Duct Tape (PG, Dr. Horrible, Captain Hammer)

Title: Duct Tape
Author: sunscald
Character and/or pairing: Dr. Horrible, Captain Hammer
Word count: 1,700 words
Rating: PG, although if there was a warning for Death by Puns? This would earn it.
Summary: Duct tape, in Dr. Horrible world? Is worlds of fabulous. This began from the random worldview musing that it seemed awfully easy to make a Death Ray. Just slap a piece of duct tape on the side of a random gun and write “Death Ray” in white. So…what else can be done with duct tape?
Disclaimer: I wish I were an Oscar-Meyer Whedon, but I am unfortunately not.
Author’s Note: Wow, it’s hard putting myself out there in a medium I’ve only ever read but never tried my hand at…this is my first attempt at fanfiction, though I’m a long time lurker in multiple fandoms. Shout out to blackletter: I never would have been brave enough to try this but for you. And of course, as this is my first fic ever, I am desperate for comments, critical/constructive or otherwise. Thanks for reading!



“I think it hurts to die. And I don’t want to die.” Captain Hammer gnawed on the back of his black glove, tears leaking down his cheeks; he wiped them away. This therapist would help him, surely. Someone had to make the fear go away.

A golden eagle perched behind them, its predatory eyes seeming to bore into the Captain’s very soul; he’d come to hate the bird after four appointments of crying noisily under its gilded stare. The brown leather couch was comforting, although it kept sticking to his black rubber gloves. And the balding therapist was being less than helpful. No matter how much Captain Hammer pleaded, the man refused to give him drugs. I’ll take anything, I don’t care how funny a name it’s got. Prozac? No prob, just give it to me, doc! I can’t take it any more. The fake plants, the “aged” parchment-colored globe, the red and gold oriental rug…none of them gave the Captain comfort from the terrible fear of Dr. Horrible breaking into the room, Death Ray in hand, ready to bring the pain.

“I’m done talking, doc. I want drugs. Good drugs. That’s what you quacks do, right? Dish out the drugs? Well, I’m in pain, here. Mental and psychomalogical pain, alright? And you’re going to do something about it, or I’ll give you a taste of my hammer.” Captain Hammer considered. “By which I mean, my fists.” The therapist cowering before him didn’t deserve a witty double entrée.

“I’m a talk-therapist. I don’t give out prescriptions.” The balding psychiatrist backed toward the door. He can’t treat me like this. I’m Captain mother-fuckin’ Hammer! The Captain lifted up his ex-therapist by the man’s tacky yellow tie until his feet dangling off the floor, black dress-socks visible beneath highwater pants.

“Come on, good doctor. I don’t believe that for a minute.” Captain Hammer threw the man down, then vaulted the therapist’s heavy mahogany desk and began pulling out and upending drawers. “What’s this? Aspirin?”

“Those are my meds!” The therapist squeaked.

“Well, they’re mine now.” Captain Hammer gave the man his most winning grin, then downed the bottle, the brown plastic crunching between his manly teeth. The prescription label got stuck in a molar; he pulled off a black glove to pry it free.

Then the horrible happened.

“Captain Hammer. We meet again!”

The Captain froze, his bones turning to ice as the freeze ray took effect.

Damn it! Freeze Ray. Not again, not again, not again…but it’ll wear off soon, and then I can punch him in the face…

But it was not to be. Dr. Horrible held the door open for Captain Hammer’s therapist as the man fled the room, the mini-freeze ray attached to his horrible wrist still pointed at Captain Hammer’s chest. In the Doctor’s other hand he held an unwieldy mass of rubbery black. The Doctor advanced, and the Captain tried to back away, then realized that he couldn’t. Freeze ray. I’m frozen. Dammit! He totally cheats.

With a villainous flourish, Dr. Horrible threw the mess of black over the top of Captain Hammer’s head, just as the freeze ray powered down with the sound of a reverse airplane landing. The Captain pushed against the blackness, but it only constricted more tightly around him, binding him fast, sturdier and longer-lasting than the freeze-ray’s ice. Dr. Horrible, as if sensing his enemy's growing panic, let loose his patented laugh.

“What is this crap?” Captain Hammer twisted and ripped, but the black stuff was too sticky; he couldn’t get free.

“It’s my newest invention: I call it the Unstoppable Force.”

“It looks like a duct-tape net. That you’ve written the words ‘Unstoppable Force’ on. In chalk.”

“White-out pen, plebian. Your less-than-perceptive senses are incapable of understanding the true genius of my plan. Which it is. Genius, I mean. I mean…the plan. Is genius. Oh, nevermind. What I’m trying to say is, I have you in my clutches at last!” Dr. Horrible let out another maniacal laugh. Captain Hammer had to admit that the man’s cackle of triumph had improved in the time they’d been nemeses; he could remember when the Doctor’s laugh had sounded a bit like someone performing choral exercises.

Captain Hammer pushed at the bars of his sticky prison with all his superhero strength, but the tape would not yield. He was immobilized. Whatever pills the therapist had let him eat him appeared to have weakened his powers; his super-speed slowed to something like normalcy, and his super-strength couldn’t break through tape. Or perhaps the duct tape was just that strong. Still, Captain Hammer struggled heroically as Moist appeared in the doorway, helping the good doctor to trundle their catch into a waiting courier van.

* * *

Dr. Horrible measured out a reasonable length of duct tape, tearing it off from the roll with his teeth; it came free with a rasp. With a white felt-tipped marker he wrote “Super-Strong Gag” on it in neat block letters, carefully adding a few jagged angles so that his script looked a bit more villainous. One major perk of blogging—no need to watch my typeface. I wonder if there’s a course I can take for that, Villainous Handwriting 101? he mused, sticking the edge of black tape along the side of his laboratory desk for safekeeping. Duct tape was sturdy stuff—he tried to use it only for important purposes, like turning Stun Rays into Death Rays, or making Wonderflonium Balls into Wonder-Grenades. With the judicious application of white felt-tipped pen on black duct tape, Dr. Horrible could turn nearly any harmless invention into a machine of super-villainous caliber. And managing Captain Hammer? Had definitely required the fearsome application of tape.

The Captain lay awkwardly up against the wall of Dr. Horrible’s laboratory, wrapped up in several layers of the Doctor’s strongest duct tape labeled “Super-Strong Bondage Gear.” But even bound, the Captain kept managing to flail around, upsetting several important neon-filled beakers. The Doctor attempted to hover over his victim ominously, making his intimidating face. Focus on the eyebrows. A good intimidating look begins in the eyebrows.

“Could you stop wriggling? What part of ‘I have you in my clutches’ did I not make clear to you?” Dr. Horrible did always hate the post-capture part of capturing heroes. They were always so rebellious and inconvenient. Especially Hammer.

“You have squinty nerd eyes, nerd-boy.” Hammer had a way with words for someone trussed up and defenseless. Dr. Horrible twitched an eye.

“And you have bad hair.” What’s the point of having an arch-nemesis if you don’t know his Achilles heel? the Doctor thought gleefully as Captain Hammer shut his mouth with an audible snap. Then he opened it again. Dr. Horrible sighed.

“I’ll stop you, you just wait. Your evil schematics can’t stop me!” The Captain thrust out his duct-tape covered chest, arrogant to the end.

“I already have stopped you.” Dr. Horrible pointed out. “And I think you mean ‘evil scheme.’”

“Yeah. I said that.”

“No, you didn’t, you said—“

“I said I’ll stop you, and I’m gonna. And once I’m free? I’m gonna punch your face in. I’m gonna give you a wedgie that goes all the way to China. Or maybe somewhere even farther than that. Like…Mexico.”

Dr. Horrible had had enough of the man’s pomposity. Superheroes, always so sure of themselves. The Doctor unstuck the short piece of tape from the edge of his desk and affixed it to Hammer’s face like a postage stamp, carefully setting the sticky side across the Captain’s lips. The Super-Strong Gag held.

“Mrrmphphmm,” said Captain Hammer.

“Let’s see you monologue now.” Dr. Horrible unwound the last bit of tape from the roll, considering, felt-tipped marker in hand. Then he piled the sticky stuff, still unmarked, into Captain Hammer’s hair, making sure to get as much of the adhesive touching the Captain’s scalp as possible. This won’t even require proper labeling, unless I want to call it “Duct Tape Torture,” which is stating the obvious. And I’m trying to break myself of that whole “state my villainous plans in an expositional monologue” habit...keeps getting me punched. But if I were going to monologue, which I’m not…this is the perfect revenge for that one time back in grade school, when you rubbed chewing-gum in my hair and I had to cut it out with scissors. Dr. Horrible considered letting out a horrible laugh TM, but instead settled for ripping the tape from Captain Hammer’s head, chunks of perfectly gelled brown hair coming up with it. Captain Hammer screeched through the gag. Duct tape. Endlessly useful.

Captain Hammer was not a small man, and Dr. Horrible was; it took some wrangling to box the Captain into an old packing crate. I think the original Stun Ray came in that box… He slapped duct tape haphazardly across the wood crate, sealing in the Captain, who kept thrashing around inside. His work complete, Dr. Hammer pulled out his white-out pen for the last time and wrote carefully across a line of tape holding the top of the box closed: Please Mail to a Shiny New Australia. Warning: NOT Fragile.