The Wayne doll house
Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.
The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.
It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.
There was nothing there when he went back.
-
The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.
The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.
So civilian it was.
Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.
"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."
"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.
"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."
Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.
"I think.... I would be best for that."
The team stared.
"Batsy?"
Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.
"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."
"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."
"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."
Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.
"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."
Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."
"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"
"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."
For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.
"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."
"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"
"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.
Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.
"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."
-
"Alien?"
"No."
"Reanimated corpse?"
"No."
"Uh... Demon?"
"Hm. No."
"You're not just a meta human, are you?"
"No."
"Vampire?"
"No."
"Robot??"
"No."
"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"
"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.
"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."
"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."
Flash groaned again.
-
Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!
'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.
So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.
With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.
"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."
The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.
He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.
The click of the door jerked his head up.
Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.
Flash screamed.
Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing
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so. um. @mean-scarlet-deceiver's post about thomas and henry's relationship has been living in my brain rent free for the past month and i have been turning over a scene for just as long.
so. i tried to write it. i hope you don't mind, jobey. and also you're right. they are Hard to get right. if i had to put an era on this i'd call it BG (Before Gordon).
about 1.5k, full fic under the cut
--- --- ---
Thomas keeps shooting glances at the sheds as he bustles around the yard.
It… the hired help from the other railway, the engines who are slightly too full of themselves for Thomas’ liking (and he’s made sure to let them know as such) have been talking loudly all morning, as they were getting ready to take their trains, about… the new engine.
Henry. Even if he couldn’t have remembered Henry’s name, the other two have been saying it loudly enough to carry around the yard that Thomas certainly has the picture now. And… Thomas’ lip curls as he hears their newest comment as he goes past.
“Hey!” he calls, boiling over, and the two hired engines look at him. “It’s 9am already. Are you going to actually go take your trains, or are you just going to sit and preen all day?”
“What would you know, little Thomas?” one of them calls back, all smarmy and smug. Thomas’ lip curls even more into a full on frown. Eugh. Tender engines.
“About running a railway on time?” Thomas snaps back. “Clearly more than you! Are you waiting for Sir Topham Hatt to personally invite you, or?”
They huff and sneer and pout at him, but they do still steam off one by one. However, they each shoot Henry a knowing and cruel side-eye as they go that makes Thomas bristle, despite himself.
Henry is still in his berth in the sheds. Well, he’s half-in, half-out. He only seemed to have made it so far before he… stopped. And he’s been going all sorts of shades of red as the others’ gossip had gotten louder and louder as he waited for his driver to return with an engineer of some sort.
Henry isn’t looking at Thomas now, but his eyes had snapped to the tank engine when Thomas had spoken up. He’s instead closed his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and seems to be trying – and trying hard – to… to what? To move?
Thomas tries not to stare, as he moves trucks into the siding they’re expected to be found in. Why is he trying so hard?
Eventually, Henry does actually move – but he… Thomas frowns again. Henry moves backwards, back into the shed. The wheesh Henry lets out as he comes to a halt is limp and weak.
Henry has been here, what, all of a month, maybe two at this point. Thomas hasn’t heard… many kind things, actually, so far, which is weird because look at him. Henry’s huge – Henry’s the biggest engine Thomas has ever seen, and he’s surely powerful to boot.
But Henry… Well, Edward said that Henry is sick, and sick often.
“Why?” Thomas had asked, as they had approached the shed. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Thomas,” Edward had reprimanded, and that’s when Thomas had realised Henry was in earshot, and clearly trying to pretend he wasn’t.
And that had been that.
Thomas had seen Sir Topham Hatt come out of his office at the station to watch Henry’s comings and goings, and more often than not with a stormy expression on his face. And Thomas didn’t get that either. Problems get the stormy expression. Troublemakers get the stormy expressions (Thomas would know). And Henry seems… too…
Thomas biffs his truck ahead of him as he turns his thoughts over.
Too… quiet? Too wallpaper? Too chameleon? Too…?
He snorts to himself. Whatever Henry is, he’s too much of it. And certainly too much of it to be a troublemaker, not like those mainline engines. It’s not like Thomas has gotten to know Henry yet, and it’s not like Henry has given him the opportunity to, either: but Thomas doesn’t get the impression Henry wants to be trouble. But he has to be… there has to be something wrong here, otherwise the Fat Controller wouldn’t be so upset.
Thomas hears a sniff from behind him as he backs down his stretch of track, and realises it’s come from the sheds.
And Thomas sighs quietly. …Then again, if nothing was wrong, Henry wouldn’t be so upset either.
“Those two,” Thomas says, before he can think, and Henry has gone absolutely silent, eyes flicking over to Thomas as Thomas pauses on a nearby siding for just a moment. “Bloody wankers, the pair of them.”
The silence holds for another second or two, before Thomas is rewarded with a shaky laugh.
“…I noticed,” says Henry.
“All those mainline tossers, really,” Thomas continues, and he keeps talking even as his work takes him all around the yard, speaking up so Henry can still hear him. “I almost wish the Fat Controller wouldn’t hire them. Sure, we need more wheels on rails, but they don’t seem to know a blazing thing about this railway.”
Henry – in the shadow of the shed – purses his lips, before he lets out another sigh, another limp wheesh of steam.
“I would hardly say I do, either,” he says miserably.
Thomas frowns, and comes to a halt a little too sharply with a big woosh of steam.
“Of course you do,” he replies, indignant. Henry’s a big engine, he should- why would he say that? Sure, Henry hasn’t been here long, but he’s a big engine, he should know plenty. “More than them, anyway.”
Henry sighs. He doesn’t argue, but Thomas’ fire flickers in annoyance as he can read of Henry’s face that Henry doesn’t agree either.
“I mean, you wouldn’t have been bought if-”
“Don’t.”
Thomas’ mouth hangs open for a second, before he closes it, blinks, and glances at Henry.
Henry looks even more upset. Great job, Thomas.
“I’m just saying-”
“Well, don’t,” Henry cuts him off again, sounding grumpier. And he’s gone from miserable to grumpy – that’s a win in Thomas’ book. “I’m particularly not in the mood to hear how I’d be more useful as a tin can.”
“The only tin cans around here are those self-important mainland pricks,” Thomas shoots back, and Henry side-eyes him – suspicious. “I’m not convinced they know what a timetable is, let alone how to read one. What kind of engine hangs around in the sheds when there’s work to… be…?”
Thomas trails off, and Henry… actually laughs. It’s tired and it’s bitter, but it’s a real laugh and it’s better than miserable.
“…Well, I want to assume you’re going to go work. When you can.”
“Optimism,” Henry says dryly. “I admire that in an engine.”
Thomas scrunches up his face. “I don’t understand you,” he says bluntly, in a way he’s sure Edward would scold him for if he was with them. “You’re miserable in the sheds, you’re miserable out on the line, you’re miserable doing nothing and you’re miserable pulling trains.”
Henry stares at Thomas for a moment, before his eyes flick away.
“If I could get out of this yard and actually pull trains, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Thomas says, far more dreamily than he’ meant to, and he cringes a little, chuffing out of where he can see Henry’s face, because he doesn’t need to hear an earful about it from another big engine.
“…You’re small,” Henry says, slowly, not accusatorily nor really condescendingly. He sounds more …confused than anything. “…And you’re useful, here.”
“And?” Thomas snaps back, defensive. “I could be useful anywhere.”
Henry’s silent for another moment, like he’s really chewing that statement over.
Then, eventually, he surprises Thomas by saying, “…I suppose you would be better than those two.”
And Thomas lets out a sharp bark of laughter, shooting Henry a grin as he goes by, and punctuating it with a hoot and a whistle – delighted. The enthusiasm makes Henry blink, before slowly, a smile of his own spreads across his face; one that sharpens to match Thomas’.
“You’re most certainly right! And besides. You let them get to you, you let them win,” Thomas agrees. “And they’re far too useless for that.”
Henry laughs again. Thomas lets out another peep-peep and a woosh of steam of his own, pleased to have earnt it. Footsteps crunch over the gravel of the yard, and Thomas spots Henry’s driver returning with a couple of engineers in tow before Henry does, and replies to their hellos as he bustles past.
“Hello, lad,” Henry’s driver says to Henry, patting his side. “We’ll have you right as rain in no-time, alright?"
Henry sighs again, but does actually smile back at his driver.
His driver blinks in fond surprise as the engineers get to work finding the newest problem. “You’re in good spirits, all of a sudden.” Then, he glances at Thomas as the tank engine goes past. “Making friends?”
“More so finding the only engine in this yard with a thought in his smokebox, it seems,” Henry says dryly, loud enough for Thomas to hear, and that makes Thomas snort in amusement.
He does call back, “Hey, now, be nice to Edward!”
And the engineers and Henry’s driver alike seem relieved when the two engines laugh together.
Thomas watches them work to get Henry’s steam up, and Henry’s finally pulling out of the sheds a good half-hour later. Thomas whistles goodbye as Henry chuffs away.
He smiles with the satisfaction of a job well done when Henry, completely of his own volition, whistles a goodbye in return as he disappears off down the line.
Then, Thomas returns to his trucks, and gives them a good biff once more, ignoring how this time, they really shriek. He – and Henry, he imagines – can’t wait for those mainlanders’ contracts to run out.
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