was.
Once Wayne’s “secure”, he’s quick to form a team. It’s seven people strong, from both bosses - because backstabbing’s somewhat inherent in any line of work - and go patrol the outside perimeter.
As outside a perimeter as possible. If they get lucky, that way, the Bats will either take them out quietly, painlessly, as to not alert the others; or just sneak past them, ignore them completely.
That one’s an actual well thought up plan. A tried and true one, even. One that even seem to work, for their first half-hour of patrolling.
Right up until something makes a sound on the floor beneath their walkway. A sound that’s just like someone accidentally banging a body part on metal grating.
Henry doesn’t want to go check.
He really, really doesn’t want to.
But, while they’ve got Wayne’s leg wired to blow - the boss’ got the trigger - they don’t want to do it because of a stray cat or something. So he has to check. If a unit disappears, though, or goes silent for any length of time, miss any check-ups.
Boom.
He does feel a bit bad about it, Wayne - and his grants- did put his niece through school after all. Wayne does good work in the city, and maybe that’s why most of them are a bit reluctant to hurt the man. But, well, they’re Penguin’s boys first and foremost, and they don’t quite feel bad enough to risk dying because the Penguin’s in a mood.
With a sigh, he signals one of Riddler’s gals, Joss, and they climb down to check. Guns at the ready, just in case. As soon as his feet touch the ladder, he hears a muffled sound.
They reach the ground floor, and-
“What the fuck?”
There’s a seal. There’s a giant ass seal flopped down right against the wall, under their walkway. It’s gotta be 8 feet long, at least, and fuck knows how it even got down there. Its fur looks clean enough, not matted or sporting any torn patches or anything, but sprinkled with hundreds of neat, dark, little dots.
It’s beautiful.
It really fucking shouldn’t be there, either.
“You two alright down there?” their current squadron leader shouts down, and he shouts a “Yeah?” back because how in the fuck do you explain a 500-something lbs seal when you haven’t processed the sight yet yourself.
The seal seems as startled to see them as they are to see it. It backs up a few feet like that could somehow make them unsee it.
Henry wishes that could make them unsee it.
Then, when they don’t move, it seems to get over its initial fear, and-
“It’s staring us down.” Joss says.
Which, yeah. It is. Doing a mighty fine job of it too.
“How old is it?” He asks, at a loss of what else to ask.
It looks young. Not a baby, it’s too big for that, he thinks, but not fully grown either. Cute, in a way. If it wasn’t eyeing them like it was considering fighting them.
“Well, how the fuck should I know? I ain’t no vet.”
“I thought you Riddler types knew everything”
“I thought you Penguin types were all about sea animals?”
“Are you crazy? The boss fucking hates those things!”
The seal bounces forward in a chorus of squishy, wet, flops. They take a few hurried steps back, keeping their guns trained on it.
“What do we do?” She looks ready to shoot.
He doesn’t want to. Yeah, sure, he knows he’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t want to be a bad guy.
“Man, I never signed up to kill a seal.”
“The fur’s worth a fair bit.”
“Yeah, well, fuck you. I have limits, okay. I don’t kill animals. Or kids. Or animal’s kids.”
The seal eyes him. It has a gleam in its eyes. An interested gleam, almost. Shit. Maybe it’s hungry. What the hell do they even eat? Fish?
At least it’s stopped bouncing forward in an attempt to fight them.
How the hell are they going to get it out.
“Is your boss selling animals now?”
“Nah. Is yours?”
“Er, I dunno? No more than usual, I think.”
The seal seems done with waiting patiently. It raises its flippers in a nervous little move, flaps them back against the ground. Only, this time, they see it. Right underneath its flippers.
Two guns, shining black against the light fur of its sides.
“It’s got guns.” Henry remarks, numbly. The seal freezes.
Joss nods.
“It does.”
Henry nods back. Because what is there to say, even. The seal does. Two of them.
“What kind of sick fuck would give guns to a seal?”
The seal unfreezes, drops its head a little.
“Shit, man, I don’t know.”
They watch, dumbly, frozen on the spot, as the seal tentatively bounces a little closer. The up-and-down motion of its guns, one under each flipper is mesmerizing.
“Think we should try to take them?”
Joss seems to consider this for a moment. The animal’s stopped again, which is a relief. It allows them to try to think a little more clearly without the oddly metallic Sblup, Sblup sound of its flesh hitting the grates.
“You know how to handle a seal?”
Silence.
“No.”
More silence. The seal blinks innocently up at them. Poor young thing.
“It could hurt itself though.”
“Yeah.”
“The guns could hurt it. Or us.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s gotta be some kind of animal abuse.”
“Well, yeah.”
“So what do we do?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Well we can’t just leave it here.”
They don’t.
----------
Henry thought he knew what awkwardness was.
He didn’t. He hadn’t had the slightest idea, not until he tries to lure a seal into an elevator using sushi from the Boss’ personal stash.
Or riding said elevator up to the lounge with the seal in it.
It hasn’t attacked yet, their leader had said. It was downright friendly, even, she’d said.
Get rid of your own mess, she’d also said.
“I’m telling you man, the Bats trained a seal.” Joss, very unsure about this whole ‘let’s bring the seal to the bosses alone’ thing.
Which fair. With how tame it’s been behaving so far, maybe it is trained. Plus there are the guns.
“You’re shitting me.”
“I ain’t. They’ve got that seal trained to do recon.”
“A seal.”
She nods.
“Doing reckon. A seal, really?”
“You’re gonna put it past them?”
“Point. But a seal, really?”
“Look at it.”
They do. The seal innocently looks back.
He sighs, very tired in a way he hasn’t experienced in years, all of a sudden.
“What’s next? Camels with heat vision?”
“Don’t give the Bats ideas, man.”
----------
Explaining it to the Bosses goes as well as it could have had.
“What’s this.”
“We found it on the outer perimeter.” Because, again, what else is there to say, really. The boss can see plain well what it is. “It was, er, stuck, we think?”
“Well how in the world did it get there?” Riddler asks, probably taking it as a challenge of some sort.
“Maybe Freeze committed to his theme some more?” someone says. Though it’s clear their heart isn’t in it.
“With seals?” Someone else asks, giving the idea the painful amount of doubt it deserves. Freeze’s as drama-oriented as the rest of the Rogues, unfortunately, but animals are more of Penguin’s thing.
“Leopard seal. The species’ native to the Antarctic.” Wayne pipes up, from his chair. He sounds...proud, almost?
He would. Exotic animal trafficking sounds right up a billionaire’s alley.
The Boss waddles up to the seal, examining it with an interested monocled eye.
That’s when it all goes to hell. In a handbasket.
The beast bites right through Penguin’s hand. It’s a miracle it doesn’t tear it off before it lets go of it.
“Shoot it. Shoot it dead.” The Boss screams, near hysterics, letting go of the trigger and grabbing his umbrella, presumably to shoot the animal himself. Wayne tenses impossibly, a half-aborted shout his throat, one that does nothing but agitate the seal even further. The next few seconds happen in a blur.
A blur of motion, of violence.
Nightwing drops from god only knows where, tries to both snatch the trigger that’s near Penguin’s feet and push the umbrella away, very nearly getting himself shot in the process. It grazes him, but no dice. The seal flies through the air in an unbelievable display of acrobatics. It covers Nightwing as the Boss continues shooting. A batarang rush past him, buries itself in Cobblepot’s leg and before Henry even registers the how, the what, the who, the where, the fight is over: the trigger’s in Red Robin’s hands, the Boss’ out cold, Robin has them all at swordpoint, and the seal’s somehow flopped over Nightwing’s form. It covers him near completely, aside from his arms and head.
The sight’s so bizarre that he doesn’t really pay attention to the fact that Robin’s putting cuffs on all of them. Or that Red Robin’s busy freeing Wayne from the bomb.
“You can let me up, now.” Nightwing says.
Like talking to a seal is somehow going to make it understand him.
“It’s okay, Jay. I’m not hurt, see.”
The seal thrills. It’s showing all of its teeth.
“Seriously. Let me up.”
Nightwing pushes at the animal. It doesn’t bulge.
“Jason.” Nightwing sighs sounding only mildly put upon by the gigantic apex predator lying on top of him, probably crushing all of his ribs in the process. And holy hell, they named the thing. They did, it was doing reckon. “This is childish, even for you.”
The seal thrills again.
“Robin, a little help?”
Immediately, the animal’s demeanor changes entirely. It looks up at Robin, in a almost pleading way.
“Todd.” Robin says, and of course that doesn’t seem to deter the animal in the slightest. Especially with how unsure he sounds. “Todd, stop it.”
The seal’s eyes get impossibly rounder. It blinks. It’s a bit pitiful and unbearably cute. Robin’s determination visibly wavers.
“Awww,” Joss lets out, which, fair.
The disdain in the glare Robin sends their way is strong enough to show through his mask’s lenses.
“Are you hurt?” Wayne pushes past the gaggle of vigilantes to examine the seal’s fur. It growls a protest, obviously.
“It’s, uh, it’s his pet seal.” Nightwing explains awkwardly.
Wayne’s still way too close to the beast to be safe, with how loud the beast had been growling. He sounds a little choked up when he says-
“I know you don’t like me fussing, but sometimes, Jay. Sometimes it still feels like I’m waking up from a nightmare.”
The seal hoots. In agreement maybe. Then it makes a low, crooning, haunting sort of moan. Wayne smiles, and pats its head, despite the very real risk of having his hand bitten off.
“-He cares about it a lot.” Red Robin tries, somehow even more awkward than the older vigilante.
Wayne glares at them.
“Who let Jason be the distraction?” He asks. It’s a surprisingly dark tone, coming from the happy go lucky billionaire.
Fair, Henry guesses. He wouldn’t like people letting his dog get shot at for shit and giggles either.
“We didn’t,” Red Robin hurries to explain.“-he got caught.”
“I think he panicked”, Nightwing adds, like he’s trying to be helpful and not talking about a giant seal stranded in a lounge.
Said seal barks and snaps its teeth at Nightwing.
Thankfully, that’s when Commissioner Gordon shows up. They don’t stay long enough to find out whether Nightwing loses a hand to Wayne’s pet seal. Wayne’s pet seal that he apparently named after his dead son.
Fuck Gotham, honestly.