"Unhand me, you ignorant cur! I swear to you, you will be hearing from my lawyer if you push me one more time!"
The Joker looked up in time to see the Penguin being shoved towards an empty cell, arguing the entire time. It was all rather boring, in its own way, Oswald was always claiming he would file charges, then he never did. So why bother listening to it?
"Hey, can't a criminal mastermind plot his escape in peace?" The Joker shouted, the guards just ignoring him. They all knew, deep inside, he would escape. Then he would go and pull some theists, Batman would catch him, and back into the cell he would go.
Boring!
The Joker smiled. Maybe this time, he wouldn't pull any heists. He would lay low, maybe leave for a vacation, an honest one. That would drive the Bat-boy insane, waiting for him to make a move that would never come…
The hair on the back of his neck standing on end was his only warning that something was amiss before a figure stepped out of nothingness into his cell.
"Oh look, someone has come to break me out!" Joker said, clapping his hands. "About time, about time! I had planned on doing it next week, but I guess…"
BOOM
The Joker blinked at the crater that was now in the cell floor.
"I talk, you listen." A cold voice said. He was dressed completely in black, head to toe. "I know who you are, Jack. I know what you have done…and what you are planning to do."
"…listen, if this is about my vacation…" The Joker said, giving the figure a teasing grin.
BOOM
The Joker screamed, clutching the stump where his right leg had been. The man lowered his fist, energy crackling along it.
"I talk, you listen. Got it?"
The Joker groaned, still holding onto his leg.
"You a cancer, Joker. You hide in a healthy, safe world and destroy it. You make people afraid to live, you take sick joy out of sin and murder." The man took a step forward. "But that isn't why I am going to kill you."
The Joker began to back away. "Hey, this isn't funny anymore!" He cried out.
"It never was."
"Guard! Guard!"
BOOM
There went his other leg, turned to ash.
"The guards aren't here. Arkham is in lockdown. ANd your fellow criminals…they are enjoying you scream too much to try and help."
The Joker clenched his eyes shut, nerves screaming in agony as he ran his fingers along his destroyed limbs. This wasn't how things were suppose to go. This wasn't how it was suppose to happen!
"You are going to die Joker, and not the way you envisioned. You won't push Batman or any of his allies to do it. It won't be in a grand battle of wits with another villain. I have debated dragging you out into an alley and letting you die there, so no one even knew about it, but then I make you a legend, a ghost that could return.
"No…I'm going to kill you here, crippled and pissing yourself, in front of all the other scum in this place. Because I want you to be a legend, Joker. I want everyone to remember how the clown prince of crime was brutally killed, dying on his knees like the dog he is. And the best part? You will never know who did it…and that will drive you even more crazy, if that is possible."
The man leveled his fist at Joker's head.
"Why?!" The Joker asked, thinking maybe, like so many other times, he could plead himself out of this situation. How many times had he begged Batman to save him after a plan went wrong? It would work here again. All he needed was to get the man to slip up, to get mad. "Did I kill your grandma by accident? Give you dog too big of a grin?"
"No Joker." The figure said coldly. "This is for Tim."
"Who the hell isT-"
BOOM
^&^&^&^
Batman was the only one that really seemed to care.
The people in Gotham were throwing a parade.
Commissioner Gordon had given his people a half day.
Dick and Tim and Barbara would never say it, but they were glad the Joker was gone for good.
Only Bruce cared.
Only he continued night after night to seek the killer.
Problem was, the man in black had disappeared. He'd left nothing to find, and none of the leads panned out.
Even the Justice League was conflicted.
Superman publicly condemned the acts, but in the darkest of nights, he would confide in Lois that he was…slightly pleased that his friend's greatest enemy was gone.
Others were less secretive. Diana made it clear that what had happened needed to happen, that a murderer of the innocent was gone.
That had led to a screaming match that started with Bruce and Diana and enveloped the entire Watchtower.
For J'onn J'onz, the debate about the Joker didn't matter. Arguing about it would not undo the deed.
He was concerned with another man's soul.
"Why did you do it, Michael?"
Michael Jon Carter, aka Booster Gold. The joke of the league, he had managed to prove himself in recent months to become an honored member of the team. Not as much as say Green Arrow or Supergirl, but well on his way. He still cracked too many jokes, and he still dreamed of action figures that looked like him, but he had gotten better.
J'onn found the time traveler sitting alone in his room, hidden from the fights that had broken out in the Watchtower as the heroes debated the killing. Just outside the door, Green Arrow and Hawkman were yelling about capital punishment.
"I can see your mind." J'onn stated. "I know you are the one that killed the Joker. But what I want to know, from your own lips, is why?"
Booster played with his Legion flight ring. "I'm from the future, J'onn…I know things." He continued to stare down at his bed. "In 3 years, the Joker would have kidnapped Tim Drake…the current Robin. He would torture him, try and break him and make him into Joker Jr. Tim ended up killing him…but the damage was done. He couldn't be Robin. Batgirl quit shortly after…Bruce was left alone. He quit the league, became colder, more detached. Finally, he just plain gave up. Another Batman came, sure, a good kid from what history tells me…but that wasn't good enough."
"So you killed him to save the boy?"
"No." Booster said softly. "I did it to save him…Batman." Booster closed his eyes. "He was my favorite, J'onn. Of all the 20th century heroes I learned about, he was my favorite. Batman was like me, had no powers, no magic powers or space rings. He did it through gadgets and guts. When I was a kid, me and Michelle use to play Batman and Wonder Woman everyday after school. Mom use to get mad that we weren't doing our homework." Booster smiled weakly. "Something always bugged me though…why did Batman quit? Why those years without him? What happened to Nightwing and Robin and Batgirl? I had to find out.
"Was easy enough, once I got here, in this time. A week back, Bruce finally let me know where the gave was. It was after we fought Toyman…I'd gotten hit trying to protect Vixen. Bruce brought me to the cave…said it was closer than the tower. He patched me up…I got to see the cases, the computer. My childhood dream come true.
"Next day, I booted up the time machine and when 30 years into the future. The cave was empty, Bruce had long shut it up. This was before the new Batman would appear, so I had all the time in the world. I had Skeets hack the Batcomputer…I saw everything, J'onn. Everything. You know what it is like to see your idol destroyed? I could have handled it if he had been beaten or killed by Two-Face or hell, even Killer Moth. But…for that to happen…to his own kid…" Booster grit his teeth. "I made another costume, all black, used the time sphere to pop into Joker's cell. I didn't like it, J'onn…it will always haunt me…but it needed to be done."
Booster finally stopped speaking, his head down as he forced himself to calm his nerves. J'onn sat there, letting the young hero gather himself up.
"The timeline already changed…Skeets is trying to figure it all out, we were the only two to remember the old one…already things are different. Joker was suppose to be holding Gotham hostage right now…I changed all of time…could have written myself out of existence…" Booster sighed. "Are you going to turn me in?"
J'onn considered Booster for a moment, and all he had said. "No." he finally stated. "I will not. You will be the only one that remembers the Joker's actions…you only will face the nightmares of what could have been. That is punishment enough." J'onn paused. "But was it worth it?"
Booster nodded, thinking of the dark haired boy that would now get to lead a better life. "Yeah…it was."
^&^&^&^
Author's Note: Always bothered me that Bruce Timm would let Tim go down like that. Thus, when I should be working on other stories, I write this instead.
I originally wanted to include Michelle, Booster's sister, in this, but doing that takes away from the moral. But in my mind, Booster's actions have totally changed the timeline, including resulting in his sister coming back with him into the past. Maybe for another story.