Chapter Text
Channel 11: The Mummy: Featuring Ra’s al Ghul and Jason Todd
Neal sat back and watched the screen when an old movie started playing, he always did like things that showed magic as real.
The buff man with a white streak in his hair stood protectively in front of the young lady and her cowardly brother. He held a torch in one hand and a gun in the other ready to defend the two of them from anything that could come at them. It was clear that he was not expecting a reanimated corpse to be the thing that he was protecting them from.
“You dare to come here and defie me? I who gave you back your life? I allowed my daughter to care for you and even use magic to bring you back. Why do you insist on standing against me now?” Imhotep raged at the young man.
With each step toward the trio his body became more solid, more real until the man stood before them in a richly ornamented Green and Gold cloak, dressed more like the pharaoh himself than a high priest. The sneer on the man’s face felt personal in a way that seemed out of place in the movie. The matching challenge in Rick’s green eyes coupled with the knowing smirk promised mayhem and explosions.
The Mummy may not have been his first choice but watching the quest for knowledge that accidentally ends up saving the world felt familiar like home even.
Channel 12: What not to Wear: Stacy London and Clinton Kelly: Featuring Dick Grayson
Neal turned the channel. He was too drained for anything but the mind numbing familiarity of trashy reality tv.
The next channel was once again an old rerun: on screen was a young man; talk, dark, and handsome. He bore a strong resemblance to Neal himself. Most people would consider him quite beautiful, except for the garish mismatch of clothes he wore.
The dark haired man had on floppy mom jeans that were cuffed a few times at the bottom. He also has on a white button down shirt. This was no plain shirt, no it had a collection of huge brightly colored polka dots on it. His long hair was pulled back into a greasy rat tailed ponytail.
He stood in the 360° mirror room admiring himself. His confidence was breathtaking.
"I don't know what they are talking about; I look awesome," he said.
The door to the room opened and in came fashion gurus Stacy and Clinton. Stacy wrapped an arm around his shoulders and clicked her tongue at him.
"Dick, this is a mess. What kind of message are you trying to send here? Because all I am seeing is help me."
Two walked him through how to wear color in a way more stylish and flattering for his features.
"You want to have a slim line on the suit. The outside should be tame." Clint paused, unsure how to help the kid understand.
"You can get creative with the lining of your jacket. You can have all the colors and patterns there and still look good and professional." Clint explained.
"Just like my mullet business in the front and party in the back." Dick brightened.
The two fashionistas winced. They shared a glance behind his back.
"About that we're going to take you to see our stylist…" Stacy all but dragged him to his hair cut.
The next day they let him lose with a credit card in the stores of New York.
The camera panned around the young man as he tried on clothes attempting to follow their directions.
Neal watched as the young man excitedly tried on every single color in the stores picking the brightest and most eye searing colors to purchase.
"I'll bet Stacy and Clinton would love these new shirts," he said.
The camera switched to the duo making cringe faces at his choices.
“Well, at least the blue and the green ones will look great on him.” Clinton tried to be optimistic.
“But that yellow and red one,” Stacy shuddered, “we should stop him.”
The two rushed out of hiding to go stop the fashion crimes about to be perpetrated by the hapless himbo.
Neal lived by 'the clothes make the man.' As a con man there was no way you could go through life without viewing clothes as another piece of armor, another weapon in your arsenal. But honestly he didn't have any problem with someone having their own style. He kind of hated that these two would strip out all the individuality of a person.
While some people could live in suits and be quite comfortable, others needed to be freer. He himself viewed his suits as more armor against the Feds than a personal style. He'd be quite content in workout clothes, or something more casual or hell even Spandex. But Neal knows how people think, he knows how people view con-men and criminals. The suit gets them focused in a certain pattern of thinking, for some reason it was easier to trust a man in a good suit than it was in a T-shirt and jeans. Neal knew how to use that in his favor, and even if he didn’t agree with everything they said the two fashionistas could only help the guy on screen.
The scene changed again as Neal changed the channel.
Channel 13: How its Made: Featuring Tim Drake & Poison Ivy
This time on How It’s Made: we take a look at Steel Beams, Kayaks, and Bowling pins.
‘Steel beams are used to create nearly all of the free-standing structures that humans depend on every day, from bridges to skyscrapers. The process for making a Beam starts with Ores found deep in the earth….’ The soothing monotone voice over started.
The screen flowed through various pictures of modern skyscrapers, bridges and then a construction site.
‘Here we see Dump trucks full of raw ore coming into the factory. They start with the refining process known as smelting…’
The camera zoomed into the slide of rock as it tumbled out of the back of a dump truck.
‘Reduction is the final, high-temperature step in smelting…’
The screen showed a furnace with brightly glowing liquid metal shimmering as it was poured from one furnace to another. On the screen a dark haired blue eyed young man in a hard hat stood in front of the furnace. He was dressed in a suit and tie better suited for the boardroom than the factory floor. Below his face the words Tim Drake- CEO Wayne Enterprises; there was no way this guy was the CEO he couldn’t be much more than twenty.
“Here at Wayne Enterprises produce the finest quality Steel Beams, we make sure to keep our furnaces hot; the one behind me typically runs at about 2500°F.”
‘Flux and slag can provide a secondary service after the reduction step is complete: they provide a molten cover on the purified metal, preventing contact with oxygen while still hot enough to readily oxidize. This prevents impurities from forming in the metal…’ the voice over continued.
The next the screen showed a ribbon of hot metal glowing cherry red being pushed through an extruder.
Neal’s mind had already pleasantly turned to mush, lulled by the soothing voice and repetitive images. He watched as the metal beams were formed and quenched.
The camera switched to a woman dressed in a professional business suit, she had bright red hair and green skin. The name placard said she was an environmental consultant for W.E. named Pamela Isley.
“Smelting has serious effects on the environment, producing wastewater and slag and releasing such toxic metals as copper, silver, iron, cobalt and selenium into the atmosphere. Smelters also release gaseous sulfur dioxide, contributing to acid rain, which acidifies soil and water. My job at W.E. is to make sure we reduce waste and toxins everywhere we can. W.E. runs the cleanest factories of any major refinery. There have been numerous steps taken to make sure that nothing harmful to the environment is let out into nature.”
Neal thought she was passionate about her job, you could hear it in every word she spoke. It was nice to see people go to great lengths to keep their earth clean. The soothing monotone was making him sleepy, he was tired but he stubbornly didn't want to go to bed, maybe one more show first. He changed the channel, he knew if he kept watching this one he'd wake up seven hours later with a huge crick in his neck and drool running down his chin.
Channel 14: The Zoo: Jim Breheny: Featuring Zitka
Neal really should have just given up and taken the aspirin and gone to bed, but it’s not like the pain was that bad – I mean it wasn’t like he dislocated his shoulder or gotten a concussion for crying out loud. Not that he could remember ever dislocating his shoulder or getting a concussion but he remembered that pain. Come to think of it, he didn't remember getting half the scars on his body and there were far more than he thought reasonable for your average thief.
Neal changed channels again, not interested in the next show coming on. The camera was following a gray-haired man driving a golf cart through the Zoo.
“We have a real treat for the audience today. We are getting an up close look at one of our most famous inhabitants here in the Bronx Zoo. This particular Elephant was given to us after her traveling Circus burnt down.” The camera had panned over to the enclosure highlighting a particular African Elephant with a scar on one flank.
Neal leaned forward in his chair entranced by the old elephant. “Zitka,” he breathed the name out like a prayer, reverent and holy.
“This is Zitka,” The keepers had taken over the introductions now. “She’s about 40 years old, so still in the prime of her life. She’s a hero. Zitka here saved several people that day getting them out of the bigtop where they had been trapped by burning poles. She came to us about 5 years ago from the circus, now she’s a very lucky girl to have survived. You see that scar on her flank and that shiny spot on her trunk. Those are from burns she got during the tragedy at the circus. Now, we here at the Bronx’s Zoo don’t usually get to see animals that live in such circumstances come to us, but she didn’t really have a place she could go. She’s been in human company for so long she wouldn’t know how to live in the wild at all.”
Neal didn’t know why he felt so strongly about the elephant, but he felt like she was his, they belonged together, that they were family. He had no idea how or when but he knew that he knew her. He could almost feel the phantom sensation of a strong trunk wrapping around his torso or ruffling through his hair. He watched her on the screen heedless of the tears streaming down his face. His emotions had been scrubbed raw. Watching her was like a cleansing balm to his soul, it hurt like hell but in a way that provided relief and healing. When the episode finally ended, he felt at peace with himself in a way that he’d not experienced since he was small, small enough for an elephant to lift him in their trunk he supposed.
He really needed sleep if he was trying to find family in an elephant he’d only seen on TV. Neal took some aspirin and decided to call it a night. His dreams featured bright colors, the smell of popcorn, the sound of children’s laughter, the warmth of taking a nap on a sun-kissed elephant and the comforting feel of strong arms wrapped around him as they murmured ‘I love you Robin’ in a language he hadn’t heard in years. Neal woke up with tears dried on his face.
It took him a while to decide that he could face the day, he was so glad that it was the weekend. Neal didn’t want to face a classic Burke interrogation about why he was feeling weepy and nostalgic, especially when the only answer he could give didn’t make sense even to himself.
He turned on the TV again for some background noise while he absently took up a pencil and sketchbook, avoiding thinking in the way that had become second nature for him, and if his sketches seemed to feature a elephant playing with a child and a bright carefree couple flying through the air doing daring trapeze acts, he would just blame the strange dreams he had last night.
Channel 15: Scooby Doo meets the Dynamic Duo: Featuring Batman and Robin
Cartoons were a gift from the gods, he thought as he started laughing. The bright colors and silly jokes never failed to lighten his spirit. Watching the mystery machine drive down a spooky road to get to a seemingly deserted house gave him a sense of nostalgia and comfort.
Fred of course wanted to explore the house, whereas Shaggy and Scooby thought that was a bad idea. Of course, exploring won over common sense. It was hilarious to watch the detectives creep around the house. Shaggy and Scooby were currently hiding in the kitchen eating everything in sight. They honestly could eat as much as a speedster, not like he knew any speedsters personally.
Neal watched as the ghoul crept behind shaggy putting an arm on the young man's shoulder. Then of course the classic chase scene began. The two friends running for their lives into open doors and being pursued by the masked ghoul. The rest of the team hurried to find them. Then a pair of figures one in gray and black and the other in red, green and gold showed up colliding with the kids.
The Mystery Inc. helped the dynamic duo figure out the clues left behind, eventually discovering Eva McCulloch hiding behind the mask. She was getting revenge on STAR labs for her untimely death in an explosion on their properties.
Neal had the strange feeling that this was not how the cartoon was supposed to go. That the villainess hadn’t been Eva the last time he’d seen ‘Scooby Doo meets the Dynamic Duo’.
He thought that a Mrs. McCulloch had died in the Central Cities Particle Accelerator Explosion a few years back. But there wasn’t a ‘Central City,’ in the US was there? Definitely not one that housed a Particle Accelerator that had exploded, surely that would have been talked about right?
It would be in poor taste for the animators to cast the victim of a fatal accident as the villainess in their cartoon. Besides, he could have sworn the case was more about a counterfeiting ring and the Joker or maybe the Penguin, not anything to do with Star Labs. He remembered doing the case files about their temporary allies, in fact didn’t he date Daphne for a hot minute.
Wait, this is a cartoon, there is no way that that could be true. How could that be something that he remembered? He clearly remembered making out with Daphne behind the mystery machine after the case. Was that just a teenage fantasy? It must have been, how else would he have met a cartoon character or been a super hero.
Neal gripped his head fighting against the sudden migraine that was forming behind his eyes.
Neal decided that obviously cartoons were messing with his mind and he should watch something else for a while. There was no way that had really happened, even if he did feel like he remembered the lavender perfume she wore.
Why did everything he was seeing feel so familiar?
Neal changed the channel before he could spiral further into an existential crisis about cartoons.
Commercial Break: Mirrorverse: Unknown & Unknown.
The scene opened in a darkened lab zooming in on a petite blond young woman in a lab coat. She was clearly stressed, movements hurried and rushed. Her hands trembled as they placed a chipboard on a half assembled mess of parts and pieces.
The scene changed slightly, the same blonde looking even more frazzled, wearing different clothes surrounded by half empty food wrappers, was standing at a white board scribbling equations. The mess on the table was starting to take shape, it resembled the bastard love child of an advanced computer and a rifle.
"He wasn't supposed to be there." She muttered. "His stupidity has ruined everything. I have to rewrite the laws of the multi-verse because of one stupid little hero couldn't leave well enough alone."
The scene closed with a zoom in on a room half visible over her shoulder. There was a man laying on a medical bed with an IV in his arm. It was clear he was in some sort of costume, he'd obviously been in a serious fight, there were tears and rips across the material. His face was unnaturally pale under the harsh lighting, was left out of focus as the camera continued to zoom in on the scene. The shot ended with his blue mask sitting on the bedside table, drops of blood scattered artistically across the surface.
MIRRORVERSE: COMING SOON
