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Look, George liked to think of himself as a decent guy. Certainly not good by any means, he wasn’t the superman type, but he wasn’t awful. He definitely didn’t think he would be going to Gotham of all places for a job where he had to kidnap someone.
Yeah, if you had told him that a week ago, George would’ve thought you were crazy. If you told him the pay, he would understand. Needs must and paying his rent was a must.
Ever heard of hazard pay? Now imagine the pay for doing a job in Gotham. It would be enough to pay George’s rent for at least a year, plus other expenses. There was no way he could turn that down, even if it meant toeing some moral lines of his.
He would just have to make it quick: in, grab someone, drop them off with Black Mask (what kind of criminal called himself Black Mask), and get the hell out of the cursed city. Easy. Simple. Never return to Gotham again.
Of course said plan went sideways the moment he entered the damn city. Everyone here drove like lunatics. George had nearly been run off the road twice and violently cursed out at least ten times that amount. Only three of those cursings were in languages he understood.
Brilliant, he would have to see an exorcist after this just to be safe.
George was beginning to question whether this hazard pay was worth it.
Just get this over with, he repeated to himself as he entered the first mostly-empty shop he saw. With as much false bravo he could muster, he shouted, “Everyone put your hands up in the air!”
Contrary to his previous experience, there were no screams or panicking from the three inhabitants of the shop. There was a young girl at the till, probably school age, and two guys shopping. None of them seemed overly phased.
George brandished his gun (a weapon he wasn’t comfortable using if he was being honest) in the hopes of proving his seriousness.
“Get on the ground!”
The people obeyed, however…just…what? What were the two guys doing?
The two had an obscene number of colas carried in their arms, and they were trying to set them on the floor, leading to a ridiculously loud clattering. Both of them looked tired, the big one in an exasperated way, the one with eyebags that made him look like a racoon in a way that made George think that he wasn’t actually awake enough to process any of what was going on.
Probably college students.
Now that George thought about it, he swore that those types of cola were illegal in the US, something about unhealthy levels of caffeine. It was Gotham, he shouldn’t question it.
“You,” he pointed at the small one with his gun, he wasn’t confident in his fighting ability if the buff one tried to fight back, “come with me!”
The two looked at each other as if they were communicating but before George could intervene, they brought their hands out in front of them. And…and started playing rock, paper, scissors?
The big one lost and hissed “best out of three” while George just stood their baffled. Were they deciding who was going with him? Was this normal in Gotham?
The second round they drew. Was it wrong that George was getting strangely into this? He needed to stop watching TV dramas, they had permanently messed with his head. George hadn’t even noticed he had long since lowered his gun.
“Yes!” The small one cheered as he won again.
“Really? No fair,” the other grumbled. Wait that meant he was stuck with the big one, this wasn’t the plan.
Then, to George’s confusion, the small one stood up and walked over to him. Now that he was closer up and not being towered over by a behemoth, George noticed that he wasn’t actually that small, just small in comparison to his friend.
He quickly got his wits together (just don’t think too hard about it and maybe the strangeness will go away), remembering that this was a hostage situation, and he was supposed to be in charge of the situation. Levelling his gun at the guy, George was once again baffled by the small one grinning over his shoulder at the big one and saying, “Sucks to suck.”
George roughly dragged the guy out of the door, hopefully coming off as intimidating instead of intimidated.
“You’re paying for my Zestis,” the small one called back to his friend.
George shoved the guy into the back of his van that he had left outside. He was definitely going to need therapy after this trip. Gothamites were truly a different breed.