"A hero has a bad day when a villain robs the bank, and likewise, the villain has a bad day when the hero stops them from robbing said bank. Their wounded pride, not the fact that they were in mortal danger causes their day to become worse. The humble civilian, however, has a bad day when they find themselves inside of a bank being robbed, as they prize their life over their pride. Remember this, when choosing between catching a villain or saving somebody else" - Page one of the Justice League's Rulebook
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I was not having a good day.
I was having an okay day, but it turns out getting tied to a chair, and then left alone in an empty warehouse did not have a great effect on your mood. Head pounding, jaw extremely sore, I stopped trying to move my feet, but being constrained by the excessive amounts of rope, I sighed and stopped trying to wiggle my way out of the rope. Looking around, I realized that, all things considered, this was a very cliched kidnapping.
Tied to an extremely uncomfortable chair in a middle of a dark and empty warehouse, check. Having only one old lightbulb to illuminate the empty and decrepit building, check. Not having access to any food or water, check. The sound of irregular dripping water, check, and I rewarded bonus points for an incessant itching on my left wrist, considering I couldn’t scratch it until I was untied. This kidnapping was hitting all the bases for tv/movie kidnappings. However, there was just one detail about the kidnapping that was confusing me.
Why the Hell was I being kidnapped?
Sure, I had a wallet in my pocket, so a simple mugging would be reasonable, if unfortunate considering I only had around twenty-two dollars in there. I didn't have a job, so being interrogated about details surrounding that didn’t make sense. While sure, being ransomed was a potential option, it seemed to be a very weird target considering I was just a regular guy.
I leaned my head back as far as my chair would allow me and looked up at the ceiling, covered in broken windows and mildew, and tried to retrace how I both literally and figuratively got tied up in this situation. My head hurt, which considering the fact that I hadn’t been able to drink or eat anything since abducted, made a lot of sense. However, the last memory I had was… it was… head pounding, blackness corroding my vision, I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.
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Six hours earlier
Throwing my backpack in the passenger’s seat of my car, sighing, I rested my forehead on the worn-out material of my steering wheel closing my eyes. Blealirly looking at the trickle of kids leaving the school. Even though I got out a class period earlier than the majority of my high school, having six straight classes is still tiring, especially at the end of the week, and my lack of breakfast six hours ago indicated a headache. I turned on my car, turned on my music, and started to pull out of the parking lot.
Because my phone was not connecting to my car’s speakers, I quickly unplugged the attachment- as my car was too old for Bluetooth so I needed a secondary attachment- wincing at the loud static filling my car. Quickly shoving the attachment back into its port, the static was replaced with similarly loud music. Sure the music was mainly pop, but the upbeat mood was needed after existing through a school day that never seemed to end.
My drive home from school was easy, as muscle memory from driving back and forth from school to home, every day for six months, allowed me to drive without having to pay nearly enough attention to where I was going. However, my headache quickly ramped up the intensity, making the drive home significantly more painful, even with the higher than average amounts of green lights I got. Pulling into my driveway, my headache was even stronger, causing my worries to spike. Sure, I got headaches all the time but none this strong, and none just because I skipped breakfast. Rubbing my eyes, I dragged myself outside of the car, leaving my backpack in the passenger’s seat, and started to walk through my garage, up to the front door.
As my headache peaked in intensity one more time, I closed my eyes completely, relying on my sense of touch to open the door. As I reached my hand out, trying to grasp the door handle, the pain in my head seemed to multiply, turning pain, into agony, as what seemed like mails pierced through my head. My hand landed on the door, I twisted and stepped through, freezing when the pain in my head completely stopped.
I opened my eyes, and I wasn't inside my house, but on the middle of a sidewalk in a random city. Freezing I looked around frantically panic welling up, as my ability to comprehend my surroundings were used to the maximum. Spinning around, all I could see is were insanely tall skyscrapers, and what seemed to be what was the center of a bustling metropolis. Then the sound and smells hit, almost doubling me over, as the most populous dense place I had ever been to was a small-time village compared to… Where was I?
I spun around, trying to find where I was based on famous landmarks, though I knew I had to be in some kind of city. Chicago? New York? Even though I had played Geoguesser as a child, none of the buildings looked anything like any of the cities I had seen playing that game. The mass amount of stimuli was also too much for me, stopping me from being able to comprehend any part of where I was, or even what state I was in, even though I was confident I was somewhere in America. The sounds of busses honking, massive amounts of cars filling the streets, filled my ears. Towering buildings, each with giant logos on them filled my eyes. I squinted trying to read what looked like Lexcorp on a particularly tall one.
As I stood there, awestruck at the incomprehensible environment I was in, unable to move, and even if I was able, not being able to decide where to move, when my decision was chosen for me.
Three guys, all of the different heights, and wearing the same style of suit stood in front of me, but the detail that stood out the most was the small cloth penguin sewn to each of their clothes, right over their hearts. I looked again and realized that the two individuals on the outside were massive, and also looked very dangerous, even in the ill-fitting suits and the penguin memorabilia that they wore. The man in the middle, even though much smaller than his two… friends or were they, bodyguards, his look would have frozen me in place, if I wasn’t already confused by the city I was in.
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He was wearing a suit like his two… associates and had both a top hat and an umbrella with him, and walked closer and closer to me with a pronounced limp. Looking closer at his top hat, another penguin iconography was barely visible.
I couldn't help it, a laugh burst out of my mouth, and once it was out, I couldn’t stop laughing. All my confusion towards my location, the architecture that didn’t match any location I knew, all synthesized into uncontrollable laughter, causing me to drop to my knees. Two bodyguards that could rip me in half, both in ridiculous suits with penguin emblems, escorting a short man, with an umbrella and more penguin icons…. This guy was a cosplayer of the Penguin.
While I was admittedly more of a Marvel guy, the dedication this guy had to his costume was impressive, as he even hired fake bodyguards. I was about to congratulate him on his impressive costume when one of the bodyguards lashed out and punched me in my face, knocking me to the ground.
Huh?
Before I could say anything, which would have been certainly, “Hey What the Fuck was that for, ” one of the goons spoke with an expectedly deep voice.
“Don’t worry Mr. Cobblepot, We won’t let no one mock you in your territory.”
The last thing I saw was the umbrella swinging unexpectedly fast at my head before everything went dark.
-Six hours later-
Click….Click….Click…
I groaned opening my eyes as I saw Mr. Cobblepot/Penguin walk forward, slowly, using his umbrella as a cane to help walk more steadily. The warehouse I was in had more lights on this time, and I could see him slowly walking towards me, again flanked by two guards, as well as two more guarding the door he walked out of.
Click….Click…Click…
Every time the cane went down, I flinched, instinctively closing my eyes, as my jaw and head throbbed. The question of where I was, was now not nearly as important to me as another important question. How do I survive? Obviously, if Cobblepot, would attack me in the middle of a street, murder would not be out of the question. I tried pulling on my restraints, but the struggle was futile, my lack of food or water, combined with being knocked out had lessened my strength considerably, even though I doubted being fully healthy I would be able to free myself anyway. My left wrist itched even more, however, I could not come close to touching it.
Humility then would be my best bet of surviving. If he was the real Penguin from the comics, then I could maybe goad him into a monologue, but those only happened in the movies. As Mr. Cobblepot came closer he slowly reached out grabbed my jaw and forced me to look into his eyes, then dropped me, taking steps back, shadows falling onto his face. He clapped his hands, then started to speak.
“Well, well, well, I never thought that such disrespect, such mockery, would I ever have to be subjected to in my territory," He said.
His voice was nothing like the movies, sure a little high pitched but still, he sounded and looked way more regular than his common descriptions- I shook my head, stopping my rambling thoughts. The one thought I should be focused on is apologizing.
"I'm so sorry Mr. Cobblepot sir, I have had an extremely long day, and I was lost, and I never meant to insult you or your stature" I rambled, the pitch of my voice instinctively rising at the end of the sentence, making a statement into somewhat of a question. I didn't have enough information on where I was, if he was the actual Penguin and if he was what version of the Penguin he was. I tried thinking of the Batman movies I had seen but couldn't remember if the Penguin was a businessman as well as a gang leader or just a gang boss. I blinked in confusion as Mr. Cobblepot bent down and reformed a bastard version of a bow, and became even more confused when he started to speak.
"Mr. Cobblepot at your service, young man, but I magnanimously allow you to be more informal, and call me with what my friends call me... The Penguin," He finished with a flourish, as I internally facepalmed. Now that I knew he at least thought of himself as the Penguin, I almost had more questions than before. I was about to react to his unexpected declaration but then he kept talking. "As an austere businessman such as myself, it was gauche for my associates to have injured you in such a manner, for such a small slight. Even though you appeared to be....."
Heart racing, his long-winded speech and peculiar vocabulary were ignored as I tried to focus on his previous sentences. He thought he was the Penguin but I was unsure which of three impossible scenarios I was living in. One, this was a vivid dream and I was imagining it all, but the complexity and the vivid pain I was feeling dissuaded me from that option. Two, I was kidnapped by someone insane, who thought of myself as the Penguin, a fictional character, although that doesn't explain the city I was in, which left the last option. He wasn't crazy and was actually the Penguin, which put me somewhere in the DCU, but considering the amounts of retcons in the DCU, that didn't exactly help me either. Realizing that his speech was winding down, I mustered up the courage to ask a question.
"Umm Mr. Penguin Sir," I hesitantly said, "we wouldn't happen to be in Gotham right now would we?" I waited for his response tentatively, and let out a very very long sigh when I heard his response.
"Why yes, of course, you mean to tell me you were on the streets of Gotham without realizing it?" He said while laughing, "But on the subject of questions, I would like to play a simple game, a question for a question, each answered truthfully, which is more than fair based on our respective positions, and since you went first, with a simple question, what is your name, so I know who I'm talking to?"
I froze, not brave enough to speak. While the fact that he thinks we are in Gotham, so would someone who thinks they were the Penguin, not giving me more information of where I was. Either way, I wouldn't want to give a crazy person my name, and I definitely wouldn't want to give the real Penguin my name, so I think of one of my childhood TV shows and go with a name from there. I decided to try to mimic his vocabulary as well, hoping that would make him like me more, and be less likely to kill me.
I clear my throat, "Oh I am deeply sorry for forgetting to introduce myself, my name is Benjamin Tennyson, at your service", I also incline my head as much as I can, trusting my tilted face to not give away the lie.
The penguin takes one step forward and swings his umbrella directly at my head, crashing into it with a crack. Pain explodes on the side of my head as for the second time that day I am hit with Penguins umbrella. The force of the blow causes my chair to tip over as well, knocking the other side of my head to the concrete floor as well. My eyes water, and scrunch up as the consecutive blows to my head. The penguin squats next to my prone body and fishes in his pocket and pulls out a familiar leather-bound object. Shit. My wallet... The penguin slowly reaches in and pulls out my driver's license. He then pushes his umbrella to softly touch my forehead and I hear a small click. The Penguin's voice is soft, but unmistakenly mad when he slowly responds, corresponding to each word with his umbrella pushing against my forehead.
"Wrong answer"