Batman and Robin: The re-Novelization
Part 61, EPIC CONCLUSION!
It was four in the morning. The time they say the human spirit is at its lowest ebb.
Wait, what? Who says that? I’ve never heard anyone say that. My spirit is at its lowest ebb when I’m awake, for sure. Conscious of the life I’ve built for myself. Shouldering the responsibility of not putting a pistol against my forehead because while that’d simplify things a great deal for me, it would complicate them for others. But that pistol, it’s like there’s a magnet in my throat, and the barrel just glides across the room and into my mouth. I swear, I don’t even think about it. A pistol is never lighter than it is when you hold it up against your own head, as the great Simone Biles once said. So accurate. So good at gymnastics, so wise.
Three figures stood around Alfred’s bed, not speaking, their breathing hushed so as not to disturb the old butler’s shallow, fitful sleep. Although Bruce kept “accidentally” banging into the bed, knocking into the dresser, and then carrying huge stacks of pots and pans into the room and dropping them all over the floor.
Bruce brought out the modified gems that Freeze had given him. Batgirl and Robin watched as he tried to figure out what the hell you do with gems to cure a disease. He rubbed them on Alfred’s face. Nothing. He rubbed it on Alfred’s gums like you might do with a little bit of coke. Nope. He put one in Alfred’s mouth and tried to massage his throat to get him to swallow, and although god knows Alfred had swallowed larger loads than that, feats to which Bruce’s upstairs closet, which houses a stomach pump, can attest, those loads were usually liquid(ish), and it seemed like Alfred was unwilling to swallow the gem.
Bruce signaled to Robin to help him turn the old man on his side so that they could attempt the back door, and Bruce marveled at how light the old man was, how it felt like picking up a burlap sack with a couple of broken broomsticks in it. How could the old man keep going with so little strength? It was amazing and also super funny to Bruce, the way Death seemed to have been stalking Alfred for decades now, trotting behind on his white horse, slowly cutting away bits of Alfred’s flesh and, with a more metaphorical sort of sword, his will to live. Bruce had to take a break to lean up against the wall, laugh, catch his breath, laugh some more, wipe tears away, then chuckle a couple more times before returning to Alfred’s now-exposed asshole.
As Bruce spit on the gem, prepared to give it a good shove, he remembered a weird slot on Alfred’s life support system, shaped perfectly for the gems.
“Ah, this is it,” he said, but as he tried to put the gems in, they were blocked by something in the slot.
Oh, right, Bruce remembered.
Bruce had noticed the slot once before, and he’d noticed that it was the perfect size for Gushers. Which he bought and then crammed into the slot, not so much because he thought it would help Alfred, but because when he saw an orifice hungry for a specific shape, he kind of had a thing for finding a version of that shape and shoving it on in. Probably the result of having one of those “put the shapes into the shapes” toys as a kid, but for some reason his was a custom one left over from his grandpa, Wilhelm Weiyne, and the shapes deviated from the normal triangle, circle, square stuff. We all know where this is going, right? Wilhem? Shapes that are famous among people with names like Wilhelm?
Bruce fingered the slot until he’d gotten all the Gushers out. “Weird, haha, I wonder who would do that? Why would someone put Gushers into a slot that’s clear meant for whatever the fuck these gem things are?”
Then he dropped the gems in the slot.
“Now that we’ve done this,” Bruce said, “this highly unlikely, sort of inexplicable, verging on ancient medicine nonsense sort of thing, all we can do now is wait.”
Batman reached down to take Alfred’s hand, and he whispered. “And hope.”
And then he bent one of Alfred’s fingers way, way backwards, just to make sure he wasn’t actually awake.
~
The guards had been doubled at Arkham Asylum. This was partially to increase security, partially because a new Batman Villain, The DoubleMint Twinz, were using their Doubler to double a bunch of people, including the guards at Arkham.
By the way, these Doublemint Twinz were not hot babes, they were ugly, paunchy dudes, the sort of twins that make you go, “Why is there one of Kathy Ireland, but there’s two of this guy!? How are we even supposed to stand living in a world this cosmically stupid?”
Also, it’s funny how the twin thing has faded, the sort of “Fantasy 3-way with hot twins thing,” losing out to the “Banging my stepmom thing.” I mean, it’s not actually funny, it’s kind of wholesome when you realize that a 3-way with twins kind of means you’re having sex with someone who’s having sex with her sister. Not…as hot. Kind of gross.
Maybe that’s part of it, maybe we all have that low self-esteem going, and we’re like, “Listen, I don’t think many women would accept a 3-way with me, BUT if the two women were so whacked out that they would have sex with each other, me being in on it actually makes it MORE normal, so maybe this is my best shot: twins who are so psychologically damaged that they’d actually have sex with each other.”
Take my advice: just bang your busty stepmom when she’s stuck halfway in the dryer instead. I mean, it’s not super cool to your dad, but c’mon, who among us can’t think of ONE shitty thing their dad did that would warrant you stepping outside the lines just a tad? What, you want to preserve your great relationship with your dad so you can take him to Cracker Barrel and hear him tell a bunch of stories that start with the race of each person involved, and you, goodhearted you, expect that to be meaningful in the story, but it never is. It never is.
Where was I…
Oh, right, Arkham and a stupid joke about doubled guards.
Poison Ivy sat in her cramped cell, in barred moonlight, staring out the window.
Jesus Christ, this bitch is in prison for killing people and has a window, meanwhile I don’t have a window anywhere near me at work. Who’s the real prisoner, here, hmmmmmmmmm?
Absentmindedly, Ivy pulled the petals off of a flower, one by one, which you would think would be something she’d not be into, mutilating the creatures she loves most, but some of us don’t have a twin with whom we can act out our sexual aggression, so torturing weaker creatures it is!
“He loves me, he loves me not,” she intoned with each petal. “He loves me, he loves me —”
“Not,” a cold voice finished for her. Cold being a good way to make this voice distinct and obviously Freeze, something that’s easily accomplished in the movie by having the voice be Arnold, and presumably works great in the audiobook version of the original novelization. Which there can’t possibly be.
Wait, shit. There’s an audiobook of a spinoff novel:
Oh, okay, this is unofficial. But OFFICIAL in terms of being a total waste of time, wasting time on Batman & Robin related media being the one thing I’m an expert in now.
Ivy turned in surprise. Mr. Freeze stood there, in full costume. He indicated it with a sweep of his hand. “It’s amazing what you can buy around here for a few dozen diamonds.”
They both paused and did the math. Let’s call “a few dozen diamonds” something like 40? If each diamond was a thousand dollars, it’s really not that amazing…
Freeze took a step forward, and Ivy flinched. There was nothing organic in the cell, nothing she could warp and mutate and coerce into working for her, except for that flower she’d pulled the petals off of, which was not super willing to help her out seeing as she’d just tortured it for the last few minutes. Not a smart move, that one. But, god, there’s nothing like feeling the life slowly exit something. Just an absolute typhoon downstairs for Ivy when she could hold that in her hands.
Freeze took another step, a terrible smile on his face. “Prepare for a bitter harvest,” he told her. “Winter has come at last.”
Two guards, who looked identical, stood outside the cell as Ivy screamed.
“Do you think we should check in on her?” one of them said.
“Nah,” the other said. “I mean, sure, I’ve only been alive for a day after you were cloned by The Doublemint Twins, and this is my first time doing anything, including breathing, but I think we should focus on important stuff, like maybe finding a lady willing to do a threeway with us.”
The first guard gasped. But he was intrigued. Intrigued in the pants.
~
Dawn rose over Wayne Manor, the sun’s rosy rays heralding a new day and destroying any sort of gothic feel this movie may have held.
A bright day, Bruce Wayne hoped, as sunlight dancing through the jesus fuck I can’t believe we’re talking about weather.
It looked like World War III had been fought — and lost — in the living room. Pizza cartons and soda cans were strewn everywhere. World War III promises to be a lot gentler than WWII, and mostly it’ll be nerds having a sleepover and arguing about whether Chun Li or Cammy is hotter, Cammy obviously being more attractive in the conventional, Barbie sort of way, but who hasn’t fantasized about those giant Chun Li thighs crushing the life out of you, and as you start to black out, you hope you’ll never come around again because nothing after this moment will ever be as sweet?
Barbara sprawled on a couch that was holding together for dear life underneath her. Dick paced up and down, anxiety etched and, hell, why not, sketched on every feature.
Brue walked to the window and stared out over the grounds. He would give up all this — the house, the landscaped gardens, the priceless antiques, the prostitute graveyard, the suicide forest, the functioning iron maiden with shreds of flesh still stuck to some of its spikes, the Native American artifacts he stole from a museum and replaced with perfect replicas, the one pair of tiny shoes recovered from Auschwitz — if only it would keep Alfred alive. Fortunately, he couldn’t make that trade. He COULD HAVE, the night before a genie showed up and offered him that exact deal, but he said no thanks, and if there’s one thing Bruce Wayne doesn’t like to live in, it’s the past, baby.
Bruce frowned. He thought he’d heard a small cough. Like Alfred’s. Like Alfred’s that time Bruce had the house tented and fumigated at 2 a.m. without telling Alfred. Sure, it was a weird thing to the exterminator, but Bruce was an eccentric billionaire, and who is an exterminator, someone who refuses to wear a respirator while working with neurotoxins because the filters on them are pink, who is that man to question someone having his house fogged in the middle of the night?
The cough came again, louder now. Followed by one of those super loud nose blows that old guys do, like they’ve got a goddamn French Horn crammed up there. Hey, everyone, look at me, I’m blowing my nose, which is huge now because I’m old!
“Ahem.”
Barbara leaped awake, and all three turned to look through the open doorway to the stairs. Alfred was descending, a scowl like thunder on his brow, which, goddamn it, in a book with bad metaphors, that really takes it. A scowl is visual, thunder is auditory. Something can’t look like something that doesn’t have a look. Fuck me, let’s just keep going, but, AH, GOD!
“Alfred!” Bruce greeted him. “Are you…?”
“Rather disappointed at how poorly I taught you housekeeping.” Alfred smiled, remembering the time he tried to teach a young Bruce how a garbage can worked, even going so far as to remove the lid and set it aside, but Bruce didn’t learn object permanence until his late 20s, and in his youth, an object disappearing from sight, and to his perception, from the world, was horrifying. This probably plays a part in why Bruce did not lost his virginity until fairly late for a young billionaire with the resources to nab hot babes and then put babies in them and then “mysteriously” have several of them die during very early term abortion procedures and then buried near the prostitute graveyard.
“But otherwise, I’m quite well again. He paused, then added in a gentler voice. “Thanks to you, son.” He smiled radiantly at Bruce, and looked to Dick and Barbara. “Thanks to all of you, Bruce, Barbara, Giant Snake Man, Sentient Balloon, and all the rest.”
Clearly the McGregor’s had seriously damaged Alfred’s brain, but there would be plenty of time for assessing how that might be pretty funny later, for now, all three of the people who were ACTUALLY there moved toward Alfred to hug him and welcome him back into the family.
Dick turned to Bruce, “One question, which I didn’t think to ask earlier even though we were just sitting around all night, I guess because I’m really fuckin’ super stupid dumb, when Batgirl and I rolled off the telescope, how come you didn’t try and save us? It was the first time I fell, not in a love sense, and you weren’t there to catch me.”
“I knew you could handle it,” Bruce said simply, then eyed Barbara’s love handles and gulped. Then, quoting Robin’s words of a few days ago: “Sometimes counting on someone else is something something family and friendships and what I learned in the end something or other about the real something inside.”
Barbara swelled with pride and sodium intake. “Hey, I’m the one who kicked Ivy’s botanical rear end,” she boasted.
“You, young lady, are going back to school,” Bruce said. “Especially because ‘botanical butt’ was right there.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Dick broke in, remembering what Barbara had told him. Which I can’t remember right now. Probably something about some bitch who works at her office who’s always making her miserable, and by proxy making her boyfriends miserable because they have to listen to these stories about what fuckin’ Cheryl is doing and then pretend to understand the part where the sleight comes in and then say something like, “Yeah, she’s a total bitch,” but without using the word “bitch,” EVER because then that just puts you in a whole different world of misery. “How can you use that word, you have a daughter, how would you feel if someone called Cheryl a bitch?”
“I guess you mean Cheryl as in my daughter Cheryl, not your coworker Cheryl, and I guess if Cheryl Daughter Cheryl was being a bitch, I’d say she deserved it.”
“But what if Cheryl was just being a girlboss or whatever?”
“You said Cheryl was a petty jerk.”
“Not Cheryl, CHERYL.”
The daughter and this coworker having the same name is certainly inconvenient, but it’s not like I just get to pick these things.
“Partners?” Barbara said, extending her hand.
For an awful moment, she thought the others were going to say No. Her heart leaped into her mouth. She’d been here such a short time, and yet…it felt like coming home. How could we abandon this character that we’ve loved for…that we’ve tolerated, in moderation, for up to 15 minutes of screen time by now?
But then, first Dick’s hand, moist because he licked it first, as was his custom, then Bruce’s came out to clasp hers.
“Partners,” both men said together, and then they both started taking their clothes off and made their way to the lube showers in the next room, which was part of a rule in Wayne Manor that you had to follow if you both said the same word at the same time.
Alfred rolled his eyes in mock despair. “There’s only one thing,” he sighed. “We’re going to need a bigger cave!”
“Is that a crack about my weight?” Barbara said. “Uncle Alfred, that’s really unkind. Keep that to yourself, okay? It’s alright to think those things, but telling other people or spreading them on, I don’t know, some kind of futuristic web of interconnected computers—spreading those thoughts is just weird and seems like a waste of your time. You could be making a positive impact, but instead you’re making fat jokes under the guise of mocking 1990s beauty standards.”
~
Darkness had barely fallen the next night when the Batsignal shone from the roof of police headquarters. The Commissioner needed help. The city was in some sort of vague danger.
But this time, the two heroes who raced to answer the call had another by their side. The villains of Gotham City would soon learn to fear the name of Batgirl, as they already feared Batman, and to a much lesser extent, Robin.
A new team was born. Well, a new team was born like way earlier in the story. But it was born again, just like a newborn shoved back into its mom’s womb because it needs another few weeks to cook. That’s how they do that, right? That’s what my mom says they did with me. That I’m her special boy, her extra-baked bun.