Tea Shop Showdown

Tea Shop Showdown
A DC Universe Oneshot

~

         A static gurgle hummed from the car’s dispatch for a few seconds before the message began. "Calling units to the Mad Tea Shop, off Jerome Drive and Crowley Avenue. Pick-up required for an 11-4. Suspect has been detained by vigilante activity. He’s awaiting transport to Arkham. Any nearby units respond. Over."
         The voice faded and a moment later the static silenced as well.
         Officer Carl Montez leaned back coolly in the driver’s seat with one hand on the steering wheel and one hanging loosely out the squad car window. He turned to his partner in the passenger’s seat and flashed a toothy grin. “We’re pretty close, ain’t we, Dallas? Wanna go check it out?”
         The other officer nearly winced, but quickly caught himself. He still hadn’t completely gotten used to his new name, and hearing it sometimes caught him off-guard. He took in a deep breath of air before answering. “In what world is twenty minutes away close?”
         “That’s close by some definitions,” Montez chuckled, putting the car in gear and turning on the siren. “Besides,” he added, raising his voice to be heard over the siren’s ringing, “a few extra officers can’t hurt, amiright?”
         Officer Dallas rolled his eyes and smirked. “If I die in a shootout, I’m blaming you.”
         Montez let out a loud, throaty laugh, which Dallas reciprocated at a quieter volume. The two officers had only been working together for a few weeks, but had already begun to develop a comfortable banter during their patrols.
         “’Ey, at least you’ll go out in a blaze of glory, man.” Montez nudged his partner. “Like one of them old Western movies.”
         Dallas’ body tensed and he felt his heartbeat become irregular. A shadow stretched across his face and he looked to the side. “I hate Westerns,” he muttered.
         This wasn’t entirely true. In fact, Officer Cole Dallas had at one point been a big fan of Westerns. Perhaps the biggest fan in all of Gotham City.
         But that was in another life, before he was Cole Dallas. Back when Cole Dallas was Colton West. Alias Slick. The pistol-twirling, cowboy-clown of the Juvenile Gang. That is, until the Joker lost whatever little interest he’d once had in the group and attempted to kill them. The child members of the Juvenile Gang each went their separate ways shortly after, and Colton spent months hiding in the Gotham City sewers, leaving only late at night to scavenge for food. At the time, he had been too afraid to leave any earlier.
         Colton had been the oldest member of the Juvenile Gang, and had turned eighteen years old shortly before the group broke up. He knew that he would be prosecuted by the law much more harshly than his fellow orphans, and didn’t want to risk life in prison.
         But it was more than just that. Yes, Colten was afraid. But he could have dealt with that if necessary. More importantly, he hated himself. He didn’t know how to live with the fact that he had been seduced by the Joker. That he had been a criminal.
         He was Colton West. He grew up watching nearly every Western movie ever produced. He was supposed to be Jonah Hex, or Clint Eastwood, or Lee Van Cleef. He was supposed to be a hero. But instead, he became a minion to the worst villain on the planet.
         And, as it turned out, an expendable minion at that.
         “Man, I don’t get how anyone can hate Westerns,” Officer Montez groaned. “When my family first moved to the States, we had this shitty little TV – the kind with those bunny ear things. And the only channel we ever got would always play old Westerns. I basically learned English watching them.”
         Colton shrugged and looked away from his partner, out the passenger window. “I dunno, man. They just do nothin’ for me.”
         Ever since starting his new life, Colton had been very careful about protecting it. This meant distancing Cole Dallas from Colton West. Anything Colton has once loved, Cole could have nothing to do with. Especially Westerns.
         Cole Dallas was a nearly foolproof identity. Colton had never learned the name of the man who made it for him, but whoever it was sure knew his way around a computer. Colton had tested the identity in dozens of different ways, applying for a passport, a driver’s license, and dozens of different credit cards. The identity always checked out. It was as if Cole Dallas were a real person. Somedays, Colton liked to pretend it was the man he had always been.
         Colton hadn’t wasted a single moment after getting his second chance. He’d applied to the Gotham City Police Academy as soon as he was confident in the identity, and quickly rose through the ranks, graduating after only four months.
         This wasn’t too uncommon for Gotham’s police academy, though. In a city with as high a crime rate as Gotham, the GCPD’s officer turnover was enormous. The academy tended to rush recruits through training to get new blood defending the streets, for better or for worse. Usually for worse. Although, Colton did recall an instructor at GCPA bragging about how the percentage of dirty cops who make it through the academy was only a fifth of what it was two decades ago. Of course, a fifth of 100% is still 20%.
         As a child, Colton had always dreamed of becoming a cop. Well, a sheriff. But cop was close enough, he thought. And though he’d only been an officer for a few weeks, he already felt a new sense of purpose. For the first time in years, he felt like it was actually possible to make up for his time as Slick. His time as a criminal.
         “Damn, they got a lot of responders,” Montez said as their squad car turned onto Crowley Avenue. There were three other police cars parked outside of the Mad Tea Shop, their sirens still wailing. One officer stood in front of the perimeter, keeping the small crowd that had formed from entering the crime scene, while two different officers were loading a blonde man dressed in a blue suit into one of the cars. Colton recognized him to be Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter.
         “I warned you we wouldn’t be the first ones here,” Colton chided, turning back to Montez to avoid eye contact with the Hatter.
         “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Montez groaned as he pulled the car into park. The two men exited the vehicle and walked up to the police perimeter where they were met by another officer.
         “Hey, Montez, you son-of-a-bitch!” the officer greeted exuberantly. ‘ARMSTRONG’ was printed in all capital letters just below his badge.
         “Curtis!” Montez yelled, patting the other officer on the shoulder. “Who let a scumbag like you handle the perimeter?” The two officers started chortling in unison. Colton stood still and upright, as he had been instructed at the academy, until he was introduced. It took a few more moments of laughter before Montez got the hint. “Armstrong, Cole Dallas. My new partner.”
         Colton extended an arm forward.
         Officer Armstrong raised an eyebrow but returned the handshake. “A bit young to be on the beat already, aren’t you, kid?”
         Before Colton could answer, Montez roughly patted his back and spoke for him. “Kid’s fresh out of the academy. Only twenty years old, too.”
         “No kiddin’?” Armstrong chuckled. “A cop who’s not old enough to drink. Good luck with that, kid.” He ushered the two officers past the red tape barrier so they stood outside the Mad Tea Shop. The three men faced each other and Montez spoke.
         “So what happened this time?”
         “Same ol’, same ol’,” Armstrong shrugged nonchalantly. “A Bat chased Hatter halfway across the city, cornered him here, and strung him up for us. But get a load of this: this time it was a Bat-Woman. Not Batgirl. Batwoman.”
         “Seriously?” Montez laughed. “Another one?”
         “I know, man. Maybe Gotham would better off replacing the Police Academy with a Bat Academy. They’re sprouting out of the ground like freaking roots.”
         “What can we do?” Colton asked quickly before the other officers could start chuckling again.
         Armstrong shrugged. “It’s mostly cleanup now. The Bat did most of the heavy-lifting for us.” There was a twinkle in the officer’s eye. “If you want something to do, one of you can question Knightly.”
         “Ugh,” Montez groaned. “Knightly’s almost as bad as Tetch himself.”
         “Who’s Knightly?” Colton asked.
         “She owns this dump,” Armstrong answered, jerking a thumb towards the tea shop.
         “Is she dangerous?”
         “No, she’s harmless,” his partner replied, still sounding disgusted. “She just likes to hang around with the all dangerous freaks.”
         “It’s like she’s besties with every nutjob criminal and his freakin’ goldfish,” Armstrong added. “Over the years, she’s probably been complicit in dozens of crimes.”
         “Yeah, but we can never get any solid evidence against her. Tetch always covers her tracks and makes sure she never sees the inside of a cell.”
         Armstrong leaned in close to Montez. There was nobody else around, so it was mostly for dramatic effect. “You know, I heard they’re married.”
         “You shitting me?”
         Armstrong shrugged. “Dallas, why don’t you question Knightly? It’s not gonna get us anywhere. Tetch must’ve coached her through this sort of thing a thousand times. She knows what to say. But she’s a witness so it’s a formality, and you could probably use the experience.”
         Colton chewed on his lower lip and turned to Montez for his input. The other officer grinned. “Better you than me, Cole. Trust me, the only thing anyone gets out of talking to Knightly is a massive headache.”

* * *

         Colton stepped through the threshold into the Mad Tea Shop. It was a small café, not much different from any other in size or make. The furnishing, however, was most definitely aimed towards a certain theme…
         The tables and chairs were shaped like giant red toadstools with white spots sprinkled across the curvatures. Small wooden shelves lined the walls, neatly blanketed by differently shaped and colored teapots. Some of the pots even had ceramic mice peeking out from within. There was a life-size statue of a purple-and-black cat right beside the front counter, staring down anybody who approached with ghostly yellow eyes. And the walls, once a plainly varnished wood, were littered with elegant script lettering spelling out a variety of quotes which Colton could only assume were from Lewis Carol’s Wonderland novels.
         Colton was so taken aback by the extensive décor of the shop that it took him a few moments to notice that the room was in complete disarray. Most of the toadstool tables and chairs were overturned, and some had been broken into pieces. Shards of glass from shattered cups and teapots carpeted the ground. And three red Batarangs were still jutting out of the far wall, right beside a very noticeable Hatter-shaped dent.
         As Colton marveled at the setting around him, a woman stepped out from the back room of the shop. She was a few years older than him, with red hair that fell down in loose curls just past her shoulder. She wore a dusty blue Alice dress and an apron with two small hearts printed in the bottom corners. The woman’s skin hung loose around her eyes and there was a thin line of black mascara running down her cheeks.
         She noticed Colton from across the room and her expression hardened. She quickly wiped away the running mascara line and looked away.
         “Hello, darlin’,” Colton greeted the woman without thinking. He pinched at the skin on his legs, cursing himself for slipping into the drawl he’d been working to rid himself of. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”
         “I’ve already spoken to officers tonight.” The woman didn’t turn to look at him, and instead set to work on picking up glass from the floor. “Sir,” she added softly. She was annoyed, but at least she was polite.
         “It’s just a formality, Ms. Knightly,” Colton continued smoothly. “I only need a few minutes of yer– your time.”
         The woman turned to look at him, and for a moment she seemed like she was about to yell. But something stopped her, and so she just stared towards him, her eyes squinting. “Do I know you from somewhere, Officer…?”
         Colton felt his eyes involuntarily widen and his heartbeat accelerate. He attempted to calm himself down. He’d never met this woman before – he reminded himself – and definitely not as Slick. He was certain he would have remembered her. There was nothing to worry about.
         “Dallas,” he introduced himself. He took in a deep breath of air before continuing, hoping it would help to relax his body. “And I doubt it, Ms. Knightly. I just moved to town a few weeks ago.”
         She continued to stare at him, her eyes empty. “Erin,” she finally added. She walked over to one of the few tables that had not been overturned, and motioned for Colton to sit across from her.
         “Thank you, ma’am.”
         “That’s an interesting accent, Officer Dallas,” Erin mused delicately. “Where are you from originally?”
         “Texas,” Colton lied almost instantly. In actuality, Colton was born in Coast City. At an early age, and much to his parents’ chagrin, he had manufactured a Southern accent based on the movies he would watch, and trained himself to always speak in a slow drawl like his Western heroes. And now, after nearly two decades of forcing the accent, Colton often found himself slipping back into the drawl without even realizing. “Let’s get to business now. Can you go over what happened here tonight?”
         Erin stood up and walked back behind the main counter. She grabbed a tea kettle that had been resting on a burner and brought it back to the table with her. “Like I told the other officers, I was closing up shop when I heard commotion outside. I was scared, so I went to hide in the back room.” As she spoke, the redhead poured tea into the cup in front of Colton. She then poured into her own. “I heard somebody break into the main room, and then there was a lot of banging and yelling. I went in to check and saw a woman in a bat costume and,” she paused for a moment, pressing her lips together tight. “The Mad Hatter.” She looked down into her tea cup sadly.
         Colton crossed his arms. The story was clearly rehearsed. He’d memorized enough bullshit alibis himself to know when he was being lied to. “Go on, ma’am.”
         “Somehow, I got caught in the middle of it all, and was knocked aside by that brutish woman. By the time I woke, she was gone, the police were outside, and…he was tied up.”
         “Ms. Knightly, as I understand, this isn’t the first time that the Mr. Tetch was apprehended in your shop.”
         Erin raised a skeptical eyebrow and looked at the walls. “He likes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I run a Wonderland-themed café. It’s hardly a puzzle, Officer Dallas,” she snapped softly. Even her insults sounded stiff and rehearsed.
         “Ever thought of changing your theme?”
         “Is that really the police’s concern?”
         Colton chewed on his lower lip. He wasn’t getting anywhere with these questions. It was time to switch strategies. “Well, you can sleep soundly now, Ms. Knightly. Tetch is being shipped off to Arkham. Where he belongs.” Colton watched the woman’s expression closely. He noticed the slightest twitch of her left eye, and a shadow of anger briefly brush across her expression before vanishing.
         “I’m sure he’ll find his way out eventually.”
         “That almost sounds like wishful thinking.”
         “A prediction.” She took a long sip from her tea before gracefully placing back on the table with both hands.
         Colton felt anger boiling in his throat. “I think you ought to be more concerned for your safety, Ms. Knightly.”
         “I believe that I am–”
         “We’re talking about a very dangerous and violent psychopath here. I hope you realize that.”
         Erin stared at him plainly, not responding to his escalating rage in kind. “Something worth noting, Officer Dallas. In all the times that he’s come here, Jerv–the Mad Hatter has never actually hurt me. But the vigilantes and police, on the other hand? They’ve left quite a few bruises.” She rubbed gently at the back of her head, presumably where she’d been hit earlier that night.
         “Ever think that wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t around?”
         “It also wouldn’t happen if the vigilantes or police weren’t around.”
         Colton gritted his teeth together. “Ms. Knightly, I’m only trying to help you here. I can see that you’re in a difficult situation. If you’d give me a chance, I might be able–”
         “Respectfully, Officer Dallas, it’s been a long night. If you don’t have any more questions, I think I’d like to get some rest.”
         Colton couldn’t contain himself anymore. He stood up quickly from the chair and slammed his hands down on the table, knocking both teacups onto the floor. “He really has you wrapped around his finger, doesn’t he? You think you’re the first person to be tricked by a psycho into thinking he loved you?”
         Erin remained still, her eyes widening in shock but her expression never fearful.
         “You have to know that Tetch would screw you over the second it became convenient for him. He’s insane, and he doesn’t care about you. Let me tell you, darlin’, freaks like him aren’t capable of it. And if you think he is, then you’re just as deluded as he is.”
         Erin was silent for a long moment. Colton chewed nervously at the inside of his cheek. He realized that the outburst was a bad idea, but hadn’t been able to contain himself. Something about this woman’s protecting the Mad Hatter reminded him…
         “Have you ever loved someone, Officer Dallas? Someone mad?” Erin asked gently and without even the slightest hesitation. Her blue eyes stared directly into Colton’s, and were full of pity. “Someone the world doesn’t quite understand? Or maybe you’ve been that person. The one who’s beaten down and laughed at just for being who you are.”
         She stood up and took a few steps backwards. “Now, I’ve just been through something of a trauma.” She motioned at the disorderly room around her. “So I’m just talking here. But I hardly think it’s fair to call someone a ‘psycho’, when all he’s doing is being himself in a world that’s forever tried to push him down and lock him away for being a little bit different.”
         She reached over towards the counter and picked up a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, gently brushing her fingers across the cover. “To paraphrase a great man: Maybe the Mad Hatter’s not crazy. Maybe his reality is just different than yours. But then, on the other hand, maybe he is mad. Maybe he’s completely, totally, irreparably bonkers. But you know what? Maybe all the best people are.”
         Colton stood silent. Truthfully, he hadn’t any idea how to respond, or if that could be counted as an admission of guilt on the redhead’s part. So he stood, speechless, while she stared at him as if he were a puzzle she was trying to decipher.
         Erin’s eyes suddenly lit up, and a half-smile spread across her face. She locked eyes with Colton. “Officer Dallas, you just reminded me of a funny story. You see, a few years ago, I was in the Iceberg Lounge having a few drinks with my good friend May, when all of the sudden, this group of children burst in and started making an enormous mess of the place.”
         Colton felt all the air drain from his body. At any moment, he suspected he would deflate into an empty pile of skin on the ground.
         “I believed they called themselves the Juvenile Gang. And they ran wild all over the club. One of them even tried to hold me hostage. It was complete and utter madness.”
         Colton’s eyes darkened. This was it. The moment he had been dreading. He hadn’t even recognized this woman. That night at the Iceberg Lounge, it had been so long ago. He had practically erased it from his memory. “What do you want?”
         Erin seemed genuinely confused by the question. “Want? Oh, no. I don’t want anything, Officer Dallas. I’m just musing. In fact, I think it’s a bit of a sad story. I’m sure each and every one of those kids was misunderstood by the world too. And I bet a lot of people thought they were psychos too. It’s such a shame that they put their faith in someone like the Joker. Sometimes I worry that it might have even made them afraid to trust people in the future.” She paused, not breaking eye contact. “But if they’re lucky, I’m willing to bet that someday each of them will find someone who sees them differently. Someone who really does understand them, and who sees things in them that the rest of the world never will.” She walked over to Colton, who stood stunned in front of his chair, and placed a hand gently on his arm. “And when they do, they won’t care who thinks they’re crazy.”
         Erin reached down and picked up the teacups from the floor. “It was very nice to meet you, Officer Dallas.” She turned around and walked back behind the counter, exiting the room.