Okay. Should have attached a little disclaimer or whatever to the last chapter for anyone who manages to figure out who Star's Doll is. He is a cannon DC character. However how I shoehorn him into the plot is not. I got the idea from one of the TVtropes WMG pages; I get a lot of ideas from TVtropes actually. And since I have never seen him out of costume, my mind came up with all sorts of nightmare fuel for why he looks how he does; yes Siren briefly got a hold of this story but I did manage to beat her back with a stick before she warped it too much. Dear god could this have gone down a creepy ass rabbit hole...

This chapter is told from his point of view and please note that I have MASSIVELY retooled this character in order for him to even survive in this fic. He's sorta worthless as is. For part of it, let's just say his 'work' name is very...fitting.

Let's go!

*M*

Read the Playmate Files

or

La Danse des Canards Macabre

/Unbelievable. This guy had a death wish./ A blonde stared questioningly at his cellphone, wonder if he heard that right. The surveillance relay to it from the Mt Justice cameras was doing fine so yeah, that idiot had agreed to a Good n Evil playdate. No way THAT could go wrong. But Pross' lapse in brain function meant he had a legit excuse to hang out with his Star that walking trashcan couldn't say shit about.

It just also meant dealing with the spawn of both sides of the law.

Oh, he'd had plenty of practice with villian kids. He babysits them regularly. Who better to do so than someone who can't die? No matter how hard the little brats try.

Ace of Spades was rather fond of using him for knife throwing practice. Until the kid realized he wasn't actually hurting him, just creating holes in his body. Then he became obsessed with creating gruesome wounds on him just to watch them heal. Eventually that bored him too so he instead focused like 70% of his creepy attentions on his 'Little Red'. The other 30% just as oddly devoted to his little sister, Queen of Hearts. Who was actually a delight until someone tried to take something from her. That heralded the appearance of a massive, heart shaped battle axe from hammerspace and shouts of "Off with his/her head!".

Yeah, being beheaded by a 7 year old was fun; an injury that didn't heal right away. Yay. Didn't help that Trixie started bawling her eyes out at the sight of all the blood thinking he was dead for real. Once she realized he was fine, just in two pieces, she squealed and decided to spend the remainder of that day carrying his severed head around until Harley showed up to get the her and Cain. As batshit insane as she was, that woman could sew; who do you think made the costumes for Mister J and crew? Good thing she offered to stitch his head back on so it could eventually reattach itself. At least he never lost motor function and could operate his body just fine despite not being attached. Cuz, Ace would have had a ball carving his prone form up like a jack o lantern.

Oh, yeah that. See...it's complicated. He was pretty sure only two people associated with the League knew the real deal truth about him; Star cuz he told her. The Batman cuz...The God Damned Batman. To everyone else, he was just a spoilt brat who joined the Rogues Gallery of Gotham for shits and giggles when mommy and daddy couldn't give him what he wanted.

Not even close.

About two years ago Stewart sorta, kinda, died. Explosions do that. How was it his fault his lawyer father had an unsatisfied customer who decided to hire someone to put a bomb in the car he just got for his birthday?! He'd always been unlucky like that. For his folks money was no object in bringing their son back though. Of course not all the odds and ends could be resolved by tossing cash at them.

Like the fact that while not exactly common knowledge, his death was known to several people whom all kept quiet for the right price and/or well placed threat. The one person they couldn't silence they had deported back to Belakova. Svetlana couldn't believe the people she worked for could do something so unnatural to their child and tried to help him. By trying to "free his soul from a demonic husk" with a baptism of literal fire. Still her heart was in the right place. But for all her trouble she ended up back in that hell hole and on the no-fly list.

Then there was the fact that after stitching his corpse back together the hoodoo guy they hired specifically warned them that there was a slight (50/50) chance he might come back...wrong. As in anything from brain dead to psychotic to a flesh eating monster. Or combo of the three. Or worse. Guess what? He totally came back not right.

Technically speaking, he was Solomon Grundy 2.0. Except instead of a hulking, brain damaged yet fucking indestructible zombie he became just as scrawny as usual, super smart yet still indestructible version. Like he traded being a rage fueled idiot for retaining his ability to run rings around scientific experts. At the cost of any added strength. And he wasn't quite sure what to think about that.

On the plus side he couldn't die and all his injuries healed super fast making him the ideal babysitter for the children of damned. Except major parts that were cut off; those had to be reattached to allow them to reconnect properly. Hence his often stitched together appearance. Without his costume, his makeup or his stitches, he could pass for an albino with a dye job. Grundy couldn't. And of course the whole unable to feel pain issue. Which at times was really a bad thing. It's stupidly easy to burn one's self to the 3rd degree when cooking if you can't tell you hand is on the burner until you smell burning flesh.

Also on the negative side he was pathetically useless in a fight without his hi-tech toys because of that pesky wimp factor that carried over from before his accident. So all his eggs for being a career criminal rested squarely in the tech support basket. Why exactly did he even turn to the dark side you ask? It goes that way when your folks (who totally could have left you FUCKING DEAD by the way) were repulsed by the whole "our son is an undead creature" thing. Seriously, what did you assholes think was going to happen?!

Disowned and on the streets he reached out to his uncle Jonathan Crane. Who no one ever wanted to talk about after his "episode" but had been the only member of the family he had any real bond with as a child. To the disgust of his uncle's associates. It's really saying something when the worst of the worst feel bad for you. Even 'Uncle J' offered to fill their pool with piranha and their hot tub with acid for a laugh. After some creative spitballing, the Gotham underworld techmaster Ghoul, 'son' of The Scarecrow was born.

To the further horror of his parents. But whatever. By this point fuck them. Hard. At least because they resurrected him, he got to meet his Star. Still...

"Whatcha doooiiiinnn?"

A mop of chalk white hair obscured his view of the feed. Little Rose "Ravager" Wilson was leaning over the couch directly over him. Looks like her eyepatch switched sides again. In her quest to be just like her daddy,the girl had done everything from replicate his armour and look to taking up sword fighting. She didn't have his access to hammerspace but the whole precognition deal kinda made up for that.

One doesn't look at Slade Wilson and see father of the year or nothin but he did love his brats. Just pride gets in the way sometimes. The clusterfuck surroundings how Rose's twin Jericho got his throat slit being a prime example. Thinking one is playing the Batman Gambit when it's more like Xanatos Speed Chess yet managing to spectacularly fail at both. The one time the master manipulator screwed up an innocent child almost died and ultimately lost his voice. Ghoul didn't know the whole thing but an arms deal went bad. Jericho got kidnapped. Wilson didn't go in guns ablazin like they thought he would. Bullshit happened-negotiations tanked. Kid got sliced. He did know the guys responsible weren't dead but prolly wish they were though. But you can't exactly ask em. Deathstroke gouged out their eyes, ripped out their tongues and likely lobotomized at least one removing their tineas. Made a nice 8 piece charm bracelet for his mute son outta the silver plated ear bones.

God that family was creepy.

"Spyin. Looks like you guys get to see ya do gooder friends soon."

"Yay! I miss Jason! When?" Of course her best friend is one of the psychotic 'good' guys. Funnily enough, she and the other crazy redheaded lil fuck didn't get along too well though.

"Dunno but I guess that radioactive fossil will be talkin to yer pops soon." Whenever he's done killing who ever. Rose squealed again and somersaulted over the couch landing like a cat. Across the room, Jericho clapped at his sister's acrobatics. Basking in the only audible praise her brother could give she playfully bowed.

"Door." she blurted as she rose.

Ghoul almost went back to the feed when he heard a knock at the door. Switching his phone display to his his porch cam he sighed at the sight of two sets of blonde pigtails (one of which a mini me of the other) standing there. Well, the smaller was bouncing on her heels clutching a black backpack splashed with red hearts. The other, older one blowing a humongous bubble with her gum. It popped and she pouted for a second before scraping the pink goo off her face.

"Aw come on Stitches! I know ya in dere. Kinda pressed fa time and I need a fava." Harley Quinn whined. "Don't make me kick da door in again!"

Yeah, again. Harleen Quinzel turned out to be one of those WTF hiccups in the cosmos in Ghoul's opinion. Um, well all of Gotham fit into that category. You know, the place with the guy who routinely runs around in military grade kevlar punching people in the face? Melting out of the shadows and one's nightmares to dangle people from roofs but is really the good guy?

Anyway, the Queen of Hammerspace had a muscle to strength ratio that made no goddamn sense. That she put to use in more mind boggling ways. For a supposedly 'normal' human she kicked like a mule and her signature mallet weighed way more than the average human could casually swing with one arm. Without dislocating every bone in that arm while shredding the muscles and tendons at the same time. Something she passed on to Trixie, her little girl. Frequent contact with Smilex probably played into that. And her insanity too...

"Geez give a guy some time lady! What's the big deal?" Ghoul poked his head out the door with a scowl.

"Puddin an me gots a date night. He don't take me no where no more...so it's gonna be a blast! Trix needs a sitter." she chirped.

"...where's Cain?"

"Wit Pammy and Lil Red. Ya know dat boy don't care where he's at so long as he gots his Bella. Sides, I know Ace and da mute kid don't gets along too well so yeah...be a good girl Trixie."

"Wait a minute-"

"I will Mama!" Trixie beamed.

"I didn't-"

"Here's double da usual cuza short notice! Buh-by-eeee!" a large sack was shoved into his chest before she skipped away.

"-agree to do shit." with a sigh then undead teen cautiously opened the bag to reveal 10K in crumpled Benjamins. Well, he assumed it was since his rate for watching any of the little demons was 5K per brat per night.

He'd count it later.

*M*

You guys finally meet Star's boytoy and get some background on a few villian families. What do you guys think of my retooling of Ghoul?

La Danse des Canards Macabre roughly translates to The Macabre Chicken (Duck) Dance.

The Batman Gambit trope occurs when a masterminds grand plan exploits and absolutely hinges on the flaws, vices and virtues of other characters to succeed.

Xanatos Speed Chess is a trope involving constantly revising a plan while it's in play to insure no matter the outcome it favors the planner.

As you can guess it's super easy to fuck either scenario up because humans aren't always predictable.

Love it? Hate it? Let me know! Reviews are like hugs! Sirensoundwave out!