Master of Gotham

“Bruce,” Barbara began patiently, “why are you buying a strip club?”

“Bought,” Bruce enunciated, paying her back smarm for smarm.

They were in the middle of the ‘strip club,’ a condemned property in the industrial district. There was a swirl of activity from contractors and construction workers. They weren’t cleaning the property, but reinforcing it. Adding in all the paranoid, protective measures that Bruce was known for, at least in one of his identities. 

With his wealth, Bruce could afford discretion. None of the workers would say a word about retrofitting a shuttered building to the point where it would repel a siege. In fact, a great many of them might have thought they were building a headquarters for Two-Face or the Riddler.

Although he supervised the process with his usual attention to detail, Bruce didn’t dispel them of the notion. He put as much effort into his boisterous Bruce Wayne persona as he did into making the Batman intimidating. Now—dressed casually, a fedora pulled low on his head, he was like Marilyn Monroe having turned off the charm. Somehow unremarkable despite everything Barbara knew about him.

As for Oracle… she had always been the librarian type. She could glam herself up some, but she found keeping a low-profile pretty effortless… even among construction workers.

“Okay,” Barbara pressed on, “why did you buy a strip club and why are you giving it a Queer Eye makeover?”

“The same reason I’m paying to refurbish Arkham. The same reason I’m upgrading Blackgate with better security measures. There’s no point in the Batman fighting crime if criminals are allowed to escape and go unrehabilitated.”

“Rehabilitation?” Barbara scoffed. “I thought that was a dirty word in Gotham.”

“Not quite. You’ve had some success. Huntress was on the verge of going over the edge before you got to her.”

“Don’t sell her short,” Barbara chided him. “She’s made a lot of good choices. You’d be proud of her. But what’s that got to do with giving lapdances?”

Bruce’s countenance almost betrayed a smile. “Nothing. Per se. But Arkham can help the mentally disturbed. Blackgate can lock up those who actively choose to break the law. I think the women of Gotham might need a more personal touch.”

Barbara crossed her arms. “Oh, this oughta be good.”

“You are leading an entirely female team.”

“How I run my team is my business, but it has nothing to do with requiring special treatment.”

“I never said it did. But you’re familiar with the female criminals of Gotham. They’re often traumatized, having suffered exploitation or attack.”

“So have a lot of male criminals.”

“But it’s a different dynamic,” Bruce argued. “Female villains tend to develop an unhealthy relationship with the opposite sex. Harley Quinn has a fixation on the Joker. Poison Ivy has a pronounced antipathy towards men. Catwoman is obsessed with her seductive allure—almost nymphomania. Absent the support of the male underworld or society at large, they lash out in unique ways. Simple empathy and compassion, like they’d get at the new Arkham, is wasted on them. They wouldn’t trust it. They also need an element of exploitation to ease them through the recovery process.”

“That’s insane.”

“What else have they responded to?” Bruce asked. “Harley’s only positive relationships are with the Joker and Ivy; they both abuse her. Ivy’s positive relationships are completely intertwined with her use of mind-control pollen.”

“And Selina’s most fulfilling relationship is with you,” Barbara pointed out. “Does she enjoy being exploited?”

“Yes,” Bruce answered simply, but with a tone that let Barbara know he wouldn’t elaborate. “Harley goes through a continuous cycle, vacillating between the Joker and Ivy. His ill treatment of her always drives her away, but whether she’s with Ivy or on her own, her criminal status means she can never live a normal civilian life. Trying to do so would just make her easy pickings for the authorities, ending up spending decades in Arkham or Blackgate for her crimes. So she’s continually drawn back to the Joker and his criminal lifestyle.”

“What’s the alternative?” Barbara asked. “Giving her a free pass for her crimes?”

“No. But not imprisonment either. At least, not conventional imprisonment. Sometimes, the best therapy is actively triggering someone’s mental illness in a safe, controlled environment. Taking away its power by making it harmless and benevolent.”

“And you think a run-down strip club is a safe, controlled environment?”

“Harley can be comfortable here. This place can go unnoticed. She could come and go as she pleased.”

“So how are you going to get her to come here?”

Bruce smiled to himself. It would take some doing—and first, the club would need to be absolutely perfect.

***

It took months—no matter how much Bruce spent, the need for secrecy slowed things down. But eventually, the club was exactly as he wanted it. To all appearances, another sleazy dive soaked in neon and with little more to offer but the smell of stale beer. But underneath, it had more in common with the Batcave than anything else.

The structure was systematically replaced with plate steel, coated in rubber to waterproof the metal, then plastered over until it could be just another brick-and-mortar building. The plaster could be damaged, but underneath, the building would withstand an earthquake. Hidden cameras watched every inch, ‘supplementing’ the more obvious CCTV cameras that were clearly broken to lull the watched into a false sense of security.

Underneath the club was a secret bunker, fortified to withstand a nuclear strike, equipped with self-sufficient power, water purification, blast valves, and Nuclear-Biological-Chemical air filtration. Electromagnetic cathodic technology prevented rust. Stockpiles included enough food and water to last a year, with a hydroponic garden to recycle the water and air and grow more food. Small as the ‘guest rooms’ were, they could hold fifty in their bunk beds.

Moreover, shrewd acquisition of an inactive subway station beneath Bruce’s property had given plenty of room for the bunker to spread out. Retrofitted rooms include a theater, a medical ward, kitchen, motor pool, and a gym, making the place a regular small town and offering passage via the ‘unused’ subway line to almost anywhere else in Gotham. A pump tapped into an underground river, which not only provided a secondary source of fresh water, but emergency access to the Batcave—part of the same river network that flowed under Wayne Manor. The strip club could be razed to the ground while the bunker went not only unnoticed, but protected by vault doors that doubled the thickness of any bank’s safe. 

Deterrence was Bruce’s watchword. The strip club was rigged to self-destruct, but otherwise, the antipersonnel measures were entirely nonlethal. Mines were planted in the walls and floors to be detonated remotely—they were rigged with concussion charges, like flashbang grenades that spewed tear gas. The fire-suppression system could easily knock out intruders with its onslaught of halon gas. The entrance to the bunker was guarded by ultra-high-frequency sonic suppressors that could debilitate a grown man or be amped up to rend steel. 

Inside the bunker, the floor panels were rigged to electrocute those without clearance. An armory was well-stocked with dartguns, the anesthetics able to render humans unconscious in milliseconds. Other rounds were chambered to deal with Thanagarians, White Martians, Atlanteans… the list went on. A teleporter was inactive to prevent hacking, but with a few minutes’ work it could be brought online and used as a last-resort escape hatch. All in all, the bunker was second only to the Batcave in terms of Bruce’s preparation, and no wonder. It was not only going to serve as his headquarters, but as a prison—and even as a home, if his plan bore fruit. 

Finally, the bunker was ready, and just in time. Harley was still apart from the Joker, but she’d never gone so long without running back to him. Bruce’s informants told him that she was scoping out Arkham once more—trying to find a way to break her lover out again. It was time for Bruce to put his plan into action.

***

Harley Quinn didn’t make herself hard to find, but with typical Gotham perversion, the city covered her up. She still wore caked-on make-up, abbreviated clothing, and her personal motif of red and black in eye-searing combinations, but any number of people wore the same thing—a fashion trend. 

Batman crouched on the parapet of a rooftop, looking down at the slum Harley hid in. In a swirl of red and black and exposed skin, it wasn’t easy to find her. Some of the Harley Quinns he saw were fat, others male—but finally he spotted the genuine article. Her long legs flashed in red and black stripped stockings up to her thighs, where a swath of skin led to bedazzled jean shorts—‘Nasty’ written on the back in rhinestones. A plain white tee covered her chest, the Joker’s face crudely drawn on the front in marker, the whole thing thin enough to show off her red and black bra underneath. Her hair fell down to her shoulders with streaks of blue and red dyed into it. And her face showed a gregarious smile, emphasizing the cuteness of her rounded cheeks and wide eyes, a hint of mischief in her features that it was hard to believe could lead to homicide and larceny instead of off-color jokes.

Batman followed her through the rain, creeping from shadow to shadow, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. She proudly gallivanted through the streets, stomping through the puddles, not caring how the rain chilled her body or rendered her clothing next to transparent. A number of hunting gazes ran over her lithe, athletic body as she displayed it with an almost innocent shamelessness, but inevitably they slid away. In Gotham, a predator didn’t last long if it couldn’t detect a larger predator.

Finally, Harley arrived at her hotel. As she passed under its NO VACANCY sign, the blaring red neon momentarily painted her entirely crimson. Batman continued surveillance as Harley went up to her room, seeing her bouncing up the stairs through windows in the stairwell. The rainwater gleamed on her pale skin, making it look as shiny as the sharpest teeth, and Bruce considered those venomous animals that warned of their toxicity with bright coloring. And still other animals that had no venom, but that mimicked the coloring to ward off predators all the same. The Joker was most definitely venomous but Harley… Harley he wasn’t so sure about.

When next Harley was out of sight, Batman moved—gliding to the window to her apartment, forcing it open, and sliding it before she even started opening the locks on the front door. By the time she was in, he was properly hidden. Lurking as she stripped off her wet shirt and wrung it out in the sink. 

This close, Bruce could hear her humming to herself, smell the childishly fruity scent of her perfume. And he could see the full pertness of her cleavage in its half-bra, the red and black cups looping around the roundness of her breasts to show off their creamy smoothness and ripe perkiness, thin circles of fabric completing the cups of her bra as they wound between her breasts and held the entire array together when otherwise it seemed like the whole thing would slip off her at any moment. 

Batman watched as she undid the button and fly on her shorts, relaxing with the waist of her jeans going slack. She would never feel more vulnerable than if confronted now, when she was at her most relaxed. She deserved to feel vulnerable. She’d certainly made others feel that way.

He stepped out of the shadows, already having retrieved the doodled blueprints that were her way past Arkham’s latest security measures. He tossed the sheaf of papers at Harley’s feet, the noise making her jump. 

“What’re you… what’re you doing here, Bats? Who let you in?” Harley demanded.

Batman ignored her words, as though she were beneath his contempt. For the attention-seeking, starved Harley, that would be the first step of her reconditioning. “You’re planning on releasing the Joker. I can’t allow that. From now on, your life with him is over. You belong to me.”

Harley popped her hands onto her hips. “What’re you saying? That I’m your property or something? What kinda sexist bull is that?”

“Sexism only applies to women, Harley. You’re not so much that as a wild animal that needs to be broken in.”

“Wild animal, huh? I’ll show you!” Harley reached behind herself, groping for a weapon—not remembering that she wasn’t armed. 

“You’ll show me what?” Batman taunted her.

“Smartass! Jerk!” Harley charged at him, her svelte legs carrying her with exceeding grace into a headlong rush towards him.

Batman reached out and caught her, palming her head in his hand and checking her momentum with a slight give of his elbow. Harley was left scrambling and clawing for Batman, but unable to get close with his outstretched arm holding her in place.

Finally, she realized she could attack his arm. Harley chopped at his wrist, but once more Batman caught it—redirecting the blow so Harley was spun around and brought against his chest, turned away from him and with his arm wrapped around her throat in a chokehold. He had done it all with only one hand.

“If you behave, I can make this pleasant for you,” Batman said. “You can work for me, make money—enough to buy whatever you want. But I can’t let you keep running wild. You’re going to be mine. I can’t afford to give you a choice in the matter.”

“Fuck you!” Harley squealed. “Choke me, choke me, you don’t have the… don’t have the…”

Batman steadily tightened his grip, until Harley couldn’t get so much as a molecule of oxygen. “You’re going to obey me, Harley. If you want a master so bad, I’ll give you one. And I can be far more kind than the Joker. But I can also be just as rough.” 

***

Inside the newly dubbed Vespers, Batman scanned the dressing room. It had been decorated in happy marriage between Harley’s… enthusiastic tastes and the trashy decadence that would be commonplace in a high-end strip club. Gold plating covered every surface. Mirrors and lightbulbs were set in faux marble walls. A bearskin rug dubiously took up the tile floor. And Harley sat in front of one of the many vanities, the light from the bulbs surrounding the mirror shining on her.

He had bathed her, treated her wounds, given her some meds for the infections she’d been ignoring. For a medical professional, Harley took little care of herself. She was so careless with the healing wounds of her life of crime that it almost seemed suicidal.

She now wore a dressing gown, its filmy satin clinging to her naked curves and bandaged wounds all the way to the feathered hem. Without the make-up, the smeared blood, the dyed hair, the dilation of substance abuse in her perpetually wired eyes, she looked surprisingly young, almost teenaged. She could’ve passed for the homecoming queen, and Bruce suspected she would only grow more attractive as her health improved. In her sleep, the almost pathetic whorishness that made her repellant was replaced with a softness that let her allure take center stage.

Bruce was patient. Harley seemed so comfortable that she slept in prolonged relaxation, as though a good night’s sleep was one more thing she were unhealthily depriving herself of. After several hours, she awoke—startled to see her robustly clean reflection in the mirror opposite her. She pulled herself off of the chair she’d been lying in, examining her Old Hollywood gown, the professional bandages adorning her skin, and her ‘glamorous’ surroundings. She was taken in by all of it—it was only when she noticed Batman that she started.

“You’ll work here now,” Bruce informed her. “It’s a gentleman’s club. Since you like being the center of attention so much, that should suit you just fine. When you’re not here, working, you’ll be at a halfway house down the street. Leslie Thompkins runs it. She’s a friend. If you do anything she dislikes, it’ll get back to me.”

“You want me to be a stripper?” Harley asked, bursting out laughing. “Okay, Bats—what if I don’t wanna?”

“I don’t care what you want. You don’t know what’s good for yourself, much less the community. Until you can be trusted to live as a normal person, you’re going to do as I say. Obey and you’ll be rewarded. Disobey and you’ll be punished.”

“Uh-huh.” Harley drew herself up to her feet. “I’m guessing Bane and Mr. Freeze aren’t getting no offers to strip at your little Playboy club.”

“No. They aren’t. They’re not like you.”

“Oh? Does Bane’s big, hairy chest not do it to you?” Harley minced over to him on tip-toes, her little steps sending miniature shockwaves through her nubile body. 

“He’s not insane.”

“Maybe that’s why I do it for you, huh?” Harley stopped in front of him, preening, bobbing up and down on her heels. “Nothing like sticking your dick in crazy, is there, Bats?” Coming up only to Bruce’s broad chest, she leaned forward to lick the bat symbol in the middle of his body armor.

“Do you not want to be a stripper?” he asked. “Because I have to think it’d be a step-up, considering what a whore you’re acting like now.”

“Cad!” Harley shrieked, and raised her knee into his balls.

It was a predictable move and one Bruce was ready for. With a swift kick, he knocked her leg aside. His hand lashed out and collared her throat, lifting her up to her tippy-toes. She balanced precariously, practically on her toenails as she sucked in breath.

“You’re really rehabilitating me well,” Harley gritted out.

“Don’t act like that wasn’t your game all along. Get close, attack me, safe in the knowledge that if you failed—like always—I would just pack you off to Arkham where you’d be close to your beloved clown. Where you’re royalty… everyone afraid to piss you off because you’re Joker’s girl… or because they want to fuck you…”

“Lemme go!” Harley insisted shrilly, kicking her legs desperately. Bruce held her aloft so her feet pedaled harmlessly in the air. Agilely, she tried to build up the momentum to swing herself forward and kick him in the face, but Batman squeezed her throat almost crushingly tight. She gagged with no breath whatsoever. 

It was only when she started to turn blue that Bruce released her. She fell onto all fours, gasping in air.

“We’re not playing that game anymore,” Bruce told her. “From now on, when you step out of line, I punish you myself.”

Harley spoke despite the fact that her body was busy gulping in air. “You can’t punish me—Mistah J will—get you for this!”

“The Joker doesn’t care about you. Now shut your whore mouth and accept your punishment, or else it’ll be worse.”

Something about Batman’s tone finally convinced Harley that he was serious… that there was no wiggling and squirming her way out of this. Her own voice grew small. “What’re… what’re you gonna do to me?”

“You have two choices, Harley. You can be my property or you can be my bitch. Property gets taken care of. It’s valued, protected. You know what happens to bitches, Harley.”

Picking her up by the scruff of her robe, Bruce sat down in the warm chair Harley had been sleeping in. He threw her down across his lap, her small but plump ass jutting into the air. Harley wiggled—of course she wiggled—but Bruce held her down. She stopped then, realizing she might be pissing him off. Maybe… if she were good, like he said…

“You’re not gonna be too hard on me, are you Bats? I was only jokin’ with you…”

Bruce looked at her curiously. “Were you? It was disrespectful, Harley. You’re not allowed to show disrespect.”

“I didn’t mean no disrespect, Bats, honest—“

“That means no nicknames. Unless you want to call me sir.”

“Okay… okay, Batman. Just being friendly…”

“Do you know how I’m going to punish you, Harley? How I punish my bitches?”

Harley shuddered and it became a kind of expectant writhing, making her pert ass jiggle under the gown. “You’re gonna spank me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Harley. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, Bats—sir.”

“In fact, you deserve it, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

As if in reward for her compliance, Harley felt his gloved hand lifting her robe higher, higher, until the hem was at her waist. She could feel the room’s cool air on her naked ass, and even more so Batman’s eyes. 

“Then why don’t you ask for it? Since you know you’ve been a bad girl. Since you know you need to be punished.”

Harley gulped. “Spank me, Batman,” she said haltingly, for once not sure if she could take Batman. He always held back because she was a girl, because she was crazy—this didn’t feel like he was holding back anymore. “Please g’wan and spank me!”

“You don’t sound too excited, Harley. Didn’t you say you deserved to be punished?”

Harley bit her lip. This was turning her on, all this talk of her being a bitch and a bad girl and getting punished. She loved being punished by Mistah J—well, almost always—but he never paid enough attention to her to really give her the full treatment, really go all the way. But she could tell Batman wasn’t the same way. She pushed her ass up to receive his hand. “Go ahead, sir! Spank my ass! I deserve it! Spank me for being a bad girl! Smack my ass until it’s raw!”