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seriousficTitle: Duality
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,370
Characters/Pairings: Batman, the Joker, Superman, Jim Gordon
Previous Part: Chapter 15
Next Part: Chapter 17
Summary: The minutes tick down to the Joker’s midnight murder.
9:30 PM
One of the nice things about Wayne manor was that there was no one around for miles. Still, Superman took precautions. You never knew when there might be a satellite or automated camera around. He zipped into the estate from above, coming down in a greenhouse, where he swiftly changed into his Clark Kent outfit. Glasses in place, hair neatly combed… he took a moment to finagle his spitcurl back into position… he stepped out of the greenhouse and neatly jogged to the front door. There, he simply knocked on the door.
If the butler was surprised to find someone at the front door instead of using the intercom system at the gate, he didn’t show it. All Clark caught were waves of slightly offended propriety.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes… Alfred, isn’t it?” The butler nodded. “I’d like to talk to Bruce.”
“Master Wayne isn’t…”
“I know, I know, not available. Could you just tell him I came by? I think he’ll want to see me.”
Alfred gave him a sympathetic nod. “Wait here, guv’nor. I’ll see if I can dig him up.”
Clark stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around for a porch to sit on. He found none, even with X-ray vision. Shame to have a front yard this big and no porch. All he could find were some marble benches that looked designed more to be critiqued than to be sat on. Clark shook his head. City folk.
Alfred stuck his head out the door. “You’re right, he would like to see you. The master’s downstairs, I’ll show you the way.”
Clark pushed his glasses up his nose. “I think I can find my own way.”
“Trust me, it’s best if I show you.”
***
Clark supposed his photosynthetic cells always registered a note of protest when he was out of sunlight, which was why he liked to be on the other side of the world when it was night, but only in the Batcave did he get an actual physical chill. It wasn’t just the absence of sunlight, it was the preclusion of the possibility of sunlight.
Bruce was sitting at the computer, modifying a 3D model of (Clark squinted) was that himself? The billionaire was wrapped in the suit like a child in a security blanket, which was an odd thing for Clark’s reporter mind to jump to, and the version on the large screen was wearing a cheap suit.
“Bruce.”
Bruce’s back was turned. “Don’t insult me, Kal-El.”
A bit ruefully, Clark straightened from his slump, removed his glasses, and ran a hand through his neatly-parted hair. When he finished, he wasn’t a mirror image for Superman… but he wasn’t that far off, either.
“Is this about the Park?” Bruce asked. His voice was much deeper and more primal than his playboy falsetto. Clark supposed that was him returning the favor.
“Among other things.” Clark sat down, though he knew Bruce hadn’t offered yet. “I made a choice today. I’m not sure if it’s the right one.” Bruce said nothing. “I’m bringing Luthor down. For everyone’s sake. This isn’t some personal vendetta.”
“Like mine, you mean?” Bruce punched a few keys and the Bruce on the screen grew a mustache. “It’s no business of mine, your feud with Luthor. Just keep it out of Gotham.”
Clark automatically gritted his teeth. “That’s what I was doing in the Park.”
Bruce spun around. “No, you were showing Luthor that Gotham matters to you. He won’t care why, but he will burn it to the ground to spite you. We’d have been much better off if you hadn’t shown your hand.”
“People would’ve gotten hurt…”
“And you still haven’t learned to do what’s necessary,” Bruce continued over Clark. “Gotham isn’t Metropolis. You can’t protect it the same way.”
“I wasn’t just protecting the city.”
Bruce reacted with sarcasm. “I’m touched.” He turned back to the computer. “So you’re bringing Luthor down. I suppose you’ll want my help?”
“You could,” Clark said. “But I won’t ask you to. I’m not sure how far I can take this. I broke the law today. Even if it was a corrupt law… that’s not something I’m used to doing.”
“It gets easier, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Clark almost gritted his teeth. “It’s not. I’m asking where I should draw the line. There’s a point where I go from helper to vigilante…”
“Or from hero to savior,” Bruce needled.
“Okay, that? Not helping.”
“I was just saying.” With a mouse-click, the form on the screen sprouted a large scar.
“Is that a disguise?”
“Yes.”
“Infiltrating the underworld?”
“Yes.”
“Could be dangerous.”
“Yes… Alfred.”
Clark blinked. Then smiled. “Was that a joke?” Bruce didn’t say anything, but his spine was stiff as a two-by-four. Why was it he always had to close up after moments of camaraderie? “The scar’s a bit theatrical.”
“Theatrical?”
“Well, if you want to look like you’re going to fight James Bond…”
Bruce shrunk the scar.
“Better.”
And added some glasses.
“Hey!”
“If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.”
“Just don’t start bumbling around like a klutz. That’s my schtick.”
“You’re welcome to it.” Bruce switched the glasses for a pair of shades. “If you’re looking for my blessing to go after Luthor, all I can give you is this: Tread carefully. I may not like it, but we stand for something… bigger than ourselves. I’m the punishment for when people go astray. And you’re the hope that keeps them on track. No man has the right to take away the hope you give people. Not even you.”
“You think I shouldn’t have left.”
Bruce steepled his hands. “What do you think?”
Clark bit his lip, wishing he could tell him everything… Kara, how he wasn’t alone anymore, how it felt like he could breathe for the first time in years… but he kept it in. He just didn’t know how Bruce would react. For now, it was safer keeping secrets.
“I met with your… sidekick. Batgirl.”
“She’s not associated with me.”
“Where there’s one, there could be others.”
“I’m already looking into it. What are you so worried about?”
“I’ve caught enough kids who thought tying a red towel around their necks would let them fly. I don’t want to do the same in Gotham.”
Batman grinned humorlessly as he faced Clark. “Men can’t fly. But it would be possible for someone to duplicate my actions. How else would Gotham have a protector after I died?”
“Or retired.”
“Died,” Bruce reiterated. He calmed, looked away. “Or maybe you’ll just worried about more than one of me.”
“What? People living up to their potential? Don’t tell me you’ve signed up for Luthor’s newsletter.”
“No. I worry about more than one of me as well.” Bruce shut down the screen. “I have to go. There’s no time to set up an undercover identity by twelve o’clock and Earle takes priority.”
“I could stick around, help…”
“No,” Bruce said quickly. “No, you’ve done enough.”
Clark looked down. “It’s not a weakness to ask for help, Bruce.”
“And it’s not a sin to not need it.”
Clark put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “I need it.”
Bruce sighed impatiently before brushing Clark’s hand away. “Since I trust you wouldn’t come to me if it wasn’t important…”
“Someone broke into the Fortress of Solitude. They stole the crystals.”
“Someone?”
Clark’s voice lowered. “Luthor.”
“No, it’s good that you don’t make assumptions, Kal-El.” He picked up a cowl from the table, tucked in under his arm as he began applying black facepaint under and around his eyes. “I’ll look into that.”
“Those crystals contain the sum total of Krypton’s knowledge. If Luthor manages to translate them…”
“From a dead language last spoken in a distant galaxy?”
“Don’t underestimate him. Just because he’s sane doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
Batman put on his cowl, securing it to his suit with curt motions of his fingers. “As hard as it may be for you to believe, Kal-El, I have more pressing matters to attend to than cleaning up your messes.”
Superman crossed his arms. "You keep calling me Kal-El. My name is Clark.”
“And you keep calling me Bruce…”
10:00 PM
Commission Gordon stifled a yawn. Knowing his sleep cycle, he should’ve caught a catnip at the office, but he literally couldn’t get his eyes closed before something new fell on his plate. Earle had finally accepted police protection, only to stay hunkered in his penthouse. They’d had to run the bomb squad over every inch of the hotel, incurring the wrath of the concierge while Earle’s bodyguards rattled sabers. And just now Gordon’s boys had been called to Gotham Park for a riot caused by Earle.
Next time someone offers you a commissionship, Jim, tell them to go to hell.
And just like that, he was there. The room had just… stilled somehow.
“There are gaps in your security,” Batman said. “Earle is vulnerable.”
“That’s to be expected,” Gordon sighed. “This isn’t a safe house after all.”
The Batman was intractable.
Without further grousing, Gordon held out the building blueprints. Batman pointed out the holes.
“My men will take care of it. Any idea what the Joker’s planning? Another blitz like Wayne manor?”
Gordon thought he saw Batman wince. But that was impossible. “Joker styles himself a comedian. The key element of comedy is spontaneity. Whatever he does, it will depend on the element of surprise. I doubt he’ll do the same joke twice.”
“Unless he considers home invasion a running gag.”
“In his warped mind, it just might be.”
There was a silence, filled by Gordon cleaning his glasses and Batman remaining motionless, except perhaps for his ever-churning mind.
Gordon stared resolutely at his glasses, polished to perfection. “Is it just me, or is this guy not like the others?”
“He’s a criminal. He’ll be caught, he’ll be punished, just like anyone else.”
“But with criminals, even freaks, there’s,” Gordon sought the right word, “normalcy. Motive, MO… humanity. With him, there’s just…”
“Humor. Life and death are jokes to him. That’s why he’ll lose. Because he doesn’t care.”
Gordon looked at Batman, surprised at the expression of hope. That night on the rooftop with Batman assuring him that Gotham could be brought back seemed like ages ago… and like yesterday. “That seems unusually sentimental for you.”
“I had a chat with an old friend. He always has that effect on me.”
“I won’t get used to it, then.”
11:00 PM
Charlie Sturgress had been driving the Metropolitan 5 for thirty years. He’d seen Gotham through a lot of shit, through route changes to get around the worse of gang territory, through that weird business with the fear toxin, through damn near everything.
The Metropolitan 5 was an old warhorse of a bus, probably as old as he was. He’d been with it since damn near the beginning of his career, and it’d never let him down. The brakes ran smooth, the AC worked good ‘cept in the right dead of winter, and the seats were mostly comfortable. He took care at the end of each night to patch ‘em up. Other busses might have shit for seating, but not his. The Metropolitan 5 was his baby. It took care of him, he took care of it.
Stop on Mulberry Street. He didn’t know why he made this stop anymore; he’d told his supervisors that no one got on at this stop. Not since they’d torn down or condemned all the apartment buildings. It was out of the way and Charlie didn’t like to stop the bus in East End. Most of the gangs left the busmen alone as a common courtesy, but the skinheads took exception to his coloring and that only led to trouble.
They got on the bus and caused trouble, and if he shut the door in the face, not only would they chase him down the block throwing shit, but his supervisor would chew him up. His white supervisor, who’d never driven a bus, just transferred in from some slick ad agency and assumed he could maximize revenue while slashing costs. Damn fool knew next to nothing about running busses, but things mostly ran themselves, so there wasn’t much he could do to screw things around. Just make him stop on Mulberry Street.
Charlie was lucky tonight, though. Nobody there, ‘cept one guy in a purple overcoat. Maybe a pimp. The wide-brimmed purple hat looked to confirm that. Well, better a pimp than a skinhead. The Metropolitan 5 rattled to a stop and Charlie opened the door.
The man in purple stepped up the stairs, hopefully finding them nice and dry. He carried a fat black guitar case with him, which he stashed against the wheel well. Then he stopped in front of the money collector like it was a personal affront to him. “What is this?”
“It takes your money.”
The man pulled out his pockets. “Don’t like the sound of that. How much for a bus side, no in-flight movie and only a vague smell of urine?”
”Takes one-fifty to ride.”
“All I have is a .45.”
That’s when Charlie noticed the gun in the man’s hand. Then he noticed the man’s face.
“Oh God! You’re… you’re…”
“I’m… I’m… the Joker!” He flourished his hat at Charlie, but his gun remained horribly still on Charlie’s head. “Back of the bus, boy. We’ve got people to kill, a place to be! Don’t worry, it’s north of the Mason-Dixie Line.”
Charlie forced himself slowly down the aisle. He wanted to run. The emergency exit was right there… but there was a big man in leather leaning against it. As Charlie watched, the big man smeared greasepaint and lipstick over his face. Making a clown out of himself.
The rest of the passengers, ten people by Charlie’ s count, crowded the back too with slowly-lessening confusion and fast-mounting tension. The Joker crooked a finger to the bus stop and some men stepped out of the shadows. Six in total, dressed in dark clothes with backpacks and ski masks… and clown masks on over their balaclavas. The clown masks were secured by string in the back. There were bulges in their jackets that could only be guns.
Charlie’s whole body clenched. He quavered until the big man shoved him down into a seat. There was a gun in his hand too, a .38 that looked comically undersized in his huge meaty fist.
The Joker stayed dead-center in the aisle as his men took their seats, one of them taking the wheel. “Ladies and germs, buckle your seatbelts and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Passengers with heart murmurs and pregnant women probably won’t make it through the night, but hey, every little bit keeps Social Security from going bankrupt that much longer. The weather is slightly cloudy with a high chance of lead rain and we anticipate an arrival in hell in no less than one hour. Thank you for riding the Joker Express, hope you enjoy the ride!”
11:30 PM
The little old lady next to Charlie was clutching her purse. Charlie was just hanging onto the seat in front of him, the tightness of his grip causing wads of insulation to bleed out from under a duct tape patch job.
The Joker sat down in front of him, backwards so he was facing Charlie. “Hello there.”
Charlie became acutely aware of how close his hands were to the grinning maniac.
“Welcome to the show, thanks for joining us.” He had a microphone in his hand and one of his thugs was recording them with a Handycam. “What’s your name, sir?”
Joker shoved the microphone in his face. “Cah-charlie.”
“Well, Cah-charlie, where ya from?”
“Gotham?”
“Home grown type, huh? I’m sure the city’s proud to have produced such an epitome of bus-driving professionalism. Now, Cah-Charlie, what do you think happens to you when you die?”
The gun was still in the Joker’s other hand. “Never put much thought into it,” Charlie mumbled.
“No? Never thought about how you’d bleed? How your heart would pitter-pat to a stop like an engine running out of gas? Then, of course, your brainwaves would slooooooooowly dwindle to nothing. That usually takes a while, but less time if you’re watching Fox. After that, they pump you full of embalming fluid, strip you naked, stick you in a suit with no back, and bury you in the ground. Sound like fun?”
“N-no.”
“No? Some people have no sense of adventure. Hey, I know! Let’s sing a driving song!” He popped up from his seat like a Whack-A-Mole. “Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round; the wheels on the bus go round and round…”
Joker shot Charlie in the head.
“He wasn’t singing. If you don’t sing, you might as well be… yeah.” The Joker pointed his gun at the old lady next to Charlie’s bleeding corpse. “Let’s take it from the top, people.”
They sang and sang and sang, until Joker got bored of singing and shot someone to shot him up. They pulled to a stop in a parking garage, where the Joker and his men got off, the big man staying on, and a new driver got on. He wore heavy Kevlar body armor and handed a suit of the same to the big man. The Kevlar was festooned with various whimsical touches to look like a clown suit. Joker pawed the new driver’s hand in a staggering handshake.
“Drive around a while,” he said, still shaking gallantly. “I’ll call you in when I need you.”
11:40 PM
The Joker’s smart wingtips clopped up the stairs to the Gotham National Bank, which was just shutting down. The security guard, old and fat, had locked all but one of the doors, and only three customers remained in line at the sole open teller. The Joker strode in, casually pistol-whipping the guard to the side, and shot the teller through the head.
“Think they’ll stop sending me credit card applications now?” he asked as his men filed in behind him, locking the door and dragging the guard out of sight. “Alright, good little citizens, calm down and welcome to the first truly interactive bank robbery! You’re part of the action here in Joker’s Wild Round-up! Watch in awe as my safecracker opens the vault! Thrill as the police slurp down coffee and donuts because no one’s called them! Gasp as I execute one of you to prove I’m serious, in a very irreverent sort of way…” He swept his gun hand over the crowd, watching them cringe. “Wait, already did that. Check that off the list. Nineteen minutes and counting, boys!”
The Joker straightened his tie and checked his make-up in a compact. Satisfied with his appearance, he walked amongst the hostages, gun twitching by his side like a scorpion’s tail. As nine of the men stole money from the drawers and worked at the vault, one held a Handycam on him. The cameraman held up three fingers, counted down, and pointed to Joker.
The clown smiled, a grisly sight that split his face like a scalpel, and wheeled his microphone to a woman like a weapon. “Hello there. Welcome to the show, thanks for joining us.”
11:55 PM
Gordon paced the rooftop of Earle’s hotel, the Gotham Hilton. He snuck another cigarette, though he’d been trying to quit, and put away his cell-phone. Somehow, he knew Batman was close by.
“That was Barbara. She’s worried about me. Wants to know why I don’t just call in Superman to fly Earle to the Fortress of Solitude?”
Batman, without leaving the shadows or even seeming to move, made his presence known. “I don’t like the precedent it would set.”
“Would you like it more if Earle were Mother Theresa?”
“Anything’s possible. Take me to him.”
“Who? Earle?” Gordon looked at the roof access door. “You don’t want me to shut the lights off first? There are a lot of trigger-happy cops in there.”
“I can handle cops.”
“Right. Just let me know if you’re going to jump through any windows. The concierge will have my head if I get glass on the carpet.”
With Batman breathing down his neck, no matter how distant he kept, Gordon went back inside. He flicked his cigarette butt off the edge of the roof, watching how it only took a moment for it to shrink to just another ember in the bed of Gotham coals. Nice view.
He went down the stairs, his footfalls explosive in the enclosed space, Batman’s so quiet that Gordon wondered if he was falling. But he didn’t dare look back. He stepped out onto the floor of Earle’s penthouse, letting the guards secure the door behind him. They started at the sight of Batman, who glided between them as silently as a Dickens specter. There were four more unnies walking the corridor between the roof access and the penthouse. Gordon had to gesture for some of them to leave their weapons in their holsters. If Batman noticed, and of course he noticed, he didn’t care.
Gordon checked his watch before entering the penthouse. Two minutes to twelve. He stepped inside. The SWAT boys were still there, visors down and weapons hot, in a rough circle around Earle. They were in the center bedroom, no windows and with barricades erected in front of the air vents. Earle looked like he’d lost thirty pounds, his skin pale and clammy. He mopped at his sweaty brow with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“What’s he doing in here?” Earle pointed at the Batman, his hand shaking. “I never said he could come in here! I said police officers, not some vigilante psychopath.”
“You’re not looking well, Earle. Have you been drinking?”
“Just a glass or two, to steady my nerves. Not that it’s any of your business…”
“It’s fine,” Gordon said, “we had poison control run tests on it.”
“I tell you, I want him out of here! How do we know that’s even the real Batman? It could be the Joker in a disguise!”
Batman strode forward, ignoring the dozen submachine guns suddenly trained on him, and grabbed Earle’s wrist. “Your pulse is racing.” Touched his chest. “Heart, too.”
“Of course it is! A maniac told me I was going to die in one minute and now another maniac is accosting me!”
Batman pulled up Earle’s sleeve, noting the discoloration. “Any chest pains? Coughing?”
Earle laughed bitterly. “Coughing! Coughing!? HA!”
Batman’s head swiveled, owl-like, to Gordon. “Find a doctor. Better yet, call in a Medivac copter.”
“Medivac?” Earle laughed at the mere thought. “That’s it, huh? I get in a copter and then you crash it in the middle of the Financial District? Or throw me into the blades hahaha like meat in a grinder!?”
Earle shoved Batman back.
“Someone arrest that man! Did everyone just forget he’s a criminal? A vigilante who… who…”
“Mr. Earle, you have to calm down. Keep your breathing steady and…”
Earle grabbed a gun from a nearby SWAT member. Pointed it squarely at Batman. “No, you calm down!” He laughed. “Did you see me? Did you see me do that? Let’s see the Joker get to me now.” He mimed firing the SMG. “Ratatattat!”
His enthusiastic machine-gun noises became gales of laughter, so thick they knocked his glasses from the bridge of his nose. He bent double under the force of his laughing, righted himself with a look of confused terror upon his face, then crumpled to the floor with laughter. Every time his body snapped about to give them a look at his head, his face was splitting wider, eyes bulging, then a never-ending scream that pulled his terrified smile into a death-grin’s rictus. He spasmed, gave a few feeble kicks, then died clutching the gun like a child would a teddy bear.
“Jesus Christ,” Gordon said. “Get the paramedics in here, now! Blake, start CPR. Go!”
“It’s too late,” Batman said. He knelt down and jabbed a syringe into Earle’s arm, taking a blood sample, then tucked the vial away into his utility belt. The needle he dumped in a waste bin. “The Joker’s a showman. If he’s not here personally, he’ll be somewhere else reaping the attention.”
Gordon switched his radio over to general dispatch. “Gloria, give me all major crimes within the last ten minutes. I want banks, museums, theatres, anything high-profile.”
Batman walked out onto the balcony, heedless of any snipers, and looked out on the city. Not only leaving the flailing police response behind, but seeming to rise above it. His head turned from side to side, robotically, as if he could spot the Joker with the naked eye.
“Where are you?”
11:59 PM
The Joker checked his watch. It’d been a productive twenty minutes. He’d had a lot of fun.
“Okay, boys, work day’s over.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s playtime.”
The boys started tying the moneybags off, leaving behind the stacks of bills still inside the vault. One of the thugs grabbed a wad of bills and stuffed it into his coat.
“Hey, Mr. Joker, what say we have another five minutes? I got kids to put through college.”
Joker strolled up to him, gently straightened his lapels, then slapped the taste from his mouth. “You want those kids to have a father, you’ll wrap it up. The poison I slipped into the dear, departed Mr. Earle’s coffee has sent him to corporate pig heaven.” He scampered over to the teller’s, vaulting the counter and landing in a puddle of the teller’s blood. “We’ve set up the joke, now we give the punchline. While Gotham’s Bovinest were watching Earle die, I was robbing… oooh, what does this button do?”
At the stroke of midnight, he pressed the silent alarm.
12:00 PM
“I’ve got something,” Gordon said. “Robbery at Gotham National Bank. It’s the Joker… oh my God, he has hostages.”
“Not for long,” Batman said.
He jumped the railing and flew down into the night, quickly losing himself in the smoke and fury of Gotham.
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,370
Characters/Pairings: Batman, the Joker, Superman, Jim Gordon
Previous Part: Chapter 15
Next Part: Chapter 17
Summary: The minutes tick down to the Joker’s midnight murder.
9:30 PM
One of the nice things about Wayne manor was that there was no one around for miles. Still, Superman took precautions. You never knew when there might be a satellite or automated camera around. He zipped into the estate from above, coming down in a greenhouse, where he swiftly changed into his Clark Kent outfit. Glasses in place, hair neatly combed… he took a moment to finagle his spitcurl back into position… he stepped out of the greenhouse and neatly jogged to the front door. There, he simply knocked on the door.
If the butler was surprised to find someone at the front door instead of using the intercom system at the gate, he didn’t show it. All Clark caught were waves of slightly offended propriety.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes… Alfred, isn’t it?” The butler nodded. “I’d like to talk to Bruce.”
“Master Wayne isn’t…”
“I know, I know, not available. Could you just tell him I came by? I think he’ll want to see me.”
Alfred gave him a sympathetic nod. “Wait here, guv’nor. I’ll see if I can dig him up.”
Clark stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around for a porch to sit on. He found none, even with X-ray vision. Shame to have a front yard this big and no porch. All he could find were some marble benches that looked designed more to be critiqued than to be sat on. Clark shook his head. City folk.
Alfred stuck his head out the door. “You’re right, he would like to see you. The master’s downstairs, I’ll show you the way.”
Clark pushed his glasses up his nose. “I think I can find my own way.”
“Trust me, it’s best if I show you.”
***
Clark supposed his photosynthetic cells always registered a note of protest when he was out of sunlight, which was why he liked to be on the other side of the world when it was night, but only in the Batcave did he get an actual physical chill. It wasn’t just the absence of sunlight, it was the preclusion of the possibility of sunlight.
Bruce was sitting at the computer, modifying a 3D model of (Clark squinted) was that himself? The billionaire was wrapped in the suit like a child in a security blanket, which was an odd thing for Clark’s reporter mind to jump to, and the version on the large screen was wearing a cheap suit.
“Bruce.”
Bruce’s back was turned. “Don’t insult me, Kal-El.”
A bit ruefully, Clark straightened from his slump, removed his glasses, and ran a hand through his neatly-parted hair. When he finished, he wasn’t a mirror image for Superman… but he wasn’t that far off, either.
“Is this about the Park?” Bruce asked. His voice was much deeper and more primal than his playboy falsetto. Clark supposed that was him returning the favor.
“Among other things.” Clark sat down, though he knew Bruce hadn’t offered yet. “I made a choice today. I’m not sure if it’s the right one.” Bruce said nothing. “I’m bringing Luthor down. For everyone’s sake. This isn’t some personal vendetta.”
“Like mine, you mean?” Bruce punched a few keys and the Bruce on the screen grew a mustache. “It’s no business of mine, your feud with Luthor. Just keep it out of Gotham.”
Clark automatically gritted his teeth. “That’s what I was doing in the Park.”
Bruce spun around. “No, you were showing Luthor that Gotham matters to you. He won’t care why, but he will burn it to the ground to spite you. We’d have been much better off if you hadn’t shown your hand.”
“People would’ve gotten hurt…”
“And you still haven’t learned to do what’s necessary,” Bruce continued over Clark. “Gotham isn’t Metropolis. You can’t protect it the same way.”
“I wasn’t just protecting the city.”
Bruce reacted with sarcasm. “I’m touched.” He turned back to the computer. “So you’re bringing Luthor down. I suppose you’ll want my help?”
“You could,” Clark said. “But I won’t ask you to. I’m not sure how far I can take this. I broke the law today. Even if it was a corrupt law… that’s not something I’m used to doing.”
“It gets easier, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Clark almost gritted his teeth. “It’s not. I’m asking where I should draw the line. There’s a point where I go from helper to vigilante…”
“Or from hero to savior,” Bruce needled.
“Okay, that? Not helping.”
“I was just saying.” With a mouse-click, the form on the screen sprouted a large scar.
“Is that a disguise?”
“Yes.”
“Infiltrating the underworld?”
“Yes.”
“Could be dangerous.”
“Yes… Alfred.”
Clark blinked. Then smiled. “Was that a joke?” Bruce didn’t say anything, but his spine was stiff as a two-by-four. Why was it he always had to close up after moments of camaraderie? “The scar’s a bit theatrical.”
“Theatrical?”
“Well, if you want to look like you’re going to fight James Bond…”
Bruce shrunk the scar.
“Better.”
And added some glasses.
“Hey!”
“If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.”
“Just don’t start bumbling around like a klutz. That’s my schtick.”
“You’re welcome to it.” Bruce switched the glasses for a pair of shades. “If you’re looking for my blessing to go after Luthor, all I can give you is this: Tread carefully. I may not like it, but we stand for something… bigger than ourselves. I’m the punishment for when people go astray. And you’re the hope that keeps them on track. No man has the right to take away the hope you give people. Not even you.”
“You think I shouldn’t have left.”
Bruce steepled his hands. “What do you think?”
Clark bit his lip, wishing he could tell him everything… Kara, how he wasn’t alone anymore, how it felt like he could breathe for the first time in years… but he kept it in. He just didn’t know how Bruce would react. For now, it was safer keeping secrets.
“I met with your… sidekick. Batgirl.”
“She’s not associated with me.”
“Where there’s one, there could be others.”
“I’m already looking into it. What are you so worried about?”
“I’ve caught enough kids who thought tying a red towel around their necks would let them fly. I don’t want to do the same in Gotham.”
Batman grinned humorlessly as he faced Clark. “Men can’t fly. But it would be possible for someone to duplicate my actions. How else would Gotham have a protector after I died?”
“Or retired.”
“Died,” Bruce reiterated. He calmed, looked away. “Or maybe you’ll just worried about more than one of me.”
“What? People living up to their potential? Don’t tell me you’ve signed up for Luthor’s newsletter.”
“No. I worry about more than one of me as well.” Bruce shut down the screen. “I have to go. There’s no time to set up an undercover identity by twelve o’clock and Earle takes priority.”
“I could stick around, help…”
“No,” Bruce said quickly. “No, you’ve done enough.”
Clark looked down. “It’s not a weakness to ask for help, Bruce.”
“And it’s not a sin to not need it.”
Clark put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “I need it.”
Bruce sighed impatiently before brushing Clark’s hand away. “Since I trust you wouldn’t come to me if it wasn’t important…”
“Someone broke into the Fortress of Solitude. They stole the crystals.”
“Someone?”
Clark’s voice lowered. “Luthor.”
“No, it’s good that you don’t make assumptions, Kal-El.” He picked up a cowl from the table, tucked in under his arm as he began applying black facepaint under and around his eyes. “I’ll look into that.”
“Those crystals contain the sum total of Krypton’s knowledge. If Luthor manages to translate them…”
“From a dead language last spoken in a distant galaxy?”
“Don’t underestimate him. Just because he’s sane doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
Batman put on his cowl, securing it to his suit with curt motions of his fingers. “As hard as it may be for you to believe, Kal-El, I have more pressing matters to attend to than cleaning up your messes.”
Superman crossed his arms. "You keep calling me Kal-El. My name is Clark.”
“And you keep calling me Bruce…”
10:00 PM
Commission Gordon stifled a yawn. Knowing his sleep cycle, he should’ve caught a catnip at the office, but he literally couldn’t get his eyes closed before something new fell on his plate. Earle had finally accepted police protection, only to stay hunkered in his penthouse. They’d had to run the bomb squad over every inch of the hotel, incurring the wrath of the concierge while Earle’s bodyguards rattled sabers. And just now Gordon’s boys had been called to Gotham Park for a riot caused by Earle.
Next time someone offers you a commissionship, Jim, tell them to go to hell.
And just like that, he was there. The room had just… stilled somehow.
“There are gaps in your security,” Batman said. “Earle is vulnerable.”
“That’s to be expected,” Gordon sighed. “This isn’t a safe house after all.”
The Batman was intractable.
Without further grousing, Gordon held out the building blueprints. Batman pointed out the holes.
“My men will take care of it. Any idea what the Joker’s planning? Another blitz like Wayne manor?”
Gordon thought he saw Batman wince. But that was impossible. “Joker styles himself a comedian. The key element of comedy is spontaneity. Whatever he does, it will depend on the element of surprise. I doubt he’ll do the same joke twice.”
“Unless he considers home invasion a running gag.”
“In his warped mind, it just might be.”
There was a silence, filled by Gordon cleaning his glasses and Batman remaining motionless, except perhaps for his ever-churning mind.
Gordon stared resolutely at his glasses, polished to perfection. “Is it just me, or is this guy not like the others?”
“He’s a criminal. He’ll be caught, he’ll be punished, just like anyone else.”
“But with criminals, even freaks, there’s,” Gordon sought the right word, “normalcy. Motive, MO… humanity. With him, there’s just…”
“Humor. Life and death are jokes to him. That’s why he’ll lose. Because he doesn’t care.”
Gordon looked at Batman, surprised at the expression of hope. That night on the rooftop with Batman assuring him that Gotham could be brought back seemed like ages ago… and like yesterday. “That seems unusually sentimental for you.”
“I had a chat with an old friend. He always has that effect on me.”
“I won’t get used to it, then.”
11:00 PM
Charlie Sturgress had been driving the Metropolitan 5 for thirty years. He’d seen Gotham through a lot of shit, through route changes to get around the worse of gang territory, through that weird business with the fear toxin, through damn near everything.
The Metropolitan 5 was an old warhorse of a bus, probably as old as he was. He’d been with it since damn near the beginning of his career, and it’d never let him down. The brakes ran smooth, the AC worked good ‘cept in the right dead of winter, and the seats were mostly comfortable. He took care at the end of each night to patch ‘em up. Other busses might have shit for seating, but not his. The Metropolitan 5 was his baby. It took care of him, he took care of it.
Stop on Mulberry Street. He didn’t know why he made this stop anymore; he’d told his supervisors that no one got on at this stop. Not since they’d torn down or condemned all the apartment buildings. It was out of the way and Charlie didn’t like to stop the bus in East End. Most of the gangs left the busmen alone as a common courtesy, but the skinheads took exception to his coloring and that only led to trouble.
They got on the bus and caused trouble, and if he shut the door in the face, not only would they chase him down the block throwing shit, but his supervisor would chew him up. His white supervisor, who’d never driven a bus, just transferred in from some slick ad agency and assumed he could maximize revenue while slashing costs. Damn fool knew next to nothing about running busses, but things mostly ran themselves, so there wasn’t much he could do to screw things around. Just make him stop on Mulberry Street.
Charlie was lucky tonight, though. Nobody there, ‘cept one guy in a purple overcoat. Maybe a pimp. The wide-brimmed purple hat looked to confirm that. Well, better a pimp than a skinhead. The Metropolitan 5 rattled to a stop and Charlie opened the door.
The man in purple stepped up the stairs, hopefully finding them nice and dry. He carried a fat black guitar case with him, which he stashed against the wheel well. Then he stopped in front of the money collector like it was a personal affront to him. “What is this?”
“It takes your money.”
The man pulled out his pockets. “Don’t like the sound of that. How much for a bus side, no in-flight movie and only a vague smell of urine?”
”Takes one-fifty to ride.”
“All I have is a .45.”
That’s when Charlie noticed the gun in the man’s hand. Then he noticed the man’s face.
“Oh God! You’re… you’re…”
“I’m… I’m… the Joker!” He flourished his hat at Charlie, but his gun remained horribly still on Charlie’s head. “Back of the bus, boy. We’ve got people to kill, a place to be! Don’t worry, it’s north of the Mason-Dixie Line.”
Charlie forced himself slowly down the aisle. He wanted to run. The emergency exit was right there… but there was a big man in leather leaning against it. As Charlie watched, the big man smeared greasepaint and lipstick over his face. Making a clown out of himself.
The rest of the passengers, ten people by Charlie’ s count, crowded the back too with slowly-lessening confusion and fast-mounting tension. The Joker crooked a finger to the bus stop and some men stepped out of the shadows. Six in total, dressed in dark clothes with backpacks and ski masks… and clown masks on over their balaclavas. The clown masks were secured by string in the back. There were bulges in their jackets that could only be guns.
Charlie’s whole body clenched. He quavered until the big man shoved him down into a seat. There was a gun in his hand too, a .38 that looked comically undersized in his huge meaty fist.
The Joker stayed dead-center in the aisle as his men took their seats, one of them taking the wheel. “Ladies and germs, buckle your seatbelts and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Passengers with heart murmurs and pregnant women probably won’t make it through the night, but hey, every little bit keeps Social Security from going bankrupt that much longer. The weather is slightly cloudy with a high chance of lead rain and we anticipate an arrival in hell in no less than one hour. Thank you for riding the Joker Express, hope you enjoy the ride!”
11:30 PM
The little old lady next to Charlie was clutching her purse. Charlie was just hanging onto the seat in front of him, the tightness of his grip causing wads of insulation to bleed out from under a duct tape patch job.
The Joker sat down in front of him, backwards so he was facing Charlie. “Hello there.”
Charlie became acutely aware of how close his hands were to the grinning maniac.
“Welcome to the show, thanks for joining us.” He had a microphone in his hand and one of his thugs was recording them with a Handycam. “What’s your name, sir?”
Joker shoved the microphone in his face. “Cah-charlie.”
“Well, Cah-charlie, where ya from?”
“Gotham?”
“Home grown type, huh? I’m sure the city’s proud to have produced such an epitome of bus-driving professionalism. Now, Cah-Charlie, what do you think happens to you when you die?”
The gun was still in the Joker’s other hand. “Never put much thought into it,” Charlie mumbled.
“No? Never thought about how you’d bleed? How your heart would pitter-pat to a stop like an engine running out of gas? Then, of course, your brainwaves would slooooooooowly dwindle to nothing. That usually takes a while, but less time if you’re watching Fox. After that, they pump you full of embalming fluid, strip you naked, stick you in a suit with no back, and bury you in the ground. Sound like fun?”
“N-no.”
“No? Some people have no sense of adventure. Hey, I know! Let’s sing a driving song!” He popped up from his seat like a Whack-A-Mole. “Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round; the wheels on the bus go round and round…”
Joker shot Charlie in the head.
“He wasn’t singing. If you don’t sing, you might as well be… yeah.” The Joker pointed his gun at the old lady next to Charlie’s bleeding corpse. “Let’s take it from the top, people.”
They sang and sang and sang, until Joker got bored of singing and shot someone to shot him up. They pulled to a stop in a parking garage, where the Joker and his men got off, the big man staying on, and a new driver got on. He wore heavy Kevlar body armor and handed a suit of the same to the big man. The Kevlar was festooned with various whimsical touches to look like a clown suit. Joker pawed the new driver’s hand in a staggering handshake.
“Drive around a while,” he said, still shaking gallantly. “I’ll call you in when I need you.”
11:40 PM
The Joker’s smart wingtips clopped up the stairs to the Gotham National Bank, which was just shutting down. The security guard, old and fat, had locked all but one of the doors, and only three customers remained in line at the sole open teller. The Joker strode in, casually pistol-whipping the guard to the side, and shot the teller through the head.
“Think they’ll stop sending me credit card applications now?” he asked as his men filed in behind him, locking the door and dragging the guard out of sight. “Alright, good little citizens, calm down and welcome to the first truly interactive bank robbery! You’re part of the action here in Joker’s Wild Round-up! Watch in awe as my safecracker opens the vault! Thrill as the police slurp down coffee and donuts because no one’s called them! Gasp as I execute one of you to prove I’m serious, in a very irreverent sort of way…” He swept his gun hand over the crowd, watching them cringe. “Wait, already did that. Check that off the list. Nineteen minutes and counting, boys!”
The Joker straightened his tie and checked his make-up in a compact. Satisfied with his appearance, he walked amongst the hostages, gun twitching by his side like a scorpion’s tail. As nine of the men stole money from the drawers and worked at the vault, one held a Handycam on him. The cameraman held up three fingers, counted down, and pointed to Joker.
The clown smiled, a grisly sight that split his face like a scalpel, and wheeled his microphone to a woman like a weapon. “Hello there. Welcome to the show, thanks for joining us.”
11:55 PM
Gordon paced the rooftop of Earle’s hotel, the Gotham Hilton. He snuck another cigarette, though he’d been trying to quit, and put away his cell-phone. Somehow, he knew Batman was close by.
“That was Barbara. She’s worried about me. Wants to know why I don’t just call in Superman to fly Earle to the Fortress of Solitude?”
Batman, without leaving the shadows or even seeming to move, made his presence known. “I don’t like the precedent it would set.”
“Would you like it more if Earle were Mother Theresa?”
“Anything’s possible. Take me to him.”
“Who? Earle?” Gordon looked at the roof access door. “You don’t want me to shut the lights off first? There are a lot of trigger-happy cops in there.”
“I can handle cops.”
“Right. Just let me know if you’re going to jump through any windows. The concierge will have my head if I get glass on the carpet.”
With Batman breathing down his neck, no matter how distant he kept, Gordon went back inside. He flicked his cigarette butt off the edge of the roof, watching how it only took a moment for it to shrink to just another ember in the bed of Gotham coals. Nice view.
He went down the stairs, his footfalls explosive in the enclosed space, Batman’s so quiet that Gordon wondered if he was falling. But he didn’t dare look back. He stepped out onto the floor of Earle’s penthouse, letting the guards secure the door behind him. They started at the sight of Batman, who glided between them as silently as a Dickens specter. There were four more unnies walking the corridor between the roof access and the penthouse. Gordon had to gesture for some of them to leave their weapons in their holsters. If Batman noticed, and of course he noticed, he didn’t care.
Gordon checked his watch before entering the penthouse. Two minutes to twelve. He stepped inside. The SWAT boys were still there, visors down and weapons hot, in a rough circle around Earle. They were in the center bedroom, no windows and with barricades erected in front of the air vents. Earle looked like he’d lost thirty pounds, his skin pale and clammy. He mopped at his sweaty brow with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“What’s he doing in here?” Earle pointed at the Batman, his hand shaking. “I never said he could come in here! I said police officers, not some vigilante psychopath.”
“You’re not looking well, Earle. Have you been drinking?”
“Just a glass or two, to steady my nerves. Not that it’s any of your business…”
“It’s fine,” Gordon said, “we had poison control run tests on it.”
“I tell you, I want him out of here! How do we know that’s even the real Batman? It could be the Joker in a disguise!”
Batman strode forward, ignoring the dozen submachine guns suddenly trained on him, and grabbed Earle’s wrist. “Your pulse is racing.” Touched his chest. “Heart, too.”
“Of course it is! A maniac told me I was going to die in one minute and now another maniac is accosting me!”
Batman pulled up Earle’s sleeve, noting the discoloration. “Any chest pains? Coughing?”
Earle laughed bitterly. “Coughing! Coughing!? HA!”
Batman’s head swiveled, owl-like, to Gordon. “Find a doctor. Better yet, call in a Medivac copter.”
“Medivac?” Earle laughed at the mere thought. “That’s it, huh? I get in a copter and then you crash it in the middle of the Financial District? Or throw me into the blades hahaha like meat in a grinder!?”
Earle shoved Batman back.
“Someone arrest that man! Did everyone just forget he’s a criminal? A vigilante who… who…”
“Mr. Earle, you have to calm down. Keep your breathing steady and…”
Earle grabbed a gun from a nearby SWAT member. Pointed it squarely at Batman. “No, you calm down!” He laughed. “Did you see me? Did you see me do that? Let’s see the Joker get to me now.” He mimed firing the SMG. “Ratatattat!”
His enthusiastic machine-gun noises became gales of laughter, so thick they knocked his glasses from the bridge of his nose. He bent double under the force of his laughing, righted himself with a look of confused terror upon his face, then crumpled to the floor with laughter. Every time his body snapped about to give them a look at his head, his face was splitting wider, eyes bulging, then a never-ending scream that pulled his terrified smile into a death-grin’s rictus. He spasmed, gave a few feeble kicks, then died clutching the gun like a child would a teddy bear.
“Jesus Christ,” Gordon said. “Get the paramedics in here, now! Blake, start CPR. Go!”
“It’s too late,” Batman said. He knelt down and jabbed a syringe into Earle’s arm, taking a blood sample, then tucked the vial away into his utility belt. The needle he dumped in a waste bin. “The Joker’s a showman. If he’s not here personally, he’ll be somewhere else reaping the attention.”
Gordon switched his radio over to general dispatch. “Gloria, give me all major crimes within the last ten minutes. I want banks, museums, theatres, anything high-profile.”
Batman walked out onto the balcony, heedless of any snipers, and looked out on the city. Not only leaving the flailing police response behind, but seeming to rise above it. His head turned from side to side, robotically, as if he could spot the Joker with the naked eye.
“Where are you?”
11:59 PM
The Joker checked his watch. It’d been a productive twenty minutes. He’d had a lot of fun.
“Okay, boys, work day’s over.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s playtime.”
The boys started tying the moneybags off, leaving behind the stacks of bills still inside the vault. One of the thugs grabbed a wad of bills and stuffed it into his coat.
“Hey, Mr. Joker, what say we have another five minutes? I got kids to put through college.”
Joker strolled up to him, gently straightened his lapels, then slapped the taste from his mouth. “You want those kids to have a father, you’ll wrap it up. The poison I slipped into the dear, departed Mr. Earle’s coffee has sent him to corporate pig heaven.” He scampered over to the teller’s, vaulting the counter and landing in a puddle of the teller’s blood. “We’ve set up the joke, now we give the punchline. While Gotham’s Bovinest were watching Earle die, I was robbing… oooh, what does this button do?”
At the stroke of midnight, he pressed the silent alarm.
12:00 PM
“I’ve got something,” Gordon said. “Robbery at Gotham National Bank. It’s the Joker… oh my God, he has hostages.”
“Not for long,” Batman said.
He jumped the railing and flew down into the night, quickly losing himself in the smoke and fury of Gotham.
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Date: 2008-10-27 03:40 am (UTC)this is AWESOME!!!
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Date: 2008-10-30 07:47 am (UTC)16 chapters and the unfolding events still have their pull. Awesome :D I can't wait to see more of these separate storylines intersect.