Robin frowns as she crouches on a roof top. She switches her sight to night vision and scans the alley below. Paint is splashed everywhere, "HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!" written all across the alley floor and brick walls on either side. This is the fifth clue she's found now. The Joker has been leaving them throughout Gotham for her to find; a grotesque scavenger hunt. He's kidnapped Batman. It's been three days since she saw him last – she doesn't even know if he's still alive...what would be the point in letting him live? Why did the Joker kidnap him, if it isn't to murder him? Surely, he's been unmasked by now, and if he hasn't it's only a matter of time until he is; until the Joker discovers he is Bruce Wayne. She has to find him. She has to save him.
Standing, she withdraws her grappling hook from her waist belt and shoots it across the gap in the alley, it embeds itself into the brick on the adjacent building. She gives it a few hard yanks to test it before jumping expertly from the roof, landing with a splash in a puddle of paint. This close, she can see how it pools together, swirling together in a muddy brown. She swears, hoping she'll be able to scrub it off her boots later.
Examining the alley, she flashes her light on the walls and floor – trying to find the clue Joker had left; the next step in finding Batman. Bright colors are splattered everywhere; on everything, like some kind of Avant Garde painting for the criminally insane. The only thing that doesn't have paint on it is the large dumpster in the back of the alley. That has to be it. Slowly her staff from it's holster, she clicks the release button, extending it on either side. She spins it out of habit as she heads toward the bin cautiously. Her boots squelch in the paint, tracking colorful footsteps towards the end of the alley.
Her heart thunders in her chest she approaches the trash. Without hesitation she throws open metal door to the bin. It crashes against the the brick wall it stands against, the sound reverberating through the alley – almost masking a faint hissing. Gas shoots into the air. Carrie simultaneously shields her face with her cape and launches herself backwards away from the gas. She can only presume it's the Joker's signature laughing gas.
She waits a moment for the gas to disperse before approaching again, her cape still covering her nose and mouth. As she gets closer she's hit with a distinct smell, utterly recognizable: rotting flesh. Inside, strewn across black shining trash bags, lay a body. Panic strikes through her as her gaze falls upon the corpse. It's Batman. Her breath quickens, and tears well in her eyes as she takes in the sight before her. His eyes are wide, the same deep brown she finds herself getting lost in while he lectures her about what it means to be a hero; what it takes to protect a city like Gotham. Robin puts a hand on the lip of the container to steady herself. Her entire body shakes as she reaches in and grabs the top of the cowl, pulling it from his head. A strangled sob gurgles from her as she sees his face. It isn't him. Relief washes over her as the tears roll down her cheeks and her legs give out. She leans heavily against the trash bin, staring down at the unfamiliar man.
Robin pulls out her light and shines it in the corpse's face. His features are contorted in a sickening grin. A piece of black fabric protrudes from between his teeth. "Yuck." Robin sighs and drops her cape. She puts the pen light between her teeth and reaches in the bin with her gloved hands. Taking hold of the fabric with one hand, she pries the grinning mouth open with the other. She gags as the smell emerges from his mouth in a noxious cloud. The fabric is made of a familiar material, and as she pulls it from the corpse hand-over-hand she knows exactly what it is. Batman's cape. The fabric squelches as she pulls it free, making her stomach roll nauseously. Once the entire cape is out she flashes her light into the hole and heaves. The cape hadn't been shoved down his throat, it had been pushed up into his cranium – the insides of his skull looked like mush. Brain, blood, and bones all churned up together.
She takes a step back – several, in fact, until she is far enough away from the body to take a shuddering breath and not smell the stench of rotting corpse and hot, festering trash. Her gloves are now covered in blood and small chunks of skull. She tries not to think about it (or about how the Joker had gotten the cape in there) as she holds its up. In bright, dripping purple numbers was the next clue.
0 8 0 1
Of course. She curses as the overwhelming feeling of idiocy falls upon her. Where else would he be?