[Gotham AU, set a decent few years after Scarecrow became a villain]

[Tw: swearing, contortionist nonsense]

Scarecrow was having a fine day. Until she nearly got caught.

They were running out of the museum, clutching a vial in his hand. Nightwing was close behind, too close. If he was here, Batman, Robin, or Batgirl might not be too far behind as well.

"Shit shit shit-"

"See ya, fucking loser!"

The hell? Scarecrow looked over as both she and Nightwing froze. A guy in a costume, not too different from the other villain's, stood with a very expensive looking artifact in his hands.

"Ooh! This must be worth a pretty penny!" The new guy cackled, and started to flee as Nightwing got distracted and ran after him instead of his previous target. Scarecrow blinked in surprise, hardly believing their luck. They grinned and started to run away towards the exit. The newbie was only gonna find vents in that direction, and unless they could shrink or something, they were gonna be fucking screwed.

Or so he thought.

Nightwing ran after the new villain. "Really! Did Scarecrow hire you to do this??"

"Who??? No! I'm fucking Ragdoll, bitch! I don't work for nobody!" Ragdoll shouted as he ran. The way he ran seemed... odd. As they kept on the chase, Nightwing managed to trap the new criminal in a dead end. The only way out was an open vent, but there was no way anyone would be able to fit in there.

"It's over, Raggity. Give me the expensive thingy, and I might go easy on you." Nightwing smiled, pulling out a baton. Ragdoll snickered and let him charge forward, then bent all the way backwards to avoid the strike. Now, Nightwing was no stranger to flexibility, but as they fought on, it was clear Ragdoll was in a whole different ballpark than they were. He bent in ways that should've snapped his bones and messed up his joints, but Ragdoll just clicked them back in place with ease and kept going without being hit once.

"Aww, this is almost too easy!"

Nightwing's jaw clenched a bit at the gloating. "What kind of wackjob contortionist are you!?"

"Ask your mother!" Ragdoll gleefully cackled at the (semi-confused, semi-horrified) look he got from the hero. "The look on your face! Fucking priceless! Maybe I should snatch that too!"

He kicked Nightwing into a display, and the hero hit their head against something hard enough to make spots appear in his vision. By the time he properly came to his senses, he could see Ragdoll squeezing himself and his prize through the open vent. Springing up to his feet, Nightwing tried to run over to pull them out, but the contortionist criminal was far gone by the time he went to reach for the crook.

"God- ... Bats is gonna kill me..."

"Inanis Testa. He's from Central City, used to be Flash's problem but seems to have relocated to Gotham." Batman sighed, glancing up from his seat in front of the Batcomputer to look at Ranboo. "Your description seems to match his MO and set of abilities. He apparently broke into Flash's home before, he knows what he looks like but not his name. It may be safer if they're farther away from Impulse."

"Yeah... but couldn't he have gone to Star City or something? I'm sure Green Arrow could use more to do." Ranboo joked, messing with their domino mask in his hands. Thankfully, Bats didn't seem too upset the new bad guy got away on the first attempt.

"Jimmy's busy with Vertigo."

"That's the only villain he faces that isn't usually somebody else's problem." Nightwing snickered.

Doc held back a smile and typed something into the computer. "You said Scarecrow was stealing their usual?"

"Yup. Standard set of fear-inducing hallucinatory nonsense to be turned into a weapon of mass chaos." Ranboo watched as Batman pulled up a map of Gotham, and figured out he was checking to see where else stored those kinds of chemicals and even some equipment Scarecrow would likely need at some point. "Did someone bust up their main lab?"

"Not that I know of. But he has been acting as such."

"Maybe they're just overpreparing for another ass-whooping."

"Maybe... I'll do more research on Ragdoll. Something isn't matching up."

Scarecrow's goons helped load everything into the new backup hideout. "There we are... Don't drop anything, most of these are essential, fragile, and worth far more than I can possibly pay all of you."

A few people nodded nervously, immediately being more cautious. After all, who knew what those chemicals could do once released? None of them wanted to find out from experience.

"Uh, boss? Don't you already have a base or two?" One of them asked meekly.

"Yes, I do. But given how even Croc and Riddler had theirs found so quickly, I assume you can figure out it's better safe than sorry."

Scarecrow wasn't really the type to yell at their... employees for asking questions like that, but none of them wanted to be on the receiving end for the few times they did snap at any of them. As long as no one poked at their ego too hard or questioned his authority at the wrong times, they figured they were safe. Even those who worked for Scarecrow for years treaded carefully, knowing whoever crossed the line was likely to be used as a guinea pig for a fear toxin experiment.

But... they did have their nice moments. He paid better than anyone else, and respected her goons as much as they deserved. So they questioned her a lot less than someone like Riddler (who... honestly, just seemed to encourage the confusion at times).

Ragdoll hid inside a crate, listening in. Who was this asshole who thought it was funny to steal his gimmick???

"Get the last few in, then take your time getting to the agreed location. Don't say it's name, we don't know who could be listening."

The contortionist felt the box he'd shoved himself in get picked up, jolsting them around a little. Uh oh. He... didn't think they'd actually need this box.

"On it, boss. We got any kind of deadline?"

"Be there before midnight. Drop off a few of the decoys on your way to divert attention."

Ah shit. Ragdoll quietly hit his head a bit- why didn't he think of that! Now he'd have to go through a whole truck ride listening to this annoying bitch!

Although... said annoying bitch had surprisingly good music taste. (Mother Mother the beloved-)

Scarecrow hummed along a bit as they drove, and Ragdoll focused on the music to try avoiding feeling carsick. This was gonna be a long ass ride... 

----

Credit to Kit for the character of Ragdoll! He's an alternate version of Inanis, I think they've made art of him before- go check them out :> 

Have an amazing day, evening, and night, g'bye <3

- CinnabonSys (*vibing*)